JOOP GERRITSMA, "TODAY IS UNITED EMPIRE LOYALIST DAY," WELLAND TRIBUNE (JUNE 19, 1999).

Copyright Tribune (Welland) 1999

WELLAND - Welland city hall isn't flying their flag and there is no parade, but local descendants of the United Empire Loyalists are celebrating United Empire Loyalist Day today all the same.

There are about 80 members in the Col. John Butler branch of the United Empire Loyalist Association in Niagara, with a handful of them in Welland, says Ed Scott.

Scott, of Beverly Crescent in Welland, is the national president of the United Empire Loyalist Association of Canada, with another year to go in his mandate.

Unlike Welland, other municipalities in the region, including St. Catharines, Niagara Falls and Niagara-on-the-Lake, are flying the old 1606 union flag today.

It is the flag adopted by the United Empire Loyalists as their own, says Scott. It will also be flown from the Laura Secord House in Queenston.

Welland city council has been asked to proclaim June 19 as United Empire Loyalist Day in the city in lieu of flying the flag.

As far as public celebrations are concerned, there was a "boulder service" in St. Catharines on Wednesday to commemorate the arrival of United Empire Loyalists in Niagara in 1784 at what is now Niagara- on-the-Lake.

The boulder was placed at the corner of St. Paul and Yates Streets in 1934 in honour of these first settlers.

The United Empire Loyalist Association still has almost 2,000 members across Canada in 29 branches coast to coast, says Scott.

What holds them together is a shared sense of common heritage.

"We believe in trying to protect our cultural history. It is under a real threat this day and age."

It is estimated that 30,000 Loyalists came to Upper and Lower Canada at the end of the 18th and beginning of the 19th Century.

That means there could be millions of descendants in Canada today, says Scott. Many of those who came to Ontario settled along the Niagara River, along the south shore of Lake Ontario toward what is now Hamilton, and along the north shore of Lake Erie toward Long Point.

"We are working hard to preserve our heritage," says Scott.

They do it by sending information packages to schools now that the government has made Loyalist history a mandatory part of the curriculum, and sometimes through personal appearances at schools by costumed members.

"We are making progress," says Scott. "We are better known today than we were 10 years ago."