John Graves Simcoe, 1752-1806 Read online

  At the heart of Ontario’s “Golden Horseshoe” which curves around the western end of Lake Ontario, lie the streets of Simcoe’s original Town of York. Renamed Toronto in 1834 when it was incorporated, the city has grown to more than two million people. In the capital of the province, John Graves Simcoe has not been forgotten, and he is the acknowledged founder (despite Dorchester’s hand in the selection, or Simcoe’s fervent desire for the site of the present London, on the Thames). Ontarians have been slow about celebrating a rich heritage, but they are improving. The acceptance of Wolford Chapel was an important step. Another was the city fathers’ proclamation that Civic Holiday (August Bank Holiday) would be known as Simcoe Day.

  The Queen’s Rangers live on in the modern Militia unit in Toronto, the Queen’s York Rangers, an amalgamation of two earlier regiments. The members applied for, and received, the right to add “1st American Regiment” to their official name. The addition symbolises descent from the Provincial Corps of the American Establishment, Simcoe’s original Queen’s Rangers, 1777-1783. The regimental colours, restored, have a place of honour in the mess of the Queen’s York Rangers. Her Majesty the Queen appointed His Royal Highness The Prince Andrew, Duke of York, Colonel in Chief of the Queen’s York Rangers (1st American Regiment). The appointment was gazetted on 20 September 1997.

  Various actors, even descendants, and others, have portrayed John Graves Simcoe on the holiday, usually in his green Queen’s Ranger coat. In 1995, Toronto celebrated “200 Years Yonge,” the bicentenary of the opening of Yonge Street. The tall, imposing Lieutenant Governor, the Honourable H.N.R. Jackman, attended functions in the red coat faced dark blue of a major general in the army, Simcoe’s rank in 1795. (Oddly enough, Sir George Yonge’s name does not appear in Simcoe’s correspondence after his return to England in 1796. The friendship apparently passed into history sooner than the roadway.)

  Throughout his time in Upper Canada, notwithstanding having so much vetoed by Lord Dorchester (himself a pompous and less than heroic military commander), Simcoe left his mark, and he tried to protect the territory as well as he could. Attack, rather than defense, was his style when he suggested carrying the war into Pennsylvania, to avoid letting American troops get too close to his domain. He did much by his own presence, and that of his government. Under the Quebec Act of 1774, territory that was established as Upper Canada had been reserved for the native tribes. Governor Haldimand agreed to allow Loyalists to settle inland because the refugee Iroquois wanted them nearby for protection.

  Had those Loyalists been accommodated somewhere in the east, Upper Canada might well have been overrun by land-hungry Americans — much as happened in Kentucky, Ohio and Texas. In each case, settlers flocked in and then demanded annexation by the United States. In the 1790s, American settlers did flock in, most with Simcoe’s own blessing, at a time when Britain, at war with France, could not spare more troops to protect the settlements. Those Americans came, not to unorganised territory where they could make their own rules, but to a British province with an established government. Without the Loyalists, the need they created for a province, and Simcoe’s work, the Dominion of Canada might well have ended at the Ottawa River.

  While Simcoe’s command in the West of England did not become active, it was the most important of his life. Attempting to fortify the long peninsula south of the Bristol Channel was even more difficult than trying to defend Upper Canada. Even on home ground Simcoe was worried that Volunteer citizen soldiers might not stand up to the French. In Upper Canada he begged for more regular regiments, and again in the West Country. When he did not receive the backing he believed he needed in San Domingo, he withdrew from a situation that the government soon recognised as hopeless.

  When Eliza Simcoe wrote that her mother and family were alarmed at the General’s going to Portugal, but not to India, their premonition was correct. He might have flourished on the long sea voyage to India, but the hastily commissioned Illustrious killed him.

  ABBREVIATIONS

  ABBREVIATIONS

  PUBLIC ARCHIVES

  AO — Archives of Ontario, Simcoe finding aid F47.

