Events & Dates of Note
For upcoming events, please visit the Kawartha Branch events page.
Special Dates to Remember
Plaque Unveiling & Commemorative Service: June 15, 2025
The unveiling of the marker plaques for the donated tree in the UEL Heritage Centre and Park will take place on Sunday June 15, 2025 at 1:00 p.m. in the UEL Cemetery in Adolphustown, as part of our annual Flag Raising Event, if you are able to attend.
In addition, there will be a landing re-enactment at 11:00 a.m. at the beach area before the afternoon events.
Flag-Raising Ceremony, June 19, 2025
Kawartha Branch Flag Raising Ceremony, Peterborough City Hall, Thursday, 19 June, 10:00 a.m.
We are very pleased to continue to raise the Queen Anne Flag (Loyalist Flag) on this special day.
We will be accompanied by dignitaries from Peterborough County, City Hall and the Chief of Peterborough Police as well as re-enactor Claus Reuter, from Lindsay, Brandon McDermott UE, piper, Harry Danford UE (see below), and others.
As a Member of Provincial Parliament, Harry Danford, Member of Provincial Parliament for Hastings, Peterborough had 19 June declared United Empire Loyalist Day that we've continued to celebrate ever since.
Mr. Harry Danford, Member of Provincial Parliament for Hastings Peterborough, himself of Loyalist ancestry, in cooperation with the United Empire Loyalists Association of Canada, developed a Private Member's Bill to declare June 19th , the anniversary of the Constitutional Act, "United Empire Loyalist Day" in the province of Ontario. Mr. Danford's Bill was given Royal Assent and passed into law in December, 1997 with unanimous, all-party support in the Legislature. June 19th is now an official day formally established by the Ontario Government to commemorate and celebrate our Loyalist heritage.
In the Spring of 2002, the Mayor of Peterborough, Sylvia Sutherland, met with Members of Kawartha Branch and, as a result, Council passed a motion to declare 19 June Loyalists Day in Peterborough, the flag to be raised and flown on the flag pole for the ensuing week.
A delegation consisting of Stan McBride UE, Joan Lucas UE, Grietje McBride UE and myself visited Mayor Sylvia Sutherland of the City of Peterborough in her Chambers to request that City Council pass a by-law ensuring a flag-raising ceremony be conducted annually at City Hall on Loyalists' Day, June 19th, and that the Loyalists' Union Flag continue to fly at City Hall for the ensuing week. I am very pleased to report that City Council, in a Committee of the Whole meeting of 11 February 2002, passed a motion ensuring these events will take place on an annual basis here in Peterborough.
Refreshments will be served following the Flag Raising Ceremony.
Wild Irish Geese, World Premiere
Wild Irish Geese, written by Megan Murphy, directed by Kim Blackwell.
July 29 - August 30, Tuesday to Saturday at 6 pm. Previews: July 29, 30. Opening Night: Thursday, July 31. With an added Monday performance on August 25.
Wild Irish Geese is the story of Irish settlers and their journey to the Peterborough region. Peter Robinson was the architect of an 1820s emigration plan which saw thousands of Irish families come to Canada to escape the brutal poverty that they were facing in Ireland. Eventually over 2,000 impoverished Irish settled in Scott's Plains, later renamed Peterborough and began their lives anew. These new Canadians planted deep roots in the Peterborough area and have thousands of descendants both locally and across the globe.
Kawartha Branch UELAC Members will recall that we had Kim Blackwell visit us at Kelsey's Restaurant earlier this year.
If you are interested in attending with Grietje & Bob McBride as well as Joan & Frank Lucas, please let us know as soon as possible.
Preview nights: Tuesday, July 29 and Wednesday, July 30.
Performance time: 6:00 p.m. ET
Cost: $38 + tax and fees
We can be reached by email at uelbob@nexicom.net / maplegrm@gmail.com
Or phone us at: 705-295-4556 / 705-977-2752
We normally meet earlier at Swiss Chalet in Peterborough at 4:00 p.m. for a meal before going to The Fourth Line Theatre.
Preview tickets will go quickly so the sooner you let us know, the sooner we can buy the tickets at this reduced rate. Normally they are $52.00 each.
