Revisiting history that we think we know through the eyes of those who lived it sometimes gives us a different perspective. In this episode, researcher Jake Breadman reviews his findings about the Brown family’s participation in the War of 1812 and brings us closer to the experience of the militiamen and their families.
Revisiting history that we think we know through the eyes of those who lived it sometimes gives us a different perspective. In this episode, researcher Jake Breadman reviews his findings about the Brown family’s participation in the War of 1812 and brings us closer to the experience of the militiamen and their families.
[INTRODUCTION]
[00:00:15] ANNOUNCER: Welcome to The Open Door, presented by The Brown Homestead, in the heart of the beautiful Niagara Peninsula.
[EPISODE]
[00:00:21] AH: Running a historic site means getting to know the people who lived and worked in that space. One of the most eye-opening and sometimes very personal parts of doing so is beginning to see the events of history through their eyes. Oftentimes, this means revisiting and reconsidering history that you thought you knew. The earliest inhabitants of The Brown Homestead, John and Magdalena Brown and their children, were an ordinary family that experienced some extraordinary things. By exploring them, we can better understand how we came to be here, and better understand our place in the continuum of history.
We're joined today by someone who's been doing a lot of exploring lately. Jake Breadman is a local historian. He holds a Master's in History from Brock University, a Master's in Public History from the University of Western Ontario and, this summer, he will be a PhD candidate at Queen's University, where he will be writing an environmental history of the War of 1812. He's also a researcher here at The Brown Homestead and, lately, his focus has been on today's topic; the Brown family members who served in the Lincoln Militia during the War of 1812. Welcome, Jake.
[00:01:28] JB: Thanks so much for having me, Andrew. I'm really excited to be here.
[00:01:31] AH: Today, we're talking about the War of 1812, which was a bit of unfinished business between the British and the Americans. It was a war fought by both British regulars under Sir Isaac Brock, at least initially, and also by the civilian militia, comprised of the inhabitants of Upper Canada. Who were the militia?
[00:01:50] JB: The militia was a group of civilian men that were drawn out into military service to support the British regulars, who are of course, those guys in their fancy, nice, bright red coats. The British regulars were of course, voluntary, full-time soldiers.
[00:02:07] AH: The professional soldiers as it were.
[00:02:09] JB: Yeah, exactly, the professional soldiers. Now, as for who exactly comprise the militia. For this project, I really focused on the 2nd Regiment of Lincoln Militia. Now, the 2nd Regiment of Lincoln Militia, Drew, its men primarily from the townships of Stamford, Thorold, and Pelham. Now, for residents of Niagara, we probably know where Thorold and Pelham are today, more or less the same area. Stamford though, that's a name that might be somewhat unfamiliar to us. But Stamford is basically more or less where Niagara Falls is today.
Of course, the Brown family, largely being from Thorold and Pelham typically show up in the muster rolls for the 2nd Regiment of Lincoln Militia. Again, if you're wondering what a muster roll is, it's basically just a list of a group of civilian soldiers that served in the militia for a certain period of time. You're probably also wondering what exactly were the qualifications to be in the militia. Of course, basically, everyone was called out, as long as you were able bodied and aged between 16 to 60 years old.
[00:03:16] AH: It’s every able-bodied man between that age range, but there were some exceptions primarily for religious reasons.
[00:03:22] JB: Yeah, that's exactly right, Andrew. Quakers, Mennonites, and Tunkers were typically exempt from service, but of course, they would have had to pay a fine. That fine was actually relatively steep. In peacetime, for example, you would have had to have paid 20 shillings, which roughly, that's probably someone's weekly wage in 1812. That's quite a lot of money. Then in wartime, you'd have had to pay £5 to exempt yourself from service, which it's hard to convert these numbers. But generally speaking, that's about a monthly wage, so that is a lot of money just to exempt yourself from service.
[00:04:04] AH: Which may explain why we do find some Quakers, Mennonites, and Tunkers on the militia rolls. I think they had to weigh their conscience versus their pocketbook in some cases. The service that the militiamen saw did tend to vary quite widely through the war, though, didn't it?
[00:04:18] JB: Yeah, typically. A good example that I like to point to is, at the Battle of Chippawa, which is a battle that a lot of us in Niagara might be somewhat unfamiliar with, but I feel like we should know more about it because it was a really, really significant battle fought in Niagara, where the 2nd Regiment of Lincoln Militia in particular played a really instrumental role.
That was one battle in particular, where the militia were heavily involved. They were really in the thick of the fighting, going toe to toe with American soldiers and American-allied indigenous warriors. But if we compare the type of service that the militia saw at the Battle of Lundy's Lane, against probably a battle that most of us are familiar with in Niagara. The militia were serving more in sort of a support capacity at the Battle of Lundy's Lane. By support, I mean, the British Regulars were in the thick of the fighting, and the militia were kind of in reserve. If they really needed to use them, they would send them forward.
