Deseronto Archives

Brant Brant signed up in Belleville on this day in 1916. He was born in Shannonville on February 10th, 1893, the son of Brant Brant and Margaret (Maggie) (née Hill).

Brant joined the 155th Battalion of the Canadian Expeditionary Force with the regimental number 637076. He was five feet six and a half inches tall, with a dark complexion, brown eyes and black hair. After arriving in England in October 1916, Brant was transferred to the 2nd Battalion and joined them in France on December 9th, 1916.

His service record shows that Brant Brant was injured in the arm and leg by shrapnel wounds on May 3rd, 1917 in the Third Battle of the Scarpe. He was sent to England to recover, then returned to France in March 1918. Brant fell ill with influenza in November 1918 and was again admitted to hospital. He recovered by the end of January 1919 and was discharged from the army in March.

Brant married Dorsey Claus in Deseronto on April 27th, 1920. In 1921 the couple were living with Dorsey’s parents at 177 Pinnacle Street, Belleville, with their seven-month-old son.

On this day in 1916 William ‘Willie’ Pinn signed up in Belleville. He was born in Shannonville on August 12th 1895, the son of John Pinn (or Penn) and Christina (née Hill), who were both Mohawks.

Pinn joined the 155th Battalion of the Canadian Expeditionary Force with the regimental number 637077. He had previously served in the 49th Regiment for a year. Willie was five feet six inches tall, with a fair complexion, blue eyes and brown hair. His service record shows that he was in hospital between May 15th and May 27th with pneumonia in Belleville. He arrived in England on the SS Northland on October 28th, 1916 and was transferred to the 2nd Battalion, joining them in France on December 9th, 1916.

William was killed on May 3rd, 1917.

On this day in 1916 Ernest Pringle, a commercial traveller, signed up in Huntsville, Ontario. He was born in Deseronto on September 24th, 1892, the son of Ezra Pringle and Annie Elizabeth (née Watson). The family had moved away from Deseronto by 1901, when they were living in Tay Township. Ezra died in Fesserton in 1907, while Annie died in Toronto in 1913. Ernest gave his sister, Edith Evans, as his next of kin.

He joined the 122nd Battalion with the regimental number 763594. He was five feet six and a half inches tall, with fair hair, grey/blue eyes and lightish brown hair. His service record shows that he arrived in England on the SS Olympic in June 1917 and was sent to France with No. 44 Company of the Canadian Forestry Corps later that month, as Company Quartermaster Sergeant. He left France for England in January 1919 and returned to Canada on the SS Scotian in February.

Ernest was demobilized in Toronto on March 17th, 1919. He married Eva Hildred North in Toronto on December 11th, 1920. In the 1921 census the couple were living at 40 Peterborough Avenue, Toronto with Hildred’s sister. He died on October 8th, 1964.

Calvin Leslie Myles, a craneman, signed up in Toronto on this day in 1916. He was born in South Woodslee, Ontario, on March 18th, 1889, the son of William Nelson Myles and Emma (née Brown). In 1916 William Myles was the proprietor of the Deseronto House Hotel on Main Street. Calvin’s younger brother Clifford had joined the army in January 1916.

Like his brother, Myles joined the 92nd Battalion. His regimental number was 193598. He was five feet seven inches tall, with a dark complexion, brown eyes and black hair. His service record shows that he arrive in England on May 29th, 1916 on the SS Great Britain. He was transferred to the 42nd Battalion and joined them in France on September 11th. On February 13th, 1917 he was wounded by a bomb which left pieces of shrapnel in his left wrist. An x-ray photo in his service file shows the dark shape of the shrapnel fragment:

He spent the next few months in hospital but did not regain the full use of his left hand. He was sent back to Canada on the SS Olympic in November 1917 and discharged from the army on the recommendation of a medical board in Toronto on January 11th, 1918.

Myles was awarded the Distinguished Service Medal and the French  Medaille Militaire. The citation for the former is on his service file:

For conspicuous gallantry and devotion to duty during a raid on the enemy’s trenches. He carries a wounded officer from the enemy trench for a considerable distance back towards our lines under very heavy fire. Later, he again rejoined his party and was wounded.

Calvin married Hazel Faustina Walter in Orono, Ontario on December 12th, 1922. He died in Bowmanville in 1985, according to information from family trees on Ancestry.

On this day in 1916 Wesley Maracle signed up in Belleville. He was born in Tyendinaga on April 8th, 1899, the son of Seth Maracle and Catherine (née Leween), who were both Mohawks.

