Bellevue house was built for Robert Reynolds in 1816 -1819. He was the commissary to the British garrison at Fort Malden.

The Reynolds family was a prominent member of the British community in Detroit. Robert’s father, Thomas Reynolds, had joined the British Army by 1760, and was “Commissary at Detroit”, when he purchased a lot on St. Louis Street, within that fort in 1780. The 1782 census shows that there were three boys and two girls in the household: Thomas’s five children, Thomas Augustus, Ebenezer, Robert, Margaret and Catherine.

The Jay’s Treaty of 1794 relinquished Detroit to the United States. Many of the inhabitants preferred to remain under the British Crown and moved to the Canadian side of the Detroit River. The Reynolds family did so, and settled at Fort Amherstburg where Thomas Reynolds became the commissary to the newly built post. After his death in 1810 he was succeeded in his position by his son Robert.

Robert Reynolds served in the War of 1812 and returned to his position of commissary to the garrison at Fort Amherstburg. He married Therese Bouchette Des Rivieres (in 1818?), widow of the step-son of James McGill, and they built a fine neoclassic house overlooking the Detroit River south of Amherstburg, aptly named probably by Therese, Bellevue. Robert Reynolds’ account book shows that the building was in process in 1816. Local tradition states that the bricks for the mansion were obtained from the yards of the Rouge River near Detroit, and that those remaining after the completion of the house were used in the construction of Christ Church, Amherstburg.

Plaque in Christ church