Loyalists in the closet

John Trumbull’s "Death of General Warren at the Battle of Bunker Hill".
(Boston Museum of Fine Arts/BOSTON MUSEUM OF FINE ARTS)

On a recent Facebook forum someone I don't know commiserated with me for having Loyalist ancestors. My first reaction was to laugh. I mean, I'm a white woman with a 400 year family history in a nation founded on genocide and slavery. If Loyalists were the worst my family tree had to offer, I'd be thrilled.

I'm extremely grateful that some of my ancestors, and many other men and women of the time, chose to fight for our independence, but it is laughable to think that that choice was obvious, except with 20/20 hindsight (and not necessarily even then). After all, freedom and justice are wonderful values to fight for, but so are loyalty and patriotism, both of which motivated those who supported the British crown. Furthermore, while some of the liberties our ancestors fought for are rightly enshrined as fundamental human rights, some points of contention between us and the British, like slavery and white expansion into Native lands, were cases where we were definitely on the wrong side of history.

I have a post listing of all my ancestors who served in the American Revolution. But what about my Loyalist ancestors? I want to create a list of them, too, not, perhaps, out of pride, but to acknowledge this face of our past. What I've found is that Loyalists are surprisingly hard to trace. While organizations like the Daughters of the American Revolution provide "proven" genealogies to link us back to the soldiers who fought on the side of independence, there is no such organization that does the same for Loyalists (at least, not one so well-funded and comprehensive). In fact, I don't have proof that any of my ancestors fought for the British, there's just the suspicious coincidence that many on the Kinney line moved to Canada during or after the war, and they were particularly concentrated in the areas of Nova Scotia where the Loyalists were resettled. I've decided to focus some real effort on this question now, however, and will update as I find information.

Planting Heritage

Maurice Cunningham's great-great-great-great-grandson plants
one of his heirloom Newtown Pippin apple trees

We decided to plant apple trees this year. I was looking on-line for Honeycrisps (because, yum) when I came across this entry at a heirloom tree site. The Newtown Pippin? That sounds familiar. It's a tree with heritage. My heritage.

The Newtown Pippin was, as the link will tell you, the first apple grown commercially in the United States, and it was developed in New York in the mid-1700s. This webpage has a history of the Newtown Pippin. The apple was first exported to Europe in the late 1700s, but this paragraph is what really stands out to me:

In 1845 it is stated that Newtown Pippins from the orchards of Robert Pell, Ulster county, New York, sold in London at $21 a barrel.  The nobility bought them at a guinea a dozen, or 42 cents an apple.  Mr. Pell's orchard of 20,000 trees of Yellow and Green Pippins became famous on account of the high prices received for the fruit, and in consequence the varieties mentioned were planted and grafted throughout the apple regions of the country.  They did not prove successful elsewhere, except in the Piedmont and mountain regions of Virginia and North Carolina.

Robert Pell, of Ulster county New York, did not, of course, work the orchards by himself. He employed a large staff, and his head gardener was Maurice Cunningham, my third great-grandfather. Maurice and his wife came to New York from Cork County, Ireland, in 1828. It's not clear when he began working for Robert Pell, but by 1843 he is mentioned in New York state records as having won multiple prizes for his winter apples and vegetables (1). Pell's Newtown apple trees were described as 40 years old in 1872, so they had been planted in 1832, more or less, perhaps around the same time as Maurice began working there (2). 

An article about the suicide of Robert Pell's son, James, pasted
in the scrapbook of Eliza Cunningham, Maurice's daughter.
(photograph courtesy of Mike Cunningham)

Maurice and his family left New York before 1860, for Wisconsin, where they owned a farm. The relationship between the Cunninghams and the Pells is an interesting topic for speculation. Maurice's daughter, Eliza, left a scrapbook in which she pasted a newspaper article about the suicide of Robert Pell's only surviving son. She disfigured the article by crossing it out in ink. Out of grief? Anger? Denial?

Minnesota is on the edge of zone hardiness for Newtown Pippins, but once I saw they were still for sale, I had to buy one. We planted it today, and I said a little prayer for my great-great-great-grandfather. I hope it makes him smile to know that his descendants are still tending the apples he so prized.

Our new Newtown Pippin.
Long may it reign.

References:

1) 1843 Documents of the Senate of the State of New York, Volume 3. pp. 74, 75, and 47.

