The Loyalists
The Loyalists
Peter writes:
In my researching our beginnings in America and Canada, I was intrigued by the political bent of Robert and his brothers and others in the family that chose to be Loyalists instead of adopting what we now assume was the right choice and rebel against England. The situation of late1700’s and the people that inhabited the lands of the Eastern seaboard were somewhat different than what we now imagine. Many who leaned toward the Loyalist view were certainly not extreme people and they looked with apprehension and suspicion toward those whom they saw as any kind of extremist. The animosity and the physical and verbal attacks on those who wanted to remain under the jurisdiction of England and its familiar laws accelerated to the point wherein they had to seek refuge in areas that offered some degree of protection.
The infamous tea tax, which was not nearly as onerous as portrayed in American history , their cause. Those who proclaimed themselves loyal to the government of England were quite concerned where this rebellion and its vocal leaders would lead their fledgling country-perhaps to chaos, to ruin and to severe punitive retaliation.
Many Loyalists joined themselves with local Loyalist militias, but not many were actually involved in military action. Their underlying motive was to provide some degree of organized resistance to the threat against themselves and their families, most of whom were Loyalists who lived outside the areas inhabited by British troops--Rye, NY not being one of them—and simply kept their heads down and their mouths shut and thereby escaped future retribution by the passionate rebels. Many of our ancestors unfortunately found themselves in the path of these passions.
The British waged a half-hearted attempt to stop the rebellion. When the rebels won their desired goals and the United States became an independent country, our family. Loyalists were faced with a severe dilemma. They had been left to suffer the results of their British government’s loss of the conflict and again to suffer as a result of the peace agreement, feeling betrayed by those they’d chosen to be their champion. Despised and reviled they were in a dire predicament.
The British government, in at least a show of compassion for their abandoned American Loyalist friends, offered free passage and free land in New Brunswick. Our forebears, Robert and others of his family, abandoned home, lands, good and friends to sail in the 1783 fleet to a new beginning.
Once in the new land many of these displaced Americans found that those responsible to survey and award homesteads had used their positions of trust to give themselves and their cronies the best parcels and to delay as long as seemingly possible the disposition of the land to these new arrivals. Not unlike our political situation today, the ruling elite of St. John looked upon these immigrant workers –tradesmen and farmers—with what appears to be a contemptuous attitude. With arrogance, these appointed officials ignored and circumvented their just complaints of inaction of the appointed officials. This resulted in many Loyalist immigrants expending what little they did have in the way of provisions and money, leaving them in a destitute state, ripe for further exploitation by their self-perceived betters. This resulted in another migration over the next few years as Loyalists returned to America from this heavy-handedness and the harsh climate that seemed to give no prospect of providing a real sanctuary and a new beginning for them and their families.
Some obviously stayed and persevered, not only in political redress, but eventually in business and cultivation of the land. Our forebear, Robert, was one of those. Eventually, of course, another strong-minded Merritt returned to America in the form of the 17 year old Edward who settled in Hodgdon, Maine, about 1869.
Each of the descendants of these people who suffered and lost so much for the sake of principle could take a long hard look at themselves and acknowledge that within their own minds and hearts, runs this inherited thread of independence and toughness.
A man by the name of William Hamilton Merritt, an engineer and railroad magnate as well as a member of the Canadian Parliament, had the town of Merritt, Ontario named after him. He is one of our relatives, but not in our direct line; however, he was a grandson of Thomas Merritt III. Shubael Merritt, William’s brother, returned to the family property after the proclamation of peace at the conclusion of the Revolution, as permission had been granted to the Loyalists to return to their property. However, a party of armed Whigs surprised Shubael in his home, dragged him outside and shot him to death. They granted, as a favor to his father and a brother, the opportunity to give him a decent burial—such were the times. Those that were left escaped to Canada like so many others.
Unfortunately, Americans would again turn on themselves in an even greater display of viciousness toward each other in less than 80 years, in the Civil War.