by Jo Shawyer
Ben grinned and looked at both of them. “And the paymaster’s gold is still there, somewhere, still waiting for us to find it.”
“So, you’ll be wanting to dig up my field again, eh?” Mr. Tucker said.
Everyone laughed.
“I was hoping that we would find that journal, or diary, or whatever it was that the scrap of paper was torn from. That John and Brad found in the shed-room,” Eadie said. She looked at Dave and smiled. “But Dave says that a journal makes research too easy!”
Dave nodded. “It would’ve been easier if you’d found that journal, Eadie, but you guys did it your way. With phenomenal detective work.”
“I’ve got an idea.” Eadie sat up straight and looked around the table at everyone. “I’m going to write a story about this, as though I were fourteen and lived here, in our shed-room — although it would have been a log cabin then — on Commissioners Road, during the War of 1812. It would have been exciting. And frightening.” She paused and turned to Mr. Tucker. “That silver spoon we found — the Hester Bateman marriage spoon — you said that there was an Annie Wareham who married into the Tuckers a long time ago? Her initials would fit in with those on the spoon. I’m going to call the girl in my story Annie Wareham.”
Mr. Tucker beamed his approval.
February 1815
The war is over! I cannot believe it. Captain Rapelje rode by today to tell us the good news. I am not afraid anymore.
The next day, John arrived home! He walked all the way from the Niagara District. He is very thin, but very fit. We stayed up half the night hearing his adventures. Well, more frightening stories than adventures. He fought in many of the battles in the Niagara area: Stoney Creek and Beaver Dams and Chippewa and Lundy’s Lane, which was the worst. And he limps now and he has a huge scar on his arm. And he has a sweetheart! She is called Nancy. He says that he is going to settle in the Niagara area to take on Nancy’s father’s place because both her brothers were killed in the war. That just makes me angry again — the killing, I mean — not Nancy. Lucy and I want to go to the wedding.
Thomas Greenaway’s arm has not mended and William Greenaway has hurt his back. They are going to give up their land and try their luck in the town of York.
Father says now that John is going away for good, I will have to marry someone to get a strong young man on this farm to help with the work. Well, I will soon be seventeen! And now that the war is over, Lucy’s father is writing to his brother in England to tell him to come to Canada. And he is to bring his four sons! Maybe one day I will marry a Tucker!
Author’s Note
The War of 1812–1814 really happened. It happened in Upper Canada (Ontario) and Lower Canada (Quebec) and in the Maritime colonies (New Brunswick, Nova Scotia, Prince Edward Island, and Newfoundland). Commissioners Road, where Sam, Eadie, and Ben live, was there at the time of the War of 1812. In fact, it was a very important road in the small network of roads in the area. British soldiers and local militia used the road to travel between the Niagara and Detroit frontiers. Americans used the road to raid the Canadian settlers.
But Sam, Eadie, and Ben and their parents, as well as Dave and Mr. Tucker are made up by me. They live in the present day and are just trying to figure out what was going on in their neighbourhood during the War of 1812, because they have heard about the Legend of the Paymaster’s Gold and want to find the missing gold. Annie Wareham, too, comes from my imagination, but she lived at the time of the War of 1812. Throughout the story, Sam and Eadie don’t know that Annie lived in their shed-room (which was her log cabin) and watched the War of 1812 march by on Commissioners Road! She wrote about it in her journal, only a scrap of which was found.
I grew up on a farm very near Commissioners Road. We all knew about General Procter. He led some of the British soldiers during the War of 1812. And we all heard that story of how he might have lost some gold in a skirmish on Reservoir Hill. But no one has yet proved that the skirmish really happened, or whether gold really was lost. Captain Carroll and Captain Rapelje were real people in the local militias. Phoebe McNames was also a real person, recorded in various documents. Her gravestone is in the Brick Street Cemetery. But did the skirmish on Reservoir Hill really happen? If so, did Phoebe help the soldiers? You can Google all these names and find out more!
Reservoir Hill is there today, although a little changed from two hundred years ago! It has been widened and straightened to some extent, but if you go there, you can still see how steep and curving it was and how difficult it would have been for soldiers to climb up or down it on foot or horseback. Reservoir Park, at the top of the hill, contains the plaque that Sam and Eadie read. It tells of the American Andrew Westbrook and his raid against the Canadian settlers, and his being ambushed on the Reservoir Hill. It also tells of the death of Captain Carroll. I copied it exactly for this book.
