by Jo Shawyer
“And I’ll be the paymaster,” Eadie said proudly.
Sam set off, scrambling down the bank to the road. Ben, as British soldiers on top of the bank, gave a whoop and started shouting at him, pretending to fire his musket. Sam ran along the road up the hill, pretending to dodge Ben’s bullets. Eadie didn’t know what to do. She stood still at the top of the bank, undecided.
“Come on, Eadie,” the boys shouted.
“Listen. We’ve got a problem,” she shouted back. She and Ben stumbled down the bank, hanging onto trees to keep themselves from slipping. They met up with Sam in the road. Ben was limping.
“You see,” Eadie explained, “if there was a paymaster here, where would he be? Would he be up on that bank, shooting at the Americans down on the road? Or would he be hidden away, guarding his gold, so the Americans wouldn’t get it? And if he lost his gold, how did he lose it? Did he drop it? Did he hide it? Did he get killed? If he didn’t get killed, did he come back for the gold later?”
Silence. They each considered what Eadie had said.
Eadie bent over to pick up her bike. “We figured out where General Procter’s skirmish took place, here, on Reservoir Hill, when Captain Carroll fended off the Kentucky Riflemen. But we don’t know any more about paymasters or their gold.”
They walked their bikes slowly, zigzagging up the hill, thinking about the skirmish — if it had ever taken place.
When they reached the top, Sam shouted “Race you!” and climbed on his bike. He set off along Commissioners Road. Ben had to screw the top on his sunscreen tube and throw it in his bag, and Eadie had to tie her shoelace, so Sam had a big head start. Ben and Eadie could see him up ahead.
Then they heard a racket. A pack of dogs bounded across a field, then through a hole in the fence next to the road. Barking like crazy, the four dogs ran after Sam’s bike. They were black and white collies, circling with excitement and snapping their jaws. Sam lifted his feet up toward the handle bars but the dogs kept after him. Sam headed for a fencepost and grabbed it so that he could stay on top of his bike and keep his feet up while the dogs jumped around him.
“Those are Old Tucker’s dogs,” Ben said. He and Eadie had stopped and were standing beside their bikes, trying not to draw the dogs’ attention.
Ben bellowed, “Mr. Tucker! Mr. Tucker! Call off your dogs!” A few minutes later, they heard a shout and the dogs slunk back along the fence and through the hole back into the field.
Sam was pale and shaken. “What a fool. He can’t let his dogs run loose like that!”
“Maybe not in the city,” Ben said. “But this is the country. And Old Tucker is a miserable guy. He’s no fun. He won’t let anyone on his property.”
Eadie sighed. Now, every time they took their bikes on the road, they’d have to look out for Old Tucker’s dogs and maybe even Old Tucker himself.
Chapter
Seven
October 12, 1813
Lucy Tucker told me an amazing thing today. She said that Mrs. McNames, who lives farther east along Commissioner’s Road, was actually caught in the skirmish on the hill the other night when General Procter was fleeing to Niagara!! A lady was having a baby and sent her son to find Mrs. McNames to help. They were heading west down the hill when they met Captain Carroll halfway up, preparing to defend his wagons and the wounded against the American Kentucky Riflemen. She sent the boy to Tuckers’ to be safe. She was trapped with our soldiers. She helped them load their muskets. Lucy and I think that she was terribly brave. Today, Captain Carroll came back with a posse of men and they tramped all over our place and the Greenaways’ and Tuckers’ looking for something. Father thinks that they were looking for something valuable that was lost in the skirmish. Lucy and I are going to search tomorrow. Maybe there will be a reward. Lucy’s father says that the paymaster carries a lot of money in a wooden box with a lock. The mother had the baby and they are fine.
Another week went by. Liz had taken two weeks of holiday from work to deal with the move, but now she was back at work and Sam and Eadie were on their own all day. Some days she gave them instructions about odd jobs and errands to do, and sometimes not. But they always had to phone her at lunch time. As far as the twins were concerned, that was perfect. It was easy to tell their mum that they were fine, that they were fooling around on their bikes with Ben. Their parents didn’t believe in the paymaster’s gold. Besides, the twins would rather solve the legend by themselves. With Ben, of course.
