“Loyalist Trails” 2012-41: October 14, 2012

In this issue:
– Two Fond of Cards – by Stephen Davidson
– Second Generation in America: John Raymond – by George McNeillie
– Canada’s Historic Places
– Loyalist Quarterly by Paul Bunnell: October Issue Now Available
– The Selkirk Settlers Bicentenary: Part 1 of 2, by Mary Steinhoff
– War Clubs & Wampum Belts Exhibit, Brantford
– 1812 Era: Trade Across the Border: Lake Champlain and Quebec
– St. Lawrence Branch to Commemorate War of 1812 Battles
– From the Twittersphere and Beyond
– Additions to the Loyalist Directory
– Last Post: Alexia Mabel Landon, UE
– Queries
      + Response re Sir John Johnson’s Bell

Articles

Two Fond of Cards – by Stephen Davidson

In last week’s edition of Loyalist Trails we learned about a loyalist woman and a British general who were passionate about card games,. This week we will see how cards linked the lives of two key protagonists in the American Revolution – a powerful British earl and an influential Massachusetts lawyer.

John Montagu, the Fourth Earl of Sandwich, is famous as the namesake of a common part of our daily diet. The story has often been told of how he hated to take a break from playing cards to have a meal. And no wonder. When a member of the 18th century’s aristocracy sat down to eat, it meant an elaborate meal of many dishes which required a host of servants to serve and distribute. The meal was enjoyed slowly and sedately. Cutlery was essential; to eat with one’s bare hands was “common” and rude.

But Montagu wanted to keep playing cards. After ordering a servant to go off and put some cold meat and cheese between two slices of bread, the earl was given a sandwich – a meal that allowed him to both eat and gamble without getting his cards greasy. Delivering food to the mouth without fork or spoon was considered very daring.

There is another version of how the sandwich came into being. In this alternative version, Montagu’s need for fast food is related to all of the paper work that he was required to do as First Lord of the Admiralty. He needed something that he could easily consume as he worked at his desk. And here is the connection to the American Revolution: whether it was Sandwich’s addiction to cards or hard work that created a new kind of meal, he was the man in charge of the British navy from 1771 to 1782.

As one ponders why the mightiest navy on earth failed to conquer the rebelling colonies of the North America’s seaboard, one may not have to look much further than the Earl of Sandwich. He is quoted as confessing to his prime minister, Lord North: “I never could understand the real state of the fleet.” He also had a poor opinion of loyalists.

Sandwich, along with his prime minister and Lord Germain (who was directly responsible for the progress of the British war effort), all dismissed the capabilities of their loyal Americans and held them in contempt. And that contempt, says historian Walter Stewart, “contributed to a series of blunders that marked the British effort”. Perhaps if Montagu had spent a little less time at the gaming tables and committed more time to devising naval strategy, it might have changed the outcome of the American Revolution. But these were not the cards dealt to the empire’s loyalists.

While the Earl of Sandwich was dividing his time between gambling and overseeing the British navy, a Massachusetts lawyer was doing his part to stem the growing tide of rebellion within the colonies. After graduating in law from Harvard in 1760, Daniel Leonard served in the courts of Taunton, Massachusetts. Fourteen years later, the British government appointed Leonard to the colony’s Mandamus Council. This so enraged the local inhabitants that 500 of them surrounded the court house where Leonard had his office. This same mob later fired bullets into the windows of his home.

This did not deter the loyalist lawyer. Under the pseudonym, Massachusettensis, Leonard had 17 letters published in one of Boston’s newspapers. The letters denounced the rebels and their political philosophy; they were well written and made a very good case for remaining loyal to the crown. One historian has called them the strongest statements of the loyalist cause that appeared in New England.

Although he was a gifted writer and debater, Leonard had flaws that were all too visible to his detractors. His penchant for riding in an elaborate carriage, wearing clothes trimmed with gold lace, and a “passion for cards” made him the butt of many jokes. And what easier target than a man who was perceived to be a “ridiculously pompous figure”? It might have helped if he had not been so patronizing in his speech, his bearing, and his treatment of those he met.

When she wrote The Group, Mercy Otis Warren, a patriot playwright, modelled the dandy in her stage play after Leonard. Everyone in her audience knew that “Beau Trumps” was the loyalist lawyer.

John Trumbull’s poem, “McFingal,” contained four lines describing Leonard.

