William Cope was born on Long Island, the first year of the Seven Years’ War. In the Revolutionary War he was a private in the Royal Regiment, New York.

After the war he remained for about ten years in New York State, but in 1794 removed to the Niagara District, and four years later to Norfolk County, settling on the lake front of Walsingham, called for many years Cope’s Landing. The old pioneer died in 1813.

His eldest son, Jacob, was one of those wounded in the battle of Lundy’s Lane.

The descendants of the family live in and around the village of St. Williams, a border town between Walsingham and Charlotteville.