“Loyalist Trails” 2014-26: June 29, 2014
In this issue:
– Canadian Anti-Spam Legislation (CASL)
– “Unpacking” a Loyalist Auction Notice: Part 2, by Stephen Davidson
– Loyalist Philip Huffman and His Descendants (Part Two)
– Loyalist Quarterly by Paul Bunnell: June 2014 Issue Now Available
– Visit Point Pelee & John R. Park Homestead: Hamilton Branch Bus Trip
– Quilting as a Form of Art
– Where in the World?
– Haviland Family Picnic and BBQ Competition
– From the Twittersphere and Beyond
– Additions to the Loyalist Directory
Articles
Canadian Anti-Spam Legislation (CASL)
These new rules in Canada come into effect on Tuesday, July 1. If you are like me, you have been receiving a great number of emails from mostly businesses wanting to confirm that they could send me email messages – some of those firms I don’t even remember.
The rules are aimed at “commercial electronic messages”. As we are a newsletter with little promotional material which is distributed to members and others interested in the Loyalists and their era, we feel we probably do not fit that definition.
Other aspects of the new rules require that there be contact details – I think those are fairly clear at the bottom of the newsletter and I do get numerous messages so I guess they are clear enough. Yes, my response time is not instant, often up to a week but sometimes (even more than that) more than a week.
However, we do have an unsubscribe button at the very bottom – occasionally someone does do that.
To carry on with your subscription, you need to nothing. If you would prefer to unsubscribe, feel free to try out the unsubscribe link at the bottom (after clicking it, you will be asked to verify your choice). Note that you cannot subscribe again from that same email address, except by using the same link at the bottom of a copy of the newsletter that was sent to you at that email address before you unsubscribed.
Now that I have probably confused everyone, I wish you all a happy Canada Day (I prefer to call it Dominion Day) celebration and a great summer – have fun, be safe.
…Editor Doug
“Unpacking” a Loyalist Auction Notice: Part 2, by Stephen Davidson
Edward Bowlsby was in his early 40s when he appeared in a story in the August 2, 1778 edition of New York Gazette and Weekly Mercury. Celebrity had its price. ??”A party of Rebel Light Horse came down as far as Bergen Point last Tuesday night and returned next morning toward Hackensack. . . A poor industrious farmer from Morris County in New Jersey named Edward Bowlsby was taken prisoner by the above party, and after being robber by them, they whipped him with rods on the back and shoulders in a most cruel manner and left him for dead.”
It had not been an easy war for Bowlsby. He had joined the British in 1776 and was taken prisoner by the rebels. After escaping their grasp, Bowlsby was recaptured in 1778, tried for his life and sentenced to 500 lashes. By 1779, the patriots had confiscated the 720-acre farm owned by Bowlsby and his loyalist brother John. Four years later, he joined the loyalist refugees who settled in Shelburne, Nova Scotia and died there in 1798.
Ezekiel Beach was among the 17 loyalists whose property was to be auctioned off in March of 1779. Four years earlier he had made a public “recantation” of his political principles. He signed a declaration that said he had “been guilty of opposing the good people of this country” and had aided the enemy offering them “provisions and other necessaries”. He promised that in the future he would do all that he could to preserve “the rights and liberties of this country”. And yet, he was still considered enough of an enemy to the state in 1779 that his neighbours seized his land to sell for the benefit of the revolution. What is particularly interesting about Beach’s 1775 recantation is that Thomas Millidge, the surveyor-general of New Jersey, witnessed it. He, too, became one of the loyalists listed in the auction notice of 1779.
Thomas Millidge‘s neighbours knew he was a loyalist from the moment General Howe took New York City in the summer of 1776. Because he refused to join the local militia, the patriots put him in prison and tried him for treason. He was later acquitted for lack of evidence. When Millidge learned that a patriot general planned to imprison him, he fled his home and joined the First Battalion of the New Jersey Volunteers. Other loyalists remembered Millidge as “a man of some Considerable Property” with “considerable” livestock and a well furnished home. He certainly lost the most to the patriots on the day of their auction in 1779.
