THE LOYALISTS of
Pennsylvania
By
WILBUR H. SIEBERT, A. M.
Professor in
The Ohio State University
Published by the University at Columbus
1905
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CONTENTS
THE LOYALISTS ON THE UPPER OHIO
Dunmore, Connolly, and Loyalism at Fort Pitt
Connolly's Plot
The Loyalists Plan to Capture Red Stone Old Fort
Flight of the Loyalist Leaders from Pittsburgh, March 28, 1778
Loyalist Associations and the Plot of 1779-1781
Where the Refugees from the Upper Ohio Settled after the War
THE LOYALISTS OF NORTHEASTERN PENNSYLVANIA
The Loyalists on the Upper Delaware and Upper Susquehanna Rivers
Exodus of Loyalists from the Susquehanna to Fort Niagara, 1777-1778
The Escort of Tory Parties from the Upper Valleys to Niagara
Where These Loyalists Settled
THE REPRESSION OF LOYALISTS AND NEUTRALS IN
SOUTHEASTERN PENNSYLVANIA
Political Sentiment in Philadelphia and Its Neighborhood in 1775
Operations of the Committee of Safety, 1775-1776
Activities of the Committee of Bucks County, July 21, 1775, to August
12, 1776
Effect of the Election of April, 1776, in Philadelphia
Tory Clubs in the City
The Constitutional Convention of Pennsylvania, July, 1776, and Later..
Effect of Howe's Invasion of New Jersey, November and December, 1776
Continued Disaffection in Berks County and in Philadelphia, 1777
The Test Acts of April 1 and June 13, 1777
Persistence of Loyalism in Philadelphia and the Neighboring Region,
August, 1777
Effects of Howe's Expedition to Philadelphia, August 25, 1777, and Later
Arrest of the Proprietary and Crown Officials, July 31, 1777, to October 1, 1777
THE BRITISH INVASION OF SOUTHEASTERN PENNSYLVANIA,
AUGUST 25, 1777, to JUNE 18, 1778
The Loyalist Accessions of the British Army
The Conduct of Philadelphians at the Approach of Howe's Army.
The Forming of Loyalist Regiments
Philadelphia's Tory Administration
The Battle of Germantown
Philadelphia as an Asylum for Loyalist Refugees
Intercourse between the City and Its Environs
Festivities in Philadelphia during the "Tory Supremacy"
The Evacuation of the City by the British and Many Loyalists
Their Retreat across New Jersey, June 17 to July 5, 1778
The Loyalist Regiments in Camp
Damage to Philadelphia and Germantown by the British Occupation
WHIG REPRISALS UPON LOYALISTS DURING AND AFTER THE
BRITISH OCCUPATION OF PHILADELPHIA
Operations of the Council of Safety, October 13, 1777
Appropriating the College in Philadelphia and the Estates of Refugees,
January 2, 1778, to April 27, 1781
Disabilities of Non-jurors under the Act of April 1, 1778
Phases in the Hstory and Endowment of the University of Pennsylvania,
February, 1779, to December, 1791
Adjustment of the Claims of the Proprietaries, February, 1778, to 1791.
THE PURCHASE OF THE INDIAN TRACT ON LAKE ERIE
Acquisition of the Tract and Its Opening to White Settlers, September
25, 1783, to February 23, 1787
Transfer to Pennsylvania of the United States Government's Title,
September 4, 1788, to March 4, 1789
THE SURVIVAL OF LOYALISM AFTER THE DEPARTURE OF
THE BRITISH FROM THE STATE
Benedict Arnold as Commandant of Philadelphia, June 19, 1778, to
mid-July, 1780
Prosecution of Inimical Persons, 1779
The Problem of Ridding Philadelphia of the Wives of Loyalist Refugees,
1779 to 1782
Action of Continental Army Officers in the City against the Disaffected,
April 6, 1780
Philadelphia under Martial Law, June 9, 1780
Illicit Trade between Philadelphia and New York, 1779-1780
The Tory Plot to Carry Off the Secret Journals of Congress, November, 1781
Continuance of the Illicit Traffic between Philadelphia and New York, 1782
Attempts to Suppress Loyalist Depredations in Southeastern Pennsylvania, 1782-1783
Opposition to the Return of Loyalists under the Terms of the Treaty
of 1783.
THE PARDON OF ATTAINTED LOYALISTS BY THE SUPREME
EXECUTIVE COUNCIL, 1780-1790
Applications, Suspensions, and Full Pardons
Joseph Galloway's Petition
Loyalists in Philadelphia after the Peace
Efforts to Abolish the Test Laws, 1784
The Test Act of March 4, 1786
The Repeal of the Test Acts, March 13, 1789
A Curious Instance of the Revival of the Old Animosities
THE SALE OF FORFEITED ESTATES
The Confiscation and Sale of Loyalist Estates, October, 1777, to April 12,
1779
The Period of Sales, April, 1779, to December, 1790
The Use of Confiscated Estates for the Endowment of the University and
for Other Purposes
Exceptional Cases of Confiscation
THE EMIGRATION OF PENNSYLVANIA LOYALISTS
I. FLIGHTS TO ENGLAND:
Early Departures from Philadelphia and New York
Provision for the Large Number of Refugees in New York after
the British Evacuation of Philadelphia
Departures from New York to London in 1783
II. THE MIGRATION TO NOVA SCOTIA:
Many Families from Pennsylvania Settle at Shelburne, Nova Scotia
The Founding of Guysborough, Nova Scotia, Spring of 1784
III. THE MIGRATION TO NEW BRUNSWICK:
The Early History of Pennfield, July, 1783, June, 1803
The Resolution of Philadelphia Citizens against the Return of
Refugees
Letter of the Officers of Loyalist Regiments at New York to Sir
Guy Carleton, March 14, 1783
Departure of the Loyalist Regiments to St. John River, September
15, 1783
The Drawing of Regimental Tracts and Town Lots
LOCATIONS OF THE FOLLOWING REGIMENTS CONTAINING PENNSYLVANIANS:
The New Jersey Volunteers
The Royal Guides and Pioneers
The Queen's Rangers
The Pennsylvania Loyalists
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CHAPTER I
THE LOYALISTS ON THE UPPER OHIO
Toryism or Loyalism became active among the frontiersmen of
western Pennsylvania before it did in other parts of the Colony.
This activity was evoked in the early seventeen seventies by Lord
Dunmore's attempt to settle the boundary dispute between Virginia
and Pennsylvania by taking forcible possession of Fort Pitt.
Dunmore's agent in effecting this enterprise was Dr. John Connolly,
captain commandant of the militia in the region concerned, who
with about 80 of his men seized the fort at the end of January,
1774, changed its name to Fort Dunmore, organized the surrounding
district into a new county, and thus supplanted or usurped the
authority of Pennsylvania on the upper Ohio. The new order of
things found many supporters among the old residents of
Pittsburgh, those who resisted being severely dealt with by the
commandant, while the neighboring Indians were subjected to
depredations by Connolly and his adherents. Stirred thus to acts of
retaliation, the savages were not restored to a state of submission
until Dunmore had conducted the militia of the frontier counties
on an expedition against them, which received the sounding
appellation of Dunmore's War.
The clash of authority between the new regime and the old
at Fort Dunmore is illustrated by a proclamation issued by
Connolly at the end of this year. In this manifesto the commandant
said that he was informed that certain persons in the region round
about, who were called collectors, were apparently authorized to
commit various deeds of violence, including the breaking open of
doors, cupboards, etc., in order to extort money from the
inhabitants under the name of taxes. He therefore apprised his Majesty's
subjects that there could be no authority legally vested in anybody
to perform such acts "at this juncture," that such measures were
unwarrantable as abuses of public liberty, and that all persons
had an undoubted natural, as well as lawful, right to repel them.
The proclamation closed by directing the people to apprehend any
one attempting the seizure of their effects, in consequence of such
imaginary authority, in order that he might be dealt with
according to law.1
In June, 1775, Connolly held an Indian council at the fort in
pursuance of the programme of his patron, the governor of
Virginia, to win the redmen for the King, and he tells us in his
Narrative that he "had the happiness" of doing so. He also relates
how he brought together a group of his friends "most of them
either officers in the militia, or magistrates of the county" (of
West Augusta) who entered into a secret agreement to assist in
restoring constitutional government, if he could procure the
necessary authority to raise men. It is clear, therefore, that Connolly
and his adherents were determined to prepare for armed
resistance to the revolutionary party, which had assumed control of
the colonial government.
As a precautionary measure, which Dunmore deemed needful
on account of the numerous friends of the American cause on the
upper Ohio, the commandant disbanded the garrison of Fort Dunmore
in the early days of July, and on the 20th of that month set
out for Virginia to submit his plans for future operations to the
official he was serving. Arrived at Norfolk, where Dunmore was
already a refugee on board a British man-of-war, Connolly spent
two weeks completing his arrangements, and then proceeded to
Boston to lay them before General Gage. In brief, his plan was
to secure the cooperation of the whites and Indians from the royal
post at Detroit and the garrison from Fort Gage on the Illinois in
an expedition against the upper Ohio, where he would enlist a
battalion of Loyalists and some independent companies, besides
gaining the active support of the neighboring Indians. With the
force thus collected, he would seize or, if necessary, destroy forts
Pitt and Fincastle, and form a junction with Lord Dunmore at
Alexandria, thus severing the Southern Colonies from the
Northern and assuring the success of the royal cause in the South. That
the Indian villages might be prepared for his coming, Loyalist
traders went among them to represent to them that the American
"Long Knives" were no less enemies of the tribesmen than of the
King. This part of Connolly's plot was the first to be thwarted,
for the Committee of Correspondence of West Augusta County
brought about a conference in September and October, 1775, at
Pittsburgh between the tribes from the Ohio, upper Allegheny,
and the neighborhood of Detroit and the commissioners of
Congress, which terminated in a treaty of peace and neutrality.2
But other unforeseen contingencies were to arise to the
complete undoing of the plot. Connolly returned to Virginia after a
prolonged stay in Boston, received a commission as lieutenant
colonel commandant from Dunmore, and in company with two
Loyalists, Allen Cameron and Dr. John Ferdinand Dalziel Smyth,
set out for Detroit, November 13. Smyth was to be appointed
surgeon and Cameron a lieutenant in the battalion — the Loyal
Foresters — to be raised by their companion. A week later the trio was
arrested a few miles north of Hagerstown, and a few days
thereafter a copy of Connolly's "proposals" was discovered in his
possession, whereupon Congress was asked what should be done with
the prisoners. That body ordered that they be escorted to
Philadelphia under guard. On the night of December 28, Dr. Smyth
escaped from the jail at Fredericktown with letters to Connolly s
wife and the Tory, Alexander McKee, at Pittsburgh, as also to
military officers at Kaskasia and Detroit. The latter were urged
to "push down the Mississippi and join Lord Dunmore." After a
perilous journey of 300 miles, the undaunted messenger was
captured by a party from Fort Pitt, January 12, 1776, with
Connolly's letters still on his person. He was then conveyed to
Philadelphia, or as he picturesquely expresses it, he was "dragged in
triumph 700 miles, bound. hands and feet, to the Congress."
Meantime, Connolly and Cameron had been conducted to the same
destination and were brought before the Committee of Safety,
January 29, but were remanded to jail to remain until further orders
as persons "inimical to the liberties of America." In the
following December Cameron and Smyth planned to escape from their
confinement by a rope made of blankets. Smyth appears to have
succeeded at this time, or soon after, for he came in with
Lieutenant James Murray and 61 recruits very soon after Howe's
expedition landed at the head of the Elk River, August 25, 1777, and
was given a captain's commission in the Queen's Rangers a month
later. In representing his own services at the close of the war,
Smyth with characteristic exaggeration claimed to have raised a
corps of 185 men at his own expense, in addition to others in such
numbers that his recruits composed the greater part of the
Rangers. Cameron, however, had the misfortune of breaking both his
ankles by a fall of fifty feet, when he attempted to descend by
means of the improvised rope; but he recovered sufficiently to
undertake the voyage to England in the winter of 1778, the
British being then in possession of Philadelphia. In the fall of 1776
Connolly was released on account of failing health, and was
permitted to reside on his parole at the house of his brother-in-law,
James Ewing, on the Susquehanna River. Suspicions soon arising
concerning his conduct, Connolly was remanded to jail, but was
again allowed to retire to Ewing's plantation, April 2, 1777, after
furnishing a bond of £4,000 for his good behavior and
promising not to depart more than five miles from the plantation.
A little more than six months later Congress ordered its
troublesome prisoner of war confined in the jail at Yorktown, where it
was then sitting, on the ground that he was not acting
consistently with his parole and was believed to be the prospective
instrument in a barbarous war with which the frontier was being
threatened. He was kept in confinement until in November, 1779,
when he was sent to Germantown on parole, and on July 4, 1780,
was allowed to go to New York, under pledge of doing or saying
nothing injurious to the United States and of conducting himself
as a prisoner of war should do. Nevertheless, he promptly
submitted plans to Sir Henry Clinton for employing provincial troops
and Indian auxiliaries in attacking the frontier outposts, seizing
Pittsburgh, fortifying the Alleghenies, and otherwise promoting
the royal cause in that region. By April 3, 1781, the only progress
Connolly appears to have made towards realizing these ambitious
projects was in enlisting 58 Loyal Foresters; and when Clinton
proposed to commission him lieutenant colonel commandant in
the Queen's Rangers, he accepted the commission and sailed with
that corps for Yorktown, Va. On his arrival at Yorktown,
Connolly was appointed by Cornwallis to the command of the
Virginia and North Carolina Loyalists, with a detachment of the
York Volunteers, and was sent to protect the inhabitants of the
peninsula formed by the James River and Chesapeake Bay. Late
in September he was again taken prisoner, but after Cornwallis's
surrender was permitted by the governor of Virginia to return to
Philadelphia, where he arrived, December 12th. At the end of the
same month Connolly was brought before the Supreme Executive
Council of Pennsylvania, on the charge of having violated his
parole in Virginia, and was committed to the common jail, inasmuch
as his going at large would be "dangerous to the public welfare
and safety." With him was incarcerated one of his Loyal
Foresters, James Lewis, who attended him as a servant. Connolly
remained in prison until March 1, 1782, when through the efforts
of friends he was permitted to withdraw to New York, on
condition of his going to England. This condition he fulfilled "when the
fleet sailed." In his Narrative Colonel Connolly tells us that the
recruits he had raised in Virginia, together with the officers he
had warranted for his intended regiment, shared the fate of Cornwallis's
army at Yorktown, and that those recruits (Loyal Foresters)
who had remained at New York, "as soon as the war
became merely defensive, were drafted into another corps." The
misfortunes of Connolly and his intimates served to block, not once
but several times, a plot that American historians agree was the
most formidable Tory enterprise ever concocted against the back
country during the entire revolutionary period, and one which,
if successful, might have produced grave consequences for the
American cause in general.2
There were, however, other Tory enterprises besides
Connolly's, which aimed at the reduction of the country on the upper
Ohio. One of these was revealed late in August, 1777, to Colonel
Thomas Gaddis of Westmoreland County, Pa., who in turn
warned Lieutenant Colonel Thomas Brown at Redstone Old Fort
on the Monongahela that the local Tories had associated for the
purpose of cutting off the other inhabitants. While Brown kept
guard over his powder magazine and sent word to the patriots to
be "upon their watch," Gaddis and Colonel Zackwell Morgan of
Monongalia County, Va., at once led out the militia, together with
some unenlisted men, in search of the Loyalists; and by August
29, Colonel Morgan was able to report that he had already
captured numbers of associators, who confessed that they were in
league with certain leading men at Fort Pitt and were awaiting
a concerted attack by a force of British, French, and Indians on
that post, which was then to be surrendered with but little
opposition. Some of those involved in this plot fled to the mountains.
Among these was Henry Maggee of the Perth Valley in
Cumberland County, who resorted with thirty others to the fastnesses of
the Alleghenies. Some years later Maggee made an affidavit that,
in conjunction with his friends, he had induced 431 men to sign
for enlistment in Butler's Rangers, whose headquarters were at
Fort Niagara, but that these recruits were obliged to disperse
when one of their number turned informer. Maggee first went to
Philadelphia and in 1778 to Nova Scotia. It is not unlikely that
William Pickard and his two sons of Westmoreland County signed
Maggee's agreement, for we find them joining Butler's Rangers in
1777. Alexander Robertson, an Indian trader, who was one of
those caught planning to destroy the powder magazine on the upper
Ohio, also fled in the same year.3
The closing scene in the conspiracy of 1777 was enacted at
Pittsburgh, March 28, 1778, when Captain Alexander McKee,
Matthew Elliott, Simon Girty, Robert Surphlitt, John Higgins, and
McKee's two negroes made their escape. Captain McKee was the
deputy superintendent of Indian Affairs at Fort Pitt, Surphlitt
was his cousin, and Higgins appears to have been one of his
servants. Simon Girty had long acted as interpreter for the Six
Nations. During a considerable time both McKee and Girty had been
regarded as suspicious characters and, after an investigation into
the alarming situation on the Western frontier by a commission
appointed by Congress, these two men and one other had been
placed under arrest for a brief period in the autumn of 1777. In
Matthew Elliott, who was an Indian trader, the little party of
fugitives had a guide who knew the route to Detroit. The trail
followed by these Loyalists led through what is now southern
Ohio, by way of Coshocton and Old Chillicothe on the west bank
of the Scioto River (the site of the present village of Westfall)
and thence through the Wyandot towns on the Sandusky River to
their destination. At the Shawnee village of Old Chillicothe
McKee and his followers found James Girty, whom they persuaded to
join them later at Detroit. Shortly after their arrival at this
British post, Lieutenant Governor Henry Hamilton appointed McKee
deputy agent for Indian Affairs, Elliott captain in the Indian
Department, and Simon Girty interpreter and agent in the secret
service. Thus, these men were afforded full opportunity to
instigate and take a leading part in operations against the frontier
which they had left but recently.4 That there were other
accessions at Detroit of Loyalists from Pittsburgh during this period
appears probable from the statement of Brigadier General Edward
Hand, who wrote from the latter post, April 24, 1778, to General
Horatio Gates, complaining that since the 18th of the preceding
January forty men had deserted from his small garrison, including
fourteen who had disappeared on the night of April 23d, taking
with them a party of the country people. Hand added that he had
detached four officers and forty men in pursuit. One of the forty
deserters to whom Hand referred was Henry Butler, who arrived
at Kaskasia on the Mississippi near the close of the preceding
February. James Girty made his appearance at Detroit in August,
1778, and was at once appointed interpreter for the Shawnee.
Nearly a year later George Girty came in. He had been a prisoner
for twelve months at New Orleans, whence he had journeyed by
a long and arduous path through the Indian country. He also was
made an interpreter in the Indian Department at Detroit.5
The numerous flights from Pittsburgh and its vicinity since
the days of Dunmore's War had removed those Loyalists best
qualified to lead in regaining control of the upper Ohio for the Crown.
Connolly, McKee, and the others had thenceforth to labor under
the great disadvantage of forming their plots and attempting their
expeditions at long range against a foe that was familiar with
their purposes and methods, and that was ever alert to thwart
them. There was still, however, a considerable body of Tories on
the upper Ohio, despite the desertions of March and April, 1778,
from Fort Pitt. With the spread of the rumor in the early part
of 1779 that the Loyalists and Indians at Detroit were preparing
to penetrate to Pittsburgh, Hugh Kelly of Maryland betook
himself to the neighboring Red Stone settlement and enlisted 175 men ;
while his associate, James Fleming of Frederick County, Va.,
raised 75 recruits at Kittanning. According to the formal
statement that was submitted by Fleming and Kelly to the authorities
in London toward the end of the Revolution, the work of
organizing the Loyalists was extended by them into the adjacent portions
of Maryland and Virginia, through the agency of Adam Graves,
John George Graves, and Nicholas Andrews, all of Maryland, with
the result that up to June, 1781, nearly 1,300 volunteers were
bound by oath to serve at call in a corps which they proposed to
name the Maryland Royal Retaliators. Curiously enough, our
informants nowhere intimate that they had received commissions
authorizing them to embody these men; and since the enlistment
of the proposed corps never got beyond the provisional stage
according to their own admission we can find no record of it in
the Muster Rolls of the Loyalist, or Provincial, Regiments.
According to the plan of campaign, as developed by the summer of
1781, General Johnson was to operate with a large force in the
neighborhood of Pittsburgh, and Colonel Connolly was to return
from the region north of the James River and assist Johnson.
Large numbers of British prisoners confined in Winchester, Strasburg,
Leesburg, Sharpsburg, Fort Frederick, and Fredericktown,
Va., were to be released; the Tories of Somerset and Worcester
counties on the Eastern Shore of Maryland were to be aided,
should their petition meet with favor, by an expedition to be sent
by General Leslie from Portsmouth, Va., to the Chesapeake, and
the sea coast was to be molested by the privateers of the
Associated Loyalists sent out from New York.
This extended plan, as it happened, broke down at two points:
the appeal of the Eastern Shore Tories to General Leslie was
intercepted; and the papers revealing the project and names of the
Loyalist leaders of Frederick County were delivered by mistake
to an American officer in Fredericktown, with the result
according to Kelly and Fleming's account that 170 of their
associates were at once arrested. Of these, Adam and John George
Graves, Nicholas Andrews, and four others were tried before a
special court, July 25, 1781, and found guilty of high treason.
Three of the seven were executed at Fredericktown; Andrews,
the two Graves brothers, and Fleming managed in some manner
to escape to Cornwallis at Yorktown, whence they were fortunate
enough to find their way to New York after the surrender, which
occurred on October 19, 1781. At New York they found Kelly, who
had preceded them thither. Meanwhile, the General Court at
Annapolis rendered the judgment of outlawry against about 100
leading Loyalists, some of whom were from Baltimore County, and at
later periods against about 80 others from various localities in
Maryland, including Frederick, Charles, Kent, Montgomery,
Somerset, and Worcester counties.
With the exception of several of the leaders, it is impossible
to trace the fugitives from the upper Ohio to the localities where
they settled after the return of peace. Hugh Kelly was in Halifax
in December, 1785, where he made representations of his losses
before one of the British Commissioners on Loyalist Claims; and
it is probable that one or more of his intimates and some of his
followers were also in Nova Scotia. Alexander McKee, Simon
Girty, and a few of the Loyalists who had taken refuge at Fort
Detroit secured deeds from the Ottawa Indians to Colchester and
Gosfield townships on the shore of Lake Erie east of the Detroit
River, and opened them to settlement. The transfer of "The Two
Connected Townships" thus effected was irregular, and had to be
rectified by a reconveyance of the districts from the Indians to the
Canadian Government. In 1788 the two townships were laid out
in one hundred and nine lots, and during the next five years the
settlers who had previously entered the tract were confirmed in
the possession of their properties. Thus, arose "The New Settle
ment," which began about five miles east of the Detroit River and
extended for a distance three times as great along the lake front
to the eastward. Some of those who drew lots in the two
townships did not locate there, going instead to the River Thames,
where the soil was of a better quality; while others, to the
number of a hundred or more, became discouraged on account of the
long delays in obtaining provisions and tools from the
government, and returned to the United States. The region next to the
Detroit River remained for a time unsettled, partly because of its
marshy character and partly on account of doubtful claims. In
January, 1793, however, John Graves Simcoe, formerly colonel of
the Queen's Rangers, one of the Loyalist Corps, and now
lieutenant governor of Ontario, took action, along with his council, by
which this tract was constituted the township of Malden and was
granted to Alexander McKee, Matthew Elliott, and Captain
William Caldwell. The settlers who had already made improvements in
the new township were secured in their holdings at the same time.
Captain Caldwell, it may be added, was one of Colonel John
Butler's Rangers from Fort Niagara.7
CHAPTER II
THE LOYALISTS OF NORTHEASTERN
PENNSYLVANIA
There was a considerable Loyalist element among the early
settlers on the upper Delaware and upper Susquehanna rivers
in northeastern Pennsylvania. This was especially true of the
Germans of the Susquehanna, among whom the proportion of
Loyalists was larger, so far as our scanty evidence indicates, than
among their neighbors of the English and Irish nationalities.
Various things suggest that the strife between the Whigs and
Tories of Tryon County, New York, which centered at Johnstown
in the lower Mohawk Valley and resulted in the flight of the
Johnsons to Canada in August, 1775, was not without effect beyond the
southern boundary of the Province. One of the refugees from
Johnstown was John Butler, who was sent by the Canadian
authorities to Fort Niagara in the following November. Other
Loyalists also made their way to this British outpost, including John
Depue, who arrived during the winter of 1776-77, bringing
letters from seventy of his neighbors on the Susquehanna proposing
to enlist as rangers under Butler s command. This seems to have
been the first suggestion of the formation of a corps of armed
frontiersmen and raiders at Niagara; although it was not the first
time that Butler had held communication with these persons, for
he had already invited them to come to the fort. Among the
earliest of the group to enter the ranks of the new regiment were Depue
himslf, Frederick Auger and his two sons, and Hendrick Windron.
Mr. Windron relates that he was accompanied on his journey from
the Susquehanna to Niagara by his wife and children and several
other families of Loyalists.8
In the spring of 1777, not long after the Pennsylvania
Assembly had passed an act defining treason and misprision of
treason, Philip Bender and the Loyalists of his settlement made the
long and arduous journey of several hundred miles to Fort
Niagara. Others who testify that they went in the same year are
William Pickard and his two sons, Casper Hover and his three
sons, Abraham Wartman, Conrad Sills, Henry Lyman, William
Vanderlip, and George Kentner, all of whom enlisted in the
Rangers. It is very probable that some of these were members of the
party with which Philip Bender went, and that the fathers of
families were accompanied not merely by their older sons but also
by their wives and younger children. We learn of but one recruit
from the Susquehanna in St. Leger's expedition, namely, Philip
Buck, who joined it at Fort Stanwix, although there may have
been others. In 1778 the movement to Niagara continued with
the flight of John Wintermute, Thomas Millard and his three sons,
Edward Turner and his father, evidently with other families, and
Michael Thomas.