In fact, they usually weren’t even lying when they said that they were fooling around on their bikes. Ben took Sam and Eadie on long bike rides to explore the neighbourhood. They found a baseball diamond and a regular schedule of games to watch, which pleased Sam. There were tennis courts, too, and Eadie learned that there were lessons offered in the mornings, for different skill levels. She decided to sign up for lessons later in the summer. Best of all, there was Springbank Park. It was more than 100 years old. Sam and Eadie had visited it when they lived in the city, but that had been by car. They had never explored it on their bikes before.
The park was all lawns and huge, old, shady trees. Eadie could imagine Victorian picnics there. She had seen photographs in books: elegant ladies in long, lacy dresses, holding parasols to keep off the sun; little boys playing chase in their sailor suits; gentlemen with moustaches, side whiskers, and their cigars. The park stretched all the way to London along the bank of the Thames River, more than seven kilometres.
There were other interesting things about Springbank, especially when considering its name: spring bank. The springs flowing down the bank from the Reservoir Hill to the Thames River had been harnessed into a water-supply system for the City of London in 1878. The water was pumped up to the reservoir at the top of the hill. Sam and Eadie had read about that on the plaque in Reservoir Park. In Springbank Park, they saw the original pumphouse, which was designed to look like a cottage, sitting squat beside the beautiful river.
But there was tragedy in the park, too. Ben showed Sam and Eadie the plaque that commemorated the Victoria Boat Disaster. River cruises on steamboats were a popular holiday activity. On May 24, 1881, the steamboat Victoria capsized on the Thames River, right in Springbank Park. One hundred and eighty-two people lost their lives. More than half of them were children. The boat had been grossly overloaded. And it was probably also top-heavy. It turned over suddenly, wrecking the superstructure of the boat, which became a tangled mess, trapping the passengers in the water. There were terrible stories: the deaths, the lack of sufficient coffins in the town for the number of dead children, the churches busy with funerals all day long. Ben and Sam and Eadie looked at the site where the Victoria had turned over, and thought about the chaos and tragedy that day more than 100 years earlier.
But the Legend of the Paymaster’s Gold was never far from their minds. They talked about it endlessly and threw a lot of ideas around. They decided that they needed to do more research.
“Let’s check out the library. Your mum said that it had some good stuff about the War of 1812, Ben.”
The local library, in a small building all by itself, was just like the other libraries Sam and Eadie knew. However, it had one big surprise: the librarian. He was very tall, very thin, very tattooed, and very pierced.
“Hi, guys. I’m Dave. What can I do for you?”
He had a big smile and seemed friendly enough. Sam and Ben said that they wanted to search on the computer.
“Carry on,” said Dave. “If you need help, shout.” They were going to try to find out more about paymasters. They wanted to know if paymasters travelled with troops or just worked from an office in some headquarters somewhere. Even if General Procter’s skirmish on Reservoir Hill was only a legend, they knew that it was true that he had retreated from Moraviantown east along Commissioners Road. The question was: did he have a paymaster with him? They were also curious as to what soldiers got paid. If they were looking for paymasters’ gold, how much gold would there be?
Eadie
settled down at a table with Dave. She told him that she wanted to find out something about early settlers. Had anybody built a log cabin in the area by 1812? Like, maybe, Phoebe McNames? She told Dave about the Legend of the Paymaster’s Gold.
Dave smiled. “That’s a well-known story, Eadie. Can’t help you, though. I guess that will be a legend until proved otherwise.” He thought for a moment. “But I’ve got something that might interest you.” He brought out a big file of typed sheets. “This is the transcript of an Ontario Municipal Board hearing.”
Eadie knew what the Ontario Municipal Board was because her dad, as a city planner, often talked about “OMB decisions.” When citizens objected to a planning decision, they could argue their case to the provincial Ontario Municipal Board to seek to change the decision.
“A developer wanted to build some condos at the edge of Reservoir Hill. They would be on private land, mind you, but they would overlook Springbank Park,” Dave explained. “A heritage group argued against the condos and one of their arguments was that the Reservoir Hill is a historic site because of General Procter and Captain Carroll and that skirmish.”
“Was that the Save the Reservoir Hill Group?” Eadie asked, remembering the plaque in Reservoir Park.
“You’re right. But you should read these transcripts, Eadie, because the people who wanted to build the condos argued just the opposite: that the skirmish never happened. It’s just a legend. There was no documentary or archaeological evidence.”
“But Ben — he’s sitting over there at the computer — he found musket balls with his metal detector! Right on Reservoir Hill!”
“But were those musket balls from the legendary skirmish? There was an ambush on Reservoir Hill in 1814, and in 1913 there was a re-enactment of the skirmish and they fired muskets then.”
Eadie sighed. She remembered what her mother had said about the musket balls that Ben had found. How did they really know that they dated from the War of 1812?
“This is sounding worse and worse. Who did the Ontario Municipal Board believe?”
“The Board works on evidence. And there is no documentary evidence to say that General Procter’s skirmish ever happened.”
“So they threw out the heritage group’s argument?”
“’Fraid so.”
Eadie sighed again. “What about Phoebe McNames then? Is she a legend, too? Did she really live on Commissioners Road?”
Dave brought out some old maps. On one of them Eadie could see the name McNames on Commissioners Road.
“Oh, so there really was a family called McNames!”
“Absolutely. You can go to the Brick Street Cemetery and see some of the McNameses’ gravestones.”
“So, is the story of Phoebe McNames helping the soldiers on Reservoir Hill true?”
“’Fraid not, Eadie. If there was no skirmish, how could Phoebe be passing the ammunition to the soldiers?”
Eadie slumped in her chair. Legends, she decided, were nothing but disappointment. No skirmish on Reservoir Hill, no Phoebe McNames to the rescue.
Eadie had one more question for Dave. She was thinking about early settlers.
“How many people were living on Commissioners Road at Reservoir Hill in 1812?”
Dave brought out a historic atlas and several more maps. “The McNameses weren’t the only families living in the area at the time.” He pointed at the map. “See: Fairchild, McMillen, Wareham, Kilbourn, Sutherland, and Tucker.”
Tucker! Eadie remembered Old Tucker and his dogs. Imagine his family having been here from the beginning of settlement!
“In fact, Eadie, there is still a Tucker on the original family property. That’s up on Reservoir Hill,” Dave continued. “It’s hard to know who was here in 1812 with any accuracy because people came and squatted on the land and only applied for their official land grants years later. Some of them came for a few years and then left without a trace. We will never know who they were.”
“What did a settler have to do to become ‘official’?”
“He had to fulfil four conditions of settlement: (1) build a house at least 16 feet by 20 feet, (2) clear 10 acres of land of trees, (3) clear half the width of the roadway in front of his property — the settlers had to build the roads, you understand — and, (4) clear all the trees 100 feet from the road back into their property.”
Eadie closed the atlas and straightened the maps. She said to herself, “At least I know that there were families living on Commissioners Road and in the area during the War of 1812. Even Old Tucker’s family was here. They’ve been here for 200 years! They’d have built log houses and they could have been hiding places for the gold.”
But Dave was still talking. “Mind you, the early settlers had a rough time during the War of 1812. The men had to serve in the militia and there was no one left at home to plant or harvest the crops. And after General Procter retreated back toward Niagara, there was no protection for anyone in the London district against Americans raiding across from Detroit. Andrew Westbrook, have you heard of him? He was one of the most well-known raiders.”
“We read about him on the plaque in Reservoir Park.”
“That’s him. He caused a lot of settlers a lot of trouble.”
“I wish that someone had written a diary back then, describing the war.”
“That’s too easy, Eadie. History takes work. Detective work.” Dave gathered up the maps and took them away.
Eadie had an idea. She took her notebook out of her knapsack and wrote down the four conditions of settlement. Then she drew a cabin 16 by 20 feet square. Then she drew a road. She labelled the distance from the road to the cabin as 100 feet. “I’m going to check this out,” she said to herself.
