Читать книгу Quest Biographies Bundle — Books 31–35 - Rosemary Sadlier - Страница 27

To this day, no one knows for sure exactly how, two days prior to the overnight encampment of the American troops at Queenston, Laura Secord found out about the plan to attack De Cew’s farmhouse at Beaver Dams. She never revealed that part of the story.

“It was while the Americans had possession of the frontier, that I learned of the plans of the American commander,” Laura said, rather vaguely, in a letter she wrote forty years after the Battle of Beaver Dams.

“Living on the Frontier during the whole of my life I had frequent opportunities of knowing the moves of the American forces,” she explained in 1860, in a memorial she had prepared for the visiting Prince of Wales. “I was thus enabled to obtain important information which I deemed proper to communicate to the British commander Col. FitzGibbon, then Lt. FitzGibbon, of the 49th Regt.”

Because there were American officers billeted in her home and taking their meals there, it is quite possible that Laura would sometimes overhear their conversation. On occasion, other American officers would turn up at mealtime, and Laura would have to see that they, too, were fed.

It may even have been her husband, James, who overheard a conversation between the officers. For fear of reprisal, both he and Laura kept the truth a secret for their entire lives.

We do know that Captain Chapin was in Queenston a few days before the Battle of Beaver Dams. The Buffalo Gazette, June 29, 1813, reported, “On Saturday week (19th June) the mounted men under Major Chapin passed down to Queenston.”

Chapin’s men had been involved in two altercations, and on the last, which the report states took place on June 21, one of his corps was captured by the enemy while he was asleep. It is also known that FitzGibbon’s Green Tigers skirmished with Americans at Niagara Falls on June 20, and again on June 21 at Chippawa.

There is good reason to believe that Chapin, likely furious at losing another man to FitzGibbon, stopped off at the Secords’ to talk to the officers there. He may have told them that he had a plan to deal with the dastardly FitzGibbon, and that he had convinced Brigadier General Boyd of the efficacy of his plan.

Chapin was a big man, over six feet tall, and boastful, according to Boerstler, with a voice that carried easily beyond the walls of the dining room. Chapin knew that the plan to capture FitzGibbon and destroy his outpost was being set in motion. FitzGibbon had to be gotten rid of before they could take on the British. Being the braggart he was, Chapin wouldn’t pass up an opportunity to talk about it; the plan was his brainchild.

Laura had explained to Bob and Fan, the family servants, that she could not disobey the officers’ requests to provide another place at the table. The servants were to put out all the food they had and were not to forget to include the liquor. While the men were eating and drinking, according to some stories, Laura is supposed to have slipped out of the house and overheard their conversation through an open window.

One source states that earlier one of the Americans had insulted Bob, and rather than have the man suffer any more abuse, Laura had waited on the table herself. If this was the case, the officers may simply have ignored her and continued their discussion as she went about clearing their plates and refilling their glasses.

Her granddaughter, Laura Secord Clarke, daughter of Laura Ann who was born to Laura and James three years after the War of 1812, gives this version of the conversation between her grandparents after they became privy to the American information, the way she remembered her grandmother telling it.

“James, somebody ought to tell Colonel FitzGibbon they are coming.”

“Well, if I crawled there on my hands and knees, I could not get there in time,” James replied.

“Suppose I go?” was Laura’s suggestion. How could she not, knowing now what she did?

“You go, with a country in so disturbed a state? I do not think any man could get through, let alone a woman.”

“You forget, James,” said Laura, “that God will take care of me.”

However it happened that the Secords learned of the enemy’s plan of a surprise attack, or which one of them heard it first, they were in possession of a crucial piece of intelligence, and both agreed that FitzGibbon must be warned.

Like many people, Laura believed that FitzGibbon and the Indians were all that was stopping the Americans from pushing right on through the peninsula. And when that happened, it would be Loyalists like themselves who paid most heavily.

