XIII.

MEMOIR OF COLONEL JOEL STONE, A UNITED EMPIRE LOYALIST AND THE FOUNDER OF GANANOQUE.

BY JUDGE HERBERT S. McDONALD, BROCKVILLE.

66

In June, 1884, at the meeting held at Adolphustown, to celebrate the centennial of the first settlement of Upper Canada by the United Empire Loyalists, one of the speakers intimated that the celebration had been set on foot in order (to use the words of Dr. Ryerson) to do at least a modicum of justice to the memory of a Canadian Ancestry whose heroic deeds and unswerving Christian patriotism form a patent of nobility, more to be valued by their descendants than the coronets of many a modern nobleman." Concurring entirely in the truth of the tribute to those who may justly be called the forefathers of the great Province of Ontario, it is at once a pleasure and a privilege to be permitted to prepare a memoir of one among them who risked life and sacrificed property for loyalty to his king and country.

It is impossible for us at this remote period of time to enter into the feelings and to appreciate the conduct and action of those who are known as United Empire Loyalists. It has been so much the habit to have the virtue of true patriotism accorded to the American revolutionists and to have the loyalists, under the name of Tories, depicted as men who were false to their country and cruel and cowardly in their actions, that many even of the descendants of the latter have not known the truth of the matter. For this state of things United States writers have been largely responsible, and the thanks of the Canadian people are justly due to the lamented late Reverend Dr. Egerton Ryerson, for having in his work entitled "The Loyalists of America and their Times" done justice to the loyalists and exposed the cruelty and injustice with which they were treated.

Dr. Ryerson says: "From the beginning the Loyalists were deprived of the freedom of the press, freedom of assemblage, and under an espionage universal, sleepless, malignant, subjecting the Loyalists to every species of insult, to arrest and imprisonment at any moment, and to the sacrifice and confiscation of their property."

And again: "The Americans inaugurated their Declaration of Independence by enacting that all adherents to connection with the mother country were rebels and traitors; they followed the recognition of Independence by England by exiling such adherents from their territories. But while this wretched policy depleted the United States of some of their best blood, it laid the foundation of the settlement and institutions of the then almost unknown and wilderness provinces which have since become. the widespread, free and prosperous Dominion of Canada."

Joel Stone was born in the Town of Guilford in the County of New Haven, and (then), Province of Connecticut, on the 7th day of August,

1749. A number of the original settlers of Guilford came from England in a ship which sailed from London on the 20th May, 1639, and arrived at New Haven about the 1st July in that year. During the voyage a covenant was entered into which may well be transcribed to these pages:

"June 1st, 1639, WE, whose names are hereunder written intending by God's gracious permission to plant ourselves in New England, and, if it may be, in the southern part of Quinpyack, we do faithfully promise each to, each for ourselves and our families and those belonging to us that we will, the Lord assisting us, sit down and join ourselves together in one entire plantation and be helpful each to the other in any common walk according to every man's ability and as need shall require and we promise not to desert each other on the plantation but with the consent of the rest or the greater part of the company who have entered into this engagement. As to the gathering ourselves together in a Church and the choice of officers and members to be joined together in that way we do refer ourselves until such time as it shall please God to settle us in our plantation.

"In witness Whereof we subscribe our hands this 1st day of June, 1639. "Robert Kitchell, Francis Bushnell, William Lute, John Jordan, John Hoadly, Richard Guthridge, William Parmaley, John Mephon, Abm. Cruttenden, William Halle, Henry Kingsworth, Thomas Cooke, John Bishop, Brother of Lt. Governor Bishop of New Haven, William Crittenden, Thomas Jones, (Wm. & Jno. Stone, Brothers), William Plane, Jno. Housegrove, William Dudley, Thomas Norton, Francis Chatfield, Thomas Naish, Henry Dowde, Rev'd. Henry Whitfield.

"Of their arrival in Connecticut, of a meeting which was held by the people of New Haven for prayer and thanksgiving for their safe arrival," an account was given in a letter from the Rev. M. Davenport, of New Haven, to Lady Vere, Countess of Oxford.

