_Midnight in Fort Erie village. Kerby and Rutherford’s store
plundered by Buffalo thieves. O’Neil’s letter denouncing theft.
Young ladies seek safety on the American side. Newbigging’s farm.
Half a hundred horses collected. Stockdale’s farm plundered of
provisions. Mr. Penny, and Mrs. McCarty, robbed of money. Fenian
positions and defences at Frenchman’s creek. Fenian sentry shot by
his picket. Rifle bullet screens, how made by Fenians. Bridge set
on fire. O’Neil marches at midnight June 1st. Eighteen thousand
cartridges afterwards found in the creek. Also rifles and bayonets.
A night of sensations. “Worst looking blackguard of the whole was a
Scotchman.” Bivouac at Krafft’s farm. March at daylight, June 2nd.
Limestone rocks and house on Ridgeway road. Fenian head-quarters.
O’Neil’s conversation with Henry Angur. Stoneman’s three little
Boys, they ran to the woods._
It was about 11 a. m. on June 1st, that the Fenian main body were
aroused from slumber, in Waterloo village, and marched to northward,
three miles down Niagara shore road. Their absence relieved the
anxieties of the village corporation as to getting another mess for
one thousand men. But unhappily, a residue, not of military Fenians,
but of Buffalo, and other American city thieves was left. They had
followed the invaders to pursue their professional vocation.
One was a woman. She sought to win confidence, and thereby attain to
friendly familiarity with native Canadians, by weeping for a husband,
who “without intending it, had come from Buffalo with the Fenians,
not knowing what he did, with a drop too much to drink;” that he and
many more were about to desert and return to the American side.
Her assumed sorrow hardly deceived any one; and not at all, after a
Fenian officer came upon her at a house and ordered her off to the
other side on pain of being thrown into the river. He said; “We have
been followed by thieves, who are no part of our force, and this
woman is one of the worst: watch her.”
In the village, near the hour of midnight, the military body of the
Fenians being then at Frenchman’s creek, three miles north, the
landlord of the Forsyth House, was, with his wife, at an open window
inside of the verandah, anxiously observing parties of men who were
seen, by the moonlight to come across Niagara river, land at unusual
places of wharfage and go prowling about the village. Some he saw
come to the store of Kerby and Rutherford clothiers and general
dealers, next door to his house. It was shut, Mr. Rutherford only
being within, and as he afterwards stated, asleep. The men outside
broke open the door with billets of cordwood. Mr. Rutherford, when
aroused by the noise confronted them. He was seized and thrown on his
back across the counter, revolvers pointed to his head, and sternly
admonished to remain quiet. Some cases of champagne had been left
there for sale by a St. Catharines merchant. The plunderers quickly
discovered that part of the stock, and drank freely. A young man who
keeps a grocery store lower down the village was passing. He entered,
calling, “Rutherford, what is the matter?” One of the thieves struck
him with a champagne bottle across the face, cutting him frightfully,
and exclaiming, “That’s what’s the matter!” The grocer ran out
calling “help!” and “murder!” He was overtaken at the hotel door and
again struck. He ran across the street and attempted to get into a
house there. But no one dared open a door. He was followed by one who
threw him down, and with threats of shooting him dead, ordered him to
be quiet. The young man pleaded for life and said he would be quiet.
Then he ran south along the railway track, and obtained entrance to
a house at the south end of the village, where the bleeding gashes
in his face were dressed. The robber returned to his comrades, who
deliberately carried out bales of cloth, ready-made clothing and
other goods, and loaded their boats with which they departed across
the river. American customs officers were on watch and seized the
goods. The plunderers returned to the Canada shore. Two of them were
afterwards found among Fenian prisoners and identified. They are said
to have been known as thieves in the city of Hamilton.
On the subject of plunder the following letter, published in a
Buffalo daily paper, shows the terms in which Colonel O’Neil
disclaimed and denounced theft and thieves. It was dated June 5th,
1866, on board the U. S. steamer _Michigan_:
“To the Editor,—You will please make known through the news columns
of your paper, that I have in my possession a gold mourning ring,
engraved with the following inscriptions: on the outside in black
ground the words, ‘in memory of,’ on the inside ‘Lucretia Wrigly,
ob’t 6th Feb., 1829, Act 6,’ and under that, ‘Mary Wrigly, ob’t
6th Feb., 1830, Act 45,’ besides some other rather indistinct
characters, that the claimant will have to describe. Also a lady’s
gold pencil and mounted gold eye-glass, with chain attached made of
fine beads. These articles were found on the person of one of the
men in the scow; and I wish to say, to the credit of the men, that
loud and earnest threats of lynching the fellow were made, such was
the indignation at an act calculated to throw discredit on all,
and so contrary to discipline and the wishes of our body. And I
wish to say farther that were it not for our present circumstances
and relations, such an act would, as it ever will be by me and
my associate officers, have been punished with all the rigor of
army discipline. You will oblige us all by the publication of this
communication, both to set us right, and that the property may be
restored to its owner.
