This was how artist Lorne Kidd Smith (1880-1966) imagined the moment when Laura Secord stumbled into the headquarters of Colonel James Fitzgibbon on the evening of June 21st, 1813, and told him of the American plan. Her heroic trek was not recorded at the time, and indeed Laura herself was all but forgotten until 1860, when Albert Edward, Prince of Wales (and later King Edward VII), awarded her £100 in recognition of her wartime service. At last she was invited to tell her story, as given here, and Lieutenant Fitzgibbon, now a Colonel, officially corroborated it.
Part 1 of 2
I WILL tell you the story in a few words.
After going to St David’s and the recovery of Mr Secord,* we returned again to Queenston, where my courage again was much tried.* It was there I gained the secret plan laid to capture Captain Fitzgibbon and his party. I was determined, if possible, to save them. I had much difficulty in getting through the American guards. They were ten miles out in the country. When I came to a field belonging to a Mr de Cou,* in the neighbourhood of the Beaver Dams, I then had walked nineteen miles. By that time daylight had left me. I yet had a swift stream of water (Twelve-mile Creek) to cross over on an old fallen tree, and to climb a high hill, which fatigued me very much.
* Laura’s husband James Secord was seriously wounded in the Battle of Queenston Heights, a British victory on October 13th the previous year, and had been recuperating under his wife’s care ever since. The couple had married in 1797, and before the war they kept a little shop on the first floor of their home in the village of St Davids, which together with Queenston Heights now forms the town of Niagara-on-the-Lake.
* On May 27th, 1813, the American army had crossed the Niagara River and captured Fort George, gaining control of Queenston and the Niagara area. As he was not fit to fight, James was not deported to the USA as other men of military age were, but neither he nor Laura was left in peace, as they were moved into Queenston and American soldiers were billeted on them. The popular story goes that it was from the careless talk of these unwanted guests on the evening of June 21st that she learnt of General Dearborn’s plans. She stole out of the house early next morning.
* John DeCew (1766–1855) was a New Englander and British loyalist who emigrated to Canada in 1787 after the establishment of American independence. He founded a mill at DeCew Falls on Beaverdams Creek, a tributary of Twelve-Mile Creek, near Thorold in Ontario, and rapidly became a man of considerable means and influence. He served in the British Army during the War of 1812 but was taken prisoner early on. In the meantime, the British used his house at Beaver Dams as a military headquarters.
Précis
In 1813, during the Anglo-American War, US troops occupied the Niagara region of Upper Canada. When local resident Laura Secord learnt of their plan to surround and capture the British headquarters at Beaver Dams, she slipped out through the American patrols and crossed twenty miles of hard terrain in the hope of warning the British commander, James Fitzgibbon. (57 / 60 words)
Part Two
This scene by John Wesley Cotton (1868-1931) painted in 1913 shows the house that once belonged to John DeCew and which served as the headquarters of Lieutenant James Fitzgibbon while at Beaver Dams during the War of 1812. The house was subsequently damaged beyond repair by floods, and sadly no longer stands.
BEFORE I arrived at the encampment of the Indians, as I approached they all arose with one of their war yells, which, indeed, awed me. You may imagine what my feelings were to behold so many savages.* With forced courage I went to one of the chiefs, told him I had great news for his commander, and that he must take me to him or they would all be lost. He did not understand me, but said, ‘Woman! What does woman want here?’ The scene by moonlight to some might have been grand, but to a weak woman* certainly terrifying. With difficulty I got one of the chiefs to go with me to their commander. With the intelligence I gave him he formed his plans and saved his country.* I have ever found the brave and noble Colonel Fitzgibbon a friend to me. May he prosper in the world to come as he has done in this.
Laura Secord.
Chippewa, U.C., Feb. 18, 1861.
* By all accounts, the Mohawk in traditional battledress was indeed a demoralising sight. In times of peace, however, he was courteous and honest, and it was his white neighbour who seemed wild and untameable. In 1825, eighteen-year-old Jacob Peter, a Mohawk convert to Christianity, delivered this verdict: “You white people have the Gospel a great many years. You have the Bible too: suppose you read sometimes — but you very wicked. Suppose some very good people: but great many wicked. You get drunk — you tell lies — you break the Sabbath. But these Indians, they hear the word only a little while — they can’t read the bible — but they become good right away. They no more get drunk — no more tell lies — they keep the Sabbath day. To us Indians, seems very strange that you have missionary so many years, and you so many rogues yet. The Indians have missionary only a little while, and we all turn Christians.”
* This was not a comment on her sex but on herself. In confirming her story for the records, James Fitzgibbon wrote: “Mrs Secord was a person of slight and delicate frame; and made the effort in weather excessively warm, and I dreaded at the time that she must suffer in health in consequence of fatigue and anxiety, she having been exposed to danger from the enemy, through whose line of communication she had to pass.”
* About four hundred of the Five Nations (in this area chiefly the Mohawk tribe), a handful of local militiamen and some fifty British of the 49th Regiment confronted a force of over five hundred and forty US regulars at Beaver Dams near Thorold on June 24th, 1813. The Americans’ commanding officer, Major Charles G. Boerstler, was taken prisoner. The defeat and in particular the fighting spirit of the Iroquois so demoralised them that the Americans, who had taken Fort George only that May, hardly dared venture abroad ever after, and gladly abandoned the fort the following December.
Précis
As Secord neared the British headquarters, she was challenged by Iroquois sentries at their neighbouring camp, but swallowed her fears and demanded to see Fitzgibbon. The information she provided helped him to make a counterplan, and when the American attack came the British and their Five Nations allies defeated it soundly. Secord and Fitzgibbon remained friends ever after. (58 / 60 words)
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