William Stone, one of the two brothers above named who signed the covenant, died 16th November, 1683. His son William died on the 20th March, 1712, leaving a son Stephen, who was born on the 1st March, 1690, and married on the 9th December, 1711, Elizabeth Leeming, a daughter of one Christopher Leeming who came to East or South Hampton, Long Island, about 1640. Stephen Stone died 24th December, 1753. His son Stephen was born at Guilford, 13th August, 1721, and married for his first wife Rebecca Bishop, daughter of Stephen Bishop, and a descendant of the John Bishop who signed the covenant above mentioned. Of this marriage, Joel Stone, the subject of our memoir, was one of the issue. Stephen Stone survived his first wife (who died in 1769), was married to one Deliverance Chapman and died at Litchfield, Connecticut, in the month of September. He and his family had removed to Litchfield on the 23rd of April, 1751, when Joel was less than two years of age. Of this removal to Litchfield, Joel speaks in a narrative, and says of his father that there "by indefatigable labour and industry he improved a competency in land of which he was proprietor."

Of the early life of Joel Stone we have not any record further than that, in the narrative above referred to, he says that he remained at home with his father, in the improvement of the estate, until he was twenty-one years of age, when he proposed to try his fortune in a line of business more agreeable to his inclinations, and with his father's approbation entered

on a branch of the mercantile trade, travelled to several places in North America, and returned in about three months with a considerable property. So great had been his success that he was induced with his father's consent, in 1774, to enter into a partnership with a merchant named Jabez Bacon, of Woodbury, in the County of Litchfield. From a copy of the partnership articles, which has been preserved, it would appear that Jabez Bacon and Joel Stone "joined themselves to be co-partners together, or traders in company, in the business of Merchandising and all things thereto belonging; and, also in buying, selling, vending and retailing of all sorts of goods, wares and commodities whatsoever, which said co-partnership is to continue from this First day of February, 1774, for and during unto the full end of six years from thence next ensuing." The partnership did not expire by effluxion of time, for long before the end of the six years the Revolutionary War had broken out and the Junior partner had found employment of quite a different character from that for which the partnership was formed and carried on. But while the business continued it appears to have flourished for Mr. Stone in his narrative says: "I soon had the happiness to discover myself in the confidence and esteem of my neighbours and the public in general. By dint of an unwearied diligence and a close application to trade I found the number of my friends and customers daily increasing and a fair prospect of long happiness arose to my sanguine mind in one of the most desirable situations beneath the best of laws, and the most excellent government in the Universe."

It is quite unnecessary in a narrative such as this to enter upon the causes or discuss the events which led to the revolt of the colonies and the declaration of their independence as the United States of America. We only have to do with them in so far as they affected the subject of our memoir, and he appears soon to have experienced their effects. He says:

"But alas! the dreadful commotions that commenced about this period quickly involved that once happy country in all the dreadful horrors of an unnatural war, and filling the pleasant land with desolation and blood removed all my fair prospects of future blessings; yet amidst all that anarchy and rage I was fixed in my resolves, rather to forego all I could call my property in the world than flinch from my duty as a subject to the best of sovereigns; sooner to perish in the general calamity than abet in the least degree the enemies of the British Constitution."

Entertaining such sentiments as those above stated and with the public. mind in the state in which it then was, it may be readily supposed that his life became a disturbed one.

In the year 1775 being suspected of unfriendliness to the provincial or continental party he was cited to appear before a Committee and was accused of having supplied the people whom they called "Tories" with sundry articles of provisions, and with having supported and assisted the British prisoners confined in Connecticut. It was with much difficulty that he at that time escaped a very severe prosecution at the hand of the emissaries of Congress. His aged father appears to have occupied much the same position as Joel for we are told that he was repeatedly imprisoned, threatened, and harassed "for his steady perseverance in maintaining with all his ability the true liberty of his country and just cause of his rightful Sovereign."

At length, in the year 1776, Joel Stone discovered that it was perfectly impracticable for him any longer to conceal his sentiments. The agents of Congress having peremptorily urged him to declare without further hesitation whether he would immediately take up arms himself against the British Government or procure a substitute, he could no longer avoid giving a positive reply. His resolution not to take the step which was required of him was unalterable, both because he detested to do so, and because what was required of him had been repeatedly deemed an‘act of rebellion by the public proclamations of General Howe. Having received his reply the leaders of the party to which he was opposed informed him that his conduct would undergo the strictest scrutiny and that he might expect from those in authority and an incensed public the utmost severity to his person. In consequence he determined in his own mind to withdraw as soon as possible from Connecticut and go to New York, designing upon his arrival there to join the British forces and use all his influence in favour of his king. Before he could carry his design into execution a warrant was issued for his apprehension by order of the agents of Congress, and he having become apprised of this, and that men were actually on their way to his house, packed up his books and bills and delivered them to a friend to secrete, and leaving a sister who had lived with him for some time in charge of his household effects, took flight upon horseback. and the night being a dark one had the good fortune to elude those who were searching for him and escaped. The party seeking him was attended by a tumultuous mob who surrounded the premises, and vented their resentment upon his sister. Using language the most opprobrious, they broke every lock in the house and seized all the property they could discover.

