4 The Illumination of Joseph Keeler, Esq. 



too, many incidents of the heroic drama of the War of 1812: 

 of the imminent dangers of attack from American brigs by se- 

 cret descent upon the Bay, looked upon both as a harbour of 

 refuge and a ship-building yard; of the schooner laden with 

 salt, which stranded on PresquTsle Point in the autumn of 1812, 

 unloading her cargo on the sand and, after consigning it to the 

 care of good Mrs. Captain Sellack, stealing away in the night; 

 and of the night attack on a schooner Grandfather Gibson was 

 building for his boy then away to the war with the militia 

 by the notorious Yankee land pirate, Bill Johnston, who ran 

 out from Sacketts' Harbour in a fast cutter and, with muffled 

 oars, approached the schooner and set it on fire, and was seen 

 by the glare from the burning ship, hastening away into the 

 darkness. 



But the weirdest of all her stories was that of the loss off 

 Presqu'Isle Point of the schooner "Speedy'* w r ith all on board 

 on the night of October 8, 1804. In the winter of 1804, a white 

 man back at Scugog Lake had been murdered by a drunken 

 Indian, who, fearing arrest, had stolen away to a camp near 

 York, but there was apprehended. There seemed no doubt of 

 his guilt, and, with a view to impress the Indians of his district, 

 he was being taken for trial from Toronto to the new District 

 town of Newcastle. The "Speedy" had on board Judge Coch- 

 rane, Robert Gray, solicitor general, Angus McDonnell Esq., 

 advocate, John Stegman, surveyor, Mr. George Gown, Indian 

 interpreter, James Ruggles, Esq., John Fish, constable, with the 

 prisoner, and Captain Paxton and five of a crew. The schooner 

 had started out from Toronto on Sunday evening, October 7, 

 with a brisk northwest wind; had called in the morning at 

 Oshawa to take on witnesses and had worked her way against 

 a now northeast wind, become a gale, till she was sighted off 

 what is now Colborne Creek, in the evening of October 8. Cap- 

 tain Peters and others fearing for her hurried away to the Point 

 and built large fires to assist the "Speedy" to port; but she dis- 

 appeared in the darkness during the height of the storm. 

 Morning came and with it not a sign of the schooner; but in a 

 day or two the water-cask and hen-coop from her deck drifted 

 ashore on Wellers' Beach. 



The story, tragic as it was, was a natural one and would 



