[JAMES] FIRST LEGISLATORS OF UPPER CANADA 95 
The Bay of Quinté District.— Beginning at Kingston, ten town- 
ships were surveyed around the Bay of Quinté, each one known as 
“No. so-and-so above Cataraqui.” Here settled the second Battalion 
of Sir John Johnson’s Royal New York Regiment, Major Rogers 
with his King’s Rangers, Capt. Grass with his band from New York 
City, Major Van Alstine with his batteau men, a part of Jessup’s 
Rangers, a small body of the Hessian Mercenaries, and a small but 
important body of Quakers from Dutchess County, N.Y. The Scottish 
element was not so prominent as in the St. Lawrence townships, but 
German and Dutch permeated the whole district. The student will 
also find two other interesting elements, though somewhat limited in 
numbers, namely, German-Irish, or JIrish-Palatines, and French 
Huguenots. | 
At Niagara, settlement received an impetus because the fort on 
the eastern bank had remained in British hands and had been a 
haven of refuge for the loyalist families of the Mohawk valley. The 
discharged soldiers sought out their wives and children and crossed 
the river to take up the frontier lots of the newly surveyed townships 
of the peninsula. Butler’s Rangers formed an important part of 
these first settlers, who soon occupied the townships from about where 
Hamilton now stands, to Long Point. 
In the western district Detroit formed the headquarters, and here 
w: find three interesting elements,—the British regulars and their 
officers; the French Canadians, descendants of the pioneer French 
families; and the British officers who had led the Indians in the wild 
western warfare that swept the forests from Mackinac to Pittsburg. 
When the time comes for this district to produce magistrates and 
representatives, we may expect them to come from these three classes. 
Across from the old French settlement at Detroit, in 1747, was 
established the Indian Mission, and about it there gradually grew up a 
French settlement with Sandwich (L’Assomption) as its centre, an off- 
shoot of old Quebec, where the French language still is spoken and where 
the. French Canadian mode of life still prevails. On the shores of Lake 
Erie, westward from where Kingsville now stands, 97 lots were surveyed, 
and on these a mixed body of loyalists were settled, among them being 
some of Butler’s Rangers. The Western or Detroit District then con- 
sisted at first of three settlements. Detroit, on the American side, the 
French Canadian settlement among the Indians about Pointe de 
Montreal, and the “ two-connected townships ” (Gosfield and Colchester) 
on Lake Erie. The township of Malden had few settlers until 1796, 
when Detroit was evacuated and Fort Amherstburg was erected to com- 
mand the river. About the same time the lots along the River Thames 
began to be taken up. 