2) 1872 ''Gazetteer and Business Directory of Ulster County, NY for 1872'', compiled by Hamilton Child. 

Other Deans of Pennsylvania

I wrote an earlier blog post about Abraham Dean, his (probable) father, James, and the many Deans of central Pennsylvania in the mid-1700s. I laid out in that blog post my evidence for a connection between James and Abraham Dean of the area near Alexandria, Pennsylvania, and Margery Dean Canan, wife of John Canan.

There are other Deans in the same area at that time, some of whom may be relatives and others who may have been wholly unconnected. Evidence for these relationships tend to be more tentative, but I lay it out below. As with the previous post, this one is aimed at the two or three people in the world who actually care about the details of this topic. And, as with the previous post, most of this information comes from the research by Larry Dean, with a few items of my own thrown in.

The Connection Between Abraham and Robert Dean

Abraham is listed in the U.S. Direct Tax Lists for Huntingdon and Somerset Counties, Pennsylvania, in 1798. Abraham is listed as Occupant #14, in Baree Township, "on head waters of Shavers and Stone Creek". Occupant #15 is Robert Dean, with the exact same location information. Occupant #16 is James Dean, also located in the same area. No other families are listed with that location. James, and I already discussed, was Abraham's father. However, this James seems likely to be his brother, since James Sr.'s death was recorded in the Canan family bible in 1795. Robert is another likely brother.

The Connection Between Abraham and William Dean

William Dean was the only other Dean whose name was directly connected to Abraham's in the primary literature. Abraham was appointed the administrator of William Dean's estate in Pitt Township, Allegheny County, on April 21, 1789, after William died without a will. Abraham's co-administrator was Jane Dean, William's wife (1). Allegheny County is significantly farther west than Huntingdon, where James and Abraham lived.

Larry Dean's post covers this case in detail, and includes an email from the local Genealogy Society which claims that the Abraham Dean who administrated William Dean's estate was the son of William and Jane Dean. However, there are no other Abraham Deans who appear in the 1790 census, other than the one in Huntingdon County (2) (well, there is the one in Maine, but that seems a stretch). If William Dean had a son named Abraham, then he was not the head of his household in 1790, yet the fact that he was administering William Dean's will suggests he was of age. So, assuming the Abraham who administered William Dean's will is the same Abraham who is our direct ancestor, what relationship did Abraham have with William and Jane Dean?

The previous blog post includes the evidence that Abraham was James's son, not William's. The genealogy that was cited in Larry's post included no sources to collaborate the suggested relationships or the dates, but it claimed that William was born in 1735 and had received land in Pitt Township for his service in the Revolutionary War. The war ended in 1783, so William could have been elsewhere in Pennsylvania before that time. 

In the mid-1770s, multiple Deans appear in Hopewell Township of what was then Bedford County. At that time, what is now Huntingdon County was part of Bedford County, and Hopewell Township was created in 1773 from Barree (about 10 miles north of Alexandria, PA) (3). James Dean paid taxes on 300 acres in Hopewell township in 1779. A William and a John Dean paid taxes there in 1775, 1776, and 1779 (4). In 1784, there was a William Dean listed as an inhabitant of Huntingdon, where James Dean was also living. (Abraham was not listed, but he may not have bought his land until later that year.)  William's household consisted of 7 white persons (4). In other words, IF this is the same William Dean, then James, William, and Abraham Dean lived in the same area in the 1770s and early 1780s, after which William and his wife Jane moved farther west when they were granted land in Pitt Township. William appears to be in the same generation as James, as far as we can tell from the land records. Certainly, he is at least ten years older than Abraham, as he begins buying land and paying taxes in 1775. 

It is possible, then, that William was the father of Abraham. We cannot disprove this on the basis of the primary documents. However, the secondary evidence more strongly suggests James is Abraham's father, and Abraham never named any of his children William or Jane (see my previous post for discussion of Scotch-Irish naming practices). My suspicion - which I am unable to prove - is that William was Abraham's uncle, a brother of James. Abraham, as a relatively young and fit man (compared to, say, his father, who was around 50 at a time when life expectancy was much lower), was sent to his Aunt Jane's side when his uncle died unexpectedly, and helped her set the estate in order.

However, just to make things more complicated, the William Dean who died in Allegheny County may not have been the same William Dean who lived in Huntingdon! Larry Dean makes a good case that that William Dean, in fact, moved to Kentucky. Which, if either, or these Williams were related to our line remains frustratingly uncertain.


