CAYUGA, ONTARIO

'Cayuga' is a village in the province of Ontario, Canada located at the intersection of Highway 3 (the Talbot Trail) and the Grand River in Haldimand County. It was incorporated in 1859 as county seat for Haldimand County because of its central location. It is named after the Cayuga, one of the Six Nations of the Grand River Indians who were awarded land in the area for siding with the British in the American Revolution. As the county seat, it is the location of the Court House, jail and a museum. In the late 1700s and early 1800s, public hangings were held in the court yard and the prisoners buried on site.
In more recent years Cayuga has become known for auto racing. The oldest continually operating dragstrip in Canada and the fastest high bank oval race track in Canada, are located near the townsite.
The dragstrip was originally a runway built for training British Commonwealth pilots during the Second World War.
Cayuga is also known for producing two NHL hockey players. Both Marty McSorley and Ray Emery grew up playing minor league hockey in Cayuga.
In 1939, Helen Alice Kinnear, the first woman Superior Court judge in the British Empire was appointed to sit in Cayuga.
The village's population grew to about 2500 in the mid-1800s because the Grand River was an important commercial route. There were locks constructed at Indiana just north of Cayuga. However when the Welland Canal was completed, the Grand became an obsolete route. Further, an impassable dam was built down river from Cayuga at Dunnville. Although originally part of the Welland Canal, the purpose of the dam and a canal at Port Maitland is to keep the level of the Welland Canal consistent. Presently the population of Cayuga has recovered to approximately 1500 after having been around 1000 for almost a century.
Just north of Cayuga is Ruthven Park. This is a 1500 acre (6 km²) Canadian National Historic Site centred by the Thompson Mansion, which was the summer home of the Thompson family who owned the steamship lines on the Grand River when it was a commercial route. It is a magnificent Greek Revival style mansion which is open for tours during the summer.
Cayuga is about a 20 minute drive from Lake Erie. It is 30 minutes from Hamilton and consequently it has some cottages and recreational properties in the area. In the past there was some light industry but it now largely forms a satellite community for Hamilton. It has the local district detachment for the Ontario Provincial Police.
Previously the New York Central Railroad went through Cayuga but the track has been torn up.
One of the termini for the Underground Railway was St. Catharines, Ontario which is about 45 minutes north east of Cayuga. Harriet Tubman's nephew Lorne Barnes was the barber in Cayuga and was held out to the still enslaved as an example of the success to be found by escaping to Canada.
Cayugans are overwhelmingly British by national background but many can trace there roots to an original German settlement near Cayuga in the 1800s. There was also a large Dutch migration to the area after the Second World War.
There is a national bank and a credit union in town along with a United Church of Canada (Presbyterian, Methodist and Congregational), an Anglican Church and a Catholic Church.
The main street has a rural brick charm to it and many older houses reflecting the prosperous past still stand. It very much retains its small town character. Uniquely isolated for years by the Six Nations Indian Reservation to the North and the Lake to the South, it has its own independent atmosphere and does not feel attached to any one larger community. It is also uniquely located among larger communities on both the American and Canadian sides of the border boasting television reception from Toronto, Buffalo, Hamilton, Kitchener and Erie.