Buckskin Pimpernel

by Mary Beacock Fryer

  The journal concludes:

  July 14th returned to Gaspy

  20th left Gaspy with my own family, and Capt O'-Haras Eldest Son & Daughter.

  12 Aug't Arrived at Quebec 24 days after leaving Gaspy.

  J. Sherwood.

  In his evaluation, Justus had pictured these lands populated by New Englanders, accustomed to making a living part time by farming, part from the sea. Yet the coastal setting might not suit the majority of the refugees around Montreal and Sorel. These landlocked frontiersmen from backwoods communities, although sharp traders, lacked the skills necessary to turn to the sea as an alternative to farming.

  Then, too, there was insufficient land to resettle all the people, and only if Governor Haldimand would wrest the land from greedy seigneurs and establish freehold tenure. Furthermore, a goodly portion of the best land lay in the Province of Nova Scotia, where Haldimand had no jurisdiction, and where the first wave of refugees had already arrived from New York City. Sir Guy Carleton was sending his charges to Nova Scotia as soon as transports were available.

  Upon landing in Quebec City, the Sherwoods left the two young O'Haras with friends, and the rest of the party hurried on to Sorel in a whaleboat to wait upon the governor. Haldimand had a summer residence there, and had left the Château St. Louis on August 7.15

  Chapter 16

  The Happiest People in America

  While Justus was exploring the east coast, Dr. Smyth remained on duty at the Loyal Blockhouse. Late in July he received an emissary from General Washington — the Baron von Steuben, a professional soldier from Germany and a member of Washington's staff who had done much to improve the discipline of the Continental Army. With him travelled an appropriate retinue of aides, a secretary, a colonel, servants, and a letter from the rebel commander-in-chief demanding that Haldimand hand over the western posts to the Congress.1

  Hudibras sent a letter by express courier to His Excellency, escorted the Baron and his party as far as Isle aux Noix, and hurried to Fort St. Johns to make arrangements for their reception there. Meanwhile, Haldimand was journeying from Quebec City to Sorel. He did not want the German officer to inspect any more of his territory than was strictly necessary, and his summer residence was adequate for the guest.

  Mathews relayed news of these developments to Justus when his party landed at Sorel. His Excellency resolutely refused to hand over any of the posts, and ordered that the western forts be defended at all costs.2 These were necessary for the protection of the loyalists and Indians and for the fur trade. Furthermore Haldimand had angrily complained to von Steuben, in German, of the rebels' many infractions of the rules of war.

  They had broken the terms of the Saratoga Convention of 1777, and there had been atrocities after Lord Cornwallis' surrender at Yorktown in 1781. Many of the provincials were smuggled past the French blockade in the only ship allowed to leave in order to carry Cornwallis' dispatches to New York City, but twenty-five of John Graves Simcoe's Queen's Rangers were shot in cold blood.3 Haldimand had other grievances, too, not the least of which was the number of rebels who, when allowed to return home on parole, had broken their word of honour and been active against Britain. Another grievance was the hangings of Captain Sherwood's agents — Thomas Lovelace, John Parker and Joseph Bettys. The governor had taken a very tough stance, Mathews maintained, when the welfare of his province was at stake. What a pity the governor had not been as brave over the question of letting loyalists take the offensive, Justus thought ruefully.

  The report on Justus' explorations convinced Haldimand that very few refugees could be sent to the east coast, and the governor's surveyor-general, Major Samuel Holland, had already begun exploring land at the mouth of the Cataraqui River, near the site of old Fort Frontenac, a ruin since the Seven Years' War. Haldimand wanted Holland to be joined as soon as possible by parties of men skilled in the art of land colonization, and Justus was to report, with a party of men, to the deputy-surveyor, John Collins, in Montreal.4 With his cousin Thomas and his party and family, Justus left for Fort St. Johns, and they reached the Sherwood house on September 1. On the 11th, His Excellency wrote these orders for Deputy-Surveyor Collins.

