Narrative of the Fenian invasion of Canada

by Alexander Somerville

O’Neil, the chief of the invaders, has been described. He wore gray clothes with some badge of green around a military cap. He ascended the steps to Dr. Kempson’s front door, rapped, and demanded that the Doctor should come out to speak with him. Mrs. Kempson descended to the door instead of her husband. She is an intelligent lady seemingly about twenty-five years of age, and mother of several young children, who were then in the house. Colonel O’Neil quickly announced himself, again demanded to see the lady’s husband, in his capacity of reeve of the village of Waterloo; and intimated that if he did not come at once force would be used. Mrs. Kempson inquired what they intended to do? “To do? what do you mean?” “To us—what are you going to do to us?” “We have come to hold possession of Canada; you are all, for the present, my prisoners.” “Do you intend to kill us?” “No; not if you be quiet and do as I require.” “What do you want with us?” “First of all, where are your axes and spades, I must have them instantly; and your husband must at once surrender himself to my orders!” The lady intimated that the tools asked for were in the barn or in the woodshed. Whereupon O’Neil ordered some men to find them, and proceed to the railway track and the road in front of the church, cut down the telegraph posts, sever the wires, lift the rails, and dig trenches across the track; all of which was speedily done. While Mrs. Kempson still guarded her doorway, O’Neil said, “Do you suppose my men will kill you?” She expressed fear that they would. “They will not hurt you” he replied; “but you must bring Dr. Kempson here at once.” The Doctor came. O’Neil ordered him out to the road in front of the garden wicket, placed an armed guard in front and in rear of him, and said, “Dr. Kempson, you are chief magistrate of this village, I require you to assemble the principal inhabitants and, without delay, provide breakfast and other rations for one thousand men. You march along with me. A picket of officers and men will keep guard on your house; your wife will give them and also those in the field such provisions as she may now have.” About fifty men occupied the garden and searched the lower rooms and cellar. Mrs. Kempson gave the bread, meat, wine and brandy which the house contained, and with her servants baked more bread, fried ham, made tea and coffee in pailfuls, which were carried out to the field beyond the garden gate, where between one and two hundred men lay on the grass, besides the fifty who crowded into the house. They in the field were prevented by sentries from entering at the garden gate.

After the occupation of the reeve’s house, the next incident of sensation in the village was the discharge of Fenian shots at a small boat which had crept out from the Canada shore, containing two men, one of whom was pulling his oars frantically towards middle stream, the other lying down in the boat. The oarsman was Mr. Leslie the postmaster, his passenger, Mr. Kerby, a clothier; Fenian bullets whizzing past their ears, and loud shouts of “come back”, compelled their return. Like others they were taken prisoners, but liberated on parole.

As the reeve advanced up the street, half a mile south of his own house, Mr. Forsyth, a justice of peace and member of the corporation, Mr. Douglas another member of corporation, Mr. Graham, collector of customs and two or three more principal men emerged from cover, and answered O’Neil’s summons to surrender themselves prisoners. They also were paroled, and commanded to furnish breakfast for one thousand men on pain of having their houses forcibly entered and possibly burned. The words “one thousand men,” were frequently used by O’Neil on that morning. Next day, June 2nd, when he made his head-quarters in the house and on the farm of Henry F. Angur at Limestone Ridge, before the fight began, he spoke of his force being fourteen hundred. After much inquiry I have not been able to trace the retreat of the latter number of men across Niagara river, though it is ascertained that many escaped across from Saturday to Sunday June 2nd and 3rd, besides those intercepted by the U. S. steamer Michigan. By the excess of rifles and ammunition brought from Buffalo beyond what O’Neil’s force required, and which were destroyed previous to the Lime-ridge conflict, it is probable that Canadian Fenians were expected to fall into the invading ranks. But whether they were to have partaken of the breakfast for “one thousand men,” or if that was the actual numerical strength brought from Buffalo, investigation has failed to determine.

