Stringer

After Bill Stringer deserted ship, according to Henry Taylor, he was regarded as an outcast by white society and still fearing for his life for beating the ship’s captain he joined up with a  passing band of Hurons and disappeared.

In 1969 Henry Taylor retired from the Ministry of Natural Resources after 42 years of service beginning when it was called the Ontario Forestry Branch. One of his first projects was to build a log cabin which was entirely of wood – even the hinges. About this time Barry Penhale, from the CBC, discovered Henry and produced a documentary film including Henry firing his homemade muzzleloader. Always wondering, Henry related the  Stringer story to Penhale and asked him to keep his “ ears open “ in case  he ever heard of anything during his travels. They subsequently discovered that Bill Stringer travelled to Manitoulin Island with the Hurons, married an Indian and lived out his life there.

In the meantime the CBC documentary unwittingly opened up another clue in the quest for an answer to the Bill Stringer question when a teacher from Kingston called Henry and asked him to build a log house. “ My son Don cut the timber for that house, 24×24, high enough for an upstairs in it; 14×16 kitchen dovetailed into it. I had blisters on my hands from cutting logs for a month.”

As it happened the teacher’s wife came from Manitoulin Island. “ I said are there any Stringers there?”

“ Oh,” she said; “ there’s lots of them.”

Then fate would once again intervene. “ A few years ago I was at the Pentecostal Church and there was a guest preacher. His name was Duke Stringer. After the message I went right up to him and said ‘ who are you? What family of Stringer are you from? I never heard tell of you?’”

As it turned out Duke Stringer, the visiting preacher, was a descendant of Bill Stringer of Manitoulin Island. “ It was 175 years from the time Bill and John Stringer parted company on the St. Lawrence until Henry and Duke shook hands in the Pentecostal Church,” and the mystery was solved.

In Part 3 we continue the Stringer saga.