Photo by C. Barker, of an abandoned main branch of the original Whiteman’s Creek. When grist milling operations began in the mid-1800’s in the Burford area the meanders of the original creek were cut off and the creek straightened to speed the flow of water to the mills. This original portion is the portion Governor Simcoe would have seen during his trip here in 1793.

THE NAMING OF WHITEMAN’S CREEK
© 2008, C.J. Barker

Over 200 years ago, actually the British Land Surveyors were confused at the extent of this creek and therefore referred to it by several names such as "Salt Lick Creek" and “Brant’s Creek,” however these names were more properly associated with the two main branches of this creek such as Horner’s (Brant’s Creek) and Kenny Creek (Salt Lick Creek). Kenny Creek resembled a Salt Lick to the English, and Horner Creek was labelled “Brant’s Creek” for reasons unknown, on Augustus Jones’ 1793 survey of Burford Township. However, one reason they were confused was because actually three branches of creeks come together: Horner, Kenny and what is now the Elliott Drain to form one creek actually emptying into the Grand, known as Whiteman’s Creek. Eventually after all of the land was surveyed, each branch was properly named and the main branch named “Whiteman’s.”

These are apparently the ruins of the old house that was here prior to the Griffin and Pottruff families settling there at Five Oaks. It was built in several stages and the earliest portion was most likely in existence in the time of De-ha-na-ge-reh-gwenka and may have even been his house. The house of his great granddaughter, Catherine Hill is said to have been located south-east of this one and existed up until about 1963.

Actually many think that the creek was named after a white settler or someone by the name of “Whitman,” However, the early white settlers and First Nations native peoples had at least three or four variations of a legend which had been told. The following legend seems to be the most prominent and it also follows closer to known documented historical fact. It was told to me in 2001 by Joyce Smoke who at one time was a curator at the Chiefswood Museum, but has gone to be with her creator a few years ago. She and her family came to me for assistance in locating the site of her ancestor’s settlement along the creek, because I was a local historian and researcher of this area.
Mary Jamieson (or Jamison as it is sometimes spelled) was born aboard a ship from England, her family was Scotch / Irish and settled in Eastern United States, New York State. She survived a fierce attack on her family home; a savage massacre perpetrated by the French and their Native allies during the French-Indian War. She was taken into the Seneca tribe and adopted and later married and spoke fluent Seneca. She had many children of which some were from a Cayuga father. One of her sons was Thomas Jamieson. The children traditionally took their mothers name back then. One time Thomas, during his travels along the Susquehanna and Ohio Rivers (prior to the American Revolution, in the U.S.) came across a boy who was playing beside the river and Thomas became concerned for the boy’s safety. The boy was fair-haired with blue eyes, like Thomas’s mother, so he felt in order to protect the child from potentially drowning in the river, he’d take the boy with him back home to his mother. Thomas thought his mother would be so happy and proud to have a boy similar in complexion to herself. Unfortunately, Mary was extremely excited by such a thing and the fact that her son had snatched a boy away from his home. However, she calmed and was able to sort out the pros and cons of returning the boy versus keeping and raising him. She recalled her own life’s situation of being adopted into a native family and Thomas had maintained that the boy was being abandoned anyway, so she decided to keep him. It was likely that the boy had been the last of another family which had been wiped out during the senseless war. Mary gave the boy a Seneca name De-ha-na-ge-reh-gwenk and he was raised there in the U.S. and became active during the Revolutionary War. He also had a Christian last name of Hill.
About 1789, Mary eventually made her way with her family and other first nation and white refugees as far as the mouth of the Whiteman's Creek where several families of Seneca and Cayuga also settled, including the family named Hill. At that time the creek was referred to as “Brant’s Creek” by early surveyors. De-ha-na-ge-reh-gwenk remained at the settlement at Whiteman’s creek and lived there well into the 1820’s. Mary was quite elderly at the time and returned to her old home in the U.S. where she died in the 1830’s and is buried there. The story goes that De-ha-na-ge-reh-gwenk got into a scrap with a Cayuga neighbour and was drowned in the creek. During his life he had gained the nick-name of “Whiteman” in the settlement, due to his Caucasian features and later was even referred to as “Old Whiteman,” therefore, it is believed that he would be quite elderly himself at the time of his demise. According to the survey notes by Pioneer surveyor Lewis Burwell in the 1820’s and 30’s along the Grand River, he noted the location of “Old Whiteman’s old home,” which was located on land which later became the Griffin estate in the middle 19th century.
In the 1840’s the majority of Six Nations people were sent to the reservation and these settlements along the creeks and rivers were no more. De-ha-na-ge-reh-gwenk’s descendents did likewise. In the 1883 Warner and Beers History of Brant County his son Abraham Hill is mentioned along with other relatives who were “born at Whiteman’s Creek” but were living on the reserve during the late 1800’s. Abraham Hill was born at Whiteman’s Creek in 1805 and married Mary Longfish and had 5 children including Josiah (married Nancy Hill) and Richard. Some others mentioned in the same book as having been born at the settlement at the Whiteman’s Creek were James Jamieson and his sons James and David.

It is also said that Catherine Hill lived on this property as late as the early 20th century while it was owned by the Pottruff family. There is now a plaque to recognize the Hill’s and Jamieson’s having been a part of the history of this place, which was erected 2008, near to this site.
It’s interesting to note that my Great, Great Grandfather’s sister Annie Givens, came to Canada from Berwick-on-Tweed, Scotland, about 1865. She worked as a housekeeper for a man named James Miller who owned much of the land around Five-oaks. His first wife had died however, later he married Annie and had a son George. He built a very large house overlooking the creek adjacent to what’s now Five Oaks. It was to be Annie’s “dream home.” Later it also became part of the Pottruff estate and recently has been demolished. It seems that I became interested in the stories Joyce told and the area of Five Oaks and App’s Mill because many of my ancestors were connected to this area too, though it wasn’t within my Burford Township, but rather “just outside the fence” in Brantford Township.