CAROL J. DAVY, "LOYALIST HISTORY COMES ALIVE," KINGSTON WHIG-STANDARD (JULY 3, 1998).
Copyright Kingston Whig Standard 1998
The Whig-Standard Travel section of Saturday, June 13, featured a full-page Canadian Press piece on "Colonial history comes to life."
But it was not necessary to go to Williamsburg, Va., for on June 11-14, history came to life in Kingston. At 8:30 on June 12, Loyalist Day in Kingston, red-coated re-enactors raised the Loyalist flag over Confederation Park, accompanied by colorful pipers and drummers from Fort Henry.
Our beautiful Memorial Hall was the fitting setting for a welcoming wine and cheese party for many of the 200 delegates to the Annual General Meeting and Conference of the United Empire Loyalists' Association of Canada. Ontario wines and excellent local cheeses shared the tables with antique oil lamps, bread boards and butter bowls. Flute, recorder and harpsichord music tuned our ears to that period of history when our ancestors came to this barren wilderness in 1784.
The very significant highlight of that evening - but, unfortunately, missed by the Whig - was the presentation by National UELAC President Bernice Flett to His Worship Mayor Gary Bennett of his U.E. certificate proving his lineage back to Martin Staley, who fought with the First Battalion King's Royal Regiment, New York, thus losing his home in Colonial America to start life anew near Dundas, Ont.
The Archives at Queen's had marvellous displays, including Michael Grass' (Michael Grass Crescent) gun and watch among many other Loyalist artifacts.
Three buses (not 18th-century bateaux and carts) took us from Kingston to Adolphustown as a day with history unfolded. Landmarks were pointed out and visited along the way - the 1803 stone house of Peter Wartman, the 1785 frame-over-log and stone house of Jeptha Hawley, the 1793 frame home of Benjamin Fairfield, the cemeteries where Molly Brant, James Rogers and John Davy are buried. Period- costumed men and women told us of the life and times in Bath, Adolphustown and Hay Bay.
Our gala banquet, which had sea-to-sea representation from nine Canadian provinces, featured a costume parade, award-winning writer/ speaker Walter Stewart and Kingston's own National Music Festival winners, the Girls Cantabile Choir.
On Sunday, 100 strong, we took our seats at St. George's Cathedral, where Mr. Okill Stuart, the great-great grandson of the first rector of what was then known as St. George's Church, read the lesson. We concluded our four days of history with lunch at Fort Henry, Kingston's main tourist attraction.
While we appreciate the news story of June 3, covering the outline of the activities to take place, and the editorial of June 12 ("Loyalists left us legacy of wisdom"), we were disappointed that no actual news coverage of the actual events appeared.
Carol J. Davy, U.E.
President,
Kingston and District Branch
United Empire Loyalists'
Association of Canada
Odessa