Four years later, Millidge, his wife Mercy and their seven year-old son settled with other loyalists near Digby, Nova Scotia. In 1787, Millidge was one of the few to survive a horrendous shipwreck on his way to Saint John to seek compensation for all that he had lost during the war. The New Jersey loyalist later represented Digby in the provincial assembly. Millidge’s son Thomas became a merchant and settled in Saint John, New Brunswick. His name was given to Millidgeville, a community just outside the loyalist city.
Although rebels confiscated and sold the property of Lawrence Van Buskirk (valued at £2,400), he managed to salvage some of his possession. After serving in the King’s Orange Rangers during the revolution, Van Buskirk and his family sailed for Port Roseway in 1783. Their ship, the Selina, also carried two enslaved Africans that belonged to the Van Buskirks. After moving about the Maritimes, Lawrence and Jannetje Van Buskirk finally settled in Aylesford, Nova Scotia.
Another loyalist of Dutch heritage and immense fortune who found his name on the list of properties to be auctioned off in 1799 was Philip Van Cortlandt. As an officer in the New Jersey Volunteers, he “frequently engaged against the Whigs” during the revolution. His wife, five sons and eight daughters sought refuge in Nova Scotia before finally making their home in Hailsham, England.
Samuel Ryerson may have been unappreciated by his rebel neighbours in Morris County, New Jersey, but he died as one of the most respected settlers of Upper Canada. After raising a company of 60 men to fight for the king, he was made a captain in the 3rd Battalion of the New Jersey Volunteers. Ryerson was one of the combatants at the 1780 Battle of Kings Mountain in South Carolina; due to a battle wound he did not have the full use of his left hand for the rest of his life.
After his experience as a prisoner of the patriots, Ryerson wrote, “You would hardly believe it possible that any of the human species could be possessed of so much barbarity. If you will call to mind the most horrid cruelties that have ever been affected by savages you will then in some measure be able to judge what we have seen and suffered.”
Although he received a 600-acre land grant near Fredericton, New Brunswick following the war, Ryerson was “disappointed both in [its] soil and climate, finding it to be sterile and uncongenial.” By 1793 the loyalist family had moved to the United States. However, lingering bitterness from the revolution thwarted his attempts to buy land in his old home in Morris County, and Ryerson decided to settle in Upper Canada. There he met and impressed Sir John Graves Simcoe, the colony’s first governor. Simcoe made Ryerson a justice of the peace and the head of the Norfolk County militia. They were the first steps in his becoming a member of the regional élite. Ryerson died of tuberculosis in June of 1812. His biographer, Daniel Brock, summed up his life saying that Lieutenant Governor “Simcoe had hoped that the principles Ryerson personified – staunch loyalism, toryism, and adherence to the Church of England – would be emulated” in Upper Canada.
The last of the nine loyalists for whom we have data is Stephen Skinner. A minister’s son, Skinner went on to become a judge and the colonial treasurer for New Jersey before the outbreak of the revolution. He was a friend of the colony’s last royal governor, William Franklin, a relationship that no doubt led to George Washington from ordering his arrest in July of 1776. Despite losing all of his property in the 1779 auction, Skinner maintained his commitment to the crown, fulfilling his commission to raise a loyalist company in New Jersey, becoming the brigadier-general of the New Jersey Volunteers. At the end of the American Revolution, he settled in Shelburne, Nova Scotia where he became a merchant and later a member of the House of Assembly.
As can be seen from just nine of the seventeen names listed in the auction notice of 1799, the men charged with being enemies of the American people were certainly exceptional loyalists. If Morris County’s patriots had hoped to crush the spirits of these loyalists by selling off their property and possessions, they must have been severely disappointed. The eight men who survived the revolution, whether they settled in Nova Scotia, England, Upper Canada, or New Brunswick, quickly assumed positions of prominence and became leaders of their communities. Being knocked down did not mean being knocked out.