“(Signed) JOHN O’NEIL, Colonel.”
When the Fenians arrived at Newbigging’s farm on Frenchman’s creek
about noon June 1st, two sons of the family had just returned from
hurriedly taking their sister and other young ladies to a place of
safety on the American side. O’Neil was then mounted on the cream
colored charger which had been “borrowed” from Mr. James Stivens of
the Ferry, and which he next day rode in the combat at Limestone
Ridge. This horse was returned to its owner on Sunday the 3rd,
considerably jaded.
The Fenian chief alighted at the garden wicket, which opens from the
road skirting Niagara river, walked up to the house, where he was
met at the door by Mrs. Newbigging. This family came from Greenock,
in Scotland some years ago. The Fenian courteously introduced
himself, was sorry to cause alarm; assured the lady that although
the premises, on this side the creek and fields beyond were occupied
by an armed force, no harm would be done, if every one in the house
remained quiet. He had a sick gentlemen whom it was necessary to put
to bed. Soldiers would be placed in the house to attend him, and
protect the family. None else would be permitted within doors. O’Neil
and officers, some of them, not all, had meals in the house; and the
sick person had warm drinks, all of which were prepared by Fenian
hands; Mrs. Newbigging’s offers of assistance being declined. All
remained quiet within doors, but there was uproar outside. Between
forty and fifty horses were collected and brought to the premises
before sunset, upon all of which men wildly mirthful and grotesque in
dress and manners galloped and curvetted about, along the river side
road and over the farm fields. An American reporter said a hundred
horses. Three of Mr. Newbigging’s best were taken. One of brown color
with white hind feet answered the description of a charger shot
under its rider in the combat of next day, and which he supposed was
his; but the three were returned on Sunday, June 3rd, not seriously
injured though much distressed. One of his waggons and a set of
harness were found in the woods a wreck. Several of his sheep were
killed, and at the hurried midnight departure thrown into the creek.
At Mr. Stockdale’s house next farm north, thirteen cured hams,
several crocks of butter and sacks of flour were taken. That
provision had been made for hay and harvest workers. Nine or ten
of the hams rudely slashed with sword cuts, and sacks of flour
were afterwards found in the creek. An old Englishman named Penny,
residing alone, was visited; his money was demanded. He gave a
dollar, all he had. They threatened, he says, to bake him on the
stove if he did not disclose where more money was concealed, but
beyond frightening the poor man, the plunderers only seem to have
taken the dollar. Mrs. McCarty living further down the river side
road, said they tore up her carpets, broke open a bureau and took
twelve dollars in money. Many fowls, turkeys and geese were taken.
Their remains, with feathers, still strewed the bivouac field when I
was there, 19th to 22nd June.
Frenchman’s creek is a deep sluggish stream, sixty to eighty feet
wide, with marshy banks. Its dull water, seemingly motionless mingles
with the clear swift current of the great Niagara, which is here
about a mile wide to Strawberry Island opposite. At the mouth of the
creek, close on the river shore, is a bridge of timber. Newbigging’s
house and farmyard are a hundred yards south of the creek. An apple
orchard, willow and poplar trees skirt it on the north side. A field
of grass lies beyond the orchard and north of that, other fields
which gave a clear rifle range of from five to eight hundred yards,
down the river side, and inland over clear stretches of from eight
hundred yards to a mile. At these distances from the river were
forest thickets, only a few trees intervening on the open pastures.