Kawartha Branch Meeting: Sunday, Sept. 15, 2024 (hybrid Zoom/in-person meeting)
Fall has arrived, and Kawartha Branch is very active! We would like to invite you to join us on Sunday, September 15th, either via ZOOM or in person at the Peterborough Activity Haven, 180 Barnardo Avenue, Room 3, Peterborough, Ontario, where you will have the opportunity to meet with our Dominion Genealogists, Angela Johnson, UE, and Peter Johnson, UE, our guest speakers.
Their topic will be “Researching Frankford history and area Loyalist who lived there” (with power-point presentation). They will be speaking about the Loyalists who founded the village of Frankford and area. They are well-known across Canada for their dedication in preserving Loyalist military and domestic history and genealogy in particular. Both of them served on the Executive of the Toronto Branch and were Committee Members for the book, Loyalist Lineages, Vol. 2.
Peter has written and researched military history and is an avid re-enactor. After they moved to the Quinte area, they each served as the Bay of Quinte Branch's Genealogist and on the Quinte Branch Executive where both have been Branch Presidents. They have served on the Parks Board and are avid supporters of the Hay Bay Church.
Kawartha Branch is honoured to welcome Angela and Peter as our guest speakers on Sunday, September 15th, at 2:00 p.m. at the Peterborough Activity Haven.
Kawartha Branch Meeting: Sunday, Apr. 21, 2024 (via Zoom)
On Sunday, April 21st, at 2:00pm in the Peterborough Activity Haven, we will welcome Gordon Pitts, a journalist with 40 years of experience in Canadian daily newspapers, and a prize-winning author of books of Canadian biography and history.
Having retired from the Globe and Mail a decade ago, he has written eight books drawing on the history of his home county of Hastings and its communities. His books include The Rise and Fall of J.C. Dale: A Family, a House and the Madoc Bank Bust of 1914, and Who Killed Charlie St. Charles? Mavericks and Murderers in the Country North of Madoc.
His topic will be all about his latest and eighth book, The Rise and Fall of J.C. Dale: A Family, a House and the Madoc Bank Bust of 1914.
From the Belleville Intelligencer:
Acclaimed journalist and Madoc native Gordon Pitts said in a recent interview that his latest book, called The Rise and Fall of J.C. Dale, was “a labour of love.” The warm, knowledgeable and skillful writing certainly backs up his comment. As a journalist, Pitts has held positions at the Ottawa Citizen and the Toronto Globe and Mail, plus other publications, and a teaching position at Brighton’s East Northumberland Secondary School, where he met his wife, Elaine, the librarian. The book talks about an incident that royally shook not just the Madoc community, but a wide swath of Hastings County from customers in Belleville through to Maynooth.
Making this book more interesting is the fact that, as a young lad who attended both public and secondary school in Madoc, Pitts has personal memories of many of the people and the community most involved. In his retirement, Pitts continues to work as a free-lance journalist, focusing on finance-based stories, which was his key role as a full-time employee. This also is his eighth local history book, reflecting his hobby in this area.
“I don’t write books for the money,’ he said. This book involves a strong business motif, tracing early banking institutions, especially the small privately-operated banks in many rural communities more than a hundred years ago.
The story stems from a significant event at the Madoc Dale Bank, a financial institution that the community had come to trust and rely on. On April Fool’s Day, April 1, 1914, the bank did not open at its usual hour, with a sign on the door reading “payment stopped for 10 days”. That sign generated ominous feelings amongst the bank’s 1,400 depositors.
For farmers, it was coming on seeding time and they relied on the bank for advance funds. J.C. (Jimmy) Dale, was a man who had earned community trust in numerous roles for many years. All of a sudden he had disappeared, leaving a shuttered bank behind. A sum of $2,000 was also recorded as missing.
The news spread like wildfire among customers and the region, to Marmora and through North Hastings. Also left behind was a ravishingly beautiful mansion Dale had built for his family, called the Dale House, which went into abandonment and became a playground for local youngsters in that state, until various new owners took it over.
Kawartha Branch Meeting: Sunday, Feb. 19, 2023 (via Zoom)
Featuring guest speaker, Jean Rae Baxter, UE, who will be talking about her latest book, The Knotted Rope.
The Knotted Rope, the sixth and final novel in what has become known as the “Forging a Nation” series, is set in Niagara in 1793 during the last days of slavery in Upper Canada. It returns to the subject of Jean Rae Baxter’s third historical, Freedom Bound, in which she told the story of the Black Loyalists’ escape from slavery during the American Revolution. In The Knotted Rope, Jean Rae Baxter unravels another strand of the complicated, sometimes tragic, but ultimately victorious, history of the fight to end slavery.