  He was to have a townsite laid out at Cataraqui, reserving the land around old Fort Frontenac for the garrison and ‘a resort’ for the Indians. Townships were to be ‘six miles Square’ because the people to be settled were accustomed to that method of land division. A farm lot was to be 120 acres (54.54 hectares) — 19 chains in front and 63 chains, 25 links in depth, so that each township would have 25 lots in front, plus four chains, 58 links for road allowances. To assist him, Collins would be joined at Montreal by Captain Justus Sherwood, Lieutenant Lewis Kotté and Captain Michael Grass.5 The latter had brought some families from New York City who preferred Canada over Nova Scotia, and wanted to be resettled at Cataraqui. Grass already knew the area, because he had been a prisoner of the French at Fort Frontenac during the earlier war.

  Lieutenant Gershom French, Loyal Rangers, was exploring the Rideau River and looking for a route to Cataraqui, while Captain René LaForce, of the Provincial Marine, was charting some of the coast at the foot of Lake Ontario in his brigantine Seneca.6 LaForce had been commodore of the French fleet on the lake during the Seven Years' War, re-appointed by Carleton in 1776. Because he knew of LaForce's work, Justus would make no references to the quality of the harbours in his journal.

  When Justus reached Fort St. Johns, he learned that Dr. Smyth was complaining that he had been in sole charge of the secret service, prisoners and refugees too long. Justus chose Thomas Sherwood to relieve Hudibras at the Loyal Blockhouse. His cousin had been on many missions, and his faithful helper at the island post since it was built. Lieutenant John Dulmage, Sherwood's dependable second-in-command, was fully occupied with his regular duties, and had never been a party to the more private aspects of the work. Thomas was well informed on the affairs of the secret service — an admirable substitute for Smyth.7

  By September 19, Justus was in Montreal with a party that consisted of Lieutenant Solomon Johns, King's Rangers, with two privates from that corps, and Ensign Elijah Bothum and seven privates from the Loyal Rangers. The report describing their journey of exploration was entitled ‘Captn Sherwood's Journal from Montreal to Lake Ontario, noting the Quality of the Land from the West end of Lake St. Francis to the Bay Kenty’.9

  Lieutenant Louis Kotté and Captain Michael Grass had been sent on ahead but Deputy-Surveyor John Collins accompanied Justus' party. At Lachine they had to pull their bateau through the rapids with the aid of lengths of rope. They had an easy time at the Cedars Rapids, where by Haldimand's order William Twiss, now a captain in the Royal Engineers, had constructed the Côteau du Lac Canal, forty-five centimetres deep. By September 23, the surveyors and their assistants were at the west end of Lake St. Francis, about ‘sixty-five miles’ from Montreal — which meant that within five days they had covered twenty-one kilometres a day in spite of the Lachine Rapids.

  On the 24th, Justus sent out a party to go by land ‘three miles’ back from the river, and proceed ‘ten miles’ upstream where they would return to the shore and await the boat. That night Justus and the men who remained on the river with him camped at Mille Roches, thirty kilometres up from Lake St. Francis. There the men who had gone inland joined them and reported that they went ‘four miles’ from the river, and:

  the Land All the way of the best quality they ever saw, it being a mixture of block deep mould entirely free from stones, Ledges or Swamps…. The Land is exceeding Pleasant all along the shore, and there is a number of fine Islands in the River but is a great scarcity of Water back from the River

  The following day Justus sent a party to go by land while he proceeded ‘five leagues’ (twenty-five kilometres) which brought him above the ‘Rapid Long Sou’. Because no disaster occurred, Justus did not describe the miseries of dragging the bateau upstream — a dangerous and exhausting business, more difficult than the Lachine Rapids. Mean
while, Lieutenant Johns and some men went inland again, and returned to report that they had never seen as fine a country for all kinds of cultivation. They had crossed a large creek that emptied into a river at the head of the Long Sault Rapids where a waterfall would make a fine mill site, one of the first requirements fOr a new community.

  From the 26th to the 27th, Justus' party covered forty-seven kilometres and reached the head of the Galops Rapids, ‘three leagues’ below the first of Haldimand's upper posts, Fort Oswegatchie (Ogdensburg, New York), which had a small detachment of regulars. Still the high quality of the land excited Justus. By the 28th he was above Oswegatchie, and he reported that the land was somewhat stony. In general the land was of the best quality from Lake St. Francis all the way to a point twenty kilometres above Fort Oswegatchie, and would allow at least twelve townships facing the river, each ‘six miles square’. Of the six lower townships, Justus wrote ‘I think there Cannot be better land in America’. On the 29th, he sent three men with six days provisions to go by land all the way to Cataraqui.

