By Robert J. Foley
[Welland Tribune, April 1991]
With the British defeat at the battle of the Thames, Sir George Provost ordered the evacuation of all of Upper Canada west of Kingston. Fortunately Major General Vincent, who had resumed command in that theatre of operations, felt a withdrawal to Burlington would suffice.
The Americans were quick to take advantage of the withdrawal from the Peninsula and reoccupied Queenston and Chippawa. Joseph Willcocks and his Canadian Volunteers also wasted no time in exacting a price from the loyalists who had been left behind. Farms were pillaged and buildings burned by those who had once been neighbors and friends. Willcocks arrested prominent loyalists and had them sent to prisons in the States. Among them was 80 year old peter McMicking of Stamford who had been High Constable of Lincoln County, a coroner and a town warden.
Upon hearing of the arrests and raids, Colonel John Murray convinced Vincent that a small force should be moved back into the Peninsula to protect the inhabitants. Subsequently Murray led a force of 378 regulars of the 8th Regiment and some volunteers including Merritt’s Dragons and established a base at Forty Mile Creek (Grimsby).
Captain William Hamilton Merritt cautiously led his troop east away from their base at Forty Mile Creek. Where were the Americans? The Indians had been in contact with their pickets the previous evening, but now they were nowhere to be found.
A signal from an advance scout brought Merritt forward at the gallop and the tail end of the American column was sighted tramping toward Twenty Mile Creek. Merritt sent his dragoons charging down the road scattering the American infantry and fighting a sharp engagement with some American cavalry who quickly withdrew from the scene. Some of the infantry tried to resist but many quickly surrendered and were marched off as prisoners of war.
With the American Army in retreat Murray pushed his force forward to Twenty Mile Creek and then to Twelve Mile Creek (St. Catharines). The Americans, meanwhile, had pulled back to Fort George. The American commander, Brigadier General George McClure, was in a precarious position. The enlistment of many of his troops was expiring and his force began melting away. Willcock’s raids had further alienated the local population and when one of Murray’s outposts soundly defeated a probing force McClure decided to withdraw to Fort Niagara.
December 10th dawned cold and blustery with snow drifting in the lee of the well-kept picket fences. Joseph Willcocks had been beside himself when told of the plans to abandon the Peninsula. He had at least wrung the order to burn the town from McClure on the pretext of denying shelter to the advancing British troops. Willcocks was determined to punish his former neighbors for slights, real and imaginary; he had suffered since going over to the Americans. The Canadians Volunteers and American militiamen went door to door giving the inhabitants one hour to get out what they could. At dusk the destruction began.
Willcocks mounted the steps of the Dickson house, fire brand in hand, followed by two of his men. The younger of the two had explained that the woman was ill in bed and couldn’t get up. Willcocks ordered the two to carry her out and lay her in the snow. He had arrested William Dickson and had him sent off as a prisoner to the United States and was determined to destroy whatever property he could. The tow lads wrapped her in blankets as best they could and put her in a snow drift while Willcocks fired the house and its contents. He walked away leaving Mrs. Dickson in the snow to watch her home burn to the ground.
Weeping women and children looked on as their world was turned into a pile of ashes. Their immediate concern was shelter. There were 400 refugees who would die of exposure if cover could not be found quickly.
Captain Merritt reported to Colonel Murray. The glow in the eastern sky could only mean one thing and with Merritt’s dragoon they rode off to investigate.
The troop approached Fort George from the south and cautiously reconnoitred the area. The Americans were pulling out and the only troops remaining were the rear guard, which consisted of some of the Canadian Volunteers. Merritt signaled the charge routing the enemy, killing two and taking a number of prisoners.
The scene that greeted them in the town was beyond belief. Every building except one was a pile of glowing embers and the streets were littered with furniture that some had been able to save before their homes were torched. People were desperately seeking shelter. Some moved toward the fort and Butler’s Barracks, which had been spared for some inexplicable reason, others began the bone-chilling trek to farms in the neighbourhood.
The dawn brought the misery of the town to full bloom. Many a snow drift yielded up the frozen bodies of women and children who could not find their way in the bitter cold darkness of that December night in 1813.
*General McClure was relieved of his command and dismissed from the army for his part in the burning of Newark.
Part 1
By Lara Blazetich, from the files of her grandfather George “Udy” Blazetich
*Information courtesy of Marguerite Shefter Diffin
[Welland Tribune, 1991]
Shown to the right is the McCabe Hotel in the late 1850s, just before it was demolished. The original structure was built in Crowland in 1850 by James Tufts, Miss Addie McCabe’s great –grandfather.
The hotel was operated by Tufts and his wife, Charlotte (Brailey) for many years. Three generations have been born within its walls. The hotel was located at 25 Canal Bank in Crowland Township, just south of the railway tracks adjacent to the railway bridge spanning the canal.
When the hotel was built it had a six-post veranda, upper and lower, across the front on which was draped a large sign lettered “The Travellers Home.” On one end of the sign was printed a picture of a stage coach and horses, and on the other end a picture of the Tow Horses. These horses were used to pull the barges in the canal. A large ballroom on the second floor was a popular haven for residents who attended dances and other functions held in the hotel.
Tufts owned 1,000 acres of land, 500 acres of forest, and 500 acres of marshland. He employed 10 escaped slaves from the South as woodcutters, selling the wood to passing boats and trains.
