Welcome to Lockeport. Although the name of the cache is Locke's
island cache, it is in the town of Lockeport. From this view you
can see the famous Crescent Beach, once featured on the back of the
Canadian $50 bill. The main part of the town is located on the
island of Locke's Island.
Although there are lots of stories about this town and its
surroundings, I think the most appropiate would be the Red
Petticoat Story.
In the early days salt fish was the business of Lockeport, the
men spending six months on the fishing grounds, to come home every
three months to discharge their catches and go out to sea again.
When the men put out to sea, only the old, the feeble, the women
and the children were left behind, and it made an easy prey for the
raiders that came often.
When the American Revolution swept over the 13 colonies, the
sympathies of the people of Lockeport, New Englanders themselves,
were with the rebels whom they aided on many occasions. Their
feelings changed very quickly in 1779 when some American privateers
came ashore and looted their houses. An indignant protest, signed
by W. Peterfield, John Matthews, Thomas Hayden & Jonathan Locke
was sent to Massachusetts.
It started off talking about things that were taken – which
happened to be the town’s winter provisions. Then it continues:
“These things are very surprising that we in this harbour have
done so much for America, that we have helped three or four hundred
prisoners up along to America and have given part of our living to
them and have concealed privateers and prizes too from the British
cruisers in this harbour. All this done for America, and if this be
the way we are to be paid I desire to see no more of you with you
come in another manner.”
The year 1780, the men of Lockeport set sail for the fishing
grounds, leaving the women and children to carry on until they
returned with their catch of fish. The day after the Lockeport
boats had gone hull down on the horizon, a strange vessel was seen
making toward the town. The anxious women of Lockeport hurried to
Cranberry Hill to watch with fearful eyes the strange sail. The
children were dispatched to carrying into hiding the winter
supplies of the town. Soon it was evident to the watchers that the
vessel was an American. The women remembered the previous raids,
and so they prepared for the incoming raiders.
The women gathered up brooms, shovels, and pitchforks and had
lined the shore to point the handles of the domestic implements at
the raider. Behind, those who had muskets fired them while others
beat upon tubs and buckets to produce the sound of drums. They had
dug out every red piece of clothing in town, and draped them on
bushes, stones, and trees, to produce the effect many red-coated
soldiers. In addition women marched up and down in their red
petticoats along the promontory of Cranberry Hill. When the
Americans were near enough to view the doings on Cranberry Hill
they altered their course and went over the horizon to try their
luck on some other coastal town not so heavily guarded. The
American raider had seen many red things that appeared to be the
coat of a British soldier. From that day foreword the little
fishing village of Lockeport was never to know another raid, and
even today the people of Lockeport will tell the story of how the
town was saved by red petticoats.