Anthony and Andrew Westbrook: A Fascinating Narrative of Disunity

Doug Massey

With special thanks to Gavin K. Watt, John Mahler, Patte Frato and The Minisink Valley Historical Society

Copyright©2015 by Doug Massey

All Rights Reserved. No part of this article may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, or by any information storage and retrieval system, without permission in writing from the author, Doug Massey.

1 Two Fires

“I am going to set this house on fire”, the tall man said as the firewood he was carrying crashed down on the floorboards.1 “Boys, you have just fifteen minutes to plunder my premises; after that I give them to the flames”.2 What sounds like one instance of arson, is, in fact, two very separate occurrences: The first happened in the Minisink area of Orange County New York, and the second in Upper Canada, hundreds of kilometres away and some thirty-six years later. It gets stranger. Both arsonists were destroying their own property. And both were members of the Westbrook family. Father and son! On April 20, 1779, Anthony Westbrook set fire to the fortified house of Major Johannes Decker Jr., which housed his confiscated property. Branded a “traitor to his country” by both neighbours and kin in the area, Anthony now returned for revenge with the much- feared Joseph Brant. If Anthony Westbrook could not enjoy his furniture, then the hated rebels would certainly not either. On January 31/Feb. 1, 1814, son Andrew, equally a traitor in British eyes because he had taken up the American cause in the War of 1812, razed his own house, mill, barns and storage buildings in Delaware Township, Middlesex County. His chattels also would bring no comfort to the enemy. Vindictive? Impetuous? Yes! Both father and son could be that way. But there was much more to both Anthony and Andrew than this.

The civil war that divided and decimated families, like the Westbrooks, started in earnest with the Declaration of Independence in 1776, and did not come to an end until at least the Treaty of Ghent in 1815. Anthony’s decision to fight for the King during the American Revolution horrified his family in the Minisink region of New York. Similarly, son Andrew’s early support for the United States and republicanism in the War of 1812 shocked his relations in South-Western Upper Canada. Surprisingly, the decisions of both father and son, so diametrically opposed, shared some significant similarities. Both were made by Americans - strong, independent products of the frontier. Both decisions, once made, were never unmade. Both were equally fateful. And both were linked: Anthony’s stand in 1777 set the stage for that of his son in 1812.

To understand this connection we must consider the interplay of personality and external events for both father and son. To fathom why Anthony’s bones ended up buried in Upper Canada and Andrew’s in Michigan, one must understand that while Anthony’s early, formative years were spent in abundance in Minisink, those same years for Andrew were surrounded by want in Upper Canada. Both father and son grew up to be “who they were when”. That needs some explaining.

Worldwide, the years in the early part of the 18th Century were relatively kind to farmers. Rains came pretty much when needed, the climate was milder, and the sun shone on cue. Harvests were plentiful in the fertile Minisink region of Orange County New York, and the people were well fed and prosperous. Born in 1738, Anthony grew up in the midst of all this. Johannes, Anthony’s great-grandfather had been one of the thirteen “ancient owners” or first settlers of Minisink. And the Westbrooks, intermarrying with the other influential, pioneering families, had for years played a prominent role in the running of the settlement. Witnessing Anthony’s baptism in the Mackhackemack Dutch Reformed

2 Church on October 31, 1738, were his grandmother Altje Van Oetten, and his grandfather, “Anthonie”, an elder of the church and a justice of the peace.3 His father, Johannes had been a major in the militia and his brother Johannes, a captain. Anthony grew up in that church of his forebears, as did his wife Sara Dekker, the daughter of another large, prominent, local family. Three of their children would be baptized at Mackhackemeck. But one of those three, Johannes, would die as a child. Further puncturing their bliss would be the French Indian Wars of 1755 – 1760 and the Pontiac Conspiracy. But let us concentrate on yet a more profound element. This was a decades long, bitter, religious feud within the larger Dutch Reformed Church that morphed into a political crisis called the American Revolution. Taken together, this interconnected warring severely tested Dutch Americans such as Anthony Westbrook and his family.

Think of two fires. The first was this spiritual conflagration whose embers still glowed hot after 1771. The second, a civil war called the American Revolution, came of heaping new firewood on these still smouldering coals. The “Great Awakening” was a momentous, revival movement that rocked all church denominations in the British North American colonies, bringing both positive new energy, but also profound division. It started in the Dutch Reformed Church about the year 1727.4 Soon two warring factions were created. Embracing the “awakening” were parishioners who gloried in new teachings that emphasized free will and individual commitment. Known as the “coetus” party, they strongly supported the ordination of clergy in the colonies. Equally zealous were the “conferentie” folk, who rejoiced in tradition. Seeking to keep things in the “Dutch way”, these congregants strongly supported the education and ordination of clergy at the Classis of Amsterdam in the old country. By 1747 the issue of ordination was resolved in the favour of the “coetus”. However, the damage had been done. Throughout all of Dutch New York and New Jersey, virtually every Dutch church had been torn apart by conflict.5 Families were divided among themselves – husband against wife, parents against children, and “many indignities were heaped upon one another”.6 In some cases, individuals holding grudges against significant others, never spoke again. Congregations split, preferring to worship in separate churches. One faction literally locked the church door and kept the other faction from worship. In the Hackensack Valley of New Jersey it came to fists and clubs on the sabbath. Then just as it looked like things might settle down, the war heated up again when the “coetus” pastors announced that all children who had been baptized by “conferentie” clergy would have to be re-baptized by proper “coetus” divines. “Barbarity”, cried the “conferentie” women of the Mackhackemeck congregation. They would have none of that! A child’s very soul was at stake. Only a “conferentie” minister would do. As for the “coetus” women of the church, it had to be a “coetus” dominie or none at all. Infant baptism was a profoundly import and prickly topic.

For the most part, the “conferentie”- “coetus” clash that engulfed Mackhackemeck Church and the Minisink settlement involved two pastors - Johannes Casparus Fryenmoet (1741 – 1756), and his successor Thomas Romeyn, (1760 – 1772). Both dominies were very well known to Anthony Westbrook and his family. Fryenmoet was “very popular with his people.”7 It’s just that not all the congregants of Minisink were so charmed. After 1747, in the midst of the re-baptism altercation, Fryenmoet’s fervent

3 “conferentie” affinity offended certain influential pillars of the church, who called in a “committee or Circle of the Coetus” and succeeded in having him removed in 1756.8 In 1772 the “coetus” elements acted again to expel the moderate “conferentie” Thomas Romeyn. However, Fryenmoet was far from done as we shall see later.

Anthony Westbrook could not have escaped taking a side in this bitter, internecine feud over child baptism. But just exactly where did he stand? The whole baptism controversy at Mackhackemeck heated up in the 1760’s as indicated by the chaotic nature of the baptismal records during that period.9 It was during those turbulent years, 1764 – 1769, that three of Anthony’s and Sara’s children were baptized by the moderate “conferentie” Dominie Thomas Romeyn.10 But there is no record of their three later children, Johannes, Andrew and Haggai, being baptized at Mackhackemeck at all! Nevertheless, it is easier to see Anthony and Sara as being a moderate “conferentie” rather than “coetus” in the religious crisis. And if Anthony were “conferentie”, this would go a long way to explain why he fought for King George.

From his careful study of Dutch Reformed Church records for Bergen County in nearby New Jersey, Adrian Leiby came to the conclusion that Bergen County Dutch who were “conferentie” almost without exception supported the British cause, and often very actively, (my emphasis) in the Revolution, while “coetus” people, almost without exception supported independence.11 Leiby’s impressive work is supported by similar correlations from secular data done by Alice Kenney on the Dutch in Albany County, New York.12 And records of the Pougkeepsie and Kingston Dutch Churches do not conflict with this model of Dutch Reformed life.13 Given this “definite pattern” that surrounded the Mackhackemeck congregation on all sides, there is merit in applying it also to Anthony Westbrook, who was, beyond a doubt, a very active supporter of the British cause in the American Revolution. As we will see, he served tirelessly with Joseph Brant throughout the war at great cost to himself and family.

It very well could have been personality or a need to get revenge that motivated Anthony Westbrook, but then he may very well have been a Loyalist out of conviction. There were scoundrels, people of principle and folks of all moral shades in-between who fought on both sides during the American Revolution. To this day there are those who think of “tories” in a pejorative way, and characterize them as having fought “on the wrong side”. Patriots, they hold, were the “good guys” whose decision to fight was a moral one. This is quite unfair and not supported by the facts. In this first American Civil War there were two, legitimate sides, and people of conscience on both. Among those who fought out of principle in the Dutch Reformed Church were both Patriots who considered the revolution as God’s providence, and Loyalist Dutch who took up arms because of a legitimate theological stance within orthodox Calvinism. To these Loyalists “the British government was not merely benevolent; it was the government God had established”.14 It therefore followed that although that government could err, it was not to be toppled.

It was not by chance that Anthony Westbrook fought alongside Joseph Brant throughout the war. Their Christian theology was similar in part. Brant was Anglican in his religion, but wholeheartedly agreed with Dutch Reformed Loyalists in his support for Britain on

4 the basis of legitimacy and allegiance. When Brant’s mentor, Eleazar Wheelock attempted to win him over to the Patriot side in the revolution, Brant reminded the good reverend that he, Wheelock, had once wished “that they might be able to live as good subjects (Brant’s emphasis) – to fear God, and Honor THE King”.15 So there is some merit in thinking that Anthony Westbrook, and Ludowick Sheily, a fellow Dutch Reformed “conferentie” from the Kingston Church, who also fought with Brant throughout the war, may have done so out of similar religious principle.16 And as we will see Brant’s Volunteers also included as many as nine other fellow congregants from the Mackhackemeck congregation.

Yet it would be a creep of political events that transformed Anthony Westbrook from a quiet, law-abiding farmer into a feared and hated “tory” and member of Joseph Brant’s Volunteers. Up to Lexington and Concord, most Americans supported peaceful reform of their colonial governments through established channels, not independence. New York and New Jersey vacillated between opposition to the Intolerable acts and opposition to the extremists of the Liberty Party. And,

All Americans were loud in their attachment to King George, Tories because of their attachment to royalty, Whigs because they believed the King was at heart a Whig, imposed upon by a Tory ministry.17

Mob violence was to be avoided. Indeed, for Anthony Westbrook, a man with a wife and family, and some standing within his community, violence of any kind had to be avoided. He was not alone.