Mr. Stone made his way to New York, which was then in the possession of the British forces. When or how he arrived there we cannot tell, but it became his residence for a period of several years. From his own statement it would appear that he took up arms and served the king from the 20th June, 1777, until the evacuation of New York. He first became a volunteer in Governor Wentworth's command, and his service as such appears to have been purely of a gratuitous character, for he received no remuneration, nor indeed did any of the volunteers in that command, until after he had ceased to be attached to it. By a commission or warrant bearing date the 15th day of April, 1778, he was authorized and empowered by Gabriel G. Ludlow, Esquire, Colonel of the third battalion of Brigadier-General Delancey's Brigade to recruit able-bodied men, not less in number than fifty-four (including those recruited by the subalterns in his company) to serve His Majesty in that battalion for "two years or during the present rebellion in North America," under the command of his Excellency, Sir William Howe, or under the commander-in-chief of His Majesty's forces for the time being, and was further authorized and empowered to inform the men that upon their being mustered and approved they should receive five dollars bounty, and the same pay, clothing, provisions, and other necessaries as the British troops then had. Having gone to Huntington, Long Island, to recruit men he was surprised, while asleep, on the 12th May, 1778, by a company of whale-boat men and carried to Fairfield, Connecticut, and there committed to close custody upon a charge of high treason. While in prison he was subjected to abuse, being informed that he should be

hanged as a traitor. On the 23rd July, 1778, he escaped from what he calls "that town of horror" and with great difficulty arrived on Long Island again on the 30th of that month.

On the 3rd of August he was seized with a severe fever which nearly proved fatal, and on his recovery from it went to sea for several months, and his health by this means was re-established. He returned to New York and entered into a mercantile business.

By commission dated the second day of February, 1780, he was appointed by James Pattison, Esq.,* Major General of His Majesty's forces, Commandant of New York, etc., etc., etc., to be second lieutenant of Company No. 22 of the City Militia, of which company Willett Taylor had been appointed Captain. On the 9th March, 1780, Mr. Stone received a captain's commission to command a company of militia, and commanded the same until the king's troops left New York, without receiving any pay or compensation whatever.

In reference to his services generally in behalf of his king it may be of interest here to quote a certificate subsequently given by General Lym, who was, we believe, at one time Governor of the State of New York:

"I do certify that Mr. Joel Stone came into the king's lines at New York from the colony of Connecticut early in the American War-was employed in recruiting the provincial corps, and conducted himself as a faithful, loyal subject-therefore particularly recommend him to the consideration of Government."

"Given under my hand in Upper Grosvenor Street, this 23rd of January, 1784."

Nor must we judge only of Mr. Stone's loyalty by the services he rendered to his king but also by the sacrifices which he made. We have already seen that on the night on which he made his escape every lock in his house was broken and all the property which could then be discovered was seized. But his enemies were by no means satisfied with their actions or with having driven him from the colony, and steps were taken to confiscate his estate.

It would appear as regarded personal property, that by the statute law of Connecticut the "select men" of any Township from which any person absented and joined the British army were directed to represent such person and the state of his property to a Justice of the Peace, who then had power to issue a warrant to a constable to seize and hold all the absentee's goods and chattels and make returns to the County Court which was to adjudicate in the matter, and might issue an order to the said constable to sell the property so seized for the use and benefit of the State. By another statute, provision was made for the sale of real estates of such absentees.

Upon the representation of select men of Woodbury in the County of Litchfield, to Daniel Sherman, Esquire, a Justice of the Peace, for the said County, against Joel Stone, showing that he was inimical to the States of America and did sometime in the month of December then last (1776) join the army of the King of Great Britain, and had ever since continued under the protection of the said King's chief commander at or near New York, and that he had an estate in goods and chattels in said Woodbury

*The letters of Gen. James Pattison, while he was commandant in the City of New York, appeared in the volume for 1875, of the New York Historical Society.