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Dictionary of Miramichi Biography

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WILLSON, JOHN (1739-1829)

WILLSON, JOHN, tavern keeper, JP, and registrar of deeds; b. Piscataway, Middlesex Co., N.J., 24 Jun 1739, s/o John Willson and h/w Sarah; m. 1st, c1760, Rebecca Thickson, of Piscataway, and 2nd, 1805, Mrs Catherine Willson; d. York Co. (Toronto), Upper Canada, 8 Jul 1829.

The son of a weaver-farmer, John Willson was unyielding in his loyalty during the Revolutionary War. According to his own statement he joined the British at Woodbridge, N.J., in 1776 and worked as a forage master in the commissary department. He was taken prisoner twice but managed to escape and continued to be of service until the British retreated to Staten Island. He paid for his allegiance by having his New Jersey property confiscated.

Upon his arrival in New Brunswick with the May Fleet in 1783 Willson went to Maugerville, but by May 1784 he and his wife, their married son John Willson Jr, and other members of the family had relocated on the Miramichi. In March 1785 local residents petitioned to have Willson appointed as the first civil magistrate, or justice of the peace for Northumberland County, declaring him to be an honest, just, and impartial man. When Benjamin Marston, the first high sheriff, arrived in July of that year he made the requested appointment and took room and board for a few weeks with the new magistrate, to whom he refers in his diary as "Squire Wilson."

Willson was conducting a tavern at Miramichi Point in 1785, and like the other settlers, was engaged in agricultural pursuits. In the fall of that year, five "Ancient and Original Inhabitants" protested that he had cut and carried off hay from a place where they had been harvesting it for their own use for a number of years and then tried to sell it to them. This did not deter other residents from turning to him for assistance in registering their complaints about such matters as the scarcity of meadow land or the prevalence of abusive fishing practices.

Willson's duties as magistrate were onerous at the start, but three additional justices were appointed in the fall of 1785, and when the first meeting of the County Court of Quarter Sessions was held at the Point on 15 September 1789 there were seven magistrates in attendance: William Davidson, James Fraser, James Horton, Arthur Nicholson, Alexander Taylor, Alexander Wishart, and John Willson. Willson was one of the more active of the magistrates. In 1788 he also became the first registrar of deeds for the county. In 1790, when the first parish officers were appointed, he was named overseer of the poor. In the same year, his name was included on a list of militia promotions, to captain, for services rendered during the Revolutionary War. Also in 1790, although he and his family had been adherents of the Church of England, he became a member of a committee created to manage the affairs of the Presbyterian congregation.

For all that, Willson was dissatisfied with the limited opportunities which the Miramichi offered him and his family. He also complained about the harshness of the climate. He began making preparations to leave in 1791, and in 1793 he was in charge of a party of sixty persons from his own and other Loyalist families which left in the schooner SUSANNA for the new province of Upper Canada.

Willson settled in the vicinity of York, where in the 1790s he leased a government sawmill that produced lumber used in the construction of some of Toronto's first public buildings. He acquired property at different locations in the district and was again appointed a justice of the peace. He continued to be active in the militia and in April 1813, at age seventy-three, he was among officers of the 1st York Regiment who were taken prisoner by a force of American invaders. A cairn in memory of him and his first wife, Rebecca Thickson, stands in Holy Trinity Cemetery on Yonge Street, north of Thornhill, Ont.

Sources

[b/m/d] Willson family data / Spray (ENC)


4.11.1