News Release For Immediate Release

Remembering Pickering’s Men and Women in Military Service
by John Sabean
 
Pickering, ON, Thursday, October 20, 2011 - For 200 years Pickering residents have answered the call to defend their country and to keep the peace in foreign service. According to the Militia Act of 1793 every male inhabitant of Upper Canada between the ages of 16 and 50 was required to enroll his name as a militiaman and to attend an annual muster on the King’s birthday, 4 June.  From this list of men was drawn the ranks of those who were called to defend the borders at the outbreak of the War of 1812.  Among those who joined the cause from Pickering Township were Lieutenant, later Captain, Thomas Matthews and his three sons, Peter, Thomas, and Daniel.  The two youngest of the family never returned home having been killed at the Battle of Lundy’s Lane.  The Matthews were among the very first settlers of Pickering Township, and the elder Thomas Matthews was a United Empire Loyalist.  Another early settler, Thomas Majors, was wounded at Queenston in the skirmish that killed Sir Isaac Brock.
 
Later in the nineteenth century, the borders of Canada were again threatened by an invading force.  These were not Americans but a group of fanatic Irishmen who hated the English and hoped to make a strike against Great Britain by capturing Canada.  In 1866 numerous groups of Fenians, as they were called, gathered along the Canadian border.  As one of the opposing parties, the Greenwood Militia, a company of the 4th Battalion of Ontario Militia, was called to face the Fenians in the Niagara Peninsula.  Those who responded included Lieutenant Frederick Green, Frederick Meen, Samuel Green, Charles Green, John Boddy, J. Mitchell, M. Ryan, Judson Gibson, and Joseph Shea, under the command of Major William Warren.  No casualties were recorded among the Pickering contingent.
 
While Canada was not heavily engaged in the Boer War in South Africa, at least one Pickering soldier, George Little, served with the British forces.
 
That Pickering residents responded to the call of duty in both world wars of the twentieth century is well attested by the cenotaphs erected in the township that list those who served from each of the villages and hamlets.  Honour Rolls of those who served may also be found in the following histories of Pickering and its villages:  Greenwood Through the Years (1960), p. 51; The Pickering Story (1961), pp. 230-237; The Ontario Village of Brougham (1973), pp. 287-289; and From Paths to Planes: A Story of the Claremont Area (1974), pp. 198-199, 295.
 
Some of the men who fought in those wars are pictured in Time Present and Time Past: A Pictorial History of Pickering (2000), pp. 232-233. Milton Pegg, of Greenwood, flew reconnaissance flights in Europe during World War I.  After he returned he wrote some brief accounts of his experiences (unpublished). Not returning from that war were Thomas Foster of Brougham, killed in action, and Rosswell Carson, a member of the 48th Canadian Highlanders, who died in a prisoner-of-war camp in Hanover, Germany.
 
Oliver Grant Johnston, of Brougham, and Doug Plitz, of south Pickering, both of whom served with the RCAF in the Second World War, were only two of many from Pickering Township who faced action in Europe in that war.
 
Today and in recent years, Pickering residents, both men and women, have volunteered as peacekeepers in Canadian fields of action in such places as Afghanistan and Iraq.
 
A unique program for commemorating Remembrance Day in the public schools of Ontario was created seven years ago by the Durham West Arts Centre.  Its then Executive Director, Angie Littlefield, prepared the first lessons for “Reading and Remembrance”.  Ms Littlefield continues to produce the material for this program along with Mary Cook.  The major sponsor is the Ontario Power Generation, and the Ontario Historical Society has now become a partner.  You may reference this program by viewing the website: www.readingandremembrance.ca.
 
In the month of November, the City of Pickering will be expressing its support for Canadian veterans through a Bicentennial Military Veterans Gathering hosted by the Pickering Veterans Association at the Council Chambers at City Hall on Tuesday, 8 November at 7:00 p.m.; and through Remembrance Day Services on the Esplanade Park on Sunday, 6 November at 10:30 a.m., and Friday, 11 November at 10:45 a.m.  

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Media Contact:
Name               Jody Morris          
Title                  (Acting) Supervisor, Marketing, Research & Communications
Email address   jmorris@cityofpickering.com       
Phone number  905.683.2760 ext. 2953
TTY                 905.420.1739