To secure permission to reprint this article, email Stephen Davidson.
Loyalist Philip Huffman and His Descendants (Part Two)
Philip married late. His future wife Lavinia was still in her twenties when they met. Little is known about Lavinia; she was born in 1760 and Parish records say she was 93 when she passed away. She was interred on November 23, 1850 – long after Philip was gone). Philip and Lavinia had their first child Mary in 1791, four years after the first elementary school in Fredericksburgh was built. The school was on the south side of the Napanee River by the homes of the Hoffmans and Detlors, in plenty of time for Mary to attend. Mary was known by the nickname of Polly.
Mary married Isaac Dulyea, (b.1790) the son of Peter Dulyea according to the Rev. McDowell Register. The Dulyea’s (Dollier, Delyea, Dealay) were descended from a long-standing French family. Several of Isaac’s family members on both his mother’s (Van Alstyne), and father’s side served in the King’s Royal Regiment, which was the bond between them. Polly and Isaac had several children.
The last child born to Philip and Lavinia was Michael, who was well-known for his prosperous farm. The youngest of four sons, Michael was born in 1810 and is listed in ‘Sons and Daughters of American Loyalists’. Michael petitioned as the Son of a Loyalist for his own land grant when he became of age in 1830.
“In 1789, Lord Dorchester stated that those families who had adhered to the Unity of the Empire in the late War would have a ” Mark of Honour” bestowed on them and that the sons of the Loyalists on coming of age would be granted land , and that the daughters of those families would, at their coming of age or at their marriage, be eligible for a grant of 200 acres each.” Jean Darrah McCaw, U.E., C.M.H., Genealogist at Sir John Johnson Centennial Branch.
Michael’s farm was located on Lot 15, Concession 6, in North Fredericksburgh, along with other Huffmans in the area, according to the 1845 Fredericksburgh Assessment Roll. Michael and his wife Amelia Barragher raised their many children there. One son George was probably named after King George.
George Huffman carried on the pioneer tradition of having large families. He had two marriages and about 14 children. George and his second wife Hester had a daughter in the middle of the brood named Elizabeth Jane Huffman, after his first wife. Her brother George Allen was his father’s namesake. George Sr. and George Allen each had farms in Prince Edward County and each had extended family living with them. Prince Edward County is known traditionally as the most heavily populated area with Loyalist descendants in Canada.
George Sr. acquired a farm in Sophiasburgh after owner Samuel James Cotter passed away. Sam and his brother William had Lot 30 on Concession 1. They were descended from James Cotter Sr., who came to Upper Canada with Sir John Johnson and served in the King’s Royal Regiment. Sam’s grandmother was believed to have been Magdalena Hoffman, which would explain how the Huffmans knew the Cotters, and acquired that farm specifically. As George Sr. advanced in age, his son William and his wife who took on the responsibility of the farm; of course William’s children had the benefit of being around their grandparents. They were all staunch Methodists.
George Allen Huffman (Allen G. in the census) with his family and his sister Lillia and her husband lived on a north-facing waterfront farm in Prince Edward County. It was a large property with more than one home. George Dunning and Boulter agreed a few decades earlier to experiment with a small canning operation near the marshy water’s edge of that farm. Wellington Boulter, world-famous canner from Sophiasburgh also resided there, and developed the canning industry throughout the area. Boulter’s canning operation success is how PEC earned the coveted title ‘Garden County’ of Canada. He became mayor of Picton. After George Huffman Sr. passed away in 1910, William and his family left the county, but Allen G. and his family stayed on to the land.
…Leigh Best, UE, Bay of Quinte Branch
Loyalist Quarterly by Paul Bunnell: June 2014 Issue Now Available
Congratulations to Paul Bunnell on the tenth anniversary of the Loyalist Quarterly Newsletter.
