We are pleased to announce that Ashley Harper, one of our branch directors, has received a prestigious provincial award and scholarship for her work in the heritage field.

On February 20, 2020, in a ceremony in the Legislative Building at Queen’s Park, Toronto, Ashley was honoured with the “Lieutenant Governor of Ontario Heritage Award for Youth Achievement” and the “Young Heritage Leaders Scholarship.” The scholarship is valued at $3,500 and was sponsored by Canada Life.

Ashley hails from Winchester, Ontario. She has been a director of the St. Lawrence Branch – one of the youngest in the history of our organization – since 2018. She is also president of the Chesterville and District Historical Society. Ashley is a graduate of North Dundas District High School and is now studying history at Carleton University in Ottawa.

Ashley has also worked in numerous local museums such as the Carman House Museum in Iroquois, Ontario, and the Sir John Johnson Manor House in Williamstown, Ontario, both of which are strongly connected to the region’s Loyalist history. She is a descendant of Loyalists William Crowder Sr., William Crowder Jr., Abraham Hopper and Henry Froats.

The United Empire Loyalists’ Association of Canada promotes the history of the Loyalists – the men and women who remained loyal to the British Crown during the American Revolutionary War (1775-1783). The St. Lawrence Branch covers the Ontario counties of Stormont, Dundas and Glengarry. Ashley’s service with our organization underscores the continued importance of Loyalist history to all generations, including those born at the turn of the 21^st century.

We heartily congratulate Ashley on this significant achievement.

For more information, please contact one of the officers of the St. Lawrence Branch: President Lorraine Reoch, fancylass@hotmail.ca or Interim Vice President Stephen McDonald, sfmcdonald76@gmail.com.

UPDATE: Due to COVID-19, it is likely that this event will be postponed. We will update this post when this becomes official.

The St. Lawrence Branch of the UELAC will be unveiling its latest “United Empire Loyalist Burial Site” plaque this spring. The location is the historic  Iroquois Point Cemetery, in Iroquois, Ontario.

The unveiling will take place during the Annual Memorial Service.

Please see the invitation poster below, or click here to download a PDF version.

We hope to see you there!

In the summer of 1895, during excavations at the Alvin Pescod residence in Cornwall, one of the workmen uncovered what he assumed was “an ordinary stone, and was going to throw if over the fence.” He paused, however, when he noticed figures written on the object, including the year 1794!

The item was an old octagonal sundial, made of burned clay and reinforced with an iron hoop. It was missing the gnomon (the upright part that casts the shadow). Its inscription, which maintained the long tradition of Latin mottos on sundials, was still legible:

Lex Dei

Lux Dei

1794

Jno. Pescod

Fecit

The English translation is:

The Law of God

The Light of God

1794

John Pescod

He made it.

At the time of the discovery, John Pescod Jr. was called upon for information. He related that the maker of the sundial was his father. As reported by the Cornwall Freeholder, Pescod the Younger noted that:

He remembered very well, as a boy and young man, that the dial… stood on a large flat stone in the garden, and that people used to come from far and wide to get the time. Later on clocks became more common, and the sun dial fell into disuse and was heaved over into the rubbish, where it lay until [it] turned up a few days ago.

The Freeholder also remarked that the sundial was “an interesting relic of old days, and is well worth preserving.” It is unknown whether the sundial has survived to this day, but it seems unlikely.

John Pescod (sometimes written Pescott or Prescott) was a sergeant in the first battalion of the King’s Royal Regiment of New York, a loyalist regiment that settled in Cornwall and area in 1784. During the distribution of lands at that time, Pescod drew Lot 17 in the first concession of Cornwall Township, and later received a deed for that lot. He was a mason and a farmer. He was born in England, but later settled in the Mohawk Valley of New York prior to the American Revolutionary War. Alvin Pescod, mentioned above, was a subsequent owner of the land. The location is now the neighbourhood of Riverdale, near Pescod Avenue which honours the family.

The holiday season is upon us! Please be advised that our Loyalist Resource Centre will be closed from December 14 to January 6, inclusive.

Please also note another schedule change: The centre is no longer open on Saturdays. (But remains open Monday to Friday 9:00-3:00, except during the period noted above.)