Orange County was but one of seven rural New York counties that treated the First Continental Congress of 1774 with indifference: Only twenty of one thousand freeholders even bothered to vote to elect delegates.18 Like other conservative farmers on the New York frontier, Anthony was happy and prosperous under British rule. He did not feel the burdens of imperial legislation as much as did Whigs in the towns and cities of the colonies. On April 29, 1775, the freeholders of New York City formulated a written “pledge” or test, and sent it out to all the counties to sign. The aim was to form a “general association”

For the purpose of preserving our Constitution and opposing the execution of the several arbitrary acts of the British Parliament, until a reconciliation between Great Britain and America on constitutional principles (which we most ardently desire) can be obtained.19

The clash at Lexington on April 19, 1774 had the immediate effect of uniting settlers of all the colonies: British soldiers had killed American farmers! In New York the shock of Lexington brought a unity that allowed for the pledge to go forward in the rural counties ten days later. The situation looked ominous. Even so most colonists still hoped for a peaceful solution. In Orange County, most men who had been divided earlier by

5 religious, social or political differences came together as one to sign the pledge. On June 8, 1775, Anthony Westbrook, and his brother Samuel did so in the Precinct of Goshen, Blooming Grove District,20 and his father Johannes and brothers, Johannes jr. and Joel, in the Precinct of Goshen, Minisink District.21 But a significant number did not sign and were designated as “non associators”. These extreme Loyalists did not support the Congress, and rejected its boycott of British goods. At first they were not coerced. But with time, they were more and more persecuted by the local committee of safety as regulations tightened up. In September of 1775, there was an attempt to disarm them, and in March of 1776, this was strengthened. When the “non-associators” resisted, or did not pay taxes, they were thrown into jail at Goshen or Kingston, New York. The jails were overflowing but still the disaffection increased. So weak were the local committees in Orange, Queens and Richmond Counties, and so strong were the “inimical” that the Provincial Congress had to take charge. Col. Ann Hawks Hay of the Orange Militia was authorized to arrest the worst “tories” and send them to prisons in New York City.

At this point, Anthony was perhaps a “silent” Loyalist. He had signed the pledge, thereby signalling that he opposed the “several arbitrary acts of the British Parliament”. He was an American and proud of it. Yet in his heart, for reasons we have already seen, he may have been loyal to the king. As time passed and disaffection grew in the area, did he have growing misgivings about signing? Did he feel guilt in his silence as he saw the treatment handed out to those who did not sign? Did he come to think, as a growing number in Orange County did, that the Congress in Philadelphia was a foreign power that levied taxes without consent? What was he up to in the fall of 1775 and the beginning of 1776 when war was declared against Loyalists? Was he coerced? We will never know the details. There is no historical evidence before 1777 of Anthony Westbrook’s part in the revolution. However, from July 4, 1776 onward, life for Anthony must have become a whole lot harder.

The Declaration of Independence was a second, serious test of allegiance – now you were either for or against independence and the revolution. There was no room for compromise, no middle ground. Those who wished to be neutral were treated as more dangerous traitors than those who openly supported the British. Here too was a cruel dilemma for Loyalist Americans: Caught between the folly of their king and what appeared to them as the “dogmatic fanaticism of the extreme Whigs”, they were now forced to choose the king and smash the revolution in order to get back to constitutionally redressing the wrongs done to the colonies by the British parliament. Yet by taking this very course of action, Loyalists appeared as unqualified supporters of the impolitic treatment of the colonists by Great Britain.22 This was not true.

In these heated times neither Loyalist nor Whig saw any honour in the other. Hatred grew, families like the Westbrooks were torn apart, and a civil war of extermination began. With the arrival of General Howe in July of 1776 came an up swelling of Loyalists rushing to support his army in New York City, and to take the oath of allegiance to Britain. These Loyalists had been arming before Howe’s arrival and now was the time to rise up. In Orange, Westchester, Dutchess and Ulster Counties it is estimated that there were twenty three hundred waiting to join Howe.23 In October, the

6 Provincial Congress was informed of a “conspiracy from Haverstraw to Hackensack to join the King’s troops”.24 All sorts of horrible “tory plots” were unearthed or invented. The militia was greatly disaffected. So widespread was the division, and so difficult was it to raise troops in New York that the Whigs had to ask neighbouring states to send aid.25 In May of 1777, Loyalist uprisings were reported in Albany, Tryon, Charlotte, Ulster, Cumberland, Gloucester and Orange Counties. General William Heath of Massachusetts, commander of a force of Continental regulars in Orange County, wrote George Washington describing the problem he faced there: “…the tories are joining the enemy and insulting and disarming the whigs, stripping them of cattle, effects, etc.”26

These events swirled all around Anthony Westbrook, his wife Sara, and their children – Alexander, Elizabeth, Johannes, Andrew and Haggai. At some point in 1777 Anthony made the decision to fight for the king, but not with Howe. He joined Joseph Brant’s Volunteers. To begin with, Brant’s force was composed of Oneidas (which he was related to by marriage), Tuscaroras, and Mohicans, originally drawn from the Oquaga settlement. But by late 1777 eighty percent of his volunteers were either white, or freed black slaves. Only twenty percent were “Indians”. Joseph Brant was young and relatively inexperienced at the beginning of the war. And having no great influence or strong alliances among the Haudenosaunee (Six Nations), he could not attract a large number of indigenous followers.27 Brant was considered an upstart freelancer, and a man not to be trusted.

But to white Loyalists on the New York frontier, Thayendanegea impressed. As the revolution progressed Brant proved to be a great war-chief, brave, innovative and charismatic. He knew what he was about. That appealed to Anthony Westbrook early in the fight. Like other volunteers, Anthony trusted him, was sincerely attached to him, and was willing to go through great hardships with him in order to strike the enemy hard. But it took the British military longer to come up with monetary support. To begin with, Brant received nothing from the government, actually using his own resources and the spoils of battle to keep his corps in the field. Loyalists in Brant’s Volunteers were ‘associators’: They received “issues and rations” from the British authorities, but unlike other Loyalist units, were not paid. And in spite of widespread wooing by many outfits, such as Butler’s Rangers, Brant’s one hundred, non-indigenous volunteers absolutely refused other service. One British officer thought them totally undisciplined, declaring, “the Devil knows what the scoundrels wou’d be at, I have been 30 years a soldier, but never had so much trouble as with those fellows”.28 The award winning American Historian, Alan Taylor supports this view, suggesting, “They preferred Brant’s… spontaneous style over the hierarchy, discipline and steady pay of a standard regiment, even if it meant no pay.”29 No doubt this wild and woolly characterization was true of men such as Ebenezer Allen as we shall see, but it is unknown whether it also applied to Anthony Westbrook. One thing though is clear and significant: Anthony Westbrook resolved to fight for much more than a soldier’s pay.

This resolution might have squared him with his conscience, but at the same time it exposed Sara and the family to dire consequences. His political decision would also be Sara’s: In the heated atmosphere of the times, a wife’s expected loyalty to her husband,

7 once a private commitment, would become a political act if he refused to renounce his loyalty to the king. And the children would be judged guilty by association. All would be considered traitors. Moreover, the family would be split up. Anthony was away fighting, yes, but if twelve-year-old Alexander were left home with Sara, he could be arrested and forced into the rebel army. To avoid this, Anthony may have been forced to take the lad with him with all the attendant dangers of war.

What were the immediate implications of Anthony’s decision in 1777 for Sara, nine-year old Elizabeth, three-year-old Andrew, and baby Haggai? There are a number of possibilities. They may still have been on the family farm, eking out a subsistent existence and hungry. Were they shunned and persecuted there by neighbours, or other Westbrook family members who were Patriots? They may have been in jail at Goshen or elsewhere.30 Or they may have been held at Fort Dekker in Minisink. In an interview years later, a Solomon J. Westbrook stated, “A son of this Westbrook had his family there and all his goods. He turned out to be a Tory and went and got Brant to come down through the valley.”31 If by “there” Solomon Westbrook meant Fort Dekker, then after having helped burn down that fort in 1779, Anthony took away his remaining family to Fort Niagara under rather harrowing conditions - in the midst of the Sullivan Campaign.

There is yet another possibility. Early in 1777, Loyalists were ordered to take the oath of allegiance to the United States, or remove with their families within the British lines. This decision was vigorously enforced, and in April 1778 a second law strengthened this act and made banishment perpetual after July 18, 1778. Sometime in 1778, Anthony’s farm, property, everything, was confiscated by the local committee of safety.32 If Sara and the children were still there, they would have been forced to leave. Perhaps they trekked to Oquaga New York, Brant’s home base on the Susquehanna River. If that were so they would have become homeless again in October when Oquaga was utterly destroyed by American forces. For a second time they would have been refugees. This time they would have faced the long, dangerous three hundred-kilometre trek west to Fort Niagara, arriving there in late 1778 or early 1779 along with a company of two hundred and eighty-seven former residents of Oquaga.33

But whatever scenario, Andrew was but five or six years old and had already faced much more upheaval than a child his age should ever have to do. With Anthony off fighting for extended periods, spiritual guidance would be left up to their mother, or to an army chaplain or a lay preacher if present. Where Anthony had grown up with all the benefits of a religious Dutch Reformed education and caring community, this was not the experience of the Westbrook children at Niagara. “No fixed address” had become part of their lives. The time of want had just begun. For Andrew, camp life, disease, rations, hunger, cold, and an absent father were a large part of his life for the next decade, and would greatly shape his character for the rest of his days.

At Fort Niagara, Dr. McCausland, surgeon of the 8th or King’s Regiment, was the busiest man in the place. His days were crammed full with patients since, “…everybody suffered from malnutrition, scurvy, respiratory complaints, malaria, and all kinds of digestive upsets”.34 People were scattered up and down the Niagara River in huts and tents in the six miles or more between Fort Niagara and the landing (present day Lewiston) and

8 beyond.35 Brant’s Volunteers may have been located on small farms near Buffalo Creek (opposite present day Fort Erie).36 As well there were Walter Butler, all the Rangers, most of the Indian Department, thousands of Haudenosaune allies, and throngs of other Loyalist refugees, their families, and numerous prisoners.37 Most were hungry. Ironically, much of this had to do with the British successes of 1778. Raids had been made on Cobleskill, Wyoming, Springfield, Andreus Town, German Flats, Minisink, and Cherry Valley. The burning of the Mohawk, Schoharie and Hudson valleys was devastating. These raids, which owed much of their success to Loyalists such as Anthony Westbrook, had destroyed towns, farmhouses, barns and crops. The rebels went hungry in the winter of 1778-79 because there was very little grain to be had. But then so too did almost everyone at Niagara.

