Upper Canada Sketches

by Thomas Conant

Many persons who occupied good positions in Upper Canada, even if not in actual rebellion, were mistrusted as sympathizers with the patriots; they were hunted by the Compact’s forces, and driven from their homes, being forced to find shelter in the forests and in barns. Life to them finally became unbearable, and they sought some means of leaving the Province. A small schooner, the Industry, happened to be laid up for the winter in one of the ports on the north shore of Lake Ontario. The owner was besought to bend his sails to the masts and take the patriots across the lake to Oswego, N.Y. Such a trip as crossing Lake Ontario in midwinter by a sailing craft is a most perilous thing to do, and naturally the owner of the vessel hesitated to take the great risk to his vessel, and to his own life as well. It was thought that the vessel might make the outlet of the Oswego River at Oswego, N.Y., and therefore effect a landing. Recollect that there were no tugs in those days to tow a vessel as soon as she hove in sight, but the wind alone must be depended upon. However, the owner, besought by the tears and entreaties of the wives and friends of the patriots in hiding, finally concluded to make the attempt. On the night of the 27th day of December, 1837, the little vessel of 100 feet in length quietly slipped from her moorings, and sailed close along the shore of Lake Ontario. It was a bright moonlight night, still, but very cold. Every mile or so she would back her mainsail, and lay to at a signal of a light upon shore, that a canoe might put off to the vessel, bearing a patriot from his hiding in the forest to the side of the boat. As yet no storm had come on to form the ice-banks since the cold set in, but there was no knowing what a day might produce in the way of a storm and the formation of ice-banks. Some forty stops, however, and forty different canoes were paddled out to the vessel, and forty patriots transferred, panting for the land of liberty across Lake Ontario, to the south of them sixty miles or so. A fine sailing breeze blew off shore, and hoisting sail and winging out mainsail and foresail, nothing could bid fairer for a quick and prosperous voyage; and the land of liberty seemed almost gained. Lying upon blankets in the bottom of the vessel were the patriots, with the hatches closed down tight on account of the intense cold. Quickly and gaily the little vessel sped on, with anxious hearts beating below. Morning revealed to their gaze the mouth of the river at Oswego, and the Stars and Stripes floating from the old fort near the river’s outlet. And a glorious sight indeed it was to the heavy-hearted patriots, liberty at hand just before them, where no one dare pursue. Then “Get up, boys, and let’s get into port!” But the north wind, which bore them so gaily and swiftly over the broad lake, had driven all the floating, drifting ice before it, and wedged it firmly along the south shore. For three miles between them and the land was this mass of floating ice, and the little vessel refused to be driven through it.

Backwards and forwards, along its outer edge, they tacked, ever seeking an opening but finding none. Every means possible at their command they tried to force a passage, but all failed. The hearts of the patriots, which a few hours before beat so joyously, now sank within them. “Oh! must we put back again to Canada, and to prison? Never; we will die first!” As the day wore on, finally an athletic sailor declared he could and would force a passage. And how was he to do it? He boldly got out on the bowsprit, climbed down on the cut-water chain, and hung by his hands to the over-haul above the bowsprit. A heavy sea at this time was running, and ever and anon the sailor and bowsprit would be raised on the top of a wave many feet above the surrounding level of the water. As the vessel would fall and bring the sailor down again to the water he would shove with all his might with his feet on the blocks of ice around him, to force them to one side that the vessel could enter between the loose cakes. Perilous, doubly perilous, as this attempt was, this undaunted water-dog stuck to his post until darkness set in and made any further effort in that direction an impossibility. Bitterly cold as it was, with every wave freezing as it washed over the decks, this hardy fellow did not feel the cold from the intense effort, but perspired freely and hung on to the rope barehanded. His almost superhuman task only resulted in effecting a passage through the ice about a quarter of a mile. All night they lay there among the ice, and, strange as it may seem, slept soundly in their dreadful peril. During the night the wind fell, and the intensity of the cold increased. At the first rays of the morning they were astir, and found their little vessel firmly frozen in, with a clear sheet of ice, transparent and smooth, two inches thick, all around them. Over the vessel’s side jumped our sailor of the previous night’s adventure, and found a firm footing all about the vessel. Quickly they realized that their only chance for life and safety lay in hurrying over the ice with all speed for the shore before a wind might arise and break up the ice frozen the night before. The bulwarks of the vessel were torn off and split so as to form poles, each man taking one. But our sailor took instead a piece of board about ten feet long and eight inches wide. Away they started, spreading out, every man for himself, carrying his pole in front of his breast. “Step on the clear ice and keep off the hummocks,” sang out our sailor. Soon one disregarded the advice, and down he went, plump into the icy water beneath. His pole, however, would catch the firm ice at the sides, and kept his head above water. Then his nearest companion took hold of the submerged man’s pole and pulled him out upon firm ice again. Immediately on getting out he was incrusted in a sheet of ice. Overoats began to be thrown aside, and also the grip-sacks containing all the patriots’ valuables, until the path was strewn with their effects. Every moment someone would break through the ice. Out of that devoted band of patriots all had gone down and been rescued; and all of the crew, too, except one sailor, who, being lighter than the rest and more cautious where he stepped, alone remained dry. Now the patriots, one after another began to lose all heart and give up. “O God! and must I die here, with the shore and liberty just in sight.” “Get up!” shouted John our sailor, swearing at them the while, and threatening to put them square under unless they got up and went on. On the shore were some hundreds of persons watching the efforts of that devoted band, gesticulating to them, and trying to move them to take heart and gain the shore.