It’s exciting to think that there was a pioneer log cabin as part of Sam and Eadie’s house. That is actually quite possible! I have seen such a case myself. The settlement conditions for applying for a grant of land, which Eadie learned from Dave in the library, are true. The settler had to build a cabin 16-by-20 feet, then clear 10 acres of land, a portion of the road, and trees for 100 feet back from the road. In such a way, the landscape was settled in an orderly pattern and the roads were built. It was clever of Eadie and Ben to see how they could use that information to figure out the location of former log cabins in today’s landscape. And also to find the location of the original Tucker cabin (Lucy’s home).
The fact that Eadie found two silver teaspoons at the site of the Tucker cabin is made up. But Hester Bateman isn’t. She really was a silversmith in the eighteenth century. Her work is highly regarded today and is very valuable.
Coins were scarce in Upper Canada at the time of the War of 1812. There were few settlers, and there were few roads or towns to help the growth of stores and markets where money would be needed. The paymasters, who had to buy all the supplies that the soldiers needed usually paid the settlers with Army Bills just as Dave described. These were, in fact, paper promises, which were used as money. There were not yet any banks.
So, whose gold did Sam, Eadie, and Ben find? Perhaps it was a paymaster’s gold, but from later than the War of 1812. Perhaps it was gold stolen from a settler by a thief who, for whatever reason, hid it or dropped it, and never came back to claim it. Sam, Eadie, and Ben don’t know whose gold it was. But they did find it. And it is theirs. And Mr. Tucker’s. Fifty-fifty.
Acknowledgements
I wish to acknowledge a number of perceptive readers, both youthful and adult, who contributed to the improvement of this manuscript: Joshua Bath, William Corfield, Kirsten McKay, Hilary Bates Neary, Jean Patey, Janet Rowe, Anna Shawyer, Susanne Shawyer, and Bruce Shawyer. I thank them for their encouragement.
Others helped to verify some points in my research: David Facey-Crowther and Ray Hobbs. Alberta Auringer Wood provided me with a stunning series of images of the military re-enactment of the Battle of Longwoods, 1814. Bruce Shawyer, as always, was a superb field assistant and technical advisor and best friend along the way.
I am grateful to Nicole Chaplin of Dundurn Press who cheerfully and skilfully guided me through the editorial process.
Some Books that Helped Me Write this Story
Glanville, Phillipa and Jennifer Faulds Goldsborough. Women Silversmiths 1685–1845. London: Thames and Hudson, 1990.
History of the County of Middlesex Canada. New Edition. Belleville: Mika Studio, 1972.
Illustrated Historical Atlas of the County of Middlesex. Reprint of 1878 edition. Toronto: Peter Martin Associates Limited, 1970.
Ontario Municipal Board. Development Order 0166 Reservoir Park. 2001.
Sheppard, George. Plunder, Profit, and Paroles: A Social History of the War of 1812 in Upper Canada. Montreal: McGill-Queen’s University Press, 1994.
Shortt, Adam. History of Canadian Currency and Banking 1600–1880. Toronto: The Canadian Bankers’ Assoc
iation, 1986.
Shure, David. Hester Bateman, Queen of English Silversmiths. London: W.H. Allen, 1959.
St-Denis, Guy. Byron: Pioneer Days in Westminster Township. Frederick H. Armstrong, ed. Lambeth, London: Crinklaw Press, 1985.
Turner, Wesley B. The War of 1812: The War that Both Sides Won. Second Edition. Toronto: Dundurn Press, 2000.
Websites of Interest
http://www.chass.utoronto.ca/~banning/ANT%20412/412coins.htm
http://faculty.marianopolis.edu/c.belanger/QuebecHistory/encyclopedia
www.archives.gov.on.ca/English/exhibits/1812/index.html
www.warof1812.ca/
Copyright © Jo Shawyer, 2012
All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or otherwise (except for brief passages for purposes of review) without the prior permission of Dundurn Press. Permission to photocopy should be requested from Access Copyright.
Editor: Nicole Chaplin
Design: Jesse Hooper
Epub: Carmen Giraudy
Library and Archives Canada Cataloguing in Publication
Shawyer, Jo
Legend of the paymaster's gold [electronic resource] / Jo Shawyer.
Issued also in print format.
ISBN 978-1-55488-991-4
I. Title.
PS8637.H392L45 2012a jC813'.6 C2011-902591-4
We acknowledge the support of the Canada Council for the Arts and the Ontario Arts Council for our publishing program. We also acknowledge the financial support of the Government of Canada through the Canada Book Fund and Livres Canada Books, and the Government of Ontario through the Ontario Book Publishing Tax Credit and the Ontario Media Development Corporation.
Care has been taken to trace the ownership of copyright material used in this book. The author and the publisher welcome any information enabling them to rectify any references or credits in subsequent editions.
J. Kirk Howard, President
www.dundurn.com
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