Did not our Massachusettensis
For your conviction strain his senses;
Scrawl every moment he could spare
From cards, and barbers and the fair?

Judge R.T. Paine remembered Leonard, saying: “Daniel was a very clever fellow, but he was too fond of cards, and never was easy in company, till cards were introduced”.

Within a matter of months, it was no longer safe for Leonard to remain in Taunton; he took his wife and children to Boston. There he became a hated customs commissioner – not the best of career moves. In 1776, along with other loyalists and British soldiers, the family fled the city, making England their home until Leonard was appointed the chief justice of Bermuda in 1782. Twenty-four years later, the card-playing American returned to England where he came to be regarded as the dean of English barristers. Leonard died at 89 in 1829, thirty-seven years after the death of the Earl of Sandwich.

Thus gambling linked two figures of the American Revolution, a pair of influential men who were too fond of cards.

To secure permission to reprint this article, email Stephen Davidson.

Second Generation in America: John Raymond © George McNeillie

The date of birth of John Raymond, the oldest son of Richard, is not exactly known, but it is most probably about the year 1635; and that he was the oldest of the family may be considered to be settled. He must have been in his early manhood (about 23 years of age) when his father and brothers left Salem in 1658, and fixed themselves at various places on the Long Island Sound. The father and John went to Norwalk, Joshua – another son – to New London, and Daniel to Lyme.

We learn from Savage’s Genealogical Dictionary of the First Settlers in New England that John Raymond married Mary Betts, the daughter of Thomas and Mary Betts, on the 10th of December, 1664. She was born in Guilford, Connecticut, in 1646. Her father was born in England in 1618 and came to America in 1639. John Raymond, after his marriage, lived upon the land purchased by his father in Norwalk from Ralph Keeler.

In 1667 Richard Raymond empowered “his well-beloved brother, Thomas Betts of Norwalk” to record all his lands; and in 1676 gave by will all his lands in Norwalk “unto those children which my son John Raymond already has, or may have, by Mary Raymond his present wife”.

John Raymond added considerably to the property received from his father. The Town Records of Norwalk show that on December 4, 1668, he drew Lot No. 21 in a division of “the winter wheat field,” also that about the year 1684, he drew Lot No. 20 in another division of lands, as well as a lot across the river. His taxable property was valued at 200 pounds about this time, an amount that was considered respectable amongst the pioneer settlers of his day. John Raymond lived and died in his “home-lot” in Norwalk. The date of his death is not known. He was a leading citizen of the town.

As defined by the patent of the Governor (Robert Treat) and the Company of Connecticut, the bounds of Norwalk were:- “The sea on the South, thence to run towards the North twelve miles, abutting on the wilderness on the North, on Fairfield bounds on the East, and on the Stamford bounds on the West.” The name of the town is written “Norwalke” in the of earliest town records, the letter w probably silent as in Warwick. In Hill’s History Norwalk it is stated, “our aged people retain the ancient pronunciation Norruck.”

The old Town Records of this period were often very quaint – witness the following: – “Making a Fence for a Winter Wheat Field, Anno 1668. Dec. 4, 1668. It was agreed and concluded that a fence shall be made and sett up for ye taking in of a winter wheat field, which sayd fence is to begin at the gate by Goodman Nash his house, and to run along by the highway that goes to story hill, and to end at the creek that comes between Matthue Canfield his island and Nathaniel Richard’s out-meadow, which fence is to be made good suffitient fence; eyther posts and rayles, or stones or logs, but not hegg [hedge]: and this to be layd out and divided by Mr. Fitch, Daniel Kellogg, and Christopher Comstock. And also it was concluded that the first lott should begin at the gate, which first lott should be drawn by Matthew Marvin, Sr.” [Thirty-one names follow in order, of which no. 21 is that of John Raymond.]

A list of the children of Norwalk, made in 1672, shows that they belonged to thirty-one families and were in number one hundred and thirteen. John Raymond at that time had but one.

Norwalk, as the home of our branch of the Raymond Family for more than a century, is a spot that possesses for us a peculiar interest. Norwalk is today a quiet little Connecticut town. Passing through its streets one cannot but be struck with the familiar names displayed on the sign-boards, showing even yet how sadly families and relatives were divided by the event of the American Revolution. Beautiful drooping willows, that seem still to mourn the banished Loyalists, are much in evidence. The meadow-lands and immense marshes, abundantly productive of hay and requiring so little exertion in their cultivation, enable one in some measure to appreciate the contrast with which our ancestors were confronted when first they began their new life amid the forest depths of New Brunswick.