The latest issue of the only U.S. journal devoted to Loyalist studies contains, among others, these topics:
– Loyalist Lecture at Falmouth Genealogical Society
– Book: Loyally Yours, 100 years of The UELAC
– 10th Anniversary for Loyalist Trails
– Loyalist Research Network
– 8th. Annual Moncton Highland Games
– Possible Loyalist Statue
– Female Loyalist Spies
– 1783 Evacuation of NY & Blacks
– Loyalist Diary – George Inman
– Locations of Other Loyalist Diaries & Works
– Loyalist Ship List – Union Transport
– More information including subscription details at Paul J. Bunnell’s website.
…Paul J. Bunnell UE, Editor/Author Bunnellloyalist@aol.com
Visit Point Pelee & John R. Park Homestead: Hamilton Branch Bus Trip
Hamilton Branch UELAC invites you to join them on their 100th Anniversary Coach Bus Trip to Essex & Kent Counties — July 25-26 — leaving from Waterdown
$220 for shared and $260 for single accommodations
Includes entrance fees, 1 breakfast, 2 lunches & 1 dinner plus all the fun and fellowship you can handle.
Contact Ruth at ruth.nicholson@sympatico.ca for more information
Here are two of the special places we will visit.
Point Pelee National Park — Leamington
Point Pelee was established as a national park in 1918. It is the most southern point of mainland Canada, equal in latitude to the northern counties of California. The point is a sand spit that is 7 km long and 4.5 km wide, stretching into Lake Erie. It is mainly marshland. Birders come every spring to view the wide variety of birds. Over 350 different species have been recorded.
We will visit the Interpretive Centre where the geology and geography are shown on large maps. A movie explains the beginnings of this national treasure. There are hands on activities in the Discovery Room also.
The Marshland boardwalk is a favourite with park visitors. It is a 1 mile loop. There is also a 3 level high viewing platform where you can sit, relax and enjoy the vista. It’s a great location for photographers.
John R. Park Homestead — Harrow
We have a short stop over at this classic 1850’s farm home, owned by John and Amelia Park. The main focus of this stop is to look out on Lake Erie, as you can see all the way to Put-in-Bay, Ohio. This is the location of the Battle of Lake Erie, one of the biggest naval battles of the War of 1812. On September 10, 1813 nine American vessels defeated and captured six British vessels. This gave the Americans control of the lakes. It also led them to recover Fort Detroit and to ultimately win the Battle of the Thames, where Chief Tecumseh lost his life.
Hamilton Branch Centennial Celebration Bus Trip
Take a ride into early Delaware Nations, Black History, War of 1812 and Loyalist settlements on July 25-26 with the Hamilton Branch – Read the description for details and reservation information. Questions to glohward@shaw.ca or ruth.nicholson@sympatico.ca.
…Ruth Nicholson UE, Hamilton Branch
In the last issue of Loyalist Trails, Lisa Binkley of Queen’s University, Kingston sought information and contacts for the making of quilts by our Loyalist ancestors. After more than two centuries the challenge of examining original quilts or contemporary related print materials has never been greater. Lisa’s request stimulated the memory of other quilted images.
Based on the two images of quilts in Loyally Yours — 100 Years of The UELAC, quilting is now more of an art form than a practical approach to bedding. The colourful quilt/wall hanging created by Judy Scholz of the Chilliwack Branch used small cloth packet squares fired on a black powder range. On the same page is a picture of the Bath Bicentennial Quilt designed by Mrs. Jessie Demaine, coordinated by Mrs. Doris Waddell and quilted by Mrs. Shirley Fairbanks all of Bath Ontario. However, the special edition did not include any additional information regarding the individual blocks. Fortunately, Mrs. Lillian Lomas of the Hamilton Branch created a bicentennial photo album with images of both the 1983 Atlantic and the 1984 Kingston conferences. Included among the programmes and photographs were a schematic diagram that identifies the buildings quilted as well as a history of the project. Both have been posted and linked to supplement the commemorative book.
