Stoney Creek is a community in the city of Hamilton in the Canadian province of Ontario. It was officially a city from 1984 to 2001, when it was amalgamated with the rest of the cities of the Regional Municipality of Hamilton–Wentworth. The community of Stoney Creek is located on the south shore of western Lake Ontario, east of downtown Hamilton, into which feed the watercourses of Stoney Creek as well as several other minor streams. The historic area, known as the "Old Town", is below the Niagara Escarpment. Stoney Creek experienced an increase in residential growth, particularly in the lower city in the 1970s and 1980s, and in the west mountain in the 1990s and 2000s, but most of the land mass of Stoney Creek remains agricultural. The communities of Elfrida, Fruitland, Tapleytown, Tweedside, Vinemount, and Winona serve as distinct reminders of the agricultural legacy of Stoney Creek and Saltfleet Township. History Stoney Creek was first inhabited by Canadian First Nations and later explored by French-Canadian fur traders before the area was settled by Loyalists fleeing the American Revolution in the late 1700s. The name 'Stoney Creek' is derived from the area's central watercourse, Stoney Creek, which runs from the Devil's Punchbowl, in the Niagara Escarpment, to Lake Ontario. It is often taken for granted the 'Stoney Creek' is a description of the creek's rockiness although some evidence suggests the name comes from an early settler Edmund Stoney. On 6 June 1813 the settlement garnered some notability during the War of 1812 as the site of the eponymous battle. After being informed of American troop movements by Billy Green, a local hero and the namesake of Billy Green elementary school, British forces overwhelmed the Americans in a surprise night attack. Demographics According to the 2001 census the population of Stoney Creek was 59,327 up 5.5 per cent from the 1996 census. Children under 14 years of age totaled 19.4% while those in retirement age constituted 12.6% of the total population. Some 25.94% or a quarter of the population was foreign born. The census showed that Stoney Creek was 92.72% white (European), (of which 55% had British or Irish origins, 16% Italian, 21% Croatian, Polish, Serbian, Ukrainian etc.), 3.0% South Asian, 1.0% Black, 1.0% mixed race, 0.6% Chinese. As of the 2006 census, Stoney Creek's population had risen to 62,292. As of the 2021 census, Stoney Creek's population had risen to