The children of John and Mary (Betts) Raymond were:-

1. John, born 09 Sep 1665, Died 12 Apr 1737.

2. Samuel, born 07 Jul 1673, Died 24 Oct 1738

3. Thomas, born _____, 1678.

4. Hannah, born _____?

Of the above children, the oldest, Capt. John Raymond, was a leading man in the early history of Norwalk. His name and that of his brother Samuel occur in the records of the town. See the following:-

“December 4, 1694: it was ordered that all persons who are members of town meetings, having a vote and suffrage in town affairs, who shall not attend town meetings when legally warned, and within one hour after the time, shall pay a fine of two shillings.”

The names of John Raymond, Sr., John Raymond, Jr., and Samuel Raymond occur in the list of 83 voters.

The last mention that is made of John Raymond, Sr. in the old Norwalk records shows him to have been about sixty years of age. How long he lived after that is uncertain as the date of his death is not known. Our family descent is carried on through his second son Samuel.

It is interesting to find that our descent from Thomas Betts through his daughter Mary, wife of John Raymond, comprises the same number of generations and covers practically the same period (1630-1920) as we have in the Raymond line.

Excerpt from Book of Family History, by The Ven. William Odber Raymond, LL.D, FRSC. © 2009 George McNeillie – all rights reserved [published here with permission; see footnote].

…George McNeillie

Canada’s Historic Places

Federal, Provincial and Territorial (F/P/T) governments recognize the contribution historic places make to our communities. Since 2001, the F/P/T governments have worked together through an initiative to jointly develop core programs. The Canadian Register of Historic Places (CRHP) provides a single source of information about all historic places recognized for their heritage value at the local, provincial, territorial and national levels throughout Canada.

A website called Canada’s Historic Places allows you to search through the database. A simple search of ‘loyalist’ brings about 350 sites. An advanced search (under Interact → Search) allows a narrower search where United Empire Loyalist in the province of Ontario brings 28 sites.

Loyalist Quarterly by Paul Bunnell: October Issue Now Available

The latest issue of the only U.S. journal devoted to Loyalist studies contains, among others, these topics:

– Black Loyalist Supports Film

– Find Your Loyalist Ancestor

– 1778 List of Men from Pennsylvania who joined the British Army (Loyalist)

– The Battle of Kings Mountain

– Delaware’s Role in the Revolutionary War

– 12th New England Regional Genealogical Conference

– Loyalist Trails

– Joshua Knight’s Tea Table

– Four Generations of Loyalist Joseph Haines Sr.

– United Empire Loyalist Association of Canada Branches

More information including subscription details at Paul J. Bunnell’s website.

…Paul J. Bunnell, UE, Editor/Author

The Selkirk Settlers Bicentenary: Part 1 of 2, by Mary Steinhoff

In the first week of September, 2012, the cities of Winnipeg and Selkirk, MB hosted a series of events celebrating the 200th anniversary of the arrival of the first group of Scottish and Irish settlers in Red River Colony. The events were organized by a Bicentenary Committee whose members were drawn from a number of heritage groups, most prominently the Lord Selkirk Association of Rupert’s Land and the St. Andrew’s Society.

Thomas Douglas, the 5th Earl of Selkirk had previously established settlements in Prince Edward Island and Upper Canada for Scottish crofters displaced by the Highland Clearances. The one at Belfast, PEI (see monument at Belfast, PEI) proved to be successful; that at Baldoon, Upper Canada, was less so.

In 1810 he persuaded the Hudson’s Bay Company, in which he had purchased shares, to grant him an immense tract of land, to be called Assiniboia, in the heart of Rupertsland. For this he paid a nominal fee of 10 shillings and promised to provide 200 servants for the HBC and to establish an agricultural colony. The first group of Scottish and Irish settlers arrived in the fall of 1812.

The Bicentenary celebration began on the weekend of August 31st-September 2nd with the annual Barge Fest at The Forks being given a Celtic theme. The Riel Gentlemen’s Choir plied the Red and Assiniboine in York boats, singing traditional songs. The Winnipeg Symphony Orchestra, ensconced on a barge on the Assiniboine, performed a movement of a newly commissioned Scottish Symphony, and was joined by tenor John McDermott for a set of traditional Scottish songs, including The Skye Boat Song. The weekend Barge Fest ended on Sunday with a performance of the Barra Mac Neils and a display of fireworks.