In this presentation, she examines the paradox at the heart of writing responsible historical fiction. To honour our history, we must be true to it.
But how can we tell the truth by means of made-up stories? That is the question. The answer, she explains, lies in the use of historical facts to trigger the action. The writer shows how people reacted to, and were affected by, actual events. Just such an event was The Proclamation of “An Act to Prevent the further Introduction of Slaves and to limit the Term of Contracts for Service Statutes of Upper Canada 33 George III.”
The Knotted Rope is available for purchase on Amazon.ca.
About the Author
Jean Rae Baxter is the descendant of settlers who arrived in New France in the 17th century, Loyalists who came to the New Settlement following the American Revolution, immigrants from Germany in the 19th century. There were many family stories to awaken her interest in Canada’s history.
Jean’s historical fiction has won recognition in both Canada and the United States. In 2022, she was nominated for the Governor General’s History Award for Popular Media: the Pierre Berton Award. She has received the Hamilton Arts Council Award for Young Adult Literature as well as a City of Hamilton Heritage Award for her writing. Her books have been shortlisted for the Ontario Library Association’s Red Maple Award and British Columbia’s Stellar Award, and she has received an Honourable Mention at Boston’s New England Book Festival.
In preparation for writing, she likes to travel to the places where her novels are set. Her research for Freedom Bound included a visit to South Carolina’s alligator-infested black-water swamps. Her experience of the caves of the Niagara Escarpment required less travel. She has visited the Cave of the Winds behind Niagara Falls, both before its collapse in 1954, and also in recent years while researching background for The Knotted Rope.
The wall of falling water, the wind and the thunderous noise remain unchanged. As children, she and her brother explored the caves of the Niagara Escarpment at Rattlesnake Point, which was a bicycle-ride away from their family’s summer home in rural North Burlington.
Sunday, February 20, 2022: General Meeting (in Zoom)
Our guest speaker will be David Smith UE talking to us about the War of 1812 Veterans.
David has been involved in building re-enacting living history events in the Eastern Ontario Region for over twenty years.
During the Bicentennial of the War of 1812, he served as a Director of the Provincial Planning Committee bringing to life Skirmishes at Gananoque, Iroquois, Hoople's Creek and the marquee event, The Flight of the Royal George.
In 2009, he hosted the largest Loyalist Landing ever at the 225th UELAC conference in Adolphustown.
He has served as a Heritage Preservation Director at the 1796 Fairfield Gutzeit House and the UEL Heritage Centre & Park for over twenty years.
Most recently he is serving on the Loyalist Parkway Association and the Heritage Representative on the County of Lennox & Addington Economic Development Board.
He is a Member of the Bay of Quinte and Bridge Annex Branches of the UELAC.
Sunday, April 10, 2022: General Meeting (in Zoom)
On Sunday, April 10, 2022, our guest speaker will be Dan Buchanan, his talk being about his recent book, 38 Hours to Montreal: William Weller and the Governor General's Race of 1840.
Dan Buchanan proudly describes himself as a "history geek." He runs a successful genealogy and history website, www.treesbydan.com, that is used by researchers all over the world to make connections and gather information about the family tree they are pursuing.
In 2014 his genealogy work won him a Civic Award from the Municipality of Brighton.
His first book, Murder In The Family: The Dr. King Story, mines local and family lore about a crime involving a notorious relative.
Dan is also an engaging storyteller, recounting many different history stories as a guest speaker for clubs and groups across Ontario.
He lives in Brighton, Ontario, and serves the community as "The History Guy".
38 Hours to Montreal: William Weller and the Governor General's Race of 1840
Governor General Charles Poulett Thomson is in a hurry. In response to the Rebellion of 1837-38, he has been urgently tasked by his masters in England to modernize and improve the governments in the Canadian colonies. In just three months in Toronto, the Governor General has managed to pass all the legislation he wants, but with politics heating up in Quebec and his bosses in England dangling a peerage over his head, now he must get to Montreal as fast as he can to do the same thing there. Enter "The Stagecoach King," William Weller, who is famous for operating the Royal Mail Line of stages between Toronto and Montreal. Weller utilizes a complex system of stage stops staffed with experienced workers and is confident he can take the Governor General to Montreal in under thirty-eight hours. Driving a very unique sleigh, specially modified for this trip, Weller pilots the Governor General and his aid-de-camp, Captain Thomas Le Marchant, over 370 miles of snowy and muddy roads, avoiding dangerous obstacles and constantly moving forward.
