The St. Lawrence Canal Patrol, 1914-1917

[Once again we have a "longer article". However, the author has hit upon a subject that is not well known and one this editor calls well worth the recognition over one hundred years later.]

Watching for what might come out of the night

In a time of war, the sounds of night are amplified and distorted through imagination and nervous suspicion. A soldier peering into the edge of danger holds his rifle tightly, is quick to put finger to trigger, and steps along with uncertainty into darkness.

Those fraught nerves landed along the St. Lawrence River in the earliest days of the First World War in 1914 when Canada found itself suddenly—but not unexpectedly—at war with Germany. By contrast, the United States initially remained neutral in the conflict.

Because of that difference, the St. Lawrence became an armed front in the global conflict.

At the beginning of the war, it was difficult to calculate exactly what threat might cross the border into Canada. What was known was that the population of the United States at the outbreak of war was composed of a sizable number of recent arrivals from Germany, and that some initially supported their former homeland when war was declared. Fears of sabotage in both Canada and the United States proved to have a degree of foundation. German agents made some effort to undermine American industrial assistance to Britain and its allies, and some plotting was done to extend that disruption into Canada’s transportation network.

The official American position of neutrality changed drastically from the sinking of the Lusitania in 1915 and to the Zimmerman Telegram and America’s entry into the war in 1917—but that was not 1914. In the first year of war, Canada had reason to consider what threats might arrive from the United States.

The Great Lakes-St Lawrence waterway was an important route for the wartime transport of food and war materials from Canada to Britain. Its ports, canals, and locks simply could not be left unprotected. This would be a battle of ghosts in the night, fought against dangers that might come out of storms and snow and fog. Or that might never come—but that had to be guarded against regardless, owing to the stakes involved.

Two days after Canada joined Britain in declaring war against Germany on August 4, 1914, General Order 142 mobilized Canada’s militia for active service.

For the militia units along the St. Lawrence, activation meant reprising a well-understood role: looking south against threats that might emanate from the United States. The two units tasked with defense along the river—the 59th Stormont and Glengarry Regiment and the 56th Leeds and Grenville Regiment—had in their lineage action in the War of 1812 and defense during the 1866 Fenian Raids, respectively. A cavalry unit, the 4th Hussars of Canada, was composed of mounted militia units based at the head of the river in Kingston.

The militia units were grouped together in a protective role known as the St. Lawrence Canal Patrol, often termed a “home guard” in the local press. Two companies of the 59th Stormont & Glengarry Regiment were stationed at the Cornwall and Williamsburg Canal locks between Cornwall and Morrisburg. The 56th Grenville was stationed at the Williamsburg and Galop Canal locks at Iroquois and Cardinal. “D” Squadron of the 4th Hussars was assigned to provide a mounted patrol from Prescott down to Cornwall. The Canal Patrol came under the command of Lieutenant-Colonel Alexander G.F. Macdonald, a local newspaper publisher who had commanded a similar home guard at Halifax during the Boer War. By October 1914, a force of 22 officers and 258 men had been assigned to Canal Patrol duty.

Theirs is a largely forgotten and undocumented story, one small fragment of the national wartime experience of the following four years. At the time, however, it was followed by the communities along the River where these soldiers were stationed. Small-town journalists, keen to note every community stirring, leave us with enough insight into the Canal Patrol to at least get a sense of their experience. Some of the most detailed commentary on the Canal Patrol is found in wartime issues of The Leader, a weekly newspaper published in the Riverside lock-and-canal town of Morrisburg, ON.

The Leader was quick to share with its readers the news that war had come to the River. The edition of August 14th explained the necessity of deploying soldiers along the canals and locks and observed that this “may seem strange” to “those who have been accustomed to enjoying a stroll about the locks to find that privilege somewhat curtailed.” And in a harbinger of what was to come, noted that a guardsman at Cardinal “unable to determine the whereabouts of a strange noise, fired a shot” into darkness—only to discover in the light of day that he had shot a calf.

