Unveiling of Private Jesse Page’s plaque by members of St Mark’s Masonic Lodge #94: L to R Bro. John Skidmore, Historian, Bro. Donald Cousins and Worshipful Master Robert Kenney. Jesse Page’s gravestone bears the insignia of the Freemasons, however lodge records only go back to the 1860s so no history on Jesse Page’s membership exists.
Jesse Page was born the 30 August 1771 in Goochland, Virginia, the son of Joseph Page and Mary Robbins. He was the eldest son, but second of five children born to Joseph and Mary. At some point, Jesse emigrated to Wainfleet Twp., Welland County where he met and married Elizabeth Parker on the 20 February 1810. Elizabeth was born the 2 Jan 1776 in Northumberland County, Pennsylvania. Jesse and Elizabeth were members of the Society of Friends and became one of the original families who followed Jonathan Doan to Yarmouth Twp., Elgin County when the Quaker colony was being established there.
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.
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.
