ngston,
on the Bay of Quinte, Prince Edward, the frontiers of the Niagara
district, and the northern shores of Lake Erie. In the following chapter
I will present an epitome of the immigration of the first Loyalists to
the Bay of Quinte, to the Niagara frontier, and to the northern shores
of Lake Erie, especially of what was called the "Long Point" country,
their modes of struggling their way thither, the privations and labours
of their early settlement. I will here add a few passages from Dr.
Canniff's _Settlement of Upper Canada, with Special Reference to Bay
Quinte_, in regard to the Loyalists fleeing into Lower Canada, and
making their way up the St. Lawrence to Kingston and Bay Quinte.

"The batteaux," says the late Sheriff Sherwood, of Brockville, "by which
the refugees emigrated were principally built at Lachine, nine miles
from Montreal. They were calculated to carry four or five families, with
almost two tons weight. Twelve boats constituted a brigade, and each
brigade had a conductor, with five men in each, one of whom steered. The
duty of the conductor was to give directions for the safe management of
the boats, to keep them together, and when they came to a rapid they
left a portion of the boats in charge of one man. The boats ascending
were doubly manned, and drawn by a rope fastened at the bow of the boat,
having four men in the boat with setting poles; thus the men walked
along the side of the river, sometimes in the water or on the edge of
the bank, as circumstances occurred. Having reached the head of the
rapids the boats were left with a man, and the other men went back for
the other boats;" and so they continued until the rapids were mounted.
Lachine was the starting place--a place of some twenty dwellings.

It was by these batteaux that the Loyalist refugee officers and their
families, as well as the soldiers and their families, passed from the
shores of Lake Champlain, from Sorel and St. Lawrence, where they had
temporarily lived, to Upper Canada. It was also by these or the
Schenectady or Durham boat that the pioneer Loyalists made their way
from Oswego.

"Thus it is seen that to gain the northern shore of the St. Lawrence and
Lake Ontario was a task of no easy nature, and the steps by which the
Loyalists came were taken literally inch by inch, and were attended by
hard and venturesome labour. Records are not wanting of the severe
hardships endured by families on their way to their wooded lands.