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Introduction

Almost as soon as the news of the signing of the Treaty of Ghent (December 24, 1814) reached the continent of North America and the conflict that has become commonly, if inaccurately, known as the War of 1812 ended, publications about the war began to appear. Some were the memoirs of an assortment of the leading military and political leaders of the day — all anxious to have their “heroic” deeds recognized and their importance within the war cast in a positive light. Others were documentary or encyclopedic “impartial” histories, which in reality usually translated as being determined to justify their own nation’s reasons for fighting the conflict and to prove conclusively that their respective country had “won” the war. Finally, there were the works that established the foundation of many of the still-persistent myths about the War of 1812. These included American volumes claiming the war as America’s “Second War of Independence,” and that the British burned Washington, D.C., in revenge for the American invasion at York (Toronto). While in Canadian books there appeared the stories of Brock’s visit to his supposed fiancé during his ride to Queenston, the substance of his famous last words as he lay dying on the battlefield, and of “How Laura Secord (and her cow) saved Upper Canada.”

During the succeeding two centuries, many later historians joined the catalogue of authors writing upon this subject, with varying degrees of success and accuracy in their finished works. As a living history re-enactor of this period and interested in doing research of my own, I ended up reading many of these publications and came to the realization that for the most part, they fell into one of two general categories. Either they went to the one extreme and tried to include everything that happened at every location across North America and beyond. Or they provided a microscopic analysis of a single military event or battle, but in consequence relegated the context within which the action took place, the sequence of events that preceded, and those that followed to relative insignificance. On the other hand, what were conspicuous by their scarcity were publications that fit somewhere in the middle. By which I mean works that examined the story of the duration of the war within the self-imposed geographic limit of a particular campaign front or geographic region, but still documented in reasonable detail the individual skirmishes and battles that were fought.

As a result, in looking at the overall picture of what I prefer to call the North American War of 1812–1815, I came to a simple recognition of fact. That during the course of the war, more fighting took place in Upper Canada, and in particular upon the Niagara frontier, than in any other location or region within the whole of North America combined! And that no one in recent publishing history had tried to tell that story.

As if to reinforce the significance of this geographic concentration of fighting, my readings included an article that documented the story of the medal produced by the Loyal and Patriotic Society of Upper Canada. Originally intended for presentation to Upper Canada veterans after the war had concluded, it was unfortunately never distributed (a story that will be documented later in the series). What is interesting is that the imagery on the front face of this medal shows the geographic outline of the “Niagara” region, with the “national” symbols of the American eagle, the British lion, and, for the Canadas, the beaver, facing each other across the dividing line of the Niagara River. While complementing these images are the words “Upper Canada Preserved.”

I therefore decided to take up the challenge and write the story of the war as defined by the image and words on that medal. Unfortunately, this work eventually became more of a tome of unwieldy, but well-detailed, proportions. As a result, it has been divided into a more manageable and publishable series of six chronological parts. This is not to say that I have ignored events and influences that took place beyond the Niagara frontier or Upper Canada that had an impact upon this region’s campaigns and battles, for these will also be referred to, in varying degrees of detail, as the story is told.

The “Upper Canada Preserved” medal was produced, but never officially issued, by the Loyal and Patriotic Society of Upper Canada in 1814. Originally created as a limited edition of sixty gold and 550 silver medals, most were deliberately destroyed in 1840.

Image from Benson J. Lossing, Pictorial Field Book of the War of 1812, 1868.

SETTING THE SCENE

For the modern traveller, driving from the province of Ontario’s eastern provincial border with Quebec, at the St. Lawrence River, to the international border with the United States, at the Detroit River, represents a day or so of either “zipping” along the multi-lane 401 highway or taking a more leisurely passage along the older “heritage” roads of southern Ontario. These latter routes were once the main arteries of communication and travel across country, and today consist of broad paved roads, well-signposted directions, scenic by-ways, heritage plaques, and viewing points. Not to mention a host of towns and communities where one can find food and lodgings, if needed.

The “Northern frontier” of the War of 1812–1815.

By contrast, during the early 1800s, visitors to Upper Canada saw this same region as either a virtually impenetrable wilderness, a new frontier of European civilization and settlement, or a prime location for economic exploitation of its seemingly infinite natural resources. The military and naval transport hub of Kingston on Lake Ontario was the only community of any size and importance, while the remainder consisted of little more than small towns, villages, or isolated hamlets.