For young Andrew Westbrook and his siblings, their father became a stranger. Brant’s Volunteers were “almost irremittingly on actual service” throughout the war.38 For Anthony who stayed with Brant from 1777 to 1781 this meant long campaigns, danger and great privation. The earliest specific evidence we have of Anthony’s service comes with the First Minisink raid of October 13, 1778 when Brant and company swooped down on the “upper neighbourhood”, killing Philip Swartout Sr., two of his sons, and Joseph Westfall. All had been active rebels. Swartout Sr., as a member of the local committee of safety, had ordered the confiscation of Anthony Westbrook’s property earlier that year. The raiders got clear away after causing damage and great alarm. Later, on July 7, Anthony and others were indicted in absentia for the murder of Joseph Westfall; and Anthony, his brother Joel ( later in Butler’s Rangers in Captain Dame’s company) and others, were found guilty in the murder of Philip Swartout.39 Anthony was now a murderer in the eyes of his former neighbours in Minisink. If ever caught, he would be hanged. But that did not deter him from coming back.

On July 20, 1779 Joseph Brant, with sixty warriors and twenty-seven white Volunteers returned to attack the “lower neighbourhood” of Minisink. To do this they had to travel over four hundred kilometres through very difficult terrain. The testimony of Moabary Owen, a double deserter, places Anthony Westbrook, and one Ebenezer Allen among Brant’s party of twenty six “Toreys and about sixty Enions” at the destroyed village of Chemung on July 8.40 Twelve days later Brant’s party, guided by Anthony Westbrook, descended on Minisink in search of provisions, and to capture or kill active whigs such as Major Johannes Dekker of the militia. They burned Dekker’s stone house which had been fortified with a stockade, and which protected the furniture of neighbours. Ironically Anthony’s confiscated furniture was also in that house when he burnt it down! Moreover, as Anthony was in the process of destroying his own property, Johannes Dekker’s mother, Magdelena Westbrook Dekker, dumped two buckets of water on the flames trying to put them out! Houses, barns, and crops were also torched and a number of inhabitants who resisted were killed before Brant’s party left. However, Anthony’s revenge on his neighbours and relatives may have been bitter sweet. Mackhackemack Church was also burnt to the ground. How did Anthony feel about that?

The Goshen militia pursued Brant hoping to set up an ambush, only to be ambushed them selves. The action was a hot and close run thing, but the Patriot’s ammunition ran out first and the forty plus Patriot militiamen who had stood their ground were killed to a

9 man. Brant, the tactical genius, had saved his party from disaster. By August 11, they returned to Chemung, only to find them selves caught between the armies of Generals Sullivan and Clinton. Again Brant was able to evade the enemy. On August 28, Brant and all his Volunteers took part in the Battle of Newton. On September 12 they were at Kanaghsaws where Brant wanted to ambush Sullivan but had to abort. When did Anthony return to Niagara and his family? It is not known. This one raid, which most likely started in June with a long march from Niagara to Minisink, had lasted over three months by the end of September. And it continued into October as Brant and his men shadowed Sullivan through New York as he returned to New Jersey.

But his family would see even less of Anthony in 1780 as Joseph Brant led his Volunteers against the Mohawk and Schoharie Valley Patriots’ settlements. Campaigns started in February against Harpersfield. In July, Brant struck the Oneida Villages. On August 2, he obliterated Canajoharie, and on August 9, settlements in the Schoharie Valley. On October 17, Brant was at it again, joining Sir John Johnson fire raids against the settlements on the Fort Hunter side of Schoharie Creek. On October 19 they were part of the force that destroyed the militia detachment from Fort Paris led by Col. John Brown. They then torched Stone Arabia and all along the river to Canajoharie, including two hundred villages and 150 000 bushels of wheat. It was a yearlong campaign to avenge the scorched earth policy of the Sullivan Expedition of 1779 against the Haudenosaunee. If Anthony was not fighting, he was walking hundreds of kilometres from Niagara or back to Niagara as part of the campaign. He was never at Niagara for any long stretch of time. Even so, 1781 would be worse. Joseph Brant went west to Fort Detroit without his white volunteers. This had dire consequences for Anthony, his wife and children.

Anthony’s service in 1781 is unknown up to October of that year when he found himself part of the ill-fated raid by Major John Ross and his King’s Royal Regiment of New York on the Mohawk Valley. The party did extensive damage at Warren’s Bush on Oct. 24, burning and destroying farms and crops. Anthony Westbrook was there and did his part. Years later, Robert Kerr, J.P. would certify that “the Bearer Anthony Westbrook was at the burning of Warren Bush in the fall of 1781 – and behaved as a good soldier and faithful Loyalist”.41 Although Patriots would not have been pleased with this characterization of Anthony as a “good soldier”, they would have been happy with the fact that this campaign would not go well for Westbrook or his fellow soldiers. Facing stiffened resistance, Ross’s group was forced to retreat after the Battle of Johns Town and were pursued by the Americans to West Canada Creek. Later, Lt. Col. Marinus Willet, the American commander, would call the whole British scheme “a Dirty trifling piece of business”. But he was astonished that Ross’s men, who had gone four days “in the Wilderness with only half pound of horse flesh for each man per day”, yet had been able to “trot” thirty miles before they stopped.42 On October 30th, the Americans caught up with Ross at a particularly nasty ford on the West Canada Creek. And it was there that Anthony Westbrook was captured. He was either part of a party of “upwards of forty men with some Indians” sent to secure provisions,43or he was part of Lieutenant John Ryckman’s men acting as the rearguard covering the retreat of Major Walter Butler across West Canada Creek.44 At any rate, both parties were overrun and had to surrender.

10 Anthony fell into the hands of the rebels and was “one Month in Prison with irons on his Hands and Feet and suffered every hardship that was in the power of the Rebels to inflict…”45 The torture he had to endure greatly affected his health. But we do not know how long, in total, he was imprisoned, or where. Not knowing Anthony’s fate and fearing him dead would have hit his family hard.

Nothing more is known of Anthony and his family until July 21 1784, when Anthony appears on a sub list of “Young Settlers, Loyalists and Brant’s Volunteers” who were receiving rations at Niagara.46 They are part of an influx of Loyalists wanting to settle there. Two years later the Westbrooks are “Victualing at the Grand River Landing and Head of Chipaway Creek”, still waiting for land, and still on rations.47 In 1788 the harvests failed, and the winter of 1788-9 was especially severe. Loyalists were forced to survive by eating roots, leaves and bark. 1789 was “The Hungry Year”. Rations supplied by the British now came to an end. To relieve the suffering, refugees in the camps were encouraged to leave and travel inland to squat on land purchased for them but not yet surveyed. The Westbrooks, as part of the group called “James Wilson and Associates”, trekked to Ancaster Township, or to what eventually came to be known as such after the completion of the survey in 1793.

As savvy American frontiersmen, Anthony and his family knew the land. They could tell the richness of the soil by the types of trees growing on it. And they would look for a good water source. So when they did stop and set up camp it would be at a location which best met these criteria. However, when the survey was completed in 1793, it was found that the farms of Anthony and his eldest son, John, were on land reserved for the Crown or the clergy. So on July 12, 1793, Anthony and John joined other members of the Wilson group, petitioning the Land Board to let them remain on their improved farms even though they were reserved lots. Anthony was granted Lot 44 and John, lot 43, concession 2. So the ailing Anthony was still alive in the summer of 1793. But he would not live much longer.

On June 28, 1794, Alexander and his mother Sarah petitioned for four hundred acres of land, “as the Son and Widow of a Loyalist”, and were successful. They were granted lots in the third and fourth concessions.48 Elizabeth Westbrook, now married to Benjamin Becraft, had settled on lot 11, concession two. In addition, Anthony, John and Alexander would all receive large properties along Fairchild Creek from their good friend Joseph Brant, who was in the habit of selling land to his white friends on very good terms. Haggai eventually ended up in Oakland Township. In spite of the privations brought on by the American Revolution, Andrew’s siblings remained loyal to Britain. And they remained close to Joseph Brant and Brant Town, present day Brantford. Andrew, perhaps because of personality, saw things differently, and drifted away. In this he was so much like his father – the lone wolf, the family contrarian. How ironic: Andrew was the only Westbrook to fight for the Americans in the War of 1812. And he would do so with great gusto, like his father had done against the Americans decades before!

It is often said that Andrew Westbrook inherited his father’s land in Delaware Township on the River Thames. There seems to be evidence, however, that this property was secured with… some “creativity”. 1796 was a year filled with petitions to the land board

11 for the Westbrooks. On May 31, Andrew petitioned for 400 acres as the son of Anthony Westbrook and was successful in getting three hundred acres “on producing a certificate for service”.49 On June 3, 1796 “Anthony Westbrook”, “being in a condition to cultivate and improve…” any land granted him, petitioned for nine hundred acres “at the River Thames” and was granted two hundred acres.50 This was rather miraculous since Anthony had almost assuredly passed away before June of 1784, and was hence incapable of penmanship, cultivation or the improvement of anything. Needless to say, the document was not signed. Yet exactly one month later, on July 3, 1796, Anthony rose from the grave yet again, and managed to sign this petition asking for three hundred acres! This time the petition was “ordered recommended for three hundred acres and his family lands if entitled to them”!51

Were the petitions of June and July 1796 Andrew’s doing alone, or were there other family members involved? Who are the suspects? Surely someone who could write would be on this list. Most likely Sarah could do so, having had some schooling back in Minisink; and perhaps Alexander, Elizabeth and John could write as well. But Andrew and Haggai, as child refugees, had never benefited from the inside of any school. It is possible that Andrew was able to forge his father’s name on the July 3, 1796 petition, although on his May 31 petition he didn’t even attempt to sign his own name, and could later manage only “Wesbrook”. Still, someone else would have had to write the comments noted above on the June and July documents.52 There may then have been a family conspiracy. But the creativity of the thing, the audacity of asking for nine hundred acres on the Thames River, and most importantly later events all point to Andrew Westbrook’s involvement.