Access to images of other quilted creations by UELAC members over the years was not available in the brief period when Loyally Yours — 100 Years of The UELAC was compiled.
Where are Malcolm Newman, UE, and wife Kathy?
To participate, submit a photo of yourself in UELAC promotional gear at a place of some note and tell us where it is. If you are a member of a branch, please indicate that as well – send to Jennifer Childs.
Haviland Family Picnic and BBQ Competition
The 119th Consecutive Haviland Family Reunion will co-host with the Canadian Southern Barbeque Association an invitational Barbeque Competition. Professional BBQ teams will start cooking the night before, in hopes of winning the “Haviland Picnic Company – LOYALIST CUP”. The event will be held at Brant Park Conservation Area, Brantford ON — Grand Pavilion on Saturday July 12th, 2014.
Rick Browne, PhB (born in Brantford, ON) a renowned TV cooking show host, photojournalist and author of 15 best selling culinary books will be a special guest to help oversee the BBQ event along with Mike Callaghan, Director of CSBBQA. Rick is Editor-In-Chief of Barbecue America Magazine and is Creator, Host and Executive Producer of the Barbecue America TV series.
Saturday 11:00 a.m. registration, 12:00 noon pot luck buffet meal featuring pork ribs, pork shoulder and chicken from the BBQ competition teams. Afternoon games for all ages, badminton, swimming, renewing of acquaintances, genealogy sharing, viewing group photographs and the Canadian Haviland Family Genealogy books. Those wishing to observe BBQ techniques from Professional Chefs should arrive well before 11:00 a.m.
More information Ken Haviland, President, 514-358-7663 or kenh@realcanadianbacon.com.
…Marilyn A. McDonald, UE, DAR
From the Twittersphere and Beyond
- Loyalist Day in Ontario: Col. John Butler (Niagara) Branch enjoyed beautiful sunny weather for their UEL Day flag-raising ceremony on June 14th in Niagara-on-the-Lake. We were joined by Lord Mayor David Eke, two members of the Fort George Fife & Drum Corps and a good turnout of members and tourists alike. After the ceremony, we visited the beautiful display garden that honours the 100 year anniversary of UELAC for a photo of those in period clothing. After a delicious lunch at the nearby Charles Inn, the Lord Mayor presented our Branch with a special certificate to acknowledge the UELAC anniversary (from Shirley Lockhart)
- Loyalist Research: 10 Ways to Find a Loyalist Ancestor at the Olive Tree Genealogy
- The Quebec Act was passed on June 22, 1774 (1 minute video)
- Martha Washington’s Great Cake Recipe written by her granddaughter
- By the Niagara 1812 Bicentennial Legacy Council, a new video – “Life of a Cannon Ball“
- Battle of Plattsburgh Bicentennial Commemoration events and attractions announced by the Adirondack Coast Visitors Bureau
- On 22 June 1911 we celebrated the coronation of King George V & Queen Mary, Her Majesty’s grandparents. Picture from the National Portrait Gallery in London.
- 150 years since the Charlottetown Conference where the Canadian Confederation was initiated. Charlottetown celebrates (photo).
- Commemorating the First World War Through the Power of Art, by Hon. David C. Onley, Lieutenant Governor of Ontario. The article references an art exhibit on display for a year at the Lieutenant Governor’s Suite at Queen’s Park in Toronto. It also references a book (also titled Lest We Forget), now available to the public = a book available to the public during a public tour of the Legislative Assembly
- Calling all Canadians in Boston who want to celebrate Canada Day?
Additions to the Loyalist Directory
As time permits, we add information to the Loyalist Directory. The latest additions and updates are as follows:
– Isaiah Cain, by Arthur Pegg
– Jacob Carns, by Arthur Pegg
– John Hogeboom, by Arthur Pegg
Please help us build the directory by contributing more information for it. Contact loyalist.trails@uelac.org for instructions and guidance.