“QUEEN OF THOUSAND ISLANDS”

Hawera Star, Volume LII, 3 September 1932, Page 14

“QUEEN OF THOUSAND ISLANDS”

fAF all the romances associated with the St. Lawrence River—now engaging attention by reason of the vast seaway project on the part of Canada and the United States—none is recalled so vividly as that of Kate Johnston, daughter of the pirate, William Johnston, who instituted a brief reign of terror, as a result of being imprisoned by the British in 1812, due, it was claimed, to his American sympathies, says the Vancouver correspondent of the ‘‘New ‘Zealand Herald.” Johnston, a Canadian-,born merchant of Kingstown, (Ontario, escaped from prison and fled with his family to the LT.nited 'States, where, 22 years after, he was appointed to the revenue service on Lake Ontario and the Upper St. Lawrence. During these happy years in an otherwise troubled life, five sons and two daughters grew up around him. His young daughter, Kate was slight and delicate, a fact That attracted her to her rugged father. Like him, she loved the mighty river, and he encouraged her .to spend most of her time on its turbulent "waters. She developed beauty, character and endurance, and became the idol of her father, who swore to make her ‘•‘Queen of the Thousand Islands.”

Johnston was sixty when William Lyon Mackenzie raised the standard of revolt. He plunged into the conflict in 1838, assembled a band of 500 refugees and adventurers, and, with the aid of swift canoes, turned the Thousand Islands into an armed camp, and declared war on the young Queen of England. His force captured and ■burned the English steamboat Sir Robert Peel. Canada and the United States co-operated to rid the border of a dangerous menace. Kate, now 19, received a dowry from her father in itlie form of loot from the English vessel, which included a large sum in cash. She had her own. war canoe, and went armed, like the boldest buccaneer in her father’s command.

International forces routed .the pirates, and Johnston became a fugitive in his wilderness domain, with a heavy price on his head. Day after day, his daughter sat with a telescope at her eye, watching through two apertures in the sloping roof. Her seat was her bed. Sometimes her vigil would be rewarded as a furtive figure stole into view on a distant, lonely rock, waved a signal and disappeared. Then 1 she would put out, when darkness fell, locate her father’s retreat, give him food. If he did not appear, she would hide it in a cache. She moved him from place to place. Pishermen and longshoremen knew of her mission. Oc-

Romance of St. Lawrence Waterways

casionally she was followed, but never overhauled, except on one occasion. Two British officers, in a gig, searching for Johnston, came across Kate unawares, and endeavoured to make her reveal her father’s hiding place. Casually manoeuvring her Doat into an advantageous position ,she seized her rifle, covered her captors, and, threatening them with instant death, com- ' pelled them to hitch their boat to hers, and tow her to the American shore, where she bade them depart in peace. Johnston emerged momentarily as a leader in the ill-fated Prescott expedition. After the Battle of the Windmill, he went back into hiding. At length, fearful for his daughter, who suffered untold privation, he surrendered to the United States, and was sentenced to a year’s imprisonment for a breach of the neutrality laws.-' His daughter sought permission to .share his cell. It was readily granted as two nations were already paying her honours rarely-given to other than royal Poets and writers sang her praises, a play was staged in her honour in New York. .Statesmen, politicians, citizens of either country visited her and her father in prison. “The only ‘‘lion’ now in the city is Bill Johnston,” wrote one of the New York newspapers. “He holds a sort of involuntary levee in his prison every day. His daughter, the adventurous .girl of the Thousand Islands is here also —the ‘lioness’ of the hour.”

After seven months’ imprisonment the old warrior ©scaped. His daughter departed first. They went back to the Thousand Islands, and the old game of hide and seek commenced anew. The position became intolerable. Kate circualted a petition, and President Harrison pardoned Johnston. For ten years thereafter he was keeper of a lighthouse near the spot where the Peel was sacked and burned. In the closing years of 'his life he w r as a restless wanderer up and down tne great river. Kate spurned fame, wealth and countless offers of marriage. The choice of her heart was a young Ontario tradesman. They married and reared a family of five children, and left behind them traditions of home life and good citizenship. After six years of widowhood, this remarkable woman died in IS‘7'B, in her 60th year. There have been greater women, greater heroines, in 'Canada and the United 'States, but few touched The imagination and aroused the chivalry of the people as she did. To this day she is recognised in both countries as the ‘(‘Heroine of itHe St. Lawrence,” poetically termed “Queen of the Thousand Islands.”