In terms of development, Upper Canada’s eastern border with Lower Canada was composed of a mixture of forests, relatively well-established agricultural farmland, and riverside communities. These settlements were linked together by both the main waterborne “highway” of the St. Lawrence River and a network of variable-quality roads and trails that either followed or ran inland from the river’s northern bank. This type and level of development continued up the St. Lawrence River valley to Lake Ontario and Kingston. Beyond that there was a relatively less-developed corridor of farming and settlement, running along the north shore of Lake Ontario to the growing lakeside community of “Muddy” York (present-day Toronto) and then on to the smaller settlements of Head-of-the-Lake (Hamilton) and Ancaster, located at the far western end of Lake Ontario. However, beyond this point, anyone wishing to travel overland toward the Detroit River found themselves in another world entirely. Travellers who used the Grand and Thames River valleys to reach the Detroit frontier repeatedly talked about passing by, or worse through, a wilderness of forests, rocks, and bogs — interrupted only by a series of underdeveloped clearings and scattered pockets of crude frontier settlement. Similarly, they described the inland road network as consisting of little more than overgrown and rutted tracks, carved directly from the surrounding “bush,” that were clogged with dust in the summer, mud in the spring and autumn, and snow in the winter.

Instead, prior to 1812, travellers looking to pass from the lower to the upper Great Lakes generally made a southerly detour that followed the line of the Niagara Peninsula, Lake Erie, and the Detroit River. Because of this diversion, the Niagara Peninsula became the primary corridor for all transportation and movement between Lake Ontario and the upper reaches of the province. In a similar manner, when the time came for the logistical planning of military operations during the War of 1812–1815, the “Niagara” became the focus of repeated campaigns to control Upper Canada and thereby determine the future of North America. Conversely, the existing physical landscape of this region and the limitations it imposed on movement of large bodies of troops and supplies also played a major role in the determination of plans, the selection of points for attack and defence, and the course of subsequent events during the war that was to occur. As it plays a major part in this story, the physical geography of this region needs to be briefly reviewed before continuing.

Although painted in the postwar period, these images give a good idea of what Upper Canada looked like in the early nineteenth century.

The York Road, J.P. Cockburn, artist, circa 1830. Part of the main road linking Kingston to York under good travelling conditions for the period.

Library and Archives Canada, C-012632.

Corduroy Road near Guelph, Upper Canada, H.B. Martin, artist, circa 1832. A “corduroy” road, constructed of baulks of cut timber, designed to create a raised pathway for wagons to drive (bone-jarringly) through regions of wet or swampy ground.

Library and Archives Canada, C-115040.

Encampment of the Royal Regiment at London, Upper Canada, F.H. Ainslie, artist, circa 1842. British troops encamp as best they can amidst the oversized stumps of the ever-present trees.

Library and Archives Canada, C-000526.

THE PHYSICAL GEOGRAPHY

OF THE NIAGARA REGION

The Niagara region is composed of a roughly rectangular strip of land some fifty miles long (80 kilometres) and thirty wide (50 kilometres), running in a generally east-to-west line between the basins of Lake Erie and Lake Ontario. It might more properly be referred to as an isthmus of land, connecting the greater landmasses to the northwest and southeast, but because the Niagara River cuts a definitive path from the eastern end of Lake Erie, down into the western end of Lake Ontario, the area is commonly referred to as a peninsula. Because the bedrock consists of intermixed layers of types of stone, ranging from the softer limestones, clays, and shale, to the harder sandstones and dolomites, the effects of erosion by weather, glaciation, and running water has produced a variety of landforms and sceneries that fall into five distinct bands.

The Lake Ontario Plain

Running along the length of the northern edge of the Niagara Peninsula at the shoreline of Lake Ontario, the plain varies in width from less than half a mile (.8 kilometres) to over seven miles (11 kilometres), and terminates on its southern border at the foot of the bluffs of the Niagara Escarpment. Numerous rivers and streams, fed by water running north from the high ground of the escarpment, wend their way into Lake Ontario, dividing the land into a series of well-watered parallel sections. In addition, this zone has particularly fertile soils and a moderated climate (derived from the proximity of the lake and sheltering influence of the escarpment), which historically was particularly well suited for settlement and ease of movement along its length. As a result, historically, this plain became the principal land route that connected the Niagara River with the Head-of-the Lake, the Detroit frontier, and the Lower province. It therefore also became the route along which all armies, from both sides, marched, as the various campaigns developed during the War of 1812–1815.

The Niagara Escarpment

Standing like a wall to the south of the plain rears the Niagara Escarpment. Averaging 240 feet in height, its dominating contours vary from vertical rock faces to steep-sided hills, and even today it presents the single largest obstacle to movement around the region. Breaks in this wall do occur as the numerous watercourses wend their way north and cascade off the lip of the escarpment, cutting openings that range from narrow clefts to wide valleys and culminating in the spectacular feature of the Niagara Falls and Gorge. At the time of the war, however, the escarpment created a definitive barrier that effectively channelled all military movement into routes that ran either above or below its length.

