Mary Beacock Fryer, a descendant of loyalist families herself, was born in the loyalist city of Brockville, Ontario. Educated there and at the University of Toronto, she holds an M.A. in historical geography from Edinburgh University.
Her other publications include Caleb Seaman, a Loyalist(1971), Loyalist Spy(1976), A Pictorial of the Thousand Islands(1977), with A.G. Ten Cate, and A Pictorial History of the Rideau Waterway (forthcoming, 1981), again with A. G. Ten Cate.
She is a member of the Writer's Union of Canada and of the United Empire Loyalists' Association of Canada. Married with three children, she lives in Toronto, and spends each summer in the Thousand Islands.
Mary Beacock Fryer (1929–2017) was a well-known expert on Upper Canadian history. She wrote a trilogy on the Simcoe family: Elizabeth Posthuma Simcoe: A Biography, Our Young Soldier: Lieutenant Francis Simcoe, 6 June 1791-6 April 1812, and John Graves Simcoe: 1752-1806, A Biography. Among Fryer's other books are Escape, Beginning Again, and Buckskin Pimpernel.