PW 1-08 Eliza Taylor and The Wilderness

Introduction

As Niagara burned, Eliza Taylor fled her own home in town, and tried to find shelter at the house at 407 King Street, known as The Wilderness – she didn't think the Americans would touch it. After all, it was the Claus home, and William Claus was Superintendent of Indian Affairs. The Claus family escaped. But Eliza wasn't so lucky.

She hid her four children in the root cellar. But the Americans found her. They held her prisoner, while her children hid. They let her go, eventually.

Her two sons, no more than six and eight, dug the pit out deeper and wider with their bare hands. And the family made a home underground.

So while their father was fighting with the British at Stoney Creek, and Burlington Heights, they lived like animals. But their mother kept them alive, and eventually they walked to what is now Hamilton, along these same trails.

And they found their wounded father. Eliza nursed him back to health. He never left the village of Hamilton, and after the war he became its first president – as it was called then. And Eliza was his very own first lady.

The Wilderness In 1911, Canadian artist Owen Staples (1866-1949) painted this watercolour and gouache rendering of The Wilderness over a pencil outline on woven paper, laid down on cardboard. This was one of many such paintings Staples made in the Niagara region (2) (Collection: Toronto Public Library).


Contemporary Google Street View of 'The Wilderness'

References

(1) Address reference for the Claus home found on p. 183 in 'Ghosts of Niagara-on-the-Lake' (2009), by Maria Da Silva and Andrew Hind.
See https://books.google.co.th/books?id=m4UGkPw_3CYC&pg=PA183&lpg=PA183&dq=claus+home+niagara+on+the+lake&source=bl&ots=snRMUnbcdA&sig=iY9mCo88zbkSf0_P_-gjVcGt3FY&hl=en&sa=X&ei=7nXUVOrGD4mfugSj4YAY&ved=0CF0Q6AEwCQ#v=onepage&q=claus%20home%20niagara%20on%20the%20lake&f=false

(2) Paintings by Owen Staples in the collection of the Toronto Public Library:
http://www.torontopubliclibrary.ca/search.jsp?N=42...


Location of 'The Wilderness': 407 King Street, Niagara on the Lake, ON


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