by protecting them from “merciless plunderers.” Unless they happened to be American sympathizers, the locals did not appreciate Chapin’s efforts, labelling him a scoundrel, and for many he was the most hated man on the Niagara frontier.
FitzGibbon divided his special team into three groups to facilitate their movement in the woods and so that the enemy would think there were more than only fifty. They used cowbells instead of bugle calls to signal one another, creating more noise and confusion for the opposition.
Because they wore grey-green jackets for camouflage, the men were called the “Irish Greens;” however, this team of fierce, fast-moving horseback riders quickly earned the name “Green Tigers.” They preferred to call themselves the “Bloody Boys.”
FitzGibbon planned to use his team in advance of the army. Always on the alert, the group never slept in the same place twice, and they could fight in the woods when necessary.
The Green Tigers’ post at De Cew’s farmhouse near Beaver Dams was surrounded by forest, ravines, and streams — the ideal terrain for the team to conduct its scouting and guerrilla drills. De Cew’s was also strategically located near roads leading north to Twelve Mile Creek, northeast to Queenston, and southeast to Chippawa. The escarpment and creek would serve to slow down the approach of any invading force.
Photograph of James FitzGibbon in later life wearing his Military Knight of Windsor uniform.
The tiny hamlet of Beaver Dams (Thorold) had gotten its name from a large population of beavers that inhabited the surrounding marshland. John De Cew was the community’s most prominent citizen. A United Empire Loyalist from New Jersey, he owned mills and orchards and was connected to other business enterprises in the area. The large stone house he’d built before the War of 1812 had replaced the original log cabin he and his wife, Catherine Docksteder, had first lived in. Captain De Cew, who had commanded a company of the 2nd Lincoln County Militia, was one of the men who had been captured by American patrols and sent to prison in the United States. He would manage to escape in April 1814, and within a month would be back home.
Mrs. De Cew and her children continued to live in the upstairs rooms of the family home while FitzGibbon and his men used the lower level as their headquarters. It was a spacious house with large fireplaces, its walls lined with native black walnut. There was an orchard outside where De Cew had planted several different varieties of fruit trees, and his mills were used to grind grain for the British troops.
Chapin and FitzGibbon had been chasing each other for weeks, the Green Tigers always on the lookout for opportunities to force the American pickets back to the fort. After several clashes, Chapin decided he was going to put an end to it.
Intent on convincing the military authorities to attack the De Cew house, Chapin met with Lieutenant Colonel Charles Boerstler, a thirty-three-year-old from Maryland stationed at Fort George and a regular with the 14th U.S. Infantry. Chapin told Boerstler that he’d personally checked out the route to De Cew’s house and found only one company there, plus fifty to a hundred Natives. He could lead Boerstler’s army to De Cew’s with five hundred men and a couple of field pieces, take the enemy, and wipe out the stronghold with no difficulty.
By June 16, FitzGibbon’s elite team of fifty Green Tigers was at De Cew’s. A party of Caughnawaga Natives, just recently arrived from Lower Canada under the command of Dominique Ducharme, was nearby.
Seven miles away, at the mouth of Twelve Mile Creek, Major Peter de Haren commanded two hundred men of the 104th Regiment. At Twenty Mile Creek, Colonel Cecil Bisshopp waited with a larger force, and General John Vincent with the main British force was back at Forty Mile Creek. Also on patrol in the area were William Merritt’s volunteer horsemen, the Provincial Dragoons.
In total, the British and Canadians had only 1,600 men. If they had uniforms at all, they were in tatters; some men were even without shoes. But all were ready to face any invasion.
Lieutenant Colonel Boerstler, who considered Chapin “a vain and boastful liar” and possibly a disloyal one, was not impressed with the plan of attack the man laid out for him. He dismissed him, wishing him a curt “good-day.”
Captain Chapin (he called himself “Major”) went over Boerstler’s head to Brigadier General John P. Boyd, General Dearborn’s second-in-command, and the next thing Boerstler knew he was being ordered to lead five hundred men against De Cew’s house, to capture the enemy and batter the place down.
It was a hurried operation, and Boerstler was told to leave immediately for Queenston with five hundred men and two guns. It was after 11:00 p.m. on the night of June 23. They were to stop in Queenston overnight and to go on to De Cew’s early the next morning. By leaving the fort at night they’d avoid being seen by the inhabitants. Chapin would be the guide.
The mounted troops left Fort George, riding as quickly and as silently as possible to Queenston. There they ensured that all the citizens remaining in the occupied town were inside their homes where they would be prevented from sounding any alarm. Not even a candle was to be lit inside the houses.
The main body of the army would follow behind and join the cavalry at the encampment. No fires were to be allowed overnight, and the men would sleep on their guns. The success of the mission depended on catching the British by surprise. The last thing the Americans wanted was some resident slipping past the pickets they’d posted on the roads leading out of Queenston and alerting FitzGibbon as to what was about to happen.
Little did they know that, intent on doing exactly that, Laura Secord had already left.
7
The Walk to Beaver Dams
To this day, no one knows for sure exactly how, two days prior to the overnight encampment of the American troops at Queenston, Laura Secord found out about the plan to attack De Cew’s farmhouse at Beaver Dams. She never revealed that part of the story.
“It was while the Americans had possession of the frontier, that I learned of the plans of the American commander,” Laura said, rather vaguely, in a letter she wrote forty years after the Battle of Beaver Dams.
“Living on the Frontier during the whole of my life I had frequent opportunities of knowing the moves of the American forces,” she explained in 1860, in a memorial she had prepared for the visiting Prince of Wales. “I was thus enabled to obtain important information which I deemed proper to communicate to the British commander Col. FitzGibbon, then Lt. FitzGibbon, of the 49th Regt.”
Because there were American officers billeted in her home and taking their meals there, it is quite possible that Laura would sometimes overhear their conversation. On occasion, other American officers would turn up at mealtime, and Laura would have to see that they, too, were fed.
It may even have been her husband, James, who overheard a conversation between the officers. For fear of reprisal, both he and Laura kept the truth a secret for their entire lives.
We do know that Captain Chapin was in Queenston a few days before the Battle of Beaver Dams. The Buffalo Gazette, June 29, 1813, reported, “On Saturday week (19th June) the mounted men under Major Chapin passed down to Queenston.”
Chapin’s men had been involved in two altercations, and on the last, which the report states took place on June 21, one of his corps was captured by the enemy while he
