After the surrender at Yorktown, veterans of the King's Royal Regiment of New York and the 84th Regiment of Foot (Royal Highland Emigrants), were given land on the north bank of the Saint Lawrence River so they could defend Upper Canada from the new enemy to the south. In 1804, veterans of the Glengarry Fencibles, a Highland regiment that served in Europe with the British Army, settled just north of the American Revolutionary War veterans. The first militia unit west of Montreal was organized at Cornwall in 1787 under the command of Major John Macdonnell, late of the K.R.R.N.Y. During the War of 1812, the area militia and the Glengarry Light Infantry Fencibles helped the British Army fight off the Americans. For a long time, breaks in unit continuity with the pre-Confederation period denied the regiment the "Niagara" battle honour and the status of oldest anglophone militia regiment in Canada. However, on the occasion of the bicentennial of the War of 1812 in 2012, the Government of Canada permitted Canadian regiments to perpetuate and officially commemorate 1812 militia and Fencible units thus awarding the Stormont, Dundas and Glengarry Highlanders three War of 1812 battle honours, including the battle honour NIAGARA which had been awarded to the Glengarry Light Infantry Fencibles.