Legend of the Paymaster's Gold

by Jo Shawyer

  Ben made a face. “See you soon, guys.”

  Chapter

  Three

  March 1812

  Now that spring is here there is talk of war again. It is hard enough to get through the winter months without having to worry about fighting a war in the summer. We have new neighbours called Thomas and William Greenaway. Two old bachelor brothers. They have oxen and that will be a great help to all of us.

  Father says that the government wants more families to move to this area. If Britain settles it, then America cannot claim it. The Greenaways will have to build their cabin like the government says, just as we did: 20 feet by 16 feet and 100 feet back from the road. We will help them, like Mr. Tucker and Mr. McNames helped us. I have made a friend with Lucy Tucker along the road. We made maple sugar with the Tuckers. It tastes so good!

  “I’m starving,” Sam said as he watched the Matthews’ car drive away. They followed it down the lane and crossed Commissioners Road to their house.

  Talking to Ben had gotten both Eadie and Sam to think a little differently about Commissioners Road. They kept looking around and across the field toward Reservoir Hill. It gave them a funny feeling to think that people had lived in this area for two hundred years. And even watched a skirmish — maybe two — on the hill. It was exciting, but kind of creepy, too.

  Liz was laying out a picnic lunch outside on the kitchen step. Sam and Eadie joined her and told both their parents about Ben and what Ben had told them about the Legend of the Paymaster’s Gold. They also told them about the two skirmishes on their road, but that only one had been recorded on the plaque. The other one was only a story handed down. A legend. That’s why there was no plaque about it.

  Liz unwrapped a package of sandwiches — ham and pickle, Eadie’s favourite — and thought a moment. “It all makes sense. Commissioners Road was built in the early 1800s precisely for the defence of Upper Canada, so that our troops could get to the Detroit frontier. And it would have been the only road through here in 1812. It would have been used by soldiers, settlers, Natives, enemy raiders from America — everyone.”

  Eadie waved her sandwich in the air. “It’s amazing!” She could easily imagine the soldiers marching by their house two hundred years ago. She could see their scarlet jackets and tall, black shako hats, every soldier hung about with leather straps and pouches to carry ammunition.

  Tom put down his sandwich, balanced a tomato on top of it, and rummaged in his shirt pocket for a pencil. He tore a bit of paper from the wrapping in the picnic basket. He was a city planner, someone who drew maps of the city and planned how and where it was to grow.

  “Look,” he said, as he sketched southern Ontario on the scrap of paper. He talked as he drew the map. “The war was fought between British Colonies and the United States. We live in what was called Upper Canada. Here is Niagara, the eastern border between Upper Canada and America. Here, to the west, is Detroit, another border between Upper Canada and America. And here is the Thames River. In 1812, from Detroit, you could take a boat across Lake St. Clair, and then come east up the Thames River to the Longwoods Road, and then Commissioners Road, and come right past our doorstep on your way to Niagara. Commissioners Road was the super highway of the War of 1812!”

  Sam looked at his dad’s map. Yes, Commissioners Road was the main land route during the War of 1812. He reached for a chocolate brownie and absent-mindedly licked the icing off it. His mind was on the missing gold. But he jerked to attention when his mother spoke.

  “Those musket balls that Ben and his dad found … could they date from later than 1812? How long did muskets with musket balls last before another kind of rifle was invented?”

  Parents, Sam thought. They never let go. They’re as bad as teachers. There’s always one more idea, one more thing they have to point out, one more thing to look up. He reached for another brownie.

  “Let’s Google it,” Eadie said. “And General Procter, too.”

  “But we’ll need to get the computers hooked up, Dad,” Sam said with a grin.

  “Okay, I hear you. The movers are coming tomorrow. But you’ll have to wait a day or two for the computers. We have to unpack some boxes first.” He stretched out his arm to reach for the Thermos of coffee. “You know, your friend Ben calls the story a legend. A legend doesn’t mean that something did happen. It means that something might have happened.”

  Sam and Eadie looked at him, puzzled.

