and could continue for centuries. Historical figures Thomas Ingersoll (1749–1812) b. Westfield, Mass., removed to Great Barrington, Berkshire County, Mass., in the early 1770s where his uncles were already prominent citizens, and then to Queenston, Niagara District, Upper Canada, in 1795. While in Great Barrington he married three times, was involved in a number of businesses including partnership in a mill, joined the Episcopal (Anglican) church, and rose through the ranks of the local militia, achieving the rank of Major. With associates from Berkshire County he received grant of Oxford-on-the-Thames township in Upper Canada in 1793, and from his new base as an innkeeper at Queenston devoted his energy and resources for the next five years to opening the Oxford wilderness for dozens of families to settle there. Started his own farm within the settlement on land along the creek best suited to a millsite, which became the site of the modern town of Ingersoll. His township rights were revoked in 1798 and reduced to a grant of . Discouraged, he ceased his promotion of settlement in Oxford in 1806, moved the family and launched a new career as the government innkeeper and ferryman at Port Credit, but his sons returned to the family homestead in Oxford starting in 1818 and laid the foundations for the hamlet of Ingersoll. Laura Ingersoll Secord (1775–1868). Daughter of Thomas Ingersoll and wife of James Secord, who served in the militia under Isaac Brock. The couple lived in St. Davids (now Queenston) where American troops stopped at their home seeking supplies during the War of 1812. On June 21, 1813, Laura Secord overheard plans of a surprise attack on British Troops led by Lt. James Fitzgibbon at Beaver Dams. Secord was responsible for walking 20 miles (32 km) through the woods, in newly controlled American territory in the Niagara Peninsula, to Beaver Dams to warn the British. As a result of this information Lt. Fitzgibbon's small British troop and a larger contingent of allied Mohawk warriors were able to intercept and defeat the attack. Although not initially recognized for her role, Lt. James Fitzgibbon later certified that the informant was Laura Secord. Secord's story has often been embellished over the years but her role in Canadian history has since been established by various historians. Secord was never a resident of Oxford County, and possibly never visited Ingersoll, although she and her kin were highly