Maracle joined the 155th Battalion of the Canadian Expeditionary Force with the regimental number 637075. He was five feet four inches tall, with a dark complexion, brown eyes and black hair. His service record shows that Wesley arrived in England on October 28th, 1916. He was transferred to the Princess Patricia’s Canadian Light Infantry in May 1917.

On October 30th, at the Second Battle of Passchendaele, Wesley Maracle was wounded in the right thigh. He was sent back to England to recover. In the following April, he was hospitalized again with measles and broncho-pneumonia.

Maracle survived the war and returned to Canada on the RMS Olympic in January 1919. He contracted influenza on the voyage and recovered in hospital in Halifax before returning to Kingston to be demobilized on February 18th, 1919.

Wesley married Dina Maracle on February 2nd, 1928 in Gananoque.

Charles Richard Knight signed up in Deseronto on this day in 1916. He claimed to have been born in 1872, but was actually born on May 29th 1860, making him 55 years old on the day he joined up. He was born in Bethnal Green in London, England, the son of Thomas Edward Knight and Elizabeth (née Hodges). He married Elizabeth Mary Ann Bacon in Hackney on May 18th, 1891 and the couple were living at 40 Elm Road, Leyton, Essex in 1901 with their children, Charles, Elsie and William.

Passenger list extract for the SS Kensington, arriving in Portland, Maine on April 10th, 1907, courtesy of Ancestry.ca

The family moved to Canada in 1907, travelling on the SS Kensington from Liverpool to Portland, Maine, with a final destination of Toronto. Their passage had been paid by the East End Emigration Fund. This organization aimed to resettle people at risk of unemployment in London by paying for families to move to Canada. A letter to the Spectator on March 14th, 1908 described the 1907 shipment of people in these terms:

The Joint Committee of the East End Emigration Fund and the Charity Organisation Society has for many years been selecting with great care, and placing in work in Canada, a large number of London families, sober, steady people, capable and willing for work, yet in danger of demoralisation if left hopelessly without work in London. The number sent in any year reached its maximum last season, when eight hundred and twenty-five families, comprising four thousand two hundred and sixty-eight persons, were emigrated. Only those who conducted the selection can adequately realise the conditions to which a very large number of these unfortunate people had been reduced owing to lack of employment in this country, and what the new opportunity meant to them.

In the 1911 census the family were living in Dundas Street, Deseronto. Charles was working as a labourer in a cement works (probably at Point Anne).

Charles joined the 155th Battalion of the Canadian Expeditionary Force with the regimental number 637066. He was five feet two and a half inches tall, with a dark complexion, brown eyes and black hair with grey. His service record shows he was discharged on August 20th, 1916 for being overage: he displayed “very evident wasting of senility”.

In 1921 Charles was living in Thomas Street with Elizabeth and their children: Elsie and William. He died in Deseronto in September 1939 and was buried in Deseronto Cemetery in plot 303I.

Alfred Sydney Lee, a bartender, signed up on this day in 1916 in Toronto. He was born in England on June 8th, 1892, the son of George Lee and Alice (née Garrad). George died in early 1902, when Alfred was nine years old and Alfred’s mother moved in with a man called William Keeley in 1903 (they did marry, but not until 1925).

Alfred was the eldest boy of the five children  from Alice’s first marriage. Perhaps he and his new stepfather did not get along, as Alfred left England to come to Canada at the age of 13 in 1906 as a Home child. He travelled with 100 other boys from the Fegan Home on the Empress of Britain. The picture below shows the boys from this group, with Alfred circled in red.

1906 Fegan Boys, courtesy of the British Home Children in Canada site

Lee joined the 92nd Battalion with the regimental number 193596. He was five feet five inches tall, with a fair complexion, blue/grey eyes and brown hair. He gave his next of kin as his mother, Alice Lee, of 15 Cancel Street, Walworth, London, England and his present address as Deseronto. (Alice Keeley’s address in the 1911 census was 16 Cancel Street.)

[As they signed up in the same place on the same day, one regimental number apart, it seems likely that Alfred Sydney Lee and Arthur Owen Francis knew each other.]

Alfred’s service record shows that he arrived in England on May 29th, 1916. He joined the 73rd Battalion in France on September 11th. On January 29th, 1917 he was wounded and hospitalized with concussion. He went back to duty on February 13th, but was troubled with deafness and tinnitus afterwards. In April 1917 he was admitted to hospital again with a fever and was there until July. He spent the rest of the war in England and was granted permission to marry on August 29th, 1918. Alfred married Florence Ada Calver in Camberwell, Surrey, England on September 28th.

The couple returned to Canada on the SS Scandinavian in October 1919 and were living in Oshawa in 1921, but they went back to England in 1923. Florence died in Mansfield in 1962 and Alfred died in Eastbourne in 1979.