  “A legend is just a story that’s been told, handed down, through the years, which may or not be true,” Liz explained.

  Tom interrupted, “The problem is, there is no documentation, nothing written down. So there’s no way to prove that it really did happen.”

  Sam was impatient. “Why do you have to have a piece of paper to make something true? Lots of things happen every day that no one writes down.” He reached for a box of cookies and tore off the plastic wrapping. “Either the paymaster lost his gold or he didn’t. What’s so difficult about that?”

  Eadie had been silent. Listening and thinking. She drew up her legs, and sat, hunched over her knees. She fiddled with her long, black hair. “If it’s still a legend, then the gold has not been found.”

  Sam grinned. “And if we find it, then that’s the end of the legend!”

  Chapter

  Four

  June 1812

  The war has begun! We are at war with the United States. A Captain Rapelje came by to tell us that a militia is being formed. Father is too old, but John is the right age. He is excited about it. Cousin Ned says that he will go back to America and fight for them. That means he will be fighting against John! It’s very confusing. I don’t like everyone arguing.

  Mother is very worried. John tells her that he will give her all his soldier’s pay. Father is worried. He says that living here on Commissioner’s Road, we will be exposed to the war right on our door step because this is the only road. The soldiers from both sides will use it, American and British. Lucy and I are worried. Her family is from England. We are Americans. Will we have to stop being friends?

  It only took the movers one day to bring all their stuff to the house, but it took almost a week for the Jacksons to unpack and store everything away. Every day, they did nothing but carry boxes to and fro, upstairs and down. They shifted furniture around and discovered that none of their curtains fit. They lost things and found them again.

  But they had lunch outside every day, on the kitchen steps by the back door. The sun shone, the breeze blew gently on their faces, and they enjoyed the long view through the old apple trees to the small woods at the back of their property. Ben dropped by a few times, and — always hungry — stayed for lunch.

  Again and again, the conversation turned to the War of 1812. It was easy for Sam and Eadie and Ben to say that they would hunt for the paymaster’s gold. But how? How to even begin? They had to know more about it, to figure out where to look and what exactly they were looking for. After all, the gold had been lost more than two hundred years ago.

  Eadie carefully peeled a banana. “I don’t understand the War of 1812. On the plaque it says that our militia fought the Americans, but I thought that Canada and the United States were always friends.”

  “You’ll be sick of the War of 1812 if you have Old Grimshaw for history at our school.” Ben reached for his fourth chocolate chip cookie and smiled slyly at Sam and Eadie’s mum. “These are good!”

  “Actually, in the War of 1812, Britain was fighting France, and Napoleon,” Tom explained. “Have you heard of the Napoleonic Wars?”

  “Yes,” Sam said. He remembered a movie that he’d seen once. “Napoleon’s that guy with his hand always inside his jacket.”

  “Well, yes, that will do, I suppose, for a description.” His parents laughed.

  Liz continued, “And America sold supplies to France, which helped France, and made America a lot of money. Britain didn’t like that, so they blockaded France with ships so that the American ships couldn’t get throug
h.”

  “So,” Tom continued, “that made the Americans angry so they started to beat up on Britain in Britain’s colonies. And that means us, right here. It was called Upper Canada at the time. And Lower Canada — that was Quebec — and the Atlantic provinces, too.”

  Ben nodded. He had heard all this before, sitting in Old Grimshaw’s class, but somehow it hadn’t seemed so important then. But now that Sam and Eadie had moved to the neighbourhood and wanted to know more about the skirmishes on Reservoir Hill, history was much more interesting.

  Sam thought about all of this and he thought about that plaque in the park. “So, what’s a militia?”

  Eadie got up to shake the crumbs off her jeans. Tom reached for the coffee pot. He paused, coffee pot in hand, to explain. “There would have been professional soldiers, soldiers of the king, sent out from England to defend Upper Canada. And then there would have been the militia, the local volunteers from among the settlers.”