The Central Niagara Plain

Divided along an east-west axis by the Chippawa, known today as the Welland River, the Central Niagara Plain is composed primarily of extensive areas of bare rock, impervious clay, silt, and post-glacial gravels that encourage the retention of groundwater. As a result, even today it remains unsuitable for extensive agricultural development, as the numerous creeks and rivers that cross this region meander widely across the landscape, and undrained, open fields are often partially submerged following a heavy rain. In 1812, this region was considered to be impassable for military formations as, apart from isolated farmsteads, it was primarily composed of huge swamps, peat bogs, and winding waterways, only penetrated by the most primitive and narrow of trackways.

The Lake Erie Shoreline

Extending some five miles (8 kilometres) inland from the north shore of Lake Erie, the predominantly flat sand-and-clay belt of this area presents an exposed flank to the main weather systems moving up the Great Lakes basin, creating a poorer agricultural foundation that in the early nineteenth century left it lagging behind in terms of development and settlement, compared to the more fertile areas bordering Lake Ontario and the Niagara River. While it had a small road network connecting the lakeside communities in an east-west direction, the relatively easier option of sailing along the lake left these routes in an undeveloped condition, while the great wilderness of swamps and bogs to the north effectively cut it off from direct communications on a north-south axis, making it relatively impassable to troop formations.

The Niagara River

By far the most dramatic geographical feature of the region is the thirty-six-mile-long (58 kilometres) Niagara River. It leaves Lake Erie at its eastern end and cuts northward across the central Niagara Plain for about eighteen miles (29 kilometres), dropping around eight feet (2.4 metres) in the process, and therefore can be easily crossed by small boats, or in 1812 by an invading army. Reaching the Chippawa River, the Niagara River then becomes an unnavigable series of rapids as it drops some fifty-five feet (16.7 metres) over a distance of two miles (3.2 kilometres) before cascading over the world famous “Falls” with a drop of around 170 feet (51.8 metres).

The turbulent torrent of water now enters the seven-mile-long (11 kilometre) Niagara Gorge, with almost vertical sides that reach heights of over 200 feet (61 metres) and maintain a width of about 800 yards (731 metres), making it historically a virtually impenetrable obstacle to any prospective troop movement across the river.

Locations along the Niagara River.

Dropping a further 116 feet (35.35 metres) within the confines of the gorge, the river eventually emerges from the escarpment at Queenston/Lewiston, becoming navigable once more as it gently flows nine miles (14 kilometres) across the Lake Ontario plain, for a mere eight inches (20 centimetres) of descent before finally entering Lake Ontario.

For the modern visitor, however, the spectacle of the falls is a mere shadow of its earlier natural glory, as the modern demand for vast volumes of water (to create hydro-electric power, water for the various industries, urban settlements, ship canals, and storage reservoirs) have combined to siphon off as much as 75 percent of the natural water flow that once teemed over the falls.

View of the Falls of Niagara (1801), lithograph by A.M. Hoffy, J. Vanderlyn (artist), circa 1840. The Great Falls of Niagara as seen from below Table Rock.

Toronto Reference Library, T-14467.

View from the Head of the Whirlpool Falls of Niagara, C.B.B. Estcourt, artist, circa 1838. A period and modern view, looking north (downriver) along the Niagara Gorge, around the whirlpool, towards Queenston.

Library and Archives Canada, C- 093968.

View from Queenston Heights, F. Hall, artist, 1816. The strategic military importance of the commanding “Heights” on the escarpment is evident in these views. Queenston lies to the bottom left. Beyond lies Newark and Fort Niagara at the mouth of the river (upper centre), and the north side of Lake Ontario (skyline).

Library and Archives Canada, C-003240.

LIFE IN UPPER CANADA IN 1812

To understand just how different life in Upper Canada was in 1812 compared to today, one need only look to a publication called A Statistical Account of Upper Canada produced by Robert Gourlay in 1817. Using a series of detailed surveys and questionnaires sent out to the various townships in the pre-war period, Gourlay produced the following under a variety of headings:

It is bounded north easterly by Lower Canada, from the St. Lawrence to the Hudson’s Bay: northerly by that territory: south easterly by the United States. Its western limits are unknown … In 1784, the whole country was one continued forest. Some plains on the borders of Lake Erie, at the head of Lake Ontario, and at a few other places, were thinly wooded: but, in general, the land in its natural state was heavily loaded with trees; and after the clearings of more than 30 years, many wide spread forests still defy the settler’s axe….[1]