The first documentary evidence of Laura’s walk was in a petition to Lieutenant-Governor Sir Peregrine Maitland, written by James Secord and dated February 25, 1820. James was requesting a licence to operate a stone quarry on a portion of a Queenston military reserve.

It reads, “The petition of James Secord, Senior, of the Village of Queenston, Esquire Captain in the 2nd Regiment of the Lincoln Militia, was wounded in the battle of Queenston, and twice plundered of all his moveable property … that his wife embraced an opportunity of rendering some service at the risk of her life, in going thro’ the Enemies’ Lines to communicate information to a Detachment of His Majesty’s Troops at Beaver Dams in the month of June 1813 …”

Years later, in 1853, Laura herself wrote that once she knew of the Americans’ plans she became determined to “put the British troops under FitzGibbon in possession of them, and if possible to save the British troops from capture or perhaps total destruction.”

After the British had evacuated Fort George and gone to Burlington Heights, many inhabitants of Queenston had sent their families to the safety of homes of relatives living elsewhere. There really was no one else in the neighbourhood the Secords knew whom they could ask to relay the information now in their possession. There was no alternative; Laura would have to go.

Although deeply concerned for Laura’s safety, James was well aware of how resolute the mother of his five children was. She was competent, too. The horror of the previous October and the Battle of Queenston Heights were never far from his mind. Laura had told him how she’d whisked the children off to a safe place, how she’d scoured the battlefield on Queenston Heights until she found him, and James would never forget how she’d gotten him down off the escarpment and home. Once she’d made up her mind to do something, there was no stopping her.

It was decided that Laura should leave early the next morning, June 22. In case the American attack was imminent, she had to get to De Cew’s in time for FitzGibbon to mount a counterattack.

She would go first to St. Davids, three miles from Queenston. Her half-brother Charles Ingersoll was sick and was staying at Hannah Secord’s house in the little village. Charles was engaged to Hannah’s twenty-year-old daughter, Elizabeth, and the women in the house were doing what they could to nurse him back to health.

James suggested Laura might find her brother well enough to deliver the information to FitzGibbon himself. On the other hand, he pointed out, she might be able to persuade one of Hannah’s sons to take over her mission.

There would have been little sleep for Laura that night. Convinced she was doing the right thing, she’d still be mulling over in her mind the safest route to take, well aware that if she were captured the penalty for spying was death by firing squad. She wouldn’t let herself think about that.

Before dawn on June 22, she got up, and in the dark readied herself to leave the house, putting on the clothing she’d carefully chosen the previous evening: a brown cotton house dress that she’d made herself. The long straight skirt of the dress fell from a high waist, and with its elbow-length sleeves it would be cool enough. Over her shoulders she knotted a kerchief of light muslin, and slid her feet into her usual pair of low-heeled, kid leather slippers, tying them securely at the instep.

Before leaving the room she plucked a cotton sunbonnet off the peg to protect her fair complexion from the sun later in the day. For a moment Laura stood looking at her sleeping children, wishing she could say goodbye to them. But there’d been so much coming and going in the house since the occupation that it seemed as if even the walls had ears. She couldn’t risk any noisy chatter at this hour. She tiptoed from the room without waking her brood and creaked open the door.

After the door had closed softly behind her, Harriet, who had turned ten that February, slipped out of bed and went to the window. She was the only one who saw Laura leave. It was about 4:30 a.m.

“I remember seeing my mother leave the house on that fateful morning,” Harriet told author Sarah Anne Curzon in 1891, “but neither I nor my sisters knew on what errand she was bent.”

Laura had assumed there would be American sentries posted ten miles out from Fort George, and for this reason she chose to take a roundabout route to St. Davids. It was her good fortune that the sentries were actually no farther out than two miles, and she never did run into them. Still, she had prepared an excuse for being on the road at dawn and would be confident in repeating it if she were stopped. She was going to visit her sick brother.

