Tag Archives: 1st Regt Middlesex Militia

Regiment

Jarvis Thayer
Flank Company
1st Regiment Middlesex Militia

Jarvis ThayerJarvis Thayer, son of Silas Thayer and Perley Pond, was born 24 Nov  1770 in Mendon, Worchester, Massachusetts. In the 1790s he came to Canada, settling in Gainsborough Twp., Lincoln County. In 1796 or 1797 he married Susannah Parker, daughter of UE Loyalist John Parker, Sr. and his wife Nancy Watson. Susannah was born in Pennsylvania c1779.

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Flank Company
1st Regiment Middlesex Militia

Jesse Page
1st Regiment Middlesex Militia

Jesse Page
Unveiling of Private Jesse Page’s plaque by members of St Mark’s Masonic Lodge #94: L to R Bro. John Skidmore, Historian, Bro. Donald Cousins and Worshipful Master Robert Kenney. Jesse Page’s gravestone bears the insignia of the Freemasons, however lodge records only go back to the 1860s so no history on Jesse Page’s membership exists.

Jesse Page was born the 30 August 1771 in Goochland,  Virginia, the son of Joseph Page and Mary Robbins.  He was the eldest son, but second of five children born to Joseph and Mary.  At some point, Jesse emigrated to Wainfleet  Twp.,  Welland County where he met and married  Elizabeth Parker on the 20 February 1810.  Elizabeth was born the 2 Jan 1776 in  Northumberland County, Pennsylvania.  Jesse and Elizabeth were members of the Society of Friends and became one of the original families who followed Jonathan Doan to Yarmouth  Twp., Elgin County when the Quaker  colony was being established there.

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Seth Preffer
1st Regiment Middlesex Militia

Seth PrefferSeth Preffer was born the 9 July 1795, likely in Wainfleet Twp., Lincoln County, Upper Canada to Jacob Preffer and Elizabeth (Betsey) Parker, who had come into this Province in 1805.   The Preffers lived in the Sugarloaf area, west of Port Colborne  and were members of the Pelham  Black Creek Meeting.  Jacob was a blacksmith by trade.

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1st Regiment Middlesex Militia

Walter Storey
Flank Company
1st Regiment Middlesex Militia

Very little is available about Walter Story. He was 29 at the beginning of the War of 1812. Born in Ireland about 1783, he moved to Pennsylvania in 1800 and then to Upper Canada in 1809 with his extended family, settling in the Talbot Settlement on Lake Erie. He farmed and remained single. He died the 12th of February, 1831, and was buried in St. Peter’s Cemetery, Dunwich Township.

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Flank Company
1st Regiment Middlesex Militia

Thomas Talbot
1st Regiment Middlesex Militia

Colonel the Honourable Thomas Talbot was born into an Anglo-Irish aristocratic family, on ancestral lands in Malahide, Republic of Ireland, which the Talbots had owned since the 12th century. He was born on July 19, 1771, the fourth of twelve children. At the age of 11, he was commissioned ensign in the 66th Regiment of Foot, British Army. In February, 1792, at 20 years of age, he was in Montreal with the 24th Foot when he was named private secretary to John Graves Simcoe, the first lieutenant governor of the new province of Upper Canada. With Simcoe, and later on Simcoe’s behalf, Talbot traveled extensively between York and Detroit, bounded by the Thames River and the Lake Erie shoreline.

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1st Regiment Middlesex Militia

John Pearce
1st Regiment Middlesex Militia

John Pearce was born in 1777 in Rhode Island. He moved to Erie Pennsylvania sometime before 1800 and married Frances Patterson. In 1808, he and his brother-in-law Leslie Patterson made an trip to Upper Canada when they learned that tracts of land were opening for settlement. They found the Talbot Settlement on the shore of Lake Erie to be to their liking and Thomas Talbot gave them lots. They brought their families the next year. A worker for Colonel Talbot had already begun to grow crops on Pearce’s land prior to their arrival.