  Sam wouldn’t let go of the idea of the Legend of the Paymaster’s Gold. “So, both the regular soldiers and the militia would need to be paid? Then there must have been lots of paymasters. So, maybe one of them did lose his gold on Commissioners Road. Maybe General Procter’s paymaster. Maybe someone else’s.”

  After gathering the dishes and leftovers, Eadie and Liz headed for the kitchen. Sam, Ben, and Tom went off to the shed-room to see what was in it and to plan how to empty it.

  Finally, the computers and the printer were hooked up. Sam and Eadie started searching the Web right away. They began by looking for “paymaster” and “legend” and “gold.” But they only found references to treasure buried by pirates. When they added “War of 1812,” they got references to paymasters in the American military.

  “Let’s start again,” Eadie said. “Just try ‘War of 1812 and Ontario.’ We don’t want all the American references.”

  Sam stared at the computer screen. “Agghhhh! Eadie, there’s 56,000 entries!”

  “Let’s go with the Archives of Ontario. That’s the one we always use at school.”

  The twins scrolled on and on, down through the menus on several 1812 sites for more than an hour. There was a lot of information about Brown Bess muskets, which were what the soldiers had used during the War of 1812. And there were also images of the musket balls, slightly smaller than a modern 25-cent piece, which was in the photo for comparison.

  “This is neat, Eadie. You can actually buy a replica musket and ammunition.”

  “And you can order bits of uniform, too. Badges and buttons.”

  “And look! There are re-enactment groups. Lots of them. For different regiments. That’s cool. I’d like to go to one of those, watch the battle being acted out. They shoot muskets and everything.”

  “My eyes are falling out of my head,” Sam said an hour later. “I need a break.”

  As a bag of popcorn popped, Sam groaned, “It’s too confusing. Too many battles, too many facts to sort out. I want to hunt for the gold, not have another history lesson.”

  They took the popcorn to the living room and sprawled out on the floor. Eadie had made printouts of Procter’s movements during the war.

  “Okay, Eadie. Let’s get the facts straight. General Procter was posted on the Detroit frontier with America. He got a lot of his supplies from the Niagara frontier brought in by boat on Lake Erie. He won a few battles against the Americans in Michigan, west of Detroit. Then in August of 1812, General Isaac Brock came from Niagara to help Procter and together they took Detroit from the Americans. Brock left Procter in charge of the Detroit frontier again while he went back to the Niagara frontier.”

  Eadie took up the story, as far as they had figured it out from their Google search. “Next, Brock got himself killed at the Battle of Queenston Heights near Niagara. Bad luck for Brock. He seemed like such a hero. They said he was very tall and handsome, and always looking for action. Remember, Sam? We saw that big monument to Brock at Queenston Heights when we went on the school trip. He was a famous leader. I like him.”

  “Yeah, well, I like Tecumseh, the Native leader. He was as important as General Brock. And the Natives fought on the side of the British.”

  Eadie got that dreamy look in her eyes. “Tecumseh seems like General Brock, tall and handsome and brave.”

  Sam gave Eadie a look. “You don’t win wars by being handsome!”

  Sam grabbed another handful of popcorn and riffled through the printouts. “The Americans were angry at having lost to Brock and Procter, so they got reinforcements. At first, it didn’t help. Procter kept winning small battles. And he kept getting promotions for that. So far, so good.”

  “But then it all fell apart, Sam. The Americans got more reinforcements for their army. And Procter didn’t. Then the American and British navies fought a huge battle on Lake Erie. And our navy lost. With the Americans in control of the lake, Procter couldn’t get supplies in to his fort.”

  Sam searched through the printouts and then held one up excitedly. “Fort Malden it was called.”

  “Right, Sam. But then the Americans came across the border at Detroit….” Eadie got to her feet.

  “And everyone at the British Fort Malden was starving….”

  By this time, Sam and Eadie were jumping around the living room, shouting back and forth to each other, throwing their printouts in the air.

  “Procter and his Native allies were hopelessly outnumbered….”

  “So Procter retreated. On boats, along Lake St. Clair and then up the Thames River. And the Americans chased him!”

  “This is as good as a movie!”

