These reservations are still occupied by their descendants, who are ardent militia men, serving with intense activity in the Indian companies of the 37th Haldimand Rifles, one of the most efficient in the Canadian Militia. All Canadians, should remember that these quiet featured men are the lineal descendants of those steadfast ancestors, who gave up their homes and all for the British cause, and were the first United Empire Loyalists to come to Canada.
Later after 1783, other migrations came up these inner channels.
These were the United Empire Loyalists, descendants of the British pioneers and settlers who had founded the English colonies in America, but who having fought on the King's side in the Revolution were driven out of their homes and their property confiscated, but who chose, rather than foreswear their allegiance, to come north into the forests of Canada where they could live beneath the British flag under which they and their fathers had been born.
It was a meeting, too, with the first steamboat ventures of Upper Canada, for on "Finkle's Point," which we passed, the Frontenac, the first steamer to sail on Lake Ontario, had been built in 1815.
Chicora and Cibola together carried the troops to camp and performed the services of the route for 1888. The leaving times from Toronto were 7 a.m., 11 a.m., 2 p.m., 4.45 p.m., the Chicora taking the morning trip from Lewiston.
This was a very considerable increase, being in fact a doubling of the previous service, and although the traffic did not at first justify it, the trade soon began to show signs of building up, the new steamer proving herself a valuable addition by her higher speed, larger capacity for passengers and with running expenses practically the same.
The arrangements for the militia at the camp at Niagara in these early days were in the charge of Lt.-Col. Robert Denison, one of the Denison family, who have taken so large a part in the military annals of the country, and an uncle of Lt.-Col. George T. Denison.
Col. "Bob" as he was most frequently called, was the Brigade Major for the Western District with his headquarters in the "Old Fort" at Toronto in the original "Officers Quarters" building which had been military headquarters for the Province since 1813. This old building is still in existence and is to be preserved as part of the restoration of the Old Fort.
Unconventional and breezy in his ways, he used, referring to the fact that he had entirely lost one eye, to say that he "had a single eye to Her Majesty's Service," and sitting straddled, as was his habit, on a four-legged saddle shaped sort of seat that "he was always in the saddle, ready for a call to action."