One of the best-known images of a youthful Laura Secord, as portrayed
on the Laura Secord Chocolates confectionery boxes for decades.




 


 


 


 

Two views of Laura Secord's birthplace in Great Barrington, Massachusetts (a British colony at the time of her birth; part of the United States of America after the American Revolution in 1776)



On June 22, in 1813, Laura would have taken a great risk by leaving her home and walking along the back country trails.

Upper Canada was at war, remember. And the Americans had invaded Niagara. American sentries could have been anywhere.

But she often walked, to visit her family who lived in St. Davids - about two and a half kilometers to the west.

Here's Laura again.



"James's family - the Secords - had arrived in St. Davids when James was only three years old.

The Secords were some of the first Loyalists to come here. They were forced to leave the new United States. And they were looking for protection. They found it under the British flag.

They chose a monarchy over a republic, and were fiercely loyal to the crown.

James' father became a successful shopkeeper in St. Davids.

And that meant his son James, my future husband, was often in Queenston, collecting merchandise at the Queenston dock for the family business.

That's where I met him – James. Not at the dock, but in Queenston….

I had moved there with my family when I was 19.

I was born in Great Barrington, Massachusetts, in the United States of America.

My father was Thomas Ingersoll, a shopkeeper and a soldier in the American Revolutionary War.

He met Elizabeth Dewey, married her, and on September 13, 1775, she gave birth to me. She was just 17.

We lived on the land belonging to my father's family. My great grandfather had built a cottage there in 1724, on five acres of good land.

And my mother died there in 1883, when I was only 8 years old.

I became responsible for raising my three younger sisters, Elizabeth, Myra and Abigail.

It was just a matter of time before my father married again, and he did. He married a widow, Mrs. Mercy Smith. But she died too, just four years later.

Then he married Sarah Wilding, and not long after that he met Captain Joseph Brant, the Mohawk Indian chief.

My father learned from him all about the land grants being offered in Upper Canada, and so he petitioned Governor John Graves Simcoe.

In 1795 we packed up all our belongings and headed to the Thames River valley in Upper Canada. But in the early years we stayed in Queenston, while the land transaction was being approved.

My father ran a tavern, which also happened to be a Masonic Lodge.

And that's where I met my husband, James Secord."


This point of interest is one of many on the GuideTags app –
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