Before we rush to judge, however, we need some perspective. The Westbrooks were far from being the only ones gaming the system. There were many doing so in both small and big ways. Consider this. The Westbrooks, like so many other Loyalists had gambled everything they had on supporting the king, and lost. Most fought out of principles and put their very lives on the line over a period of many years. In doing so they endangered the lives of their families as well. When the war ended they faced more years of want in refugee camps knowing that this was all there was for them. They could not go home because they were now hated and shunned by their kin and former friends down south. Daunting foes, Brant’s Volunteers brought great devastation to the Patriots. Hated and attainted for murder, Anthony Westbrook could never return to Minisink. Brother Joel had tried only to be expelled. Anthony’s world and that of his family was swept away forever. So much for conscience and abstract principles. Now what? Survival. Could Andrew, who grew up in the midst of war, understand why his father had fought for the British? Did he resent his father for being so often absent, for putting him, his mother and siblings in harms way? When the Westbrooks came to Ancaster in 1789, and in the midst of near starvation, Andrew had nothing but his own intelligence and ambition to fall back on. He grew up in ever-present insecurity. For the rest of his life he would be guided by self-interest. From now on he would seek sanctuary in an abundance of things and influence. But why in Delaware Township?

Why seek land on the River Thames? Alexander, John, and Haggai Westbrook were well established around Brant. But not Andrew. He had greater ambitions, and news of

12 opportunities at La Trenche, the Thames, was everywhere. Ebenezer Allen, who lived on the Grand River for a while, may have early alerted Andrew to the possibilities. From 1794 onward Allen had been talking up his lands in Delaware Township on the Thames. But then, as we will see, Allen’s enterprises were just a small part of the feeding frenzy in land speculation created by Lieutenant Governor Simcoe through out Upper Canada between 1792 and 1797. Many were looking west to settle and make money, Masonic lodge brothers included. Freemasonry provided, among many other things, a powerful network for business. Many brothers travelled widely and with them went the news of the day. When Andrew “Wesbrook”, for that was how he signed his name, was initiated into the craft on July 29, 1797 in what is today Hamilton Ontario,53 he became part of a fraternity that opened up new possibilities. John Kitson, initiated the same year, moved to the mouth of the Thames and by the early 1800’s had become a member of Lodge No. 14 at “the River La Trenche”.54 A “Bro. Allen of No. 18 [Adoniram]”is listed as being present at a lodge meeting in Detroit, Oct. 7, 1805.55 The lodge was at Amherstburg. This may have been Ebenezer Allen. John Askin, one of Allen’s creditors, was also a member of that lodge. Perhaps Westbrook was a member there as well. Unfortunately the records of that lodge are lost. Back in Hamilton, influential lodge brother Richard Beasley too had his eye on the Thames.56 And Daniel Springer, also a land speculator, had big plans for the area. Perhaps in 1796, Springer canoed down the Thames from its headwaters to Delaware where he took up a large quantity of land in and around present day London. Indeed, he and Andrew Westbrook were soon to become neighbours there! Here were two lodge brothers with so much in common: Both had more than farming on their minds; both came from Dutch American families; both had faced the trauma of the American Revolution. And yet, as we shall see, they both grew to hate each other with a passion, the ongoing feud between them a continuation of the civil war that bridged from the American Revolution to the War of 1812.

Two Revolutions

The charged atmosphere of the 1790’s and the early 1800’s was Andrew Westbrook’s schoolroom. Significant others were his mentors. An analysis of Lieutenant-Governor John Graves Simcoe’s plans to turn Upper Canada into a land of prosperous farmers is key to a better understanding of Westbrook. So too is an investigation of his ally Ebenezer Allen, and bitter enemies such as Daniel Springer and Thomas Talbot.

The spectre of republicanism haunted the British elite throughout the empire in the 1790’s. Two revolutions had happened in quick succession, first in America and then in France. To the British establishment, both were catastrophes that must be avoided at all costs. With the election of Thomas Jefferson in 1800, no great lover of the British, there was fear of an American invasion of Upper Canada. As well, since Britain was fighting Napoleon Bonaparte, there were fears of a French/ Spanish invasion. Upper Canada had to be defended, and that would mean settlers who would defend. But Governor John Graves Simcoe and his executive counsel responded with hysteria. Anyone praising republicanism was prosecuted for sedition. Moreover, the folly that had brought on the American Revolution in the first place was revisited when Simcoe initiated a poorly structured and executed policy to populate Upper Canada. In 1792-4, Simcoe granted entire townships, “proprietor townships”, of unsettled land to an array of speculators,

13 most of whom came from New York State. An attempt was made to ensure that these were capable men. And these proprietor townships were always paired up with “Loyalist townships” populated by royalist families who, it was believed, would guard against sedition. Initially, Simcoe saw his “nominees”, or “proprietors”, as selfless “spokesmen for egalitarian groups of farmers [Quakers] who wished to settle together to sustain a common church”.57 With equal naivety, Simcoe thought there were large, closeted groups of Loyalists still in the U.S. who would flock to Upper Canada if promised cheap land, and if helped to settle by these “nominees”. In reality, many of Simoce’s shepherd proprietors, but not all, were more like wolves. By 1795 Simcoe came to believe that all the proprietors were enterprising, sharp, and greedy, “land jobbers” who knew how to navigate the dangers of frontier land dealing, and who could circumvent the rules with ease in order to improve their profit. And when it came to Ebenezer Allen, Simcoe may have been correct.

Ebenezer Allen was among this number chosen to seed Upper Canada with settlers meant to forestall republicanism. He had fought alongside Joseph Brant and Anthony Westbrook, and then with Butler’s Rangers as a sergeant and lieutenant in the American Revolution. This won for him a 2 200 acre grant along the Dingman Creek where it empties into the Thames River in Delaware Township. But his service for the king had been both bloody and unclear. An American, and a product of the frontier, he was self reliant, capable and hardworking, but also short-tempered, vindictive and cruel. Self- interest motivated Allen, certainly not deference to the British elite. And he certainly did not share a British sense of morality. Apparently Ebenezer leaned more to the Hebrew Scriptures where multiple wives were good for important men like himself. He would end up with four, concurrent wives - two white and two indigenous. The establishment was shocked by his polygamy. Nor were they much taken with Ebenezer’s attempts to get more land by procuring suspect first nations claims and settler rights. In February of 1799, he was accused of the attempted bribery of a surveyor, arrested and tried, only to have his case dropped for lack of evidence in 1801. Embittered by this process, Allen started to co-operate with other conspirators to overthrow the British colonial government and replace it with an American styled republic.

Between 1795 and 1797, Simcoe came to be disillusioned by the behaviour of his “nominees”, and unilaterally revoked many of the land grants. What he didn’t realize was that his government had failed to work out the technicalities of his land settlement system, and this had made proprietors hesitant to proceed with settlers. In 1797 Peter Russell, no fan of Simcoe’s township-proprietor system, swept away all the grants. Had he checked on settlement progress he would have discovered that Thomas Ingersoll, the proprietor in Oxford-on-the Thames, had honestly tried, and largely succeeded in fulfilling his part of the bargain by bringing in 40 settlers.58 Bad enough as this was, the executive council then re-granted much of the revoked land to themselves, friends or relatives. Now it was the “nominees” turn to be royally unimpressed. Men such as Asa Danforth, Gideon and Silvester Tiffany, and Ebenezer Allen decided to act. A meeting of the conspirators was called for Albany New York in February 1802. Danforth urged Allen to bring Joseph Brant with him to the meeting, as the Six Nations would have to be on side or at least neutral if the rebellion had any chance to succeed. Joseph Brant? Would he seek to overthrow his old allies? In a word, yes! Brant was listening to the

14 conspirators and plotting because he had come to see Britain as “an ungrateful nation” that “had constantly deceived the Indians”59 by its attempts to thwart his real estate deals, and keep the Six Nations dependent. However, the rebellion fizzled out by the end of 1802. Parallel to this attempted coup was an attempt by American born masons to create a schismatic lodge at Niagara with ties to freemasonry in the United States. Involved in both the civil and lodge plots were Brothers Ebenezer Allen, Joseph Brant, Silvester Tiffany, and Gideon Tiffany. Some of the conspirators fled to the U.S., but Joseph Brant, Gideon and Silvester Tiffany and Ebenezer Allen remained in Upper Canada.

In Delaware, Andrew Westbrook took note of this. There is no evidence that he was one of the plotters. But based on his later allegiances, and his close ties with Ebenezer Allen, it is reasonable to suggest that Andrew was sympathetic. By 1800, he had made a clean break from his more conservative relatives living around Brant Town: He named his first son Andrew Hull Westbrook and not Anthony after his father, as Westbrook tradition would have dictated.60 Another son, Oliver, could very likely have been named after Dr. Oliver Tiffany, brother of Silvester and Gideon Tiffany, Allen’s associates in land dealings and political intrigue.61 Equally revealing is the fact that Andrew’s third son was named Ebenezer. Since there is no evidence of anyone by that name in the Westbrook family it is a good bet that the child was named after Ebenezer Allen, whose land was just a mile from Andrew’s spread at Delaware. Apparently “Eben”, as he called himself, had made a large positive impression on Andrew as he had on Mary Jemison down in New York right after the American Revolution. Jemison, was a white woman who had been captured by First Nation warriors during the French and Indian Wars and who had elected to live with the Seneca. She protected Allen from his white enemies when they were seeking to put him in jail.62 Andrew Westbrook would try to do the same.

Westbrook’s circle included Allen, Gideon and Silvester Tiffany along with Simon Zelotus Watson, another land speculator and lodge brother. They were all enterprising men and sharp dealers in land, surveys, mills, and whiskey stills. They were also quite willing to get ahead in an Upper Canada republic.63 In 1805 Westbrook purchased a flourmill from James Burdick at Centreville in Oxford to add to his comfortable house, distillery, barn, storehouses, sawmill and gristmill in Delaware Township.64 Well spoken, precise and gifted with a “quick and intelligent eye”65 Andrew Westbrook was arguably a better businessman than Ebenezer Allen: Where Allen’s success as a land speculator and entrepreneur on both sides of Lake Erie was dubious, where he was ever hard pressed for capital to satisfy his creditors, and where he eventually had to sell off his land in Delaware in 1801, Andrew amassed and held on to over four thousand acres of land, mills, barns and houses in Middlesex and Oxford Counties by 1812.66 Moreover, Westbrook’s standing in his community was on the rise, at least since 1805 when he was appointed township constable. Andrew Westbrook’s world now included both increasing wealth and status. Things were looking up.