Charles was her favourite brother; the younger ones she barely knew. Thomas had been born just prior to the Ingersoll family’s move from Queenston to the log house at Oxford-on-the-Thames, and Laura had remained behind to marry James. Two other half-brothers, Samuel and James, were born after Laura and her three sisters from her father’s first wife were already married.

It had been Charles who’d told Laura everything she knew about Lieutenant James FitzGibbon. FitzGibbon’s Green Tigers had much the same mandate as William Merritt’s Provincial Dragoons in which Charles was a lieutenant.

At daybreak Laura arrived at St. Davids. The light breeze in which she’d first set off had disappeared, and already the air felt warm and humid. As soon as she reached Hannah Secord’s house, down the lane and past the mill, she asked about Charles. The news was not good; he was still very sick and definitely not well enough to leave his bed.

Laura agreed to sit down for a short rest; she loved and trusted these people. She told her dear friend Hannah, Hannah’s daughter Elizabeth, and Charles what she intended to do with the information she and James had unwittingly acquired. Charles may have been the one who suggested that Laura head farther north, take the long way around to Shipman’s Corners (today’s St. Catharines), rather than going directly to De Cew’s. There was a good chance that if she went the way he suggested she might run into Captain William Merritt who lived at Twelve Mile Creek. He would be sure to help her. Certainly Merritt would leave immediately for Beaver Dams if she told him of the American plan to attack.

Hannah Secord’s two oldest boys, who might have delivered the message to FitzGibbon had they been home, were both away with the militia. There was nothing anyone could say to dissuade her; Laura was determined to carry on. To her surprise, her niece Elizabeth offered to go with her. It might be safer to travel with a companion. But would the girl, who had never been very strong, be able to keep up?

Assuring Hannah and Charles that they would look out for each other, Laura and Elizabeth set out from St. Davids. By taking the roundabout route to Shipman’s Corners they were less likely to encounter American sentries on the road. However, it greatly increased the distance they had to travel. It also meant having to follow the old trail through the dreaded Black Swamp with its many stories of mysterious disappearances.

Laura Secord on Her Journey to Warn the British. Artist C.W. Jefferys, circa 1921.

Courtesy of Archives of Ontario.

The air between the dense cedars was filled with mosquitoes, and as they made their way toward the swamp, the ground under their feet became spongy. In the lowest areas, amidst the cattails, the black muck sucked at the light slippers the women wore, pulling them off their feet at every other step. They had to stop frequently, and Laura was growing concerned about Elizabeth. Laura herself, though small and appearing to be delicate, was wiry and strong, and she did not tire easily.

As the morning wore on, the temperature rose. By the time they reached Shipman’s Corners it was obvious to Laura that Elizabeth was near exhaustion. She knew the girl must go no farther. Family records indicate that Elizabeth, never robust, died the following year. She and Charles Ingersoll were never to marry.

Fortunately, the Secord family had friends at Shipman’s Corners, and Laura left her niece in their capable hands to continue on her journey alone.

On blistered feet, Laura turned south, heading toward De Cew’s, wishing she could be certain that by this time she was in British-held territory. By avoiding the road and any American sentries, she now ran the risk of encountering wild animals. She tried not to think about the wolves and wildcats that prowled the area, nor the masses of rattlesnakes that might be hiding from the blistering sun amongst the rocks.

She crossed fields of long grass and thistles that plucked at her skirts before she reached the woods. She didn’t believe half the stories she’d heard about atrocities committed by the Indians, but she knew there were hundreds of them camped in these woods. Although she knew that the Natives in these parts were friends of the British, she was a woman out here on her own. She pushed her sunbonnet off her damp forehead and carried on.

Laura was using Twelve Mile Creek as a guide, never going far from it for fear of getting lost. If Hannah had provided her with some food for the journey it would be gone long before this. At least the water of the creek would quench her thirst and cool her hands and face.

It had been an unusually rainy spring, and the creeks and streams had flooded their banks. In one place, where Laura had been expecting to cross the creek, she discovered that the footbridge had been swept away.