Arthur Owen Francis, a porter, signed up in Toronto on this day in 1916. He was born in Stratford, London, England on February 9th, 1895 and came to Canada on the SS Kensington in 1907 with his parents, John and Emma (née Smee) and four siblings. Their passage was paid by the West Ham Distress Committee, which had been established as part of the British Unemployed Workmen’s Act of 1905. His father was a porter and the family were heading for Deseronto. In 1911 they were living on Foresters’ Island, where John was the caretaker.

Francis joined the 92nd Battalion with the regimental number 193595. He was five feet five inches tall, with a dark complexion, grey eyes and dark brown hair. His service record shows that he sailed from Halifax on the RMS Empress of Britain on May 20th, 1916. In August he was assigned to the 92nd Battalion, and a month later was transferred to the 42nd Battalion and left England for France.

In August 1917 Francis was granted 14 days of leave in Paris. In September 1917 he was admitted to hospital with an infection and was treated for three months in England. He rejoined the 42nd Battalion in France on January 5th, 1918. On August 8th the 42nd Battalion was involved in the Battle of Amiens, seeing action at Hill 102, which is described in the Battalion’s war diary (page 1, page 2, page 3).

42nd Battalion war diary, 8th Aug 1918 p.3, courtesy of Library and Archives Canada

War Diary
42nd Canadian Battalion, R. H. C. Sheet 6
1918 August 8th CONT. Headquarters in the Wood and the situation was such that we were able to have lunch in the open at which were present besides the Brigadier, the G.O.C. [General Officer Commanding] of the Cavalry Division which had gone through us, two aeroplane pilots, one of whose machines had crashed and the other who had made a landing near us and later left in his machine, and several Tank officers of the tanks which had taken part in the engagement. The G.O.C. Cavalry Division stated that the Canadians were the first Infantry troops through which his Division had gone into action at any time. About 9.30 that night the Battalion Transport and Details came up to CLAUDE WOOD and joined the Battalion.
The captures of the Battalion included:
3 8″ Howitzers 4 loaded G. S. Wagons
4 4.1 Howitzers 8 horses
1 Anti-Tank Gun 2 Searchlights
1 H. V. 4.5 Gun
1 Grenatenwerfer
and many machine guns, and it was estimated 200 prisoners, also large quantities of ammunition and equipment.
Total casualties were:-
Officers WOUNDED: Lieut. E. G. Evans, Lieut. R. P. Crowe
OTHER RANKS KILLED: 12; DIED OF WOUNDS: 2; WOUNDED: 29
TOTAL CASUALTIES – ALL RANKS: 45

Francis was wounded by a gunshot to his right ankle in this engagement and invalided to England, where he spent a month in hosptial.

Francis got married while he was recovering in England to Dorothy Florence Kingsnorth in Southwark, Surrey, on December 22nd, 1918. He returned to Halifax on the RMS Aquitania in January 1919 and was demobilized in Kingston on February 18th.

In 1921 Arthur and Dorothy were living in Thomas Street, Deseronto with their one-year-old son. Arthur’s parents and siblings were living in Dundas Street in the same census. Arthur died in 1976.

On this day in 1916, Wilfred McKendry signed up in Deseronto. He was born in Lennox and Addington County on September 8th, 1900 (registered as Wilfred Laurier McHenry), the son of Edward McHenry and Annie (née Howard). He claimed to have been born in 1898 when he signed up.

Wilfred joined the 155th Battalion with the regimental number 637051. He was five feet five and a half inches tall, with a fair complexion, brown eyes and brown hair. His service record shows that a medical board met at Kingston on August 17th, 1916 and determined that he was only 15 years old. They recommended he be discharged as under age; he left the service on August 23rd.

McKendry married Juanita Madeline Cole on July 5th, 1924 in Napanee (going by the name Stanley Wilfrid MacKendry). By 1940 the couple were in Detroit, Michigan with their two children. Stanley died in November 1965.

Edgar William Covert signed up in Deseronto on this day in 1916. He was born in the town on October 30th, 1900, the son of Frank Covert and Maud (née Bassett). On his attestation paper, Edgar gave his date of birth as October 1st, 1899.

He joined the 155th Battalion of the Canadian Expeditionary Force with the regimental number 637071. He was five feet three inches tall, with a fair complexion, blue eyes and brown hair. His service record shows that he was examined by a medical board at Camp Barriefield in Kingston on August 21st, 1916 and determined to be under age and undeveloped. He was discharged from the army on August 23rd.

Edgar married Laura Hearns in Napanee on August 14th, 1924. They left Canada for Rochester, New York in September 1924 and Edgar died there in August 1981.