Laura Secord

The Battle of Beaver Dams - 1813 Earl Plato
I love Niagara’s history. I know the Niagara Frontier War of 1812-14 history reasonably well. Further to the west in the Niagara Peninsula I have been to the Stoney Creek Battlefield a number of times including a reenactment. So? It was wife, Elaine, who asked me about the Battle of Beaver Dams in 1813. What did I know? “Laura Secord”, of course was my answer. “What really happened in the battle?” was her further question. I admitted a minimal amount of knowledge. Time to do some research. Was the Battle of Beaver Dams- June 24, 1813 important to the eventual outcome of the War? I think so. Elaine and I drove to the site armed with knowledge from Cruikshank’s extensive writings, The Jubilee History of Thorold, Pierre Berton’s Flames Across the Border, and the booklet by Donald Dewar. There was an important letter that many of you know about. The date is 23rd February, 1837, Toronto and the letter is in the form of a certificate signed by James Fitzgibbon, formerly Lieutenant in the 49th Regiment. It reads, “I do hereby certify that Mrs. Secord, wife of James Secord of Chippawa, Esquire, did in the month of June, 1813, walk from her house in the village of St. Davids to DeCoo’s house in Thorold by a circuitous route of about twenty miles, partly through the woods, to acquaint me that the enemy intended to attempt by surprise to capture a detachment, then under my command.” That’s one sentence! Fitzpatrick continued, “Mrs. Secord was a person of slight and delicate frame and made this effort in weather excessively warm, and I dreaded at the time that she must suffer in health in consequence of fatigue and anxiety, she having been exposed to danger from the enemy, through whose lines of communication she had to pass.” Another long sentence but the message is clear - “forewarned is forearmed.” These were troublous times. American skirmishers were roaming the Niagara countryside. Dr. Cyrenius Chapin, the same man whose American soldiers and himself, are listed in devastating my ancestor Plato’s home and farm property in 1813, is present in the Beaver Dams area. Fortunately Laura Secord did not meet up with Chapin and his marauders. That would have changed history negatively for Upper Canadians. I contend that the victory over the Americans at Beaver Dams had an impact later in 1814.
Laura Secord was a great Canadian heroine!












Cruikshank - Part 1 - p. 23, 154, 252, 265
part 2 - p.7, 8, 16, 56, 63, 98, 135, 136, 143
Jubilee History of Thorold p.18, 47, 48, 63
Fight in the Beechwoods p. 17, 19 read on
Beaver Dams the year 1813