All of his dealings, however, were not squeaky clean. According to T.L. Kenney, as Westbrook saw it, “ The means [were] mere materials to be judged of by his conceptions of Right; and these are generally made to obey the impulses of the moment….”67 Support for this judgement may be found in Andrew’s alleged attempt, along with Ebenezer

15 Allen, to dispossess the local “Indians”. At the Moravian mission to the Delawares at Fairfield Village, forty miles down the Thames River, a missionary reported that Allen and Westbrook were plotting “to destroy this village and our congregation”.68 The Delawares did have a grant of 51 000 acres of land from the government, and were protected by British rule. So Allen and Westbrook may have seen them and their land as legitimate targets. The two men were not enamoured of the British system in general since it bedevilled their endeavours through its land policies and restrictive immigration regulations. This was exacerbated by the depression that arrived in 1810, bringing a severe fall in prices, and an obstruction to settlement. If Allen and Westbrook et al. needed a reminder of whom to blame for all of this they had only to look to the local elite. This included Daniel Springer, Sykes Tousley, and Mahlon Burwell. And no one epitomized that hated, select few better than Thomas Talbot.

Talbot was an eccentric, 18th Century aristocrat, who wielded immense power locally because of his impeccable pedigree and network of close friends in high places, a network that included the Duke of York, the Duke of Wellington and Francis Gore, Lieutenant Governor of Upper Canada. Gore was Talbot’s close friend and through him Talbot received a sweetheart deal to build roads in 1811. These two roads, Talbot Road North linking Port Talbot on Lake Erie to the Westminster Township settlement on the upper Thames River, and Talbot Road West to Amherstburg on the Detroit River would open up a huge area for settlement. It was a land speculator’s dream. Simon Zelotus Watson, a deputy provincial land surveyor mapping out the northern concessions of Westminster Township, was to be one of Talbot’s associates making that dream into a reality. However, when Watson proposed to include American settlers in the deal, problems arose and a bitter argument developed between him and Talbot. Watson was a land speculator after all and so his plans for settlement did pose a small threat to Talbot’s empire. But it was something else that resonated. When Watson challenged Talbot to a duel, Talbot contemptuously declined. The message was clear: Watson was part of the great republican unwashed and lower, while Baron Talbot was of a much higher class and therefore not obliged to defend his honour. Talbot’s rebuff of Watson had about it the sneers of inherited or official privilege. It angered Westbrook and his friends, ambitious men of modest origins who sought security in property, but also craved attention, applause, and above all, position to prove their worth in the community.

Again it was Thomas Talbot, the “Lake Erie Baron”, who locally best represented the pinnacle of place. Toward the end of his life, Andrew Westbrook would play the role of Friedrich Wilhelm von Steuben, or “Baron von Steuben”, with “certain amiable eccentricities”.69 There was, however, more to this than odd behaviour: While hating Talbot for using his autocratic power to exclude him, Westbrook may very well have liked the idea of principality and coveted it for himself. For after the War of 1812, he would labour to replicate Talbot’s Lake Erie Baronetcy in China County, Michigan. Indeed he had already started to do so in Delaware Township and Oxford County before 1812, only to be hindered by his antagonist’s roadblocks.

In addition to his vast property, Talbot acquired control of an array of public offices – legislative councillor, county lieutenant, district magistrate, township constable, school trustee and road commissioner. He chose, however, to exercise indirect control by giving

16 these positions to friends and allies, men like Daniel Springer who, because of Talbot’s largesse, held magisterial powers from Chatham to Hamilton. What if Talbot had chosen to include Andrew Westbrook among those holding important office? Would that have kept him onside in the coming war? What if he had offered Westbrook the much-prized status that went with the rank of Major in the Middlesex Militia instead of giving that plum to Sykes Tousley? But then including Westbrook was impossible. Talbot was the local purveyor of British prejudice against all that was American. That meant that the insufficiently deferential Andrew Westbrook had to be watched, not courted. The captaincy offered him was an insult instead of the prize he sought. Talbot’s treatment of Westbrook would come back to haunt the British cause as we will see.

The same treatment was handed out to Benajah Mallory in Burford Township, Brant County. Mallory, the wealthiest man in his community, sought the position of deputy lieutenant of the county. But William Claus and others thought him indiscrete and denied him the position. Mallory would ultimately resign, as captain of militia, and in 1813 would go over to the American side.

Then too, there was the matter of how Talbot and his placeholders in the local government treated Ebenezer Allen. To be sure, Allen did not set the brightest example with respect to morals and deserved much of what he got in the courts. But to Westbrook and others, the list of arraignments for blackmail, bribery, forgery and larceny looked very much like persecution. Allen was acquitted of the forgery and larceny charges in 1801 because of lack of evidence. Then in 1804 and on into 1805, he was arrested, tried and found guilty of counterfeiting. Was Allen framed? Some thought so. But it didn’t matter - Allen was trundled off to jail at Turkey Point where he was held until 1806. Westbrook was now convinced that the local elite, and specifically magistrate Springer, was both arbitrary and corrupt. When the American Col. Duncan McArthur appeared in Delaware on July 17, 1812 on a provisioning raid, Westbrook, Allen and Watson accompanied him back to Detroit and offered their services to General Hull. The three men may have done so out of support for republican ideals, but in Westbrook’s case the decision to throw in his lot with the Americans was based more on a realistic assessment of the times: Talbot’s machinations limited or threatened his horizons, while Hull and the Americans, most likely to be the victors in the coming war, would best protect his property and further his growing expectations. Returning to Delaware as a spy, Andrew may have helped distribute Hull’s Proclamation to the People of Upper Canada. But he certainly did draw up and circulate a petition asking Hull to protect those in the settlement who did not want to take up arms against the Americans. This so angered General Brock that he ordered magistrate Daniel Springer to arrest Westbrook, Allen and all other “disaffected” in the area. Allen was sent to prison at Fort George, but Westbrook was able to escape. He returned to Detroit to become a spy for Lt.-Col. George Croghan. After the British defeat at Moravian Town, Captain Andrew Westbrook served as a guide with the Michigan Rangers, helping them raid the vulnerable settlements along the Thames River and on Lake Erie. These relentless fire raids beginning in February 1814, bear an uncanny resemblance to those of his father Anthony’s with the Brant Volunteers some thirty-five years earlier.

17 On the night of Jan. 31/Feb. 1, 1814, Westbrook and his force made a bold move against the Delaware settlement, crossing the frozen Thames to swoop down and capture the hated Capt. Daniel Springer, (1st Oxford) but also four other militia officers – Col. François Baby (1st Kent), Capt. Belah Brigham (1st Oxford), and Lt. John Dolson (1st Kent). With these men safely arrested, Westbrook proceeded to burn down his own house and lead his wife and family to safety in Detroit. (Unfortunately his wife would die in an accident on the way across the St. Clair River). Shades of Minisink in 1779 as we have seen. On Feb. 5, 1814, he returned to raid the Essex settlement. On April 5, it was the turn of Oxford to feel his wrath. This raid was particularly gratifying for Andrew because of the capture that night of Major Sykes Tousley. And the raids just continued throughout the rest of the year:

May 14, 1814 - Westbrook provides the intelligence to help Col. J. B. Campbell lay waste Dover Mills and the Long point settlement.

May 20, 1814 – Port Talbot raid. The big prize Thomas Talbot, Col. of the Middlesex Militia is absent but they capture Capt. Leslie Patterson and Capt. Gilman Wilson of the Middlesex Militia, only to have to release them.

July, 1814 – Port Talbot raid

Aug. 16, 1814 – Port Talbot raid. Thomas Talbot barely escapes capture, but Talbot’s second in command, Lt.-Col. Mahlon Burwell is taken. Westbrook was possibly there.

Aug. 30, 1814 – Oxford raid. Capt. Ichabod Hall, John Carrol and David Curtis of the 1st Oxford are captured.

Sept. 9, 1814 – Port Talbot raid. The settlement is utterly destroyed.

Sept. 20, 1814 – Port Talbot raid.

Like the raids of Joseph Brant and his Volunteers, these actions were often totally unexpected, devastating, relentless and cruel. Raiders were often painted and dressed as “ferocious Indian warriors”, perhaps to hide identity, as the insurgents were often former members of the settlements they attacked. Mills were targeted, yes, but like with Brant, the terror was also aimed at the settlers themselves: their houses, barns and crops were burnt, their horses and moveable possessions were stolen, and they were left with only the clothes on their backs. On the Sept. 20th raid against Port Talbot this happened not only in the settlement itself but also for sixteen miles to the east along the Talbot road. Revenge taking happened and some settlers were murdered to settle old scores. These raids in 1814 were all part of the American strategy to denude the countryside so that it would not feed a British occupying army – echoes of the raids on the Mohawk and Schoharie Valleys by Brant in the American Revolution to starve Washington’s armies.

The repeated raids on the Talbot settlement pretty much “bounced the rubble”, and Andrew Westbrook revelled in it. It is said that Westbrook was “animated by an insatiable desire for revenge…most formidable and merciless”.70 There is much evidence of this. Bursting into Sykes Tousley’s bedroom on the night of April 5, 1814, he is

18 reported to have said to Tousley’s wife, “If you scream, I shall blow your husband’s brains out”. No doubt he would have had she obliged. Any friend of Thomas Talbot was fair game. Baby, Springer, Burwell were all Talbot men. Capturing them at once beheaded the militia of its leaders but also helped settle old scores for Westbrook. John Carrol was also on the hit list. After Westbrook scooped him up on Aug. 30th, his party was ambushed by Capt. Abraham Rapelje of the 2nd Norfolk Militia. But Westbrook had taken precautions. He rode a very distinctive brown and white pinto horse and feared being targeted as a result. So he switched horses with Carrol, forcing his captive to ride in the vanguard while he rode Carrol’s mount in the rear. In the ambush, known as the Battle of Reservoir Hill, Carrol was killed by friendly fire. Brilliant? Vengeful? Both. John Carrol was a brave man. In October of 1813, after the battle of Moravian Town, he had protected a wagon train of wounded British soldiers against an attack by Kentucky militia in what is known as the Battle of Hungerford Hill. But then, terrible things are done in battle, were done too by Anthony Westbrook out of revenge and hatred during the American Revolution.

