< Green

Such is the story of the settlement of United Empire Loyalists in the Long Point District. It has been the aim of the writer to tell, in a simple and straightforward style, of those brave men who laid the foundation of a loyal British population in that part of Upper Canada. The material for the last forty chapters at least has been obtained from the descendants of these Loyalist settlers. Traditions as to the settlement of their ancestors are preserved in almost every family.

It may be wondered that the literature as to the Loyalists is so scanty, but the reason is not hard to guess. They who are driven from their homes, who surrender their property and are forced to flee with what little baggage can be carried on the back of a horse or a cow, exiles from their native land, wanderers in a strange one, leave but few written memorials for the guidance of those who come in after days. Their papers are scattered and lost. Further, those who must devote their time and energy to the all-absorbing task of clearing away the forest and rearing new homes for their little ones in a land removed from even the vestiges of civilization, have but little time or inclination for writing history or recording events. Their feelings are often too bitter for tears or for words. Hence, except for the purely historical part, dealing with their enforced exile from the land of their birth, common to all the Loyalists who sought a refuge in Canada, we have had to depend upon tradition.

It is to hoped that the traditions embodied in these pages are not materially inaccurate. The method of comparison and examination of different individuals as to the settlement of a single person has been adopted so far as circumstances would permit. It is astonishing to find so much unanimity and consistency as to the tales and stories that are embodied herein. Moreover, many an old man is living to-day who knew personally those whose lives are recorded in these pages. Sons are yet alive whose fathers carved a home out of the wilderness almost a century since, and their evidence in many cases is unimpeachable. The writer has been oftentimes intensely stirred by the stories told by old men, now on the verge of the grave. If these chapters give to the mind of the reader an increased feeling of pride in the early settlers of this Province, the purpose of this treatise has been accomplished, and these pages, begun in a spirit of extreme timidity, and sent forth with many a misgiving as to their crudeness and imperfection, will not have been in vain.

The Rev. Le Roy Hooker, of Detroit, expresses the issues which the Loyalists had to face, in a few beautiful lines:

"These be thy heroes, Canada!
These men, who stood, when pressed,
Not in the fevered pulse of strife,
When foeman thrusts at foeman’s life,
But in that sterner test
When wrong on sumptuous fare is fed,
And right must toil for daily bread,
And men must choose between,
When wrong in lordly mansion lies,
And right must shelter ‘neath the skies,
And men must choose between.
When wrong is cheered on every side,
And right is cursed and crucified,
And men must choose between.
And when you pray for Canada,
Implore kind heaven, that like a leaven,
The hero blood which then was given
May quicken in her veins each day;
So shall she win a spotless fame,
And like the sun her honored name,
Shall shine to latest years the same."

THE END.