Agriculture

Wheat is the staple of the province … [while] other grains, such as rye, maize (here called corn), pease, barley, oats, buck-wheat, etc. are successfully cultivated. The townships round the bay of Quinte, produce large harvests of pease, and generally furnish supplies of that article of provisions for the troops of the various garrisons…. The principal fruit of Upper Canada is the apple. The various species of this most useful of fruits grow in all the districts; but most plentifully around Niagara and thence westward to the Detroit where they have been cultivated with emulation and success. No country in the world exceeds these parts of the province in this particular…. Peaches flourish at Niagara … cherries, plums, pears, and currants succeed … [while] … Elder, wild cherries, plums, thorns, gooseberries, blackberries, raspberries, grapes, and many other bushes, shrubs, and vines abound…. Strawberries grow freely in the meadow, and are cultivated with success in gardens. The gardens produce, in abundance, melons, cucumbers, squashes, and all the esculent vegetables that are planted in them. The potatoe … finds a congenial and productive soil in many parts….[2]

Trade

There were, in 1810, 132 licensed retailers. At the same time there were no less than 76 licensed pedlars … Much of the trade of the country is a species of indirect barter. The merchant trusts his customers with goods, and at the proper season, receives their produce in payment, and forward it by way of remittance to the importer…. The value of copper coins is not regulated by statute … and no person is obliged by law to receive, at one payment, more than a shilling in copper money…. Most of the circulating specie is gold. Its plenty or scarcity is affected by the fluctuations of crops and markets, and the varying state of commercial intercourse with the United States. Army bills, as a medium of circulation, grew out of the war. They were substituted for specie, of which there was such a scarcity, that many private individuals issued their own notes, which passed for some time instead of cash…. There is no bank in the province….[3]

This situation is not really surprising when Gourlay reported that the hard currency of the province included the use of more than a dozen different coinages, derived from no less than eight different foreign mints, and each having its own rate of exchange.

One of the region’s principal exports was furs, derived from the Native hunting or trapping of: beaver, bear, fox, otter, martin, mink, lynx, wolverine, wolf, elk, deer, and buffalo, to name but a few. In exchange for these furs:

… the Indians receive coarse woolen cloths, milled blankets, arms and ammunition, tobacco, Manchester goods, linens, and coarse sheetings, thread, lines and twine, common hardware, cutlery, and ironmongery, kettles of brass and copper, sheet iron, silk and pocket handkerchiefs, hats, shoes and hose, calico and printed cottons &c.

These goods being ordered in the fall, are shipped from London in the spring, arrive in Canada in the summer, are made up and packed in the winter, forwarded from Montreal in May following, reach the Indian markets the next winter, where they are exchanged for skins, which are received the next fall at Montreal, whence they are shipped chiefly to London, where they are not sold or paid for until the ensuing spring. Thus is the course of this trade, requiring capital, connexions, system, and perseverance….[4]

In addition to furs, the bountiful forests provided a wealth of timber resources including:

Beech, Maple, Birch, Elm, Bass, Ash, Oak, Pine, Hickory, Butternut, Balsam, Hazel, Hemlock, Cherry, Cedar, Red Cedar, Cypress, Fir, Poplar, Sycamore, Whitewood, Willow, Spruce, Chestnut, Black Walnut, and Sassafras … for a number of years past, large quantities of oak and pine timber have been annually cut on the banks of the St. Lawrence and lake Ontario, and its bays and creeks, and floated down on rafts to the Montreal and Quebec markets, for foreign exportation….[5]

Climate

March is the most unpleasant month in Upper Canada. The plough cannot yet move: sleighing is over: wheels sink in the mud; and the eye is out of humour with a piebald world…. During the beginning of May the leaves suddenly burst from confinement, and clothe the forests in their liveliest attire. Nature now strives amain and before June the grass may almost be seen to grow … the autumn is equal, if not superior to that of England; and the months of November and December are certainly so…. It is the belief of the inhabitants here that their winters are less rigorous and snowy than they were when the province was first settled. A snow which fell in February, 1811, about two feet and three inches deep, was every where spoken of as remarkable for its depth….[6]

Social Life

Diversions are similar to those of the interior of New England. Dancing is a favourite amusement of the youth. Athletic sports are common. Family tea parties are the most frequent scenes of sociability. The country is too young for regular theatric entertainments, and those delicacies and refinements of luxury, which are the usual attainments of wealth. Dissipation, with her fascinating train of expenses and vices, has made but little progress on the shores of the lakes…. In winter great use is made of sleighs; and sleighing parties are fashionable; but taverns and provisions for travellers are, in many parts of the country, quite indifferent. The improvement of travelling accommodations has been retarded by the preference given to passages by water, during the summer months … fishing is a common amusement, easily connected with occasional supplies of provision…. Fashions of dress and modes of living are common to the inhabitants of the lower province and their neighbours in the States…. The habit of smoking is very common among all classes of people throughout the province….[7]