TRUTH LAURA SECORD STORY IS DEFENDED

SOME HISTORICAL RECORDS OF FAMOUS JOURNEY TO BEAVER DAMS

(By Fred Williams in the Mail and Empire)

[The Welland-Port Colborne Evening Tribune, 5 December 1931]

When Professor W. Stewart Wallace belittles the story of Laura Secord’s warning to Fitzgibbon in 1813, he is liable to bring down upon his head a storm of protest from Loyalists all over Ontario, and more especially in the Niagara district. It is, indeed, placing hands on the very temple of Niagara history. No mere student of records like myself should tilt with so learned an authority as Professor Wallace; but it would be interesting to know upon what he uses his declaration that FitzGibbon had been warned of the coming of the Americans before Mrs. Secord arrived. It is true that William Wood in his history of the war says that FitzGibbon had been previously warned by an Indian scout; as against this, it is pointed out by J.H. Ingersoll, K.C., in a paper (Ontario Historical Reports, XXIII) that FitzGibbon does not say so, but in his report to Major deHaran, dated 24^th June, after the engagement at Beaver Dams says, “At Decew’s this morning about 7 o’clock, I received information that about 1,000 of the enemy with 12 guns were advancing towards me from St. David’s,” etc. Upon which Mr. Ingersoll comments: “FitzGibbon gave a certificate to Mrs. Secord setting out the fact that she had warned him of the intended attack and in it does not mention that he had received any previous warning. I think it is fair to infer, therefore, that the warning from Laura Secord was the first that he had received (she is said in most versions to have reached FitzGibbon’s camp on the evening of the 23^rd) and that the information received by him at 7 o’clock in the morning of the 24^th was brought to him by the Indian scout whom he had sent out to watch for the approach of the enemy.”

What Certificate Says

The certificate mentioned above reads: “I do hereby certify that Mrs. Secord, the wife of James Secord, of Chippawa, Esq., did, in the month of June 1813, walk from her house in the village of St. David’s to Decamp’s house in Thorold, by a circuitous route of some twenty miles, partly through the woods, to acquaint me that the enemy intended to attempt by surprise to capture a detachment of the 49^th Regiment, then under my command, she having obtained such knowledge from good authority, as the event proved.

Mrs. Secord was a person of slight and delicate frame and made the effort in weather excessively warm, and I dreaded at the time that she might suffer in health in consequence of fatigue and anxiety, she having been exposed to danger from the enemy through whose line of communication she had to pass.

The attempt was made on my detachment by the enemy, and his detachment, consisting of upwards of 500 men, with a field piece of 50 dragoons, were captured in consequence. I write this certificate in a moment of much hurry, and from memory, and it is therefore thus brief.

James FitzGibbon, formerly lieutenant in the 49^th Regiment.”

There is, unfortunately (in the copy before me) no date to this certificate; it may have been written many years later; but the supporters of Mrs. Secord, who include most Niagara folk anyway, claim that it was in consequence of her warning that the scouts were sent out.

Her Own Declaration

Then there is Laura Secord’s own declaration when the Prince of Wales visited Niagara in 1860. When she went to the office of the Clerk of the Peace, for the purpose of signing the address to the Prince, along with the veterans of 1812, the clerk demurred, and she insisted asserting that she has done her country more signal service than half the soldiers and militiamen engaged in the war, which prompted William Kirby to write in the Niagara Mail: “We say the brave and loyal old lady ought not only to be allowed to sign the address, but she deserves a special introduction to the Prince of Wales as a worthy example of the fire of 1812, when both men and women vied alike in their resolution to defend the country.” In a later issue of the Mail, Kirby stated that the Prince visited Laura Secord at Chippawa. In March following he related how Mrs. Secord received a gift of one hundred pounds from the Prince.

Professor Wallace may consider the Laura Secord story as of little historical importance. He is entitled to his opinion; but the people of Niagara and most, of Ontario, will prefer to treasure the old story of the brave woman who risked her life to save her country.