This exodus from the Susquehanna country had not been left
to run its own course, but had been stimulated by the recruiting
operations of Depue and the Mohawk chieftain, Joseph Brant,
after the defeat of St. Leger. These activities are explained by the
fact that Butler did not receive permission to organize his corps
until after the catastrophe at Fort Stanwix. They were not
confined, however, to the upper Susquehanna, nor to the autumn of
1777; for early in the following year Brant invaded the valley of
the upper Delaware and gathered in sixty or seventy of the
inhabitants of that region, while at the time of his descent on
Wyoming in the following summer, Butler gained an accession of
forty more Delaware Valley Loyalists. From the fort at
Wyoming he released a party of adherents of the Crown, which took
the Indian trail through the forest to Oswego, and, embarking
thence in row boats, reached Niagara after spending nine days on
the waters of Lake Ontario. Doubtless, the other refugees
pursued much the same route, or accompanied their rescuers on the
march back to Fort Niagara. By 1779 the Tory population of the
upper Susquehanna appears to have largely vanished, for we have
the record of only one flight from this region in the year just
named, that of Isaac Dobson. As Dobson had been imprisoned,
he was prevented from leaving earlier.9
Numbers of these Loyalists from northeastern Pennsylvania
enlisted in the Rangers, as we have observed above; and not a few
of them served under Colonel Butler throughout the Revolutionary
War. Probably most of them received grants of land in the
Niagara Peninsula at the close of the contest, as did the men of
Butler's corps in general and the warriors of the Six Nations, who had
made Fort Niagara their base of operations since the fall of 1777.
A few of the Pennsylvanians, however, soon drifted to other
localities; and individuals among them were to be found living a few
years after the war at Fort Erie, at Detroit, on the Bay of Quinte,
in the Fourth and Fifth townships on the north side of the St.
Lawrence River, and at Montreal. In 1787 John Depue was a
resident at Fort Erie.10
CHAPTER III
THE REPRESSION OF THE LOYALISTS AND NEUTRALS
IN SOUTHEASTERN PENNSYLVANIA
In the early months of 1775 the division of sentiment in
Pennsylvania over the question of resistance to the Crown was already
manifest. The Convention of provincial delegates, which was then
in session, approved of open resistance; and Philadelphians
suspected of loyal proclivities were being silenced or driven out almost
daily by means of advertisements, handbills, or personal warnings
which, if unheeded, were followed in extreme cases by the
application of tar and feathers. At the same time, the Meeting for
Sufferings of Pennsylvania and New Jersey Quakers issued a
testimony against usurpation of authority and against insurrections,
conspiracies, and illegal assemblies, this last expression being
obviously intended to include the provincial conventions and the
Continental Congress itself. It would be a mistake, however, to
suppose that the Meeting for Sufferings voiced the convictions of all
members of the dominant sect in Pennsylvania; for many of them
quietly gave financial support to the Revolution, and some deviated
from the principle of non-resistance to the extent of joining the
association for defending with arms the lives, liberty, and property
of the people, entering military organizations, and signing the test
that was later prescribed by Congress and the State.11
The news from Lexington, which was received in Philadelphia
five days after the battle, seems to have produced a marked
effect upon the "Tory class" there, according to the Diary or
Remembrancer of Christopher Marshall, a Quaker patriot of the city,
who noted on May 7 that "Their language is quite softened, and
many of them have so far renounced their former sentiments as
that they have taken up arms, and are joined in the association;
nay even many of the stiff Quakers, and some of those who drew
up the Testimony are ashamed of their proceedings." It was,
indeed, soon after this that a number of young Friends formed a
company of light infantry in the American interest, which was
under the command of Sheriff Joseph Cowperthwait, and was
called the "Quaker Blues." Not inconsistent with Marshall's
statement regarding the changed conduct of the Philadelphia Loyalists
were the observations of Judge Samuel Curwen, a fugitive Tory
from Salem, Mass., who spent the week of May 5-12 in the Quaker
City. In his search for lodgings, Curwen became convinced that
the place was pervaded with ^congressional principles" to such a
degree that no man there dared express a doubt concerning the
feasibility of the projects of Congress, and that the inhabitants
were displeased with New Englanders for making the town their
haven of refuge. These views and the advice of his friend Judge
Joseph Lee, a lukewarm Tory of Cambridge, Mass., who was
leading the life of a recluse in Philadelphia, induced Mr. Curwen to reembark,
this time for London, Eng., where he arrived on July 3.12
Meantime, in keeping with the suggestion of Benjamin Franklin,
a Committee of Safety supplanted the Committee of Correspondence
on June 30, being given discretionary powers by the
Pennsylvania Assembly. In employing these powers it dealt more
severely with suspected and inimical persons than its predecessor
had done. The new committee required well-known or self-acknowledged
Loyalists, like Amos Wickersham, Mordecai Levy, John Bergen, and
Thomas Loosley, to confess and recant their errors; and
it was soon ordered by Congress to prevent the departure of all
persons who were likely to do injury to the American cause. On
August 12, the committee compelled Terence McDermot, "a
volunteer" in the King's army, and two officers, who were on their way
to join the British forces in Boston, to sign an agreement not to
bear arms against the United Colonies for one year or until
exchanged; after which they were conveyed to Washington's camp
at Cambridge, Mass. Isaac Hunt, who was defending a suit for
the replevin of some forbidden goods for the avowed Loyalist,
William Conn, was summoned before the Committee of Inspection ;
but on refusing to discontinue the suit or apologize, he was carted
through the streets behind a drum and fife playing the Rogue's
March. The procession stopped before the home of Dr. John
Kearsley, Jr., an uncompromising Tory, who became so furious at
the spectacle that he snapped his pistol at the crowd. Mr. Hunt
appears to have seized this opportunity to ask the pardon of his
persecutors, who released him and mounted Kearsley upon the cart
in his place. Hunt soon after fled to England; and although his
substitute was let go without an apology, which he refused to give,
he was apprehended, together with several others, early in
October, on the evidence of certain intercepted letters, which showed
that he was endeavoring to bring about an invasion of Pennsylvania
by the British troops, besides engaging in other inimical
practices. After trial by the Committee of Safety Kearsley was
sent to York as a prisoner and died there during the war. The
largest group of Loyalists that the committee ordered imprisoned
during this year was brought in at the end of October from the
New Jersey shore. It comprised Captain Duncan Campbell,
Lieutenant James S. Symes, and twenty-three privates of the Royal
Highland Emigrants, a corps but recently formed, who were
stranded while on their voyage from Boston to New York, were
captured, and brought before the committee in Philadelphia. They
were incarcerated in the jail and workhouse, the first prisoners of
war to be confined in the Quaker City during the Revolution.13
Regardless of the suspicions already existing, and certain to
be increased, concerning their neutrality, the Quakers, Menonists,
and Dunkards or German Baptists, who enjoyed certain
exemptions at the hands of Congress, memorialized the Pennsylvania
Assembly at this time in opposition to the general order for the
enrollment of the militia. Thereupon, the Committee of Safety
marched to the State House, carrying a remonstrance against the
Quaker address, which was declared to present an aspect unfriendly
to the liberties of America and destructive of society and govern
ment. The remonstrance further alleged that "these gentlemen
want to withdraw their persons and their fortunes from the
service of the country at a time when their country stands most in
need of them." The association also sent in a remonstrance,
denouncing leniency to the lukewarm as nothing less than a fatal
mistake. At length, in November, the Assembly went on record by
making defensive service compulsory and "taxing all non-associators
£2 10s above the regular assessment." This action, along
with other developments of the time, only served to embolden the
Quakers, for their Yearly Meeting published a testimony, which
was adopted January 20, 1776, advising the members of the
society to stand firm in their allegiance and unite against every
design of independence. Not content with testimonies and memorials,
Quaker merchants and traders, as well as a few others, were in
some instances required to apologize for breaches of the regulations
established by the Committee of Inspection relating to the
admission and prices of commodities, especially of foodstuffs; while in
other instances they were denounced as enemies and excluded from
all trade or intercourse with the other inhabitants, because they
refused to accept Continental currency.14
Besides these local offenders who were dealt with by the two
committees, there were others from distant parts of the Province
or from other Colonies who had been captured and sent to
Congress for adequate punishment, and were handed over by that
body to the Committee of Safety for examination and sentence or
for incarceration, as the case might be. Of such were some of the
Tory prisoners who were transferred from the old prison to the
new one in Philadelphia in January, 1776, including the notorious
Dr. John Connolly and his two confederates, Dr. John Ferdinand
Dalziel Smyth of Maryland and Allen Cameron of the Cherokee
country, besides Colonel Moses Kirkland of South Carolina, who
had been taken on his voyage to Boston; General Donald McDonald,
chief of the North Carolina Tories; Colonel Allen McDonald, and
"twenty-five more of their set." In the following May, Colonel Kirkland
was enabled to escape by the aid of several local Loyalists,
including Arthur Thomas and his sons, who were constrained to flee
when a mob attacked their house. Mr. Thomas tells us that he
avoided seizure by taking his departure in the night, that he
remained in concealment for several weeks, but was caught in July
and imprisoned. He also says that he succeeded in getting away to
New York in the following September. A year later, however, Mr.
Thomas returned to Philadelphia, on learning that the British
army had taken possession of the city. Arthur Thomas, Jr., was
also caught and imprisoned. Besides the Thomases, other Tories,
either singly or in small groups, were brought before the
Committee of Safety during the year 1776, thirty-three of these being
secured in New York in October.15
Meanwhile, the outspoken Loylists of other communities in
the State were being looked after by their local committees of
safety. Thus, for example, on July 21, 1775, John Huff, Thomas
Meredith, and Thomas Smith were reported to the committee of
Bucks County as having uttered expressions derogatory to the
American cause. Huff at once appeared before the committee,
acknowledged the charge, and made such concessions as were deemed
a sufficient atonement. The accusations against the other two men
were referred to a sub-committee for investigation, and on August
21, Meredith's written apology was read, accepted, and ordered
published. In it the writer not only repented of what he had done,
but also "voluntarily" renounced his former principles and
promised henceforth to render his conduct unexceptionable to his
countrymen by strictly adhering to the measures of Congress. Thomas
Smith of Upper Makefield was much less submissive than his
offending brethren. At first he denied most of what was alleged
against him; but the committee, refusing to be satisfied with this,
proceeded to examine several witnesses, as well as the defendant
himself, and then ordered the statement published that Mr. Smith
had declared in substance, "That the Measures of Congress had
already enslaved America and done more Damage than all the Acts
of Parliament ever intended to lay upon us, that the whole was
nothing but a scheme of a parcel of hot-headed Presbyterians and
that he believed the Devil was at the bottom of the whole; that the
taking up Arms was the most scandalous thing a man could be
guilty of and more heinous than an hundred of the grossest offences
against the moral law, etc., etc., etc." Together with these opinions
of the accused, the committee's sentence was also to be published,
namely, that "the said Thomas Smith be considered as an Enemy
of the Rights of British America, and that all persons break off
every kind of dealing with him until he shall make proper
satisfaction to this Committee for his conduct." Before this case
appeared in the press, Thomas Smith expressed his penitence and
remorse and presented a satisfactory recantation in writing to the
committee. Other instances, in which, however, submission was
always promptly made, are scattered through the minutes of the
committee until July, 1776. From the first of that month until the
12th of August, when the records come to an abrupt conclusion,
the last four meetings of the committee dealt with a few offences
committed by Loyalists against the resolutions passed by the
Assembly early in the preceding April, which provided for the
disarming of disaffected persons and non-associators and the
supplying of the confiscated arms to such Continental troops as should
be raised in the Colony.16
Towards the end of April, 1776, the election for members of
the General Assembly was held. The result of the canvass in
Philadelphia, which had been preceded by much excitement, was of
especial significance. By a combination of the local Tories and
Moderates, or as Christopher Marshall summed up the elements of the
coalition, "the Quakers, papists, church, Allen family, with all the
proprietary party," the Whigs were beaten. In reality, however,
as was soon to appear, the Tories and their friends had overreached
themselves. The patriots were now more than ever determined to
overthrow the charter and the proprietary government, and to
establish in its place a government founded on majority rule.
Independence was already recognized by the opposing parties to be
the definite object of the war.17
With the development of these conditions in Philadelphia, some
of the influential conservatives turned from public affairs in the
city in order to seek retirement in outlying villages. Others of no
political prominence, but whose minds were equally filled with
fears, removed with their families to places that promised greater
personal security than did the capital. Thus, early in May, 1776,
Thomas Bartow, a merchant of Philadelphia, took his wife and five
children to Bethlehem, where he made his home for the next three
years. Of the four sons of Chief Justice William Allen — brothers-in-
law of Governor John Penn — James withdrew with his small
family to Allentown in Northampton County, June 16; John and
his family went about the same time to Union Iron Works in
Hunterdon County, N. J.; Andrew retired soon after to his place
at Neshaminy, and William, returning from Ticonderoga shortly
after the Declaration of Independence, resigned his commission
as lieutenant-colonel of militia.18
But most of the Tory residents continued in Philadelphia and,
as they had held their political meetings before the election, so now
they held congratulatory and convivial sessions. At the end of
May, the Committee of Safety received confidential information
according to Marshall's Diary, of not less than four different Tory
clubs that were meeting frequently, one at the Widow Ball's in
Lombard Street, another at the sign of the Pennsylvania Farmer,
the third at Jones's beer house on the dock, and the fourth at the
sign of the King's Arms. The impartation of this piece of
information led to the immediate appointment of a Committee of Secrecy,
including Mr. Marshall and seven others, to examine all inimical
and suspected persons of whom the committee might learn. The
labors of the new committee resulted in a number of arrests and
imprisonments, among those committeed being James Prescott,
William Smith, Joseph Stansbury (the Tory poet), David
Shoemaker, and others.19
Early in June, 1776, the Committee of Inspection was engaged
in correspondence with the local committees of safety for the
purpose of having them send some of their members to the Provincial
Conference, which was to meet in Philadelphia on the 18th to
arrange for the election of members to a Constitutional Convention.
On July 8 this election was held, and later in the same month the
Convention met to frame a constitution for Pennsylvania. Under
the guiding hand of its president, Benjamin Franklin, the
Convention supplanted the General Assembly, which finally passed out
of existence on September 26. On July 19 it passed an ordinance
requiring the commanding officers of the militia to appraise and
take over such arms as the non-associators in their respective
districts had failed to deliver up according to the earlier resolutions
of Congress and the Provincial Assembly, and to arm the associators
with the weapons thus secured. During the early days of
September the Convention passed two ordinances that were
intended to limit the dangerous activities of the Loyalists. The first
of these declared that every person owing allegiance to the State
who, after the publication of the present decree, should levy war
against the Commonwealth or give aid to the enemy, either within
the State or elsewhere, and be convicted thereof, should be
adjudged guilty of high treason and should forfeit his lands,
tenements, goods, and chattels, besides being imprisoned for any term
not exceeding the duration of the war. The second ordinance
provided that any person within the State, who should endeavor by
writing or speaking to obstruct the measures of the United States
in defense of freedom, should, on the production of proper proof,
give security for his good behavior, or stand committed until the
security was forthcoming, or he was otherwise legally discharged.
If, however, the offender was considered to be too dangerous for
release by bail, the justice was to associate with himself two other
justices of the neighborhood, and they together were to fix the
term of imprisonment, provided it did not extend beyond the end
of the war. The Convention also deposed Governor John Penn,
and ignored the proprietary government. Meanwhile, it had elected
a Council of Safety on July 22, thus dissolving the Committee of
Safety; but it did not disturb the Committee of Inspection for the
present. The Council of Safety continued to exercise its functions
until March 4, 1777, when the Supreme Executive Council, which
was provided for in the constitution, assumed control.20
There was, then, to be no respite for the Tories and suspected
persons in Pennsylvania; and in truth the Tories did not conduct
themselves in such a way, after the adoption of the Declaration of
Independence by Congress, as to conciliate the revolutionary party.
They exposed themselves to the danger of arrest, and were
incarcerated daily. Furthermore, their position was made the more
difficult by the action of the new Assembly, which proceeded on
February 11, 1777, to supply somewhat fuller definitions of treason and
misprision of treason than the Constitutional Convention had done
in the preceding September. In the middle of July numbers of
Whig associators were sent into New Jersey to help defend that
region against the anticipated British invasion. It was not,
however, until the beginning of November that Howe began his march
into the Jerseys, signalizing the event by a proclamation of
amnesty to individuals, which he repeated at Trenton on November
30. These proclamations, with the gloomy outlook for the
American cause, are said to have induced some 3,000 Jersey farmers to
swear allegiance to the Crown; but their effect reached beyond the
domain of the invaded Province. Thus, for example, in October,
Gilbert Hicks of Bucks County fled to Shrewsbury, N. J., and in
the following month to Trenton; but after Rahl's defeat at the
latter place, January 2, 1777, he took refuge among some Tory
families, until it was safe for him to enter Philadelphia. Shortly
after Rahl's defeat, the Council of Safety adopted a resolution
dedaring that every person who was so devoid of honor, virtue, and
love of his country as to refuse his assistance "at this time of
eminent public danger" might be suspected of designs inimical to the
freedom of America, and that where such designs were very
apparent from the conduct of individuals, they ought to be confined
during the absence of the militia. The officers of the State ware
directed to act accordingly, reserving appeals to the Council, It
was the enforcement of this resolution that caused what James
Allen called in his Diary a persecution of the Tories, when — to use
his own words — "houses were broken open, people imprisoned
without any color of authority by private persons, and as was said a
list of 200 disaffected persons [was] made out, who were to be
seized, and imprisoned and sent off to North Carolina." In this list
the Allens were reported to be included. Under such an
apprehension, Andrew and William joined their brother John at Union Iron
Works, and the three brothers were not long in deciding to claim
the protection of Howe's army at Trenton. Thence, they proceeded
to New York City, leaving their families behind them. Many more
influential citizens are said to have gone over to the enemy at this
time. One of these was Joseph Galloway, the talented, wealthy,
and prominent lawyer of Philadelphia who, after being visited by
mobs that threatened him with a coat of tar and feathers and even
with hanging, loaded some valuables into a wagon, quitted his
country home at Trevose, and in company with several other
notable Loyalists, made his way to the British camp at New Brunswick,
N. J. James Allen, who had been bringing suspicion on himself
by entertaining British officers at Allentown and in other ways,
was arrested on December 19 by an armed guard, which took him
before the Council of Safety at Philadelphia, where he pledged his
honor "not to say or do anything injurious to the Cause of
America." After remaining in and about the city for several days and
noting that the place "seemed almost deserted and resembled a
Sunday in service time," he returned to Allentown. The cause of
this deserted appearance in the town was, of course, the fear that
Howe would cross the Delaware and take possession of Philadelphia.
About the only people who had not surrendered to the intense
excitement of the hour and driven away with their household goods
in such vehicles as could be had to places of refuge were some of
the Tories and the Quakers. In the latter part of December, the
Society of Friends had indeed issued their usual testimony urging
the faithful to exercise a patient spirit and Christian fortitude in
refusing to submit "to the arbitrary injunctions and ordinances of
men who assume to themselves the power of compelling others,
either in person or by assistance, to aid in carrying on war."21
The imprisonment of Joseph Stansbury and others of his
fellow-townsmen at the instigation of the Committee of Secrecy had
occurred under such circumstances that the Council of Safety
appointed a committee of its own members to inquire into the causes
of their commitment, with a view to determining the justice of
discharging them in case they would declare their allegiance to the
State in writing. This action does not seem to have resulted in the
immediate release of those concerned.
Meantime, there had been much desertion among the militia,
and when many of the principal men in Colonel Hunter's battalion
of Berks County refused going to join Washington's army in
January, 1777, the Council ordered the colonel to send the ringleaders
among the disaffected to Philadelphia for discipline. That there was
also widespread disaffection among the Philadelphians themselves
appears from various sources, personal and official. James Allen
says that Congress itself complained of this disloyalty, although, as
he remarks, the people of the city had been favored with most of
its official appointments and with its presence from the beginning.
A notable instance of the thing complained of came to light in the
early spring of 1777 through the detection of James Molesworth's
attempt to bribe pilots to navigate Lord Howe's vessels from New
York to Philadelphia. Molesworth, who had been for several years
clerk to the mayor of the city, turned out to be a British spy and
was hanged on the common on March 31. Five others, who were
implicated in this business, made their escape. Others suspected
persons and Tories were severely dealt with, among these being
Major Richard V. Stockton of the New Jersey Volunteers, "the
famous land pilot" to the King s troops, who had been surprised
and taken prisoner on February 18, with about three score privates,
all of whom were sent to Philadelphia for confinement. Several
Delaware Tories, however, were released on giving security.22
The difficulty of finding quarters for the new levies continually
pouring into Philadelphia after the battles of Trenton and
Princeton led to an order billeting them on the non-associators, greatly
to the dismay of the local Tories. Another measure that proved
more generally disturbing to this class of people was the militia
bill passed by the Assembly, June 13, 1777, for the purpose of
providing troops in place of the associators. It required all white male
inhabitants of the State above the age of eighteen years, except
those in the extreme western counties, to take the oath of
allegiance to Pennsylvania before July 1, 1777, to promise to do nothing
to the prejudice of independence, and to expose all conspiracies and
treasons that might come within their knowledge. Persons failing
to take this oath were declared to be incapable of holding office,
serving on juries, suing for debts, transferring real estate, and
were liable to be disarmed by the county lieutenants and their
deputies, as also to be arrested if traveling outside of their respective
cities or counties without a pass.23
James Allen reports that but
few of his neighbors in the County of Northampton subscribed to
the oath of allegiance and that they seldom ventured from home
because they ran "a risk of being stopt." Some of the leading men
of the Moravian congregation at Bethlehem in this county were
Tories. Thus, the Reverend George Kribel was compelled to serve
a brief term in Easton jail in August, because he refused to abjure
the King according to the specific requirements of the militia bill;
and John Francis Oberlin was required to resign the custody of
the church store after serving as its keeper for many years,
because he hotly remarked that he "had sufficient rope in his store
to hang all Congress." At the time of the active search for
Loyalists in the preceding December, word was brought to Bethlehem
that the place had been represented to the American army as a
nest of Tories and that General Lee had boasted that "in a few
hours he would make an end of Bethlehem." However, the
Moravians explained their own position in a petition to Congress
declaring that since the outbreak of the conflict they had been
continually disturbed for not associating in the use of arms, or acting
against their principles in regard to war. They complained that
some of them had been imprisoned on account of the test contained
in the law of April 1st, that all their able-bodied men above the
military age had been heavily fined, and that they found
themselves subject to outlawry and exile without any inquiry into their
behavior, although they regarded themselves as accountable to the
magistrates. They insisted that they willingly helped to bear the
public burdens and that they were ready to furnish reasonable
assurance that they would not act against Pennsylvania or any other
State, but that they humbly thought themselves entitled to the
privileges which had brought them to America, notwithstanding
the change in the form of government. These privileges they had
not forfeited by any word or act against the new government, they
said. At the same time, if the test was to be applied, they must be
ruined and their creditors wronged, for it was contrary to their
conscience to take the prescribed oath. They would with the help
of God act honestly, not fearing the consequences. It may be
remarked that as the Moravians had suffered under the militia law
of April 1st, they viewed with dismay the enactment of a
supplementary measure by the Assembly on June 13, prescribing a new
test of allegiance, a measure justified in the eyes of the patriots
by the renewed prospect of Howe's advance against Philadelphia
The law of June 13, while it re-enacted most of the provisions of
that of the preceding 1st of April, required justices of the peace as
the administering officers of the new oath of abjuration of the King
and of allegiance to Pennsylvania as an independent State to
transmit to the recorders of thier respective counties by October 1 of
each year the names of those sworn during the preceding twelve
months. Every person above the age of eighteen years who traveled
out of the county or city in which he usually resided was to carry a
certificate of his allegiance, or be liable to arrest on suspicion and
to examination by the nearest justice, who was to tender the oath,
which the suspect must take or suffer imprisonment until he would
consent to subscribe. The law said that this clause was necessary,
in order to prevent the dissemination of discord by persons
traveling from one locality to another, and because "this state is already
become (and likely to be more so) an asylum for refugees flying
from the just resentment of their fellow citizens in other states."
It therefore required all newcomers from other Commonwealths
to apply at once to the nearest justice for the administering of the
oath under the same penalty as was provided in the case of those
going from place to place within the State.24
It was doubtless on account of these laws that 160 recruits set out from the city for
Staten Island to join the New Jersey Volunteers, a Loyalist corps
under the command of Brigadier General Cortlandt Skinner, which
had its headquarters there. The party was intercepted, however,
near Bawnbrook in the Jerseys, and 60 were taken, including Peter
Snider and his brother Elias. The leaders, John Mea and James
Stiff, were executed; and the others appear to have been
imprisoned for longer or shorter periods, Elias being confined for eighteen
months and Peter for six. The two brothers were released on
condition that they would serve in the Continental army. Peter did so
for three months and then, after hiding out for thirty days,
escaped within the lines of Howe's army, now in possession of
Philadelphia. Elias secured a furlough on account of sickness, spent a
twelvemonth in the woods to avoid recapture, and finally pushed
on to Staten Island.25
On Sunday, August 24, 1777, Washington at the head of the
main body of the Continental army marched through Philadelphia
on his way to Wilmington, Del., to meet the British. If, as has
been asserted, it was the desire of the commander in chief to
impress the Tories, Quakers, and other disaffected persons, he
seems to have succeeded at least in part, for according to Allen's
Diary, many of the townspeople now voluntarily swore allegiance
to the new government. Nevertheless, according to Sub-lieutenant
John Lacey, who later became a brigadier general in the American
service, a formidable number of Tories still existed in the City and
County of Philadelphia, as well as in his own County of Bucks.
Lacey maintains that a radical change took place in the political
sentiments of his neighbors and acquaintances of Bucks after the
affair at Trenton, that thereafter they began to manifest "a sullen,
vindictive and malignant spirit" which led them to utter threats
and menaces when in congenial company, to give secret information
to the British, and to attempt dissuading the Whigs from enlisting
in the American army and militia. He finds it difficult to decide
which party was the more numerous in his county; and although
he had been a Quaker himself, he charges that a great part of the
disaffected made a plea of conscience in refusing to bear arms,
thus affording a local preponderance in favor of the Revolution.
