The Loyalists of America and Their Times Volume II Part 18

"It has a winter of almost insufferable length and coldness; * * there are but a few inconsiderable spots fit to cultivate, and the land is covered with a cold spongy moss in place of gra.s.s. * * Winter continues at least seven months in the year; the country is wrapt in the gloom of a perpetual fog; the mountains run down to the sea coast, and leave but here and there a spot to inhabit." Some of the officers, embarking at New York for Nova Scotia, are said to have remarked that they were "bound for a country where there were nine months of winter and three months of cold weather every year." Lower Canada was known as a region of deep snow, intense cold, and little fertility; a colony of the French; its capital, Quebec, the scene of decisive battles between the English and French under Wolfe and Montcalm, and afterwards between Murray and Montgomery, the latter the leader of the American revolters and invaders. Montreal was regarded as the place of transit of the fur trade from the Hudson's Bay Company to England.

Upper Canada was then unknown, or known only as a region of dense wilderness and swamps, of venomous reptiles and beasts of prey, the hunting grounds and encampments of numerous Indian tribes, intense cold of winter, and with no other redeeming feature except abundance of game and fish.[137]

The entire ignorance of the climate of Upper Canada which prevailed at the close of the revolutionary war, may be inferred from the facts stated in a succeeding chapter, when the British commander of New York, being unable to transport any more Loyalists to Nova Scotia and New Brunswick, sent for a Mr. Gra.s.s, who had been a prisoner during the French war for two or three years at Kingston, then Frontenac, to inquire of him what sort of a country Upper Canada was, and whether people could live there. Gra.s.s replied that he thought Upper Canada was a good country, and that people could live there. The British commander expressed much joy at the reply, and asked Mr. Gra.s.s if he would undertake to conduct a colony of Loyalists to Canada; the vessels, provisions, etc., would be furnished for that purpose. Mr. Gra.s.s asked three days to consider the proposal, and at length consented to undertake the task. It appears that five vessels were procured and furnished to convey this first colony of banished refugee Loyalists to Upper Canada; they sailed around the coast of New Brunswick and Nova Scotia, and up the St. Lawrence to Sorel, where they arrived in October, 1783, and where they built themselves huts or shanties and wintered; and in May, 1784, they prosecuted their voyage in boats, and reached their destination, Cataraqui, afterwards Kingston, in July. The manner of their settlement and providing for their subsistence is described in a succeeding chapter.

Other bands of Loyalists made their way to Canada by land; some by the military highway to Lower Canada, Whitehall, Lake Champlain, Ticonderoga, Plattsburg, and then turning northward proceeded to Cornwall; then ascending the St. Lawrence, along the north side of which many of them settled. This Champlain route was the common one to Lower Canada, descending the River Richelieu from St. John's to Sorel.

But the most common land route from New York to Upper Canada, chosen by the Loyalists at the close of the war, was to Albany 180 miles up the Hudson river, which divides into two branches about ten miles north of Albany. The western branch is called the Mohawk, leading to Rome, formerly Fort Stanwix. A branch of the Mohawk, called Wood Creek, leads towards the Oneida lake, which was reached by a portage. From Oneida Lake, Lake Ontario was reached by the Oswego river. Flat-bottom boats, specially built or purchased for the purpose by the Loyalists, were used in this journey. The portages over which the boats had to be hauled, and all their contents carried, are stated to be thirty miles. On reaching Oswego, some of the Loyalists coasted along the eastern sh.o.r.e of Lake Ontario to Kingston, and thence up the Bay of Quinte; others went westward, along the south sh.o.r.e of the lake to Niagara and Queenston; some pursued their course to the head of the lake at Burlington; others made their way up the Niagara river to Queenston, conveyed their boats over the portage of ten or twelve miles to Chippewa, thence up the river and into Lake Erie, settling chiefly in what was called the "Long Point Country," now the county of Norfolk. This journey of hardship, privation, and exposure occupied from two to three months. The parents and family of the writer of this history were from the middle of May to the middle of July, 1799, in making this journey in an open boat.