Here O’Neil, apprehensive that Colonel Peacocke, or other British
commander would bring up a force by Niagara river side, constructed
screens of fence rails across the pasture field, and in the orchard,
from east to west to command the approach from north. The creek
bended on his left flank and round upon his rear to Niagara river
which flanked his right. The position was comparatively strong
except as against artillery. Beyond the creek westward, twelve
hundred yards to forest thickets, and southerly from Newbigging’s
house, pickets were thrown out, and sentries posted: these last all
round and back in the woods. And mounted scouts, furnished from
the locality and from Buffalo, penetrated to the interior of the
country. The creek so frequently mentioned, with a devious course
comes through marshy meadows from south-west. On each side are
gently elevated grounds, well cultivated, and long settled called
the Ridges. A road runs diagonally through the farm lots and squared
township roads from a point two miles below, and north of Frenchman’s
creek, following the bends of a ridge to the south-west ending on
Lake Erie, nine or ten miles west of Waterloo village. This road
follows the Limestone Ridge, and is therefore termed Ridge Way.
From the careful dispositions of his force, and the half circle of
outlying pickets, with sentries along the roads in all directions,
O’Neil evinced apprehension of being attacked there. One of the
sentries posted in the thicket, fourteen hundred yards west of the
bivouac field was shot during the night by another Fenian sentry
who had mistaken him for a Canadian. His comrades stripped him of
clothing except a flannel. Next day when some farmers who went to
bury the body, were tracing the course the bullet had taken, through
right arm, right side, to the heart, a pocket containing $112 in
greenbacks, was discovered. A custom house officer took charge of
the money. The Fenian picket of which this man was a sentinel were
then prisoners, and among them the sergeant before spoken of. They
said their comrade had been shot “accidentally,” they not choosing,
perhaps, to admit that the bullet which killed him had been intended
for a subject of Her Majesty the Queen. The farmers wished the
coroner to hold an inquest, but he declined. The deceased man had a
cross suspended on his breast, and the figure of one with initials
marked on his left arm. He is buried on the edge of the wood where
the body was found.
The split rails of oak, averaging about six inches thick, so well
known as “snake fences” in Canada, “Virginia rails” on the other
side, about fifteen feet long, which are piled in a zigzag form,
alternately overlying each other at the end, and rising to a height
of five, six, or seven feet, were carried from the sides of the
Niagara river road, and from other fields, and piled as rifle bullet
screens. These extended at intervals across the pasturage in front of
Newbigging’s orchard from the river on the right, to the westerly
bend in the creek, distance four or five hundred yards. The screens
were formed thus:
A rail was cut in three pieces; the ends sharpened, and driven
into the ground in form like x. Two of these x’s supported a rail
horizontally set at a height of about three feet. From that two or
more rails slanted downward to the ground, from the position in
which sharpshooters were to be screened. Then a lower roof of rails
was laid longitudinally and horizontally on these, beginning on the
ground, rising to the higher level. Then an upper roof was laid by
pieces placed transversely to the former, and as closely together as
they would lie. This roof sloped from three feet high to the ground
at an angle of about thirty degrees, or less. It was intended that
rifle bullets, hitting it from the direction in which the opposing
force might come, would glance off over the heads of sharpshooters
ensconced behind. Some of these screens were four feet high in
rear, others only two, generally they were elevated three feet. The
different sections of screens were regulated by the length of rails,
and were not placed continuously end to end, but were advanced, like
detached columns twelve or twenty yards before others, and much
scattered. Probably this was done in expectation that, if artillery
fired upon them, all would not be knocked down at once.
A way of escape was intended under cover of the orchard, within which
screens were also placed at intervals, to the bridge over the creek,
close to Niagara shore. The creek is there about seventy feet wide;
the bridge eighty feet long. Piles of fence rails split to be readily
combustible, were laid on the bridge to be set on fire, should the
attack be from north and the Fenians have to retreat behind the
Newbigging farm premises and south by the way on which they had
advanced. The destruction of that bridge, and the rifle shooting
which for a time might have been practised from the farm house and
barns, to give the main body of Fenians time to escape to their scows
and steam tug at Lower Ferry where they first landed, three quarters
of a mile south and round a bend out of sight of their present
position, would have probably delayed an advancing force for a time.
That is, had such force come by the river-side road and that only.
But there were inland roads by which, as O’Neil knew the British
could approach from the direction of the Great Western railway at
Niagara Suspension bridge and from Chippewa. There was also a line
of rails, the Erie and Niagara track which though not regularly open
for traffic, had been recently repaired to be opened; and G. W. R.
trains, it was supposed could pass up the track to Waterloo village.
