It seems there are no idle moments in
the life of a family historian. From time to time I pick up on an
item that sends my curiosity skittering off on a tangent. This is akin
to the well-known genealogical principle that you cannot search a
newspaper for a death notice without being distracted for hours by
pages of local gossip, police reports, lurid adverts, and legal
notices ("she left my bed and board ...").
Loyalist Trails is a regular
newsletter from the United Empire Loyalists Association of Canada
(UELAC), loyally put together each week by Doug Grant, UE. Anyone,
member or not, can subscribe to it:
http://www.uelac.org/Loyalist-Trails/Loyalist-Trails-index.php. One
of my distractions, in the Loyalist Trails edition of 15
January 2017, was the following bit from Stephen Davidson's "Mother
Goose. Loyalist Style. Part Two of Two":
Interestingly,
there are compensation claims for three loyalist bakers who all once
tended ovens in Boston prior to the revolution. Benjamin
Davis described
himself as "a baker in government service" who had made
himself "very obnoxious" to the rebels. He was one of 1,100
loyalists who fled when the British forces retreated to Halifax from
Boston in March of 1776. When Davis attempted to sail to New York
City that summer, patriots arrested him and imprisoned him for twelve
months. By 1783, the loyal baker had settled in Halifax.
Is this the same Benjamin Davis that I
know? ... First of all, men with the same or similar name do
appear in Loyalist references ―
references that may conflict in a detail of place or date or
spelling (ask anyone who has struggled with identifying the likes of Crysler or
Hough or MacMillan men). In this case, "settled in Halifax"
sounded like a definitive statement: that the man had reached his
permanent destination.
My Benjamin Davis was in York
Township (now part of Metro Toronto) at least by 1796 when he
received the Crown patent for a property at what would become Weston
village. He was peripheral to the family being studied at the time
and was not investigated per se. Benjamin and his wife Elizabeth were
childless; at some point before 1813 they more or less adopted John
Porter, a son of that scallywag George Porter, about whom I've
written ad nauseam.
I did know that when Benjamin died in
1817, he bequeathed to John Porter a large piece of land on the
Humber River with the proviso that he care for the widow Elizabeth
until he was twenty-one (John was born ca.1800 in the Town of York).
In gratitude, I expect, John changed his name to John Davis Porter
thereafter.
Would
a baker settled in Halifax pack up his family and his business to
migrate to Upper Canada? What could confirm or invalidate the two men
being one and the same person? Off the top, land petitions (and/or
other land documents) might reveal the prior residence or origins of
the man who appeared in Upper Canada. Death or burial records for
Nova Scotia and Halifax in particular could show if Davis the baker
died there.
Beginning
as purely online searching, Library and Archives Canada's "Upper
Canada Land Petitions 1763-1865" database had nothing for a
Benjamin Davis. The index is quite comprehensive and the petitions
are digitized although it's a bit of a roundabout hunt to find a
specific document. The index also includes petitioners' names from a
series of correspondence called Upper Canada Sundries.
The
Nova Scotia Archives has indexed and digitized surviving death
records 1864-1877 (there's a long gap until the series resumes in
1908). I found a Benjamin Davis age 98 who died 14 September 1874 of
old age in Liverpool, Queens County.[1] He was born in Wales
and the informant, Alfred Fraser, did not know the names of his
parents. Also, Benjamin's occupation was not filled in.
Several
things nullify this being the man Stephen Davidson mentioned. The
Halifax baker was portrayed as active and practising his trade in
Boston in 1776; that is the approximate year the Nova Scotia man was
born (if his age is accurate) and virtually eliminates his being the
Loyalist baker. Liverpool in Nova Scotia is obviously not Halifax,
although there's a chance a move had been made to the town on the
south shore, some 150km from Halifax, one scenario being an elderly
man going to live with a caretaker. "Born in Wales" is an
interesting addition. This Benjamin could have emigrated to Canada or
the United States at any time during his long lifespan; he could have
come as a British soldier, or as a child with his parents, or at any
age.
The
likelihood is strong that more than one Benjamin Davis lived in Nova
Scotia. A man of this name was part of a group petition in 1785 at
Digby, requesting 5,000 acres each at Bay of St. Mary's near Port
Roseway (petition was "approved").[2] It's most
likely the baker died before Nova Scotia began keeping regular vital
statistics. I delayed searching for the baker's potential marriage in
Massachusetts for the time being.
As
for the Upper Canada man, one armchair source quickly led to another.
Merely viewing the index to Filby's massive Passenger and
Immigration Lists 1500s to 1900s showed more than one Benjamin
Davis milling around in early Ontario.[3] Keith Fitzgerald's
Ontario People 1796-1803 based on the district Loyalist rolls
has a Loyalist reference.[4]
That source is no doubt the basis for a "Benjamin Davies"
listed in the UELAC Loyalist Directory
(http://www.uelac.org/Loyalist-Info/Loyalist-Info.php) with no
details.
Turns
out my
Benjamin Davis had history with both Sir William Johnson and Butler's
Rangers.[5] Lt.-Col. Smy's remarkable compendium of
Butler's Rangers tells us more about Benjamin Davis. In brief, he was
the son-in-law of Nicholas Phillips Sr., UE, from Pennsylvania.
Before the war, Benjamin had 150 acres on the Mohawk River near Sir
William; he served throughout the war, ultimately as a sergeant, in
various capacities; he was granted land on the Humber River, York
County, in 1796. To illuminate Davis' service record, Col. Smy
clearly accessed a great deal of cited manuscript correspondence and
memorials in the British Library, Library and Archives Canada, and
the Archives of Ontario.
And
yet ... no Upper Canada land petition? Strange. Benjamin was eligible
for a substantial land grant ―
which he did
receive but apparently without the usual process. There are indeed
land petitions from his wife Elizabeth Phillips Davis in the
above-mentioned index. I expect his marriage took place in the
Town of York, logically where New York boy met Pennsylvania girl.
Benjamin also submitted a memorial to the claims committee for his
and his wife's losses of American property. So
a number of land-related and other sources could be explored.
A
random exercise? A fool's errand? ... leading to several men of the
same name. Let me be plain: this is not an exhaustive study for
Benjamin Davis of York Township, York County, Upper Canada. Going on
to fill out his portrait with original documentation is not
particularly my story to tell. And yet, here is a Loyalist with no
children, no descendants to speak for him. It makes me wonder if
other Loyalists without issue are still equally obscure. Comments ~ naturally ~ are always welcome.
[1]
"Nova Scotia Historical Vital Statistics, Deaths 1874,"
digital image, Nova Scotia Genealogy
(novascotiagenealogy.com), Book No. 1814, p. 67, no. 79, Benjamin
Davis.
[2]
"Nova Scotia Land Papers 1765-1800," database, Nova
Scotia Archives
(archives.novascotia.ca/genealogy/nova-scotia-land-records).
[3]
William Filby, Passenger and Immigration Lists 1500s to 1900s,
database, Ancestry
(ancestry.com).
[4]
Keith Fitzgerald, Ontario People 1796-1803,
database, Ancestry
(ancestry.com).
[5]
William A. Smy, An Annotated Roll of Butler's Rangers 1777-1784
with Documentary Sources (Friends
of the Loyalist Collection at Brock University, 2004), 76.
©
2017
Brenda Dougall Merriman
