History
The settlement, known from about 1761 as Butlersburg, in honour of Colonel John Butler, the commander of Butler's Rangers, was renamed West Niagara to distinguish it from Fort Niagara. It was a British military base and haven for pro-British loyalists fleeing the United States during the volatile aftermath of the American Revolution. Renamed Newark by Lieutenant-Governor John Graves Simcoe in 1792, he made it the first capital of Upper Canada (now the province of Ontario), The first provincial parliament was convened at the Navy Hall on September 17, 1792. Due to Newark's close proximity to the American border, Simcoe moved the capital in 1797 to York and Newark was officially renamed 'Niagara' in 1798.
Niagara played a central role in the War of 1812. Niagara was taken by American forces after a two day bombardment by cannons from Fort Niagara and the American Fleet, followed by a fierce battle. Later in the war the town was razed and burnt to the ground by American soldiers as they withdrew to Fort Niagara. Undaunted by this setback, often referred to as the "burning of Newark," the citizens rebuilt the town after the war, with the residential quarter around Queen Street and toward King Street, where the new Court House was rebuilt out of firing range of the cannons of Fort Niagara. In 1859 the town built its first public school, Niagara Public School.
The town's present name was adopted around 1880 as a Postal Address to distinguish the town from Niagara Falls. The name was not officially adopted until 1970, when the Town of Niagara and the Township of Niagara were merged.
Read more about this topic: Niagara-on-the-Lake
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—Georges Clemenceau (1841–1929)
“I believe that history might be, and ought to be, taught in a new fashion so as to make the meaning of it as a process of evolution intelligible to the young.”
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