[00:05:21] AH: Now at it turns out, talking about the involvement of the Brown family members, we're going to end up talking about both of those battles. Why don't we start with Adam and Abraham Brown, they were the oldest and the youngest sons of John and Magdalena. They’re also the ones who jointly inherited the homestead when John and Magdalena died in 1804. Now, Adam turned 28 in 1812. By the time the war started, he already had two young children. But Abraham, still living at home with his brother was only 16.
[00:05:51] JB: Yeah, that's right. Then, we can sort of compare Adam’s service with Abraham. Again, Abraham being 16 years old, he's just sort of crossed into that margin to be eligible for militia service. But out of all the Brown brothers, he serves the least amount of time. I think that really does make sense to me. I mean, obviously, when you were 16 years old in 1812, you are considered a man, basically. But when you're 16 years old, today, you're still a boy. I think a lot of the militia officers realized that some of these kids that were really coming to fight in the militia were a bit too young. What they would do is they would call them out for a couple of days, they probably train them for a little bit, do some simple military maneuvers with them, teach them how to load and fire a musket, things like that, and then they sent them back home.
Abraham was kind of lucky in that respect. He wasn't really in the thick of fighting in many battles.
[00:06:43] AH: You see a good example of that in 1813, when Adam was serving under Captain George Turney with both Abraham and their young nephew, Conrad Dennis, who was a similar age to Abraham. Both of the younger men were dismissed from duty on May 14, whereas, Adam stayed on. Probably, lucky for the younger ones, because just two weeks later, they may have served at the Battle of Fort George.
[00:07:08] JB: One of the documents, of course, that I looked at were muster rolls, which I kind of briefly covered. But another type of record that I looked at was American prisoner of war lists, which was a really, really interesting record I had never looked at before.
On this American prisoner of war list, there was an Adam Brown listed as captured and paroled at the Battle of Fort George. Now, there's sort of a problem here, because Adam Brown is a fairly common name. The Americans, when they were writing down Adam Brown and putting the regiment that he was a part of, they simply listed militia. They didn't list 2nd Regiment of Lincoln Militia, which if they did, we would be able to confidently say that this is our Adam Brown. But just because it says Adam Brown and militia, again, we can't say anything with too much confidence.
[00:07:59] AH: That one will put down as a maybe, but one thing we do know for sure, is that the following day, on May 28, he was at home at The Homestead.
[00:08:07] JB: Yeah, that's right. That brings us to the third type of source that I looked at, which were war loss claims. Loss claims really weren't much different from a modern-day insurance claim. What you would do is, you would go before the local justices of the peace in the case of Adam Brown in 1824. He went before George Kiefer, and he would have stated the things that were taken to you by either the British soldiers, American soldiers, or British allied or American allied indigenous warriors. Then on top of that, you would have to provide the Justice of the Peace with some contextual information of the loss. This is basically, who took it, what was taken, when was it taken and basically, why was it taken.
Now, sometimes, of course, the why is a little more difficult and the historian has to do some a bit of interpretation on that end because it’s not necessarily stated.
[00:09:04] AH: In this case, what do we know about this war loss claim that Adam filed?
[00:09:09] JB: We know that Adam claimed for a saddle and bridal and five bushels of oats provided to a wounded and retreating British officer. That provides us some context clues, but we don't know exactly who that retreating officer was. I suspect Adam probably didn't know either. He could probably tell by his fancy uniform that he was a British officer, but they certainly weren't exchanging names at that point. They were just trying to get out of Niagara as quickly as possible, I bet.
[00:09:37] AH: Presumably, he would have recorded the officer's name if he knew it, because it would have certainly bolstered his claim. But contextually, we can surmise that it was a British officer retreating after the Battle of Fort George. We know that that was a pivotal battle in 1813, because it essentially left Niagara in the hands of the Americans for an extended period of time, a state of affairs that is led to a second loss claim that Adam Brown would later file.
[00:10:04] JB: Yeah, that's right. In the second loss claim, Adam claims that in October 1813, his home, being the John Brown house was raided by “American Indians.” From him, they took an amount of clothing and a fusee, which again, you might be wondering what a fusee is, but it's basically like a civilian firearm, something like a musket. Those losses amounted to 21 pounds, two shillings and six pence. Clearly, a lot of clothing was taken from the house because the fusee was probably only about two pounds or so. They're really not that expensive.
This is a really interesting claim. One neat thing about it is, they're sort of indication by the loss claims that the Americans were sort of going door to door in the local townships of Thorold, Pelham, Grantham, Louth and taking away all sorts of firearms from the inhabitants so they couldn't use them to fight against the Americans, which is pretty neat.