Generally two or more families would unite in one company, and thus a.s.sist each other in carrying their boats and goods over the portages.

A considerable number came to Canada from New Jersey and the neighbourhood of Philadelphia on foot through the then wilderness of New York, carrying their little effects and small children on pack horses, and driving their cattle, which subsisted on herbage of the woods and valleys. Some of the families of this cla.s.s testified to the relief and kindness they received in their extreme exigencies from the Indians.

The hardships, exposures, privations and sufferings which the first Loyalists endured in making their way from their confiscated homes to Canada, were longer and more severe than anything narrated of the Pilgrim and Puritan Fathers of New England in their voyages from England to Ma.s.sachusetts Bay; and the persecutions to which the emigration of the Puritans from England is attributed were trifling indeed in comparison of the persecutions, imprisonments, confiscations, and often death, inflicted on the loyal adherents to the Crown of England in the United States, and which drove the survivors among them to the wilderness of Canada. The privations and hardships experienced by many of these Loyalist patriots for years after the first settlement in Canada, as testified by the papers in the subsequent chapter, were much more severe than anything experienced by the Pilgrim Fathers during the first years of their settlement in Ma.s.sachusetts. These latter could keep a "Harvest Home" festival of a week, at the end of the first year after their landing in the Bay of Ma.s.sachusetts; but it was years after their arrival in Canada before the Loyalists could command means to keep any such festival. The stern adherence of the Puritans to their principles was quite equalled by the stern adherence of the Loyalists to their principles, and far excelled by their sacrifices and sufferings.

Canada has a n.o.ble parentage, the remembrance of which its inhabitants may well cherish with respect, affection, and pride.

FOOTNOTES:

[Footnote 134: "Had we pursued a wise course, people of our own stock would not have become our rivals in ship-building, in the carriage of our great staples, in the prosecution of the fisheries, and in the production of wheat and other breadstuffs. Nor is this all: we should not have had the hatred, the influence and the talents of persons of Loyalist origin to contend against in the questions which have and may yet come up between us and England.

"Thus, as it seems to me, humanity to the adherents of the Crown, and prudent regard for our own interests, required a general amnesty; as it was, we not only dealt harshly with many, and unjustly with some, but doomed to misery others, whose hearts and hopes had been as true as those of Washington himself. Thus in the divisions of families which everywhere occurred, and which formed one of the most distressing circ.u.mstances of the conflict, there were wives and daughters, who, although bound to Loyalists by the holiest ties, had given their sympathies to the right from the beginning, and who now, in the triumph of the cause which had their prayers, went meekly--as woman ever meets a sorrowful lot--into hopeless, interminable exile." (Introductory Historical Essay to Sabine's Sketches of the Loyalists of the American Revolution, pp. 90, 91.)]

[Footnote 135: Preface to Colonel Sabine's Biographical Sketches of the American Loyalists, or Adherents to the British Crown, in the War of the Revolution.]

[Footnote 136: The Loyalists who were attached to military corps raised in the extreme South were princ.i.p.ally of the Southern States, and a large portion of them settled in the Bahamas, Florida, and the British West Indies. "Some of the officers who belonged to the 'Maryland Loyalists,' and some of the privates of that corps, embarked for Nova Scotia, but were wrecked in the Bay of Fundy, and a part perished."

(Sabine.)]

[Footnote 137: "The western part of Canada, abandoned after the conquest _as an Indian hunting ground_, or occupied at its western extremity on Lake Erie by a few of the ancient French colonists, began now to a.s.sume importance, and its capability of supporting a numerous population along the Great River and the lakes became evident. Those excellent men, who, preferring to sacrifice life and fortune rather than forego the enviable distinction of being British subjects, saw that this vast field afforded a sure and certain mode of safety and of honourable retreat, and accordingly, in 1783, ten thousand (10,000) were enumerated in that portion of Canada, who, under the proud t.i.tle of United Empire Loyalists, had turned their backs for ever upon the new-fangled republicanism and treason of the country of their birth.