  The next day Justus and the rest of his party reached Carleton Island. The voyage through the Thousand Islands did not impress him, and he dismissed them as barren rock, except for Grenadier Island, which had some soil on it. Carleton Island was a bustling post, crowned at the southwest end by Fort Haldimand, built by order of His Excellency commencing in 1778. The garrison consisted of the second battalion, King's Royal Regiment of New York, a detachment of Royal Highland Emigrants, and a few other regulars. The men were busy moving the fort's equipment to Cataraqui, which would be the more important place when the settlers came.

  The island also had a large refugee encampment of loyalists and Indians from the western end of the Mohawk Valley. One lady residing in a house there was Molly, a sister of the Mohawk warrior, Joseph Brant, and the widow of Sir William Johnson, Sir John's father. With Molly were several of her daughters, Sir John's half-sisters.

  On October 1, Justus took part of his men and crossed to ‘Long Isle’ (Wolfe Island) in a bark canoe, leaving the rest of his party to take the boat the long way round to Cataraqui. This island he thought very good land, enough for two valuable townships, one east and the other west of the portage, a narrow neck of land that divided the island into two almost equal parts. At Cataraqui, Justus met with the commandant, Major John Ross. On October 2, Ross reported ‘Mr. Collins arrived here last night with Capt. Sherwood’.10 Cataraqui, too, was a hive of industry, as fatigue parties hammered and sawed to complete a new barracks. Otherwise the settlement so far consisted of a few log houses, many tents, and the crumbling ruins of Fort Frontenac. The harbour at the mouth of the Cataraqui River was large, with new docks at which many bateaux were tied.

  Over the next few days Justus and his party explored as far as ‘Six Nation Bay’ (Collins Bay), twelve kilometres west of Cataraqui, and found the land stony along the shore, but good, a ‘mile’ inland. On October 6 the men who had come on foot from above Fort Oswegatchie joined him at Cataraqui and reported that for the first ‘six miles’ of their march the land would be suitable for settlement, a township watered by three fine creeks, one with a good mill site. All the rest of the way to within eight kilometres of Cataraqui the land was exceedingly bad ‘being a constant succession of Stony Ledge and sunken Swamps Altogether unfit for Cultivation, for 3 miles, at least back from the [River]’. The last eight kilometres to Cataraqui the men found very broken, but some of the land could be improved and would allow ‘a Scattering Settlement’. On the 8th Justus escorted Elijah Bothum and Solomon Johns westward, each with one assistant, and ordered them to explore up the Bay of Quinte. By the 10th, he had returned to Cataraqui and the following morning he set out in a canoe with a guide to see this bad stretch of country for himself.

  Twenty-five kilometres to the east he found the Gananoque River, and was delighted by the waterfall he discovered a short distance upstream ‘20 feet perpendicular and the most convenient place for Mills I ever saw’. There could be one valuable township east of Cataraqui, although the land was broken, intermixed with pockets of deep soil. The lots must be picked out wherever the good land was, for ‘If they are laid & drawn in a regular form many men would get lots which would be worse than none’. After making his observations, Justus again returned to Cataraqui, where he found Elijah Bothum and Solomon Johns waiting for him. He sent them out, this time to explore along the north shore of the Bay of Quinte, and on the 16th he went with two men and a canoe to ‘Stoney Creek’ to find its source.11 That late in the season the water level was very low:

  this Stream is very pure water, and to affect that we were many times oblig'd to wade to our knees & draw the Canoe for an hour at a time…but then it begins delightful Land, and as far up as we went equal in Quality as the Long Sou…I began with my Compass to take the Angles of this Serpentine River guessing at the Distance from Angle to Angle, & found it as follows

  He then wrote a series of compass bearings, separated by distances in miles or rods, using a method of surveying still handy for making approximate ground exploration. Justus' compass was one of two types and in either case the dial was fifteen centimetres in diameter. One had a hoop with small holes that was hinged to the face. With the hoop raised a surveyor could take elevations. The other compass had metal projections on either side that could be raised at right angles to the face. Each flap had a long, narrow, vertical slit which could be used to line up two points. The raised flaps were a simple alidade used in drawing small but fairly accurate maps.