Please see our Resource Centre page for more information on our holdings and methods of access.

All of us at the St. Lawrence Branch wish you and yours a happy holiday season, and a prosperous new year!

Several years ago, UELAC St. Lawrence Branch launched a Facebook page. This single vessel was our flagship sailing on the social media seas.

We’re now pleased to announce we’ve added several sister ships, thus creating a social media fleet! Come gaze upon our newly-commissioned craft:

Twitter: https://twitter.com/UelacB

Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/st.lawrencebranchloyalist/

The admiral of this fleet is our Interim Vice President Stephen McDonald. He has done stellar work with our Facebook page of late, progress proven by quantifiable increases in engagements (likes, shares and reach, for example).

Fun fact: The largest warship to sail the Great Lakes was called the HMS St. Lawrence. Coincidence? We think not! The 112-gun “first-rate” vessel commanded Lake Ontario after she was launched in 1814, during the height of War of 1812.

Please note that the Contacts page on our website contains information on all ways to interact with us.

As the calendar year winds down, it’s membership time!

UELAC memberships expire at the end of the year. In order to gain all the great annual benefits of being a member, consider joining or renewing your membership now.

New this year: Memberships (new and renewals) can be done online, if you wish:

NEW MEMBERSHIPS

RENEWALS

If you prefer the good old-fashioned way (sending your cheque to the branch treasurer), we can do that too!

All membership information is available on our website membership page.

St. Lawrence Branch members honoured our veterans this week by placing wreaths at ceremonies in Dixon’s Corners, Morrisburg, and Crysler’s Farm. Pictured below are members Mike Eamer and Ashley Harper following the ceremony at Crysler’s Farm. (Photo: Carol Goddard).

Our “United Empire Loyalist Burial Site” project has been featured in the latest edition of The Loyalist Gazette! The issue (autumn 2019) has just been released on the UELAC website (member-only section) and members will shortly receive their printed copies in the mail.

The article was written by our friend James Edgar, who describes his efforts in getting the project rolling. It’s a great read. As always, the magazine is a thing of beauty, artfully designed and professionally assembled.

A big thank-you to James, and the editors of The Loyalist Gazette, for promoting this important branch project.

Our annual autumn banquet, known as “charter night” in recognition of our UELAC branch charter, took place in Ingleside on October 5, 2019. We were blessed with a delicious roast beef dinner, and plenty of scrumptious home-made desserts, all prepared by the ladies of St. Matthew’s Presbyterian Church, our hosts for the evening.

The speaker was UELAC St. Lawrence Branch executive member Stuart Manson. Supported by a slick PowerPoint presentation, he spoke about “Loyalist Cemeteries in Stormont, Dundas & Glengarry.” Stuart also gave a brief overview of the content and organization of our branch website, which he manages.

An important part of the meeting was the presentation of U.E. certificates to those who have successfully proven their descent from a Loyalist (pictured below). In 1789, Governor Guy Carleton (Lord Dorchester) proclaimed that descendants of Loyalists, male or female, were entitled to use the post-nominal initials “U.E.” as a symbol of their families’ “great principle, the Unity of the Empire.”

Don’t forget that we have one more event in 2019: A public meeting at the Cornwall Community Museum on Sunday, November 3, 2019 at 1:30 p.m.

St. Lawrence Branch is planning to publish a Loyalist recipe book! It will be filled with scrumptious recipes that we collect from our members, followers and friends.

Do you have an old recipe, perhaps handed down through the generations, that you’d like to share?  We’d love to have a copy to include in the book. It could be one associated with the Loyalist experience, or one from early Upper Canada. In other words, we’re flexible!

You can send the recipe to us in any format you wish (for example, typed, scanned, or photographed). Please also include a little description of its history and origins.

Please email the recipes to Stuart Manson, who will forward it to the recipe book team:

manson1763@gmail.com

Or you can send it by regular mail:

UELAC St. Lawrence Branch, P.O. Box 607, 3 Augusta Street, Morrisburg, Ontario, Canada, K0C 1X0

All the proceeds from the sale of the book will be put towards our branch operations. You’ll be helping our branch grow!