It may have been the arrival of nervous unease and the visible presence of armed soldiers along the River that prompted the paper to run an editorial the following week demanding caution and restraint from the sentries. Titled “Shooting To Kill,” it acknowledged the need for soldiers to guard against acts of sabotage but argued that any solder selected for that duty “should have sufficient judgement … to ensure the public against danger from him, and to refrain from any act that would create a public feeling of antagonism …”

And yet in the following weeks, The Leader delivered news of suspicious acts along the St, Lawrence, incidents that seemed to reinforce the need for the Canal Patrol to be vigilant. On September 4th, it carried a report from the Cornwall Standard that a guard in that city had noticed three men along the canal wall and called upon them to stop and then fired a shot at them as they made off into the River under cover of darkness. A hole had been dug in the canal wall where the men were discovered. The same article reported that two days later, a soldier patrolling the canal just west of Cornwall at Milles Roches came upon another trio of suspicious men—and was knocked unconscious by one in the confrontation that followed. “Those who have no business on the canal,” intoned the article, “should give it a wide berth.”

Incidents in the early months of the war kept the River’s communities on edge. The September 18th edition of The Leader carried the story of a suspicious character in Morrisburg’s Southern Hotel. The man was detained in the town jail and searched by Major Irving of the 4th Hussars, who discovered notebooks with German writing and “plans and drawings of a military character.” Two canal guards, Sgt. A.C. Casselman and Private Ritchie, escorted the man by train to Kingston where he was turned over to the city’s military authorities.

A few weeks later, the paper reported on November 6th of an apparent plot to sabotage the Grand Trunk Railway line downriver at Coteau Landing, west of Montreal. A guard stationed along the Soulanges Canal noticed men working on the rail line at night. They fled into the nearby woods when approached. When the patrolman, Private Clark, returned with other guards it was discovered that a rail switch had been sabotaged in a manner that would have caused a serious derailment at the site.

And in February 1916, news emerged of a man posing as a wounded soldier who was allowed to visit and have dinner with guards at Morrisburg. A few days later, noted The Leader, the man was arrested with “incriminating papers and plans” of the Morrisburg Lock. The article noted that the man had been granted a degree of access to the lock that was denied to longstanding and well-known community members.

Incidents, confrontations, rumours, fears of violence, and sabotage that might emerge from the River’s night in a time of war. It holds a nervous, opaque quality that is the stuff of mystery and drama.

In retrospect, it seems the Canal Patrol guards were not adequately prepared for a situation in which they had to anticipate that any unidentified movement or noise in the night could prove to be an enemy. In some cases, it did not prepare them for the inherent hazards of guard duty along the River.

The Leader carried news on May 7, 1915, of a Private Patterson shooting himself “through the left foot” while guarding the canal at Morrisburg. On July 16, 1915, the paper reported the death of 18-year-old Walter Zeran of “Dixon’s Landing” (Dickinsons’s Landing) who, while patrolling Lock 18 at Cornwall, slipped and fell from the lock’s stone wall. The following week, the paper carried the news of the accidental death of Sgt. Tom Tripenny at the powerhouse in Milles Roches, who drowned while swimming “beyond his depth.” On December 3, 1915, came news of the death of 21-year-old Iroquois Lock patrol guardsman Herbert Barber who, while assisting in the passage of a boat, was struck in the head by a lock winch handle and never regained consciousness.

A particularly shocking incident occurred on April 5, 1915, at the New York & Ottawa Railway bridge at Cornwall. For Akwesasne residents living on Cornwall Island, using the north span of the rail bridge was a frequently used route into the town. Two girls, 10-year-old Cecile and 12-year-old Margaret Oak, and their mother Nancy, were returning to Cornwall after visiting St. Regis village when a bridge guard fired two shots at them. One shot struck Cecile Oak in the left leg and she was taken to hospital in Cornwall by a group of guards.