[00:11:05] AH: Not a bad move, if you'd want to occupy somebody to make sure they're not all packing muskets in the back of the house somewhere. We know that Adam experienced the war in different ways and continue to serve fairly extensively in 1814 as well. Now, let's move on to another son John Jr., who was a little bit younger. He was 23 when the war began, recently married and his wife Mary was actually pregnant with their first child when the war broke out. Their daughter and was born in the fall of 1812. John was cut from a little bit different cloth than his brother Adam, wasn’t he?
[00:11:40] JB: Yeah, that’s right. Well, Adam was a Methodist, like his wife's family. John was a Tunker like his father, and he had married into a very devout family. We know that John Brown Jr.’s wife’s uncle was Bishop John Winger, who was the founder of the Brethren in Christ or Tunker Church in Canada.
[00:12:03] AH: The Tunkers were essentially German Baptist sect, very similar to the Quakers and the Mennonites.
[00:12:08] JB: But like we said earlier, the fees to exempt yourself from militia service were quite steep. It's likely that not all could afford them. John Brown Jr. is a great example of this, because we actually do find him on the muster rolls. But for those that were of extremely religious cloth, you didn't necessarily have to serve in a non-combat role in the militia. You could take up something known as teaming work, which was basically carrying supplies in a wagon for the British. Whether or not John Brown Jr. did that, we don't really have much indication, but it's something that other people like him did at the time.
There's also indication that he, like his brother, Adam, was also taken as a prisoner of war at the Battle of Fort George. But again, there's not enough details taken down by the American clerk that wrote the document for us to be able to confirm that it actually is our John Brown, because, again, John Brown is a fairly common name.
[00:13:09] AH: You mentioned as well with Adam, and I believe it's true of John as well that he was on the list of prisoners who had been paroled, and maybe we should explain what that means.
[00:13:17] JB: That's a good point, Andrew. A parole was basically a promise, essentially. A parole was where you would go before an American officer, for example and you would basically swear to him, sometimes orally, sometimes in written form. But you would swear to that officer that you would not take up arms against the occupying army. Basically, what happened after the Battle of Fort George is, the Americans had clearly taken some of the upper Canadian militia men aside and made them promise that they wouldn't serve against the Americans. Which, of course, it’s something that a lot of people ignored.
A good example of this is the American officer General Winfield Scott, who's a very famous name from the War of 1812. He's taken prisoner at the Battle of Queenston Heights and he's paroled, but then the next year, he's campaigning once again in Niagara in 1813.
I think this parole that John would have sworn before the American officer would have actually given him a fairly good excuse to actually stay home from fighting and hopefully help his wife take care of their children. We do know largely, though, that although he may have exempted himself from service in 1813, he was certainly serving in 1814.
[00:14:41] AH: Although we do know that he was at home in July of 1813, because of another loss claim that you found involving his father-in-law.
[00:14:50] JB: Yeah, that's right. John Jr. had married into a civic minded family in what is now Niagara. He married into the Demuth family. I think the most interesting thing about this loss claim is, John swears to the truth of Henry's loss. Whereas his father-in-law, Henry, affirms it. This is kind of interesting because as Tunkers, they’re technically not allowed to swear oaths. But here, we see John swearing an oath, and then his father-in-law instead is affirming it. This, to me is some sort of indication that John is not quite as devout as his father-in-law, but he was at least considered to be devout enough to be able to marry into the family.
[00:15:35] AH: We do know that he was a member in good standing of the church for the rest of his life. Clearly, he passed that test and marrying into the Demuth family was also an indication. But nonetheless, despite the parole, and despite the faith, we do find him back serving in 1814, under John DeCew with his brother, Christian, and his brother-in-law, John Bowman. They're an interesting pair because their service was a little bit different than both Adams and John's. Why don't we talk a little bit about Christian who, in 1812, was just 21 years old?
[00:16:08] JB: Christian’s service is really interesting because he was in an artillery company. Specifically, he was in Captain James Kirby's company of the 2nd Regiment Lincoln Artillery. The interesting thing, and I'm speaking from experience here, operating a cannon is almost nearly the same as a musket, it just kind of requires a team of men to load the piece. Generally, though, the process is exactly the same as buffering a musket.
Based on Kirby's memoirs of the War of 1812, and his mentioned in dispatches from British officers, we know that Christian would have been quite active in Kirby's Company, which was serving all along the Niagara Frontier from July 1812 to March 1813. Specifically, we know that Christian would have been Manning artillery pieces all the way from Fort Erie, to Chippawa and on to Queenston.
[00:17:03] AH: Now, one of the challenges with researching Christian has been that, there doesn't appear to be the number of existing muster rolls for the artillery companies. But we do know that the militiamen who served tended to serve more than the occasional regular militia. So as you say, he was likely with Kirby at Queenston Heights on October 13 in 1812, which together with Lundy's Lane, is probably one of the most famous battles on the Niagara theatre anyway of the War of 1812.
