“To the Editor,—You will please make known through the news columns of your paper, that I have in my possession a gold mourning ring, engraved with the following inscriptions: on the outside in black ground the words, ‘in memory of,’ on the inside ‘Lucretia Wrigly, ob’t 6th Feb., 1829, Act 6,’ and under that, ‘Mary Wrigly, ob’t 6th Feb., 1830, Act 45,’ besides some other rather indistinct characters, that the claimant will have to describe. Also a lady’s gold pencil and mounted gold eye-glass, with chain attached made of fine beads. These articles were found on the person of one of the men in the scow; and I wish to say, to the credit of the men, that loud and earnest threats of lynching the fellow were made, such was the indignation at an act calculated to throw discredit on all, and so contrary to discipline and the wishes of our body. And I wish to say farther that were it not for our present circumstances and relations, such an act would, as it ever will be by me and my associate officers, have been punished with all the rigor of army discipline. You will oblige us all by the publication of this communication, both to set us right, and that the property may be restored to its owner.
“(Signed) John O’Neil, Colonel.”
When the Fenians arrived at Newbigging’s farm on Frenchman’s creek about noon June 1st, two sons of the family had just returned from hurriedly taking their sister and other young ladies to a place of safety on the American side. O’Neil was then mounted on the cream colored charger which had been “borrowed” from Mr. James Stivens of the Ferry, and which he next day rode in the combat at Limestone Ridge. This horse was returned to its owner on Sunday the 3rd, considerably jaded.
The Fenian chief alighted at the garden wicket, which opens from the road skirting Niagara river, walked up to the house, where he was met at the door by Mrs. Newbigging. This family came from Greenock, in Scotland some years ago. The Fenian courteously introduced himself, was sorry to cause alarm; assured the lady that although the premises, on this side the creek and fields beyond were occupied by an armed force, no harm would be done, if every one in the house remained quiet. He had a sick gentlemen whom it was necessary to put to bed. Soldiers would be placed in the house to attend him, and protect the family. None else would be permitted within doors. O’Neil and officers, some of them, not all, had meals in the house; and the sick person had warm drinks, all of which were prepared by Fenian hands; Mrs. Newbigging’s offers of assistance being declined. All remained quiet within doors, but there was uproar outside. Between forty and fifty horses were collected and brought to the premises before sunset, upon all of which men wildly mirthful and grotesque in dress and manners galloped and curvetted about, along the river side road and over the farm fields. An American reporter said a hundred horses. Three of Mr. Newbigging’s best were taken. One of brown color with white hind feet answered the description of a charger shot under its rider in the combat of next day, and which he supposed was his; but the three were returned on Sunday, June 3rd, not seriously injured though much distressed. One of his waggons and a set of harness were found in the woods a wreck. Several of his sheep were killed, and at the hurried midnight departure thrown into the creek.
At Mr. Stockdale’s house next farm north, thirteen cured hams, several crocks of butter and sacks of flour were taken. That provision had been made for hay and harvest workers. Nine or ten of the hams rudely slashed with sword cuts, and sacks of flour were afterwards found in the creek. An old Englishman named Penny, residing alone, was visited; his money was demanded. He gave a dollar, all he had. They threatened, he says, to bake him on the stove if he did not disclose where more money was concealed, but beyond frightening the poor man, the plunderers only seem to have taken the dollar. Mrs. McCarty living further down the river side road, said they tore up her carpets, broke open a bureau and took twelve dollars in money. Many fowls, turkeys and geese were taken. Their remains, with feathers, still strewed the bivouac field when I was there, 19th to 22nd June.
Frenchman’s creek is a deep sluggish stream, sixty to eighty feet wide, with marshy banks. Its dull water, seemingly motionless mingles with the clear swift current of the great Niagara, which is here about a mile wide to Strawberry Island opposite. At the mouth of the creek, close on the river shore, is a bridge of timber. Newbigging’s house and farmyard are a hundred yards south of the creek. An apple orchard, willow and poplar trees skirt it on the north side. A field of grass lies beyond the orchard and north of that, other fields which gave a clear rifle range of from five to eight hundred yards, down the river side, and inland over clear stretches of from eight hundred yards to a mile. At these distances from the river were forest thickets, only a few trees intervening on the open pastures. Here O’Neil, apprehensive that Colonel Peacocke, or other British commander would bring up a force by Niagara river side, constructed screens of fence rails across the pasture field, and in the orchard, from east to west to command the approach from north. The creek bended on his left flank and round upon his rear to Niagara river which flanked his right. The position was comparatively strong except as against artillery. Beyond the creek westward, twelve hundred yards to forest thickets, and southerly from Newbigging’s house, pickets were thrown out, and sentries posted: these last all round and back in the woods. And mounted scouts, furnished from the locality and from Buffalo, penetrated to the interior of the country. The creek so frequently mentioned, with a devious course comes through marshy meadows from south-west. On each side are gently elevated grounds, well cultivated, and long settled called the Ridges. A road runs diagonally through the farm lots and squared township roads from a point two miles below, and north of Frenchman’s creek, following the bends of a ridge to the south-west ending on Lake Erie, nine or ten miles west of Waterloo village. This road follows the Limestone Ridge, and is therefore termed Ridge Way.