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1st Regiment Middlesex Militia

Benjamin Gilman Willson
Flank Company
1st Regiment Middlesex Militia

Benjamin Gilman Willson was born near Fort Erie in 1796, the first boy after two girls in a family that grew to 12 children. Benjamin G.’s father and grandfather had had roles in public affairs in Bertie Township. His father, Gilman, was a farmer, a land assessor and a captain in the Lincoln Militia; his Willson grandfather, Benjamin, was a farmer, and a justice of the peace.
In 1811, the Willsons took up a land grant farther west in a fledgling settlement called Port Talbot on Lake Erie. Their land would have been virgin forest so the winter would have been spent clearing land to build a house and planting crops in the spring. The War of 1812 to 1814 broke out shortly after the family arrived. At first it affected the Port Talbot settlement very little, though a defense was raised. On February 12, 1812, Benjamin G.’s father Gilman was commissioned Captain in the 1st Regiment Middlesex Militia. Thomas Talbot, the founder of the settlement, was commissioned Colonel and placed in charge of the Middlesex Militia and Supervisor for the District of London. Benjamin G. was on service in the militia from 1812 at which time he was about 16 years of age. He was a private during the war, serving to protect his community under Captain Leslie Patterson and Captain David Secord.
By 1813, the British had lost control of Lake Erie and the Thames River, and had been driven back from the area. Consequently, the whole area was left undefended except for the local militias. There were numerous raids on the Talbot settlement by groups of American marauders. One document in the Talbot Papers records the activity of Benjamin G. Willson during such a raid.

On May 20, 1814, Port Talbot got a half-hour notice of the approach of a raiding party from the north. Two groups of local militia started to convene from different points along Talbot Road. It is documented that Benjamin G. was with one group of seven men until his father, Captain Gilman Willson, took him away, perhaps to help him guard the mills that were essential to the settlement. Therefore, the first group decided to wait for reinforcements. The other group of seven men did not manage to meet them until it was too late. When the raiders arrived, the settlement was deserted, except for those on guard there. The guards were overpowered and taken prisoner. On reflection, the militia commander, Lieutenant-Colonel Mahlon Burwell, felt the first group could have challenged the raiders if Benjamin Gilman had been allowed to stay.

Another raid occurred on September 9, 1814 by an army under General McArthur and Andrew Westbrook numbering as many as seven hundred. The militia was fighting elsewhere. Port Talbot was completely destroyed. Mills, homes and barns were burned, animals killed or driven off, and the stored supplies ruined. The settlement never truly recovered.

The War of 1812 ended with the signing of the Treaty of Ghent on December 24, 1814 and life started to return to normal. For his service, Benjamin G. was granted 200 acres in the neighbouring township of Southwold. He put in a petition for Lot 25 Talbot Road East, North Side on the 18th of July 1817. On November 27, 1819 they received the patent for their property. The 1864 Tremaine Map shows a house on the east half of the property near the road. This is probably the location of the family home.
On May 21 1818, he married Elizabeth Kitchen. Very little is known about Elizabeth. According to the 1861 Census of Canada West, she was born August 31, 1797 in the United States. Family lore states that it was Pennsylvania, and that her parents were John Kitchen and ___ Miller. Family lore also says they were married in Dunwich Township by Mahlon Burwell. Other than those few hints to her life, there is nothing else that can be documented at this time.
Benjamin G. and Elizabeth’s children were:
1. M. Gilman Willson, born April 17, 1819, died December 23, 1902, a carpenter joiner in Fingal, later becoming a Methodist Minister and moving to Egremont Township and on to Bracebridge, Ontario.
2. John Kitchen Willson, born September 19, 1821 and died May 11, 1906, a harness maker and farmer who settled first at Morpeth, Howard Township, Kent County, and then Harwich Township in 1853.
3. Philo Willson, born September 20, 1823, died young.
4. Ann Willson born December 27, 1825 married George Burt, moved to Michigan.
5. Edward Samuel Willson, born March 17, 1828, died February 1, 1925, a saddler in Fingal, and later a farmer in Aldborough Township, Elgin County and Howard Township, Kent County.
6. Eliza Jane Willson, born August 23, 1830, married Hiram Bell, in Southwold October 11, 1852, living in Nebo, Kent County after marriage. Died February 19, 1911.
7. Sarah Willson, born November 12, 1833, married Nelson Welter September 13, 1859. They lived on Jabel Robinson farm, Southwold, went from there to near Glencoe where he died and was buried, (The Commemorative Biographical Record of 1904 says Sarah was married to William Welter and lived in Nebo, Kent County.) They had two sons and one daughter – Charles, William Isaac and Alice. Sarah Willson Welter and children went away to her brother who lived at ______.
8. William B. Willson, born November 8, 1835, died January 31, 1860, at 24 years of age, buried in Fingal Cemetery.
9. Charles Benjamin Willson, born July 1, 1838.
10. Elizabeth Williams/Willson grew up in the Willson household. Family lore says she was an adopted daughter. Her parents were George R. and Ann Williams. Elizabeth married Israel Morse and died in 1917 at 76 years of age.