  /WCSL Copies of materials in AO from the West Country Studies Library, Exeter

  CWC — Colonial Williamsburg Collection

  Sim/Corresp. Cruikshank, Ernest A. Corresp etc.

  DCB — Dictionary of Canadian Biography

  DNB —Dictionary of National Biography

  DRO — Devon Record Office.

  DRO/Sim — Simcoe Papers

  DRO/PR/Dunk. etc. — Parish Registers

  DRO/Land Tx — Land Tax Returns

  DRO/Lieut. — Lieutenancy Papers

  DRO/LTD — Dunkeswell Land Tax

  DRO/LTL — Luppitt Land Tax

  DRO/LTH — Hemyock Land Tax

  DRO/LTA — Awliscombe Land Tax

  DRO/LTEB — East Budleigh Land Tax

  DRO/Dunk/encl — Dunkeswell Enclosure

  EPS — Elizabeth Posthuma Simcoe

  FRYER/HA — FRYER/Hilary Arnold Genealogy

  JGS — John Graves Simcoe

  NA — National Archives of Canada

  NRO — Northants Record Office Parish Registers NRO/PR/Cott etc.

  PRO — Public Record Office, London

  SOM/RO — Somerset Record Office

  Vowler — John Vowler Papers

  WCSL — West Country Studies Library Exeter Flying Post WCSL/EFP

  PRIVATE COLLECTIONS

  Bailey — John Bailey Memoir, coll. of Margaret Partridge

  Drewe — Drewe Family Papers: Francis Drewe Genealogy

  Partridge — Other items, coll. of Margaret Partridge

  Vowler — John Vowler Papers

  ENDNOTES

  PREFACE

  1. Fryer, Mary Beacock. Elizabeth Posthuma Simcoe. (Toronto: Dundurn 1989); Our Young Soldier. (Toronto: Dundurn 1996).

  CHAPTER 1: “Young Graves”

  1. FRYER/HA p. 258. The date was probably New (Gregorian) Calendar, although this calendar commenced on 14 (formerly 2) September. The Act of Parliament was passed in 1750.

  2. Wolford-Simcoe Papers, v. 1, p. 20. Metropolitan Toronto Library. Here is a rare instance when Simcoe was referred to by a given name, rather than his initials.

  3. Copy of material in Avon Registry Office, Parish Register. Here the name is Catherine; in all other documents it is Katherine.

  4. Robertson, John Ross. Diary of Mrs. John Graves Simcoe. (Toronto: Briggs, 1911, pp. 14-16; Riddell, William R. The Life of John Graves Simcoe. (Toronto: M and S., 1926, p. 18).

  5. CWC JGS Papers, HS 30.6 Folder 2 item 14.

  6. Riddell, JGS, p. 32

  7. FRYER/HA p. 257.

  8. Prob. 6/161. Prob. 11/1458, PRO, relates to JGS’s own will.

  9. WCSL/EFP [Editor] Trewman’s Exeter Flying Post. 29/3/1787; 16/8/1787.10

  10. Martin, Ged. “The Simcoes and their Friends.” Ontario History vol. 69, no. 2, June 1977, p. 110. Sir Francis Head described Simcoe’s daughter Katherine speaking broad Devonshire.

  11. Austen-Leigh, Richard A., ed., The Eton College Register, 1753-1790.

  12. Prob. 11/1458, PRO.

  13. Lyte, C.M. History of Eton College 1440-1875. (London: 1875, pp. 332-36.

  14. WCSL, AO coll., reel 9, item 36, Milles to JGS, 27 Nov. 1768.

  15. Reel A605, F23, (William Bocawen [sic] to JGS, 1797), Simcoe Papers, NA.

  16. Lincoln’s Inn Admission Register.

  17. The Army List 1771.

  18. The Army List 1775.

  19. Drewe, Genealogy by Francis Drewe of Ticehurst, Sussex, and Broadhembury, Devon.

  20. AO Reel 9, item 52,WCSL.

  CHAPTER 2: “The Field, Not The Forum”