The agent for Akwesasne, F.E. Taillion, demanded an inquest into the incident as well as punishment for the guards responsible and compensation for the Oak family. A military board of inquiry held four days after the shooting determined that the soldiers had acted correctly in the technical sense. Commanding Officer Major Hugh A. Cameron testified that he heard the patrol guards yell out a verbal challenge before firing the shots when they did not receive a response. Agent Taillon’s testimony provided a compelling counterargument, however. Taillon testified that the guards had just arrived at the bridge and were busy setting up camp and that sentries were not in place on the bridge or tracks; that a verbal warning was not issued, that the young girls may not have understood instructions given in English at any rate; that the bridge was well-known as a conduit of travel for Akwesasne residents and that they had not been given prior warning of the patrol’s arrival at the bridgehead; and that the guard who shot Cecile Oak did so from a position that did not allow for clear identification. Taillon’s testimony corroborated the earlier testimony of Nancy Oak, who stated to the board that her daughter Sarah had not heard any verbal challenges as the two girls walked toward the bridge ahead of their mother.

Whatever its perceived need, the St. Lawrence Canal Patrol did not last until the end of the war. At the end of 1915, the local regiments that comprised the Patrol were absorbed by two new overseas units: the 154th (Stormont-Dundas-Glengarry) Battalion and the 156th (Leeds and Grenville) Battalion. Macdonald, the Canal Patrol’s commanding officer, became the commanding officer of the 154th. On September 22, 1916, The Leader reported that the canal guardsmen would be discharged from duty and replaced by medically unfit enlistees of the 154th and 156th Battalions. This was not a surprising development in a conflict with high numbers of casualties who needed constant replacement. Further threats to the locks and the canals could be guarded against by soldiers not fit for overseas duty. From 1916 through to the end of the war in 1918, news reports reflected a different focus on former canal guards: those who were injured and killed fighting in Europe.

The United States’ entry into the war in April 1917 ended the need for soldiers to guard the locks and canals of the St. Lawrence. The Leader reported on May 18, 1917, that the canal patrol would be withdrawn fully by May 20 and replaced by a smaller force comprised of local police officers.

On May 25, 1917, The Leader noted that eight local policemen had assumed responsibility for local guard duties. Patrol duty would claim another life when Arthur Hunter, a newly appointed police guard, fell into the canal east of Morrisburg at Farran’s Point, Ontario, and drowned.

It was a tragic finale to an operation that was winding down.

On August 31, 1917, the Department of Militia advertised in The Leader its impending sale of huts used by canal guards along their local stretch of duty. Offers for the groups of huts between Cornwall and Iroquois were to be tendered within the week, with the stipulation that winning bidders were responsible for the complete removal of the huts within two weeks and their grounds cleaned thoroughly. No trace of their existence—no physical record of their service—would remain.

That absence from public memory stretches forward to the present. There is no memorial to the St. Lawrence Canal Patrol, or to those killed and injured while serving as guards. Aside from brief references in local histories, there is nothing to explain what the patrol meant to the communities that found themselves along a front line of feared incursion when war was declared.

In a conflict of massive proportion and consequence, small stories pass easily without memory. This is one of them.

The patrol does, however, offer a counterpoint to what is remembered in Canada about the First World War. This was not the courage and effort of the Canadian soldier as remembered today at Vimy Ridge, or The Somme, or Passchendaele. The St. Lawrence Canal Patrol was but a single thread of many that would eventually be woven into the tapestry of experience on Europe’s battlefields.

Heroism-in-development carries its own quality. That, in the end, may be the legacy of the nervous, unsure, and occasionally flawed steps taken by the St. Lawrence Canal Patrol along a River darkened by wartime suspicion and fear.

By Craig I. Stevenson

Craig Irwin Stevenson grew up in Cornwall, Ontario, and spent an inordinate amount of time on and along the River, at his maternal grandparents’ cottage, on Moulinette Island, the easternmost of seventeen islands created by the Seaway flooding. He is a teacher at North Grenville District High School, in Kemptville, Ontario. His students are fortunate as Craig not only teaches history but he makes history come alive with his many stories.

Be sure to see Craig Stevenson's important other River stories here.