[00:17:29] JB: The Battle of Queenston Heights is a really, really interesting one. It was a battle where – I'll try to simplify this as much as I can. If I could talk about the Battle of Queenston Heights. I mean, that'd be a whole podcast episode, I think. But the Battle of Queenston Heights was a battle fought in of course what is now Queenston, Ontario. Numerically superior American invasion force basically invaded Queenston. They had about 5,000 soldiers, compared to about 1,400 British regulars, and militia and indigenous warriors. The British were vastly outnumbered in this engagement, but as we know, the British ended up coming out victorious. Of course, that's largely due to the service of men like Christian Brown, who would have served in Kirby's company of artillery at the Battle of Queenston Heights.
[00:18:18] AH: Now the Battle of Queenston Heights of course is famous both for being the battle where Sir Isaac Brock was killed, but also the battle where Captain John Norton and John Brant, son of Joseph Brant led the Haudenosaunee warriors who took the Heights back from the Americans after Brock was killed and essentially turned the tide of the war, turned a big loss battle into a win.
[00:18:39] JB: Also, at the Battle of Frenchman’s Creek, which is a battle that happens about a month and a half or so after the Battle of Queenston Heights. This was sort of like the second American invasion of Niagara, which also was fairly unsuccessful. This was a battle that was unsuccessful, largely due to Captain Kirby and his artillery company, which were sort of shelling the Americans as they were crossing the river trying to land.
We know for certain that Kirby's company of artillery was really successful at Frenchman’s Creek, because Kirby is actually mentioned in dispatches, and post battle memorandums by British officers where they say, “Oh, Kirby did such a good job at this battle.” Of course, Kirby gets all the attention, but we can't forget the men that served under him that were so instrumental in this battle being successful. The guys like Christian Brown.
[00:19:35] AH: Now, in addition to that service, Christian also served at Lundy's Lane, which I mentioned a moment ago as the other of the two most famous battles in the Niagara Frontier during the War of 1812. Lundy's Lane is also significant in the context of our conversation today, because we know that all four of the Brown Brothers served there.
[00:19:55] JB: Yeah, that's right, Andrew. We know that Adam and Abraham we're serving under Captain George Keefer and Christian and John were serving under Captain John DeCew. This is interesting to me. It seems like there was perhaps a conscious effort on the part of the brothers or maybe even the officers of these companies to split up families. Just in case one company suffered severe losses, you're not going to have the entirety of the family wiped out, leaving the women in the family to take care of the farms and the homestead.
I thought it was really quite neat that they had seemingly split the brothers up. But I'm sure Abraham, especially being 16 at such a gruesome battle as Lundy's Lane must have felt very comfortable fighting alongside his much older brother, Adam, who again was 28 at the time.
[00:20:45] AH: Again, we're not entirely sure what role they played during that particular battle. One of the things we've talked about is the fact that the militia at the Battle of Lundy's Lane largely took on a support role. You mentioned a couple of those earlier, but maybe we can talk a little bit about what kinds of support roles there were in a situation like that.
[00:21:02] JB: One of the things that I really want to hit home here is that, military service goes beyond just shooting a gun, right? An army needs a lot of people working together and animals too for that army to be successful. As for what type of support roles there were, at the time, you could have been a field medic, you could have been running and doling out ammunition to soldiers that were out of ammunition. You could have also been doing teaming work, which like I said, that was basically just carrying supplies through a wagon for the British. You could also be involved in carrying supplies, food, and even dispatches messages between officers.
I think one of the most interesting things about the Battle of Lundy's Lane, and specifically Christian and John’s service under Captain John DeCew is that, John DeCew actually has Memoirs of his service at Lundy's Lane. Although, unfortunately, he doesn't really talk much about his service at Lundy's Lane at great length. It's really just like a paragraph, but it's neat, because we know that if this is what to cue experience at Lundy's Lane, it's also what Christian and John would have experienced too.
[00:22:16] AH: Interestingly. He was not entirely thrilled with having been kept in a supporting role, as certainly John DeCew, it seems like from his memoire, would have liked to have been more involved. I would guess, that there were often militia men who felt the same way. Although as we're talking about something we'll never quite know.
Then, we mentioned also John Bowman, who was there as well. John Bowman was the brother-in-law of the Brown brothers. John and Magdalena had four daughters born in New York during the American Revolution and their sons were born later in Niagara. The eldest daughter Eve was 40 at the beginning of the war of 1812. Her husband, John Bowman, who was a few years younger than her was a member of the flank company.
[00:23:02] JB: Flank companies basically consisted of men from the regular militia who volunteered to serve more extensively. They were basically trained and served like British regulars. Now, the flank companies, though, although they did serve really, really consistently throughout 1812, they were disbanded in spring 1813. A lot of the men of the flank companies that wanted to serve more consistently would have went on to join a regiment known as the incorporated militia.