Otherwise they did everything they could do, he insists, by
encouraging the youth to join the British and by actually sending many
of them into the ranks of the enemy.26
On August 25th, the day of the landing of the British at the
head of Chesapeake Bay on their way to Philadelphia, Congress
adopted two resolutions obviously intended as precautionary
measures. One of these requested the executive authorities of
Pennsylvania and Maryland to cause all notoriously disaffected
persons within their respective States to be forthwith
apprehended, disarmed, and secured, until they might be
released without injury to the common cause. The other
recommended to the Supreme Executive Council of
Pennsylvania to have the houses of all inhabitants of Philadelphia
searched for firearms, swords, and bayonets which, if found, should
be paid for at an appraised value and turned over to any of the
State militia needing them. Three days after the adoption of these
resolutions, Congress, finding symptoms of disaffection among
the Quakers of Philadelphia and fearing communication with
the enemy and other injurious acts by the disaffected ones,
earnestly recommended to the Supreme Executive Council
to secure Joshua Fisher and his two sons, Thomas and
Samuel, Abel and John James, Israel and James Pemberton,
Henry Drinker, Samuel Pleasants, and Thomas Wharton,
Sr. The Council at once responded to these measures by directing
the commanding officer of each regiment of the city militia to
appoint searching parties for the various wards, and by asking the
assistance of David Rittenhouse, the treasurer of state, and three
military officers in preparing a list of persons dangerous to the
Commonwealth, with a view to their arrest and the seizure of any
papers of a political nature in their possession, including the records
of the Meeting of Sufferings of the Society of Friends, for
transmission to Congress. The list, which was drawn up on August 31,
contained the names of thirty-one individuals, besides those
supplied by Congress. James Allen, who knew many of the
designated persons intimately, characterized them as "principal
Inhabitants of Philadelphia, chiefly Quakers"; and Robert Proud, the
Tory school-master, who also enjoyed the friendship or
acquaintance of many of the proscribed, said that they were "mostly
Friends," several of whom were "Persons of the first Rank,
Fortune and Esteem, both in the City and in the Society." As he was
writing to his brother, he added that he had had great reason to
fear for his own safety, "having not only been obnoxious to the
Incendiaries and Usurpers, but also particularly pointed out and
threatened by them, more than many others," but that he had
escaped molestation by living "in a very private and retired Way,
even like a Person dead amidst the Confusions," and communing
more with his books than with persons. Among those named
in the list were the Reverend William Smith, D.D., provost of
the college; the Reverend Thomas Coombs, rector of Christ Church;
Samuel Shoemaker; William Drewitt Smith, druggist; Miers
Fisher and John Hunt, lawyers; Joseph Fox, late barrack-master;
Thomas Ashton, merchant, and Thomas Pike, dancing master.27
The committee, which had prepared this list, also named the
persons who were to make the arrests. These persons were
instructed to apprehend some of the proscribed at once, but to spare
the others the mortification of arrest, if they would promise to
remain in their homes subject to the order of the Council and would
do nothing injurious to the United States. A fourth of the number
gave the required promise and were released on parole; one had
already taken the oath of allegiance, and another did so; the rest
were imprisoned in the Masonic Lodge, as the jails were full,
except two or three who could not be found. For some unknown
reason, no returns were made in the cases of Joshua Fisher and
Provost William Smith. Before any of the prisoners were sent into
exile in Virginia, one of their number was released on bail, another
was ordered to Connecticut, and a third gave his parole to return
to New York. On September llth, twenty-two finally set out under
escort of the City Guard on their way to Winchester, where most
of them remained until April 19, 1778, when they were released to
return to their homes. However, two had died during the previous
month, namely, Thomas Gilpin and John Hunt, and two others had
made their escape. One of these was Thomas Pike, the dancing
master, who was never heard of again, and the other was William
Drewitt Smith, who "rode out to take the air," as his associates
supposed, on December 8, 1777, but did not return, preferring to
seek protection within the British lines at Philadelphia. Two
others, namely, the Reverend Thomas Coombs and Phineas Bond,
had been earlier set free in order to embark at a Virginia port for
the West Indies, the former being bound for the island of St.
Eustatius.28
Although the proprietary government had been in abeyance
ever since Franklin and the Provincial Convention had assumed
control of affairs in the summer of 1776, the officials under the
former dispensation had not been taken into custody; but on July 31,
1777, Congress passed a resolution that it was expedient that the
late proprietary and Crown office-holders and all other disaffected
persons in and near Philadelphia be arrested. This resolution, like
the recent recommendations emanating from the same source for
the seizure of Loyalists, was comprehensive in its scope. Nevertheless,
the Supreme Executive Council set to work issuing warrants
for the apprehension of Governor John Penn, Benjamin Chew, who
had been a member of Penn's Council and chief justice; James
Tilghman, also a member of the Provincial Council; Jared Ingersoll,
judge of admiralty; Dr. George Drummond, custom-house
officer, and other lesser officials. Penn and Chew were paroled to
remain within six miles of their residences; Ingersoll was ordered
sent to Winchester, Va., on parole; Tilghman was not to cross the
Delaware or depart six miles from it, and the others were
confined to their own houses or put in prison. But the Supreme
Executive Council was anxious to be relieved of its responsibility for the
safe-keeping of Chief Justice Chew and Governor Penn, and
therefore requested Congress to remove the distinguished prisoners
from the State. That body complied promptly, and a military escort
conducted the deposed officials to Fredericksburg, Va. By October
1st, however, according to James Allen, they were transferred to
Union Iron Works in New Jersey; and there Mr. Allen visited them
early in February, 1778, receiving on the day after his arrival the
news of the death at Philadelphia of his brother John, which had
occurred on the second of the month.29
CHAPTER IV
THE BRITISH INVASION OF PENNSYLVANIA
AUGUST 25, 1777, TO JUNE 18, 1778
Andrew and William, brothers of James Allen, were with
Howe and his army of 17,000 men when they disembarked, August
25 and 26, 1777, at the head of the Elk River. So also was Joseph
Galloway, who had come as adviser to the British commander in
chief. The region in which the disembarkation was effected was
full of Loyalists, and from the first Howe was supplied with ample
intelligence. The presence of these troublesome foes did not escape
the attention of Washington, for on August 27th, he mentioned
them in a letter addressed from Wilmington to the president of
Congress. Among the troops that accompanied Howe were two
Tory organizations, the Queen's Rangers and a detachment of the
Royal Guides and Pioneers, both of which, especially the former,
were to receive many recruits from among the local inhabitants
and refugees during the expedition. Indeed, Tories began to come
in from the time of the landing, including Dr. John Watson of
New Castle, Del., and Hugh McNeal from near Bedford, Pa. The
latter has left an affidavit that he made his appearance after
being imprisoned for aiding young men in their flight to the army.
The British commander encouraged this movement by issuing a
proclamation, August 31st, offering protection to such inhabitants
as would present themselves and swear allegiance to the Crown
within the next sixty days. Refugees continued to come in, although
we have no means of knowing in what numbers. From a few
individual testimonies we learn that among those who joined the royal
force on its march northward were men from Chester County and
from Philadelphia. Thus, Captain Alexander McDonald, a Philadelphian,
came in with several Loyalists at Wilmington, and
entered immediately — according to his own statement — on the task
of raising recruits. Curtis Lewis of Chester County joined at Kennett
Square, and probably then or soon after Gideon Vernon also
of Chester County, and Philip Marchington, a merchant of
Philadelphia.30
In the middle of September, the Supreme Executive Council
received information that the public stores at York, Lancaster,
Carlisle, and elsewhere had been destroyed, that men were to be
levied in support of the royal cause, and that James Rankin of
Manchester, William Willis of Newberry, John Ferree and Daniel
Shelly of Lancaster County, and others were concerned in these
hostile enterprises. Already Shelly was in custody; and as he
offered to tell what he knew against his accomplices he was
promised pardon, provided he would divulge enough to convict them.
Nine others, who were being held on charges of disaffection,
maintained their innocence, and were granted their release on the
condition of appearing, if wanted, and abstaining from anything likely
to injure the American cause.31
Congress and the Assembly stayed in Philadelphia until
September 18th, when both bodies adjourned to meet in Lancaster.
The Supreme Executive Council did not leave until the 23d of the
same month. For several weeks, according to Robert Proud, the
revolutionary party had been busy stripping the city of its church
bells, supply of lead, and much else that might be useful to the
enemy or to the Continental forces. About 4,000 head of cattle were
collected from the meadows and from Hog Island by the
committee entrusted with that duty and driven away, after which the
meadow banks were cut and the pastures inundated. Blankets,
clothing, and shoes were exacted from the citizens in spite of Tory
protests; magazines and supplies were removed, and the money
and papers of the loan office and the records of the State were
carried to Easton.32
Meantime, the patriots and their families had followed the
Council and the legislative bodies into retirement, leaving the
Quakers and Loyalists behind. But not all of the patriots or Whigs
had departed, as we learn from several sources. On September
25th, one day before Lord Cornwallis entered Philadelphia at the
head of 1,500 British and Hessian Grenadiers, Mrs. Henry Drinker
wrote in her Journal: "Most of our warm people have gone off";
and Christopher Marshall tells us on what he considered reliable
authority that on the same day four or five hundred Tories
paraded out to Germantown (where the main army under General
Howe first encamped) and, returning, triumphed through the
streets all night," sending to prison such persons as they regarded
to be friends of the rebellious States, including "the parson, Jacob
Duché." The number imprisoned amounted to "some hundreds,"
Mrs. Drinker records; although there were other Whigs remaining
in the city who were not molested, probably through the friendship
of Galloway and the Allens. These refugees from Philadelphia,
together with other citizens of the town, arrived with Cornwallis
"to the great relief of the inhabitants" who, Robert Morton's Diary
avers, had "too long suffered the yoke of arbitrary power," and
who testified their approbation of the coming of the troops "by
loudest acclamations of joy." Whatever the joy of some may have
been, there were numerous others whose feelings impelled them
to withdraw from the city even after its occupation. On October
1, James Allen observed that some of the inhabitants of
Philadelphia were coming up to settle at Allentown and that the road from
Easton to Reading was then "the most travelled in
America."33
That Howe profited by the assistance of local Tories in the
course of his advance from the head of the Elk to Germantown
can scarcely be doubted. Thus, in the early hours of September 21,
when he was ready to cross the Schuylkill while General Anthony
Wayne with 1,500 men and four guns was bivouacking in his rear,
with a view to detaining him until help should arrive, it was the
intelligence brought in by Loyalists that enabled the British
commander in chief to surprise and cut off Wayne's men and so cross
over without interruption. With the encamping of the invading
host at Germantown and Philadelphia a few days later, both places
became centers of attraction for adherents of the Crown from the
surrounding region, and also from remoter parts of the country.
On September 28th Howe issued a proclamation from his head
quarters at Germantown, promising protection and security to all
coming in and conducting themselves in accordance with his
proclamation of a month earlier. Then, on October 8th, he announced
free pardon to all deserters who would voluntarily surrender before
December 1st; and at the same time he published another proclamation
in which he predicted the early suppression of the unnatural
rebellion, and offered the inhabitants an opportunity to "cooperate
in relieving themselves from the miseries attendant on tyranny and
anarchy, and in restoring peace and good order with just and
lawful authority." A bounty of fifty acres of vacant land for each
private and of two hundred acres for each non-commissioned
officer was promised to those who would enlist in the Provincial
corps for two years or during the war. The Queen's Rangers were
with the main army at Germantown, occupying the extreme right
of the encampment, and probably the Royal Guides and Pioneers
were near by; but on October 12th and 14th, respectively, Howe
had the satisfaction of approving lists of officers for two additional
Tory regiments, namely, the first battalion of the Pennsylvania
Loyalists and the Roman Catholic Volunteers. Alfred Clifton was
the commanding officer of the latter and William Allen of the
former. Meantime, Tories were arriving at Germantown, including
John Parrock and Alexander Kidd from Philadelphia, James Oram
from the country near by, and Walter Willet from Bucks County.
On October 19th Howe and his command transferred their camp
to the Quaker City, and five days thereafter he designated the
staff for the first battalion of the Maryland Loyalists at the instance
of James Chalmers, its lieutenant colonel, who had previously been
a resident of Philadelphia. On November 7th he did the same for
the Philadelphia Light Dragoons, which was to consist of two
companies with Richard Hovenden and Jacob James as captains.
By November 26th, the Pennsylvania Loyalists numbered 145 men
and the Maryland Loyalists 133. The first muster of the Roman
Catholic Volunteers was taken on December 14th, and showed 62
men, but this number was nearly trebled during the next ten days
(i.e., it reached 176 men on December 24th). Hovenden raised his
troop of Dragoons in Philadelphia during November and
December; while James recruited his troop in Chester County in the
following January, the maximum number of the combined troops
amounting to 109 men. The Bucks County Light Dragoons were
recruited by Captain Thomas Sandford in Bucks County in the fall
of 1777, and were commanded by Lieutenant Colonel Watson
through the following winter and spring, while Sandford was a
prisoner with the Americans. Its maximum enrollment was 55
men. In May, 1778, these three troops were organized into a
squadron under Watson's command. During the time that the Bucks
County corps was forming, Lieutenant Colonel John Van Dyke of
Somerset County, N. J., was raising the West Jersey Volunteers
in the southern counties of that Province. In January, 1778, he
had 186 infantrymen, and during the course of the next four months
he added 157 cavalrymen. Colonel Lord Rawdon, who had come to
Philadelphia with the British, was enlisting the Volunteers of
Ireland in the early part of May, and probably had 300 recruits before
the city was evacuated. We should not overlook the accessions to
the New Jersey Volunteers, Queen's Rangers, and the Royal Guides
and Pioneers during this period of Tory enlistments: at least a
few men joined the Guides and Pioneers, and about 225, if not
more, were enrolled in the Rangers, including Captain John
Ferdinand Dalziel Smyth and Lieutenant James Murray, with their 61
recruits. Smyth's commission as "an additional captain of the
Rangers" was dated September 6, 1777. Many of the men who
entered the ranks of this corps at the time of which we are
speaking were refugees from Virginia and other Southern Colonies.
It will be recalled that a number of recruits from Philadelphia
joined the New Jersey Volunteers at Staten Island about the time
the test was being applied in 1777. It was less than three months
later, or when Cornwallis and his division entered Philadelphia,
that the first and second battalions of this corps arrived there.
Many volunteers at once enrolled themselves in the companies of
Captains Thomas Golden and Norman McLeod; while two new
companies were organized during November and December, 1777,
one by Captain Donald Campbell and the other, which consisted
of Cumberland men, by Captain Richard Cayford.
If now we attempt to figure the number of enlistments gained
by the British from the invaded region, we get a total of between
1,700 and 1,800 men, a number that would be reduced to about
1,400, if we exclude the West Jersey Volunteers, who were not
recruited in eastern Pennsylvania. Doubtless, this number should
be still further reduced on account of accessions gained by
detachments during raids into New Jersey. These figures do not agree
with those of Joseph Galloway, who confines his to the enlistments
secured in Philadelphia. In his testimony before Parliament,
Galloway stated that there were within the lines at Philadelphia, when
Howe occupied the city, 4,481 males capable of bearing arms, of
whom a fourth were Quakers. His fourth is a generous one,
however, leaving a remainder of 3,000. Of these, he says, Howe got
only 974 men in all, who were chiefly deserters on account of the
unpopularity of the Loyalists authorized to recruit. Galloway
added that during Howe's occupation 2,300 deserters came in from
the Continental army and were registered and qualified, besides
700 or 800 more, who never reported. Galloway's characterization
of the men whom Howe commissioned to raise Provincial
companies and battalions was certainly unjust: they were influential,
but the British commander in chief lacked the power of infusing
his subordinates with the proper military spirit. General Howe
achieved great personal popularity among his men, but he achieved
little else. Galloway was himself the chosen adviser of Howe, and
as the virtual governor of Philadelphia during the occupation was
active and serviceable in many ways; and yet he, like his chief,
brought nothing of consequence to pass, not even good order in
the city.34
After the occupation of Philadelphia, one of Mr. Galloway's
first duties appears to have been to number all the inhabitants, in
order to distinguish the loyal from the disaffected. In connection
with the quartering of troops, he was able to show consideration
for his old friends, even if he was not disposed to "lessen the
distress of old enemies." He secured horses for the army, procured
intelligence of the movements of the enemy through the agency of
about eighty spies, rendered the capture of Mud Island Fort more
speedy by the erection of some batteries, compiled a chart of all the
roads in the vicinity of Philadelphia, and was assigned to
administer the oaths of allegiance to inhabitants under Howe's
proclamation. As this last named task was beyond his time and strength,
Mr. Galloway had Enoch Story commissioned to perform it, and
then had to ask for a day or two's extension of time beyond the two
months originally announced, on account of the numbers crowding
in on Mr. Story late in October. On December 4th, Mr. Galloway
was appointed superintendent general of the police in the city and
its environs and superintendent of imports and exports. He thus
became the civil governor of Philadelphia, being vested with the
administration of municipal affairs under the direction of General
Howe. Mr. Story and Andrew Smith served as deputy officials of
the port and Samuel Shoemaker, John Potts, and Daniel Coxe as
magistrates of the police. Mr. Coxe was a noted refugee from New
Jersey and had served in the King's Council of that Colony. Messrs.
Potts and Shoemaker were well-known Philadelphians and former
office-holders. Howe also appointed George Roberts, James
Reynolds, James Sparks, and Joseph Stansbury for the city, together
with John Hart for Southwark, and Francis Jeyes for the
Northern Liberties, to be commissioners for selecting and supervising
the night-watch, which numbered one hundred men in the city and
ten each in the Northern Liberties and Southwark. Mr.
Stansbury was a writer of Tory songs and verses and was later named
as manager of a lottery for the relief of the poor. The preservation
of peace and order was a difficult task, which subjected Mr.
Galloway and the magistrates of the police to "extraordinary trouble
and attention to business." These officials were therefore granted
£25 sterling every quarter, in addition to their respective salaries.
As Howe summarized the amounts paid to Mr. Galloway, they
comprised an initial salary of £200 a year, £300 a year more as police
magistrate, with 6s per diem for his clerk, and 20s per diem as
superintendent of the port, or a total of £770 a year. Other local
Loyalists rendered various other services. Thus, for example,
George Harding of Philadelphia was employed in disarming those
who were disaffected to the Crown and in finding proper locations
for the troops. He was also authorized, along with twenty other
men, to apprehend spies in the Continental service. Abraham
Carlisle, another resident, was given oversight of the entrances
to the city, with the power to issue passports. John Parrock, also
of Philadelphia, supplied lumber from his wharves for the army
quarters and for the navy. William Caldwell of Union Township
was one of Galloway's secret service men, as well as a guide for
several detachments of the troops. Joseph Murell rendered similar
services. Gideon Vernon of Chester County carried dispatches for
General Howe and made observations among the enemy's forces,
and Henry Hugh Ferguson was commissary of prisoners.35
It fell to Mr. Galloway, among his numerous duties, to regulate
the markets, including the terms of buying and selling. Permits
were required for dealers selling more than a bushel of salt or a
hogshead of molasses to individual buyers, and this was also true
in the case of those handling drugs in quantity. The purchaser of
rum and spirits must buy from the importer only, but not more
than a hogshead nor less than ten gallons at a time. Tavern licenses
were also issued by Galloway, who granted permits to many
refugee Loyalists to reopen deserted inns. As a swarm of strangers and
fugitive Philadelphians arrived with the new regime, not a few
seized the earliest opportunity of opening places for trade,
including many shops and stores formerly kept by Whigs who were now
absent. Christopher Marshall at Lancaster heard that there were
about 120 new stores in Philadelphia, one kept by an Englishmen,
another by an Irishman, "the remainder being 118 Scotchmen or
Tories from Virginia." Joseph Stansbury became a dealer in china,
William Drewitt Smith reopened his drug store after his return
from Winchester, "James McDowell took Gilbert Barclay's store
on Second Street, Bird's London Store supplanted Mrs. Devine's,
George Leyburn ensconced himself in Francis Tilghman's store,
William Robb sold merchandise where William Redwood had served
his customers, Ninian Mangies took Thomas Gilpin's place, John
Brander, Isaac Cox's, [and] Thomas Blane succeeded to Mease and
Caldwell." These and other tradesmen of the city preferred solid
coin in place of paper money under the new regulations, and so
furnished Joseph Stansbury with a topic for one of his rhymed
satires, in which he represented that the shop-keepers rejected the
notes because they were issued against lands and mortgages held
by the rebels, but that nevertheless many of the friends of
government in town
|
|
"Sold each half-joe for twelve pounds Congress trash,
Which purchased six pounds of this legal cash;
Whereby they have, if you will bar the bubble,
Instead of losing, made their money double."
|
|
Among these friends of government were several publishers of
Tory newspapers. Until Howe's arrival in Philadelphia,
Benjamin Towne's
Pennsylvania Evening Post had been Whig in
politics. Then, it abruptly became Tory, only to change back again
with the return of the Americans. James Humphreys revived the
Pennsylvania Ledger during the British and Loyalist supremacy,
using the royal arms for the heading of his paper; and the
Pennsylvania Gazette also sought the patronage of the military and
refugee populace during the same period. These last two publications
suspended about May 23, 1778.
36
The Tories in Philadelphia were panic-stricken by the battle
of Germantown, which was fought October 5, 1777; and some of
them moved out of the city, though probably not for long. As the
wounded were brought into Philadelphia for care in numerous
improvised hospitals, the resident Quakers could not avoid seeing
more or less of the cruelties of actual warfare; and two days after
the battle they sent a deputation to Howe and thence to
Washington with testimonies on the ungodliness of war. In their
communication to the latter, they made use of the opportunity to assert the
innocence of themselves and of their Society of imputations cast
upon them; to explain that the aim of their body was to seek only
for peace and righteousness in the world, with equal love to all
men, and to intimate their desire for Washington's aid in behalf
of their brethren still in exile at Winchester, Va. The raising of
this last question inclined the American commander in chief to
send his callers to Lancaster to lay their request respecting the
exiles before the Supreme Executive Council and Congress; but as
they timidly withdrew their suggestion, he relieved their minds by
inviting them to dinner and ordering them, as one of his officers
expressed it, "only to do pennance a few days at
Pott's-grove."37
From the time the British first entered Philadelphia,
September 26, 1777, until they left it, June 17, 1778, or during a period of
eight and a half months, fugitives were coming in singly and in
groups, as opportunity offered, from the neighboring country,
including all the counties of eastern Pennsylvania from Northampton
and Bucks on the north to Lancaster and York on the west of
the metropolis. They came in also in considerable numbers from
Virginia, Maryland, and especially from New Jersey. James Allen,
who sent his family into the city in January, 1778, and followed
with his sister, Mrs. John Penn, on February 13, noted in his
Diary after his arrival that the town was filled with refugees from
the country, and that the Tories of many localities in Bucks County
and in New Jersey had risen against severe persecution and
brought in their oppressors as prisoners. In neighborhoods where
the number of Loyalists was too small to accomplish such feats of
valor, the approach of a detachment of British troops or of a
rescue party from the seat of the army had to be awaited. An appeal
for succor from a group of Jerseymen was responded to by twenty
West Jersey refugees, who crossed to the east side of the Delaware
from Philadelphia, had a skirmish with a band of watchful
Americans at the mouth of Mantua Creek, and returned with their
rescued friends, February 3d. At the end of this month, it was re
ported in the Pennsylvania Evening Post that large numbers of
Jerseymen had joined a detachment of the army since its arrival in
their vicinity. The Pennsylvania Ledger of March 18th declared
that there was not a day on which "great numbers" of Loyalists
were not flocking to the city, being "driven by the most obdurate
and merciless tyranny from all that is dear and valuable in life." An
item of May llth in Allen's Diary stated that the "persecutions in
the country were very great, that those who refused to subscribe
to the test in the various Provinces were treated as enemies and
suffered confiscation of their estates, and that Philadelphia was
swarming with refugees."38
While, as we have already seen, a few of these unfortunate
people had sufficient resources still at command to enable them to
engage in business, and others received official positions in the city
to which salaries were attached, the great majority of the refugees
must have been under the necessity of depending on the army or the
city authorities for their housing and support. It will be shown
farther on that those Loyalists who were embodied in regiments
were employed in patrolling the country roads so as to enable
farmers and gardeners to reach the city market with their produce,
and that they also secured quantities of booty through foraging
and plundering expeditions; but in view of the pressing needs of
the raiders themselves and of the regular troops, it may be doubted
whether or not any of these extra supplies ever reached those
refugees who were too impoverished to supply their own wants
through the ordinary channels of trade. According to the census
that Howe had taken shortly after his entry into Philadelphia, the
population amounted to a little more than 23,700, of which the
females numbered 13,403, not to mention the children, of whom
there were certainly many, although we get no figures concerning
them. We can thus see that the proportion of dependents was
extremely large, and we know that it was being constantly
increased by the arrival of distressed Loyalists. It is easy to
understand, therefore, why in the winter of 1777-78, Howe sanctioned
the collection of contributions for the support of the almshouse,
thirty-two collectors being appointed for the purpose; why as
spring approached the commander in chief exhorted the Loyalists
in one of his proclamations "to exert themselves in raising
vegetables" and other things for the use of the soldiers and inhabitants,
and why in April he authorized a lottery, which was placed under
the management of Stephen Shewell, James Craig, Reynold Keene,
Joseph Stansbury, and twelve others. This lottery produced
£1,012 10s for the benefit of the poor in the city.39
But the best efforts of the Loyalists to supply garden and farm produce
for the army and the multitude of refugees within the lines
were quite inadequate to relieve a situation which James
Allen, writing on June 8, vividly described in the following words :
"For 7 months Gen Washington with an army not exceeding 7 or
8000 men has lain at Valley Forge 20 miles from here, unmolested;
while Sr W. Howe with more than double his number & the best
troops in the world, has been shut up in Philada, where the markets
are extravagantly high, & parties of the enemy all round the
city within a mile or two robbing the market people. Consequently
the distress of the citizens and particularly the Refugees has been
very great."
During the winter and spring of 1777 and 1778, the Philadelphia
Light Dragoons had been cooperating with the Queen's
Rangers in securing the country and facilitating the inhabitants in
bringing their produce into Philadelphia. The Rangers, with
Redoubt No. 1 at Kensington as their headquarters, patrolled the
roads above, particularly the Frankford road, to enable the Bucks
County farmers to drive into town with the products of their farms
and dairies. The market people, however, were prevented by the
Americans from coming down below Frankford, and their light
horse made frequent sallies on the Rangers quarters at Kensington.