She followed the creek bank, breaking through the brush and tangle of willows, coming upon a spot where a tree had fallen across the water. Pulling up her skirts, she dropped down and crawled across it on hands and knees until she reached the other side. The bank was slimy with mud, and she had to grasp at any protruding roots she could. Her feet sliding from under her, she hung on and managed to pull herself to the top.

About seven o’clock that evening she reached a steep, wooded embankment and began the ascent, feeling the fatigue in the muscles of her legs. Both her slippers were gone by this time, her dress muddied and torn, her face and arms scratched by brambles. She stumbled on, thinking she should soon see the lights of De Cew’s farmhouse, and what a welcome sight that was going to be.

Suddenly, pushing her way through the last of the underbrush, Laura found herself at the edge of a clearing. She was surrounded by Native warriors.

The scene in the moonlight was terrifying. When they saw her, the Indians “all arose and with some yells, said ‘Woman,’ which made me tremble. I cannot express the awful feeling it gave me,” Laura said later, “but I did not lose my presence of mind. I was determined to persevere.”

She reminded herself that Native warriors had fought and died with the British in the American War of Independence, and with that thought she managed to keep her composure.

“I went up to one of the chiefs, made him understand that I had great news for Capt. FitzGibbon and that he must let me pass to his camp, or that he and his party would all be taken. The chief at first objected to let me pass, but finally consented, after some hesitation, to go with me and accompany me to FitzGibbon’s station.”

The Indians, most likely some of Dominique Ducharme’s Caughnawaga, who had recently arrived in the area, helped Laura to walk the last mile in the dark, through De Cew’s field to the farmhouse on the old Mountain Road from St. Davids.

She had walked for seventeen hours and covered nineteen miles (thirty kilometres), and although she would not be able to tell FitzGibbon how the American attack would occur, nor when, she was confident that he provided the best chance for the British to hold on to Niagara.

Lieutenant FitzGibbon must have been surprised when a strange woman appeared at the door of his outpost, dirty, barefoot, and obviously exhausted. As Laura wrote later, “I had an interview with him. I told him what I had come for and what I had heard — that the Americans intended to make an attack upon the troops under his command and would, from their superior numbers, capture them all.” Then she dropped onto a chair, and one of FitzGibbon’s men hurried to fetch her some water to drink.

FitzGibbon questioned Laura until he was convinced that she was not a spy. After all, she had come from Queenston, which was in the hands of the Americans.

After receiving Laura’s information, FitzGibbon alerted the Natives, and together with his own men they took up positions all night from which they could intercept any attack.

But first, because Laura was worn out, FitzGibbon had one of his men take her to the Turney farm, far enough away that she would be safe and could get some rest. Mrs. Turney gathered her up like a mother hen, filling a basin with water so that she could wash her hands and face, and finally setting her blistered feet into it. After making sure Laura had eaten, she insisted on putting her to bed.

Years later, FitzGibbon wrote, “Mrs. Secord was a person of slight and delicate frame and made this effort in weather excessively warm, and I dreaded at the time that she must suffer in health and consequence of fatigue and anxiety, she having been exposed to danger from the enemy, through whose line of communication she had to pass.”

It had been Laura’s opinion, when she set out that day, that the attack would come the following morning, June 23. But nothing happened right away. The American troops were still back at Fort George, waiting until late evening to leave. They would stop that night at Queenston.

Laura Secord Delivers Her Message to Lieutenant James FitzGibbon at De Cew’s. Artist C.W. Jefferys.

>Source: Collections Canada.

Very early on the morning of June 24, one of Dominique Ducharme’s Indian scouts raced up to FitzGibbon’s headquarters to say they had encountered Colonel Boerstler’s advanced guard on the road between Queenston and St. Davids, and one of the scouts had been killed.

Laura’s intelligence had been correct. The American army was on its way.