  1. Riddell, p. 459; Chudley, Ron, A History of Craft: Master Masons in the Province of Devonshire. 1980.

  2. AO, Reel 9 item 43 (Milles to JGS, 18 Apr. 1774), WCSL.

  3. The Army List 1774.

  4. Strachan, Hew. British Military Uniforms 1768-96.
(London: Arms and Armour Press,1975), p. 180.

  5. AO. Reel 9, item 47 (Jan. 1775); poems in reel A605, F23, NA.

  6. Biography of Samuel Graves, DNB.

  7. Ibid.

  8. Riddell, p. 47.

  9. Drewe, Edward, “Military Sketches by Edward Drewe.” 1784; Richard Polwhele, Poems by Gentlemen of Devon-Cornwall. 1792, np.

  10. Simcoe, John Graves. A Journal of the Operations of the Queen’s Rangers by Lt. Col. Simcoe. 1968 reprint of 1844 edition (New York: Arno Press), p. 14; omitted from the 1962 edition, John Gellnor ed., (Toronto: Baxter Publishing).

  11. The Army List 1776; Strachan, Uniforms, p. 180.

  12. Riddell, p. 50.

  13. EFP, WCSL.

  14. AO. Reel 9, item 36, (Milles to Simcoe, 27 Nov. 1768), WCSL.

  15. Fryer/HA, p. 257.

  16. Burt, A.L. Guy Carleton — Lord Dorchester, 1724 -1808. (Canadian Historical Association, Historical Booklet No. 5), pp. 10-14.

  CHAPTER 3: The Green Jackets

  1. Jenkins, Stephen, The Story of the Bronx, pp.162-64, quoted in Mark. M. Boatner III, Landmarks of the American Revolution. (New York, Hawthorn Books, 1975), p. 288.

  2. Simcoe, Journal, 1962 edition, p. 14.

  3. Mollo, John, and Malcolm McGregor, Uniforms of the American Revolution. (London, Blandford, 1975), pp. 211-212.

  4. Rogers, Robert, Journals (London: 1769 edition), pp. 50-70.

  5. Fryer, Mary Beacock. King’s Men: the soldier founders of Ontario. (Toronto: Dundurn,1980), pp. 129-30.

  6. Ibid., pp., 244-45.

  7. Bull, Stewart, The Queen’s York Rangers: an historic regiment., revised edition 1993, (Erin, Ontario: Boston Mills Press), pp. 36-37.

  8. Talman, J.J. Loyalist Narratives from Upper Canada. Toronto, Champlain Society, 1966), “Narrative of Stephen Jarvis” p. 159.

  9. Simcoe, Journal, 1962 edition, p. 11.

  10. Ibid.

  11. Ibid., pp. 4-7.

  12. Bull, p. 45.

  13. Dupuy, Trevor N., Curt Johnson, and David L. Bongard. The Harper Encyclopedia of Military Biography. (Edison, N.J., Castle Books,1995), pp. 430-31.

  14. Bull, p. 47.

  15. Carl Benn, PhD., Curator of Fort York, Toronto.

  16. Simcoe, Journal, 1962 edition, pp. 20-24; Boatner, Landmarks, pp. 194-95.

  17. Simcoe, Journal, 1787 edition, Appendix.

  18. Fryer, King’s Men, p. 17.

  19. Simcoe, Journal, 1787 edition, Appendix.

  CHAPTER 4: Like a Common Criminal

  1. Many copies of this portrait have survived. Simcoe is shown with frizzy brown hair; the portrait is titled “Lieut. Gen. Simcoe” but while he would have worn this coat as Colonel in the Rangers, as a lieutenant general he would have worn a red coat. The green coat was probably made by a London tailor when Simcoe received the command of a new regiment of Queen’s Rangers, raised after 1791.

  2. Simcoe, Journal, 1787 edition, Appendix. Simcoe did not write in sequence. This item is several pages after the following.

