On November 12th, 1838, after the Upper Canada Rebellion, a Hunter Patriot para-military group decided that Upper Canada still wanted to overthrow its British oppressors so decided to make a beachhead by crossing from Ogdensburg, N.Y., to take Prescott. The plan was that once the beachhead was established, disaffected Upper Canadians would flock to the cause and restart the rebellion using Prescott as an area from which to make further incursions. However, the Brits had fore-knowledge of the plan and were ready, ultimately repelling the invasion.
Later that morning, more Hunter forces landed at a Windmill Point, two miles further downriver. The windmill was thick, being made of stone, and stood about 60 feet high giving the Hunters a clear field of view of everything going on and protected them from small arms fire, field cannon fire and naval battery fire. For the next couple of days, they held off the British troops and town militia but troops and cannon were brought up from Kingston, as well as sizable detachments of British Army regulars, Canadian Militia and U.S. Army regulars. The British Royal Navy was supported by the United States Navy and stopped any supplies coming across the river. After severe bombardments and mounting casualties, the Hunters finally surrendered on November 16th, 1838.
When it was done, the Hunters had lost 53 dead, 61 wounded, and a 136 captured of their 250. Of the 1,133 Canadian Militia, 500 British troops, U.S. Army, U.S. Navy, and the British Royal Navy, 17 were killed and about 60 wounded.
The people of Prescott celebrated the Battle of the Windmill on Saturday, August 24th, with a re-enactment of the battle on the field between the St. Lawrence River and Highway #2, just south of Fort Wellington. On Sunday, the same battle will be fought at the Battle of the Windmill Historic Site, two miles down highway #2.
Now, to be fair to the re-enactors, the last one of these I saw was maybe 35-40 years ago and it was a massive undertaking done on the Fort Wellington grounds with an encampment, artillery, maybe 75 re-enactors (including wives and camp followers), cannon and cavalry along with supporting naval units (also with cannon). It was something to behold with the battle see-sawing back and forth and especially the cavalry charge (all four horses), followed by a bayonet charge. This was not that battle.
In total there were maybe 13 re-enactors with the British on the west side of the field and the rebels on the east. Five were with the British of which three were in scarlet uniforms and two in period civilian dress with the remainder acting as rebels in period civilian dress. The Battle went like this: both sides stood their ground and fired at each other a couple of times, then the British would advance ten paces and the rebels retreated ten paces, repeated maybe five or six times. There were no tactics just firing black powder weapons. This went on for about 25 minutes until the rebels were pushed off the field. That’s it.
In fairness to the re-enactors, there’s not a lot more they could have done as there were just not enough of them to do the battle justice. I give them credit for acting their parts and standing out in the direct sun as they fired, moved and fired again. And kudos to them for trying to keep this little bit of history alive as I don’t even remember hearing about this in school. As a note, the Hunter leader, Nils von Schoultz, was defended by a young Kingston lawyer named John A. MacDonald. MacDonald lost and Schoultz was executed.