One of the slaves was Jim Wilson, who was later married in the McCabe home. Many hunters stayed at the hotel during the hunting season and hunted in the nearby marshland. James Tufts came from Mallorytown near Brockville. He descended from Peter Tufts, who was born in England in 1616 and came to America and lived in Charlestown prior to 1638. He married Charlotte, daughter of Elia and Leah (Morris) Brailey, who moved to America about 1686 from York, England.
The Brailey original homestead was located at Doans Ridge in Crowland, and they operated a hotel that was situated just west of Diffins Coal Dock (now a seniors centre).
The demolished hotel was actually on the canal waterway, before the canal was widened.
The Tufts family name was, and still is prominent in the history of Crowland. James Tufts married Charlotte Brailey. And son Wallace married Maria Hanna. Wallace and Maria had eight children: Emerson, George, Beatrice, Addie, Rena, Elva, Stanley and Curtis.
J.C. Diffin, mayor of Welland in 1921, married Elva Tufts and she was the mother of Harry Diffin, who was also the mayor of Welland from 1948-50. Diffin was also selected as Man of the Half Century in 1987.
He served 31 years and six months on Welland city council.
Sarah Tufts, daughter of James, married J. McCabe, and their daughter Addie, who never married, operated the McCabe House for many years.
DOWN MEMORY LANE – CROWLANDS’S MISS ADDIE McCABE (1954)
Part II
By Lara Blazetich, from the files of her grandfather George “Udy” Blazetich
*Information courtesy of Marguerite Shefter Diffin
[Welland Tribune, 7 February 1991]
The following is an exclusive interview conducted by Norman Panzica, former Tribune staff reporter, with Crowland’s remarkable citizen, Miss Addie McCabe.
The tiny old lady sat perfectly still as Addie put the finishing touches on her regular chore of hair combing. In the next room several men sat smoking, some of them not moving or speaking.
Just off the room where they sat, a blind man enjoyed the music from a radio from his room.
In the living room, a cerebral palsy victim sat as though in silent conversation with an old gentleman across from him. Upstairs in a bedroom, a man who had been on crutches for nine years waited patiently for the time Miss McCabe would bring a full dinner tray to him.
The guests, 25 in all, and all pensioners reside in McCabe House, a building more than a century old at 25 Canal Bank Rd., just south of the subway under the New York Central Railway.
For the lodging and care, they pay what works up to $8.30 a week. Each gives Miss McCabe his or her monthly $40 pension cheque and $4 is returned.
McCabe House is a huge structure containing many remnants of an era when gentlemen drank sherry, from dew drop-shaped decanters, and canal horses were stabled between periods of pulling boats along the canal.
“Travellers Home,” as it was known, boasted specially-made walnut furniture, and its patrons rested their elbows on a solid walnut plank more than 10 feet long and four inches thick. The cupboards, which held liquors on display, are now carry-alls. The shirts and underclothing of pensioners hang from the lines in the ballroom where gala dances were held before the day of the phonograph.
Where fashionable hunters once tossed reins to a stable boy, a 1954 transient asks for and gets a night’s lodgings and a substantial meal. At least four radios, a piano, and an organ entertain the residents. In one of the sitting rooms a Bible rests open on a stand.
From this point, prayer meetings are held each Thursday evening for those interested.
In nearly all of the 22 rooms, clean cots and beds of various sizes are to be found. Everywhere cleanliness is pronounced.
Miss McCabe, who does all the cooking, employed two house-keepers. Evening snacks among the “guests” were quite common.
Miss McCabe during the early 1930s, was employed as a cook at the Station Hotel operated by the Fred Kilgour family. This was confirmed by Katie Kisur Martin, who also worked at the hotel. Miss McCabe is a truly remarkable woman and surely deserving of the warn gratitude of the community for a noble aim in life-that of doing good unto others.
A labor of love and with devotion-at the old McCabe House.
Miss McCabe’s two sisters, Jessie Niger, from New York City and Charlotte Twomey, were regular visitors at the McCabe House. A relative, Kevin Twomey, resides in Fenwick.
Miss McCabe was born in 1879 and died in 1963 at the age of 84.
[Welland Tribune, 30 December 1991]
PELHAM (Staff)-Former Welland alderman and show store owner, Brit Phillips, Former Welland alderman and shoe store owner.Brit Phillips died at the Henderson General Hospital in Hamilton on Saturday, December 28th. He was in his 77th year.
Phillips was born in Welland lived in the area all his life. He became one of the youngest people ever to serve on city council when he was elected in 1943 at age 28. He retired from council in 1973.
He also served as a member of both the Welland Water Board and the Welland Hydro-Electric Commission.
During the Second World War Phillips served in the infantry of the Canadian Army and was also the Police Auxillary warden for the Civil Defence.
After the Second World War, Phillips entered business in the city when he managed Jamieson’s Shoe Store downtown. In 1953 he started his own shoe store, Brit Phillips Shoes, on West Main Street and later expanded to the Welland Plaza on Fitch Street. He managed both stores until he officially retired in 1985.
Besides being a member of city council, Phillips had a wide range of other community interests. He was a founding member of the Welland Junior Chamber of Commerce and a member of the Chamber of Commerce, Royal Canadian Legion Branch 4, the Rose City Seniors Club and the Welland Lawn Bowling Association. He also was a member of the Welland Optimist Club for more than 30 years.
At the time of his death, Phillips lived at the Lookout Village apartments in Fonthill.
EXCERPT FROM OBITUARY: Brit was a member of St. David’s Anglican Church, Welland. He was predeceased by his wife, the former Edith Eatwell.
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