"The obstacles, privations, and miseries these people had to encounter may readily be imagined in a country where the primeval forest covered the earth, and where the only path was the river or the lake. They ultimately were, however, blessed with success; and to this day the original letters U.E., after the name of an applicant for land, ensure its grant." (Sir Richard Bonnycastle's Canada Before 1837, Vol. I., pp.

24, 25.)]

CHAPTER XL.

BRIEF SKETCHES OF SOME INDIVIDUAL LOYALISTS--FIRST SETTLERS IN CANADA AND OTHER BRITISH PROVINCES.

It is not possible to give biographical sketches of all the old Loyalists, officers and soldiers. To do justice to their character and merits would require a ma.s.sive volume. Besides, the data for such a volume are for the most part wanting. It is not the object of this history to give a biography of the Loyalists; that must be done by others, if attempted at all. The Loyalists were not writers, but workers. Almost the only history of them has been written by their enemies, whose object was to conceal the treatment they received, to depreciate their merits and defame their character, for the vindication of which it is only of late years that materials have been procured. It is the object of this history to vindicate their character as a body, to exhibit their principles and patriotism, and to ill.u.s.trate their treatment and sufferings.

The best, and indeed only biography of the Loyalists extant is Sabine's "_American Loyalists, or Biographical Sketches of Adherents to the British Crown in the War of the Revolution_,"--especially the first, not the second edition. The author has more than once quoted the excellent historical essay introductory to the sketches of this work, and from which Dr. Canniff has enriched the pages of his valuable "_History of the Settlement of Upper Canada, with special reference to the Bay of Quinte_." From these sources we will condense brief notices of some of the early Loyalists, preliminary to the information in regard to others furnished us in the interesting letters and papers which follow. These notices will further ill.u.s.trate the character and sacrifices of the Loyalist combatants--the treatment they received and the courage they displayed.

1. _Samuel Anderson_, of New York, entered the service of the Crown, and was a captain in the regiment of Sir John Johnson. In 1783 he settled near Cornwall, Upper Canada, and received half-pay; held several civil offices, such as those of Magistrate, Judge of the District Court, a.s.sociate Justice of King's Bench, etc. He continued to reside on his property near Cornwall until his decease in 1836, at the age of one hundred and one. His property in New York was abandoned and lost.

2. _Rev. John Bethune_ (father of the late Bishop of Toronto), of North Carolina, was chaplain to the Loyal Militia; was taken prisoner at the battle of Cross Creek; was confined in jail, first at Halifax and finally in Philadelphia. After his release, his continued loyalty reduced him to great distress. He was appointed to the 84th Regiment and restored to comfort. At the peace, he settled in Upper Canada, at Williamston, near Cornwall, and died in 1815, at the age of sixty-five.

3. _Doane_, of Bucks County, Pennsylvania. Of this family there were five brothers--Moses, Joseph, Israel, Abraham, and Mahlon. They were men of fine figure and address, elegant hors.e.m.e.n, great runners and leapers, and excellent at stratagems and escapes. Their father was respectable, and possessed a good estate. The sons themselves, prior to the war, were men of reputation and proposed to remain neutral; but hara.s.sed personally, their property sold by the Whigs, because they would not submit to the exactions of the time, they determined to avenge themselves by a predatory warfare upon their persecutors, and to live in the open air as best they could. They became the terror of the surrounding country; they spared the weak, the poor, and the peaceful; they aimed at public property and at public men. Generally their expeditions were on horseback. Sometimes the five went together; at other times separately, with accomplices. Whoever of them was apprehended, broke jail; whoever of them was a.s.sailed, escaped. In a word, such was their course, that a reward of 300 was offered for the head of each. Ultimately, three were slain; Moses, after a desperate fight, was shot by his captor; and Abraham and Mahlon were living at Philadelphia. Joseph, before the revolution, taught school. During the war, while on a marauding expedition, he was shot through the cheeks, and was taken prisoner. He was committed to await his trial, but escaped to New Jersey. A reward of $800 was offered for his apprehension, but without success. He resumed his former employment in New Jersey and lived there under an a.s.sumed name for nearly a year, but finally fled to Canada. The only mention of Israel is that "in February, 1783, he appealed to the Council of Pennsylvania to be released on account of his own sufferings and the dest.i.tute condition of his family, and that his pet.i.tion was dismissed."