Information having reached the Fenian colonel at Frenchman’s creek,
sometime between 10 p. m. and midnight, June 1st, that Colonel
Peacocke of Her Majesty’s army, with a force of Royal Artillery,
regular, Infantry and Canada Volunteers, had reached Chippewa, a
village three miles south of Niagara Falls, and about four miles
south of Suspension Bridge, fifteen miles north of his bivouac on
Frenchman’s creek, he decided to leave his position and march into
the interior of the country.
To gain the Welland canal and railway at Port Colborne was now, as
it had from the first been the Fenian object. O’Neil either expected
additional forces unarmed from the American side, or to have had
unarmed Fenians joining him in Canada, most probably the latter. For
at the creek were collected spare arms and ammunition. This was in
boxes of one thousand cartridges each; ten packages of one hundred,
to a box; ten smaller parcels of ten to each package, and twelve
percussion caps with each parcel of ten. Eighteen of the boxes had
been fished up from the bottom of the creek, close by the bridge
previous to 20th of June, containing 18,000 cartridges. Possibly more
had been sunk elsewhere. The boxes had been punctured by bayonets to
admit water to destroy the powder. Each box bore a date, “1865,” and
the name of a United States arsenal, most of them that of “Bridport.”
The arms, rifles and bayonets, were piled on a fire kindled on centre
of the timber bridge, to be destroyed with that structure. They had
been sunk in the creek. Ninety rifles were taken out and accounted
for before 20th of June. How many more were found or still remained
in the water, was uncertain. Rifles had also been broken by striking
the butts against trees. The bark of apple and cherry trees, poplars
and willows along the creek, indicated where the rifle stocks had
been broken; and stock, lock, and barrel thrown into the water.
Remnants of barrels and locks were also found in the ashes of the
numerous cooking fires which had been used along the orchard and
pasture field.
The Fenian Chief’s object in burning the bridge, on his removal
north, from Frenchman’s creek at midnight of June 1st, was to prevent
pursuit in his rear, in the event of a British force having reached
Waterloo village (commonly called Fort Erie) by an inland road. To
cover his movement he left his outlying pickets on their posts,
southerly and west of the creek and Newbigging’s house. Some men
of these pickets escaped across Niagara, when at daylight, June
2nd, they discovered that the main body had left; others remained,
refusing to believe that any British force was approaching. Certain
of the farmers, acting with Mr. Murray a customs officer, took them
prisoners, as also other stragglers, and during the forenoon, of
June 2nd, delivered them to a party of the Welland Artillery, who
placed them on board the steamer Robb. They formed part of a batch of
sixty-five prisoners taken to Brantford jail, afterwards to Toronto.
The Newbigging family passed a night of keen sensations. They did
not know that O’Neil and his force had left, having been ordered,
when he and officers took supper at 11 p. m., in their house, to stay
strictly within doors. They dreaded that, if the Fenians remained
until the expected advance of British troops in the morning, they
would, on retreating burn the premises; or, if giving battle, that
the creek, bridge, dwelling-house and barns would be the central
theatre of fiery conflict, or, if the British did not come soon, that
their cows, sheep, everything consumable would be taken for Fenian
food, and the premises perhaps, burned at last.
The “worst looking blackguard of the whole” according to the judgment
of the lady of the house, was a small sized Scotchman, who had been
pugilistically engaged and had then a disfigured face. He was asked
what induced him to be a Fenian? and replied that he had been a
soldier, in the American army, was discharged, wanted something to
do, and so joined the army of General Sweeny.
A youthful volunteer of the 13th left wounded on the field of
Limestone Ridge next day, relates that he narrowly escaped murder
after being a prisoner, and was saved by intervention of a Fenian
Scotchman. If that was the same person he had a good side as well as
a bad and an ill-favored face.
After leaving Frenchman’s creek the invaders marched five miles
north, to the town lines of Bertie and Willoughby; then west to Lot
16, 8th concession of Bertie, the property of Louis Krafft. There
they bivouacked till daylight; having as at the Newbigging farm,
erected bullet screens of rails, posted pickets and made a show of
entrenching and defending a position on Black creek.
At sunrise they marched south, and struck the road called Ridgeway,
and then south-west on that road until they reached the property of
Henry F. Angur, Lot 4. 10th concession of Bertie. About a hundred
yards distant from the road, skirting it on the south, the limestone
rock has a vertical face, the farm fields above the precipice sloping
upward and south two or three hundred yards to a pine thicket; the
country to north of the road being nearly level, and stretching half
a mile to the skirts of a thicket of maple and oak where also is a
marsh and a stream, which is a feeder of Black creek. Henry Angur’s
house is on the wayside, not many yards from the vertical rocks.