[00:23:35] AH: Again, Captain John Norton comes back because he spoke about the flank company. As he said, they were retained to do duty with the regular troops while the main body of militia was permitted to return home, so that the agriculture might not be too much neglected. That touches on something that you said earlier about the family and making sure that the brothers were potentially separated and the younger members of the family didn't do necessarily the same level of service as the older ones.
In the case of John Bowman, he and Eve didn't have any children. We can speculate that not having young family at home to look after, he felt more able to and more responsible to take on a larger role and volunteer for the flank company.
[00:24:17] JB: Because John Bowman was serving in the flank company of the 2nd Regiment of Lincoln Militia, we know for certain that he was serving at the Battle of Queenston Heights on October 13, 1812. That's really interesting, because John Bowman and Christian were the only two members of the Brown family as far as we know that were actually at Queenston Heights. John and Christian are pretty unique in that sense.
We also know that John Bowman served in [inaudible 00:24:50] company, and that he as well might have been captured at the Battle of Fort George along with Adam and John Brown Jr. Again, Private John Bowman appears on the list of militia members paroled by General Dearborn along with his brother, George A. Bowman.
Again, this could be our John Bowman, but the problem with John Bowman, is that we know that there were at least two John Bowman's living within Thorold, Pelham and Stamford at this time, which really complicates things. Again, we can't be certain if this is our John Bowman, that's just the nature of research sometimes, but it is possible and certainly given his extensive service record in the previous year, I think it's a fair assumption to make that he would have been at Fort George.
[00:25:38] AH: Now, you also found another very interesting reference to the Bowmans. Around the time of the Battle of Beaver Dams, which was 24th of June in 1813. Maybe you can tell us a little bit about that.
[00:25:49] JB: There's this old book called The Jubilee History of Thorold, which was published in 1897, I believe. In this book, there is a reference to a group of indigenous warriors serving under Captain Kirk and John Brant camped at Bowman's farm. Now, the problem with this again is, the author isn't really specific beyond saying that the warriors were camped at Bowman's farm, unfortunately. This may have been John's farm, or it could have been his brother's farm and his brother was named George.
[00:26:21] AH: That's right. Both of them had farms in and around that area. It's really hard to know, but it's an intriguing reference anyway. Now, for all of the service we've talked about for John Bowman. Up to this point, really, 1814 was quite a harrowing year for him and for the family. In addition to being at the Battle of Lundy's Lane, John Bowman served at the Battle of Chippawa on July 5, 1814.
[00:26:45] JB: Andrew, I really want to hit home how absolutely harrowing militia service would have been for a lot of these guys, including John Bowman. For that, I really want to use this passage, which I took from a book by Donald Graves on the Battle of Chippawa, “The infantry men's experience of battle in 1814 was truly terrifying. Blinded by powder smoke, packed in tightly crowded ranks, watching rounds shot bouncing towards him, but unable to move, suffering from raging thirst brought on by tension and the necessity of biting into cartridges containing bitter black powder. Seeing men killed and maimed around him, the infantry men stood, fought, and died.”
“Not the worst of the business were the unnerving sounds peculiar to the battle, the deadly hissing, whizzing, sighing or whistling of passing round shot, the rattle of canister bullets on rows of bayonets, the ominous thud of musket balls impacting on human flesh, followed by the screams, moans, and pleas of the wounded and dying.”
[00:27:51] AH: Harrowing account, indeed. So it went at the Battle of Chippawa, one of the worst days of the war for the Lincoln Militia, as they faced their worst losses of the war at that battle. We know that Bowman's company itself was pretty much decimated at the battle.
[00:28:07] JB: When we actually look at the muster rolls for the company that John Bowman was a part of, we know for certain that he was at the Battle of Chippawa on July 5th, because we know that his officer is listed as being killed on July 5, 1814. That Officer was Captain George Turney. Then we also know that Sergeant John Hut was killed and that David Thompson was wounded. We know for certain that John Bowman was actually in the thick of the fighting at the Battle of Chippawa, because again, if they were sort of serving as like a reserve force, you wouldn't have those losses.
[00:28:41] AH: He was dismissed the day after. To make matters worse, while he was serving at Chippawa, things were not going particularly well at home, as we know from a later loss claim that he filed, witnessed by his wife, Eve Brown.
[00:28:56] JB: In the loss claim, John Bowman actually lists that he wasn't present when these losses took place around the time of the Battle of Chippawa, because he was serving in the militia. Interestingly, this loss claim actually confirms what we have in the muster rolls, which is really neat. From this, because John Bowman wasn't present, we can also infer that these losses were actually witnessed by Eve Brown, who was John Bowman's wife, which is really, really interesting. We can imagine, this probably would have been really quite terrifying for her because again, she didn't have any children, especially any older children to help her around the house, or the farm or to protect her. It was simply her all by herself. She says that around the time of the Battle of Chippawa, her house was plundered by indigenous warriors. The incident that is sort of related in this claim is really peculiar because the warriors are listed as allies.