4. _Stephen Jarvis_, in 1782 was a lieutenant of cavalry in the South Carolina Royalists; was in several battles; was in New Brunswick; after the revolution came to Upper Canada, and died at Toronto in 1840, aged eighty-four.

5. _William Jarvis_ was an officer of cavalry in the Queen's Rangers; was wounded at the siege of Yorktown. At the Peace he settled in Upper Canada, became Secretary of the Province, and died at York (Toronto) in 1817.

6. _David Jones_ was captain in the royal service, and the reputed spouse or husband of the "beautiful and good Jane McCrea," whose cruel death in 1777, by the Indians, on her way to join him, is so universally known and lamented. He lived in Canada to an old age, but never married.

Jane McCrea was the daughter of the Rev. James McCrea, a Loyalist.

7. _Jonathan Jones_, of New York, was brother of Captain David Jones, and a.s.sisted in the latter part of 1776 in raising a company in Lower Canada, and joined the British garrison at Crown Point. Later in the war he was captain under General Frazer.

8. _Captain Richard Lippincott_ was born in Shrewsbury, New Jersey, on the 2nd of January, 1745. He was descended from an old colonial family, and served during the revolution as a captain in the New Jersey volunteers. He was married on the 4th of March, 1770, to Esther Borden, daughter of Jeremiah and Esther Borden, of Bordentown, New Jersey. On the outbreak of the revolution he warmly espoused the side of the Crown, and was early in the war captured and confined in Burlington jail, from which he escaped in the year 1776, and made his way to the British army at Staten Island. During the remainder of the war he served with his regiment. His connection with the execution of Captain Joshua Huddy, of the rebel service, attracted a great deal of attention both in Europe and America. Captain Huddy was a partisan officer of some repute in New Jersey, and had been concerned in the murder of a Loyalist named Philip White, who was a relative of Lippincott, and a resident of Shrewsbury.

One Edwards of the same neighbourhood had also been put to death about the same time. Shortly after, Captain Huddy was captured and taken as prisoner to New York. The "Board of a.s.sociated Loyalists of New York"

sent Captain Lippincott to Middleton Point, or Sandy Hook, with Captain Huddy and two other prisoners, to exchange them for prisoners held by the rebels. He was authorized to execute Huddy in retaliation for White, who had already been put to death. Therefore, on the 12th of April, 1782, having exchanged the two other prisoners, Captain Lippincott hung Huddy on a tree by the beach, under the Middleton Heights. In 1867 the tree was still to be seen, and tradition keeps alive in the neighbourhood the story connected with it. Captain Lippincott, who was evidently only obeying orders, pinned a paper on Huddy's breast with the following inscription:

"We, the Refugees, having long with grief beheld the cruel murders of our brethren, and finding nothing but such measures carrying into execution,--we therefore determine not to suffer without taking vengeance for the numerous cruelties, and thus begin, having made use of Captain Huddy as the first object to present to your view, and further determine to hang man for man while there is a refugee existing.

"UP GOES HUDDY FOR PHILIP WHITE."

Washington, upon hearing of Huddy's death, demanded the surrender of Captain Lippincott from the Royalist authorities, in order that he might be put to death. This demand was refused, and Washington then ordered the execution of one officer of equal rank to be chosen by lot from among the prisoners in his hands. The lot fell upon Captain Asgill, of the Guards, who was only nineteen years of age. The British authorities secured a respite under promise of trying Captain Lippincott by court-martial. After a full inquiry, Lippincott was honourably acquitted. In the meantime, Lady Asgill, Captain Asgill's mother, appealed to the Count de Vergennes, the French Minister, and, in response to her most pathetic appeal, the Count was instructed by the King and Queen of France, in their joint names, to ask of Washington the release of Captain Asgill "as a tribute to humanity." Washington, after a long delay, granted this request, but Asgill and Lippincott were not set at liberty till the close of the war. Asgill lived to become a general, and to succeed to his father's baronetcy.