In December or January the withdrawal by Brigadier General
Lacey of some of his Pennsylvania militia from the posts they
had been occupying in the Delaware-Schuylkill peninsula enabled
the patrolling Tory regiments to forage and ravage at will. On
February 14th, Hovenden's troop of Philadelphia Light Dragoons
went up the Bristol road, and Captain Evan Thomas with his Bucks
County Volunteers took the Bustleton road. On their return they
brought back most of the officials of Bucks County. During the
same month they made other forays into the County of Bucks, as the
result of which they captured a number of Continental soldiers, a
quantity of cloth greatly needed by Washington's army at Valley
Forge, and a drove of 130 cattle. About a month later the Queen's
Rangers, the New Jersey Volunteers, and other troops to the
number of about 1,500 men engaged in foraging expeditions into New
Jersey and Cumberland County, Pa. When, at length, the Pennsyl
vania militia under Brigadier General Lacey was strengthened, the
farmers of Bucks County found it more difficult to reach the
Philadelphia market. Many of them were captured, and some were
condemned by court-martial to be hanged. Later, those caught
conveying produce to the British were deprived of their teams and
laden wagons, and were in many cases subjected to a flogging.
Lacey's operations were now so successful in cutting off supplies
from the city that on May 1, 1778, the Queen's Rangers, the
Philadelphia Light Dragoons, and other regiments were dispatched to
destroy the energetic officer and his command. Taken by surprise,
twenty-six of the Americans were killed, and some of the prisoners
and wounded were put to death in brutal ways by their Tory
captors.40
The civil authorities, as well as the military, sought to
suppress the intercourse between Philadelphia and the outside world
during the period of the British occupation of the city. On October
12, 1777, a new "supplement" to the test act of four months earlier
was passed, because the latter had not been found satisfactory in
actual experience. The supplement was framed to stop the passing
from county to county of male white non-jurors and Loyalists, and
especially of those coming out of Philadelphia, which was now in
the possession of the British. The age limit of those who were
ordered to subscribe to the oath or affirmation was now reduced
from eighteen to sixteen years, and justices of the peace were
empowered not only to exact the oath, but also to require such further
security as they might think necessary in individual cases.
Imprisonment without bail was the alternative, the end of the
sentence depending on the willingness of the suspect to subscribe and
furnish the extra security. The final section of the law made it
possible for one or more sworn accusers to have persons who avoided
traveling about brought before a justice on suspicion of unfriendliness
to the independence of the United States, in order that the
test might be applied to him. This measure was to go into operation
three days after its enactment. The new Council of Safety
(October 21 to December 6, 1777) and after it the Supreme
Executive Council in their sessions at Lancaster tried and sentenced many
offenders on the charge of supplying the royal troops with
provisions, or of prosecuting an illicit trade with them. The usual
penalty inflicted was one month s imprisonment at hard labor, although
in certain instances the term of incarceration was lengthened to
that of the war, and occasionally fifty or one hundred lashes were
added for some special reason, such as the passing of counterfeit
Continental currency by the culprit. As some of those carrying
on the forbidden trade lived on the east side of the Delaware River,
the civil authorities of New Jersey also employed repressive
measures. The General Assembly of that State passed a bill which was
intended to prevent all communication between the parties
concerned; but since the act was not well enforced, the magistrates of
Burlington County, N. J., announced their determination on
February 16, 1778, to execute it in the most rigorous manner. On the
same date, the governor of New Jersey, William Livingston,
recommended the enactment of a bill authorizing the militia, or any
other persons, to seize all effects suspected of being carried to or
from the enemy, the seized goods to be appropriated to those
taking them, in case the persons thus dispossessed should be found
guilty by legal process.41
These efforts to terminate the intercourse between Philadelphia
and the outside world served in considerable measure to
increase the distress already existing among the refugees
and inhabitants of the city, already greatly aggravated, it
may be added, by the exorbitant prices of provisions and
merchandise prevailing there. Notwithstanding these unfortunate
conditions, however, there was no dearth of festivities among the men
of the camps and the social set in the metropolis during the Tory
supremacy. When off duty the soldiers gave themselves up to
amusements. The officers formed themselves into dining clubs,
among which was the "Loyal Association Club"; they also held
cricket matches, and patronized a cock-pit where mains were
fought for a hundred guineas. Weekly balls from the end of
January to that of April afforded ample opportunity for the young
ladies of the Tory set to establish social relations with the
military gentlemen in town. The old South Street Theatre witnessed
a series of plays, in some of which the officers took part. Howe
paid the price of all this unwarranted gaiety, as well as of his
supineness in martial affairs, by being supplanted in his
command. On May 7, Sir Henry Clinton landed at Billingsport,
and the next day he arrived in Philadelphia. Before Howe
embarked for England, he was complimented by a regatta
on the Delaware and a pageant of knights, squires, and
ladies on the beautiful grounds of the Wharton mansion
at Walnut Grove. This combined celebration, which was
planned and chiefly managed by Major John André, and was widely
heralded as the Meschianza, occurred, May 18th, and was
participated in by many of the Loyalist belles of the city. The day
ended with a grand ball, which lasted until after sunrise the next
morning. This concluding event, however, was disturbed by an
attack on the abatis north of town by Captain McLane and a
detachment of Americans. About the same time, Howe learned that
Lafayette and 2,500 of the enemy had crossed the Schuylkill and
encamped some distance below Marston's Ford. He, therefore,
craved the distinction of closing his term of service with the
capture of Lafayette and his force. Although he and Clinton led out
11,000 men in the effort to attain this object, the French general
and his men succeeded in recrossing the river, with but a slight
loss at the ford. Having thus failed to redeem his military
reputation, General Howe relinquished the command of the army to
Clinton, and sailed for England, May 24, 1778.42
On the same day the new commander in chief held a council
of war, which decided in favor of evacuating the city; and this
decision seems to have been communicated to a meeting of "gentle
men, merchants, and citizens" that took place at the British
Tavern. The local historian, Westcott, says that notice had been
previously given that all deserters from the American army who
wished to go to England would be sent, and that "many availed
themselves of the privilege." Probably, the news of the intended
evacuation did not come as an entire surprise to the community,
for Mrs. Drinker recorded in her Journal, under date of May 23d,
that preparations for the departure were being made by "many
of the inhabitants." On June 3d three regiments crossed the
Delaware and encamped near Cooper's Ferry and Gloucester. Two
days later Captain Johann Heinrichs of the Hessian Jager Corps,
who was then at the Neck near the city, wrote to his brother that
"about one thousand royally inclined families" in Philadelphia
were "willing to leave hearth and home and with their chattels go
with the army." A few days later still the British Peace
Commissioners arrived in the city; and one of them, Lord Carlisle, wrote
that he found everything in confusion, "the army upon the point
of leaving town, and about three thousand of the miserable
inhabitants embarked on board our ships, to convey them from a place
where they thought they would receive no mercy from those who
will take possession after us." In a letter of June 15th to the
colonial secretary in London, the Commissioners stated that they
had found the greater part of those who had put themselves under
the King's protection either retiring on board ships in the
Delaware River, or endeavoring to effect their reconciliation with
Congress by hastening to take the oath of allegiance to the
Confederated States of America within the allotted time, in order to save
their property from confiscation and themselves from "the violent
resentment of an exulting and unrestrained enemy." As the time
for taking the oath of allegiance had already been extended to June
1, 1778, it is highly improbable that additional days of grace were
granted to those seeking to make amends for such obvious
reasons. Nevertheless, a good many whose past conduct identified
them as undesirable citizens in the eyes of the Whigs chose to
remain, as did also the wives and children of some undoubted
Loyalists who left with the troops, or had taken their departure earlier.
In these closing days of the British occupation, Mrs. Drinker
records the parting calls of Enoch Story and Richard Wain, and
remarks that Samuel Shoemaker and many other inhabitants had
gone on board the vessels. Clinton's intention had been to send
his troops back to New York by sea, as they had come; but instead
he filled the waiting fleet with Tory families and ordered his army
to take up the line of march across the Jerseys.43
The van of the army withdrew from Philadelphia, June 17th,
the main body following on the next day. With the retiring troops
marched the Loyalist regiments which had been formed during the
British occupation of the city, as well as those which had come as
part of the invading host. Since many of the local refugees
attempted to carry with them more or less of their possessions, and
in some cases the appropriated property of absent Whigs, they
impeded the movements of the troops; and according to an item in
the Pennsylvania Evening Post of June 20th, some of the fugitives,
along with other prisoners, were captured by a pursuing body of
American light horse. By the time Allentown, N. J., was reached,
the Queen's Rangers had been joined by many new refugees, who
supplied the guides needed for the remainder of the march. Near
Monmouth Court House strong detachments of the American army,
which had been sent forward by Washington, attacked the British,
June 28th, killing over 250 officers and men and wounding many
mpre, including Lieutenant Colonel Simcoe and Captain Stephenson
of the Rangers. While Clinton's force was experiencing these
difficulties, the British fleet was reported in Philadelphia to have
lost several transports to the enemy, on one of which were five
refugee families with their effects. From Monmouth the Queen's
Rangers led the way to Sandy Hook, where on July 5th the
embarkation of the troops for the brief passage to New York began.
They left behind them in New Jersey at least two Tory battalions,
namely, the Volunteers of Ireland and the West Jersey Regiment.
At the close of August, 1778, the former corps was stationed at
Six Mile Hill, a few miles to the southeast of New Brunswick, while
the latter was then at Sandy Hook. Towards the end of the
following February the Volunteers of Ireland were at New York, with a
strength of 509 men. At least two companies of the West Jersey
Regiment, if not the entire corps, had by this time been
incorporated with the New Jersey Volunteers on Staten Island.44
After Clinton's army landed at New York City the various
Loyalist regiments, which had accompanied it, were distributed
among the British posts of the neighborhood. Thus, by July 15,
1778, the Queen's Rangers were encamped at King's Bridge, where
they were soon joined by the Philadelphia Light Dragoons and the
Bucks County Light Dragoons, the three together numbering 448
men at the end of August. The Pennsylvania Loyalists had been
sent at the same time to New Utrecht, L. I., near Brooklyn; while
the Roman Catholic Volunteers and the Maryland Loyalists had
been assigned to Flushing Fly, a few miles to the northeast. Of the
three corps last named the August muster showed that the first
had 188 men, the second 331, and the third 171. At the close of
February, 1779, the Volunteers of Ireland, with a strength of 509
men, were at New York, and the Royal Guides and Pioneers,
numbering 173 men, were also there and thereabouts.45
During the British occupation of Philadelphia the town
suffered from spoliation and destruction of property to such an
extent that, when the Americans returned to it, they found it in a
wretched condition. Nor was this havoc confined to the estates
of the absent Whigs. Robert Morton, the Loyalist, says in his
Diary that the British set fire to "the Fairhill mansion house,
Jonathan Mifflin's, and many others, amounting to eleven, besides
outhouses, barns, etc.," on November 22d. All these were the
buildings of Loyalists, and were only part of the structures similarly
dealt with in the same neighborhood, where eighteen other homes
were deliberately burned, the reason assigned according to
Morton being that the Americans had been shooting at the British
pickets from these houses. Mrs. Deborah Logan, who witnessed
this incendiarism, "counted seventeen fires" from the roof of her
mother's house on Chestnut Street. Pierre Du Simitiere, a
resident of Philadelphia during this period, wrote that it would be in
vain to attempt to give an account of the devastation committed
by those in possession indiscriminately on Whig and Tory
property in the environs of the city. He added that "the persecution
that numbers of worthy citizens underwent from the malice of the
Tories; the tyranny of the police on all those they supposed to be
the friends of the liberties of America; all these would fill a
volume." Entries in Christopher Marshall's Remembrancer from June
23d to June 26th, inclusive, confirm these earlier testimonies: they
speak of the houses ruined and destroyed within a mile or two of
the city and of "the desolation with the dirt, filth, stench, and flies
in and about the town" as scarcely credible. Marshall writes that
he was struck with wonder and amazement at the "scenes of malice
and wanton cruelty," but that his late dwelling-house was not so
bad as many others, although it was "quite gone," its roof, doors,
windows, etc., being "either destroyed or carried away entirely."
It was not until 1782 that an appraisement was made of all these
damages, in accordance with an act of the General Assembly. It
then appeared that the loss sustained by the inhabitants of
Philadelphia amounted to £187,280 5s. According to this appraisement,
forty-six persons suffered damages exceeding one thousand pounds,
the losses of eight of these ranging from £3,000 up to £5,622. As
Germantown had suffered during the early days of the occupation,
having been the headquarters of the main army under Howe and
the scene of a battle, it was included in the appraisment. Its claims
numbered 137, although some of its losses were not included in
this list.46
CHAPTER V
WHIG REPRISALS UPON SOME OF THE LOYALISTS
DURING AND AFTER THE BRITISH OCCUPATION
OF PHILADELPHIA
It was not until more than a fortnight after the British had
occupied Philadelphia, and only a few days after Howe had offered
bounties of land to such Loyalists as would enlist, that a new
Council of Safety was constituted by an act of the General Assembly,
October 13, 1777. This new council, which comprised the
members of the Supreme Executive Council and nine other gentlemen,
was vested with full power to provide for the preservation of the
Commonwealth by such ordinances as it deemed necessary, and to
punish capitally or otherwise all persons guilty of transgressing
these ordinances or the laws of the State previously enacted. This
part of the new law was directed against those considered to be
inimical to the common cause of liberty. Another section authorized
the seizure of provisions and other necessaries for the American
army and the inhabitants of the State. The duration of these
powers was limited, however, to the end of the next meeting of the
Assembly. On October 21st the Council of Safety began to operate
under this measure by ordaining the collection of arms and
accoutrements and shoes and stockings from such inhabitants of Chester
County as had failed to take the oaths of allegiance and abjuration
required by a law of February llth in the same year. At the same
time it passed an ordinance naming commissioners for the City of
Philadelphia and the eleven counties of the State, who were to seize
the personal estates and effects of all inhabitants then or in the
future guilty of abandoning their families or habitations and joining
the King's army, or resorting to any place in its possession within
the Commonwealth and supplying the royal troops with provisions,
intelligence, or other aid. The commissioners were to make an
inventory of the property seized, dispose of the perishable part, and
keep safely the money and goods taken, subject to future disposition
by the Legislature. The Council justified its action by declaring
that divers persons had renounced their allegiance to the State and,
wickedly joining themselves to the enemy, had afforded assistance
thereto in various ways, and it further declared that it was
repugnant to the practice of all nations to protect and preserve the
property of their avowed foes.47
An ordinance passed a little later authorized the collection of
sums from delinquents, of whom there were many in the State, who
were indebted to the public treasury for advances paid to their
substitutes in the militia, the collection being enforcible by the
distress and sale of the goods and chattels of such as refused or
neglected to pay. This regulation was soon followed by another
requiring the seizure of arms and accoutrements, blankets, and
other supplies for the American army from all inhabitants who
had not yet taken the oaths of allegiance and abjuration. On
December 6th the powers granted to the Council of Safety were
terminated by proclamation of the Supreme Executive Council, these
powers having been in force less than two months.48
In the early months of the following year the Assembly at
Lancaster supplemented the confiscatory measures of the Council
of Safety by legislation which was directed against the college in
Philadelphia and against persons associating with the enemy.
Among such persons were several trustees of the college, while the
name of the Reverend William Smith, D.D., the provost of the
institution, had been included in a list of individuals considered to be
dangerous to the State, which had been drawn up in the previous
September. Since, therefore, the college had come to be generally
regarded as a Tory institution and was, moreover, in the enemy's
hands, the Assembly passed an act, January 2, 1778, by whch the
authority of the trustees of the college and academy was suspended
for a limited time. An act for "the attainder of divers Traitors"
was also passed (March 6), which provided that if certain persons
failed to appear by a specified date (April 20th), their estates
would become vested in the Commonwealth. Those designated were
Joseph Galloway, Andrew Allen and his brothers John and
William, the Reverend Jacob Duché, and Samuel Shoemaker, all of
Philadelphia; John Potts of Philadelphia County, James Rankin
of York, Gilbert Hicks of Bucks, Nathaniel Vernon of Chester,
Christian Foutz of Lancaster, and Reynold Keene and John Biddle
of Berks. Provision was made for the discovery and seizure of the
estates of these persons, as also for the attainting of other
individuals adhering to the enemy. Indeed, the act declared that all
subjects and inhabitants of the State who should at any time during
the war voluntarily serve the King, either by land or sea in an
official or private capacity, would ipso facto become attainted of high
treason, and debtors of traitors were ordered to pay their
obligations to the Supreme Executive Council, instead of to the proscribed.
In accordance with this law, eight different proclamations were
issued by the Council against persons designated as traitors during
a period which included the years from 1778 to 1781. The number
of those thus published were thirteen in the first proclamation
(March 6th, 1778), fifty-seven in the second (May 8th), seventy-five
in the third (May 21st), two hundred in the fourth (June
15th), and sixty-two in the fifth (October 30th), or a total of 407
during the year 1778. The proclamation of June 22, 1779, named
thirty; that of October 3, 1780, ten; that of March 20, 1781,
fifteen; and the last, which was dated April 27, 1781, designated one
only. Thus, the number of persons announced as traitors in the
entire series of proclamations for being reported as having joined
the British was only 453, of which 109 were former inhabitants
of Philadelphia, seventy-six of Philadelphia County, seventy-seven
of Bucks, eighty-seven of Chester, nine of York, thirty-five of
Northampton, four of Bedford, three of Trenton, N. J., and one
each of the States of Maryland and New York. As this total was
not more than ten percent of the number of Loyalists who left
Philadelphia at the evacuation, not to mention the numerous
refugees whom we know to have fled from the State during the
preceding years, it will be seen that the Council of Safety might have
been far more drastic than it was in applying the penalties of
attainder and forfeiture of property to the adherents of the Crown.49
Among these attainted men all classes were represented:
there were numbers of laborers, yeomen, and husbandmen; there
were many also who had been engaged in shop-keeping and in a
variety of trades; among the merchants we find Enoch and Thomas
Story, Abel James, John and Charmless Hart, Matthias Aspden,
Malcolm Ross, David Sproat, Oswald Eve, and Robert White; John
Bray and Hugh Lindon were school-masters; among the attorneys
were Charles Stedman, Jr., Abel Evans, and Christian Hook; at
least two prominent physicians were proscribed, namely, Anthony
Yeldall and Andrew DeNormandie; William Drewitt Smith and
Christian Voght, the latter of the Borough of Lancaster, were
druggists; there were a few who were designated as "gentlemen,"
for example, Ross Curry, Alfred and William Clifton, John Kearsley,
Jr., and John Young of Graeme Park; then there were some
who had held high rank in civil and military circles, such as Joseph
Galloway and Andrew Allen, "late members of the Congress of the
thirteen United Colonies," the Reverend Jacob Duché, the first
chaplain of Congress; John Biddle, collector of excise for the County
of Berks and deputy quarter master general of the American army;
Christian Foutz, lieutenant colonel of militia in Chester County,
and Benedict Arnold, major general in the army of the United
States; and finally there were numerous officials of minor rank, in
cluding Joseph Swanwick and John Bartlett of the Custom House
of Philadelphia; John Smith, gauger of the port of the city;
Samuel Carrigues, Sr., clerk of the market; William Austen, keeper of
the New Jersey ferry; Abraham Iredell, surveyor; Nathaniel Vernon,
sheriff of Chester County; Samuel Biles, sheriff of Bucks
County; Robert Land, justice of the peace of Northampton County,
and Samuel Shoemaker, alderman of Philadelphia.
On April 1, 1778, the Assembly had passed a law "for the
Further Security of the Government," which extended the time for
subscribing to the test to June 1st. Any male white inhabitant of
eighteen years of age or older who failed to comply was to be
incapable of bringing any legal action, serving as a guardian,
executor, or administrator, receiving a legacy, or making a will,
besides being subject to double taxes. Non-jurors might be
imprisoned for three months, or they might be fined £10 or less and
required to leave the State within thirty days, besides forfeiting their
goods and chattels to the Commonwealth and their lands and
tenements to the persons entitled by law to inherit them. As many
individuals had been entering Philadelphia on various pretexts since
its occupation by the British army, permits issuable by Congress,
the Executive Council, or General Washington were to be required.
The failure to observe this requirement laid the delinquent liable
to a fine of £50 or less and imprisonment during the court's
pleasure. The disabilities imposed upon non-jurors by the present law
and the test acts of 1777 were to last for life. Office-holders under
the proprietary government who did not renounce their allegiance
to the Crown before June 1, 1778, or within ten days after
returning to the State, were to have the privilege of selling their estates
within ninety days, under permission from the Supreme Executive
Council, and departing, or be deemed enemies and compelled to
forfeit their goods and chattels, lands and tenements. Finally, all
trustees, provosts, rectors, professors, and tutors of any college or
academy, all school-masters, merchants, traders, lawyers, doctors,
druggists, notaries, and clerks who did not submit to the test would
thereby be disabled from following their vocations and, on
conviction of disregarding this injunction, might be fined as much as
£500. The object of this last section of the new test law was to
enable the Supreme Executive Council to deal with the officers of
the College, Academy, and Charitable School of the City of
Philadelphia.50
It was not, however, until in February, 1779, that a resolution
was adopted appointing a committee to investigate the early
history, the purposes, and the condition of the college. In consonance
with the wishes of the trustees, Provost Smith submitted a written
defense of the course and conduct of the trustees and other officers,
but without the desired effect; for on the 27th of the following
November a law was passed by which the proprietary charters of the
College, Academy, and Charitable School were "amended" and the
provost and all others connected with these institutions were
removed. The name of the college was changed to "The University
of the State of Pennsylvania," and the rights and property hitherto
vested in the trustees were transferred to a new board appointed
by the Assembly, which also authorized the Supreme Executive
Council to reserve a sufficient number of estates confiscated from
attainted Loyalists, but as yet unsold, to endow the reorganized
establishment with an annual income not to exceed £1,500. During
the next few years the university was vested with sixty such
estates. The annual rent charges which these properties would
produce were carefully computed in bushels of wheat and totaled not
far from 1,550 bushels. The estates thus appropriated for the
university were scattered through five counties, twenty-one of them
being in the City of Philadelphia, twenty-one others in the county
of the same name, seven each in Berks and Chester counties, three
in Bucks, and one in Lancaster. Five of the properties in Berks
County had belonged to Andrew Allen, and eight of those in
Philadelphia had been held by John Parrock. Only two of the other
estates had belonged to a single owner at the time of their
confiscation. In addition to these sixty properties, the trustees, with the
concurrence of the Supreme Executive Council, purchased fifteen
other confiscated real estates at the public sales, all but three of
these being in the City of Philadelphia. They also bought fifteen
"rent charges, together with all the estate, interest and claim of
the Commonwealth" in and to the lots and lands in the city from
which these rentals emanated. Eleven of these last purchases had
belonged to John Parrock and the other four to Samuel Shoemaker.
Thus, by the purchase of the trustees and by the action of the
Council, the university secured a total of ninety confiscated
properties, of which forty-eight were located in Philadelphia and twentyfour
in the county of the same name. As the income of these
properties did not amount as yet to more than a yearly value of £1,381
5s 7½d, computing wheat at the rate of ten shillings per bushel,
the Legislature proceeded on September 22, 1785, to enact that the
"several confiscated estates, lands, tenements and heriditaments
and rent charges" be fully and absolutely vested in and confirmed
to the University of the State of Pennsylvania."51
Meantime, Thomas Mifflin and nine other trustees of the old
college presented a memorial to the Council of Censors proposing
to restore the original corporation. The committee to which this
memorial was referred reported in favor of the action requested.
The matter was also brought to the attention of the Assembly
by a letter from the former provost, Dr. Smith, and the committee
named to consider the question reported that the college had never
forfeited its rights nor committed any offense against the laws.
The committee, therefore, recommended a resolution for adoption
repealing the act of November 27, 1779, by which the property and
rights of the college had been transferred to the board named by
the Assembly.
In accordance with these recommendations, the Assembly by
a vote of twenty-eight yeas to twenty-five nays enacted a law,
March 6, 1789, in the preamble of which the admission was frankly
made that the corporation, trustees, professors, and other officers
of the old college and its subsidiary schools had been deprived of
their charters, franchises, and estates without trial by jury or
proof of forfeiture. The new law therefore repealed such parts of
the act of November 27, 1779, as concerned the ancient corporation,
its charters, and its former rights, and provided for the
reinstatement of the trustees and the restoration of the faculty to all
of the rights, emoluments, and estates which they had formerly held
and enjoyed, except such rents and profits as had been received by
the board of the university before March 2, 1789, such sums as had
already been paid out in the discharge of just debts and contracts,
and such bonds and mortgages as had been transferred, cancelled,
or paid by it. The trustees of the university were, however, to be
accountable to the trustees of the college for the value of these
mortgages and bonds. Inasmuch as the unrepealed sections of the
law of 1779 left the university still intact and in possession of the
confiscated estates with which it had been endowed, the effect of
the act of 1789 was to make the college and the university separate
institutions.52
For the next seven years the two institutions, both located in
Philadelphia, sustained the relation of rivals in the educational
field. Then, their respective boards addressed petitions to the
Assembly, in which they set forth that they had agreed to certain
terms of union in the desire that the two might be combined by
legislative action. Accordingly, an act was passed, September 30,
1791, which provided that the name of the resulting institution
should be "The University of Pennsylvania," the location
remaining in the city; it also provided that the existing boards of
trustees should elect twelve persons from among their own members
on or before December 1st, who, with the governor of the State,
should constitute a new board. This body was to have control of all
funds, was to support a charity school for boys and another for
girls, and was to choose the faculties in arts and medicine for the
new university from each constituent institution equally. By this
highly commendable action, the way was cleared for the future
growth and usefulness of the University of Pennsylvania.53
Notwithstanding the fact that Governor John Penn had been
deposed and the proprietary regime superseded since the summer
of 1776, the Penns were left in a state of uncertainty for more than
three years as to the settlement of their claims. In February, 1778,
shortly after the Assembly had passed the act of attainder and
confiscation against Loyalists adhering to the enemy, it took up
this highly important question. Governor Penn was notified at
this time, and chose counsel to represent the family interests.
Still, no action was taken until November 27, 1779, when after
several days spent in discussion of the subject, the Assembly
passed a law in which the proprietary charter was construed as an
instrument "containing a public trust for the benefit of those who
should settle in the State of Pennsylvania, coupled with a
particular interest accruing to . . . .
