family of United Empire Loyalists (also spellings Faulkner and Faulkiner). Ralph Falkner, Senior, was the father of Ralph Falkner, Junior, and William Falkner. Ralph Falkner, Senior, was drowned in 1785 near Point Mouillé, GC, while he was bringing supplies by bateau from Montreal. Ralph Junior was “a native of England,” and came to America at a date that appears in the Loyalist records as 1774 and settled in Tryon County, N. Y. province. In 1788, he was resident “in Lancaster, Canada.”

     William Falkner, his brother. was also “a native of England,” and coming to America at a date given in his case as 1772 he likewise settled in Tryon County, N. Y. province. In GC, William Falkner settled on Lot 37 in the 1st Concession of Lancaster Township. He was government agent for the distribution of supplies to the Loyalists. He has been said to have built the first house in Lancaster Township. He was the founder of the present village of South Lancaster, which for a few years in the 1780s was known as the Falkner Settlement. The name Falkner’s Landing was also in use. The obituary in the GN 24 Dec. 1984 of Alexander Fraser (1885-1984), the “Grand Old Man” of Apple Hill, who “was born on the pioneer Fraser homestead,” 10th Concession of Indian Lands, said that “He vividly recalled his father telling of the first mail delivered from Falkner’s Landing, now South Lancaster.”

     William Falkner married Mary Edge in 1781 at Montreal. William Falkner was a man of importance among the early settlers, was a Justice of the Peace and in early times reportedly sometimes performed marriages. He was presumably the man remembered under the name of Squire Falkner. William Falkner is said to have given Lancaster Township its name from a connection that the Falkners had with the city or county of Lancaster in Engand (Cornwall Freeholder 2 April 1930), though no hard facts appear to survive on what the connection exactly was. Most likely the name conveniently served a double purpose, since it also honoured the royal family; the prestigious medieval title of Duke of Lancaster, intimately connected with the royal family, had been merged with the Crown since 1413.

Elizabeth Blair, “Loyalists of Lancaster Township,” The Loyalist Gazette (Autumn 1978) * Ross, Lancaster, 8 * Pringle 48, 51, 192, 403 * Macdonell, Sketches 74, 75 *Harkness 53, 454-455 * Second Report 415-417, 1095, 1254-1255 (QF) * UE List 172 * Reid 106 * “When Old Village of Lancaster Was Known as the ‘Falkner Settlement,” Standard Freeholder 21 June 1935 repr. from “Old Time Stuff” column in Ottawa Citizen * private information