After the war Captain Lippincott moved to New Brunswick, to a place called Pennfield, where he lived till the fall of 1787, when he went to England, where he remained till the end of 1788. He was granted half pay as a captain of the British army, and in 1793 he moved from New Brunswick to Canada, when he was granted for his U.E. Loyalist services 3,000 acres of land in the township of Vaughan, near Toronto.

He lived near Richmond Hill for many years. His only surviving child, Esther Borden Lippincott, was married in 1806 to the late Colonel George Taylor Denison, of Bellevue, Toronto, at whose house Captain Lippincott died in 1826, aged eighty-one years. The family of Denisons of Toronto are all descendants of Captain Lippincott through this marriage.

9. _McDonald._--There were many of this name who took part with the loyal combatants, and of whom several settled in Canada.

Alexander McDonald was a major in a North Carolina regiment, and was the husband of the celebrated Flora McDonald, who was so true and devoted to Prince Charles Edward, the last of the Stuarts who sought the throne of England. They had emigrated to North Carolina; and when the revolution broke out, he, with two sons, took up arms for the Crown. Those who settled in Canada were Donald McDonald, of New York, who served under Sir John Johnson for seven years, and died at Wolfe Island, Upper Canada, aged 97; and Allan McDonald, of Tryon (afterwards Montgomery), New York, who was a.s.sociated with Sir John Johnson in 1776, and died at a great age, at Three Rivers, in Lower Canada, 1822.

10. _John McGill_ was, in 1782, an officer of infantry in the Queen's Rangers, and at the close of the war went to New Brunswick; removed thence to Upper Canada, became a man of note and member of the Legislative Council, and died at Toronto, in 1834, at the age of eighty-three.

11. _Donald McGillis_ resided at the beginning of the revolution on the Mohawk river, New York. Embracing the royal side in the contest, he formed one of a "determined band of young men," who attacked a Whig post, and, in the face of a superior force, cut down the flag-staff and tore in strips the stars and stripes attached to it. Subsequently he joined a grenadier company called the Royal Yorkers, and performed efficient service throughout the war. At the peace he settled in Canada; and entering the British service again in 1812, was appointed captain in the colonial corps by Sir Isaac Brock. He died at River Raisin, Canada, in 1844, aged eighty years.

12. _Thomas Merrit_, of New York (father of the late Hon. W. Hamilton Merrit), was in 1782 cornet of cavalry in the Queen's Rangers. He settled in Upper Canada, and held the office of high sheriff of the Niagara district. He died at St. Catharines, May, 1842, at the age of eighty years.

_The Robinson family_ was one of the distinguished families in America before, during, and after the revolution, and its members have filled some of the most important offices in the provinces of Nova Scotia, New Brunswick, Lower and Upper Canada.

13. _Beverley Robinson_, of New York, was the son of the Honourable John Robinson, of Virginia, who was President of that colony on the retirement of Governor Gooch. He removed to New York, and married Susanna, daughter of Frederick Phillipse, Esquire, who owned an immense landed estate on the Hudson river. By this connection Mr. Robinson added greatly to his wealth and became very rich. When the revolutionary controversy commenced, he was living on that portion of the Phillipse estate which had been given to his wife, and there he desired to remain in the quiet enjoyment of country life, and in the enjoyment of his large domains. That such was his inclination is a.s.serted by the late President Dwight, and is fully continued by circ.u.mstances and by his descendants. He _was opposed to the measures of the British Ministry, gave up the use of imported merchandize, and clothed himself and family in fabrics of domestic manufacture_.

_But he was opposed to the separation of the colonies from the mother country._ Still he wished to take no part in the conflict of arms. The importunity of friends overruled his own judgment, and he entered the military service of the Crown. Of the Loyal American Regiment, raised princ.i.p.ally in New York by himself, he was commissioned the colonel. He also commanded the corps called Guides and Pioneers. Of the former, or the Loyal Americans, his son Beverley was lieutenant-colonel, and Thomas Barclay, major. He and Washington had been personal friends until political events produced separation between them.