William Penn and his heirs, but in
its very nature and essence subject and subordinate to the great
and general purposes of society sanctioned in the said grant." The
law further declared that the claims of the proprietaries to the
whole of the soil bestowed by the charter, and likewise to the quit
rents and purchase money for grants since made by them, were
no longer consistent with the safety, liberty, and happiness of the
inhabitants, who had rescued themselves and their possessions
from the tyranny of Great Britain, and were then defending
themselves from the inroads of the savages; and it asserted that
effective measures were demanded by the great expenses of the war
and by the daily emigration of "multitudes of inhabitants" to
neighboring States, where lands were being located and settled.
Accordingly, the new law decreed that the interest, title, and claim
which the proprietaries possessed in the soil of the late Province on
July 4, 1776, together with the royalties, lordships, and all other
hereditaments authorized by the charter, were henceforth vested
in the Commonwealth, and subject to division, appropriation, and
conveyance, in accordance with such laws as might be later enacted.
Exception was made, however, of the rights appertaining to other
persons than the proprietaries, by virtue of any deeds, warrants, or
surveys of grants derived from the Penns, and filed in the Land
Office before the Declaration of Independence. That is to say, the
law confirmed both the legal and equitable rights of such persons.
To the proprietaries themselves it secured their private estates
and inheritances, besides such manors or "proprietary tenths" as
had been surveyed and reserved in the Land Office by July 4, 1776,
and in addition the quit rents and other rents belonging to them.
It was further provided that commissioners should be appointed
to constitute a Board of Property, with power to collect all papers,
records, maps, and surveys in the possession of the propietaries or
their agents respecting the lands within the State, and with power
also to grant patents, confirm titles, appoint surveyors and other
officers, and receive money arising from the sale of lands not as
yet surveyed or located.54
In compensation for the proprietary rights of which the Penns
were deprived by the above provisions, and in "remebrance of the
enterprising spirit" of the founder of the State and "of the
expectations and dependence of his descendants," the law awarded the
sum of £130,000 sterling to the devisees and legatees of Thomas
Penn, in such proportions as should thereafter be fixed by the
Legislature. Although a section of the law provided that no part of
the sum stipulated should be paid within less than one year after
the termination of the war, it was not until February 9, 1785, that
an act was passed authorizing the immediate payment of £15,000
as the first annual instalment. This amount had not been fully
paid, however, at the end of March, 1787. Meanwhile, interest
was accruing on the residue of the debt. Hence, at this time
(March 28th), it was enacted that the State treasurer pay the
respective balances still due on the first instalment to John Penn,
the elder, and John Penn, the younger, together with interest at
six percent per annum from September 3, 1784, and the Supreme
Executive Council was ordered to issue warrants on the treasurer
forthwith for the discharge of the second and third instalments
of £15,000 each, with interest from the dates of their maturity,
respectively. Warrants or orders for what appear to have been the
fourth and fifth instalments, although designated the fifth
instalment in the Records, were issued on March 20, 1789, when
the elder Penn received £7,500 and the younger Penn received
£22,500. The sixth instalment, which amounted to £25,812 10s,
was ordered paid a year later. Thus, by the spring of 1790,
the Penns were in possession of £100,000 out of the compensation
granted them by the State. On April 9, 1791, the Legislature made
provision for the appropriation of a sufficient amount of six percent
stock created by the State's subscription to a United States loan
to discharge the last two instalments, and empowered the
governor — the Executive Council had been supplanted by a single
executive — to draw the warrants on the State treasurer for all
arrearages of principal and interest, whenever the Penns or their
agents should apply for the payment of the debt still due them.55
The claim made by the proprietaries on the British government
for the losses and sufferings sustained by them in consequence of
the Revolution amounted to £944,817 sterling. This was reduced
after prolonged investigation by the Commissioners on Loyalists
Claims to £500,000, and that estimate was recommended to
Parliament for settlement. On the suggestion of Mr. Pitt, however, that
body departed in this instance from its practice of granting a
stipulated sum as in the claims of other adherents of the Crown: it
passed an act in 1790 by which an annuity of £3,000 was granted
to John Penn, the son of the elder branch, and an annuity of
£1,000 to John Penn, the son of the younger branch of the family.
Sabine remarks that "the Penn estate was by far the largest that
was forfeited in America, and perhaps that was ever sequestered
during any civil war in either hemisphere"; but he also calls
attention to the fact that the large sum which they received from
Pennsylvania, together with their annuities from Parliament, the
immense estate which they retained in the Commonwealth founded
by their ancestor, and the offices subsequently conferred on them
probably placed them "in a condition quite as independent as that
which they enjoyed previous to the Revolution." Certain it is that
the Penns remained the largest landed proprietors in
Pennsylvania, by reason of their manors and other real estate, together
with the ground rents and quit rents which they derived
therefrom.56
CHAPTER VI
THE PURCHASE OF THE INDIAN TRACT ON LAKE ERIE
Besides the public domain which the revolutionary government
of Pennsylvania took from the proprietaries and the numerous
private estates which it confiscated from the attainted Loyalists, a
large triangular tract of territory fronting on Lake Erie was
acquired from the Six Nation Indians by purchase, notwithstanding
the fact that they had allied themselves with the British early in
the war, had made Fort Niagara their headquarters, and had
engaged in many expeditions with Butler's Rangers against the
frontier settlements. The first definite action looking to the
purchase of the tract in question was taken by the Assembly,
September 25, 1783, when a resolution was adopted by that body
authorizing the appointment of purchasing commissioners. These
commissioners seem not to have been named by the Executive Council
until late in February, 1784, and on December 4th the Council was
able to report that the purchase had lately been made. The lands
thus secured were offered for sale to white settlers at a price which
proved to be too high to attract many buyers; and the Council
suggested to the Assembly in a message of February 23, 1787, that
the price be lowered, since only eight warrants had been issued
for lots within the purchased tract during the past six months.57
On September 4, 1788, Congress passed an act by which the
United States government relinquished and transferred to the State
of Pennsylvania its right, title, and claim to the tract on Lake Erie.
As a meeting of the Northern and Western tribes was soon to be
held at Muskingum to make a treaty with the Continental
commissioners, the State Assembly took action on September 13th,
empowering the Council to appoint two commissioners to secure from
the forthcoming council a conveyance of its rights in the purchased
tract, as the Western tribes had acknowledged claims therein.
Accordingly, General Richard Butler and General John Gibson were
named as the agents of the Commonwealth to attend the approach
ing council. The instructions, which were framed for their
guidance, informed the new commissioners that the State was already
"vested with both right of jurisdiction and soil," but that the
purchase of the claims of the natives, which they were to effect, was
agreeable "to the constant usage of Pennsylvania," and that they
were to exercise their discretion whether to commence the
business with the Indians at present, or postpone it until a more
favorable time, according to the temper in which they might find the
tribes. Evidently the Indians manifested a friendly disposition,
for on March 4, 1789, the Council sent to the Legislature the report
of the commissioners that the transaction had been satisfactorily
completed, together with an Indian deed of cession covering the
tract.58
CHAPTER VII
THE SURVIVAL OF LOYALISM IN PHILADELPHIA AND
ELSEWHERE IN PENNSYLVANIA AFTER THE
DEPARTURE OF THE BRITISH
On the day of the evacuation of Philadelphia, June 18, 1778,
Captain Allen McLane and his Maryland troopers followed the
British as they retreated into the Neck and captured Captain
Thomas Sandford of the Bucks County Light Dragoons and
Frederick Varnum, keeper of the prison under Galloway. On the next
day the American forces re-entered Philadelphia, and Major
General Benedict Arnold was made commandant of the city. Arnold at
once issued a proclamation calling attention to the resolution of
Congress of June 4th, which requested Washington to see that
order was preserved in the town and to prevent the removal or
sale of the King's goods that remained in the possession of the
people. Persons having a supply of certain articles, including all
kinds of provisions beyond family need, were to make return to the
town major. A large quantity of salt and other supplies were
discovered and seized under this order. Severe punishment was to be
meted out to any found concealing British officers or soldiers or
deserters from the Continental army. On June 20th, the city and its
markets were declared open, and on the 25th and 26th, Congress
and the Supreme Executive Council, respectively, began their
sessions in the city.
The returning inhabitants had many complaints to make
concerning the damage or removal of their property by the
departing host, one giving notice that "Joseph Fox, a noted traitor, had
seized and taken away four tons of blistered steel, and all the
apparatus belonging to the steel furnace," which he had sold in the
city; while another reported the removal of a printing press and
its belongings, which were carted away in the King's wagons by
James Robertson, the Tory printer of the Pennsylvania Gazette.
In August, Arnold had a court-martial held for the trial of George
Spangler and Frederick Verner on the charge of being spies in the
British employ. The former was hanged the same month; but the
latter was kept in prison until he was finally exchanged. As many
other Loyalists remained in Philadelphia, the Whigs preferred
charges before Chief Justice Thomas McKean against some of these
for aiding the British army, formed an association, afterwards
called "the Patriotic Society,
" with the object of disclosing and
bringing to justice all Tories within their knowledge," and
committed an attack on the house of Peter Deshong, who escaped injury
by surrendering to the authorities as a proclaimed traitor. In
September Deshong, together with several others accused of treason,
was tried and acquitted; but Abraham Carlisle of Philadelphia and
John Roberts of Lower Marion, two Quakers well along in years,
were convicted and, despite the appeals of some members of their
juries and of numerous Whigs for commutation of sentence, were
executed. Many other prosecutions followed during the months of
November and December.59
Meanwhile, General Arnold was occupying the mansion of Richard
Penn, living in great extravagance, associating chiefly with
Tory families, and getting into trouble through his gross venality.
Already in December, 1778, it was being rumored among his
acquaintances that Arnold would be discharged from his post, "be
ing thought a pert Tory," and soon after that he was behaving
"with lenity" towards this class of Philadelphians. In the latter
part of March the commandant bought a handsome country
estate at Mount Pleasant, which a purchasing agent of General
Washington says he paid for by appropriating to his own use $50,000
which the agent left to his order for the liquidation of bills for
army stores and clothing. At length, Arnold's corruption and
display became so scandalous that the Supreme Executive Council
formulated a series of charges against him, which he evaded by
leaving the city. By direction of Congress a court-martial
was held to try Arnold, but not until in January, 1780.
Being convicted on the minor charge of making private use of the
army wagons, he was sentenced to receive a reprimand from the
commander in chief. He was exasperated by this verdict, and in
the following spring he began his traitorous correspondence with
General Clinton. In mid-summer he was appointed commander of
the fortress of West Point, "the gateway of the Hudson Valley,"
at his own request by Washington. The arrangements for the
surrender of this important post to the British were completed at
Arnold's secret conference with Major John André at Stony Point
on a dark night in September; but André was captured immediately
afterward near Tarrytown. A letter unsuspectingly sent by
Colonel Jameson informed Arnold of the British officer's arrest, and
he fled on horseback to the river, where he boarded the enemy's
sloop of war Vulture under a flag of truce. By October 8th, he was
at the head of the American Legion, a corps of Loyalists newly
organized by him in New York, which then numbered only 75
troopers. This was the command he got as part of the price of his
perfidy; but he also received £6,000 sterling. On October 2d,
Arnold's estate at Mount Pleasant was confiscated by the Supreme
Executive Council. It was subsequently sold to pay off a mortgage.
On October 27th, the Council ordered his Loyalist bride, who was
a daughter of Chief Justice Edward Shippen of Philadelphia, to
leave the State within two weeks.60
A widespread fear of Toryism continued to prevail in
Philadelphia after the re-occupation of the city by the Americans.
During 1779 a number of supposed British sympathizers were
prosecuted on various charges; but most of them were acquitted, and a
few were discharged because witnesses failed to appear against
them, although they were required to give security for their good
behavior. Of the few convicted, Samuel R. Fisher, a Quaker, was
sentenced to jail for having sent information to the enemy at New
York; George Hardy, who was to suffer capital punishment for
having helped to disarm citizens of Southwark, was reprieved with
the rope around his neck until after the session of the next
Assembly; Joseph Pritchard was found guilty of misprision of
treason and laid under the penalty of losing his property and being
imprisoned during the war, and William Cassedy, alias Thompson,
was sentenced to death for high treason.61
That the community was not disposed to relax its vigilance
in regard to the Loyalists is shown also by certain events occurring
in the spring of this year. Thus, at the end of March, the Assembly
passed a law empowering the officers of the militia to disarm nonjurors
within their respective districts against whom sworn
information should be given before a justice, permission being
granted to the officers to remove cannon and all other warlike
weapons from buildings belonging to the suspects. In May a
public meeting was held to take measures for ascertaining whether
inimical persons still remained in the city. Its action resulted in
the appointment of a committee to hear evidence against any who
might be accused of unfriendliness to the United States. As the
proceedings of this committee did not meet with popular approval,
the companies of militia formed a committee of their own, which
on October 4th arrested several citizens and took them to a tavern
on the common, where 200 of the militia also assembled. This body
then marched to the house of James Wilson, Esq., a lawyer who
had defended certain Tories accused of treason, taking with them
two cannon and a number of Quakers and Tories whom they had
arrested. Anticipating an attack, Mr. Wilson and his friends were
prepared to resist. Before the mob in the street was finally
dispersed, an affray occurred in which some persons were injured
and three were killed. Twenty-seven of the attacking militiamen
were seized and incarcerated, but were admitted to bail the next
day. On October 6th the Supreme Executive Council issued a
proclamation calling on the other rioters and the inmates of Wilson's
house to surrender themselves, pending a judicial inquiry, and
some of the latter did so. The Council attributed this tumult to the
"undue countenance and encouragement" shown to disaffected
persons by "men of rank and character in other respects," as also to the
frequent disregard of the laws and public authority of the State.
Those who gave themselves up in obedience to the Council s
proclamation were bound over in large sums for their appearance at
the next session of the Court of Oyer and Terminer. David Solebury
Franks, the commissary of British prisoners, who was
involved in this affair and had surrendered himself along with the
others, was ordered to depart the State but delayed until
November 22d, when Joseph Reed, the president of the Council, informed
him that he was expected to set out on his journey the next day
without further indulgence. As for the others involved in this
affair, neither the militia nor Wilson's friends were prosecuted, the
Assembly passing an act of amnesty in their behalf on March 13,
1780.62
Meanwhile, on August 11, 1779, the Supreme Executive Council
asked the chief justice of the State for his opinion regarding
the status of certain Pennsylvania Loyalists, who had been
captured at sea while engaged in a privateering enterprise and were
already confined in the State prison. The chief justice replied that
such of the prisoners as had not owed allegiance since February
11, 1777 (when the law defining treason and misprision of treason
was enacted by the Assembly), were to be deemed prisoners of war,
while any others might be proceeded against as traitors under the
act of September 8, 1778, establishing a Court of Admiralty. On
September 14, 1779, the Council directed the chief justice to
obtain the facts in regard to the prisoners in question and submit
them, together with his advice. What that official reported does
not appear; but it was of such a tenor that the Council ordered the
commissary of prisoners not to exchange his privateering charges
without the further order of the board. On October 1st the
Assembly passed a further supplement to the test laws because, as the
supplement stated, many persons had omitted to subscribe to them
probably "from disaffection to our late glorious revolution." In
order, however, to afford all an opportunity to subscribe, the time
for taking the test was extended to December 1st for the
inhabitants of Cumberland, Bedford, Northumberland, and
Westmoreland counties, thirty-five days being allowed for the inhabitants of
Lancaster, York, Berks, and Northampton counties, and twenty days
only for the non-jurors of the City and County of
Philadelphia, as also for those of Bucks and Chester counties. Persons
refusing to take advantage of these arrangements were declared to
be forever incapable of electing or being elected to office, serving
on juries, or keeping schools, and to be forever deprived of the
privileges and benefits of citizenship. This measure was followed
within a few days by one authorizing the Council and the justices
of the Supreme Court to order the arrest of suspects and to
increase the fines of persons neglecting their militia duty.63
The enactment of such laws indicate that the authorities still
had many Loyalists to deal with. The popular resentment against
this class of inhabitants had vented itself upon the male sex; and
with but few exceptions the action of the Supreme Executive
Council and the other bodies that were entrusted with the promotion
of the cause of liberty had been diected against members of the
same sex. But in June, 1779, the grand jury had made a
presentment to the effect that the wives of British emissaries had not
departed and were keeping up an injurious correspondence with the
enemies of the country, supplying them with intelligence and
propagating the most poisonous falsehoods. This action appears
to have produced no marked effect in causing the wives of absent
Loyalists to follow their husbands into exile, so far as official
records show. During the entire year of 1779 the Council issued
scarcely more than a score of passports to such persons. One of
these was granted to Mrs. Jacob Duché and her children; but on
July 1st another pass was issued to the same family to return on
account of Mrs. Duché's ill-health. Under date of February 4, 1780,
an entry appears in the minutes of the Council that Elizabeth
Fegan, the wife of an attainted traitor, was still lingering in
Philadelphia, after having been accorded permission to go to New York,
and that if she should be found within the State ten days from
date, she was to be arrested and confined in the common jail. The
record shows that a few passes in the usual form, that is, on
condition that the applicant should not return or must obtain the
Council's consent before doing so, were granted during this month.
It was not until March 7th of this year that the Council reached the
conclusion that the grand jury had reached nine months before,
being constrained thereto no doubt by the discovery in an
intercepted journal that Mrs. Samuel Shoemaker, whose husband was
with the enemy, had been assisting prisoners and other persons
inimical to the American cause to pass secretly to New York. At
the same time the power to pardon persons under sentence of death
for treason was vested by legislative act in the Executive Council,
on condition that such persons would depart to foreign lands and
not return to the United States. The Council now decided to
publish notice that passports would be granted before April 15th to
Loyalist wives to go within the British lines to their respective
husbands, and that their neglect of proceeding thither would
render it necessary to take further measures for the purpose. Only
two women seem to have responded to this action, one of these
being Mrs. Shoemaker, who did not secure her pass until April 16th,
and had the courage to ask to be allowed to return within a year,
but was subjected to the condition of obtaining the Council's
consent. On June 6th the Council announced that public notice would
be given to the wives and children of such persons as had joined the
enemy, requiring their departure from the State within ten days,
and that protection would then be withdrawn from any remaining,
who would become liable to prosecution as enemies of the State. A
second clause of this order added that anyone carrying letters to or
from New York or other places in the possession of the British
would be subject to legal action, unless the letters had been
inspected and properly endorsed by a member of the Council, or of
the Continental Board of War, or by the commissary of prisoners ;
and it was recommended that offenders be taken before a justice of
the peace for commitment until the further order of the Council.
On June 13th passports were issued to seven women under the
terms of the new order, and on June 16th to ten more. The ten
days specified in the resolution had now elapsed; but during the
next thirty days the Council had to enforce its decree by directing
that several wives, who had failed to depart, should be put in the
workhouse, until they should give security to leave the State and
not return again. During October several more women were sent
to join their husbands, including Mrs. Esther Yeldall, the wife of
Dr. Anthony Yeldall, who was required to take her five children
with her and furnish bond in the sum of $20,000 not to return to
any of the States during the war. Permission was granted during
the same month to William Hamilton to sail for St. Eustatia and to
Thomas Mendenhall to proceed to Ireland by way of New York.
On December 18th Joseph Stansbury and his family were offered
the privilege of going within the British lines. Mr. Stansbury had
been included in the proclamation of attainder published on June
15, 1778. In 1780 he was arrested and imprisoned in Philadelphia
on the charge of engaging in illicit trade with the enemy, but in
December was allowed to remove with his family and effects to
New York, on condition that he would "use his utmost endeavors"
to have two American prisoners on Long Island returned. On
December 21st his request for his books and papers was granted by
the Supreme Executive Council; and on the 8th of the following
month a passport was issued to Mrs. Stansbury, her six children,
and her maid servant. We hear nothing more of this exiled family
until February 21, 1781, when they were together in New York
City and were put in the way of drawing rations from the British
commissary department. From May 1 to the end of June, 1782,
Mr. Stansbury was employed in the secret service. In June of the
following year he retired with his family to Moorestown, N. J.,
where he had hired a house, but was at once arrested under a
warrant from Governor Livingston and ordered to return to New
York. Here on August 9th he was supplied with a letter of
recommendation from General Sir Guy Carleton to Governor John Parr,
inasmuch as he was about to sail with his household for Nova
Scotia.64
During 1781 a few passports were granted to women to go to
New York, on condition of not returning during the war, and one
on the same condition to Margaret Maguire, whose destination was
Charlestown (S. C.?). But with the advent of the next year a
marked change in the character of the passports is to be noted.
Although numbers of passports continued to be issued during the
remainder of the war, a large proportion of them name other
destinations than New York, and even those which name that
metropolis provide for the return of the applicant. This is not in
variably true, for several exceptions occur during the fall, winter,
and spring of 1782-83; and a group of four within this period
designate Newburyport, while denying the right to return. In
February, 1783, one applicant is permitted and another refused the
privilege of going to Nova Scotia; and on April 17th the Honorable
John Penn, his wife, and attendants are authorized to proceed to
New York. If the Council's formula "not to return" or "not to
return during the war" be taken as a criterion of the Royalist
attachments of those to whom it was applied, over ninety such were
supplied with passports during the period of eighteen months from
the beginning of September, 1778, to the end of July, 1783. Of
these ninety or more, thirteen were men; the others were women
with a few children. In most cases the destination was New York;
but four passports were issued for Newburyport; two for Halifax,
one for Nova Scotia, one for Charlestown, one for St. Eustatia, one
for Ireland, one for Germany, and two for Europe.
Not only the wives of Loyalists who had joined the enemy
proved particularly troublesome during the early months of 1780;
but the Quakers also, both in the City and County of Philadelphia,
proved to be a disturbing element by declining to furnish
information in regard to the amount of their property for the purposes of
taxation, although such concealment rendered them liable to a
four-fold assessment. Then, too, the resident Loyalists were so active
in intrigues of various kinds that the principal Continental officers
in Philadelphia, headed by General Anthony Wayne, published an
address on April 6th declaring their "fixed and unalterable
resolution to curb the spirit of insolence and audacity, manifested by
the deluded and disaffected" by refusing to associate or
communicate with anyone who had exhibited "an inimical disposition, or
even lukewarmness to the independence of America," or with any
one who might give countenance to such persons, "however
respectable his character or dignified his office." They said further that
they would regard any military officers who should contravene the
object of their declaration as a proper subject for contempt. Among
those who were manifesting their inimical disposition at this time
were several persons taken up for aiding British prisoners and
other enemies of the State to escape. One of those arrested was Dr.
William Cooper of Philadelphia, who had concealed a Loyalist for
some time and had then procured him a doctor's place on board an
armed ship. As Dr. Cooper chose to depart rather than give security
for his good behavior in the future, he was granted two months in
which to prepare. John Kugler, his wife Susanna, and Abraham
Harvey, who were examined by the Council on the charge of
helping prisoners and others to flee to New York, Mrs. Kugler being
also charged with harboring spies, were sentenced to jail. The
same punishment was visited upon James Scott and Henry Lane,
two former inhabitants of Philadelphia, who had "recently returned
to the city.65
With so much active Toryism abroad at a time when the
outlook for the American cause was peculiarly discouraging, the
Supreme Executive Council decided on June 6th in favor of
discriminating between the friends of independence and the non-jurors
in exacting supplies to meet the pressing needs of the army.
Three days later the Council proclaimed martial law in
Philadelphia and announced the establishment of an Office of
Enquiry to be conducted by commissioners for the arrest of all
suspicious characters and to take such other measures as the public
safety might require., on the ground that the admission of strangers
into the city without examination was enabling the enemy to send in
spies and emissaries, distribute counterfeit money, and employ
other means to defeat the public welfare. All civil and military
officers and other faithful inhabitants of the Commonwealth were
therefore required to assist the Board of Enquiry in its operations.
Horses belonging to Quakers and Loyalists were seized for the use
of the army; the houses of persons suspected of disloyalty to
America were searched for arms and, in order to facilitate the
collection of provisions, an embargo was laid on all outward-bound
vessels, except those in the service of France. The immediate occasion
of these rigorous measures is to be found in a sudden invasion of
New Jersey by the British.66
A committee of Friends presented a memorial to the Assembly
of 1780, complaining of laws detrimental to their liberties and
privileges and explaining that they were restrained by divine ordinances
from complying with "tests and declarations to either party"
engaged in actual war. The memorial also stated that members of the
society had suffered abuse and that some of them had been subjected
to oppression by public officials, especially in the enforcement of
the militia law. The committee of the Assembly, to which this
communication was referred, formulated a series of questions designed
to call forth from the Quakers an expression of their sentiments
towards the State, and received a reply thereto which the
committee characterized as "an evasion of the questions proposed." As
the Assembly paid no further attention to the matter, the Quakers
soon adopted an address in vindication of their political course.67
The Tories, however, were not treated with such leniency by
the Executive Council, which admitted to surety, imprisoned, or
sent within the enemy's lines suspicious persons; sentenced
several to be hanged who were charged with enlisting in the British
service, and was responsible for the execution of David Dawson
of Chester on December 25th for visiting Philadelphia while in
Howe's possession. Phineas Paxton, an inn-keeper of Bucks
County, who was tried on the same date with Dawson (June 27th)
for aiding in the escape of British prisoners, was forbidden to
keep a tavern any longer, required to furnish a bond of £30,000,
or more, and was committed to prison until he should comply with
these conditions. The next two cases, which arose nearly a
fortnight after Paxton's, gave the Council the opportunity of exercising
its power of pardon, newly bestowed by act of the General
Assembly, and apparently first employed in behalf of Edward Greswold
("Grizzle") and John Wilson, two youthful deserters from Captain
Jacob James's troop of Philadelphia Light Dragoons, who had
returned, like others who had enlisted under Howe's proclamation,
surrendered themselves, and received sentence of death. Later,
however, they were fully restored to their former standing as
acceptable citizens of the State.
In November it was discovered that a number of inhabitants
of Philadelphia, together with certain persons in New Jersey and
New York City, were carrying on trade with refugees in the latter
place. Lumber was shipped in vessels sailing from Philadelphia
with two sets of clearance papers. On arriving at New York the
lumber was sold, and the goods purchased with the proceeds were
sent to Shrewsbury, N. J., and then were secretly conveyed to
Philadelphia. That such trade had been going on for some time
appears from a statement published in the New Jersey Gazette of
Trenton, under date of January 20, 1779. This statement declared
that on January 2d a certain Joseph Castle had been apprehended
at Mansfield on his way to the enemy in New York, via Shrewsbury,
without any passport, and was committed to jail in Burlington;
that Castle had a number of letters from Tories in Philadelphia to
their friends in New York, some of which showed that a constant
correspondence was maintained and traffic carried on between
refugees in New York and disaffected persons in New Jersey and
Pennsylvania, chiefly by way of Shrewsbury where, as a matter of
fact, a considerable number of Tories resided. The statement
closed with an admonition to magistrates and others to examine
suspicious persons traveling to and from Shrewsbury.