In a meticulously researched account of this epic trek, author Dan Buchanan brings the reader along on a breathlessly exciting journey that intricately explores Canadian history through the people, places, and buildings that existed along those treacherous roads in 1840.
Sunday, September 19, 2021: General Meeting (in Zoom)
Kawartha Branch UELAC will welcome our Dominion President, Trish Groom, UE, who will join us on Zoom at 2:00 pm (ET).
Sunday, November 21, 2021: General Meeting (in Zoom)
Debra Turrall – seamstress for period attire and owner of The Loyalist Needle, from Tyendinaga, Ontario – will join us on Zoom at 2:00 pm (ET).
To learn more about her period attire, please look at the Loyalist Gazette, Volume LII, Spring 2014, pages 15-17. She is a longtime re-enactor along with her husband Scott, 2nd Lieutenant, Grenadier Coy, KRRNY, and son, Thomas, in both the King's Royal Yorkers (American Revolution) and Canadian Regiment of Fencibles Infantry (War of 1812). She produces extremely accurate 18th and 19th century clothing for re-enactment and other purposes and is interested in letting others know what goes into creating proper clothing.
[Cancelled]:
Sunday, February 21, 2021: General Meeting (in Zoom)
Guest speaker: Bob Ough, speaking about the Cuban Missile Crisis – a Canadian perspective.
[Cancelled]:
Sunday, April 18, 2021: AGM at the Rotary Education Centre.
Guest speaker: Gavin Watt, talking about the Loyalist regiments pertinent to Kawartha Branch Members.
Sunday, April 27, 2015 – Annual General Meeting
2:00pm at St. Paul's Presbyterian Church (Water Street, Peterborough)
Jean Rae Baxter will be our guest speaker.
Freedom Bound: The Black Loyalists’ Story
Jean Rae Baxter's presentation is based on her research for the novel Freedom Bound, which depicts the experience of the so-called Black Loyalists who gained their freedom through the support they gave to the British during the American Revolution. Their passport to freedom was the "General Birch Certificate," awarded escaped slaves who served the British military in any capacity for a period of at least one year.
Britain introduced the General Birch Certificate as a stratagem for upsetting the economy of the rebelling Southern Colonies. It was a brilliant idea, but it was introduced without sufficient forethought to its implications.
Thousands of runaway slaves flocked behind British lines. Few knew which side their owner was on. All they heard was “Freedom.” The problem was, only slaves owned by Rebels qualified for the certificate. If the owner was a Loyalist, his slaves were sent right back to him.
To introduce a further complication, during the British occupation of Charleston (1780-1782) General Sir Henry Clinton, the British Commander in Chief, issued a proclamation offering full restoration of property and civil rights to all Rebels who would swear allegiance to King George II. In Charleston alone, more than two thousand accepted the offer. “Now that we've returned to our allegiance,” they said, “kindly give us back our slaves.” But that was not possible; the genie was out of the bottle.
This situation forms part of the background for Baxter's presentation that focuses upon the institution of slavery during the period of the American Revolution and on what awaited the Black Loyalists after their freedom was won. Their experience in Nova Scotia and their eventual resettlement in Sierra Leone are part of the story.
February 17, 2014 – General Meeting
2:00pm at St Paul's Presbyterian Church
The speaker will be Anne Taylor from Curve Lake
Anyone interested in Loyalist History is welcome to attend
Thursday, June 19, 2014 – Loyalist Flag-Raising Ceremony
10:00 am at Peterborough City Hall
500 George St., N., Peterborough, ON
October 19, 2013 – Branch Fall Banquet (our 34th year)
Location: St. Paul's Presbyterian Church (corner of Murray & Water Streets, Peterborough)
- Social time 5:30 pm (punch will be available)
- Dinner at 6:00 pm sharp.
Menu:
- Salad, Potatoes, Vegetables, Roast Beef
- Dessert, Tea & Coffee.
- If you have any dietary restrictions, please advise Joan Lucas (705-876-9800) at least 1 week prior to the event.
Tickets are $30.00 per person in advance. We must know the head count one week prior to the event.
Door prizes – anyone wishing to donate a door prize, please wrap and bring to banquet.
Parking available across the street at City Hall parking lot; enter church via Murray Street entrance.
Guest speaker will be Dominion President Bonnie Schepers, UE.
For more information contact a branch executive member.