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McCombs Log Cabin - Boyle Rd., home of John & Magdalen McCombs (nee Lutz) & their 13 children. Michael, brother to John, & Timothy (father of John & Michael) also lived in this log cabin, as well as Samuel McCombs. Relationship of Samuel McCombs to John, Michael & Timothy is presently unknown, although he was living in the log cabin in 1828 (according to 1828 Census). My notes also state that John McCombs purchased this log cabin from a John or Joseph Hainer, prior to the War of 1812. It was one of 6 log cabins along Twelve Mile Creek. If this is not the Hainer log home built abt. 1816 in which he moved, it must have been built abt. 1831. Joseph Hainer deeded his land in Grantham to his nephew John B. Hainer and John McCombs, his step-nephew-in-law, who had married Sophia Brown Lutes (Lutz) Hainer’s daughter. At the end of the war John McCombs received 200 acres as a crown grant in Esquesing. He traded it however for 100 acres of land with Joseph Hainer in Grantham. Joseph Hainer received this land as a Crown grant on April 09, 1798. The Hainers built three log cabins along the banks of Twelve Mile Creek. We know when two of them were demolished yet we have no account about the fate of the third ; there is a remote possibility that the house on Boyle Rd. is actually the third log cabin, in which case it would have been erected around 1816. John heard about the rich soil at Shipman's Corners, later St. Catharines, and came to Grantham in 1811. "He laboured for John Hainer until the commencement of hostilities in 1812, when he joined the McKeowi's company, Col. Clause's regiment. John McCombs fought at Niagara, Chippawa, Lundy's Lane and Queenston and with Col. Bishop at the "baking and burning of Buffalo." At the battle of Queenston Heights, according to his own account, he saw "the brave General Brock fall" and was one of those who assisted "to convey the hero's body to Fort George, Niagara." (sources - St. Catharines Standard ; May 15, 1959 ; The
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