  3. Ibid., several pages ahead of the previous item.

  4. Ibid.

  5. Riddell, p. 69.

  6. Simcoe, Journal, 1787 edition, Appendix.

  7. Mealing, S.R., Biography of John McGill, DCB, v. 6, p. 451.

  8. “A Narrative of John Peters, Lieutenant Colonel in the Queen’s Loyal Rangers in Canada,” Toronto Globe, 16 July 1877.

  9. Simcoe, Journal, 1787 edition, Appendix.

  10. Seaman, Jordan. “Genealogy of the Seaman Family.” Long Island Historical Society.

  CHAPTER 5: John André, Edward Drewe and Benedict Arnold

  1. Simcoe, Journal, 1787 edition, Appendix; Fryer, King’s Men, pp. 149–54, (an account of the Sullivan expedition).

  2. Simcoe, Journal, 1787 edition, Appendix.

  3. Bull, pp. 53-54.

  4. Simcoe, Journal, 1962 edition, pp. 47, 72; Bull, p. 54.

  5. AO. Reel 9, item 193, (Simcoe to Walcot, 8/23/1784), WCSL.

  6. Simcoe, Journal, 1787 edition, Appdendix; 1962 edition, p. 82.

  7. Simcoe, Journal, p. 83.

  8. Ibid., p. 85; 1787 edition, Appendix.

  9. Lancaster, Bruce, and Plumb, J.H., The American Heritage Book of the Revolution., (New York, Dell, 1958), p. 264.

  10. Simcoe, Journal, 1787 edition, Appendix.

  11. Simcoe, Journal, 1962 edition, p. 85.

  12. Ibid., p. 85 (re Burlington); 1787 edition, Appendix (re Billingsport).

  13. Drewe, Edward. Military Sketches by Edward Drewe, Late Major of the 35th Regiment of Foot., (Exeter: B. Thorn and So,1784). ()The work, which Chris Dracott found in the West Sussex Record Office along with one of Drewe’s letters, was “Dedicated to the British Army.”

  14. Drewe incorporated extracts from his Court Martial proceedings; photocopy of “The Case of Edward Drewe” etc. West Sussex Record Office.

  15. Biographies of Saunders; and Merritt, DCB; Hugh F. Rankin. Francis Marion: The Swamp Fox. (New York: Crowell, 1973) (Merritt, pp. 145 -147, 172, 176, and Saunders, pp. 166-67. 172).

  16. Simcoe, Journal, 1962 edition, p. 94.

  17. Bull, p. 57.

  18. Ibid., p. 58, quotation from Simcoe’s Journal.

  19. Simcoe, Journal, 1962 edition, p. 123.

  CHAPTER 6: Spencer’s Ordinary

  1. Simcoe, Journal, 1787 Appendix; 1962 edition, p. 130.

  2. Simcoe, Journal, p. 132.

  3. Ibid., pp. 123-34

  4. Ibid., p. 134.

  5. Ibid., pp. 134-35.

  6. Ibid., p. 135.

  7. Ibid., p. 137.

  CHAPTER 7: “this ill-managed war”

  1. Boatner, Landmarks, (Arnold’s raid on New London, Sept. 1781) p. 55.

  2. Simcoe, Journal, 1787 edition, Appendix.

  3. Simcoe, Journal, 1962 edition, pp. 138-39.

  4. PRO 30/11 Cornwallis Papers, Simcoe’s letter; Journal, 1844 and 1968 editions refer to the execution; the incident was apparently edited out of the 1962 version.

  5. Simcoe, Journal, 1962 edition, p. 139.

  6. Ibid., 1787 edition, Appendix.

  7. Ibid.

  8. Simcoe, Journal, 1962 edition, p. 147.

  9. Hatch, Charles E. Jr. Yorktown and the siege of 1781. Historical Handbook Series, No. 14, (National Park Service, 1957), p. 59.

