September 2023
On a small wooded property, sloping down to the shore of Lake Ontario, in Patterson Park in the west end of Kingston, sits an unassuming limestone house, boarded up but seemingly maintained to a certain degree. The house, known as the Peter Wartman House, is an example of an early Loyalist farmstead in Ontario.
The land was originally owned by Abraham and Catherine Wartman, United Empire Loyalists from the Susquehanna Valley in Pennsylvania, settled on the site in 1784 and built a single room log cabin. This cabin was replaced by a stone house, built between 1792 and 1803, which was the first stone house built on the shore of Lake Ontario between Kingston and Toronto. This stone house was replaced by the current house, built around 1840.
Abraham Wartman and his sons Adam and Peter had fought with the British Army against the American forces, with Abraham serving with Butler’s Rangers, a celebrated Loyalist provincial military regiment that was raised by American loyalist Major John Butler, from 1777-78. This was the same regiment in which famed Mohawk warrior and United Empire Loyalist Captain Joseph Brant served.
For his service to the Crown, Wartman was awarded a 100-acre grant on Lot 1, Concession 10, between Little Cataraqui Bay and Pleasant Point, in 1784, at the newly surveyed settlement at Cataraqui, where he quickly built a one-room log cabin. Abraham Wartman died in 1787 and the house passed to his son Peter, who the previous year had married Eva Margaretha Grass, daughter of British Captain Michael Grass, the man who had awarded the family the land grant.
Peter Wartman lived here until he died on 14 May 1824, at about age 63. His beloved wife, Eva, lived much longer, passing away at about age 94. Both were buried at the Heritage section of Cataraqui Cemetery.
The stonework of the 1840 Wartman House is a typical example of masonry construction from the first half of the 19th century. It’s a simple but elegant vernacular farmhouse, built of coursed, squared and roughly dressed limestone. The one-and-a-half-storey house, with a one-storey kitchen wing on the east side, has identical front and rear façades that are five window bays wide, with a central doorway.
The interior has been altered over the years, but retains a number of original features.
The property was designated by the City of Kingston, under Part IV of the Ontario Heritage Act, in 2005.
It’s noteworthy that the Wartman family had a connection to another famous family from Canada’s history. Abraham’s daughter Susannah married 20-year-old John Secord of Westchester, N.Y in 1775. Secord was the brother-in-law of Canadian heroine Laura Ingersoll Secord. Susannah and John settled in the Niagara region, where the Secords raised a family of seven children.
Sources: HistoricPlaces.ca – HistoricPlaces.ca, Kingston History: Loyalist hands built beautiful stone farmhouse | The Kingston Whig Standard (thewhig.com), Butler’s Rangers – Wikipedia.
