Thread by @TopsyFarms

#TheCannons at #TopsyFarms
"The Royal George! There, Captain, at the horizon, I see her!"
Autumn 1812
7 gunships of the #USNavy lay in ambush for the biggest kid on the playground.
#TheRoyalGeorge.
96 feet long.
22 cannons, firing 32 pound shot.
In June 1812, President...1/10

Madison declares war.
It's not going well.
The Americans desperately need a win.
Manifest destiny; the vision of a North America united under the 15 stars & stripes is delayed.
The audacious British General Brock has gone against Royal order & attacked first.
Brock's...2/10

friendship with Shawnee leader Tecumseh is already kicking the hell out of America's war plan.
The loss of strategically important #FortDetroit in August is a terrible embarrassment.
Surrendered without firing a single musket.
Brock calculates that strengthening the...3/10

militia & the alliance with #TecumsehsConfederacy is paramount.
Canada's only hope to become Canada.
The main British army is distracted by #Napoleon in Europe.
Help is not coming.
The militia must hold.
Stretched along the east end of #LakeOntario are the #Loyalists
Named...4/10

for their support of England in the revolutionary war.
The Loyalists are citizen-soldiers; farmer-settlers looking to build a new life, willing to fight and possibly die if necessary.
The immorality of displacing the #IndigenousPeoples is a story for another day; one that...5/10

cannot be told in a few hundred words.
November 9th, 1812.
Autumn looks to winter
#TheAddingtonMilitia, is about to be tested.
7 US gunships chase the #RoyalGeorge.
The winds drive them from mid-lake towards #PrinceEdwardCounty
The British Captain is about to set a trap...6/10

of his own.
He knows well the treacherous shoals.
The Americans don't know about the milita & the cannon batteries either.
As the US ships come into range, the guns open up from the cliffs at the west end of #AmherstIsland
The bluffs that are now sheep pasture.
The second...7/10

battery begins firing from the area that now sits the #LennoxGeneratingStation
The Americans are in deep water & deep ship.
They spend the night anchored at Stella.
In a petulant rage, they burn a schooner in #Bath the next day.
They slink away under limp sail.
#Kingston's...8/10

harbour protected.
Our capital city protected
Protected too is a fledgling nation.
Defended by cannon smoke & the plow, roughened hands of farmer-soldiers
2022 - There is an ol' timer legend (backed up by historical documents) that suggests the cannons are still out on the...9/10

bluffs, buried under oil cloths & earth for all these years.
There have been small historical digs & searches.
The Topsy walking trail will take a visitor to the top of the cliffs. Maybe some day, this important treasure will be found 10/10
@LOYTWP Thank you to Brian & David