this time, while he was in New York on business, Thomas was introduced to the celebrated chief of the Six Nations, Joseph Brant, who along with his sister Molly Johnson, had persuaded his people to fight on the side of the British in the American War of Independence. Chief Brant had already selected land along the Grand River in Upper Canada as a home for the Six Nations people, and he offered, if and when Thomas came to Canada, to show him the best place for a settlement.
Thomas Ingersoll and four associates, including the Reverend Gideon Bostwick of Great Barrington, Massachusetts, drew up the necessary petition asking Lieutenant-Governor Simcoe for a township grant in Upper Canada. In order to present the petition in person, Thomas, as the group’s representative, journeyed in March 1793 to Newark (the name Simcoe gave Niagara, today’s Niagara-on-the-Lake), which was then the seat of government for Upper Canada.
Two months later, the government granted Thomas and his associates sixty-six thousand acres (twenty-seven thousand hectares) of land. The township chosen was in the Thames Valley, and the new settlement was to be called Oxford-on-the-Thames. It is today the site of the town of Ingersoll, near London, Ontario.
It is possible that Laura, then almost eighteen, accompanied her father on an initial journey to Upper Canada to see for herself their future home, before making the trek with the whole family. She was accustomed to helping Thomas with his business accounts, and it seems reasonable that he would seek the approval of his trusted eldest child on this latest, and boldest, enterprise.
If she did go with him on one of his early expeditions, Laura may have been able to allay the fears back home somewhat. What would life be like in a new country where the Ingersolls would suddenly be thrust into the role of pioneers and farmers?
At the very least, Laura could assure the younger ones that their father would be with them in their new home, not away fighting wars or tending to his magisterial duties.
As he’d promised, Chief Joseph Brant sent six of his men to escort Thomas through the woods to show him the choicest piece of property, where there was already a small clearing, once part of a Native summer camping ground.
In return for the land grant the petitioners agreed to bring forty additional families to the township within seven years. Each of those families would receive two hundred acres (eighty-one hectares) for the nominal fee of sixpence per acre. Within one year of the date of the assignment, they would be expected to make improvements on their land, which included clearing five acres, beginning cultivation, building a house, and opening a road across the front of the property.
The remainder of the sixty-six thousand acres that comprised the township was to be held in trust by Thomas Ingersoll and Associates to be sold at the same price. Unfortunately, Gideon Bostwick, one of the four members of the group of petitioners, died just three months after the petition was granted.
It was another two years before Thomas could wind up his business affairs and sell the family home in Great Barrington. Laura’s name appears as a witness on a document for the sale of some of her father’s property as early as January 11, 1793. Her signature appears again on documents dated April 21, 1795, in which she witnessed the relinquishment of her stepmother, Sally Backus Ingersoll, to her rights in her husband’s property.
Laura Ingersoll was nearly twenty when the time came to move to Upper Canada. No doubt she had a hand in choosing the few possessions the family could take with them and helping to dispose of the rest. A large chest packed with clothing, bedding, and some of the fine china and glassware, the mantel clock, Betsy’s rocking chair, and the four-poster bed would go on ahead. There was much preparation for the long and arduous journey they were about to embark on. For one family that made the same trek seven years after the Ingersolls had, the journey reportedly took an entire month.
Two more babies had been born since Laura’s father decided to leave the country — Charlotte in 1793 and Appolonia (Appy) in April the following year.
The first part of their journey took the Ingersolls and all their bundles by wagon, west to the Hudson River. They may have stayed overnight along the way at the home of a relative or at an inn, and the next day they boarded a small boat for the sail up the Hudson to Albany, New York. From there it was overland again by wagon, ten miles to Schenectady. Ahead was the one-hundred-mile trip north on the Mohawk River in a Durham boat.
Durham boats — large, flat-bottomed vessels with high vertical sides — were mainly used to transport freight because they could carry heavy loads and displaced very little water. They were powered by a small crew, two on each side, that walked back and forth on “walking boards” built into the sides of the boat, either rowing or using ten-foot-long, iron-tipped “setting poles” to move the boat along. If the boat were going downstream, the poles could be used to steer it, but if it were going upstream, as it was on the Ingersolls’ trip on the Mohawk, the poles were used to push the boat against the swift current.
After a portage — and there was a total of thirty miles of portages — the family crossed Oneida Lake and travelled up the Oswego River to the southeastern shore of Lake Ontario.
There, at the port of Oswego, the Ingersolls boarded a schooner for the final voyage to Upper Canada. It must have been a relief for everyone to know this was the last leg of their journey. Four-year-old Charles may well have been pestering his parents and older sisters long before this with questions of “Are we there yet?” and “How much farther is it?” And little Charlotte would be delighted now to have space to toddle about on this larger vessel.
At some point during the crossing, after an ominous calm that had emptied the ship’s sails, a violent thunderstorm struck the lake. High winds whipped up huge waves and tossed the vessel about like a toy boat. Everyone feared the ship would capsize. The children were crying and many passengers were seasick by the time the captain managed to get the ship into a sheltered bay, where they could wait out the storm.
Laura would have been among the first to comfort the little ones and assure them that the worst was over. Or was it? Provisions were running low on the ship and too lengthy a delay would cause more suffering, especially to the youngest passengers, and to Sally, who was expecting another baby.
The captain put some of the crew ashore to try to find enough food to last for the rest of the voyage. Fortunately, the sailors encountered a group of hunters who directed them to the home of a lone settler willing to share what he had. The men returned to the ship with bread and milk for everyone, and when they were able to set sail again, the remainder of the journey went smoothly.
It isn’t known exactly where the Ingersoll family disembarked in Upper Canada, but it was likely that the ship docked at either Niagara or Queenston. Sally and the young Ingersolls would have been relieved that Thomas had arranged for their accommodation at an inn in the town. Once he saw that they were comfortable, Thomas continued on to the Thames Valley to claim his land and to make sure that the family’s furniture that had been sent ahead had arrived.
Before any settlement was possible, the township had first to be surveyed and roads had to be built. While he waited for this to be accomplished, Thomas Ingersoll took over the operation of a tavern back in Queenston, returning whenever he could to his property to work on the log house he was building for the family and to clear more of the land.
The bustling town of Queenston, also called “The Landing,” was an ideal place to run a business. It was at the northern end of the Portage Road that had been built to bypass the rapids in the Niagara River and Niagara Falls. Merchandise and food such as salt pork and flour moved in one direction over the portage, and furs from the upper Great Lakes travelled along the same route in the opposite direction.
Niagara (Newark) was the area’s social and military centre, but Queenston was the head of navigation. Every day a long line of wagons could be seen waiting for freight to be unloaded off boats from York, Kingston, or Montreal that had docked at the busy Queenston wharf. Drawn by teams of horses or oxen, the wagons would then transport the goods along the Portage Road to Chippawa, three miles beyond the falls.
Queenston had been founded to provide a port on the western side of the Niagara River after the treaty that ended the American Revolution gave the eastern side