"Rev. E. Ryerson."
"Port Ryerse, 23rd June, 1861.
"Dear Cousin,—
"Your kind letter I received, and in answer to your suggestions I have to state that my father was a captain in the New Jersey Volunteers during the American Revolution; and at its close in 1783, having his property confiscated in the United States, he went to New Brunswick and drew lands according to his rank as captain; but being disappointed both in soil and climate, finding it to be sterile and uncongenial, he determined to remove to Canada. In the spring of 1794 he started and went to Long Island, the place where the city of Brooklyn now stands, and there left his family. While on foot, he went to Canada (U.C.) to better his condition by looking out a more congenial place. Having accomplished his purpose, he started, at the opening of navigation, with his family, in company with Captain Bonta's family, first on board a sloop (as all was then done by sloops) to Albany, thence by land to Schenectady, where they procured a flat-bottomed boat, in which families and baggage were put; thence, with poles and oars, against a strong current, they made their way up the Mohawk river a long distance, until they came to a place called Wood Creek, which they again navigated for a long-distance toward Lake Ontario, until they approached a stream called the Oswego, which to enter they had to draw their boat by hand across a portage (I think some two miles); thence down this stream to the lake to Oswego; thence up the lake in this boat westward to the Niagara river; thence up the Niagara as far as Queenston, where again they had to pass over a portage of nine miles around the Falls to Chipawa; thence up the river eighteen miles to Lake Erie; thence up the lake westward eighty miles to the place my father had selected (and which is now my home), arriving here 1st July, 1795. It was in this boat that they went to mill, as before stated to you. A kind Providence furnished plenty of fish and game at this early day, or the people could not have survived. The total absence of roads, schools, and religious teachers for many years were among the heavy privations that the early settlers had to endure.
"I remain, yours truly,
"George J. Ryerse.
"Rev. E. Ryerson."
Historical Memoranda by Mrs. Amelia Harris, of Eldon House, London, Ontario, only daughter of the late Colonel Samuel Ryerse, and sister of the late Rev. Geo. J. Ryerse, writer of the foregoing short letters.
The husband of Mrs. Harris was an active and scientific officer in the Royal Navy, having been employed with the late Admirals Bayfield and Owen in the survey of the Canadian lakes and rivers, by the Admiralty, during the years 1815 to 1817. It was during the progress of this survey that Miss Ryerse married. After a few years' residence at Kingston, Mr. and Mrs. Harris returned to a beautiful homestead on Long Point Bay, intending to reside there permanently. In the days of the early settlement, a more refined and cultivated society was to be found in the country than usually in the towns and villages. Mr. Harris was at once selected by the various Governments of the day to be the recipient of various Government offices. During the years 1837-38 he took an active part in quelling the rebellion, and is believed by many to have been the head and front and organizer of the expedition which sent the steamer Caroline over the Falls. He was the first man on her deck, and the last to leave, having set her on fire.
The late Edward Ermatinger, in his Life of Colonel Talbot, refers to the Harris family as follows: