Events Of The War Seen By The Harrington Family

From the Pioneer Society of Michigan:

"Soon after the war of 1812 broke out and the country was filled with hostile Indians. The government erected Fort Stevenson* establishing a military post there for the protection of the settlement. This fort was located about half a mile from Jeremiah's [Harrington's] farm."

*Near present-day Fremont, Ohio.

Marrying again in 1813 Jeremiah removed to Delaware [Ohio], where he continued farming. It was near this point, where the troops marching north, passed, and the prisoners captured at Perry's victory on their way to Chillicothe for safe keeping. Among the earliest recollections of Dauiel the subject of our sketch, are those of seeing the troops as they encamped in the open timber near his father's home.

Though it was after the war, I thought this biographical nugget was interesting:

In the fall of 1816 Jeremiah removed to the town of Delaware, occupying one half of a house, into the other half of which soon after, removed the parents of Rutherford B. Hayes.

In the spring of 1819...Jeremiah Harrington...started for Saginaw Bay, on a fur trading expedition... Daniel—then a mere boy of 12—was allowed to accompany them.  ...stopping first at Monroe, and then at Detroit, where Daniel well remembers seeing the naked chimneys standing on the Canadian side, as monuments of the destruction caused by the war of 1812 and 1814.

Captain Andrew Wesbrook

From St. Clair County, Michigan....

Before the war with England he was a wealthy farmer and business man residing near the Moravian town on the River Thames in his immediate neighborhood there lived one Major Tawsby* who was an aspirant for government favors.  At the breaking out of the war the British government took immediate steps to organize the militia of Canada and at such organization Tawsby received a major's commission and Wesbrook was offered a captain's commission under Tawsby which he indignantly refused.  Wesbrook was born in the state of New York and his sympathies were with the American cause and he on the appointment of his enemy Tawsby determined to leave Canada and join the Americans he had counted the consequences of this act; and knowing that the confiscation of his valuable property would follow, he collected his goods together and all that he could not remove he burned with his house and barn.  On Wesbrook's arrival in Detroit he stated his case to Governor Hull and received a captain's commission and was found to be a very useful man in the commissary department in collecting supplies for the troops. *Probably Sikes Tousley

From the Dictionary of Canadian Biography online:

WESTBROOK, ANDREW, businessman and office holder; b. 1771 in Massachusetts, son of Anthony Westbrook and Sarah Decker; m. four times, to Sally Hull, Nancy Thorn, Margaret Ann Crawford, and a woman whose name has not been determined; he had at least 14 children; d. 1835 in St Clair County, Mich.

  Captain Wesbrook was the subject of a book by Major John Richardson.