Other help they could not afford, much as they desired to do so, for the wind is so treacherous on these waters in midwinter that in a moment the ice might be broken and all lost. John, our hero, however, at last threatening to brain with his piece of board those who had given up, finally got them on their feet again, and a little nearer shore. About three o’clock in the afternoon saw them within twenty rods of the shore, and now the cheers and shouts of the crowd of sympathizers could be heard. “At last! oh, at last our troubles will be over, and we shall get ashore,” and their hopes arose once more. “But no, oh, dear, no! has God brought us through all these perils and hardships to die so near the shore?” Anguish almost as great as death itself was stamped on the face of the most intrepid of that band.

All at once the wind had risen from the south, and the ice began drifting into the lake. Already it had parted from the shore streak of ice and left a space of open water now seven feet wide. Jump it they could not, because their clothes were frozen so hard that they could not spring, and, besides, the ice on the other side of the open space was not thick enough to hold one alighting after the jump. Their last hope sank within them. Death stared them in the face; their wives and friends in Canada would see them no more. Every minute added to the width of the gulf of water between them and the shore ice, when up came the sailor with the last laggard, and in an instant threw his board over the open water, and “Now run for your lives,” said he, and they ran across the board, every man feeling this to be his last chance and his last effort. On shore at last! Tears, hot and blinding, ran down their cheeks, while the crowd gathered around them and cheered lustily. The sympathizers on shore conducted them to the bar-room of a hotel, in which was a huge fire-place, with an immense fire of logs blazing for their especial benefit. It seems this bar-room was sunken below the surface of the earth a step, and was floored with bricks. Quickly their icy clothes began to thaw, and in a little time, it is said, the water melted from their clothes actually stood three inches deep over the bar-room floor.

We have to add that the little vessel was lost and became a wreck. Well it was that it was lost, for a battery of artillery was stationed at the port whence it sailed, with orders to fire on the vessel and take every man a prisoner when she came back. Had they been taken, without a doubt they would all have been sent to Botany Bay as convicts, for twenty or thirty years each, as many others were, who went away as young men and came back grey-haired, broken-down old men, scarcely knowing their own country after so long an absence. As to the patriots, they were all pardoned and invited to come home, as we all know, which they did, many of them rising to high positions in Canada in after years. That this rebellion did great good to Canada neither Tories nor Reformers now deny, but it does seem hard that so many good and true men men had to suffer so much to have the wrongs righted. To-day Canada is as free as any country under the sun. I leave it to you, reader, to say if there could be a more joyful Christmas at any place in America than the portion of it remaining to those patriots after they got on shore.

The Industry is first in line represented in the illustration of the lumber loading, on [page 172]. The illustration on [page 186] will give some idea of the scene of the adventure of the escaping patriots, and the landing at Oswego, N.Y.

The ill-fated Industry drifted about upon the inclement lake, and was at last driven into a cove about Oak Orchard, N.Y. There a land pirate cut the ship up, and stole cables, anchors and shrouds. The following spring (1838), John Pickel and William Annis, at my father’s instance, went and found this freebooter, a worthless fellow, but married to a wealthy man’s daughter. Upon the claim being made, he was advised by legal men to settle it and thus avoid the penalty. Piracy in New York State is punishable by ten years’ State imprisonment. His father-in-law paid $1,100 for the man’s act, and that is all my father ever got for a ship valued at quite $8,000 at that day.

Some years afterwards, when in Upper Canada a “Rebellion Losses’ Bill” was passed and became law, it was thought that the loss of this ship would come under the meaning of this Act. As a very young man I urged my father to put in his claim. “No, my son,” he said, “if I was fool enough to risk my ship and my life in the business of the rebellion in midwinter, I deserved to lose it.” No claim was ever put in for the lost ship. And even now, after the lapse of sixty-one years, I do not think it prudent to give the names of the passengers it carried on that eventful trip. All of them came back to Canada. Many were in high government positions afterwards. Had the Government of the day in Upper Canada then captured that ship and its precious cargo, it may be the map of Canada would be different to-day.

I was in Botany Bay, Australia, and in Hobart, Tasmania, in 1896, when, fresh from reading the tales of Marcus Clark and Balderwood, I could not help thinking what untimely fate would have befallen the entire ship’s company had they been captured and transported.

Many persons were so hard pressed by the military during the rebellion, even if not participants, that they fled in every way possible. One man, on November 15th, 1837, stole a dug-out pine canoe from my father, and deliberately paddled alone across Lake Ontario, fully sixty-five miles (see [page 186]). Leaving Port Oshawa at 10 p.m., and having a fine north breeze, he made Oak Orchard, due south, at 4 p.m. the next day. The prow of the canoe he had taken was rotted off, but the paddler, sitting in the stern with a stone between his feet, by his own and the stone’s combined weight succeeded in keeping the open end raised above the water. This necessarily added much to the perils of the voyage, it being perilous enough in the best of weather to paddle across the lake in an open boat.