On This Day- 1838

Prescott Ontario - Republican Colonel Nils von Schoultz leads 200 Canadian exiles and US sympathizers in an attack against Prescott; fights the four-day Battle of the Windmill against British regulars and the local Canadian militia. Von Schoultz, a Finn, runs his schooner Charlotte aground below Prescott, and takes up position in a 6-storey stone windmill and several stone houses nearby; Canadians send a small vessel, the Experiment, to cut Schoultz off from the US, while 700 militia start arriving from the surrounding counties and a force of 70 British marines comes downriver by steamer from Kingston; the militia drive the Hunters from the houses into the windmill the following day; on the 14th Col Henry Dundas arrives with 4 companies of the 83rd Regiment, 2 eighteen-pounders and a howitzer; the rebels surrender on the 16th.