Patriot War of 1837-38

Francis Mallaby: Witness to Sackets Harbor History

January 20, 2022 by Constance Barone Leave a Comment

The name Francis Mallaby may not be familiar in New York history but sailing master Mallaby served at the Sackets Harbor navy yard in a prosperous time of lake shipping and community growth. He helped make a difference by initiating purchase of land which is cherished today as the Sackets Harbor Battlefield State Historic Site.

This War of 1812 veteran received high compliments from Lake Ontario navy commander Isaac Chauncey and Captain Woolsey that helped influence Mallaby’s 1817 appointment as master of the first steamboat on Lake Ontario, based in Sackets Harbor in Jefferson County, NY. [Read more…] about Francis Mallaby: Witness to Sackets Harbor History

The Patriot War: Republic of Canada

July 30, 2019 by Stan Evans 2 Comments

A nineteenth century invading army’s journey into battle had two options, by land or by water. In the winter of 1838 the patriot army, which sought to invade Canada from New York State and overthrow the British Crown, saw a third alternative – by ice.

With Lake Erie covered with ice, “a band of the invaders determined to make it an avenue of passage across to Canada at a point where discovery would be improbable,” according to Our County and Its People, A History of Erie County published in 1898. [Read more…] about The Patriot War: Republic of Canada

The Patriot War: ‘Remember the Caroline’

July 30, 2019 by Stan Evans Leave a Comment

When the fugitive William Lyon MacKenzie arrived in Buffalo Dec. 11, 1837, both the Lake Erie city and the United States were at the dawn of great expansion. The Erie Canal had been completed a decade earlier, and Buffalo was now the gateway for western migration.

There also was talk of expansion to the nation’s south. Just a year earlier, American frontiersmen had taken up arms and carved the Republic of Texas out of Mexico Could northern expansion also be part of America’s destiny? If not expansion, could Americans at least help their neighbors throw off the last English claim on North America? [Read more…] about The Patriot War: ‘Remember the Caroline’

The Forgotten War Between the United States and Canada

July 29, 2019 by Stan Evans Leave a Comment

William Lyon MacKenzie strode into a packed theater in Buffalo, NY on the night of Dec. 12, 1837, his blue eyes blazing beneath his high, broad forehead, his sandy whiskers a chinstrap beard. The short, wiry 42-year-old native of Scotland had arrived in the booming border city a day earlier, a fugitive with a price on his head, after launching an ill-fated rebellion against the oligarchy that ruled colonial Canada.

More than 2,000 Buffalo residents waited anxiously to hear him speak, quite a crowd for a city of not even 18,000 souls. [Read more…] about The Forgotten War Between the United States and Canada