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

Robert Biggar
2nd Flank Company
5th Regiment Lincoln Militia

Robert  Biggar along with his wife Mary Lauder came to Canada in 1806 from Scotland U.K.   Biggar along with his sons fought in the War of 1812 in the 2nd Flank Company 5th Regiment Lincoln Militia under Captain James Durand.  Biggar was awarded a land grant and came to the Mount Pleasant area in 1816.

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2nd Flank Company
5th Regiment Lincoln Militia