The death of John Carrol would have shocked and saddened the Sages, Andrew’s family in Oxford. After the death of Benjamin Becraft, Andrew’s sister Elizabeth married Allen Sage, a widower with family, and moved to Oxford sometime after 1799. When Ebenezer Allen, and perhaps Andrew Westbrook as well, were arrested in early August 1812, it was Carrol and his company under the command of Lt-Col Abraham Bostwick, supported by W. H. Merritt and his Niagara Dragoons that did the job.71 Two of Elizabeth’s stepsons, Samuel and Comfort Sage, were in Carrol’s 2nd Flank Company that day.72 The fact that Andrew was very much the cause of Carrol’s death would only have created hatred for him in the family.73 Moreover, Sage family property suffered in Andrew’s raids on the Oxford settlement. After the war, Comfort Sage was compensated for losses he had sustained in “the insurrection and invasion of the Western part of the Province”74 Had the Sages been able to lay hands on Andrew, things would have gone very rough for him indeed.

The same would have been true had he fallen into the hands of his brothers, Alexander, Haggai and especially John. Alexander served in the militia, possibly in Burford. Haggai is listed in the muster list for 1800 in Burford along with Willard Sage.75 John, a captain in the 5th Lincoln Militia and a major after the war, was strongly pro British and would have shot Andrew dead if they had met in battle, or would have gladly handed him over to be tried and hanged.

Consider the parallels. Anthony Westbrook took part in the burning of the Mackhackemeck church in 1779. Strangely enough on the first Oxford settlement raid, Andrew burned down the Episcopal Church of America, the log church his sister Elizabeth attended! Neither act of arson helped one little bit to repair family division! And both father and son faced the noose: Anthony was attainted for two murders connected with the first Minisink raid, and Andrew, for treason. There is no doubt that Andrew would have hanged had he been tried as part of the Ancaster Bloody Assizes in 1814. But Andrew, like Anthony in Ulster County, never had to face his day in court. Both men were adept at getting clean away. Both knew all the roads in their respective

19 neighbourhoods. But neither could escape the verdict of the wider family: Anthony was a “traitor” to the kin who remained in Minisink, and Andrew, in Upper Canada.

Two Myths

Both Americans looking at their Revolution, and Canadians viewing the War of 1812, created similar myths, myths that substituted a patriotic narrative of glory and unity for the horror and division of the actual combat. The parallel is really quite uncanny. On August 6, 1877, New Yorkers “celebrated” the one hundredth anniversary of the Battle of Oriskany with a huge gathering that featured marching bands, military units, and the descendants of the veterans who fought in the battle. The festivities also included glowing speeches by political dignitaries such as Lt.- Governor Dorsheimer who addressed his brother “sturdy Germans” telling them that their forefathers at Oriskany, simple farmers with little military training, had stood their ground and fought all day such that “the Indians... had enough and did not want to fight ‘Dutch Yankee anymore’”.76 Not to be outdone, the Honourable W. J. Bacon followed, claiming that these same sacred dead had “stood at the pass of a modern Thermopylae, at Fort Stanwix, and stopped St. Leger, like the Greeks stopped the Persians….”77 Three years later, in Ontario, Egerton Ryerson echoed Bacon’s metaphor when speaking of the War of 1812. Waxing eloquent, he announced,

The Spartan bands of Canadian Loyalist Volunteers… aided by a few hundred English soldiers and civilized Indians, repelled the Persian thousands of democratic American invaders and maintained the virgin soil of Canada unpolluted by the foot of the plundering invader.78

In reality, Thermopylae was a bloody slaughterhouse and so an apt analogy for the Battles of Oriskany or Lundy’s Lane. But from the point of view of those who faced the horror of battle, where was the glory? And there was none to be celebrated in Tryon County or among the “Indians” immediately after Oriskany. Five hundred Tryon militiamen died that day, and there was no talk anywhere in the county of a glorious victory, just stunned silence and tears. Pretty much every family mourned the loss of a loved one and faced the prospect of famine, for who would harvest the crops? On the British side, Seneca losses were so high that they considered the battle a defeat. And following the battle, the Oneida village of Oriska was destroyed and many of its inhabitants were killed out of revenge. During the War of 1812, the Niagara Peninsula, like Port Talbot, Delaware Township and Oxford County, was repeatedly attacked, as the Mohawk and Schoharie Valley settlements had been during the American Revolution. The pattern was ever the same – settlers murdered or left destitute, facing famine. Then after 1814, Upper Canada was hit by a depression that lasted two decades. What is to be celebrated in any of this?

20 Along with glory, the myths featured unity. In 1874, Canadian Agnes Machar proudly declared, “…in town, village and sparsely populated townships the staunch Canadians rose as one man to stand by the old flag…to fight to the death for King, country and home”.79 In the late 19th Century and early Twentieth, it was unpatriotic to think otherwise.

The Upper Canada militia myth developed as a result of a deliberate and sometimes expedient reinterpretation of events that served a political and social usefulness during and after the War of 1812.80

Indeed the myth began during the war itself as part of British propaganda, and as an attempt by men such as Bishop John Strachan to silence disaffection. If Canadians rose as one, why did so many settlers leave the province to avoid militia duty at the beginning of the war? Why during and after the war was Delaware Township a “nightmare of split families, neighbour against neighbour…and family hatreds [created] that would last generations”?81 Why was Andrew Westbrook able to find other men of Oxford to accompany him on his raids and with such success? Why did Benejah Mallory of Burford, or Joseph Wilcox and others from farther afield form the Canadian Volunteers and fight for the Americans? Why was there a need for the Bloody Assizes in Ancaster in 1814? Had the British been able to capture Andrew Westbrook, there would have been nine, not eight men executed at Burlington Heights on July 20, 1814. Here was an attempt to quash any further support for the enemy. In 1813, and 1814, British officials and the local conservative elite faced disunity and answered with hysteria, the same kind of folly exhibited by many Committees of Safety during the early years of the American Revolution in their heavy handed treatment of moderate Loyalists.

For the longest time, Americans have considered it “the most unthinkable kind of un- American behavior” to see disunity as part of their Revolution.82 In the 1970’s, J.W. Beardslee, pointed out that Dutchmen, like others of the American Revolution have been depicted as

…almost to a man enlightened, liberty loving Americans who backed the national self government with enthusiasm, suffered willingly for the cause and stood at the forefront of the Patriotic rising against the backward and oppressive British. Dutch Tories were few…a little group of rich magnates and officials guided by self-interest and quite out of touch with the spiritual dynamic of their community.83

Then Beardslee proceeded to destroy this claim by drawing attention to Adrian Leiby’s statement, based on careful research, that all memory of Loyalist support in Dutch communities was erased after the Revolution. Moreover, Leiby concluded that a significant minority of principled Dutch Calvinists in Bergen County New Jersey “were not able to see ‘rebel’ governments as representing their country”, and urged his countrymen to “…face the fact of Toryism among our forefathers”.84 These “Dutch

21 Tories” were overwhelmingly farmers, not “rich magnates” - men such as Anthony Westbrook, his son Alexander, his brother Joel, or their kin Joseph Westbrook.85 Sharing the Westbrooks’ support for the King from the Mackhackemeck Dutch Reformed Church were Benoni Krom (Crumb), William Krom (Crumb), James (Jacobus) Middag, Daniel Cole (Cool), and possibly Brient Hamel (Hamett), Levi Decker and Jacob Decker.86 More interesting still is the fact that all of these men, with the exception of Joseph Westbrook, served in Brant’s Volunteers, one small corps of Loyalists.87

Many of these men, including Anthony Westbrook, were certainly in the battle of Minisink in 1779, a battle in which neighbour fought neighbour. During that engagement, Daniel Cole, or “Cool” as Joseph Brant called him, was mistaken for Brant. The following words are those of an old veteran describing an exchange that transpired just before the battle a Goshen: A militiaman named Daniel Myers commanded, “Who are you? Answer, Captain Brandt! You lie you are little Han Cole he knew him and he was a Tory show your face and I will put another hole in it.”88 Ludowick Shiely, who also served with Brant throughout the war, fought there that day. Shiely, a staunch, conferentie Calvinist, was a member of the Dutch Reformed Church at Kingston New York.89 The Patriot militiamen of Goshen were equally warm Calvinists, Presbyterians, now inspired by the “Great Awakening” to support independence.

Significantly, Adrian Leiby claims that between one third to one half of all Dutch Reformed congregants in Bergen County, New Jersey were Loyalists. What of the Mackhackemeck congregation? Alice Kenney points to the importance of the dominie in each church, concluding “like pastor, like people”.90 During the revolution, the Dutch Church at Kinderhook New York was strongly Loyalist and the area around it was a huge threat to Patriots. The same was true of the church at Kingston and its vicinity. The common factor in both churches was the great Loyalist pastor J. C. Fryenmoet. He also had a huge presence in Mackhackemeck Church in 1773. In February of that year he left Kinderhook to christen a large batch of children in Kingston. On Oct. 17, 1773, he baptized an even larger assembly of infants in Minisink. The fifty-eight adult people there that day, parents and witnesses, were like their conferentie pastor, and most likely Loyalist. They absolutely refused to accept the services of the coetus minister J. H. Hardenburgh in 1772, waiting a year in some cases for Fryenmoet. Can we then quantify the religious and civic breakdown in the Mackhackemeck congregation like Leiby does for Bergen County? No. The data is insufficient and unclear. (See Appendix 1: Mackhackemeck Records) But it is fair to conclude that there was a significant minority of conferente adults, and therefore potential Loyalists in the congregation, a conclusion supported by the number of men in the church who joined Brant’s Volunteers. Over the years the people of the Minisink region erased the memory of the Loyalists in their midst. But their church records testify to the fact that the men and women of the Mackhackemeck congregation did not rise up as one in support of independence.

