About Connections: Love it or hate it, history is a map. Those who hate history think it irrelevant; many who love history think it escapism. In truth, history is the clearest road map to how we got here: America in the twenty-first century.
She was celebrated in Canada and condemned in the United States. Both countries agree what she did was brave and resourceful. Both agree it was crucial in winning a battle, but the year was 1813, and the two countries were at war.
Laura Ingersoll was born in Great Barrington, Massachusetts, on September 12, 1775. She grew up in a handsome clapboard house that fronted on Main Street and backed to the river. (Located where Mason Library is today)
There were Ingersolls in Berkshire County before it was called Berkshire County. In 1736, when Sheffield was an idea but not a reality and there were few if any white settlers, the General Court in Boston asked Thomas Ingersoll “to repair to Housatonic to know the minds of the Indians.”
Ingersoll, Laura’s ancestor, settled in Sheffield. He was rewarded and respected for the role he played in carving out the territory.
By 1777 the fortunes of the Ingersoll family had changed. Looking less favorably upon them than the British had, the new government called them Tories and seized the Ingersoll property. Laura’s father made peace with the rebellion in the way many did: he signed a loyalty oath to the new country. With his land restored, Ingersoll served as an officer during the Revolutionary War. After the war, now Major Ingersoll was instrumental in the battle at Sheffield to quell Shays’ Rebellion.
It may be, however, that the loyalty oath did not fully reflect Ingersoll’s loyalty. In 1795 he moved his family, with his twenty-year-old daughter Laura, to British Canada. He was given land called a “loyalist grant.” As Canadians, they were, once again, British subjects.
At her new home in Canada, Laura met James Secord. Like her father, he came to Canada and was given a loyalty grant. The courtship progressed and soon James and Laura married and started a family.
Laura’s father died in Canada in 1812. That year Laura’s brother Charles was an officer in the British army fighting the United States. Laura was a thirty-seven year old mother of five — poised to enter history.
As the War of 1812 raged on, Canada’s position see-sawed. At times it was in American hands only to be retaken by the British. In August Major General Isaac Brock defeated the Americans at Detroit. In October Brock, “the hero of Upper Canada,” was killed defending Queenstown. With him on that battlefield was James Secord.
Laura went to the battlefield, searched among the dead and dying, and found James. He was badly wounded, but alive. Laura carried him home to safety. It was her first intrepid act but not her last.
The battle resumed around them, and this time the Americans won. In June 1813 Americans were in possession of the territory around the Secord home. Travel was restricted, and Canadians were expected to billet American troops.
As Laura fed the invaders, she overheard them plot an ambush of Lt. Col. James Fitzgibbons and his Canadian troops twenty miles north of Laura’s house.
“If we succeed we will control Upper Canada,” the American officer said.
James was still too ill to travel. The situation seemed dire. Fitzgibbons must be warned. Laura resolved to go.
The first obstacle was to leave the territory. As the American sentry called, “Halt”, Laura prepared her story.
She had a brother in the next town. He was a soldier, wounded and near death. She must go to him and nurse or bury him.
Laura was believed and passed through. Now what faced her was twenty miles through woods and swamp infested with wild animals, snakes, and renegades.
It required bravery, resolution and fortitude but she made it. She warned Fitzgibbons and collapsed.
In a letter Fitzgibbons wrote thanking Laura for his victory and his life, he said, “I dreaded at the time that you must suffer in health in consequence of fatigue and anxiety.”
He needn’t have feared. Laura lived to 93 years old; she died in 1868.
After the war, fully recovered, James took the post at the Customs House. When information was received that smugglers would be landing that night, James, and his assistant prepared to capture them.
Laura was concerned there were only two of them and it was certain there would be more than two smugglers to apprehend. So she dressed as a man and armed herself and took her position as a third ready to capture smugglers. They were successful and no one ever knew the third “man” was Laura.
Interestingly a monument to Laura is proximate to the one of Brock, and they are now called “the heroes of Upper Canada.” After the announcement this week that women will be welcomed into military able to assume any role without limitation, it is good to remember it will not be first time women fought and fought well.
