TORONTO BRANCH - for United Empire Loyalists

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or Toronto Branch the highlight of the past year was our move to new premises -Suite 308, 344 Bloor
Street West, postal code M5S 1W9. Our rooms, in an office building, are light and airy, with space to
display our antique furniture, library and archives. Both the latter have been catalogued. Before our move
we did not have room to display our books properly, and the archival material was stored in boxes. We
hope, in time, to have our library open to the public. Already attendance at our general meetings is
improving, for the accoustics are so much better than in our previous quarters.
We have heard many interesting speakers who shared their expertise on Loyalists with the membership
and are planning to hold a workshop, to take place at the May general meeting. Our guest will be Libby
Hancocks, the Dominion Genealogist, who will offer advice to associate members and others who wish to
complete their family trees. One of our members, Mary Beacock Fryer, has recently completed a new
book entitled King's Men: the Soldier Founders of Ontario. It is an history of the regiments of provincial
troops (Loyalists) who served in Canada during the American Revolution, and later settled in what
became Ontario. The Ontario Heritage Foundation was generous in funding the project, and the publisher
is Dundurn Press, Box 245, Station F, Toronto, Canada, M4Y 2L5; the price $24.95.
Father James McGivern, our president, has branched out in the field. of genealogy, going beyond the
tracking down of his Loyalist ancestors. After taking his family tree back to Plymouth Rock in 1620, he
has helped found a Canadian branch of the association of descendants whose ancestors came to the new
world on the Mayflower. We of the Toronto Branch anticipate a renewal of enthusiasm and increased
membership as a consequence of the change in our quarters.
1982 Spring
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or the members of Toronto Branch, 1981 was much more than the bicentennial of the British disaster
at Yorktown, Virginia, although we assisted indirectly in the commemoration of that event. The
membership donated funds to the re-created King's Royal Regiment of New York, towards the expense of
taking the corps to Yorktown to swell the ranks of the Provincials at the surrender ceremonies. The Royal
Yorkers left their regimental colours in camp. That particular corps never did surrender, nor lose its
colours to the rebels, and the modern representatives remained true to historical fact, which some of the
Americans on hand thought rather strange. They could not understand.
Our new headquarters are working out well. Attendance at our meetings has improved greatly since our
move to 344 Bloor Street West, so convenient for the subway. In fact, at the general meeting addressed by
Gavin Watt on what transpired at Yorktown last October was so well attended that we ran out of places to
sit. As a departure from meetings addressed by speakers, our May meeting was a workshop on completing
genealogies. Our Dominion Genealogist, Mrs. Elizabeth Hancock, gave advice on family trees, ably
assisted by her husband George.
Our discussions on an appropriate bicentennial project have continued, and one ambitious suggestion,
which we are pursuing, is finding the means to build a Loyal Blockhouse at a spot accessible to tourists,
where they may see how Loyalists operated during the revolution. An early bicentennial project, for 1982,
is the approval of a grant to Dundurn Press, to subsidize the publication of Mary Beacock Fryer's new
book, Buckskin Pimpernel, a biography of Captain, Justus Sherwood, the head of Governor Frederick
Haldimand's British Secret Service, Northern Department. We are also contemplating the publication of a
book, on family history, making use of our branch records and submissions from individual members.
Ideally the book would, have an interesting account of the families of each of our members.
Our library and archives have been catalogued, and are available to interested persons, and we are
arranging times when these will be open, other than during our meetings. Our objective is to have every