22 One Discontinuous Conflict, Two Similar Yet Divergent Lives

During the War of 1812, the young British officer, Lt. John Le Couteur, had the chance to go hunting game with some American officers. In his journal he would record that incident, stating, “How uncomfortably like a civil war it seemed when we were in good- humoured, friendly converse…”, and then remarked how unnerving it was to realize that their names were “the very names of Officers in our own army”91 They were like kin! The American historian Alan Taylor found both that quote and its author quite to his liking as he researched his book The Civil War of 1812, and rightly so. Taylor argues that the War of 1812 was “a civil war between competing visions of America: one still loyal to the empire and the other defined by its republican revolution against that empire.” But his statement begs the question: Did not this ‘republican revolution’ begin in 1776, compete for the allegiance of the peoples of North America – native, settler and immigrant - and not end until 1815? Were not the American Revolution and the War of 1812 two stages of the same civil war between republicanism and monarchy that became “a myriad of political, religious, racial and moral divisions” that split regions, civilian populations, even families?92 Taylor argues that distinctions between the United States and the British Empire were “ill-defined” – due to the fact that the two had the same language, a shared history and unmatched levels of trade and commerce. Furthermore, he makes the point that nowhere else were the demographic lines more blurred than along the borderlands between Canada and the United States, between New York State and Upper Canada. Certainly this was also the case in the thirteen colonies in the years leading up to 1812.

It is very difficult to disagree with Taylor when considering the history of two men – Anthony and Andrew Westbrook. Both father, in New York State in the 1770s and 1780s, and son, 1790s to 1815, inhabited regions, and were part of a family that were split by political, religious and moral divisions caused by an ongoing civil war. The first phase of that consuming, discontinuous conflict ended with one side prevailing and forging a unity myth that over time created a national identity by disappearing the vanquished others. The civil war aspect of the American Revolution is to be found in those campaigns of extermination fuelled by hatred and revenge perpetrated by both Loyalist and Republican Americans, along with their respective indigenous allies, against each other. When the fighting was brought to an end in 1783, the hatred and need for revenge continued on both sides, ensuring that another generation would take up the complaints in 1812 when it would be empire versus republic, round two. Even while that second phase was in progress, and certainly in the years afterward, another unity myth was crafted that denied that any significant part of Upper Canada had ever stood against empire. Both unification myths sought to end chaos and put in its place the certainty required for nation building. But at the same time, something had to go – a fascinating narrative of disunity. In this climate of myth building, both Anthony and Andrew Westbrook were labelled “a traitor to his country”, Anthony in the United States and Andrew in Canada, and their real story largely forgotten.

It is said that Andrew Westbrook stood 6 foot 2, had broad shoulders, and a crop of “brilliant red hair” that matched his temperament. That Andrew had a short fuse is clear

23 from his ongoing feud with Daniel Springer. When all Andrew Westbrook’s land went up for sale in 1823, it was Springer who bought it. No doubt Springer thought he had taken his revenge, got the last laugh. But then, perhaps before he died in 1826, he got word via the Masonic Lodge network of Andrew’s new start in Michigan. Perhaps he knew that Andrew, having lost one wife, married another and then another. Perhaps he knew that Andrew and his extensive family became influential, wealthy settlers in China Township, St Clair County, Michigan where in 1822, Westbrook was listed as “the wealthiest man in the county” and “possessed of the largest amount of household furniture - $130”.93 Perhaps Springer would agree with the statement that his old adversary was noted for his “individuality”, and believe the story that when “Indians” one day captured his children, Westbrook went out after them, pointed his revolver at the chief, demanded that the children be delivered to him, and got them back.94 Perhaps. And perhaps word that Springer now was in possession of all his goods back in Delaware, and of Springer’s extensive wealth in Upper Canada disturbed the sleep of Andrew, Baron von Steuben ensconced in his big house on the St. Clair River.

We know more of Andrew Westbrook than we do of his father. No doubt Anthony was equally tall and strong. As for Anthony’s disposition, we have no first hand accounts of that and can only try to piece together an understanding of his motivation from the scant records that remain to us. The resulting portrait is far from complete. Indeed that of Andrew is just a little clearer. As for Sara Dekker, wife and mother, we know nothing really at all. Perhaps Andrew inherited his colouring and temper from her. Perhaps Anthony was a quiet even-tempered man. But ultimately we will never know. This, though is true: the remains of both father and son now rest far from where they were born, Anthony in Ancaster Ontario, and Andrew in Michigan. Two lives both so very similar, yet also so very divergent.

Endnotes

1 http://wetherillfamily.com/westbrook.htm Solomon J Westbrook, interviewed by Solomon Van Etten, 1889 2 http://www.biographi.ca/en/bio/westbrook_andrew_6E.html Dictionary of Canadian Biography, Andrew Westbrook, Genealogical Society. Vol. V 3 R.W. Vosburgh ed., Minisink Valley Reformed Dutch Church Records, New York Genealogical Society, Vol. V, New York, 1913, pg. 99. https://archive.org/details/minisinkvalleyre00vosb 4 James W. Van Hoeven ed., Bicentennial Studies of the Reformed Church in America, 1776-1976, Wm. B. Eerdmans Publ., 1976, pg. 10 5 Adrian Leiby, The Revolutionary War in the Hackensack Valley: The Jersey Dutch and the Neutral Ground, 1775-1783, Rutgers University Press, New Jersey, 1980, pg. 20 6 Ibid., pg. 180 7 J. P. Snell, History of Sussex and Warren Counties, New Jersey, Everts and Peck, Philadelphia, 1881, pg. 366 8 R.W. Vosburgh, op cit., pg. xxvii 9 The handwriting disintegrates. On page 147 the following appears, “The Manuscript from 1760-1771 is so poor that in many instances the copying is mere guesswork.” 10 R.W. Vosburgh, op cit., Johannes – pg. 146, Alexander – pg. 149, Elizabeth – pg. 156 11 James W. Van Hoeven, op cit., pg. 24 12 Ibid. 13 Ibid., pg. 25

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14 Ibid., pg. 31 15 Isabel T. Kelsay, Joseph Brant 1743-1807 Man of Two Worlds, Syracuse University Press, 1984, pg. 150 16 R. R. Hoes, Kingston New York Reformed Dutch Church Records, De Vinne Press, New York, 1891, pg. 372. Shiely’s grandson is here baptized by Dominie John C. Fryenmoet. This is undeniable evidence of Shiely’s strong conferentie leaning. https://archive.org/details/baptismalmarriag00kinghttps://archive.org/details/baptismalmarriag00king

17 Adrian Leiby, op cit., pg. 18-19 18 Alexander C. Flick, Loyalism in New York During the American Revolution, Columbia University Press, London, 1901, pg. 23 19 Russel Headley, ed., The History of Orange County, New York, Van Deusen and Elms, Middleton New York, 1908, pg. 66-67 20 Ibid., pg. 75 21 Ibid., pg. 72 22 Alexander C. Flick, op cit., pg. 56 23 Ibid., pg. 101 24 Ibid. 25 Ibid., pg 109 26 Ibid., pg. 110 27 Thayendanega was Brant’s “Indian” name. In Canajoharie where he grew up, he came to be called Brant’s Joseph by his white friends who found that name easier to pronounce. Brant was Joseph’s stepfather. Eventually Thayendanega came to be called Joseph Brant’s, then Joseph Brant and finally just Brant. Joseph’s stepfather was a shaman and wealthy. But to the Haudenosaunee that meant nothing for Joseph. Your status as a male depended not on what your father was but who your mother was. Joseph Brant’s mother had no great status. She was not a clan matron and had no power to appoint a hereditary chief. So Thayendanega was a no body. Joseph did get some status from his sister Molly who had married Sir William Johnston but it wouldn’t be until he married his third wife, Catharine Croghan that Brant really came up in the world – Catharine had inherited the right to appoint the Tekarihoga, principal Mohawk shaman of the Turtle Clan. Whites usually had no idea of this. Re. Brant, they automatically followed their own prejudices and saw not an upstart who was not to be trusted, but a charismatic and innovative leader to be followed. 28 Isabel T. Kelsay, op cit., pg. 192 29 Alan Taylor, The Divided Ground, Indians, Settlers, and the Northern Borderlands of the American Revolution, pg. 84–93

30 New York in the Revolution as Colony and State, Vol. 44, Comptroller’s Office, Albany, 1904, pg. 233. Record of women and children held in Goshen Jail, July – Nov. 1776 31 http://wetherillfamily.com/westbrook.htm Solomon J Westbrook, interviewed by Solomon Van Etten, 1889 32 New York in the Revolution as Colony and State, Vol. 44, pg. 258 33 Isabel T. Kelsay, op cit., pg. 235 34 Ibid., pg. 236 35 Ibid., pg. 275-76 36 Ibid., pg. 324. Some were there in 1782, “raising corn and vegetables” 37 Ibid., pg. 235 38 Ibid., pg. 192 39 Kenneth Scott, “Ulster County New York Court Records 1779-1782”, The National Genealogical Society Quarterly, Vol. 68, No. 1, March 1980 40 “The Examination of Moabary Owen, Taken by Henry Wisnor, Esq.”, in the Proceedings of the New York State Historical Association, Vol. 7, 1907, Minisink, pg. 68; Kelsay, pg. 249-50 41 Certificate of Robert Kerr, J.P., Newark, July 8, 1793, Upper Canada Land Petitions, N.A.C. “W” Bundle Petition Number 1a 42 Marinus Willet to Governor Clinton, Nov. 1781, in “Willet’s Letter Book”, New York State Library, Mss # SC16670 43 Ibid.

