Escalation of Rebellion and the threat to Loyalty Part #2

Submitted by Louis Myers

What follows is an Excerpt from the Friends and Enemies https://exhibitions.nysm.nysed.gov/albany/friends.html Website.

Albany's historically visible loyalists were a relatively small group. They numbered perhaps fifty and mostly were men. A substantial number of other community people did not support anti-British and then Revolutionary measures and activities. However, at this point, the most telling parts of their stories remain historically mute.

That said, the historically visible loyalists fall into five general groups: Royal officials; those with economic ties to the royal government or the British economy; the spouses of the first two groups; a larger but less definable number of "passive loyalists"; and would-be neutrals. Yet another notable group of non supporters left Albany prior to the outbreak of hostilities.

Royal officials included Mayor Abraham C. Cuyler, Stephen De Lancey - the city and county clerk, Sheriff Henry Ten Eyck, postmaster John Monier, justice of the peace John Munro, and the Reverend Harry Munro - rector of St. Peters Anglican church.

Royal adherents included merchants John Stevenson, James Dole, Edmond Butler, and William Kane; skippers William Pemberton, Robert Hoaksley, John Roff, and John Fryer; and innkeepers Richard Cartwright and his son, Albany native Benjamin Hilton, Jr., and James Furnival.

Spouses and widows included: Jane Gregg Edgar, Genevieve Masse Lydius, Janet Glen Cuyler, and the notorious Widow Clement. A draft essay looks at them in more depth.

Passive loyalists and would-be neutrals included native sons Baltus Lydius, Dr. Henry Van Dyck, Gysbert Fonda, Cornelis Glen, and the Van Allen brothers.

Among the most historically prominent of a long list of those who left included relative newcomers George Wray, States Dyckman, John Macomb and his son-in-law Francis Pfister, Thomas Swords, Ebenezer and Edward Jessup, the Robertsons, and the Tunnicliffs. Suspected Stamp Tax collector Henry Van Schaack returned to his native Kinderhook several years earlier. The unexpected death of Sir William Johnson in July 1774 left Albany royalists without a leader and perhaps with a future quite different than it might had been had he lived!

End Excerpt.

Article continues by Louis Myers:

With the death of Sir William many loyal to the crown pinned their hopes on his son, Sir John Johnson.

Following his father's death , John inherited his father’s fortune and succeeded to his father's title of baronetcy, along with his extensive estates and 20 slaves. In 1775, he was appointed doorkeeper of the New York General Assembly. Sir John had now come into his own but it would soon prove to be not enough to save his world by stopping the tide of rebellion.

In January 1776, some nine months after Breed’s Hill was fought , Johnson gathered several hundred of his supporters at Johnstown. He sent a letter to Governor William Tryon, saying that he and his loyalist supporters had met about raising a battalion for the British cause. He added he could raise 500 Indian warriors who, when used with his troops, could recapture all of the forts that fell to the rebels.

Major General Philip Schuyler, with a force of Continental troops and the Tryon County Militia numbering around 3,000, disarmed Johnson and about 300 of his Loyalist supporters on January 20th 1776 but Schuyler paroled Sir John.

Hearing in May 1776 of another force being sent to arrest him, Johnson decided to leave with his family and supporters to Canada. He led about 170 of his tenants and allies among the Iroquois to Montreal, Quebec .

Sir John's loyalty to the King would cost him his home in Johnstown and extensive properties in the Mohawk Valley, all of which was confiscated after the war by the State of New York.

Bibliography and references available upon request: kjs66@nycap.rr.com