[jAMEs] SECOND LEGISLATURE OF UPPER CANADA • 163 



tant treaties and land surrenders. For many years he was one of the 

 Indian superintendents. Thomas McKee was one of the members for 

 Essex in the 3rd parliament and was succeeded in the 4th by David 

 Cowan. Though elected at the general elections of August, 1796, he 

 did not -take his seat until 1800, being introduced and sworn in as 

 member at the opening of the fourth session. The succession from 

 the first to the last McKee mentioned in this paper is interesting: — 



Col. Alexander McKee — Thomas McKee (member 1796) — Alex- 

 ander McKee— Alexander McKee — Thomas McKee (registrar)— 

 Thomas Alexander McKee and William James McKee (ex-M.P.P.). 

 Thomas McKee, member of the second legislature died in 1815. 



Essex and Suffolk. — David William Smith had represented these 

 counties in tlie first legislature. Just before the first session (August, 

 1793) he had removed to Newark, and, as stated above, ihad ohanged 

 his constituency m 1796, being elected for 3rd Lincoln, in which New- 

 ark was situated. This left a vacancy in the west. At the close of the 

 Eevolutionary War, Detroit was the chief centre of the western district. 

 Across the Detroit river a French-Canadian settlement had gradually 

 sprung up about the Indian church located at what is now the town of 

 Sandwich. The Indians had granted to a half-dozen of their English- 

 speaking leaders a large traot, now the township of Maiden, but the 

 dispute in connection with the ownership of this land was not settled 

 until after the erection of Fort Amherstburg, in 1796, and the removal 

 thither from Detroit of the military and naval headquarters.^ A large 

 number of loyalists had settled on a strip of land running east from 

 Maiden township along Lake Erie. Many of these were members of 

 the disbanded Butler's Bangers. In 1787 Major Matthews, under 

 orders from Lo'rd Dorchester, laid out 97 long, narrow lots and con- 

 firmed the squatters in their rights. These foraied the first lots of 

 two townships, which, for many years, went by the name ^' The two 

 connected townships." Their present names are Colchester and G-os- 

 field. The lots were numbered from east to west. In the Government 

 records this section from Kingsville to the eastern boundary of Maiden 

 is referred to as '' The New Settlement." Lots 68, 69 and 70 were 

 reserved for a town. Colchester village stands on these lots today. 



Number 97 was occupied by John Cornwall, and he was the man 

 who was elected in August, 1796, to represent Essex and Suft'olk. In 

 1899 Mr. Thaddeus Smith wrote a pamphlet giving an historical sketch 

 of Pelee Island with an account of the McCormiek family. The Chap- 

 pawa and Ottawa Indians in 1788 gave a lease of the island to Thom'aa 



'■ See Early History of the Town of Amherstburg, by C. C. James. The 

 Echo Printing Company, Amherstburg, 1902. 