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44 Gavin K. Watt, A Dirty, Trifling Piece of Business, Vol. 1, Dundurn Press, Toronto, 2009, pg. 357 45 Upper Canada Land Petition of Anthony Westbrook, Newark, July 3, 1796 https://sites.google.com/site/niagarasettlers/soldiers-w

46 Lt,-Col. A.S. DePeyster to General Haldimand, July 21, 1784 in E.A. Cruikshank, ed., “Records of Niagara 1784-87”, in Niagara Historical Society, No. 39, pg. 30. 47 Norman K Crowder, “Families”, Ontario Genealogical Society, Vol. 24, Number 4, Nov. 1985, pg. 219 http://www.ogs.on.ca/membersonly/Families/F24-4p193-227.pdf 48 Upper Canada Land Petitions, Alexander and Sarah Westbrook, June 28, 1794, National Archives of Canada, “W” Bundle, Petition #6 49 Upper Canada Land Petitions, Andrew Westbrook, May 31, 1796, “W” Bundle 2, Petition #4 50 Upper Canada Land Petitions, Anthony Westbrook, June 3, 1796, “W” Bundle 2, Petition #16 51 Upper Canada Land Petitions, Anthony Westbrook, July 3, 1796, “ Bundle 2, Petition #1 52 There was also Joel Westbrook, Anthony’s youngest brother, who had gone to school back in Minisink, who fought in Butler’s Rangers, and who, on June 15, 1796 petitioned for three hundred acres in “the Township above the Delaware” and was granted such “upon proof of discharge”. Proof of discharge was obtained but Joel never settled in Delaware. He farmed and died in Stamford Township, Niagara. What ever happened to Joel’s land in Delaware? 53 J. Ross Robertson, The History of Freemasonry in Canada, Vol. 1, George Morang and Co., Toronto, 1900, pg. 652. Lodge No. 10 or “The Barton” 54 Ibid,. pg. 225 55 Ibid., pg. 228 56 Upper Canada Land Petitions, Richard Beasley, Benjamin Fairchild Jr. and Margaret Springer, undated, ordered on May 26, 1796, L.A.C. “B” Bundle 1, Petition No. 54 57 Alan Taylor, “A Northern Revolution in 1800? Upper Canada and Thomas Jefferson” in Edward James Horn et. al., The Revolution of 1800: Democracy, Race and the New Republic, Virginia University Press, Charlotteville, 2002, pg. 385 58Brian Dawe, Old Oxford is Wide Awake, John Deyell Co. 1980, pg. 9. See also pg. 7: Ingersoll’s connections with New York had brought him into contact with the Allen brothers who were promoting the settlement of Delaware Township. 59 Alan Taylor, op cit., pg. 394 60 First born sons had been alternately Anthony or Johannes for four generations back to 1681. 61 No Westbrooks at all were previously called Oliver. But scores of children delivered by Dr. Oliver around the Head-Of-The-Lake were named after him. A very intelligent and wealthy man, Oliver Tiffany eventually bought Ebenezer Allen’s land and through Gideon planned Delaware Village. But the good doctor was certainly not part of the republican plot connected with his two brothers. 62 John Mahler, “Delaware, Ontario” See http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Delaware,_Ontario 63 Alan Taylor, op cit., pg. 159 64 Burdick was a charter member of the King Hiram Lodge in Burford Township, the first Masonic lodge to receive a warrant from the schismatic Grand Lodge of Niagara. Sykes Tousley was also a key member there. 65 D.R. Beasley, Westbrook, Andrew in The Dictionary of Canadian Biography, Vol. 6, University of Toronto, 1987, quoting L. T, Kenney. http://www.biographi.ca/en/bio/westbrook_andrew_6E.html 66 Allen owed John Butler but never repaid the loan. His other creditors were John Askin and Isaac Todd. 67 D.R. Beasley, op cit. 68 Alan Taylor, The Civil War of 1812: American Citizens, British Subjects, Irish Rebels and Indian Allies, Vintage Books, Toronto, 2011, pg. 160 69 D.R. Beasley, op cit. Von Steuben was a Prussian-born American military officer and one of the fathers of the Continental Army. He was also appointed as a temporary Inspector General by George Washington. Andrew Westbrook obviously admired the man. 70 http://stthomaspubliclibrary.ca/wp-content/uploads/2014/04/The-War-of-1812-in-St.-Thomas-and-Elgin- County.pdf 71R. Cuthbertson Muir, The Early Military History of Burford, La Cie d’imprimerie commerciale, Quebec, 1913, pg. 220-21, 239-41

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72 Ibid. See muster roles 239-241. Anthony Westbrook, Andrew’s nephew, son of Alexander, was also part of Carrol’s company a little later. See muster roles, 242, 243, and 244. See also muster rolls of the Oxford Militia in Muir 239 – 251. 73 John Carrol is buried near that old log church along with Comfort Sage, and many more in his family 74 R. C. Muir, op cit., pg. 163 75 Ibid., 176 76 The Battle of Oriskany, Address of Lieutenant-Governor Dorsheimer, http://threerivershms.com/Oriskany.htm 77 Ibid., Address of Hon. W.J. Bacon 78J.L. Granatstein, Canada’s Army: Waging War and Keeping The Peace, University of Toronto Press, Toronto, 2010, pg. 4 79 Steven D. Bennett, “The Militia Myth in the War of 1812”, see https://stevendbennett.wordpress.com/essays/the-militia-myth-in-the-war-of-1812/ quoting Agnes Machar, For King and Country, Adam Stevenson and Co., 1874, pg. 167 80 Ibid. 81 J. Maher, op cit. 82 John W. Beardslee, “The American Revolution” in James W. Van Hoeven ed., op cit., pg. 17 83 Ibid. 84 Ibid. See also pg. 19 85 Phillip H. Smith, Legends of Shawangunk, Smith and Company, Pawling New York, 1887 pg. 133; Vosburgh, op cit., pg. 143 86 R. W. Vosburgh, op cit.: Benoni Krum – pg. 140; William Krum – pg. 135, 143, 145, 151; Daniel Cole – pg. 145, 151; James Middag – pg. 142; Brient Hamel – pg. 143; Levi Decker – pg. 134; Jacob Decker – either born 1747 - pg. 113 or born 1751 – pg. 124 87 Isabel T. Kelsay, op cit. – B.Krum, W. Krum, D Cole, J Middag, Jacob Decker, Ludowyck Leley (Shiely) pg. 190, 192; Kenneth Scott, op cit., - B Krum, W Krum, J Middag, B Hamel, Levi Decker 88 Isabel T. Kelsay, op cit., pg 251, fn 57 89 R. R. Hoes, op cit., pg. 372 90 James W. Van Hoeven ed., op cit., pg. 26 91 Donald E. Graves, ed., Merry Hearts Make Light Days: The War of 1812 Journal of Lieutenant John Le Couteur, Carleton University Press, 1993, pg. 135 92 Ivan Lett, “There Can Only be One”. See http://www.openlettersmonthly.com/there-can-only-be-one/ 93 http://www.us-data.org/mi/stclair/tax/tax-1821.txt 94 History Of St. Clair County, Michigan, A.T. Andreas and Company, Western Historical Co., 1888, pg. 728

Appendix 1: Mackhackemeck Records

Local historians of the Minisink area have, in the past, proudly stated that “tory” strength was in the east of Orange County and not in their neighbourhood. Do the facts support that? What percent of the Mackhackemeck congregation was Loyalist during the American Revolution? How would one know? Perhaps there is a way. Adrian Leiby concludes, 1. Conferentie Dutch Reformed Christians almost without exception supported the British and often very actively, i.e. they were Loyalists. 2. Coetus people almost without exception supported independence. So by determining the Minisink people who were conferentie we will be able to pinpoint the Loyalists. If there are very few conferentie in the congregation then the old school historians are correct. If there were many, then division in Minisink was more serious. How then do we determine the conferentie parishioners? By determining the pastors who performed the baptisms of their children.

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J.C. Fryenmoet was pastor from 1742 to 1755, and Thomas Romeyn from 1760 to 1771. But church records for these “regular” years do not help. Yes, both men were conferentie, but it is not possible to determine who are conferentie and who are coetus parents because only a dominie of the church could baptize. And unless you went elsewhere, either Fryenmoet or Romeyn would have to do. A justice of the peace might officiate in a marriage, but no J.P. could baptize.

The records of infant baptism for the “irregular” periods, June 19, 1757 – April 20, 1760, and April 28, 1772 – Oct. 17, 1773 are where we must look. During the years of Fryenmoet’s and Romeyn’s “regular” ministry, baptisms were in small groups and continuous, pretty much every week. But records for those two “irregular” time periods indicate a definite level of chaos. There are big gaps in the record when there are no baptisms. Then a visiting pastor appears to baptize a rather large group of children, usually within a few days. Later, another minister comes along to do the same thing with a totally different group of parents and children. Almost always we can identify the pastor by name and so also determine his stand in the conferentie – coetus controversy. A rough pattern develops in the record. A coetus minister officiates, and then soon after a conferentie clergyman follows:

J.H. Goetschuis (coetus) – Jun. 19-26 1757 G.W. Mancius (conferentie) – Feb. 11, 1758 - Jan 28, 1759 J.C. Fryenmoet (conferentie) – Aug. 19-26, 1759 J. H. Goetschuis (coetus) – Nov. 21, 1759 - Nov. 22, 1759

The presence of Goetschuis, a coetus heavy hitter who was anathama to conferentie people, attests to the absolute seriousness of all this. The total number of baptisms during the above interregnum was 27 coetus children and 74 conferentie, a significant imbalance that seems to suggest that the conferentie presence in the church was strong indeed at that time.

More important for our purposes was the second period 1772-1773 as it was much closer to the outbreak of the revolution. Again the back and forth appears but only two batches of baptisms can be identified:

J. H. Hardenburgh (coetus) – April 28, 1772 (Hardenburgh was there that day along with his wife as witnesses for a child called Johannes Hardenburgh. Certainly Hardenburgh would not have been there and not officiated as well. And if he did not, the clergyman doing so would have been coetus)

J.C. Fryenmoet (conferentie) – Oct. 17, 1773

The total number of children baptized on April 28 was 24 coetus, and 18 conferentie on October the 17th. The total number of adults included, parents and witnesses, was 134. Of those, 76 were coetus and 58, conferentie. Expressed as a % this gives

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56.7% coetus and 43.3% conferentie, which would say that the conferentie element in the church constituted a significant minority and so evidence of a rather larger number of Loyalist leaning congregants. Not one of the adults in either list appears in the other indicating, I would suggest, a real division between the people in the two lists.

Important for this discussion is a list of baptisms that took place Feb. 6 to June 20, 1773, that is, between the appearances of Hardenburgh and Fryenmoet. If it were possible to determine the orientation of the dominie or dominies who presided in those baptisms, more critical data would be available. There are no names of pastors mentioned. But what of the names of parents and witnesses? If a significant number of congregants from either the Hardenburgh, or Fryenmoet list also appear between Feb. and June 1773, then we could determine the orientation of the group. Unfortunately there is no crossover from the conferentie list and only two people mentioned from the coetus list. Balancing the presence of this coetus couple in the list of names is an entry that includes the Dutch word “ onegt” - one of the children baptized was illegitimate. And a survey of the church records shows that conferentie clergy seemed to have baptized children born out of wedlock, but never coetus ministers.

So the February to June data conflicts and we are left with a mystery. Unlike Adrian Leiby, we are not able to quantify our data for the Mackhackemeck congregation. However, it is clear that there were more Loyalists in the congregation than has been thought till now. The Mackhackemeck Dutch Church did not rise “as a man” in favour of independence.

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