Notwithstanding this public warning, the Supreme Executive Council did
not apprehend some of the participants in it until late in November,
1780, when eleven of these culprits were given a hearing. A few of
them were sent to New Jersey for trial; several more were released
on bail, and the others were imprisoned. Among those arrested
were Joseph Stansbury, who was allowed to go to New York with
his family, as we have already seen; Joshua Bunting of
Chesterfield, N. J., who kept the stage-house where the agents of the traders
stopped, and James Steelman, John Shaw, and William Black,
captains of vessels engaged in the trade. The discovery of this long-continued
conspiracy resulted in the forming of a "Whig
Association," for the purpose of suppressing all intercourse with
Loyalists and suspected persons, and many military officers served on
the executive committee of the new organization.68
Meantime, considerable damage was being inflicted on the
commerce of the city by the operations of Tory privateers in
Delaware Bay and River, despite the efforts to prevent it by sending
out several pilot boats, a Continental packet, and one of the State
galleys.69
Notwithstanding the Council's unremitting measures in
regard to returned and absent Loyalists, that body found its authority
over such persons jeopardized by petitions and resolutions
addressed to the Assembly, which it claimed were calculated to
rescind its decisions. It therefore sent a message to the House,
March 27, 1781, in which it denied any desire on its part to
restrict the liberty and liberality of the Assembly in the way of
special legislation to annul executive proceedings, but ventured to
suggest that such legislation necessarily tended to "lessen the
weight of the Council," disturb the harmony of government, and
would "eventually injure the real interests of the State." It urged
that a better way would be to repeal laws openly and explicitly if
they were too severe, or reduce the powers of the Council if they
were too extensive; and it concluded by asking for a conference
with the House. We can only surmise that the result of this
conference was in keeping with the views of the Supreme Executive
Council, for its authority does not seem to have been materially
lessened.70
In November of this year a plot to steal away the secret
journals and other papers of Congress was discovered. The execution of
this plot, which had been concocted by Benedict Arnold, was
undertaken by Lieutenant James Moody of the first battalion, New
Jersey Volunteers, one of the most daring Loyalists in the King's
service, together with his brother, John Moody, and Lawrence
Marr. These men had an accomplice in Addison, an Englishman,
who was an assistant to the secretary of Congress. While waiting
concealed in a house on the Delaware, Lieutenant Moody
accidentally learned that his ally had betrayed the plot; that his
associates were already taken, and that a party of soldiers had crossed
the river in search of him. Managing to escape up the Delaware
in a small boat, he succeeded in reaching the British lines after a
week's time. His brother was hanged on the Philadelphia common
before the end of the month; but Lawrence Marr was respited and
afterwards released.71
The arrest of the Loyalists engaged in the illicit traffic with
New York City, which was effected at about the same time that
John Moody was executed, did not suffice to put an end to the
intercourse between New York and Philadelphia. That intercourse
continued, indeed, during the year 1782, being carried on by means
of wagons with false bottoms and sides, in which 800 pounds of
goods could be stowed away. Articles for shipment were also
placed in kegs, which were then hidden in barrels of cider and thus
carried to their destination. By a law passed in September "for
the more effectual suppression of intercourse and commerce with
the enemies of America British goods were declared contraband
and liable to forfeiture, while the importer was punishable with
three months' imprisonment."72
For some time small groups of Pennsylvania Loyalists had
been carrying on predatory warfare in the southeastern part of
the State. These bands of "robbers," which were well mounted,
committed their depredations with such boldness and success that
both the Supreme Executive Council and the Legislature were
moved to take action against them. On July 17, 1782, the Council,
having received information that Thomas Bulla, Stephen
Anderson, and John Jackson, three inhabitants of Chester County who
had been attainted, were writing letters to various citizens,
threatening to burn their houses and effects, issued a proclamation
offering a reward of £50 in specie for the arrest and imprisonment
of Bulla and of £20 each for the incarceration of the other two.
Some months later Gideon Vernon, another attainted Loyalist,
returned to Chester County and was harbored by John Briggs, who
was sentenced to pay a fine of £50 and suffer imprisonment for a
season. On June 3, 1783, however, the Council decided on
petition from Briggs to remit his term in jail, on condition that he
furnish security for the payment of his fine, in addition to the fees
and costs of the prosecution and for his good behavior during the
next three years. The names of Vernon and Bulla, together with
those of the notorious Doane brothers of Bucks County and eleven
others, appear in a proclamation of the Council, dated September
13, 1783, which quotes a special act of the Assembly authorizing
their speedy arrest and punishment as persons who have been
duly attainted with complicity in these crimes. As the act offered
a reward of £300 each for the delivery of the offenders to the
sheriff of any county in the Commonwealth, and also a reward of £50
for the discovery of any one who had aided or comforted them, or
had received booty stolen by them with the knowledge that it had
been stolen, the Council ordered all judges, justices, sheriffs, and
constables to make diligent search for the offenders and their
abettors. This order and the liberal rewards offered were efficacious, at
least in so far as the Doanes were concerned; although Israel Doane
had already been captured and put in jail in the previous February.
A petition, which he addressed to the Council for release, on account
of the destitute condition of his family and his own sufferings, was
dismissed. In September, 1783, Joseph Doane, the father of Israel
and his brothers, was in the Bedford County jail. In October, 1784,
Aaron Doane was under sentence of death at Philadelphia, but
was pardoned by the Council in the following March. Abraham
and Mahlon, two other brothers who were mentioned in the
proclamation, paid the full penalty for their depredations: they were
hanged in Philadelphia. Moses Doane was shot and killed by his
captor after a desperate encounter. Joseph Doane, Jr., while on
one of his raids, was severely wounded and taken prisoner, but
escaped from jail and crossed into New Jersey. There he lived under
an assumed name for nearly a year, without giving up his former
employment. At length he fled to Canada. Sabine tells us that
"several years after the peace, he returned to Pennsylvania — 'a poor,
degraded, broken-down, old man' — to claim a legacy of about £40,
which he was allowed to recover, and to depart."73
When the contents of the preliminary treaty of peace became
known at the end of the revolutionary struggle, the more violent
Whigs were much dissatisfied with the provisions according
Loyalists the right to go to any part of the United States and remain
there for twelve months, while forbidding their persecution or the
future confiscation of their property. On May 29, 1783, the militia
gathered at the State House and adopted resolutions against
permission being granted to Tory refugees to return, or remain among
Americans who had been faithful to their country; announcing
the militia's determination to use all means at command to prevent
them from doing so, and expressing a readiness to join with others
in sending instructions to their representatives in the Assembly.
The resolutions further declared that persons harboring or
entertaining those enemies of the country ought to feel the highest
displeasure of the citizens," and called for a town meeting to decide
on the method of instructing representatives and such other
measures as might appear necessary, and for the appointment of a
committee to carry the purpose of the assemblage into effect.
Accordingly, a general meeting of citizens was held at the
State House, June 14th, and resolutions of the same general tenor
as those adopted by the earlier meeting were agreed to, but with
an added clause pledging those present to use every method "to
expel with infamy" those refugees who had presumed, or should
in future presume, to return, while authorizing a committee to
publish their names in the city papers and see to the execution of the
resolutions. The meeting asserted its decided conviction that "the
restoration of estates forfeited by law" was "incompatible with the
peace, the safety, and the dignity of the commonwealth." After
the committee had served peremptory notice on a few returned
Loyalists, earnest remonstrances were made against its action,
which was criticized as being repugnant to the treaty of peace; but
no attention was paid to them by the committee.74
In truth, more compassion was shown to attainted Loyalists
by the Supreme Executive Council than was manifested to these
unfortunate refugees by a committee whose only powers were derived
from an unauthorized mass meeting.
CHAPTER VIII
THE PARDON OF ATTAINTED LOYALISTS BY THE
SUPREME EXECUTIVE COUNCIL, 1780-1790
As we have already noted, attainted Loyalists were first
pardoned by the Council in July, 1780. The clemency exercised in
behalf of Frederick Buzzard, February 13, 1784, was of lesser degree,
for he had been convicted in Chester County of nothing worse than
aiding British prisoners to escape, and had been fined therefor. A
third of the amount imposed having been already paid by Mr.
Buzzard or his friends, the Council relented on appeal and remitted the
remainder. During the next five years the names of eight attainted
persons appear in the minutes of the Council as those of applicants
for the mercy and forgiveness of that body. In the case of the first
two of these persons the action taken was to suspend the attainder
until the next session of the General Assembly. In the case of the
next five petitioners, full personal pardon was granted, but this
does not appear to have carried with it the restoration of
confiscated property in a single instance. In the last case contained in
our list leave to withdraw the petition was granted, the Council
being averse to considering the applicant's claim for a pardon.
Taking up these cases in their order, we shall consider
their special features. The first petition in our series was
one signed by various inhabitants of Philadelphia in behalf
of Matthias Aspden, a former merchant of the city, who had
abandoned a business that brought him a profit of £2,000 annually,
gone to New York, and sailed in 1776 for Corunna, Spain, on his
way to London. Nine years later Mr. Aspden had returned, and
his friends had undertaken to secure a pardon for him, although
he is said to have hastened back to England on finding that his
life was in peril. The petition in his behalf was first read in
Council, November 14, 1785; but it was not acted upon until January
19th of the following year, when Mr. Aspden was reprieved until
the next session of the Assembly. In April, 1786, this latter body
seems to have granted him a full pardon. However, he did not
recover his house, wharf, and warehouses in Philadelphia, which had
been confiscated by the State, April 1, 1781, and which were given
to the university. Despite his pardon, Mr. Aspden did not remain
in America; in 1802 he was in France; in 1804 he was traveling
in Italy; in 1815 he was at New York, and in July, 1817, he left
Philadelphia for England by way of Canada. He died in London,
August 9, 1824, leaving a will which Sabine says gave rise to the
most extraordinary suit ever instituted under the confiscation
acts of the Revolution. It was not finally decided until in 1848,
when his American heirs secured a decree in the United States
Circuit Court that gave them property valued at more than $500,000.
This decree was sustained by the Supreme Court against the
appeal of the English claimants.75
John Potts who, like Matthias Aspden, was granted a reprieve
until the Assembly should have a
chance to act on his case, was, as we already know, one of Sir
William Howe's magistrates of the police at Philadelphia, having
served earlier as a judge of the Court of Common Pleas. After
retiring to New York he had been attainted in 1779, and at the peace
he probably went to Nova Scotia as a refugee settler. His
application for a pardon was favorably considered by the Council on
May 26, 1786.76
Of the group of five Loyalists whose requests were fully
accorded, it may be remarked in general that none of them was as
prominent or influential as either of the two who had received at
the hands of the Council only suspension of sentence. Moreover,
the first of the five, Thomas Gordon, put forward the claim that he
was under lawful age at the time of his attainder, and he asked
only that the Council would institute process in the Supreme Court
of the State to determine the validity of its sentence in view of the
fact alleged. Gordon's petition was finally granted, November 26,
1787, after the lapse of seven and a half months from the time of
its presentation.77
The second petitioner in this group was Robert
Cunard of Norristown, Montgomery County, who, like hundreds of
his fellow-Pennsylvanians, had joined the British army in 1777.
His application was read and concurred in, June 1, 1789. While
there was nothing unusual about the career of Mr. Cunard, he left
descendants in the persons of his grandsons, the offspring of his
son Abraham, a merchant at Halifax, who later became widely
known as the Brothers Cunard, the founders of the Royal Mail
Steamship Line.78
The third applicant in this group was John Wilson of
Bucks County, who submitted reasons in his petition why he
should be granted a pardon in so far as respected his person only.
On hearing this document read, the Council voted "that the said
John Wilson be and he is hereby pardoned."79
A similar action was
taken, February 6, 1790, in favor of the fourth petitioner in our
list, namely, Arthur Thomas of Philadelphia, who represented that
he had "behaved himself peaceably" since his attainder and that
he was desirous of returning to Pennsylvania. The fact that Mr.
Thomas was recommended to the mercy of the Council by a
number of respectable citizens seems to have carried weight with the
board, whose secretary not only mentions the recommendation in
the records, but also notes that the resolution granting pardon was
adopted unanimously. This petitioner, however, did not remain at
Philadelphia permanently. In May, 1786, he was living in
Wilmington, Del.80
The last member of this group was John Rankin, who
settled at the conclusion of the war in the Quaker colony at Pennfield,
N. B., the lands of which he helped to select, being one of the
three agents sent from New York City by an association of
Pennsylvania Quakers for the purpose. The vicissitudes which this
colony passed through in 1787 and the years just following served
to disperse many of the settlers at Pennfield, among them being
John Rankin, whose petition must have expressed a deep desire of
his heart, when he asked to be restored to the rights of citizenship
in Pennsylvania. The Council acceded to his prayer on March 9,
1790.81
Thus far the Supreme Executive Council had not failed to give
a favorable answer to the petitions for pardon that had been
submitted to it by relenting or disappointed Loyalists. Finally,
however, came the most surprising petition of all, that of the former
arch Tory of Pennsylvania, Joseph Galloway, who, after his
retirement to England, had stood forth as the irrepressible
champion of American Loyalism in his criticisms of the campaigns in
the Middle Colonies, in his elaborate discussion of the provisions
relating to the Loyalists in the treaty of peace, in his manifold
services as agent for his fellow-sufferers, and in his correspondence
with many Loyalists who continued in America. So far as one can
judge from the entry in the Council's minutes, Mr. Galloway's
petition, which was presented by his attorney, Thomas Clifford, was
terse and formal, contenting itself with "stating the attainder of
the said Galloway of high treason, and praying that Council would
be pleased to grant him a pardon of the said offense." It was read
the second time on May 18, 1790, "when on motion of the Vice
President [George Ross, Esq.], seconded by Mr. [Richard]
Willing, it was Resolved, That Mr. Clifford have leave to withdraw the
said petition." Technically, then, Mr. Galloway's application was
not refused: it was withdrawn, and its author remained in
England until the time of his death in 1803.82
It was probably sometime after this action that a proposal was
offered in Council to bestow a general pardon upon such as still
rested under the State's proscription. But by a vote of
December 3, 1790, the "further consideration" of this motion was
postponed until the 7th of the same month, and when that date
arrived the consideration of the motion was again postponed. It is
more than possible that the recollection of Mr. Galloway's petition
was enough to dampen any generous impulses the Council may
have felt towards granting amnesty to the mass of offenders who
were as yet unpardoned, and that it still preferred to deal
individually with such cases as might arise from time to time.
Notwithstanding the popular resentment against Loyalists
returning to or remaining in Philadelphia after the peace, many did
nevertheless remain, and some did return, besides those who took
the precaution to provide themselves with pardons. Of those who
continued to reside in Philadelphia Edward Shippen, LL. D., is a
notable instance. As we have already seen, his daughter was
expelled from the State as the wife of Benedict Arnold, after the
latter's treason. Mr. Shippen, however, was not only permitted to
remain, but was elevated to the chief justiceship in 1799. This
appointment was held by him until his death in 1806. Another of those
who found it possible to see the Revolution through without
withdrawing from the city was the quaint teacher of Greek and Latin
in the Friends Academy, Robert Proud. He is described as having
worn a curled gray wig and a half-cocked hat above a Roman nose
and a "most impending brow;" and his letters to his brother show
him to have possessed "high Tory feelings." He is best remembered
by his History of Pennsylvania, a work in two volumes, which was
published in 1797 and 1798. He died in 1813, at the age of eighty-five
years. Christopher Sauer, Jr., the Tory printer of Germantown
who left with the British at the evacuation of Philadelphia, came
back later and died near the city in August, 1784. John Parrock,
who had formerly been a resident of the Quaker City, returned from
New York when the British troops and their thousands of Tory
adherents left there in 1783; and although he bore the stigma of
attainder and his property had been confiscated, he remained until
March, 1786, when he proceeded to Halifax. The fact that Chief
Justice Benjamin Chew was sent into temporary exile for refusing
to sign a parole in 1777 did not prevent his entering the State again
after passing through that disagreeable experience, nor did it
prevent his being appointed president of the High Court of Errors and
Appeals in 1790. He continued to serve in this capacity until the
tribunal over which he presided was abolished in 1806, which was
only four years before his death. Governor John Penn, who was Mr.
Chew's associate in exile, was supplied with passports to New York
for Mrs. Penn, himself, and their attendants on April 17, 1783.
Whether they were on their way to England at this time does not
appear, although it is probable that they were. If so, Mr. Penn
returned later; for he died in Bucks County in 1795. The Reverend
Jacob Duché, who spent the years of his banishment in England,
recrossed the ocean in 1790 and appeared in Philadelphia shattered
in health, although he survived until 1798.83
During 1784 the General Assembly was more or less occupied
in considering proposals to abolish the "test laws." A petition for
their repeal was presented in March, but was laid on the table by
a vote of thirty-seven to twenty-seven. A resolution introduced in
September stated that numbers of young men, who had arrived at
eighteen years of age since the passage of the laws, had not taken
the oaths of allegiance, and were thus being deprived of their
citizenship. It called for a law to remedy this condition of affairs, and
was supported by a petition from non-jurors for admission to
political and civic rights. In the course of the discussion that
followed a resolution was offered in favor of denying the privilege
of holding salaried office to citizens who had voluntarily joined
the British army, or been convicted of aiding or abetting the King.
This resolution was adopted by a vote of forty-six to four. On
September 25th a new proposal came up for passage. This was that
the test laws be so amended as to entitle all white male inhabitants
who had not subscribed, to take the oath under the act of June 13,
1777, and thus become free citizens, but that no person should be
eligible to office until he had also taken the oath prescribed in the
act of December 5, 1778. This measure was carried by a vote of
twenty-nine yeas to twenty-two nays. Three days later the speaker
cast the deciding vote in favor of a motion to take up a bill entitled
"A further Supplement to the Test Laws" and nineteen members
left the Assembly, which was thus deprived of its quorum. The
seceders justified their conduct by declaring in an address to the
public that improper methods had been employed to force the bill
through and insisting that those who had not participated in the
toils and sufferings of the Revolution should not share in its
benefits. The speaker of the Assembly and other advocates of the
revision of the test acts urged in reply that legislation for the relief
of non-jurors was necessary, both in order to enfranchise
those who had been too young to subscribe to the test act of 1779
and the older men who had been unoffending neutrals during the
war and had paid their full proportion of its expense. They
estimated that nearly one-half of the inhabitants of Pennsylvania had
been deprived of the rights of citizenship by the law of 1779, and
added that there could be no danger of any abuse by extending the
law since, under its provisions, no person who had joined the British
army or had been convicted of aiding and abetting the King was
eligible to office.
This question became one of the issues in the election,
which was held in October, and the voters in the City and
County of Philadelphia, as probably also in other parts of the
State, chose candidates for the Assembly who were opposed to the
extension of the rights of citizenship to the non-jurors. In
December General Anthony Wayne led in the struggle to amend the test
laws, adducing as his chief argument that they were depriving of
representation many inhabitants who were, nevertheless, subject
to taxation, but his amendment was postponed; and a subsequent
motion to instruct a committee to report a bill revising the test
laws was lost by a vote of eleven ayes to forty-seven nays. Similar
efforts during 1785 also ended in failure, although, according to
a local historian, the law of 1779 operated with such severity in
certain districts of the State that "the number of free men who
were entitled to all privileges of citizenship was not sufficient to
administer the local government."84
Despite this serious condition of affairs, a new test act was
passed, March 4, 1786, because in the words of the act itself
"many of the inhabitants" had failed to subscribe to one or another
of the oaths contained in the earlier acts within the times specified,
thereby depriving themselves of the privileges of citizenship, and
also because it was thought that not a few of the non-jurors would
now be willing to testify to their allegiance, since independence
was an established fact. It was therefore enacted that non-jurors
might take a new test before a justice of the peace of the district
in which they lived. The subscribers had to swear or affirm that they
renounced all allegiance to King George III., his heirs and
successors, that they would bear true faith to Pennsylvania as a free
State, and that they had never voluntarily joined or assisted the
King, his generals, fleets or armies, or their adherents. Another
section of the law declared that no benefit from its provisions should
extend to any person attainted of high treason, nor to any one who
had "joined, assisted, or countenanced the savages in their
depredations." Obviously, this last clause was aimed at that body of
Pennsylvanians who had fled during the war to Fort Niagara and
Detroit from the Susquehanna and upper Delaware valleys and
from Pittsburgh, respectively, and had thereafter cooperated with
the Indians in raids against the frontiers. But the new law,
although it was enacted three years after the end of the Revolution,
failed likewise to show any leniency to the much larger number of
Loyalists who, under the stress of circumstances, including
persecutions, had sought safety within the enemy's lines, not to speak
of those who had enlisted in the royal service. It should be noted
that Robert Morris had sought to mitigate the severity of the law
by offering two motions, one to strike out certain words describing
the new oath as one of "abjuration," and the other to omit the
clause in regard to aid rendered to the King, or his generals, fleets,
and armies; but both of these motions were lost. The law,
therefore, as passed, left no loophole by which unrelenting Loyalists,
whether still within the State or desiring to return to it, might
become citizens.85
The test law of March 4, 1786, remained in force a little over
a year, when it was at length amended, March 29, 1787, about in
conformity with the ideas of Robert Morris by the substitution of
an oath that was doubtless far less objectionable to the Loyalists.
The explanation offered for this action was that the abjuration of
the King was no longer effectual, since he had formally renounced
the allegiance of the inhabitants of the United States, that many
useful citizens were disqualified by their scruples against taking
the test as it stood, and that it was impolitic to deprive the
community of their allegiance. Henceforth, therefore, the subscriber
would only be required to swear to his allegiance to Pennsylvania
as an independent State and to abstain from doing anything
injurious to the freedom thereof. Those consenting to subscribe to this
simple oath were declared free citizens.86
It was not, however, until March 13, 1789, that the Assembly
reached the point where it was prepared to annul the entire series
of test acts, including even that mentioned in the preceding
paragraph. All these laws were now declared to be repealed and all
non-jurors to be restored to citizenship.87
That the animosities between Whigs and Tories were still
capable of revival was shown later in the same year in connection
with the opposition arising between factions in two Scotch
Presbyterian congregations of Philadelphia over the question whether
the Associate Presbytery of Pennsylvania should remain subject
to the Synod of Edinburgh. One of these factions besought the
Assembly for a law annulling this relationship in so far as it
concerned the holding of the local church property. The other or Tory
faction was opposed to such a measure. Nevertheless, a law was
enacted in September, which canceled the declaration of trust
between the local presbytery and the parent synod to the extent of
releasing the former from subjection to a foreign jurisdiction.
As the opposing faction comprised men of influence in
Philadelphia, it had been able to delay the passage of the law for
several months; and even after the measure had been enacted by a
proportionate vote of three to one, this faction attempted in
November to induce the Legislature to repeal the act, although without
success. While the question at issue was strictly sectarian in
character, its political implications aroused general interest and
discussion in the city.88
CHAPTER IX
THE SALE OF FORFEITED ESTATES
Since the close of October, 1777, the estates of those who had
gone within the British lines had been subject to confiscation by
the commissioners of the various counties appointed "for the
purpose, and some estates had been seized. A register of these was
kept by the secretary of the Supreme Executive Council, who was
at length ordered by that body, April 12, 1779, to give notice that
the realties of thirty-seven persons who were named and of others
not named would be "speedily sold by public auction or vendue."
Of those whose names were given, fourteen had been citizens
of Philadelphia, including Joseph Galloway, Andrew Allen, William
Allen, Jr., Jacob Duché, Samuel Shoemaker, and John Young,
gentleman; six had been inhabitants of the County of Philadelphia,
including John Potts of Pottsgrove, Christopher Sauer, a printer of
Germantown, and Henry Hugh Ferguson, Esq., of Graeme Park,
late commissary of prisoners for General Howe; three of Bucks
and Lancaster counties, respectively; four of Chester County; two
of York County; one of Northampton County; two of Trenton,
N. J., namely, Peter Campbell, gentleman, and Isaac Allen,
attorney at law, and Andrew Elliott, Esq., of New York City.89
During August and September, 1779, the Council found it
necessary to postpone certain sales until after the next session of
the Supreme Court of the State, in order that particular claims or
liens upon the properties in question, or certain petitions relating
thereto, might be passed upon. The first deed was issued under
date of August 5th of the year just named. Early in the following
March the Council adopted a resolution that the agents for
confiscated estates proceed to the sale of all estates held by attainted
persons by less than fee simple title, whether through right of
marriage or otherwise, since such estates were proving burdensome
to the State. Eight days later (i. e., on March 18th,) the Council
appointed a standing committee from among its own members to
fix the exact times of sales and of payment previous to the signing
of any deed, because purchasers had been taking advantage of the
depreciation of money by neglecting to comply with the conditions
of sale, namely, to pay one-fourth of the purchase money in ten
days, and the remainder in one month from the time of the sale
"to the great injury of the State, and the embarrassment of the
sales."90
During the nine months since sales of the confiscated estates
had begun, they had not been numerous: from August 5 to
November 29, 1779, inclusive, there had been but ten sales, three being
of properties in Philadelphia, four in the county of the same name,
one in the County of Chester, and two in the County of
Northampton. Results during the first four months of 1780 were but little
better, there being only twelve sales during this interval, namely,
two of estates in Philadelphia, seven in the County of
Philadelphia, and one each in the counties of Chester, Bucks, and
Lancaster. The Council was not satisfied with this showing, especially
in the two Philadelphia districts, where it looked as though
certain marketable properties were being held back. On May 8, 1780,
this dissatisfaction manifested itself in the form of instructions
to the agents for the City and County of Philadelphia to proceed
to the sale of all forfeited estates within their respective districts,
giving due notice thereof according to law. Four days thereafter
this order was extended to all the counties, any former order of
the Council to the contrary notwithstanding. Sales then continued
without official interruption until November llth, when they were
suspended by action of the Council until further notice. However,
deeds were again being issued to purchasers at the end of another
fortnight. On February 21, 1781, all agents were requested to
render a full return of all forfeited estates within their several
counties, the names of attainted persons, their real property, the names
of purchasers, and the prices at which sales had been made. Eight
and a half months later a supplementary report was called for
concerning all forfeited estates remaining unsold and the interest held
therein, whether in fee simple or otherwise, by the persons who
had forfeited them. The only return recorded in the minutes of the
Council under this request appears to have been that of Robert
Smith, agent for the City of Philadelphia, who reported but three
properties in his district. Sales were still in progress as late as
December, 1790, up to which time properties of seventy-five
persons had been disposed of, and 136 or more deeds had been issued.
