Raids on the Talbot Settlement, 1814

Raids on the Talbot Settlement, 1814. Elgin County in the War of 18 12. Elgin County's first settlers arrived near this spot in 1809 and by the time the War of 18 12 broke out they had only been on the land for a few years. Outside of occasional militia service, the war had little impact on their lives until the fall of 1813 when the British lost the Battle of Lake Erie and withdrew to Burlington Heights., For most or the following year, settlers in this part of the province were subjected to American raids led by traitorous locals such as Andrew Westbrook from Delaware. Several visits were made to the Port Talbot area by raiding parties seeking plunder and captives most notably Colonel Thomas Talbot. Talbot commanded the area's militia, and spent much of the war in the more densely populated Long Point region where he could keep in touch with other militia commanders., All males aged 16 to 60 were required to bear arms for the Crown. Leslie Patterson, among those who arrived in 1809, was commissioned a Captain in the Middlesex Militia. He looked after Talbot's farm when the Colonel was away. Only once was Talbot home when a raid occurred. The Americans appeared while Talbot was out in the fields and Patterson was able to convince the raiding party that he was the man who looked after the sheep. He escaped that day and never was captured during the war., Settlers like Patterson and his neighbours further east on the Talbot Road suffered through a series of raids during the last year of the war losing stock and field crops as well as personal property and household goods. Even so, they managed to cope and were eventually compensated to some extent., During the war, the pace of development slowed, but it didn't dissuade the settlers from developing their farms. The end of the war brought a rapid influx of new families and eventual prosperity in the years that followed.