and scalping knife. The Indian Department did the rest. Captain Ducharme claimed that he himself did not demand the U.S. surrender because as a French Canadian by birth who had spent most of his life among the Indians, he spoke no English. Laura Secord Much later, in 1827, FitzGibbon wrote: I do hereby Certify that on the 22d. day of June 1813, Mrs. Secord, Wife of James Secord, Esqr. then of St. David's, came to me at the Beaver Dam after Sun Set, having come from her house at St. David's by a circuitous route a distance of twelve miles, and informed me that her Husband had learnt from an American officer the preceding night that a Detachment from the American Army then in Fort George would be sent out on the following morning (the 23d.) for the purpose of Surprising and capturing a Detachment of the 49th Regt. then at Beaver Dam under my Command. In Consequence of this information, I placed the Indians under Norton together with my own Detachment in a Situation to intercept the American Detachment and we occupied it during the night of the 22d. – but the Enemy did not come until the morning of the 24th when his Detachment was captured. Colonel Boerstler, their commander, in a conversation with me confirmed fully the information communicated to me by Mrs. Secord and accounted for the attempt not having been made on the 23rd. as at first intended. By this account, Laura Secord learned of the U.S. plans and made her exit from St. David's (near Queenston) on June 22, before the main body of U.S. troops had set out from Fort George. National Historic Site Beaver Dams represents one of the earliest attempts to create a national historical park. In 1914, a convention of Ontario historical and patriotic groups resolved to ask the Department of the Interior "to develop a 40-acre site near Thorold as a national battlefield park commemorating the Battle of Beaver Dams." Although Beaver Dams was not made a national park, the Historic Sites and Monuments Board was created in 1919 to develop a heritage policy at the federal level for historic sites. In 1921, soon after the Board's formation, the Board recommended the designation of the Battle of Beaver Dams site as a National Historic Site, one of its earliest selections. A monument commemorating the battle was dedicated in 1923