Category Archives: Veteran

War of 1812 Veteran

James Bennet
Flank Company
2nd Regiment Lincoln Militia

James Bennet was born in New York State and came to Canada as a young man and registered as a United Empire Loyalist.  Bennet fought in the War of 1812 and served as a Private in the Flank Company 2nd Regiment Lincoln Militia.  After the war, Bennet was awarded a land grant and raised his family there.  His wife’s name was Jerusha Van Etten (Vanatter) who was also born in the US and together they had 10 children, seven sons and three daughters.

William Gammon
18th Regiment Dragoon Guards

William Gammon joined the British Regiment and was assigned to the 18th Regiment Dragoon Guards.  He served part of his time in the War of 1812 and later returned to England.  Gammon married his wife Sarah in England and returned to Canada, settling in the Mount Pleasant area where he farmed.  William and Sarah had at least one son George who was living with them along with his wife Annie and their children as recorded during the 1871 census.

Alexander Murchison
104th Regiment of Foot

Alexander Mercherson was a native of the parish of Kilmere on the Isle of Skye.  He was born about 1766.  When the New Brunswick Regiment of Fencible Infantry (later the 104th (New Brunswick) Regiment of Foot) was raised in 1803, one of the recruiting parties was sent to the Highlands of Scotland.  Mercherson (also spelled Murcherson and Murchison) was one of those recruited there.  He joined the regiment in October 1804, probably at Inverness, at the age of 38.  He may have been married at the time.  His wife was Barbara Macketche, a native of Inverness.  The Scottish recruits arrived in Fredericton on 20 September 1805 accompanied by seventeen women and forty-eight children.  Mercherson served as a private soldier for all of his career.

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William Brown Bradley
104th Regiment of Foot

William Brown Bradley and his twin brother Lewis Turner
Bradley  were born in Savannah, Georgia c1771. Their father, Richard Bradley, died c1780-81. During the Revolutionary War he was employed by the  Commissariat, a non-uniformed civilian body. Their mother was Sarah Turner, daughter of Lewis and Jeston Turner of Whitemarsh Island, Georgia.

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104th Regiment of Foot

Henry Merritt
98th Regiment of Foot

Henry Merritt, born c 1794 in Stanton Parish, Wiltshire, England joined the 98th Regiment of Foot on 30 January 1812 in Newbury, Birkshire, England.  He came to North America with his regiment for the War of 1812, arriving in 1814. He may have been part of the very successful British invasion of the Penobscot River as far as Bangor, Maine in 1814, by 700 British in selected companies from several regiments including the 98th Regiment.  However, the Muster Rolls and Pay Lists reviewed by Yelland do not show Merritt between 1814-15.

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Walter Storey
Flank Company
1st Regiment Middlesex Militia

Very little is available about Walter Story. He was 29 at the beginning of the War of 1812. Born in Ireland about 1783, he moved to Pennsylvania in 1800 and then to Upper Canada in 1809 with his extended family, settling in the Talbot Settlement on Lake Erie. He farmed and remained single. He died the 12th of February, 1831, and was buried in St. Peter’s Cemetery, Dunwich Township.

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Flank Company
1st Regiment Middlesex Militia

Thomas Talbot
1st Regiment Middlesex Militia

Colonel the Honourable Thomas Talbot was born into an Anglo-Irish aristocratic family, on ancestral lands in Malahide, Republic of Ireland, which the Talbots had owned since the 12th century. He was born on July 19, 1771, the fourth of twelve children. At the age of 11, he was commissioned ensign in the 66th Regiment of Foot, British Army. In February, 1792, at 20 years of age, he was in Montreal with the 24th Foot when he was named private secretary to John Graves Simcoe, the first lieutenant governor of the new province of Upper Canada. With Simcoe, and later on Simcoe’s behalf, Talbot traveled extensively between York and Detroit, bounded by the Thames River and the Lake Erie shoreline.

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1st Regiment Middlesex Militia

William Wintermute
Niagara Light Dragoons

William Wintermute, (1795-1871) was born in Bertie Township, Ontario  and served in the Niagara Light Dragoons during the War of 1812. His father, Peter Wintermute, was a corporal in Mckinnon’s Company, Butler’s Rangers. The Wintermutes made a hasty retreat to Canada with Colonel John Butler after the Wyoming Massacre which was fought in front of their stockade (Fort Wintermoot) in July, 1779. The Union flag which flew over their fort on that fateful day (225 rebels were killed with only slight Ranger losses) was brought back to Niagara and eventually stored in the Butler residence in Newark.

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Niagara Light Dragoons