The Wilkins Expedition 1763

Photo by Alan L Brown - August 30, 2004

Plaque Location

The Municipality of Chatham-Kent
In Rondeau Provincial Park (admission fee in season) at the corner of Lakeshore Road and Gardiner Avenue

Plaque Text

On November 7, 1763 a fleet of small boats carrying nearly 700 officers and men of the 60th and 80th Regiments under Major John Wilkins, was forced ashore by a violent storm about 5 km east of this point. The expedition had set out from Niagara on October 19 to relieve the British post at Detroit, commanded by Major Henry Gladwin, which was then under siege by a powerful force of Indians led by Pontiac. Some seventy men and twenty boats with most of the supplies were lost in the storm. Wilkins and the survivors reached the shore where they buried the dead and encamped for five days before returning to Niagara.