From the careful dispositions of his force, and the half circle of outlying pickets, with sentries along the roads in all directions, O’Neil evinced apprehension of being attacked there. One of the sentries posted in the thicket, fourteen hundred yards west of the bivouac field was shot during the night by another Fenian sentry who had mistaken him for a Canadian. His comrades stripped him of clothing except a flannel. Next day when some farmers who went to bury the body, were tracing the course the bullet had taken, through right arm, right side, to the heart, a pocket containing $112 in greenbacks, was discovered. A custom house officer took charge of the money. The Fenian picket of which this man was a sentinel were then prisoners, and among them the sergeant before spoken of. They said their comrade had been shot “accidentally,” they not choosing, perhaps, to admit that the bullet which killed him had been intended for a subject of Her Majesty the Queen. The farmers wished the coroner to hold an inquest, but he declined. The deceased man had a cross suspended on his breast, and the figure of one with initials marked on his left arm. He is buried on the edge of the wood where the body was found.
The split rails of oak, averaging about six inches thick, so well known as “snake fences” in Canada, “Virginia rails” on the other side, about fifteen feet long, which are piled in a zigzag form, alternately overlying each other at the end, and rising to a height of five, six, or seven feet, were carried from the sides of the Niagara river road, and from other fields, and piled as rifle bullet screens. These extended at intervals across the pasturage in front of Newbigging’s orchard from the river on the right, to the westerly bend in the creek, distance four or five hundred yards. The screens were formed thus:
A rail was cut in three pieces; the ends sharpened, and driven into the ground in form like x. Two of these x’s supported a rail horizontally set at a height of about three feet. From that two or more rails slanted downward to the ground, from the position in which sharpshooters were to be screened. Then a lower roof of rails was laid longitudinally and horizontally on these, beginning on the ground, rising to the higher level. Then an upper roof was laid by pieces placed transversely to the former, and as closely together as they would lie. This roof sloped from three feet high to the ground at an angle of about thirty degrees, or less. It was intended that rifle bullets, hitting it from the direction in which the opposing force might come, would glance off over the heads of sharpshooters ensconced behind. Some of these screens were four feet high in rear, others only two, generally they were elevated three feet. The different sections of screens were regulated by the length of rails, and were not placed continuously end to end, but were advanced, like detached columns twelve or twenty yards before others, and much scattered. Probably this was done in expectation that, if artillery fired upon them, all would not be knocked down at once.
A way of escape was intended under cover of the orchard, within which screens were also placed at intervals, to the bridge over the creek, close to Niagara shore. The creek is there about seventy feet wide; the bridge eighty feet long. Piles of fence rails split to be readily combustible, were laid on the bridge to be set on fire, should the attack be from north and the Fenians have to retreat behind the Newbigging farm premises and south by the way on which they had advanced. The destruction of that bridge, and the rifle shooting which for a time might have been practised from the farm house and barns, to give the main body of Fenians time to escape to their scows and steam tug at Lower Ferry where they first landed, three quarters of a mile south and round a bend out of sight of their present position, would have probably delayed an advancing force for a time. That is, had such force come by the river-side road and that only. But there were inland roads by which, as O’Neil knew the British could approach from the direction of the Great Western railway at Niagara Suspension bridge and from Chippewa. There was also a line of rails, the Erie and Niagara track which though not regularly open for traffic, had been recently repaired to be opened; and G. W. R. trains, it was supposed could pass up the track to Waterloo village. Information having reached the Fenian colonel at Frenchman’s creek, sometime between 10 p. m. and midnight, June 1st, that Colonel Peacocke of Her Majesty’s army, with a force of Royal Artillery, regular, Infantry and Canada Volunteers, had reached Chippewa, a village three miles south of Niagara Falls, and about four miles south of Suspension Bridge, fifteen miles north of his bivouac on Frenchman’s creek, he decided to leave his position and march into the interior of the country.