The Selkirk Settlers Annual Parade also took place on Sunday, September 2nd. The parade began at the Thistle Monument at the Alexander Docks in Point Douglas, and wended its way along Waterfront Drive to The Forks. Several pipe bands and heritage groups comprised the parade as well as private citizens.

On Tuesday, September 4th, the “Arrival Ceremony” took place at La Verendrye Park in St. Boniface. This was a re-enactment of the land transfer between the HBC and Miles MacDonnell, the first governor of Assiniboia, which took place on September 4th, 1812 in almost the exact location. The present Lord Selkirk of Douglas was the guest of honour as members of The Living History Society re-created the transaction of 200 years ago.

Earlier in the day Lord Selkirk had unveiled a plaque at the Manitoba Legislature to commemorate the Bicentenary. In the evening the Lieutenant Governor hosted a reception at Government House. Lord Selkirk and a number of descendants of Selkirk Settlers were the guests of honour.

On Thursday, September 6th, it was the turn of the city of Selkirk, just north of Winnipeg, to host the visiting Earl of Selkirk. He was the guest of honour at a number of events within the city and then took part in a ceremony re-dedicating the Chief Peguis Monument at the Church of St. Peter’s Dynavor in East Selkirk. Chief Peguis was a Saulteaux chief who defended the Selkirk Settlers against the depredations of the North West Company and the Company’s Métis servants.

St. Peter’s Dynavor is on the site of the former St. Peter’s Reserve on the east bank of the Red River, a picturesque site from which Peguis’s people were removed in 1908 to a larger but more remote location on the west side of Lake Winnipeg , now called the Peguis Reserve. Never-the -less, many elders of Peguis Reserve still regard St. Peter’s Dynavor as home and were in attendance, along with present chief Glen Hudson. They presented Lord Selkirk with several gifts.

The cemetery at St. Peter’s Dynavor contains many 19th century graves including three graves of boatmen who accompanied Lord Wolseley on the Nile expedition of 1884-85 to relieve the siege of Khartoum and rescue Gordon. Wolseley had become aware of the prowess of Canadian voyageurs on the Red River Expedition of 1870.

(To be continued next week.)

…Mary Steinhoff, Manitoba Branch

War Clubs & Wampum Belts Exhibit, Brantford

The Woodland Cultural Centre will be opening the ‘War Clubs & Wampum Belts: Haudenosaunee Experiences in the War of 1812’ exhibition on Monday, 29th October 2012 at 7:00 pm at the Woodland Cultural Centre (184 Mohawk Street, Brantford, Ontario). This exhibition runs until 23 December 2012.

Items on display include the Flag that was reportedly given to Tecumseh in 1812, on loan from the Smithsonian Institute’s National Museum of the American Indian, three items on loan from the ROM (including an 1812 silver medallion), and a number of artefacts from our permanent collection.

More information on the website, woodland-centre.on.ca.

…Paula Whitlow, Museum Director

1812 Era: Trade Across the Border: Lake Champlain and Quebec

Before the building of the Champlain Canal in the 1820s and the laying of the railroad through the Champlain Valley in the 1870s, the natural trade routes in the Champlain Valley extended northward through the Richelieu River corridor to Montreal. With increasing tensions between Britain and its colonies and the United States, the passing of Jefferson’s Embargo Act of 1807 and its successors failed to impede the traffic of goods into and out of Lower Canada, leading to a virtual rebellion in certain Vermont and New York communities.

The outbreak of war in June of 1812 with Britain did little to diminish the border trade. By 1814 Canada’s governor-general Sir George Prevost declared that “two-thirds of the army in Canada were living on beef provided by American contractors drawn principally from the States of Vermont and New York.

Any sense of America nationalism was obviously still weak in Vermont, when the state’s residents bitterly opposed Jefferson’s Embargo and did not hesitate to smuggle livestock to the British even after the war broke out. On the northern side of the border, the largely American-born non-Loyalist population certainly did not identify strongly with the British Empire or with the French-speaking Catholic majority of the province.