The names of the attainted owners appearing most frequently in
the records of sales listed in the Council's minutes are those
of Andrew Allen, Joseph Galloway, Samuel Shoemake, Christopher
Sauer, Alexander Bartram, John Parrock, and John Rankin.91
A number of the confiscated estates, however, are not listed
in the records of sales, for they were appropriated, as we have
already seen, to serve as sources of endowment for the University
of Pennsylvania. Two properties were similarly appropriated to
be used as residences of State officials: thus, the house and lots of
Joseph Galloway at the southeast corner of Sixth and Market
streets were taken over by act of March 18, 1779, for the benefit
of the president of the Supreme Executive Council, while the large
mansion of the Reverend Jacob Duché at the northeast corner of
Third and Pine streets became the domicile of Chief Justice
McKean. Later the property of Mr. Galloway ceased to be occupied
and fell rapidly into a state of decay. By act of April 6, 1786,
therefore, the Legislature ordered the Executive Council to
advertise it for sale.92
In this connection certain cases of confiscation may be
mentioned on account of their exceptional character. Proceedings
against the estate of Raymond Keen, who presented himself
before the chief justice within the time specified and was discharged
from prosecution, were declared null and void on his petition to
the Assembly. The special act relating to Keen's case restored to
him such of his lands and tenements, rights, and credits as had
not been sold by the Commissioners for the Sale of Forfeited
Estates. The estate of Henry Hugh Ferguson was transferred by
legislative authorization of April 2, 1781, to his wife, Elizabeth
Ferguson. A preliminary statement is needed to make clear the
case of Thomas Gordon. Gordon was a minor in 1778, when he
was placed by his mother on board a British vessel in the port of
Philadelphia, against his own inclination. As he was still absent
from the country on August 5, 1779, by which time he should have
presented himself for trial under a proclamation of attainder, his
estate was confiscated. Later he returned to Philadelphia and
applied to the Assembly for the restoration of his property, and his
petition was granted by act of March 29, 1788. It was afterwards
discovered, however, that the commissioners had disposed of his
estate; and on September 27, 1791, the Assembly directed the
comptroller general to give Gordon a certificate for the money
received by the State on account of the sale of his property, including
interest at the rate of six percent from the date of sale.93
CHAPTER X
THE EMIGRATION OF PENNSYLVANIA LOYALISTS
I. Flights to England
The first Loyalists so far as known to leave Philadelphia for
England were Richard Penn and Judge Samuel Curwen, both of
whom took their departure in 1775. The latter remained in the
mother country until the end of July, 1784, when he sailed for
Boston, Mass., where he arrived on the 25th of the following
September. He spent the remainder of his days in his native land. Mr.
Penn had been governor of Pennsylvania from 1771 to 1773, and
had then served as a member of the Council and as a naval officer
of the Colony under his brother, Governor John Penn; but on
returning to England, he was entrusted with the second petition
of Congress to the King. He died in Britain in 1811. It was
reported that the Reverend Jacob Duché sailed from Philadelphia in
December, 1777. As he had acted for three months as chaplain to
the first Continental Congress, he seems to have felt the need of
conciliating his ecclesiastical superiors in England. In the spring
of 1780 he was followed across the water by his wife and children,
who sailed from New York. Mr. Duché returned to Philadelphia
in 1790, after an exile of twelve years. He died eight years later.
The fugitive governor of New Hampshire, John Wentworth, stopped
at the Quaker City early in 1778 on his way to London, where he
arrived according to Governor Hutchinson's Diary on March
13th, after a passage of twenty-four days. A week later Mr. Hutchinson
records that he received a call from his fellow-exile who,
we may add, had been granted an annual allowance of £500 twelve
months before by the Lords of the Treasury. When General Howe
left Philadelphia on his homeward voyage about the middle of
May, 1778, it was stated in one of the newspapers that he was
accompanied by some of the refugees. This was probably true. At
any rate, there were a few Pennsylvanians in London in July, 1779,
at which time they signed an address to the King. Among them
were Thomas Bank, Peter Biggs, Charles Eddy of Philadelphia,
Jabez Maud Fisher, William Harris, and John Johnson. Joseph
Galloway sailed from New York for England with his only
daughter in October, 1778, from which time he was paid, like Governor
Wentworth, £500 per annum from the Treasury.94
In London he
told Governor Hutchinson, whose acquaintance he made early in
the following December, that all Pennsylvania and New Jersey
would have returned to their allegiance if the British army had
not moved from Philadelphia, that they would still do so under a
proper prosecution of the war, the past conduct of which he sweepingly
condemned, and he expressed the opinion that the Middle
Colonies were tired of the contest. On another occasion he
mentioned to Hutchinson his having applied to General Howe, as soon
as he had heard that Philadelphia was to be evacuated, to learn
what was to become of the magistrates of the city, and said that
Howe had advised them to make terms with General Washington
under a flag of truce, but that Clinton had assured them that
America would be vanquished and that their salaries should be continued
to them. Galloway sought to convince the British authorities that
less than one-fifth of his fellow-countrymen favored the
Revolution, which had been strengthened by disarming and intimidating
the Loyalists, that under adequate protection and assistance most
of the people would openly support the royal government, and that
more efficient measures would soon reduce America. In June, 1779,
the House of Commons instituted an investigation into the
American war, Mr. Galloway serving as one of the most important
witnesses. His testimony was so damaging and dealt so severely with
the operations of the commanding officers in America that the
investigation was dropped. But Mr. Galloway continued the
agitation through pamphlets and letters, the object of which was to
convince the English people and government that the subjugation
of America was not only feasible, but was also necessary for the
maintenance of the British power in the world. When peace was
made, another pamphlet was published by the distinguished
refugee from Philadelphia, in which he examined unsparingly that
clause in the treaty which related to the Loyalists. As agent for
this class of war sufferers, he rendered valuable service, his
daughter declaring that "for twenty years his morning room was often
crowded, and seldom empty of Americans who received from him
his best services in their own affairs." Mr. Galloway died at
Watford, Herts, England, August 29, 1803, in his seventy-first year.95
It would be interesting to know something of the arrival of the
several thousands of refugees from Philadelphia at New York, and
what public provision was made for them in a city to which large
numbers of such people had been resorting since the summer of
1776, when the British took possession of Staten and Long islands
and of the neighboring metropolis. That special accommodations
were necessary appears from the statement of David Mathews,
the mayor of New York, who reported, August 25, 1783, that after
the evacuation of Philadelphia and the second great fire in New
York he was directed by General Clinton to proceed according to
earlier orders for the purpose of providing for the distressed refugeees,
namely, "to grant, without fee or reward, permission to erect
temporary habitations on the vacant lots of persons residing
without the lines," Mr. Mathews adding that "the lots were held by the
erectors of the tenements only during pleasure."96
Among those Pennsylvanians who, like Galloway, withdrew
to England from New York were some who, together with many of
their fellow-countrymen from other States, waited until the
evacuation of the metropolis was near at hand before doing so. A few
among these were, on petition to the Treasury Board in London,
granted financial support in substantial amounts. Thus, Samuel
Shoemaker, Daniel Coxe, and John Potts, the former magistrates
of police at Philadelphia, were given £200 a year each a little more
than a year after their arrival in New York; and Arodi Thayer,
who had been tide surveyor at Philadelphia, had his salary
continued at the rate of £80 per annum. Inasmuch as the commander
in chief was constantly being petitioned by Loyalist families in the
city for relief in one form or another, especially from the spring
of 1779 on to the fall of 1783, he constituted a committee or board
consisting of Mr. Shoemaker, Colonel Beverley Robinson of New
Jersey, and Robert Alexander of Maryland; and on October 2,
1782, he ordered "that all memorials cognizable by the Board which
assembles at Mr. Shoemaker's may be sent there and proceeded on
without a reference from Head Quarters." It was added that the
people were to be sent there with their memorials. At the end of
this year the quarterly allowances from September 30th which the
Board recommended for various refugees totaled £1,075, or £1,410
New York currency. Not only did Mr. Shoemaker serve as a
member of this board of relief, but he also interceded with the British
admiral in behalf of Whig prisoners and was successful in having
numbers of them liberated and sent home. At length, in August,
1783, he sailed for England with his son Edward. Before doing
so, however, he sent word to the vice-president of the Council of
Pennsylvania, that he would cheerfully surrender the papers
relating to Philadelphia that were in his possession to any person
authorized to receive them. While in London he was often
consulted by the Commissioners appointed to settle the claims advanced
by Loyalists for the losses they had suffered.97
If memorials and
letters of recommendation from the commander in chief, Sir Guy
Carleton, are an indication, not a few Pennsylvanians were
preparing to follow Mr. Shoemaker to London in the autumn of 1783.
Among these persons were Messrs. Potts and Coxe, who
received letters of recommendation to Lord North bearing
the date of November 13th. Another Tory who had been
prominent in the life of Philadelphia, and who crossed the Atlantic
after the peace, was James Humphreys, Jr., the former publisher
of the Pennsylvania Ledger. However, he soon proceeded to Shelburne,
N. S., but returned to Philadelphia in 1797, where he
engaged in the printing and book publishing business until his death
in February, 1810. His fellow-townsman, Isaac Hunt, who, after
being carted through the streets of the Quaker City by a mob, fled
to the West Indies and took church orders there, removed later to
England and became a tutor in the family of the Duke of Chandos.
Mr. Hunt was the brother-in-law of the artist, Benjamin West,
and the father of James Henry Leigh Hunt, who died in 1859,
after winning renown as a poet and miscellaneous writer. The
distinguished Philadelphia physician, Phineas Bond, who was one of
the founders of the University of Pennsylvania and a professor in
that institution, also appears to have retired to the mother country
for a few years; but in 1786 he was appointed British consul for
the Middle States. After some hesitation on the part of Congress,
he was received in his official capacity and continued as consul for
many years. 98
II. The Migration to Nova Scotia
Aside from this notable group of Pennsylvanians and
temporary residents at Philadelphia who went to England, and for the
most part remained there, a considerable number settled in Nova
Scotia. Of these, many families found homes in the new Loyalist
city of Shelburne. Sabine in his Loyalists of the American
Revolution gives the names of more than four score men from
Pennsylvania, most of whom received town lots there by grant of the
government, on which they settled with their families. These
grantees included some successful merchants, chiefly from
Philadelphia, who had sustained larger or smaller financial losses as the
result of the war: as, for example, Alexander Bertram, whose
forfeiture was estimated at £5,000; William Briggs, who is said to
have suffered to the extent of £3,000; Henry Guest, whose loss was
placed at £1,000, and others, who had been injured in lesser
amounts. Other men of prominence who took up their abodes at
Shelburne were James Allen of Philadelphia, with his family of
four persons; John Boyd, a surgeon from the Quaker City, and
Benjamin Booth, one of its merchants, who acted as secretary of
the loyal refugees in New York City in 1778. Lieutenant Colonel
Abraham Van Buskirk with three other officers and a few privates
of the 3d battalion of the New Jersey Volunteers settled in
Shelburne, after leaving New York for that destination at the end of
September, 1783. Colonel Van Buskirk was soon elected mayor of
the town.99
That many of these men remained in affluent
circumstances, despite their losses, is indicated by the fact that they did
not leave their servants behind in removing to Nova Scotia. Other
places, such as Halifax, Annapolis, Digby, Rawdon, Granville,
Argyle, and Ship Harbor, appear to have made but slight gains
in population from Pennsylvania. Among those who located in
Halifax was Dr. James Boggs, who had been a member of the
medical staff of the royal army during the Revolution, and was for
many years after 1783 surgeon of the forces at the Nova Scotian
capital. John Parrock returned from New York to Philadelphia
at the close of the war, but in March, 1786, sailed for Halifax with
the purpose of engaging in the whaling business.100
Of the Tory regiments which had been formed in or near
Philadelphia parts of two are known to have located in Nova
Scotia, namely, the Philadelphia Light Dragoons and the British
Legion. The Legion had been organized under General Sir Henry
Clinton's orders by Colonels Lord Cathcart and Bannister Tarleton
in May and June, 1778; and in the winter of 1781 it appears to
have absorbed the Philadelphia Light Dragoons. At the close of
April, 1782, the Legion was stationed at New Utrecht near
Brooklyn, L. I. It then numbered 471 men, of whom more than two-thirds
were cavalry. At the end of September, 1783, about eighty
of these men were still at Brooklyn, the rest having embarked
earlier in the same month with Major George Hanger for Halifax.
Port Mouton in Queen's County, N. S., was allotted to the British
Legion, and a number of houses were at once erected there; but on
the discovery in the following spring that the soil was barren and
stony, the settlers began preparations for removal. They were
interrupted, however, by an accidental fire, which destroyed the town
and reduced them to the verge of starvation. The authorities at
Halifax promptly despatched a vessel laden with provisions, thus
averting the threatened famine. Most of the members of this
disbanded corps removed at once to Chedabucto Bay at the eastern
end of Nova Scotia, where they founded the town of Guysborough.101
III. The Migration to New Brunswick
Although Nova Scotia proper must have received at the
evacuation of New York City and the neighboring islands in
the fall of 1783 at least 800 former residents of Pennsylvania,
the Province of New Brunswick (which was created in 1784)
probably gained the larger share of these people; for most, if not
all, of the Loyalist regiments which contained Pennsylvanians were
disbanded and given crown lands in New Brunswick; and one
large association of Pennsylvania Quakers settled together at Pennfield
on the north shore of the Bay of Fundy. Sabine, who had the
use of the original agreement among the founders of Pennfield,
asserts that it was formulated in 1782. Presumably, it was under
this agreement that a meeting of Quakers was held at the house of
Joshua Knight, 36 Chatham Street, New York City, on
July 5, 1783, in order to decide some matters of importance in
connection with their plans. At this meeting Samuel Fairlamb, John
Rankin, and George Brown were appointed agents to locate lands
for the association and to transact any business incident to the
occupation of these lands. The agents soon submitted a memorial to
Sir Guy Carleton asking the privilege of seeking lands for about
sixty families on the River St. John, or elsewhere in that region
where suitable ungranted lands might be had; and Carleton
forwarded this document under date of August 9th to Governor John
Parr at Halifax. The site selected was at Beaver Harbor, which
lies north of the island of Grand Manan; and by October the new
settlement was already in existence. One hundred and forty-nine
lots were included in the original grant. That incoming settlers
rapidly joined the colony is shown by the statement of a writer
who, shortly after its foundation, estimated the number of its
inhabitants at 800. According to an old plan in the British Museum,
there were "fifteen streets and 950 lots in the town proper, with
large tracts laid out in farm and garden lots beyond." The County
of Charlotte, in which Pennfield was situated, was established June
4, 1785; and the Parish of Pennfield was erected in the following
year. It was agreed to build a small meeting house, July 7, 1786,
on ground allotted for that purpose. We are told that a fire
devastated the town in 1787, which must have greatly increased the
distress and want among the pioneers at Pennfield. About the time
of the fire, however, partial relief was afforded through the efforts
of two Quaker gentlemen from Philadelphia who had visited
Beaver Harbor a twelvemonth before, and on their return home
had raised a subscription with which they bought and shipped 240
barrels of flour and Indian meal, together with some other
necessaries, to be distributed among their destitute brethren. Possibly
through the instrumentality of the same gentlemen donations were
also received from persons in England during the winter of
1788-89. Whatever recovery Pennfield made from its first
conflagration was wiped out by a forest fire in 1790, which left but one
dwelling house standing. According to a recent writer, "a few of
the inhabitants, including the family of Joshua Knight, remained
or came back to rebuild their dwellings at or near the old sites";
but some of the settlers removed to Pennfield Ridge, others to
Mace's Bay, and still others went elsewhere. In June, 1803, the
population of the Parish of Pennfield, which continued to consist
of Quakers principally, numbered only fifty-four. This little
community occupied a good tract of land and lived chiefly by farming,
although it sustained two saw-mills and had recently launched two
vessels of 250 tons burden each.102
We may now turn to the settling of the enlisted men from
Pennsylvania, together with their families, in New Brunswick.
After the cessation of hostilities the City of Philadelphia, which had
been the scene of so much recruiting among the Tory residents and
refugees during the British occupation, adopted the following
resolution: "That the people of this town will at all times, as they have
ever done, to the utmost of their power oppose every enemy to the
just rights and liberties of mankind: That after so wicked a
conspiracy against those rights and liberties by certain ingrates, most
of them natives of these States, and who have been refugees and
declared traitors to their country, it is the opinion of this town
that they ought never to be suffered to return, but be excluded from
having lot or portion among us. And the Committee of
Correspondence is hereby requested to write to the several towns in this
Commonwealth and desire them to come into the same or similar
resolves if they shall think fit." The determination by the
victorious party to exclude the Loyalists illustrated by the above
resolution, although it was not consistently enforced even in Philadelphia,
was prevalent throughout most of the States, and was recognized
by the officers of the Loyalist regiments at New York.
These officers therefore submitted their case to Sir Guy Carleton
in a letter dated March 14, 1783, saying that whatever
stipulations might be made at the peace for the restoration of the
property of the Loyalists and for their return home, yet, should the
American States be severed from the British Empire, it would be
impossible for those who had borne the King's arms to
remain in the country. They maintained that the personal
animosities arising from civil dissensions had been so heightened by
the blood shed in the contest that the opposing parties could never
be reconciled. They spoke of the personal sacrifices made by the
Loyalists; of the anxiety they felt for the future of their wives and
children; of the fidelity of the troops; and of the great number of
men incapacitated by wounds, many of them with families who
had seen better days. They therefore asked for grants of land
in some of the royal American provinces and for assistance in
forming settlements, in order that they and their children might
enjoy the boon of British government. They also requested
pensions for such non-commissioned officers and men as had been
disabled by wounds and for the widows and orphans of deceased
officers and soldiers, besides permanent rank and half-pay for the
officers on the reduction of their regiments. This letter was
signed by the commanders of fourteen provincial regiments; and its
requests were all eventually complied with.103
Indeed, steps were taken within a month after the
presentation of the letter looking to the location of the lands asked for by
the officers, when several of the petitioners were themselves
appointed agents to go to Nova Scotia for this purpose. These agents
were Lieutenant Colonels Edward Winslow, Isaac Allen, Stephen
DeLancey, and Major Thomas Barclay, who spent the spring and
summer of 1783 in exploring the River St. John from St. Ann's
Point (Fredericton) for about 100 miles upwards, completing their
work and returning before the end of July. Winslow then secured
authority at Halifax to lay out blocks of land for the several
regiments, in keeping with the suggestions of Sir Guy Carleton that
the allotments should be by corps and as near to each other as
possible, with the officers' lands interspersed among those of the men
so that the settlers might be united and ready for defense in case
of an attack on the colony. These blocks were afterwards known
as "the twelve mile tracts."
In August, 1783, the royal instructions relative to the
disposal of the troops at New York arrived ; and on September 12th
Carleton ordered Lieutenant Colonel Richard Hewlett of the 3d
battalion of DeLancey's Brigade to assume command of the principal
British American regiments, which had already embarked nine
days before at Brooklyn, having been encamped during
the summer at Newtown, L. I., Hewlett was to accompany these
troops, already considerably depleted through losses and
departures with and without formal discharge, to the River St. John,
and take the proper measures to get them promptly to the locations
assigned for their settlement. They sailed with a quantity of
necessary stores on the 15th, and on the day following, Brigadier
General H. E. Fox and his military secretary, Edward Winslow, left
for St. John to inspect the lands up the river and arrange for the
reception of the regiments. According to the figures of the
commissary general's office at New York, about 4,000 persons
connected with the Loyalist regiments sailed for the St. John up to
October 12th. Not less than 5,000 had embarked for the same
destination earlier in the same year, and a small number went after
the departure of the regiments, which arrived on September 27th.
Three days later they disembarked and encamped above the Falls;
and by October 13th they were disbanded for the most part, and
were going up the river as fast as the scarcity of small craft on
which they had to depend for conveyance would admit. In
December the last of the transports from New York arrived, bringing a
supply of clothing and provisions, in addition to her passengers,
who were chiefly women and children.104
Soon after their coming, the regiments drew for their
blocks of reserved land, which were shown and numbered on a
plan of the river prepared by the surveyor general of Nova Scotia;
but as yet lots had not been surveyed for individual settlers. The
tracts drawn by several of the regiments were too remote for their
liking; the season was already far advanced, and the difficulty of
transport was great. Hence, many of the disbanded officers and
soldiers preferred to spend the winter at the mouth of the river,
and not a few of them drew lots in the Lower Cove district of Parrtown
(St. John), which was laid out for the refugees in December,
1783. Both those who remained here and those who pushed on up
the river, except a few of the latter who found shelter in the houses
of the old inhabitants, were compelled to endure the severities of
a bitter season in rude huts or in canvas tents thatched with spruce
boughs and banked with snow. Needless to say, the women and
children suffered most, and numbers of them did not survive
through the winter. Among the Pennsylvanians, who were grantees
of Parrtown, were Joseph Canby, John Chubb of Philadelphia, and
Ross Currie, a lieutenant of the Pennsylvania Loyalists, who
received half pay and became one of the first practitioners of law in
the new community; while Robert Stackhouse of Mount Bethel,
Pa., was a grantee of Carleton, another Loyalist town which sprang
up on the west side of the river. Abraham Iredell, who had lived
near Philadelphia and had been deputy surveyor in Northampton
and Northumberland counties, Pa., settled in Parrtown, where
he enjoyed half pay as a lieutenant of the Royal Guides and
Pioneers, while serving as deputy surveyor of New Brunswick.
Christopher Sauer, 3d., a printer of Germantown, began the publication
of the Royal Gazette in Parrtown and was deputy post master of the
Province in 1792, but returned to the States seven years later and
died at Baltimore, Md., in July, 1799.105
It will be remembered that the principal corps in which Pennsylvanians
enlisted were the Pennsylvania Loyalists, the Queen's
Rangers, the Royal Guides and Pioneers, the New Jersey
Volunteers, and the Philadelphia Light Dragoons. Most of the men
of these organizations, except the last ones, had come to New
Brunswick with Colonel Hewlett; and it remains for us to note the
locations taken up by these regiments after their disbandment and
some other items concerning them. The 1st and 3d battalions of
the New Jersey Volunteers were among the Loyalist corps that
preferred to remain at Parrtown and await new allotments of
land, rather than ascend the river to the distant tracts at first
assigned to them. Meantime, many of the men of the 3d battalion
boarded schooners with their families for the winding and tedious
voyage of nine or ten days to St. Ann's Point. As six inches of
snow fell on November 2d, or about three weeks after their
arrival, not a few were caught by the cold weather without other
shelter than their tents. Some, to be sure, had managed to erect
rude huts for their protection, or to be received into the cabins
of earlier settlers along the river; but others took their tents into
the depths of the forest and there set them up, where game and
firewood abounded, and a poor kind of shelter was afforded by the
thick woods. Nevertheless, the sufferings of these exiles were
intense, and "the loyal Provincials Burial Ground" at Salamanca
was frequented by mourners, although the dead were not
infrequently buried near the snow-banked tents of the living. When
mild weather came the refugees made good use of their axes and
saws in felling trees for the erection of log houses, which were
roofed with bark and lighted by small glass windows, while the
fireplaces and chimneys were built of stone cemented with yellow
clay. Among the houses erected at this time was that of Colonel
Hewlett, who had lost his stores, tools, baggage, and other property
to the value of £200 in the wreck of the Martha, one of the
transports which had brought the Loyalist regiments to New
Brunswick. Spring came none too soon in this Northern wilderness, for
the people at Salamanca were already running short of provisions;
but they were now able to supply themselves with pigeons,
partridges, moose, fish, and edible roots, and to supplement their scanty
supply of vegetable food by the discovery of large patches of beans,
which had been planted by earlier inhabitants of the region,
probably by the French.106
A few members of the 3d battalion, as
already noted on a preceding page, went from New York to Shelburne,
N. S., and settled there.107
There was evidently a considerable number of the men of the
3d New Jersey Volunteers still at Parrtown as late as January 17,
1785, when Captain Samuel Ryerson of this battalion
memorialized Governor Thomas Carleton in behalf of his waiting comrades
for lands in the unoccupied parts of Prince William Parish and of
a reserve of 4,000 acres below the Pokiok, on account as he
affirmed of the distance and sterility of soil of Block No. 12, which
they had originally drawn. However, Ryerson's petition was not
then complied with, although both the memorialists and the men
of the 1st New Jersey Volunteers, who had drawn Block No. 14,
eventually obtained more convenient locations in the counties of
York, Sunbury, and Queens. The 2d New Jersey Volunteers got
settled without the disheartening delays experienced by its sister
battalions, for it fell heir to one of the desirable tracts, namely,
Block No. 2, which became the Parish of Kingsclear in 1786, and
lies only about twenty miles above Fredericton. It contained
38,450 acres on the south side of the River St. John, and was
granted under date of July 14, 1784, to Lieutenant Colonel Isaac
Allen and 143 others of his battalion. Another grant of 14,050
acres on the headwaters of the Kennebecasis was made to Colonel
Allen and 94 others in the same month and year. In 1799 the first
mentioned grant to Allen and his men was canceled in chancery,
and a new and much smaller grant at Mactaquac on the north bank
of the St. John was assigned him and others.106
Two days after the Loyalist troops arrived at the mouth of the
River St. John a small party of the Royal Guides and Pioneers
came ashore, September 29, 1783, one day in advance of the
general disembarkation. Presumably these men proceeded on their way
up to St. Ann's Point on the 30th, for Colonel Hewlett wrote to
Sir Guy Carleton at the time to that effect. They must therefore
have shared in the hardships of the following winter. The rest of
the Guides and Pioneers, except the company of Black Pioneers
which embarked at New York in October, 1783, for Annapolis in
Nova Scotia, remained at Parrtown. They drew Block No. 3 on the
north side of St. John River above the Keswick, the mouth of which
lay within their district. They took possession of their block in
1784, being joined later by other Loyalists; but it appears that their
grant was not issued until November 7, 1787, and that it included
what were known as Crock's Point and Burgoyne's Ferry. Some
of the men of this corps also settled in Queensbury Parish along
with the Queen's Rangers. Concerning the Black Pioneers, who
had been attached to the corps of the Guides and Pioneers, Sir Guy
Carleton's instructions to Brigadier General H. E. Fox were that
Governor Parr should be asked to grant them a town lot and about
twenty acres in the vicinage, in case they settled near a town like
Shelburne, but that they be given a hundred acres in case they
settled in the country as farmers.107
The obvious intention of these
instructions was that each member of the company should receive
the amount of land mentioned.