Some of the inhabitants were too poor to contribute to the Fenian breakfast. The operations in the principal hotel, were of this kind: The three lower sitting rooms were filled by men, who awaited their turn to pass into the bar-room. Sentries with loaded revolvers stood in front of the bar; the landlord stood behind it filling his liquors as long as bottles and jars held out. When these were drained he was escorted to his cellar by other guards with revolvers loaded and capped and assisted by willing “helps” to carry his liquid stock to the floor above. When all was drained, his cellar and bar empty, he was thoroughly cursed for not having more liquor on hand; and, at point of bayonet, driven to make haste and “help get breakfast ready.” All the butcher’s meat and cured hams in the hotel were cut up and cooked; coffee was made in pails and tubs and carried to a rising ground west of the village, on which O’Neil and his officers had posted the main body of their force. All the bread was soon consumed, and the flour in the hotel had been made into more bread and that eaten up. The landlord having drained off his liquors and given his eatables to his voracious visitors thought to rest himself, as he could do no more. The click of revolvers seconded the command to go and purchase. His faint reminder that he had drawn no money wherewith to purchase additional supplies, was stopped by curses, by pointed bayonets, and the language of menace which informed him that he had credit at the stores. Thither he went under a dancing, rollicking escort, and was ordered not to look miserable, but to be happy, to laugh and join in the hilarious joy now that, “degraded Canada was liberated, and from that day was a free country!” He shouldered a sack of flour; and, pricked with bayonets, trotted under his burden, laughing as best he could; assuring the liberators of Canada, that he was happy to see them; happy to see that day; overcome with joy in fact; oh, yes! very happy! hoorah for the Irish Republic!

“You may as well not publish names,” said one of the villagers who with me listened to this recital; “when Colonel Peacocke and the army leaves here, some of those Buffalo men may come over and give us a licking.”

During the plunder of the bar-room and cellar, the landlady, a delicate young person, and servants, with Fenian “helps” were cooking, baking, and boiling. Next day, during the absence of the Fenians at Limestone Ridge, this landlord, like most other residents on the Canada shore got the females of the family removed to the American side for safety.

Other contributories to Friday morning’s breakfast were treated and employed similarly to the hotel keeper, though not all. Wherever O’Neil was, his men were moderate, merciful, obedient.

When the invaders had filled themselves, and drank all the liquor in the village they still demanded more. One hundred and fifty or two hundred continued about that hotel, singing, and dancing, several hours. At last O’Neil and other officers with drawn swords came, supported by armed pickets and drove them away, using such reproaches as, “you blackguards! do you think we brought you to Canada to get drunk, and make sport? you came here to fight. The army of red-coats will soon be on you! are you in a state to meet the red-coats? For shame! soldiers of the Fenian brotherhood! shame!” And the officers drove out the plunderers before them.

A man named Canty, who had been suspected of Fenianism disclosed himself now. He girded on a sword and boldly informed his neighbours that he was a B, or Major, in the “army of liberation.” Canty was owner of a house and lot in the village, of which government agents soon took possession. He was said to have absconded from the States, two years before, with the money of his creditors, and purchased this property. He absconded from Canada quite as hurriedly after the fight at Limestone Ridge, on the reported advance of Colonel Peacocke’s force. His house was said to be a depository of entrenching tools. It was said that arms and ammunition had been concealed there, but after the man’s flight none were found. Some village names were freely and unfavourably mentioned to me by a person in authority, who was making an official report to the government at Ottawa through Colonel Peacocke; but, in conversation, I found that the Fenian invasion had less to do with the gentleman’s ideas than the discomfiture which he had suffered at a recent village election. That gentleman’s narrative of the movements of the steamer Robb, of the Welland Artillery, and of the manner of capturing Fenian prisoners, as also of the number of prisoners captured was at variance with facts otherwise ascertained and unquestionably certified. He might intend to do government a good service, but his memory seemed not reliable, nor his mind sufficiently free of a petty political distemper. The Ottawa authorities should receive with caution any magisterial statement he may have forwarded reflecting on the loyalty of his neighbours.

A detachment of Fenians, some hundreds strong, but precisely how strong, I could not ascertain, proceeded to the Buffalo and Lake Huron Railway depot, a mile south-west of the village. A man named William Duggan, employed as a track-man on that line, was committed for trial to Welland prison, on June 21st, accused of having conducted the marauders to the depot offices and aided them with crowbars to open lock-fast doors.