Joanna Bullard

Ruth Patterson couldn’t remember her parents who, when she was a small child were killed in a raid at Fort Malden in Amherstburg during the War of 1812. Fortunately, her parents had left her with her paternal Uncle Samuel and Aunt Elizabeth for safety. She was raised in a loving, Christian, and abolitionist home. When she married Martin Logan, a stranger from out of town, her Uncle let them farm one of his tracts of land in nearby Sandwich Towne. At that time many refugees from slavery were landing along the Canadian side of the Detroit River in the Amherstburg and Sandwich Towne areas. Martin’s short temper with Uncle Samuel’s reluctance to let him handle other business deals and sign over the property to him, and his own disagreement with the abolitionist movement, as well as the locals enthusiasm for helping the refugees finally prompted him to leave Ruth and their young son Daniel after a heated argument. At the time, Ruth was expecting their second child. Then things really started happening in Olde Sandwich Towne.