George Detlor was born in 1777, possibly of German descent.  He married Lettie Van Pelt in New York and had two children before immigrating to Canada between 1800 and 1812.  George was a shoemaker.  He returned to the New York after the war of 1812 to sell his business there.

In 1819 there was a disaster in Hay Bay where several young people on the way to a Church meeting drowned.  Apparently George assisted in rescuing some of the survivors, but later died from pneumonia caused by that event.