The Connection between Abraham Dean and Matthew and John Dean

And finally, I descend far into the realms of speculation. 

Matthew Dean and his son John lived in in Frankstown Township in what was then Bedford County. This area was later divided into Bedford and Baree Townships (which we've heard of before) and is located in Blair County, just southwest of Alexandria, PA (3). Their lives are fairly well documented because much of their family was killed in a border raid by Native people who were angry at the incursion of white settlers onto their land (4, 5, 6, 7). Matthew, his oldest son John, and his three oldest daughters (Margaret, Rebecca, and Elizabeth) were in the fields and missed the attack on his farmstead/fort that killed Matthew's wife Rebecca and their five other children. 

There is only circumstantial evidence that Matthew and John Dean are related to James and Abraham Dean:

1. Matthew and James Dean lived very close to the area where James and Abraham lived, and at the same times. Matthew is first listed on the tax roles for Frankstown Township in 1776, and lived there until he died in 1781 (8).
2. In his will, Matthew Dean named John Canan as executor. John Canan was James Dean's son-in-law (he had married James Dean's daughter, Margery) (9).
3. John Dean (son of Matthew), James Dean, and John Canan were all founding members of Hart's Log Presbyterian church (5).
4. According to secondary sources, Matthew and James Dean came to the United States around the same time. Matthew Dean's great-grandson said that “Matthew Dean came to Pennsylvania about the year 1760 from Ireland.” (7). As discussed in my previous post, James Dean's great-grandson claimed he, too, had come from Ireland in 1760.
5. A number of family names are shared in common, although unfortunately they are also very common names from the period, so the fact that both families have Margaret/Margery or Elizabeth, John, etc., is not very convincing.

My suspicion - again, not provable - is that Matthew and James Dean were brothers. William may have been another brother. 

If this is true, then one other intriguing piece of information may help clarify the Dean families of Pennsylvania: John Dean listed his birth city as York, PA, in his Revolutionary War pension file (10). If Matthew and James (and William?) Dean arrived in Pennsylvania in 1760, but they are first found on the tax rolls in the mid-1770s, what were they doing between those dates? Of course, they may have been working as laborers, and therefore not showing up in the records until they had saved enough to become men of property. But John's birthdate of 1763 in York suggests they spent some time there. York is south-southeast of Harrisburg, The Clerk of Courts Quarterly for York County record an Elizabeth and a Hans Dean living in the town in October of 1768, when they were brought in for a court case (I believe they were witnesses) (11). Elizabeth Dean was also tried for stealing in York in July of 1775. Obviously, Dean is a rather common name, but it's possible that these Deans were somehow related to the (three?) Dean brothers who arrived in Pennsylvania from Ireland in 1760.


References:

1)  American Revolutionary Soldiers of Franklin county, Pennsylvania compiled by Virginia Shannon Fendrick, published 1969 by the Historical Works Committee of the Franklin County Chapter of the Daughters of the American Revolution.
2) "United States Census, 1790," database with images, FamilySearch (https://familysearch.org/ark:/61903/1:1:XHKJ-8MR : accessed 17 July 2015), James Dean, Huntingdon, Pennsylvania, United States; citing p. , NARA microfilm publication , (Washington D.C.: National Archives and Records Administration, n.d.), roll ; FHL microfilm .
3)  http://www.pa-roots.com/bedford/history/originoftownships.html
4) History of the Early Settlement of the Juniata Valley by U. J. Jones, published by Floyd G. Hoenstine, Holidaysburg, Pennsylvania
5) History of Huntingdon County, Pennsylvania Volume I, by J. Simpson Africa, published by Louis H. Everts 1883 at Philadelphia, Pennsylvania
6) History of Blair County, Pennsylvania Volume II, by J. Simpson Africa, published by Louis H. Everts 1883 at Philadelphia, Pennsylvania
7) A History of Blair County by Tarring S. Davis, published 1931
8) The Pennsylvania Archives Third Series, Vol. 22, p. 121, 200, 267, 297
9) Ancestry.com. Pennsylvania, Wills and Probate Records, 1683-1993 [database on-line]. Provo, UT, USA: Ancestry.com Operations, Inc., 2015.
10)  Genealogical Abstracts of Revolutionary War Pension Files by Virgil D. White, pub 1990, National Historical Publishing Company
11) http://www.yorkcountyarchives.org/search.asp