Witching Hour - Dark History: The night raiders took Windsor

Witching Hour - Dark History Before dawn on Dec. 4, 1838, about 140 raiders crossed from Detroit, burned a militia barracks and a steamer, and took Windsor. Militia routed them in the orchard behind the Baby House. Prisoners were shot without trial.

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Witching Hour is our nightly local history and folklore feature. Ghost stories and legends are retold as stories people tell, not reported as fact. Sources are listed below the story.

Witching Hour stories are usually legends. Tonight's is history, and it happened in the dark.

The crossing

Between December 1837 and December 1838, at least 13 armed raids crossed from the United States into Canada, aiming to overthrow British rule. In early December 1838, Patriot General Lucius Verus Bierce and his followers marched through Detroit and took the steamer Champlain. Early on the morning of Dec. 4, about 140 American and Canadian supporters of rebel leader William Lyon Mackenzie landed opposite the lower end of Belle Isle, about a mile east of where the battle's plaque now stands.

They captured and burned a militia guardhouse, and at a nearby wharf they set the steamer Thames on fire. One company marched down Sandwich Street and camped in the orchard behind François Baby's house. By 6 a.m., Windsor, then a small riverside town, was in their hands.

The orchard

An alarm went out, and about 130 Essex militiamen under Col. John Prince answered it. Fighting began around 6:30 a.m. and the raiders were routed. Reinforcements trying to cross from Detroit were turned back by U.S. troops on the steamer Erie.

Prince ordered captured raiders shot on the spot, without trial. The provincial plaque says this caused violent controversy in both Canada and the United States.

What came after

The remaining captives were tried in London, Upper Canada. Six were executed, 18 were sent to a penal colony in Van Diemen's Land, now Tasmania, and 16 were deported. Historian John C. Carter calls the Battle of Windsor the last incursion of the 1838 rebellion.

The plaque stands at 254 Pitt St. W., in front of the Baby House, which is now a museum.