THE BATTLE OF RIDGEWAY

A REMINISCENCE

By

META SCHOOLEY LAWS

             That was a very interesting article in a recent issue of The Tribune and Telegraph relating to the five (four) survivors of the Q.O.R. who fought at Ridgeway, June, 1866.

             What a peculiar friendship must exist between them!

             Dr. Brewster of Ridgeway was one of the veterans of the Grand Army of the Republic.

             One day he told us how year after year the number that met in their annual gathering grew smaller, and the bond between each of them stronger. How in the last years the once great gathering was but a small meeting of close, close friends.

             Doubtless the same feeling exists among these five (four).

             How often as a child sitting in the pew half-way down the church, have I looked at the white marble tablet which gave the Memorial church its name.

             One morning father took me up to it after church and read the names and the stanza of Thomas Campbell’s inscribed on it:

             We drove home that day the “long way round” by the Athoe home, whose porch pillars were marked by the bullets.

             How often he told us the story for we never tired of it of how grandfather took the horses and cattle back to the marsh, which then extended for miles, just a little north of the Maple grove and its adjoining farms. Grandfather wanted his wife to come with um, but she refused. She “had her bread started” and father and Uncle Duncan stayed with her, of course.

             Auntie Sloan too, stayed in the stone house on Point Abino alone. They were the only two women of that neighborhood who did not leave their homes.

             Mrs. Zachariah Teal (Nancy Alexander) was the only woman who stayed in Ridgeway.

             About four in the afternoon, father told us, the firing was so distinct that he and his brother went to Ridgeway. The five (four) survivors spoken of in that article could not have been among those whom grandma fed, as they retreated she gave them all she had prepared in the house. When she told us the story she never failed to say, “The poor tired boys! I was glad I had stayed at home.”

             Charlie Lugsdin, whose name was mentioned, was left in Auntie Sloan’s care by his comrades, who carried him that far about five miles.

             Father used to tell that cattle in the near-by bush wood frightened the Fenians, who thought the noise was the approach of cavalry, and turned and fled after the Q.O.R. had retreated.

             Years after, while the writer taught at Ridgeway, a white-haired old clergyman visited the church.

             He stood a few moments before the marble tablet, and when he rose spoke first of one whose name we had so often read-Malcolm MacEchren, sergeant, who died of wounds.

             “He was my classmate and chum,” the old man said, and he described the stalwart young Scot to us, and then preached on “Sacrifice,” not the sermon prepared for the occasion, he said afterward.

             A few weeks later Rev. Mr. Dobson, now gone “home” too, occupied the pulpit and he told us of “Willie Temple,” whose name is also engraved there-“ a delicate winsome lad who gave his all.”

             “To what purpose is this waste,” was the text he chose.

             In the entry of the remodeled Methodist church that tablet has been placed, and beside it another bearing the names of those who made the supreme sacrifice in the last great war.

             Ah me! How many “boxes of alabaster, very precious,” have been broken-Sacrifice.

             Not long ago another story of this time came my way. The House’s lived in the vicinity but north and east of the battlefield. Mr.House took the horses back into the country, but his wife and the children stayed home.

             Toward evening little Charlotte and her brother drove the cattle to the pasture, for everything seemed quiet.

             They had some distance to go, and had just reached the “bars” of the field when a group of the Fenians came out of the woods near them. The poor children were dreadfully frightened and began to cry.

             The cattle had been shut in all day and were impatient to get to their feeding ground, and the little ones could not manage them.

             The leader of the Fenians halted his men and asked the boy what was wrong, told him that men didn’t cry, let down the bars and helped them drive the cattle in.

             Long afterward Charlotte (Mrs. Shrigley) lived at Maple Grove farm, and her niece, Mrs. John White, told the story to me as she had heard it

             You young people are missing a great deal of enjoyment if you do not cultivate the acquaintance of the few-so few old people who could tell you stories of these old days.

             History-is it not?

             In June ‘96, I think, the fiftieth anniversary of the Battle of Ridgeway was observed. The lieutenant-governor unveiled a monument on the battle ground.

             Elgin county has, through the efforts of their Historical society, marked by stone tablets the first registry office, which was a small log structure, They have a fairly accurate record of the first families who settled there.

             Norfolk county, too, is systemically searching out early records.

             Welland county should give the Historical society there more appreciation. There should be a branch in every township, and the fragments of pioneer history should be gathered quickly and pieced together. For every township had its great men and women, whose life story would be a tale of romance, adventure, yes, and accomplishment.

             They, too, like the heroes of the Q.O.R. fought, and won, and died. Few of them saw the result of their heroic sacrifice. Most of them would, like the old soldier in Tennyson’s poem, scorn praise for their valor, in his words-

             Not even five nor one of them is left but we in whose veins their blood flows; we who owe to them the best we have and are; we bow our heads by the too-often neglected churchyard where their ashes lie and whisper of them, too, that-

             “Their name liveth forevermore,” for of them, as of the soldier dead, it is true that the words inscribed on the memorial tablet are true.

The Welland Tribune and Telegraph

4 June 1927