On April 15, 1783, Major R. Armstrong, in the absence of
Lieutenant Colonel John Graves Simcoe, commander of the Queen's
Rangers, who had returned to England, authorized Colonel Edward
Winslow to locate lands and obtain grants for the 575 persons then
connected with the corps, of whom 305 were privates, sixty women,
and seventy children. During the interval of five months that
elapsed before the Rangers sailed with the other regiments for
New Brunswick, their numerical strength seems to have declined
markedly. At Parrtown some of the Rangers drew lots and thus
became grantees of the place; but the large majority, that is, more
than two-thirds of those for whom Major Armstrong had requested
grants, settled together on Block No. 5, or the Parish of Queensbury,
on the north side of the River St. John. James Brown and
sixty-six other Queen's Rangers received a grant of 17,674 acres
in Queensbury as late as January 30, 1787.110
The corps of the Pennsylvania Loyalists, which numbered 171
men at the end of the year 1778, when it was sent with other troops
to Pensacola to assist in the defense of West Florida against the
Spaniards, had no more than sixty-eight men at the time of its
return to New York in June, 1782. Between this date and the
summer of 1784 nearly half of this number had scattered, for Thomas
Knox, who took a census of the regiments on the River St. John
during that summer, found but thirty-six men, fourteen women,
eight children, and five servants belonging to the corps occupying
their lands in Block No. 7, across the river from Woodstock. The
presence of these settlers led to the establishment of the Parish of
Northampton in 1786. On August 17th of the following year,
William Burns and other Pennsylvania Loyalists received a grant of
lands within the original block. The Parish of Southampton, which
was also settled by members of the corps and their descendants,
was not created until 1833. But not all of the men of the
Pennsylvania Loyalists who came to New Brunswick settled in these
parishes. The Reverend Doctor W. 0. Raymond tells us that they
were to be found at various places within the Province.111
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Journal and Letters of the late Samuel Curwen, Judge of Admiralty, etc., a Loyalist Refugee
in England, during the American Revolution. 3d ed.
"Letters of Robert Proud." In The Pennsylvania Magazine of History and Biography, XXXIV,
No. 133.
"Letters of Thomas Wharton, 1773-1783." In The Pennsylvania Magazine of History and
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"Narrative of the Transactions, Imprisonment and Sufferings of John Connolly, an American
Loyalist and Lieutenant-Colonel in His Majesty's Service." In The Pennsylvania Magazine of
History and Biography, XII, Nos. 3 and 4; XIII, No. 3.
"Narrative or Journal of Capt. John Ferdinand Dalziel Smyth, of the Queen's Rangers." In
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Scott, Duncan C., John Graves Simcoe.
STATE AND LOCAL HISTORIES
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Haliburton, Thomas C., History of Nova Scotia, II.
Ganong, W. F., Monograph of Historic Sites in the Province of New Brunswick; Monograph
of the Origins of the Settlements in New Brunswick.
Jack, D. R., Centennial Prize Essay on the. History of the City and County of St. John, N. B.
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Proud, Robert, The History of Pennsylvania . . . Of the General State in which it Flourished, principally between the Years 1760 and 1770. Written principally between the Years
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Raymond, Rev. W. O., The River St. John.
Scharf, History of Maryland.
Vroom, J., Courier Series, LXXII.
Scharf and Westcott, History of Philadelphia, I.
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and History, West Virginia, 1911-1914.
Stryker, William S., The New Jersey Volunteers (Loyalists) in the Revolutionary War.
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OFFICIAL RECORDS AND LAWS
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Charters, Statutes, and By-Laws of the University [of Pennsylvania]. Revised, March, 1826.
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XV.
Colonial Records of Pa., X, XI, XII, XIII, XIV, XV, XVI.
Examination of Joseph Galloway, Esq., Late Speaker of the House of Assembly of
Pennsylvania, before the House of Commons, in a Committee on the American Papers. With
Explanatory Notes. 2d ed. London, 1780.
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GENERAL AND MISCELLANEOUS WORKS
A Century of Population Growth in Die United States, 1790-1900.
Drake, Francis S., Dictionary of American Biography.
Gentleman's Magazine, August, 1778.
Medical Department of the University of Pennsylvania. Issued by the Medical Professors of the
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Society, No. 5.
Sargent Winthrop, ed., Loyal Verses of Joseph Stansbury and Dr. Jonathan Odell.
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——————————
1. Colon. Records of Pa., X, 288.
2. Siebert, "The Tories of the Upper Ohio" in Bien. Report, Arch, and Hist., W. Va., 1911-1914, 41; Pa. Mag. of Hist, and Biog., Apr., 1889, 154-166 ; Oct., 1889, 281-286; Colon. Records of Pa., X, 461, 470 ; XI, 196 ; XIII, 160, 163. Papers read before the Lancaster Co. Hist. Soc., VII, No. 6, 126; Sec. Rep., Bur. of Archives, Ont., Pt. II. 1144-1146; Rev. W. O. Raymond's Ms. Notes from the Muster Rolls of the Provincial Corps; Am. Arch. 4th Ser.,
IV, 88, 104, 112, 155, 479, 508, 598, 617; V, 1119, 1121, 1122; VI, 433, 434, 435.
3. Thwaites and Kellogg, Frontier Defense on the Upper Ohio, X, 14, 21-24, 33-42, 46, 61-53, 64-68, 70, 142-145, 184-187, 260; Jour, of Cong, (new ed.), IX, 831, 942-944, 1018; Sec. Rep. Bur. of Archives, Ont., (1904), Pt. I, 537; Pt. II, 963, 964; Pt. I, 150.
4. Thwaites and Kellogg, Frontier Defense on the Upper Ohio, 249-255, 260, n. 14; Heckewelder's Narrative, 182; Thwaites and Kellogg, Rev. on the Upper Ohio, 74, 75; Sec. Rep., Bur. of Archives, Out., (1904), Pt. II, 985, 987, 988, 1082, 1282.
5. Thwaites and Kellogg, Frontier Defense on the Upper Ohio, 247, 278, 279, 286, 234, n., 98; Sec. Rep., Bur. of Archives, (1904), Pt. II, 988, 1284.
6. Rep. on Am. Mss. in Roy. Inst. of Gt. Brit., Ill, 6. 46, 47; I, 20; IV, 241; Sec. Rep., Bur. of Archives, Ont., (1904), Pt. I, 55, 56; Scharf, Hist, of Md., II. 366-368; Siebert, "The Tories of the Upper Ohio" in Bien. Rep., Archives and Hist., W. Va., (1911-1914), 45, 46.
7. Sec. Rep., Bur. of Archives, Ont. (1904), Pt. I, 65; Third Rep., Bur. of Archives, Ont. (1906), 222, 223; Siebert, "The Dispersion of the American Tories," in the Miss. Valley Hist. Rev., I, 189, 190.
8. Siebert, "The Loyalists and Six Nation Indians in the Niagara Peninsula" in Trans. Roy. Soc. Can., IX (1915), 80, 81, and references there given.
9. Siebert, "The Loyalists and Six Nation Indians in the Niagara Peninsula" in Trans. Roy. Soc. Can., IX (1915), 82-86. and references there given.
10. Sec. Rep., Bur. of Archives, Ont., (1904). Pt. I. 831, 480; Pt. II. 968, 968. 970, 973. 974. 975, 981. 984. 990, 997, 1001. 1008, 1262, 1263; Trans. Roy. Soc. Can.. IX (1916), 95, ff., 117. ff.
11. Scharf and Westcott, Hist of Phila., I, 293, 294, 296, n. 1.
12. Scharf and Westcott, Hist, of Phila., I, 300, 301; Duane, ed.. Extracts from the Diary of Christopher Marshall; Sargent, ed., Loyal Verses of Jos. Stansbury and Dr. Jonathan Odell, 133; Curwln, Journal and Letters, 25-30. 487.
13. Colon. Records of Pa.. X, 280, 302, 342, 343, 359, 360, 367, 372, 373, 880, 385, 386, 410; Raymond, ed., Winslow Papers, 42, n:; Rep. on Am. Mss. in the Roy. Inst. of G. Brit., II, 79; Scharf and Westcott, Hist, of Phila., I, 295, 303.
14. Scharf and Westcott, Hist of Phila., I, 302, 305.
15. Ibid., 305, 326; 2d Rep., Bur. of Archives, Ont. (1904), Pt. I, 613; Colon. Records of Pa., X, 461, 466, 469, 47O, 472, 477, 485, 502, 616, 618, 638, 661, 662, 676, 731, 756, 778.
16. Pa. Mag. of Hist, and Biog., XV, 263, 265-270, 273, 275, 277, 279-281, 283, 285, 286, 289, 290.
17. Scharf and Westcott, Hist, of Phila, I, 811.
18. Pa. Mag. of Hist, and Biog., Jan., 1889, 388; July, 1885, 187, 190 191; Am. Arch. 5th Ser., III, 1230, 1231, 1377, 1397, 1434.
19. Sargent, ed., Loyal Verses of Jos. Stansbury and Dr. Jonathan Odell, 117, 122; Duane, ed., Extracts from the Diary of Christopher Marshall, 80, 81.
20. Pa. Mag. of Hist, and Biog., XV, 279; Statutes at Large of Pa., IX, 11-12, 18-19; Laws of Pa., II, 144-147; Scharf and Westcott, Hist, of Phila., I, 316, 322, 323.
21. Statutes at Large of Pa., IX, 45-47; Scharf and Westcott, Hist, of Phila,., I, 326, 329, 336; Colon. Records of Pa., XI, 38, 43, 94; Pa. Mag. of Hist, and Biog., July, 1885, 193-195; Oct., 1885, 280, 282, 286, 287; Dec., 1902, 432, 433; 2d Rep., Bur. of Archives, Ont. (1904), Pt. I, 94 ; Am. Arch. 5th Ser., Ill, 1434.
22. Scharf and Westcott, Hist. of Phila., I, 339; Sabine, Loyalists of the Am. Rev., II, 335.
23. Statutes at Large of Pa., IX, 110-114.
24. Pa. Mag. of Hist, and Biog., Oct., 1885, 287; Scharf and Westcott, Hist, of Phila., I, 341; Jan., 1889, 401, 395, 385, 386; Laws of Pa., II, 154; Statutes at Large of Pa., IX, 110-114.
25. 2d Rep., Bur. of Archives, Ont. (1904), Pt. I, 270.
26 Scharf and Westcott, Hist, of Phila., I, 343; Pa. Mag. of Hist, and Biog., Oct., 1885, 286; Apr., 1902, 101, 104.
27. Colon. Records of Pa., XI, 264, 267, 279, 283, 284, 286-290, 295, 300, 309; Gilpin, Exiles in Va.; Pa. Mag. of Hist, and Biog., Jan., 1910, 63.
28. Gilpin, Exiles in Va.; Scharf and Westcott, Hist, of Phila., I, 344, 345, 346.
29. Pa. Mag. of Hist, and Biog., Oct., 1885, 288, 292; Jan. 1886, 443; Scharf and Westcott, Hist, of Phila., I, 343, 345.
30. Scharf and Westcott, Hist, of Phila., I, 347; 2d Rep., Bur. of Archives, Out. (1904). Pt. I, 253, 295, 494, 611; Pt. II, 900, 1162; Washington Papers, I, 178; Am. Mss. in the Roy. Inst. of Gt. Brit., I, 132.
31. Colon. Records of Pa., XI, 307, 308.
32. Scharf and Westcott, Hist, of Phila., I, 348, 349, 350; Pa. Mag. of Hist, and Biog., Jan., 1910, 72.
33. Pa. Mag. of Hist, and Biog., Oct., 1889, 298; Oct., 1885, 293, 294; Duane, ed., Extracts from the Diary of Christopher Marshall, 132; Sargent, ed., Loyal Verses of Joseph Stansbury and Dr. Jonathan Odell, 140; Scharf and Westcott, Hist, of Phila., I, 360.
34. Scharf and Westcott, Hist, of Phila., I, 349, 350, 352, 354, 360; Pa. Mag. of Hist, and Biog., Oct., 1885, 291; Oct., 1889, 298; Jan., 1886, 429; Jan., 1910, 1; 2d Rep., Bur. of Archives, Ont. (1904), Pt. I, 669, 684; II, 835, 741; Am. Mss. in the Roy. Inst. of Gt. Brit., I, 136, 138, 139, 143, 150; Rev. W. O. Raymond's Ms. Notes from the Muster Rolls of Col.
Edward Winslow; Stryker, N. J. (Loyalist) Vols. in the Rev. War (pamphlet), 12; Sabine,
Loyalists of the Am. Rev., II, 378; Siebert, "Refugee Loyalists of Conn." in Trans. Roy. Soc. of Can., Ser. Ill, Vol. X (1916), 82, 83; Scott, John Graves Simcoe, 24; Read, Life and Times of Governor Simcoe, 27; Rep. on Am. Mss. in the Roy. Inst. of Gt. Brit., I, 234 ; III, 170;
IV, 474.
35. Pa. Mag. of Hist, and Biog., Dec., 1902, 435, 436; Jan., 1886, 438; Scharf and Westcott, Hist, of Phila., I, 360; 2d Rep., Bur. of Archives, Ont. (1904), Pt. I, 109, 112, 129, 160. 165, 222, 260, 269, 296, 498, 517, 564, 669, 684; II, 741, 827, 835; Sabine, Loyalists of the Am. Rev., I, 296, 339, 421; II, 112, 199, 301, 325; Rep. on Am. Mas. in the Roy. Inst. of Gt. Brit., I, 146, 160, 201, 218, 277, 364.
36. Scharf and Westcott, Hist, of Phila., I, 359, 366, 367, 383; Sabine, Loyalists of the Am. Rev., II, 360; I, 654, 556.
37. Scharf and Westcott, Hist, of Phila., I, 359.
38. Pa. Mag. of Hist, and Biog., Jan., 1886, 431, 436; N. J. Archives, 2d Ser., II, 35, 65, 81, 126, 127.
39. Scharf and Westcott, Hist, of Phila., I, 367, 373.
40. Pa. Mag. of Hist, and Biog., Jan., 1886, 438; Scharf and Westcott, Hist, of Phila., I, 360, 361, 365, 373, 374, 375.
41. Laws of Pa., II, 159 ; N. J. Archives, 2d. Ser., II, 56, 57, 87.
42. Scharf and Westcott, Hist, of Phila., I, 371-382; Gentleman's Magazine, Aug., 1778.
43. Scharf and Westcott, Hist, of Phila., I, 383, 384; Pa. Mag. of Hist, and Biog. Oct., 1889, 307; XXII (1898), 145.
44. Siebert, The Flight of the Am. Loyalists to the Brit. Isles (pamphlet), 8, 9, and the references there given; Scott, John Graves Simcoe, 22 ; Reed, The Life and Times of Simcoe, 29; N. J. Archives, 2d Ser., II, 263, 264, 267, 269, 272-276, 285-291, 296; Simcoe's Journal, 62 passim; Ms. Muster Rolls of Col. Edward Winslow (in possession of the N. B. Hist. Soc., St. John, N. B.)
45. Rev. W. O. Raymond's Ms. Notes from Col. Edward Winslow's Muster Rolls.
46. Statutes at Large of Pa., IX, 146-151; Laws of Pa., II, 389; Scharf and Westcott, Hist, of Phila., I, 367, 384, 386.
47. Col. Records of Pa., XI, 325, 326, 328, 329.
48. Ibid., 332, 333, 839, 863.
49. Colon. Records of Pa., XI, 483-485, 504, 505, 512-518, 587; XII, 27, 496, 665, 710; Laws of Pa., II, 165-176; Scharf and Westcott, Hist, of Phila., I, 377.
50. Statutes at Large of Pa., IX, 149-151; Scharf and Westcott, Hist, of Phila., I, 377.
51. Laws of Pa., II, 223-229, 258; III, 113-121, 302-306.
52. Laws of Pa., III, 302-306; Scharf and Westcott, Hist, of Phila., I, 385, 386.
53. Statutes at Large of Pa., XIV, 184-187.
54 Laws of Pa., II, 230-234; Scharf and Westcott, Hist, of Phila., I, 406, 407.
55. Laws of Pa., Ill, 200; Statutes at Large of Pa., XII, 431-435; XIV, 81-85.
56. Sabine, Loyalists of the Am. Rev., II, 162, 163; Colon. Records of Pa., XVI, 4, 83, 300, 306. Scharf and Westcott, Hist, of Phila., I, 407.
57. Colon. Records of Pa., XIV, 45, 271, 273; XV, 167.
58. Colon. Records of Pa., XV, 631, 609; XVI, 36, 37. 139.
59. Scharf and Westcott, Hist, of Phila., I, 385, 886, 387, 394.
60. Scharf and Westcott, Hist, of Phila., I, 389-393; Rev. W. O. Raymond's Ms. Notes on Col. Edward Winslow's Muster Rolls.
61. Scharf and Westcott, Hist, of Phila., I, 400.
62. Statutes at Large of Pa., IX, 346-348; Colon. Records of Pa., XII, 121, 130, 137-139, 145, 162; Scharf and Westcott, Hist, of Phila., I, 401-403; Sabine, Loyalists of the Am. Rev., II, 444, 445; Laws of Pa., II, 257.
63. Colon. Records of Pa.. XII, 71, 74, 103, 112; Statutes at Large of Pa., IX, 277-283, 404. 407; Laws of Pa., II, 219.
64. Colon. Records of Pa., XI, 43, 518, 571, 642, 649, 673, 758; XII, 11, 21, 24, 29, 86, 44, 61, 68, 69, 79, 81, 101, 120, 243, 253, 256, 257, 270, 271, 300, 352, 377, passim; XIII, 17, 21, 30, 59, passim; Rep. on Am. Mss. in the Roy. Inst. of Gt. Brit., II, 248; III, 85; IV, 216, 269; Laws of Pa., II, 253, 254.
65. Scharf and Westcott. Hist, of Phila., I, 408, 410; Colon. Records of Pa., XII, 272, 301, 807, 880, 839, 342.
66. Colon. Records of Pa., XII, 272, 301, 307, 330, 339, 342, 383, 884; Scharf and Westcott, Hist, of Phila., I, 410, 411.
67. Scharf and Westcott, Hist, of Phila., I, 411.
68. Colon. Records of Pa., XII, 401, 419; Scharf and Westcott, Hist, of Phila., I, 412, 413; N. J. Archives, 2d Ser., Ill, 33, 34, 89, 94, 368.
69. Scharf and Westcott, Hist, of Phila., I, 413.
70. Colon. Records of Pa., XII, 675.
71. Narrative of James Moody; Sabine, Loyalists of the Am. Rev., II, 48, 96, 97; Laws of Pa., II, 379; Scharf and Westcott, Hist, of Phila., I, 419.
72. Ibid., 424.
73. Colon. Records of Pa., XIII, 333, 590, 687-690; Sabine, Loyalists of the Am. Rev., I, 381-383.
74. Scharf and Westcott, Hist, of Phila., I, 427, 428.
75. Colon. Records of Pa., XIV, 34, 578, 625; Sabine, Loyalists of the Am. Rev., I, 186-190.
76. Colon. Records of Pa., XV, 26; Sabine, Loyalists of the Am. Rev., II, 199.
77. Colon. Records of Pa., XV, 177, 338.
78. Colon. Records of Pa., XVI, 107; Sabine, Loyalists of the Am. Rev., I, 346.
79. Colon. Records of Pa., XVI, 115.
80. Colon. Records of Pa., XVI, 273; 2d Rep., Bur. of Archives, Ont., (1904), Pt. I, 618.
81. Vide post, p. 102; Colon. Records of Pa., XVI, 297.
82. Colon. Records of Pa., XVI, 363; Pa. Mag. of Hist, and Biog., Vol. XXVI (Dec. 1902), 438; Sabine, Loyalists of the Am. Rev., I, 454-456.
83. Sabine, Loyalists of the Am. Rev., II, 612, 202, 626, 163; I, 207, 265; 2d Rep., Bur. of Archives, Ont. (1904), Pt. I, 669; Colon. Records of Pa., XIII. 561.
84. Scharf and Westcott, Hist, of Phila., I, 435-436, 439, 440.
85. Statutes at Large of Pa., XII, 178-181.
86. Ibid., 473-476.
87. Ibid., XIII, 222-224.
88. Scharf and Westcott, Hist, of Phila., I, 442.
89. Ante, pp. 16, 92; Colon, Records of Pa., XI, 745.
90. Colon. Records of Pa., XII, 73, 76, 77, 80, 82, 103, 273, 281.
91. Colon. Records of Pa., XII. 341, 347, 539, 634; XIII, 106, 141; XIV, 56, 657, 665; XV, 4, 4, 43, 185, 193, 230, 468, 648; XVI, 283, 299, 309, 320, 387, 390, 422.
92. Laws of Pa., II, 204; 236; Scharf and Westcott, Hist, of Phila., I, 396, n. 3.
93. Laws of Pa., II, 216, 217, 287; Sabine, Loyalists of the Am. Rev., I, 597; Statutes at Large of Pa., XIII, 67, 68; XIV, 140, 141.
94. Curwen's Journal and Letters, 414, 415; Sabine, Loyalists of the Am. Rev., II, 164; I, 390; Pa. Mag. of Hist, and Biog., II, 68-73; Diary and Letters of Thos. Hutchinson, II, 192, 194; Rep. on Am. Mss. in the Roy. Inst. of Gt. Brit., I, 94; N. J. Arch., 2d Ser., II, 220; Sabine, Loyalists II, 164, 350, 388; I. 454; 2d Rep., Bur. of Arch., Ont., (1904), II, 1169.
95. Diary and Letters of Thomas Hutchinson, II, 226, 259; Pa. Mag. of Hist, and Biog., XXVI, 438, 439.
96. Rep. on Am. Mss. in the Roy. Inst. of Gt. Brit., IV, 308.
97. Rep. on Am. Mss. in the Roy. Inst. of Gt. Brit., II, 7; III, 125, 169, 136, 148, 221, 294, 422; Sabine, Loyalists of the Am. Rev., II, 301.
98. 98 Rep. on Am. Mss. in the Roy. Inst. of Gt. Brit., IV, 454, 435, 436, 446, 470; Sabine, Loyalists of the Am. Rev., I, 554, 555, 535; II, 472, 473, 482-485, 488, passim.
99. Rep. on Am. Mss. in the Roy. Inst. of Gt. Brit., IV, 375, 376; Sabine, Loyalists of the Am. Rev., I, 235; II, 376; II, 482, 483.
100. Sec. Rep., Bur. of Archives, Ont. (1904), Pt. I, 129, 195, 196, 517, 518, 669, 537, 564, 565, 580.
101. Rep. on Am. Mss. in the Roy. Inst. of Gt. Brit., IV, 349, 367, 375; Haliburton, Hist, of Nova Scotia, II, 148, 149.
102. Sabine, Loyalists of the Am. Rev., I, 607; Coll. N. B. Hist. Soc., No. 4, 73-80; Rep. on Am. Mss. in the Roy. Inst. of Gt. Brit., IV, 269, 270; Winslow Papers, 490; Vroom, Courier Series, LXXII; Ganong, Monograph of the Origins of the Settlements in N. B., 144, 158.
For some of the Pennsylvania Quakers who settled at Pennfield, see Sabine's Loyalists
of the Am. Rev., II, 514, 515, 525, 543, 550, 568, 569, 570, 579, 582, 583, 591, 592, 593, 597, 598.
103. Raymond, The River St. John, 531-533.
104. Siebert, "The Refugee Loyalists of Connecticut" in Trans. Roy. Soc. of Canada, 1916, 89, 90; Raymond, The River St. John, 536, ff.; Winslow Papers, 131-133, 141.
105. Raymond, "Early Days of Woodstock" in The Dispatch of Woodstock, N. B.. Dec. 5, 1906; Sec. Rep., Archives of Ont. 1904, I, 198, 209, 237, 200; Sabine, Loyalists of the Am. Rev., II. 823; Jack. St. John: Prize Essay, 65.
106. Raymond, The River St. John. 548-550.
107. Rep. on the Am. Mss. in the Roy. Inst. of Gt. Brit., IV, 375, 876; Sabine, Loyalists of the Am. Rev., II, 376. See ante p. 101.
108. Raymond, "Early Days of Woodstock" in The Dispatch of Woodstock, N. B., Dec. 5. 19, 26, 1906; Ganong, Monograph of Historic Sites in the Province of N. B., 340; Ganong, Monograph of the Origins of the Settlements in N. B., 143, 341, 343.
109. Raymond, Winslow Papers, 137; Report on Am. Mss. in the Roy. Inst. of Gt. Brit., IV, 380, 49, 60, 420; Raymond, "Early Days of Woodstock" in The Dispatch of Woodstock. N. B., Dec. 6, 1906; Ganong, Monograph of the Origins of the Settlements in N. B., 112, 162 ; Ganong, Monograph on Historic Sites in the Province of N. B., 343.
110. Siebert, "The Refugee Loyalists of Connecticut," in Trans. Roy. Soc. Can., 1916, 86, 91; Rev. W. O. Raymond's Notes on Winslow's Muster Rolls (unpublished); Raymond, "Early Days of Woodstock" in The Dispatch of Woodstock, N. B., Jan. 23, 1907; Raymond, The River St. John, 546; Ganong, Monograph of Historic Sites in the Province of N. B., 341.
111. Siebert "The Loyalists in West Florida and the Natchez District" in the Miss. Valley Hist. Rev., II, March, 1916, 473, 481; Raymond, Notes on Winslow's Muster Rolls (unpublished); Raymond, Winslow Papers, 215, 216; Ganong, Monograph of the Origins of the Settlements in N. B., 155, 173; Ganong, Monograph of Historic Sites in the Province of N. B., 343; Coll. N. B. Hist. Soc., No. 5 (1904), 209.