[00:29:58] AH: It wasn't uncommon at that time for any of the combatants to take supplies that were needed from the locals, even if they were on the same side. But in this case, there's one other element that makes us a bit of an odd situation, isn't there?
[00:30:11] JB: Yeah, exactly. Basically, what happened is, John Bowman and Eve Brown’s horse was just shot outright, which is really, really peculiar. It's a particularly aggressive and personal act, especially considering how expensive horses were back then. Horses cost about £25 or so. We said earlier that £5 was about someone's monthly wage, right? £25, that's like half a year's wage or so. These horses were really expensive. It was almost kind of slashing someone's tires, in a way.
[00:30:49] AH: Given how dependent people were on their horses for their livelihood, it's not just like slashing their tires. It's like slashing the tires with someone who drives for a living.
[00:30:57] JB: Yeah, exactly. I can almost guarantee you that there's a lot more to the story, but we likely really will never know what exactly transpired.
[00:31:07] AH: We’ll move on to the second daughter, Sofia. Now, by the time the war came around, she'd already been widowed once. Very sadly for her, her second husband, Zachariah Hainer died in 1813. Not due to battle, but because of disease, which was actually the most common cause of death for militiamen during the War of 1812.
[00:31:29] JB: And beyond that too. I mean, up to the Civil War, and probably even the First World War as well. Disease really took out quite a lot of people serving in the military. There's a really, really good quote from the wartime memoirs of William Hamilton Merritt, who is a person that people from Niagara are definitely quite familiar with. But I will read that quote for you now. “The greatest misfortune we experience in 1812 was in deaths. Aa very great number of the militia, owing to the hard service, change of diet, et cetera were carried off very suddenly.”
[00:32:05] AH: That was a big part of Sofia’s experience during the war. She went through most of the war, twice widowed at home with six children. That was the end of it, though. That brings us to her eldest daughter, Magdalene, by her first husband, Jacob Lutz. Magdalene was also coincidentally the oldest grandchild of John and Magdalena Brown. She had been born at The Brown Homestead, actually a year before her uncle Abraham, who we've talked about earlier. Now, in 1813, Magdalene married John McCombs, who himself served quite extensively during the war at Queenston Heights, Lundy's Lane, the Battle of Fort George, Chippawa and also battle we haven't mentioned yet, the Burning of Buffalo.
[00:32:48] JB: Yeah. I think the most interesting thing, Andrew, about John McCombs’ service is that, in the McCombs’ family, there was a sort of familial oral tradition that John McCombs was in fact at all these battles. Initially, I really didn't put too much stack in that, because we all have these fanciful stories about our ancestors and the great events through which they suffered and all that. I didn't put much stock into this. But when I actually did the research, I did find that John, in fact, was at all of these battles, which is really fascinating.
As for the Burning of Buffalo, or the Battle of Black Rock, that happens on December 30, 1813. The militia weren't so heavily involved in this battle. In fact, there was only a company of about 50 of them. Of course, of those 50 men, John McCombs is listed as serving at that battle.
The militia played a pretty instrumental role at that battle in taking out the American artillery pieces. After the Battle of Buffalo and BlackRock, Andrew, the British sort of embarked on a retaliatory scorched earth campaign for what the Americans had done a couple of weeks prior, when they burned down the town of Niagara. They basically kind of burned the entire American side of the Niagara River.
There's a quote from Cruikshank, which really illustrates this. I'll read that now. “During the three days following the action, the villages of Blackrock and Buffalo were almost entirely destroyed. Most of the inhabitants had abandoned their dwellings and remove their most valuable household effects in anticipation of the attack. The wooden buildings were burnt and a few of the more substantial houses blown up. The Navy Yard at BlackRock and four vessels of the Lake Erie Squadron were likewise destroyed.”
This, Andrew is much more than just retaliation for the burning of Niagara. I dare say that the British took it a little bit too far in completely scorching the American side of the river, but it shows you the animosity that was ever growing between the Americans, Upper Canadians, and the British in 1813. The war was becoming very personal.
[00:35:07] AH: It certainly did and the pressure continued to increase as the war continued on. That's manifested in a number of areas. One area that's very interesting that applies to John McCombs relates to his father, Timothy, who we know was accused of treason in absentia at Ancaster. Now, Ancaster is where there were trials and executions of men accused of collaborating with the Americans. We'll talk a little bit more about notions of loyalty in a moment, but you did uncover one little fact that's interesting about that.
[00:35:41] JB: Yeah. Very interesting, Andrew. We know that John and Magdalena named their second child in 1815, Timothy, likely after his father. To me, this sort of suggests that John McCombs, despite being sort of the epitome of loyalty during the War of 1812, serving at the most important battles. Although his father was trialed of treason, specifically for spying, it seems that John didn't really regard his father as a traitor.