In the 1820s, Benjamin G. and his brothers were granted more land. Two possible reasons for this could be because the family were supporters of Thomas Talbot, the founder of the settlement, or that as sons of Loyalists they were entitled to claim land. At this time the rich farm lands of Kent county were being settled. Along with others from Elgin County, Benjamin G. and two of his brothers, Crowell and Edward, became original patentees in Howard Township, being granted 100-acre lots clustered together along Middle Road. Benjamin was the first to qualify for his patent (1838), however, he sold that property and continued to live in Southwold Township.
As time went by, discontent arose in Upper Canada over how officials and politicians were using their influence to reward their own through land grants and positions. This discontent culminated in another conflict, the Rebellion of 1837/1838. On October 24, 1838 a militia was formed. Being Tory supporters, Benjamin G. and his oldest son M. Gilman signed up for active service that day in the St. Thomas Troop of Cavalry. Both were privates, and were additionally assigned to be “dispatch riders”. The pay rate for a private was 1 shilling 5 pence per day. There was a separate pay list for “Rations and Forage” of 3 shillings per day and a further pay list for “Horses and Horse Furniture” at 2 shillings and 6 pence per day. Those who were dispatch riders received an extra allowance. In February of 1838 privates were supplied with blankets valued at 10 shillings each. Benjamin G. does not appear on the pay lists after April 1839. A branch of the Willson family owns a sword that probably belonged to Benjamin G. Willson. Family lore says the owner of the sword fought in both the War of 1812 and the Rebellion of 1837. Benjamin G. was the only one to fight in both wars.
Once into his fifties, Benjamin Gilman was involved in Southwold affairs. He was made a constable in 1853. By the 1871 census he was listed as a bailiff of the Third Division Elgin County Court. One incident highlights this part of his life.

In January of 1859 with none of their offspring intending to farm the land, Benjamin G. and Elizabeth sold the old homestead and moved into the nearby town of Fingal.

In 1875, the Canadian Parliament voted to distribute the sum of $50,000 in $20 increments to all Canadian militia veterans of the War of 1812 who were still alive and residing in Canada. Surviving veterans were invited to apply. Benjamin G. at age 79, was listed as a recipient.

Finally, in 1875, Benjamin G. and Elizabeth moved to Kent County to spend their remaining days with family. In 1878 at 80 years of age, Elizabeth died at the Cedar Springs home of their son, John Kitchen. Benjamin G. died at the home of their son, Edward Samuel, in Troy in 1885, aged nearly 90 years. By then there were few Willsons left in Elgin County and many of Benjamin G. and Elizabeth’s siblings, children and grandchildren had died or gradually moved away from Kent County, as well. There is no recorded burial, but, according to family tradition, Benjamin G. and Elizabeth are both buried at Cedar Springs in Harwich Township, perhaps on John Kitchen Willson’s farm.

For more information on the Talbot Settlement on Lake Erie during the War of 1812, see the following Veterans elsewhere on this site and linked here:

Family Link: Gilman Willson

 

Stephen Backus
Flank Company
1st Regiment Middlesex Militia

Stephen Backus was born in New York State on Dec. 25, 1786.
He moved to Pennsylvania with his family about 1800, and then moved to the Talbot Settlement on the north shore of Lake Erie in 1810 to join his sister Lydia (Backus) Patterson. There he married Anne Storey who had come to the Talbot Settlement the previous year. He died November 4, 1865 at 78 years of age.

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Flank Company
1st Regiment Middlesex Militia

Leslie Patterson
1st Regiment Middlesex Militia

In 1800, three siblings, Leslie Patterson, Mary Storey and Fanny Patterson moved from County Fermanagh, Ireland, to Harbour Creek, Pennsylvania, on Lake Erie. While there, Leslie Patterson married Lydia Backus from Vermont, and his sister Fanny married John Pearce from Rhode Island. The third sibling, Mary Storey, was a widow with three children, Walter, Anne and Sarah.  About this time, word was spreading that tracts of land in Upper Canada were opening for settlement.

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1st Regiment Middlesex Militia