  “Procter and his Natives made a stand at Moraviantown, halfway between Detroit and here. And they were routed in ten minutes flat. Loads of our soldiers and Native allies were killed. Including Tecumseh.”

  “But this is the thing, Sam. Procter’s wife and children were with him because they had been living with him at Fort Malden. Imagine! Living with him right in the war zone! What were they thinking? So Procter fled with his family ahead of his soldiers and made his way by road east along Commissioners Road, right past our house!” Eadie hunted through the printouts scattered on the floor. “That was October 6, 1813.”

  “Let’s hope he had his gold with him, Eadie!”

  “Well, his soldiers followed him. There must have been a paymaster because they had been at Fort Malden for months, and had to buy supplies from all the settlers in the district to feed the soldiers, and lots of the Natives and their families, too.”

  “But here’s where it gets tricky, Sam.” Eadie sat down on the floor again and consulted the printouts. “Procter went on ahead, but some websites say that the Americans caught up with Procter’s men on Reservoir Hill. Procter’s men were moving slowly because they were carrying the wounded, and some equipment and supplies.”

  Sam grinned at Eadie. “And maybe gold!”

  Eadie reached over to a pile of books that she had set aside when she was unpacking boxes. She picked up the History of the County of Middlesex Canada, opened it, and she stood up straight like a soldier before reading out loud in a deep and dramatic voice, “After the Battle at Moraviantown ‘General Procter retreated … taking the Longwoods and the Commissioners Roads … closely pursued by a small body of Kentucky riflemen.’ They caught up with Captain Carroll ‘… who was doomed to surrender or fight. Taking the latter course, he took possession of a knoll within the great bend of the Commissioners Road.’”

  “That’s exactly what Reservoir Hill is like, Eadie. Even today, two hundred years later.”

  Eadie continued reading, “‘And with Mrs. McNames, (who resided nearby) to distribute ammunition, waited the enemy’s attack. The Americans, seeing a hopeless task before them, retired after one repulse.’” Eadie rummaged in the litter of printouts on the floor. “I think I read somewhere that she was Phoebe McNames.”

  “Hurrah for Captain Carroll! So maybe the gold was lost in the skirmish, Eadie!”

  “But Sam, this is wher
e it becomes a legend. Here’s another book where it says that there is no documentary proof that there was a skirmish at all! It’s just a story. But it’s become the Legend of the Paymaster’s Gold.”

  Sam grabbed the bag of popcorn. He munched on a huge handful. “It’s so weird, Eadie, because lots of websites even describe the scene of the skirmish.” He pulled over their father’s historical atlas and read for a minute. “It says here that Carroll posted his command ‘on the summit of a beautiful rounded hill, which was covered … with a scattered growth of scrub oaks, and around which the Commissioners Road winds.’ It’s so crazy, that’s right here! What can you believe? And what about Phoebe McNames? Did she help the soldiers or not?”

  Eadie was silent. She lined up ten kernels of popcorn in a row on the edge of the coffee table. Then she ate them slowly, one by one. “All that means nothing, Sam, if there’s no official record that it ever happened. These are only stories.”

  “But, Eadie, why would people tell stories about the skirmish if it never happened? There must be a zillion things that happen every day that nobody writes down.” Sam made a paper airplane out of a printout and sent it flying across the room. “But those things still happened.”

  Eadie gathered up the printouts as Sam reached for the popcorn bag to finish off the last crumbs. “Look, Sam, even if there wasn’t a skirmish on Reservoir Hill, supposing General Procter just hurried by and Captain Carroll just plodded along with his wounded and his baggage wagons, we still know that they had gold with them. Which could have been lost. Or maybe they were afraid that the Americans might catch up with them so they hid the gold. And Procter’s troops weren’t the only troops that passed this way during the war. There was a lot of military traffic. And maybe other paymasters with gold. Think of that plaque in the park. That little skirmish a year after Procter’s retreat, when Captain Carroll was killed. Maybe the American raiders had gold with them. Maybe they had looted it from Canadian settlers. Maybe it was lost in the skirmish.