In November of 1812 the Vermont government passed an act declaring that no one could pass either way across the border without a permit from the governor and also forbidding anyone from “driving horses, cattle or conveying any property towards Canada, so as to create a reasonable suspicion that the same is intended for Canada.” Flouting this law could result in confiscation of property, a $1000 fine, and seven years hard labor. Despite the 170 seizures of smuggled goods in northern Vermont, the sale of American livestock only increased. But this initial flush of American patriotism soon waned, and, in order to placate Vermonters opposed to the war the United States government quietly sanctioned the evasion of the law for goods of no obvious military value. The border communities of the Eastern Townships in Quebec, Canada, benefited enormously from this activity, particularly the community of Phillipsburg on Missisquoi Bay at the north eastern end of Lake Champlain, which became a place of immense trade.

Not all the cross-border traffic was headed north. On 6 November 1813 in an attempt to exert greater control over the situation, the Lower Canadian government proclaimed that the transfer of restricted goods across the border to the United States was to be prohibited, and a license would be required by those who purchased American merchandise. Due to the problems of meeting the requirements, merchants tended to ignore the order.

While the war only stimulated the smuggling that had already been taking place in this borderland region, enriching a number of Eastern Townships’ residents in the process, it also heightened tensions along the border as American civil and military authorities attempted to staunch the flow of livestock northward. But whatever the feelings of the majority may have been about these cross-border politics, they made the rather porous international boundary more tangible for the future.

In remembrance of these volatile days, members of the Sir John Johnson Centennial Branch of the United Empire Loyalists, not only have an open invitation to those of us from across the border to attend their annual meeting held at the Canadian Legion Hall in Phillipsburg, they also attend annually the Battle of Plattsburgh Commemoration activities in Plattsburgh.

Cross border relations are as strong as ever. One is invited to visit the North Country to become acquainted with the cross border connections.

…Bill Glidden, North Country Historian, NY

St. Lawrence Branch to Commemorate War of 1812 Battles

St. Lawrence Branch, United Empire Loyalists Association of Canada is sponsoring a Battle of Crysler’s Farm and Battle of Hoople’s Creek Commemorative Dinner. The dinner will be enjoyed on Saturday November 10, 2012 at St. Matthew’s Presbyterian Church in Ingleside Ontario.

There will be a special presentation by guest speaker Carson Elliott, a local storyteller, on the local events that occurred on November 10 and 11, 1813.

The tickets cost $20.00 per person for a roast beef dinner. For more information or to purchase advance tickets please, call 613-938-2455 or email.

…Carol Goddard

From the Twittersphere and Beyond

Additions to the Loyalist Directory

As time permits, we add information to the Loyalist Directory. The latest additions and updates are as follows:
– Galloway, George – from John Galloway

Last Post: Alexia Mabel Landon, UE

January 22 1927 – September 11 2012 Alexia (nee Clark) at Royal Columbian Hospital, New Westminster BC. Alexia was born in Caledonia Ontario in 1927. Her mother, Jesse E. Nelles, was a teacher and her father, Herbert J. Clark, was a miller who owned and operated his own feed mill in Watford Ontario. She attended Watford High School and graduated from the University of Western Ontario in 1948.

She met her future husband, Howard M. Landon, when she and her card playing partners needed a fourth for bridge. They married in 1948. With her husband and three children, she moved from London Ontario to Montreal Quebec and to Lyndhurst Ontario. They bought a small farm on the shores of Beverly Lake in 1968 where they lived until Howard’s death in 1998.

She moved to Kingston Ontario in 1999 as she preferred city lights to country life. She moved to New Westminster British Columbia in 2004 at age 77. She claimed that her decision to move west was made one cold January morning when she could not find her car in the parking lot because it had been thoroughly covered by the ice and snow of a storm the night before.

She enjoyed being a member of the Quilters group at Century House, New Westminster. She was an inveterate reader and usually had a stack of books either by her chair or on hold at the public library.

She is survived by her siblings: Jane Hamilton of Caledonia Ontario and Herbert Clark of Fairfield Glade Tennessee, by her children: Elizabeth Landon (Kathy) of Vancouver BC, Stephen Landon (Christena) of New Westminster BC and Christopher Landon (Laurie) of Kingston ON and by her grandchildren. (From the Kingston Whig-Standard)

…Lynne Cook UE

Queries

Response re Sir John Johnson’s Bell

In the Sept. 16 issue of Loyalist Trails, Brenda Dougall Merriman asked about Sir John Johnson’s Bell.

Ed Kipp has responded with photos of St. Stephen’s Anglican Church and the bell they have on display in the church.

Brenda has had much more correspondence and made an interesting voyage of discovery. You can read about it at her recent blog post Sir John Johnson’s Bell(s).