[00:36:13] AH: There's also another interesting question mark that comes up when we talk about Catharine Brown, another of the Brown daughters. Catharine was married to Aaron Dennis, who was a late loyalist, who very curiously did not seem to have served in the militia, despite the fact that he was just 37 when the war began.
[00:36:31] JB: Yeah, very, very interesting. I think one thing to note here as well, is that there were sort of two kinds of loyalists around the time of the War of 1812. You had the United Empire Loyalists, people like John Brown, Sr. that had fought in Butler's Rangers. They had their property destroyed during the revolution, and they sort of evacuated the states and came to Canada immediately afterwards. But then you also have these late loyalists who, like the United Empire Loyalists, were also Americans, but the late loyalists largely came to Upper Canada around the 1790s in the early 1800s, largely just in search of better land and greater opportunities, which they weren't really finding in the States at the time.
There was a lot of weariness around the late loyalists in particular. The Americans thought that they would simply march into upper Canada, and all these displaced Americans would simply flock to their side. There's perhaps an element of reality to that, because certainly some upper Canadians did serve with the Americans.
[00:37:39] AH: Well, another indication that that wasn't just propaganda was the fact that Sir Isaac Brock himself was extremely wary of the loyalty or potential disloyalty of the inhabitants as well. Perhaps especially in regards to late loyalists like the Dennis family. I remember one account, which I don't have in front of me, but it was an American officer writing a letter where he talked about being confused by the inhabitants of Upper Canada saying, “When we advance, they cheer. When we retreat, they shoot at us.” Even that American officer had trouble determining what side different people were on.
Now, when it comes to the Dennis family, there's another very interesting question mark surrounding them. We talked earlier about how the animosity had built on both sides. Really, the hard feelings outlasted the war by quite a while, by several generations. Certainly, immediately after the war, there was not a lot of trade and movement back and forth across the border. Interestingly, by 1819, the Dennis family had left upper Canada and moved to Ohio.
[00:38:40] JB: Yeah. This is really interesting. Because after the war, you have conversations that centre around something known as the alien question, where in the upper Canadian government, these politicians are wondering who exactly is a British subject, and how does one become a naturalized British subject if technically you're born in America, and an American citizen, which is really neat. Yeah, as you say, Andrew, there is some sort of indication that the Dennis family weren't really prospering in Niagara. But in Ohio, there was an abundant amount of fertile farmland.
That might have been one reason why the Dennis moved to Ohio shortly after the War of 1812. This also might indicate something about the Dennis family's political sympathies as well. I mean, the fact that we don't find Aaron Dennis on any muster rolls might lead us to believe that maybe he was actually shirking his duty, and he had no issue with doing so, and he didn't want to defend this province and would have welcomed American to take over.
[00:39:49] AH: It’s key to remember when we think about notions of loyalty, that with the agrarian lifestyle of the day, most people were focused in their day to day lives on subsistence. What accounted for a lot of the so-called lay loyalists was the fact that there was abundant, affordable farmland available in Niagara that may not have been available where they were in the United States. Oftentimes, providing for your family might trump your political orientation.
Likewise, if a family was struggling in Niagara at a time when land was becoming more scarce, and yet out in Ohio, there was a lot of great farmlands that was available at a reasonable price, then moving your family across the border would have been more about self-interest and less about politics than anything else. In this case, we can speculate into some interesting indications. But ultimately, we don't really know.
That takes us really to the final brown offspring, Mary Brown, who was married to Conrad Miller. He's a bit of an anomaly because he served in the 4th Regiment, which was drawn from what we would call the Lincoln area of Niagara right now. He's the only one who wasn't part of the 2nd Regiment. As you've noticed, he didn't serve too extensively, but he did serve in one particularly interesting engagement.
[00:41:07] JB: Yeah, Andrew. The Forty Mile Creek Engagement was a fairly small battle. It happens right after the Battle of Stony Creek, which was a battle where the Americans were ambushed by a much smaller British force and basically sort of pushed out and prevented from advancing on the British headquarters or camp, which was then at Burlington Heights. As the Americans are sort of retreating back, and sort of licking their wounds and making their way back to Fort George, they start getting shot at by a naval flotilla, and some of the members of the 4th Regiment of Lincoln Militia around the Forty Mile Creek.
[00:41:44] AH: We've talked about the different types of service and the sufferings of these militiamen, and the different types of records that you've gathered your information from the question that might come out of this as well. Was there any reward for having served in the militia? One other type of record that we find are the land grants that a lot of the people who served, a lot of the militia who served in the war of 1812 received as a reward for their service. They often provide some interesting additional information.
