Early histories credit Serjeant Jacob Dittrick and Private John Hainer, formerly of Butler's Rangers, among the first to come to the area, taking up their Crown Patents where Dick's Creek and 12 Mile Creek merge, now the city center of St. Catharines.
Although never documented, some St. Catharines' historians have concluded that Dick's Creek was named after Richard Pierpoint, a Black Loyalist.
Pierpoint didn't appear on either an assessment or census and no documentary evidence exists to explain the situation.
[3] Conversely, his participation in the Petition of Free Negroes and subsequent sale or abandonment of his grant suggests he may have been single, at least by 1794.
[1] Following the outbreak of the War of 1812, Pierpoint proposed to organize a Corps of Men of Colour on the Niagara frontier.
His offer was refused, but a small Black corps was raised locally by a white officer, Jordan tavern-owner Robert Runchey.
Pierpoint volunteered immediately for Captain Runchey's Company of Coloured Men even though he was in his sixties.
In his late 70s, in 1821, Pierpoint petitioned Lieutenant Governor Maitland for passage back to his homeland in Senegal instead of the land grant.
[4] The Petition of Richard Pierpoint, now of the Town of Niagara, a Man of Colour, a native of Africa, and an inhabitant of this Province since the year 1780.
Most humbly showeth, That Your Excellency's Petitioner is a native of Bondu in Africa; that at the age of Sixteen Years he was made a Prisoner and sold as a Slave; that he was conveyed [transported] to America about the year 1760, and sold to a British officer; that he served his Majesty [King George III] during the American Revolutionary War in the Corps called Butler's Rangers; and again during the late American War in a Corps of Colour raised on the Niagara Frontier.
That Your Excellency's Petitioner is now old and without property; that he finds it difficult to obtain a livelihood by his labour; that he is above all things desirous to return to his native Country; that His Majesty's Government be graciously pleased to grant him any relief, he wishes it may be by affording him the means to proceed to England and from thence to a Settlement near the Gambia or Senegal Rivers, from whence he could return to Bondu ... York Upper Canada 21st July 1821 [5] His request was denied, and instead, Pierpoint and several other Coloured Corps veterans were given land grants in Garafraxa, just outside present-day Fergus.
Grant to Richard Pierpoint of the Township of Grantham in the County of Lincoln in the Niagara District, farmer -- as a private in the Coloured Corps under Captain Runchey and Lieutenant Robertson -- the easterly half of Lot No.
Brown, who lived in the Guelph area at the time of Pierpoint's death, sold the land to the neighboring farmer.