The Village of Queenston is located 5 km north of Niagara Falls, Ontario in the Town of Niagara-on-the-Lake. The village is a control city on Highway 405 and its location on the Escarpment led to the establishment of the now-defunct Queenston Quarry in the area.
Queenston was first settled in the 1770s by United Empire Loyalist refugees and immigrants from the United States. During the War of 1812, British, Mohawk and Canadian colonial troops repelled an American invasionary force here in the Battle of Queenston Heights. British Major-General Sir Isaac Brock was killed in the battle; the victory and his death are commemorated by an impressive stone tower located atop the Niagara Escarpment and surmounted by a large stone statue of Brock overlooking the village below. Also nearby is a smaller monument to Brock's gray horse, Alfred. The village was also the home of Laura Secord, a Canadian heroine of the 1812 war. Queenston Heights is home to the birthplace of Niagara Falls. The Niagara River began eroding the Niagara Escarpment here, and it has taken 12,000 years for the Falls to cut an eight mile long gorge in the Escarpment southward to its present-day position.
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