oup of five families
was also allotted 'one fire-lock ... intended for the
messes, the pigeon and wildfowl season'; but later on a
fire-lock was supplied to every head of a family. Haldimand
went to great trouble in obtaining seed-wheat for the
settlers, sending agents down even into Vermont and the
Mohawk valley to obtain all that was to be had; he
declined, however, to supply stock for the farms, and
although eventually he obtained some cattle, there were
not nearly enough cows to go round. In many cases the
soldiers were allowed the loan of the military tents;
and everything was done to have saw-mills and grist-mills
erected in the most convenient places with the greatest
possible dispatch. In the meantime small portable
grist-mills, worked by hand, were distributed among the
settlers.

Among the papers relating to the Loyalists in the Canadian
Archives there is an abstract of the numbers of the
settlers in the five townships at Cataraqui and the eight
townships on the St Lawrence. There were altogether 1,568
men, 626 women, 1,492 children, and 90 servants, making
a total of 3,776 persons. These were, of course, only
the original settlers. As time went on others were added.
Many of the soldiers had left their families in the States
behind them, and these families now hastened to cross
the border. A proclamation had been issued by the British
government inviting those Loyalists who still remained
in the States to assemble at certain places along the
frontier, namely, at Isle aux Noix, at Sackett's Harbour,
at Oswego, and at Niagara. The favourite route was the
old trail from the Mohawk valley to Oswego, where was
stationed a detachment of the 34th regiment. From Oswego
these refugees crossed to Cataraqui. 'Loyalists,' wrote
an officer at Cataraqui in the summer of 1784, 'are coming
in daily across the lake.' To accommodate these new
settlers three more townships had to be mapped out at
the west end of the Bay of Quinte.

For the first few years the Cataraqui settlers had a
severe struggle for existence. Most of them arrived in
1784, too late to attempt to sow fall wheat; and it was
several seasons before their crops became nearly adequate
for food. The difficulties of transportation up the St
Lawrence rendered the arrival of supplies irregular and
uncertain. Cut off as they were from civilization by the
St Lawrence rapids, they were in a much less advantageous
position than the great majority of the Nova Sco