[00:42:12] JB: Yeah, it's worth noting, Andrew, that although militia service was compulsory, you had to serve in the militia. You couldn't get out of it. You were actually paid for it. But the pay, especially as a private was scant, it's peanuts, basically. Really, the only reason why you would want to sign up in a flank company, or an artillery company, or the incorporated militia to get more extensive service was because you got a reward after it, which like you said, was the land grant. We know that all four of the Brown brothers after the War of 1812, did get land grants. Although we might not know too much about the Brown brothers and their service, and the muster rolls really only give us a small indication of the amount of service. It seems after the war; their service was considered good enough for them to get their 100 acres of land afterwards.
We know that Christian Brown for his service in the 2nd Regiment of Lincoln Artillery, got an additional 100 acres of land for service. As you mentioned, Andrew, in our talk yesterday, you also noted that Christian got a militia pension as well for his service in the artillery company, which is really neat. It speaks to the fact that service in some of the voluntary companies of militia, like the flank companies and the artillery, actually did pay off after the war.
[00:43:35] AH: Yes, it was one more way that Christian’s service was kind of unique. Christian himself was kind of unique if you research the Brown brothers, who you often find, he's a bit of a wildcard. Without getting too far into the loyalty discussion again, one of the interesting things about Christian is that, during the 1837 Rebellion, he was actually questioned as a potential rebel. Christian, a very colourful fellow and, as our research continues, maybe we'll see you back for an 1837 Rebellion episode.
[00:44:03] JB: I hope so. That'd be really fascinating.
[00:44:05] AH: Now, in terms of all this research, we’ve touched on a couple of things. The challenges of researching subject matter like this, but in our conversation the other day that you referenced, you talked about some of the real challenges that you had to face in going through all of this material. It might be interesting for people if you share a little bit of that now.
[00:44:21] JB: One of the main research problems was sort of the commonality of names, especially when you have a surname like Brown, and a first name like John, you're bound to find another John Brown in the 2nd Regiment of Lincoln Militia. That's very true, because I did actually find a John Brown from the Grand River that served in Captain John Asking’s company of the 2nd Regiment of Lincoln Militia, and then transfer it into the incorporated militia in 1813. I initially thought that our John Brown Jr. had served in the incorporated militia, which later turned out to be untrue.
Again, I probably should have thought to myself, John Brown Jr, being of such a religious background, it's highly unlikely that he would volunteer to serve in the incorporated militia in such a fighting capacity. That's one of those sorts of inferences we were able to make based on some of the later records.
[00:45:15] AH: Of course, one of the other fun puzzles that we had to work through at times with the research was just finding and having the records isn't enough. There's still a matter of deciphering them sometimes.
[00:45:26] JB: Yeah. Sometimes they're not easy to read, you really have to get used to the handwriting. That's the funny thing with the loss claims is, because I've looked at so many over the last year or so, I've actually been able to tell which local Niagara just at the pieces writing up the loss claims based on their handwriting, and you kind of sort of understand the nuances of that person's writing. But initially, it's really not easy at all. That was kind of the second problem that I faced initially. You also have to have some context about the War of 1812 to understand some of the muster records too. If you don't know much about the War of 1812, it can be really, really difficult to jump right into these records.
[00:46:13] AH: It's a fascinating area. We've really just scratched the surface today. Certainly, if you'd like to learn more about our research, I encourage you to watch for Jake's upcoming journal article, which is going to be on our website in early June. Or join us at The Brown Homestead on August 20th, where we are going to be participating in doors open St. Catharine’s. We're going to be presenting an exhibit featuring this and other research that we've been doing lately. I hope that we've given you a little bit of an idea of where you can begin to start researching your own War of 1812 ancestors. If it's an area you're interested and we're also developing a research methods class that will help you do just that. If that's something that interests you, please be sure to connect with us, and we'll get you more information about that and when that class is going to be coming along.
Keep in mind, though, that as we've noted today, that with research, there's often more hints than there are complete answers. What answers we do find usually come with more questions. But embracing that uncertainty, and acknowledging what we don't know leads us to the discussions that we need to have that help us find our place in this unfolding story of history. To follow in the footsteps of those who came before us who served and sometimes suffered, that knowledge helps us to make a better future for those who will come next.
Thank you very much, Jake, for all of your insight today and all of your hard work researching this really interesting topic over the past months.
[00:47:46] JB: Thanks again for having me. I mean, although, it technically is work, it's more fun for me than anything, so I had no problem with it. I love that great project to work on.
[00:47:55] AH: There you go. Great. One more great lesson of history from Jake. I love what you do and it'll never feel like work. Thanks, Jake. We'll talk to you again soon.
[00:48:03] JB: Thanks, Andrew. Nice talking to you.
[END OF INTERVIEW]
[00:48:08] ANNOUNCER: Thanks for listening. Subscribe today so you won’t miss episode. We’re celebrating the life and legacy of the Mohawk Chief Teyoninhokarawen, who you may know as Major John Norton. You’ll also know how his cabin by the Grand River found a new home and a new purpose at The Brown Homestead.
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