(15 Aug. 1752-11 April 1803), U E Loyalist. (Col. Walter Sutherland) Born in the Parish of Tongue, County of Sutherland, Scotland. Walter Sutherland served as a soldier on the Crown side in the American Revolutionary War, reaching the rank of lieutenant in the 2nd Battalion of the King's Royal Regiment of New York. He was one of the Loyalist settlers of GC. In 1784, at a time when Lancaster Township was thought ill suited for settlement because it was low lying and swampy, Lieut. Sutherland asked to receive his Loyalist land grant in that township. Into the bargain, he was able to persuade the government to accept his request that settlers in Lancaster Township be given twice the acreage they would otherwise be entitled to. The tradition that he received 1000 acres in Lancaster Township is approximately correct. However, the land was scattered in individual lots and half-lots over Concessions 1 to 5 instead of being concentrated in a single large block. He was a JP. (Pringle p. 48) His title of colonel, unless it was just a term awarded by the public, came from the militia. He died in Lancaster Township. He was married to Anne (Nancy) Campbell (25 Jan. 1764-Feb. 1848). (eight children) Hugh P. MacMillan, the well-known collector and authority on GC history, who has untiringly done so much over so many years to encourage work on GC history, is a descendant. Sutherland Creek in Lancaster Township is named after Walter Sutherland or his family. He is said to have briefly had mills on the creek, which were destroyed by fire.

Elizabeth Blair, “Loyalists of Lancaster Township,” The Loyalist Gazette (Autumn 1978), repr. Ross, Lancaster, 6-8 * Harkness: index * Pringle: various refs. * McLean 173 * Second Report 394, 1075-1076 * UE List 263 * Reid, L, 314 * Fryer & Smy 25 * LLC 675-676 * Cruikshank King's Royal Regiment of New York 264 * private information, based on research of Barbara Rogers and Hugh P. MacMillan * note on Sutherland Creek in geographical notebooks (owned by present author) of late Ewan Ross * obituaries of his grandchildren John J. Sutherland, long-time resident of Oil Springs, Ont., Cornwall Standard 7 (14?) Dec. 1906, & Mary Ann Sutherland, 80, CS 15 May 1930