At the peace, Colonel Robinson, with a part of his family, went to England. His name appears as a member of the first Council of New Brunswick; but he never took his seat at the Board. His wife, with himself, was attainted for high treason; in order to secure her property to the Americans, she was included in the Confiscation Act of New York, and the whole of the estate derived from her father pa.s.sed from the family. The value of her interest may be estimated from the fact that the British Government granted her and her husband the sum of 17,000 sterling, which, though equal to $80,000, _was considered only a partial compensation_.

Colonel Robinson has highly respectable descendants in New Brunswick as well as in Canada. William Henry, who was afterwards King William the Fourth, enjoyed Colonel Robinson's hospitality in New York at a later date. The Robinsons were unquestionably immediate sufferers from the events which drove them into exile. But though Colonel Robinson was not amply compensated in money by the Government for which he sacrificed fortune, home, and his native land, yet the distinction obtained by his children and grand-children in the colonies, though deprived of their inheritance, has not been without other and substantial recompense, as no persons of the Loyalist descent have been more favoured in official stations and powerful family alliances than the heirs of the daughters of Frederick Phillipse, Susanna Robinson, and Mary Morris (see under the names of Colonel Roger Morris and Colonel Thomas Barclay).

14. _Beverley Robinson (jun.)_ was son of Colonel Beverley Robinson, and lieutenant-colonel in the Loyal American Regiment, commanded by his father; was a graduate of Columbia College, New York, and at the commencement of the revolutionary troubles was a student of law in the office of James Duane. His wife, Nancy, whom he married during the war, was daughter of the Reverend Henry Barclay, D.D., rector of Trinity Church, New York, and sister of Colonel Thomas Barclay. At the evacuation of New York, Lieutenant-Colonel Robinson was placed at the head of a large number of Loyalists who embarked for Shelburne, Nova Scotia, and who laid out that place in a very handsome manner, in the hope of its becoming a town of business and importance. The harbour of Shelburne is represented to be one of the best in North America; the population rapidly increased to about 12,000 persons, but soon as rapidly declined, being outrivalled by Halifax--and many abandoned Shelburne for other parts of the British provinces. Lieutenant-Colonel Robinson went to New Brunswick, and resided near the city of St. John.

His deprivations and sufferings for a considerable time after leaving New York were great, but were finally relieved by the receipt of half-pay as an officer in the service of the Crown. In New Brunswick he was a member of his Majesty's Council; and at the period of the French revolution, and on the occurrence of the Napoleonic war between England and France, he was entrusted with the command of the regiment raised in that colony, possessed great energy, and contributed much by his exertions and influence to settle and advance the commercial emporium of New Brunswick. In the Confiscation Act of New York, by which his estate was taken from him, he was styled "Beverley Robinson the younger." He died in 1816, at New York, while on a visit to two of his sons who were residing in that city.

15. _Christopher Robinson_, of Virginia, was kinsman of Colonel Beverley Robinson; entered William and Mary College with his cousin Robert, escaped with him to New York, and received a commission in the Loyal Canadian Regiment; served at the South, and was wounded. At the peace he went first to New Brunswick, and then to Nova Scotia, receiving a grant of land in each province. He soon removed to Upper Canada, where Governor Simcoe gave him the appointment of Deputy-Surveyor-General of Crown Lands. His salary, half pay, and an estate of 2,000 acres, placed him in comfortable circ.u.mstances.

16. _Sir John Beverley Robinson_ was a son of Christopher Robinson, of Virginia; received his early legal education in England, and was admitted to the English bar. He returned to Upper Canada while yet young; served with distinction in the war of 1812, and was in several battles. He was early appointed Attorney-General, and held a seat in the House of a.s.sembly for ten years; after which he was appointed Member and Speaker of the Legislative Council. During the insurrection of 1837, in Upper Canada, he took his musket and went into the ranks, accompanied by his two sons. He was born in 1791; was appointed Attorney-General of Upper Canada in 1818; was raised to the Bench as Chief Justice in 1829; was created Baronet in 1854; and died in 1863, aged seventy-two.