After the crushing end of the War of 1812, William and Catherine Garner find their allotted two hundred acres in Nissouri Township by following the Thames River into the wild heart of Upper Canada. On their valuable land straddling the river, dense forest, wild beasts, displaced Natives, and pesky neighbors daily challenge them. The political atmosphere laced with greed and corruption threatens to undermine all of the new settlers' hopes and plans. William knows he cannot take his family back to Niagara but he longs to check on his parents from whom he has heard nothing for two years. Leaving Catherine and their children, he hurries back along the Governor's Road toward the turn-off to Fort Erie, hoping to return home in time for spring planting. With spectacular scenes of settlers recovering from the wartime catastophes in early Ontario, Elaine Cougler shows a different kind of battle, one of ordinary people somehow finding the inner resources to shape new lives and a new country. The Loyalist Legacy delves further into the history of the Loyalists as they begin to disagree on how to deal with the injustices of the powerful "Family Compact" and on just how loyal to Britain they want to remain.

The highly readable is more than a bibliography. Written in a narrative style, it is as well a short history of the Loyalists: who they were, why they left, where they settled, and what their legacy is.

The author's interest in research of his family roots led him to the conclusion that genealogical charts are the driest of presentations of the family tree. In Legacy of a Patriot his ancestors interact with each other and with fictional characters. The scope of the book covers his family from their time in Germany to the first half of the Twentieth Century and puts flesh on the bones of ancestors and the people they could have encountered along the way. In the first five chapters his father and uncle come alive during WWI in the army and in France.

This book contains an historical essay and short biographies on those who stayed loyal to Britain during the American Revolution in the American colonies. The essay focuses on the coming of the Revolution and the reasons for American rebellion or loyalism, and the sparse biographies, organized in alphabetical order, offer what is known about the loyalist and their journey.