GREAT RIVER ROMANCE

New Zealand Herald, Volume LXIX, Issue 21248, 30 July 1932, Page 2 (Supplement)

GREAT RIVER ROMANCE

PIRATE'S REIGN OF TERROR DAUGHTER'S REMARKABLE LIFE " QUEEN OF THOUSAND ISLANDS *' Of all tho romances^, associated with the St. Lawrence River —now engaging attention by reason of the vast seaway project on tho part of Canada and the United States—none is recalled so vividly ns 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 tho "Vancouver correspondent of the Herald. Johnston, a Canadian-born merchant of Kingstown, Ontario, escaped from prison and Hod with his family to the United States, where, 22 years after, ho was appointed to the revenue service on Lake Ontario and the Upper St. Lawrence. During these happy years in an otherwise troubled life, five sous and two daughteis grew up around him. His younger daughter, Kate was slight and delicate, a fact that attracted her to her rugged father. Like him, she loved tho mighty river, and ■ho 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 tho Thousand Islands." Johnston was sixty when William Lyon Mackenzie raised the standard of revolt.

Ho 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 cap tured and burned the English steamboat Sir Robert Peel. Canada and the United States co-operated to rid the border of a dangerous menace. Daughter's Dowry of Loot Kate, now 19, received a dowry from her father in the 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 bo rewarded as a furtive figure stolo into view on a distant, lonely rock, waved a signal and disappeared. Then she would put out, when darkness fell, locate her father's retreat, give him food. If ho did not appear, she would hido it in a cache. Sho moved him from placo to plnco. Fishermen and longshoremen knew of her mission. Occasionally she was followed, but never overhauled, except on one occasion. Two Officers Out-manoeuvred Two British officers, in a gig, searching for Johnston, came across Kale unawares, and endeavoured to make her reveal her father's hiding place. Casually manoeuvring her boat into an advantageous position, she seized her rifle, covered her captors, and, threatening them with instant death, compelled them to hitch their boat to hers, and tow her to tho American shore, where she bade them depart in peace. Johnston emerged momentarily as a leader in tho ill-fated Prcscott expedition. After tho Battle of tho Windmill, ho went back into hiding. At length, fearful for his daughter, who suffered untold privation, ho surrendered to tho Unitod States, and was sentenced to a year's imprisonment for a breach of tho 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 personages. 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. " Tho 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 overy day. His daughter, tho adventurous girl of the Thousand Islands is here also—the 'lioness' of the hour." Escape from Prison After seven months' imprisonment tho old warrior escaped. His daughter departed first. They went back to tho Thousand Islands, and tho old gamo of hido and seek commenced anew. The position became intolerable. Kate circulated a petition, and President Harrison pardoned Johnston. For ten years thereafter he was keeper of a lighthouse near tho spot where the Peel was sacked and burned. In tho closing years of his life he was a restless wanderer np and down the great rivor. Kale spurned famo, wealth and countless offers of marriage. Tho 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 1878, in her 60th year. Thero have been greater women, greater heroines, in Canada and tho United States, but few touched the imagination and aroused the chivalry of the people as she did. To this day sho is recognised in both countries as the " Heroine of tho St. Lawrence," poetically termed "■ Queen of the Thousand Islands."