Sam and Ben had abandoned the computers. Eadie found them outside the library, sitting on a bench. Ben was busy digging into his knapsack for sunscreen. Sam had a drink in his hand. But they had some printouts, so they must had found something. She found an energy bar in her knapsack and sat down beside them to tell them her news.
“Officially, General Procter’s skirmish is still a legend, at least according to the Ontario Municipal Board.”
“Who cares about that,” Sam said. “We know that Procter moved along Commissioners Road with his troops and we know that Procter really did have some gold with him. It doesn’t matter if there was a skirmish on Reservoir Hill or not. We just care about the gold. Procter could have lost it, or hidden it, even if there was no skirmish with the Americans.”
“How much gold did he have?” Eadie asked.
“That depends,” Ben said. He shuffled through some printouts. “The paymasters mostly stayed in their headquarters. They didn’t go off fighting with the troops. But they did have to get pay to the soldiers from time to time, either taking it themselves or getting a senior officer to take it.”
“So sometimes paymasters were wandering around the countryside, delivering gold to pay the soldiers?” Eadie asked.
“Right. And sometimes to pay farmers for the use of their horses or wagons for a few days. We saw on this website, called War of 1812, that the paymaster had a box three feet long and 18 inches wide to keep his stuff in: the money, his account books, and paper and ink, and his clothes. The box had handles for carrying and it had a padlock.”
Sam picked up one of the printouts. “Here it says that a paymaster in New Brunswick ran out of money so he went along to a paymaster in another district to bring back money to his office.” He shuffled his papers. “And, in another story, a paymaster had to get gold to a company of soldiers, to pay them, but he couldn’t go himself. So he sent a soldier with it. The soldier took the money, deserted the army, and got across the border to the United States!”
They all laughed.
“I’ve got another story,” said Ben. “I don’t know whether it’s about a paymaster or not, but it shows that there was gold travelling around, so it could have been lost, or hidden. This is a letter from one soldier to his brother. I’ll read it to you. It�
��s from the official Ontario Archives site. It was written in 1813, so it sounds a bit funny, the way it’s written. But you’ll get the picture: ‘We’ve had a most harassing journey of 10 days to this place when we arrived last night in a snow storm. It has been snowing all day and is now a half foot deep…. Frequently I had to go … deep in a mud hole and unload the wagon and carry heavy trunks waist deep in the mire and reload the wagon. Sometimes put my shoulder to the forewheel and raise it up.’
“Now I’m getting to the good part,” Ben said. “‘One night the wagon (upset) going up a steep hill in the woods in one of the worst places I ever saw…. I carried the load up to the top whilst Mr. Couche rode on 3 miles in the rain for a lanthorn …’”
“I bet that means a lantern,” Eadie interjected.
Ben continued, “‘And about 11 o’clock we got it when we missed a trunk with 500 guineas … in it. Mr. Couche and I immediately rode back 2 miles and found it in a mud hole but nothing lost.…’”
Sam grinned. “So, you see? People did lose gold back then!”
Ben laughed, “But in this case, they found it again!”
Eadie was amazed. “Five hundred guineas! They don’t use guineas anymore. Only pounds.”
“Yeah. Let’s say £500 then. Keep it simple. And let’s say a pound is worth two dollars, although it changes up and down all the time. That’s $1,000, more or less.”
“How much did a soldier get paid?”
Sam looked at his notes. “The officers got a lot more than the men. But there weren’t many officers. The men got about a shilling a day, both regular soldiers and local militia.”
Ben smoothed out a printout and turned it over to its blank side. “Got a pencil, Eadie?” He began to make some calculations. “Procter had 600 soldiers at Moraviantown. Let’s say that each soldier got one shilling a day. So every day, that would be 600 shillings to pay out. Suppose the soldiers get paid every six months. That’s just a guess. It’s not as though they worked in one place, nine to five. Six months is 182 days. So 182 days at 600 shillings a day is 109,200 shillings!”