  His method of gathering information was a pace and compass traverse, wherein he took the bearing of the direction of stream flow, paced until that direction changed, and recorded the number of paces. Knowing the length of his pace, he translated the distances into miles and rods. His entry ran in part ‘the Creek runs West 4° South 2 miles then SW 1 Mile to Wt 3/4 Mile then S 20 Rods then SW 10 Rods’. He found some stony places, but on the whole the soil was rich, and there was a cataract with a drop of at least three metres some ‘thirty-six rods’ above the mouth of the river. He was delighted with his findings. ‘This is a noble stream and should be in the center of the second Township and the lots be laid Et and Wt bounded on each side of it from this’.

  Justus returned once more to Cataraqui. By November 2, Elijah Bothum and Solomon Johns had joined him with good reports of the land they had visited farther west. They found some cedar swamps, but on the whole regular townships would be satisfactory. Summing up, Justus reported that he could recommend laying out twelve townships along the St. Lawrence near Long Sault, and another twelve to the west of the Cataraqui River, with a gap of about seventy kilometres in between where the land was broken.

  On the 14th, Lieutenant Gershom French arrived from his visit to the country along the Rideau River, and was going on to Montreal. He agreed to take a letter for Major Mathews for Justus, and forward it on to Quebec City. Justus was enthusiastic about the land he had seen, and he told Mathews ‘The climate here is very mild & good, and I think that Loyalists may be the happiest people in America by settling this Country from Long Sou to Bay Quinty’.

  Until mid-November, Justus and his men concentrated on determining the boundaries of three square townships at Cataraqui. Because of the concave curve in the lakeshore, each township was separated from its neighbours by a narrow gore — a triangular-shaped wedge with its apex on the shore and its base between the northern corners. The map Justus drew shows that only parts of the first and second concessions of 120 acre lots were laid out that season, in all, 100 lots, each with 19 chains (376.2 metres) of frontage. On the map he made these notes on the potential of settlement around Cataraqui:

  Supposing 2,370 acres of land to a Township the bay quinty will admit of 3,425 families at 120 acres each, on the north side. The tongue on the South side, Suppose it to make Six Townships, one half good of which I have no doubt, will admit of settling 857 families. The Isle Tonte [Amherst Island] opposite the mouth of this Bay will make two Townships
and settle at least 200 families on the above portion of Lands. The lands beyond the head of the bay at the Great Carrying Place appears equally good as far as the Eye can Extend to the westward12

  Although Justus had scant leisure time, he did discover that rebel prisoners were confined at Cataraqui. To his astonishment one of them was Ebenezer Allen, Ethan's overbearing cousin. Ebenezer had been kidnapped from his farm by some loyalists not long after his disturbing visit to Justus' blockhouse, and escorted all the way to this post. No doubt Ebenezer would be released in due course, and in the meantime he was reaping as he had sown.13

  On November 18, Justus departed, leaving behind two of his men who wanted to winter at Cataraqui. With the others he went in the bateau they had brought from Montreal, as far as Carleton Island that night. Some of the garrison were suffering from smallpox, but that did not deter him. There were usually cases of the dreaded disease at Fort St. Johns, and he wanted to use the better channel down the St. Lawrence. From Carleton Island the current would carry his boat swiftly due northeast. On the 2nd, Mathews had written to Major John Adolphus Harris, Royal Highland Emigrants and the commandant of Fort Haldimand, ordering him to destroy ‘Smallpox matter for the purpose of Inoculation’.14 Mathews referred to scrapings from smallpox victims that was used at that time.

  The Three Townships Sherwood Surveyed at Cataraqui Autumn 1783

  Those with the disease, Mathews instructed, were to be isolated, but no inoculation programme was to be undertaken, since some men inoculated might succumb to the disease and spread it to the Indians. If any natives caught smallpox, they would claim that it was because of the inoculations and blame the British garrison. What Justus did not realize was that he himself was exhausted and vulnerable. By the time his party reached Montreal on the evening of November 23, he knew he must have some rest.