  10. Simcoe, Journal, 1787 edition, Appendix.

  11. Bull, Clinton’s letter is quoted on p. 65.

  CHAPTER 8: Love in the Blackdown Hills

  1. The Army List 1782; Biography of Francis Rawdon-Hastings, DNB.

  2. AO. Reel 9, item 142, (Rawdon to Simcoe 24 Dec.1781).

  3. Riddell, p. 73.

  4. Fryer/HA, pp. 255-258.

  5. John Ross Robertson, who put together the first edition of Mrs. Simcoe’s Canadian diary, assumed she had been born in 1766. He saw the grave of Thomas Gwillim at St. Dubricius Church, Whitchurch, near the Gwillim family home, but this Thomas, who died in 1766, was her grandfather.

  6. Reel A606 and A607, F30., (several letters of M. Graves to her great niece Eliza Simcoe), NA.

  7. Morris, James/Jan. Heaven’s Command: An Imperial Progress. (Hammondsworth, Middlesex, England: Faber,1973), p. 20.

  8. Genealogy of the Drewes of Broadhembury and The Grange, courtesy of Francis Drewe of Ticehurst, Sussex, and Broadhembury, Devon.

  9. Biographies of Sir James Bland Burges and Mary Anne Burges, DNB; Reel A606, A607, F29, Simcoe Papers, NA, (letters of Mary Anne Burges to Elizabeth Simcoe); Fryer/HA, p. 266.

  10. Simcoe, Journal, 1787 edition, Appendix, (close to the end).

  11. AO. Reel 9, item 153, (1 July 1782).

  12. Fryer, EPS, p. 56.

  13. Sparks, J.A. In the Shadow of the Blackdowns, (Wiltshire, Moonraker Press,1978), p. 88.

  14. AO. Reel 9 items 160, 21,12/1782, (Gidley to Simcoe)

  15. The Army List 1783.

  CHAPTER 9: Wolford Lodge 1783-1787

  1. Wright, Esther Clarke. The Loyalists of New Brunswick. np,195
5, Appendix, p. 255 of alphabetical list.

  2. Sim/DRO, (1038M, Box 6, 02 1010), DRO

  3. AO.Reel 9 item 175, (McGill to Simcoe, 10 Ju1y 1783; 12 Oct. 1783),WCSL.

  4. Ibid. Reel 9 item 193, Simcoe to Walcot, 8 Feb.1784.

  5. Ibid., Reel 9 item 169, Flood to Simcoe, 10 Nov.1783.

  6. EFP, 1 and 8 Jan. 1784. Baring and Simcoe exchanged letters on 6 and 7 Jan., WCSL; AO. Reel 9, items 188 and 189, WCSL; Merry making in the Globe, “Devon Documents in honour of Mrs. Margery Rowe,” Todd Gray ed., Devon Notes and Queries, Exeter, 1754-1809, taken from the journal of Samuel Poole, p. 38, DRO.

  7. Reel A606 F29, NA, (Mary Anne Burges to Elizabeth Simcoe, 2 Sept. 1795. She recalled his “despairing” Simcoe was each time Elizabeth was pregnant).

  8. AO. Reel 9 item 229, (E. Gwillim to Elizabeth Simcoe, 1785).

  9. Reel A607 F32, (Charlotte to Miss Nutcombe, C/O Rev. Hunt, Benefield Sept. 1818), NA.

  10. AO. Reel 9 item 231, (JGS to Miss Hunt 7 Dec. 1785), WCSL.

  11. Vowler, Simcoe papers, private collection of descendant John Vowler of Holesworthy, Devon.

  12. AO. Reel 9 item 232, (Pitfield to Simcoe, 2 Jan.1786), WCSL.

  13. Biography of Samuel Badcock, DNB.

  14. Gentleman’s Magazine 1788 — Badcock’s Journal.

  15. Polwhele, Richard, ed., Poems by Gentlemen of Devon and Cornwall, v. 2, (1792, np), p. 333.

  16. Reel A605 F23, (poems by JGS and friends), NA.

  17. Fryer, EPS, p. 27.

  18. EFP, March issues, WCSL.