Tag Archives: Fort Detroit

Veteran

Daniel McAfee
Flank Company
5th Regiment Lincoln Militia

Daniel McAfee was born 4 Aug 1791 in New York State, the son of Lieut. Dudley McAfee.  By  1812 he had crossed the Niagara River and was living in the Niagara Peninsula.  He served as a Sergeant, serving under Captain Samuel Hatt’s Flank Company, 5th Regiment Lincoln Militia, from 1812 to 1814.  Daniel was at the taking of Detroit and at the Battle of Queenston Heights.  He was taken prisoner by the Americans while conveying prisoners down the lake to Toronto and confined at Greenbush, near Albany, digging himself out and escaping.  He was discharged at Queenston.  His service is well-documented in 1812 Upper Canada Returns, Nominal Rolls and Paylists, RG 9 1B7. In 1876, when the  Dominion of Canada presented the veterans of the War of 1812 with an annuity, Daniel is 84 years old and applied for this annuity from Galt in Waterloo County.

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Veteran

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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Veteran

Gilman Willson
1st Regiment Middlesex Militia

Captain Gilman Willson (1771-1836)

At 39 years of age, Gilman Willson was described by Samuel Street, J.P. as “an honest, industrious man and — a respected inhabitant,” of Bertie Township, Niagara. More than 20 years earlier, in 1787, his Loyalist family had come from New Jersey and settled along the Niagara River, seven miles north of Fort Erie. Now, in 1811, Gilman was preparing for another move, this time to a wilderness settlement at Port Talbot on the north shore of Lake Erie, 150 miles further west.

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Veteran

George Crane
Flank Company
1st Regiment Middlesex Militia

George Crane was born in Scotland in 1771. In 1803, at 32 years of age, he was in Upper Canada after retiring from the British Army. By May 6, he was in York (now Toronto) when his path crossed with another ex-military, Thomas Talbot. Talbot had left England early in February with instructions from the Colonial Secretary to the Lieutenant Governor granting him 5,000 acres of land and permission to establish a settlement in the wilds of Upper Canada.

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Flank Company
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Veteran

Henry Rammage
Royal Artillery

The 41st came to Canada in 1799, serving both Upper and Lower Canada prior to the war. They arrived on the western front, at Amherstburg, in 1805. By then, their reputation  as an effective fighting force had been well established. General Brock noted the men to be “fit and well informed” and mentioned their “high state of discipline.” When war broke out they had already spent thirteen years in North America and they were expecting to return home to Britain on a rotation transfer. Instead, the marching orders were altered; remain fast and defend the Motherland’s colony.
A small guard detachment stationed at Fort Malden fired the opening shots of the war, their target General Hull’s men at the River Canard bridge. The date was July 16, 1812. The heroic stand became a rallying cry as the Regiment stepped up its war rehearsal manoeuvers.

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Veteran

Alexander Clark
Caldwell’s Rangers

Alexander Clark(e), was born in Brownstown, Michigan, on 10 May 1800.  Alexander’s father was Thomas Alexander Clark(e) who died c 1840 and his mother was Catherine Brown who died c 1802.

After Catherine’s death, Thomas married Catherine’s sister, Mary Brown (d 1863). Alexander’s family remained in Brownstown until he was four years old, when the Huron Indian chiefs in council granted his father a tract of land on the Canadian side, now known as the Clarke Grant and he and his parents moved there in 1804.

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Veteran

Jonathan Austin
2nd Regiment Norfolk Militia

Jonathan, the second son of Solomon Austin, m Miss Hannah Potts, and had seven children. He and his son John built Austin’s mills in the Lynn Valley.

In the war of 1812, true to their principles of loyalty, the father and four sons (Solomon Jr., Jonathan, Phillip and Moses) shouldered their muskets and marched under Brock to fight the hated “Yankees,” once more. They fought at Malcolm’s Mills (Oakland), Fort Malden, Fort Detroit, Fort Erie, Nanticoke Creek, McCrae House and Lundy’s Lane. In the 2nd Regiment Norfolk Militia Jonathan attained the rank of Captain and his commanding officer was Lieutenant Colonel Robert Nichol. The descendants of this family are the most numerous of any of the families of the settlement.

Sources

Ontario Historical Society

Officers of the British forces in Canada during the War of 1812-15

Veteran

Titus Williams
Flank Company
2nd Regiment Norfolk Militia

Colonel Titus Williams, born Long Island, 22 November, 1790, son of Captain Jonathan Williams, of the British Army. Received Ensign’s Commission in the 2nd Regiment Norfolk Militia. Volunteered on 27 June 1812, the day of the war’s outbreak, appointed Lieut., in Left Flank Company. Commanded a detachment of Norfolk men at Detroit. Became Captain and Adjutant of the 2nd Regiment Norfolk Militia at Detroit some time later. Was afterwards captured by Americans on Niagara River, sentenced to be executed, but was liberated in May, 1814. Immediately appointed Adjutant of the 4th Regiments Norfolk Militia and was at Lundy’s Lane. Then placed in command of the 103rd Regulars at Dover and Ryerse.

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