There, O’Neil halted to reconnoitre, and, as events came out made
his head-quarters during the combat which derives its name from that
locality. It was now 5 a. m. June 2nd.
On the previous day messengers came along this road and warned the
inhabitants that the Fenians were to march that way to Port Colborne
and to Port Robinson to capture the Welland canal. The farmers,
whose houses are nearly all on the wayside, if their land touch it,
removed their families and the best of their horses and cattle that
day. Henry Angur, aged 73, afflicted with gout and moving only on
crutches chose to remain. He is an intelligent veteran from the war
of 1812, and the rebellion of 1837-38. He said his family wanted him
to go in the waggon, but, “he had been in two wars and would risk
a third.” O’Neil had been well informed of the inhabitants lining
in that district, of the horses they possessed, with the number and
names of their sons. On entering this house he looked the old man in
the face and said: “Your name is Henry Angur?” “Yes, sir, Henry F.
Angur; what may your name be, if you please?” “My name is O’Neil. I
am chief in command of fourteen hundred men, (Mr. Angur feels sure he
gave that number), now in possession of your premises, your farm and
country from the ferry to Ridgeway; where are your sons?” “I have no
sons at home, sir,” “No sons at home? nonsense! where is Jim?” “Well,
sir, I don’t know where Jim have gone.” “When did you last see him?”
“Last see him? well sir, Jim went yesterday to the mill with a grist,
and I suppose he heard ill news and so have not come home.” “What ill
news do you think he heard?” “The same as we heard here, I suppose.”
“What was that?” “It was that the Fenians had landed, and to begin
with had killed Dr. Kempson of the Ferry.” “But Dr. Kempson is not
killed, nor injured, don’t you know that no harm has happened him or
any one else, from us?” “I have heard since that he was not killed;
but what, sir, are you going to do with us?” “Tell me first Mr.
Angur, have you any Johnny Bulls around here?” “Johnny Bulls, sir?
I don’t exactly comprehend.” “Yes, you comprehend quite well; have
you seen any red-coats here about? any of Queen Victoria’s soldiers?
or of Canadian Volunteers? any armed men? any cavalry? artillery?
infantry?” “No, sir, I have not; I have not indeed, sir.” “Very well,
that will do for the present. Captain” (to an officer of the staff)
“you and a guard remain in charge of this house and this old man.
Make every person prisoner you find.” O’Neil, after that conversation
proceeded in the direction of the railway station at Ridgeway, but
did not go farther, it is supposed, than about Hoffman’s tavern, the
“Smuggler’s Home,” a mile in advance of Henry Angur’s house and about
two miles short of the station.
A nephew of the old man, a youth of sixteen remained beside his horse
in sight of the conflict in the woods 800 yards north of the road.
Another young man lay concealed in the roof of a barn. He said he
counted over twelve hundred Fenians pass the barn. All else had left
the previous day. At the farm house of Mr. Stoneman, half way between
Henry Angur’s and J. N. Angur’s (that name being German is pronounced
Anker) I spoke to three small boys a few days after the fight, the
hottest of which had been in their orchard, and in fields adjoining.
They were aged about eleven, nine, and seven. “Where were you little
boys, the time of the battle?” “Back in the woods, over yonder.”
(pointing north). “How far?” “Back ever so far—six mile” “Did you go
soon in the morning?” “No, day before.” “How did you know the day
before that Fenians were coming this way?” “A man came along from the
Ferry, telling all around here to clear.” “Did you carry provisions
with you?” “Some, not much.” “Where did you stay all Friday night?”
“Slept in the woods?” “Were you frightened?” “Yes, I think so; you’d
have been frightened too.” “You have fancy pigeons in that cage;
did you take them to the woods?” “No, they hung just there all the
time.” “And the Fenians did not take them?” “They took fowls, and
then throwed fowls away; pigeons were no use to them, but they were
near being shot; you can see where bullets went through boards of
the house—up there, and here, and there again, and the trees in the
orchard are scored all over with bullets.”
Up to this point the narrative has followed the track of the Fenians.
Let us now turn to the prompt mustering of forces, the patriotic, the
impassioned attitude of defiance, the gallant rush to the frontier,
to repulse from Canadian soil, this unrighteous army of intruders,
who by no law recognized on earth or in heaven was justified in its
invasion of Canada.