Harper's Encyclopedia of United States History
Benson Lossing, Ed.

---

St. Lawrence, movement on the

When news of the declaration of war between the United States and Great Britain (June, 1812) reached Ogdensburg, N. Y., on the St. Lawrence, eight American schooners—trading vessels—lay in the harbor. They endeavored to escape into Lake Ontario, bearing away affrighted families and their effects. An active [14] Canadian partisan named Jones had raised a company of men to capture them. He gave chase in boats, overtook the unarmed flotilla at the foot of the Thousand Islands, captured two of the schooners, and emptied and burned them (June 29). A rumor was circulated that the British were erecting fortifications among the Thousand Islands, and that expeditions of armed men were to be sent across the St. Lawrence to devastate American settlements on its borders. General Brown and Commander Woolsey, of the Oneida, were vested with ample power to provide for the defence of that frontier. Colonel Benedict, of St. Lawrence county, was ordered to guard the region from Ogdensburg to St. Regis (q. v.) with a competent force, and militia were gathered at Ogdensburg and St. Vincent. This was the first warlike movement on the river in the War of 1812-15.