The Crawford Purchase

In October 1783, at Carleton Island near here, Captain William Redford Crawford of the King's Royal Regiment of New York met with the local Mississauga Indians led by the elderly Mynass. Crawford, acting for the British government, purchased from the Mississaugas for some clothing, ammunition and coloured cloth a large tract of land east of the Bay of Quinte. The land was subsequently settled by United Empire Loyalists and Britain's Indian allies who had been forced to leave their homes in the new United States.