As She Began
An illustrated introduction
to Loyalist Ontario
by Bruce Wilson
Acknowledgments
The preparation of this manuscript and the publication of this book were made possible because of assistance from several sources.
The author is grateful to the Ontario Arts Council for a Writer’s Grant award.
The publisher wishes to acknowledge the ongoing generous financial support of the Canada Council and the Ontario Arts Council.
We are particularly grateful to the Ontario Heritage Foundation, Ministry of Culture and Recreation for its publishing award, its encouragement for this project, and its technical assistance.
J. Kirk Howard, Publisher
Copyright © Bruce Wilson, 1981.
All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or otherwise (except brief passages for purposes of review) without the prior permission of Dundurn Press Limited.
Editor: Diane Mew
Design and Production: Ron and Ron Design Photography
Typesetting: Jaytype
Printing and Binding: Editions Marquis, Montmagny, Quebec
Dundurn Press Limited
P.O. Box 245, Station F
Toronto, Canada
M4Y 2L5
Canadian Cataloguing in Publication Data
Wilson, Bruce G., 1945-
As she began
Bibliography: p.
ISBN 0-919670-54-7
1. United Empire Loyalists - History.* 2. Canada -
History - 1763-1791. I, Title.
| FC3070.L6W54 | 971.3’01 | C82-094264-2 |
| F1058.W54 |
to Rachael, Seth, and Mary sue.
Preface
Surprisingly little has been written in our generation about the United Empire Loyalists. One gap which has particularly struck me is the lack of any single narrative account attempting to cover in detail both the wartime experiences and the postwar settlement of those United Empire Loyalists who came to Ontario. This book is a modest attempt to rectify that lack by combining some original research with a synthesis of existing sources. I hope that its many illustrations will help the reader to catch the flavour of the period and that the book will be of interest both to the general reader and to the scholar.
I have entailed many debts in the preparation of this work. I should like to thank the Ontario Ministry of Culture and Recreation who commissioned an earlier report on this subject as a background paper. In particular I owe a debt to Mr. Lorne Ste. Croix of the Ministry who has been a great aid to me in all stages of the production of the work. I wish to thank the Ontario Heritage Foundation who have given a substantial grant towards the publication of this book and my own institution, the Public Archives of Canada, for a short leave period to research my manuscript. The following institutions and their staffs have been most helpful to me in my research: the Public Archives of Canada; the Archives of Ontario; the Sigmund Samuel Collection of the Royal Ontario Museum; the Baldwin Room of the Metropolitan Toronto Library; the National War Museum; the Niagara Historical Society; the National Gallery of Canada; the State Historical Society of Wisconsin; the John Carter Brown Library, Brown University; the Connecticut Historical Society; the National Gallery of Art, Washington; the St. Catharines Historical Museum; and the William L. Clements Library.
I wish to thank Kirk Howard, my publisher, who has put a great deal of effort into this book and Ron Rochon who has been responsible for its design. Diane Mew, my editor, has made a number of suggestions that have greatly improved the work. P. J. Lloyd prepared the maps. I owe a special thanks to my mother-in-law, Edna Mellor, and my wife, Mary sue Wilson, who have typed the manuscript. Finally, my thanks to my wife and children who have patiently endured the cuts into our limited leisure time that this book has made.
Bruce Wilson
London, England,
December 1981.
Contents
2. The Loyalist War out of Canada
3. Resettlement in the St. Lawrence-Bay of Quinte Region
4. Resettlement in Niagara and the Western Peninsula
Illustration index and credits
Faces of Loyalism: “Reverend John Stuart,” (1740-1811), artist unknown
An Anglican clergyman, Stuart had been a missionary serving the Mohawks at Fort Hunter, New York. He was greatly respected by both whites and Indians, and was a strong influence in persuading his Indian charges to remain faithful to the crown. When the Mohawks openly espoused the British cause, Stuart was arrested on suspicion of being a Loyalist and finally paroled within the limits of Schenectady. His chapel was turned into a tavern and later a stable. He was subjected to abuse, his possessions stolen and finally his farm confiscated. When he attempted to open a Latin school to support himself, he was forbidden as a “prisoner of war. “At last he applied for an exchange and was allowed to go to Canada in 1781. In Montreal, he was a schoolmaster and a chaplain to the King’s Royal Regiment of New York. He settled permanently at Cataraqui (Kingston) in 1785 and later became rector of St. George’s, Kingston, and bishop’s commissary for Upper Canada.
Introduction
Adam Young was one of the first “un-American” Americans. Native-born and of German extraction, there was nothing particularly unusual about the man. He was a small farmer in Tryon County, New York, who by thirty years of labour had cleared and cultivated one hundred acres of land. By the time the Revolutionary War broke out in 1775, Young, sixty years old and a pillar of his community, was slipping into a comfortable old age. Although members of his own family, even his own brothers and sisters, supported the revolutionary cause, Adam Young steadfastly declared himself for the king. As a committed British partisan, he gave shelter and provisions to those fleeing from the Revolution and recruited local men for the royalist forces. Young was harassed and