THE ANDREW MILLER STORY
The Journey of a Niagara Pioneer
Table of Contents
1. The John Burch Letter
2. The Pine Bush Raid
3. Captivity
4. Fort Niagara
5. Niagara Falls
6. Miller’s Creek Tavern
7. The War of 1812
8. The 1837 Rebellion
9. Andrew Miller’s Later Years
Postscript: The Palatine German Origins of the Miller Family
Preface
Bruce G. Wilson states, “A pioneer society in the first generation tends to leave remarkably little in the way of personal written records.” Written records are predominantly the papers of governors, commandants and prominent leaders. There are no major sets of papers of any Niagara pioneers before 1812. The data available on the earliest period of Niagara settlement is finite, and the rest is left to our imagination. This book on Andrew Miller is based on the historical facts but it is to a great extent my endeavor to reimagine the life of the young Andrew. The result is part history and part fiction. Paragraphs in italics represent my attempts to imagine Andrew’s own experience.
One of the challenges of writing about the Loyalists today is the importance of recognizing the Loyalist contribution of First Nations. Our language reflects our prejudices. In quoting historical documents and expounding on them it is necessary to use the language that they used, “Indian,” and “Six Nations,” or “Mohawk Nation.” In my own reflections I will try to use as much as possible the more respectful term “Indigenous Peoples.” Haudenosaunee is the preferred title for the Iroquois, but I will in most cases use the term Six Nations. The story of the Six Nations (Seneca, Cayuga, Onondaga, Oneida, Mohawk, and Tuscarora) is central to the story of the Loyalist trek into Canada. I will also use the word Tory and Loyalist in opposition to Patriot and Rebel. The word American should refer only to Indigenous Peoples but given the historical writing about the American Revolution this is a difficult challenge. However, I have no wish to tell the story the way it has usually been told. Telling the story of the Patriot Rebellion and the Loyalist Trek into Canada is the story of colonization. As Mahmood Mamdani has recently written, most of the time we have been telling the wrong stories and we have written the native out of the autobiography of the settler. I have no intention of making that mistake. Part of telling this story is to be quite self-conscious that as a person writing in the 21st century in Canada I am myself a colonist and a descendant of colonists. The issues of colonization and decolonization continue as we walk down the path of Truth and Reconciliation. Land is the central focus of this story. Who cultivated the land and managed its wildlife? Who invaded the land and stole it? How did it become pieces of private property, bought and sold? I will always keep in mind that the land that the settlers acquired was land that belonged to Indigenous People. Both in the past and the present we live in a settler colony.
Chapter One: The John Burch Letter
Discovering the Letter
Even though my parents moved our family to Ottawa in 1948 they continued to talk nostalgically about their younger years in the Niagara Peninsula. We journeyed many times to visit my grandparents in Hamilton and to visit places that were exciting for me such as watching ships on the Welland Canal and the highlight was being enthralled by the mighty Niagara Falls. And for my father a visit to the Niagara Peninsula was not complete until we arrived at Miller’s Creek on the Niagara Parkway about 5 miles north of Fort Erie. It was beside Miller’s Creek that our Loyalist ancestor Andrew Miller built his homestead in the 1790s. I listened to many stories about him, some undoubtedly fictional and some factual. But he remained a man of mystery to me.
Eventually my interest in Canadian history and religion provoked me to investigate my Loyalist ancestor in more depth. A starting point for me was a copy of the Andrew Miller family tree that was prominently displayed on a wall in our Ottawa home. Designed by my great uncle, Albert Miller in 1909, it depicted four generations of Millers beginning with the names of Andrew Miller and Elizabeth Everett printed on the trunk of the tree. I always enjoyed listening to my father talk about the names on the tree, the eleven children of Andrew Miller and focusing especially on the Edward Miller branch, which included his son Edward K. Miller and also his son, Harry Miller, my grandfather. At the bottom of the family tree Uncle Bert included a brief summary of Andrew Miller’s life. He was born in New York State in 1766. When just a boy “his people were all killed by the Indians and he alone was taken alive by them.” He was later brought as a prisoner to Fort Niagara where he was “redeemed” by John Burch Esq.
This was enough to spark my interest. Imagine, my ancestor’s father and uncle were killed by Indians and he was taken as a captive. The nagging question that preoccupied me for some time was, where did my Uncle Bert get this information? Then I noticed at the bottom of the family tree scribbled very lightly the words, “Vide U.C. Land Petition M2 bundle 1, No 149,” then the date 17 August 1953 and the words, “Complements to the Archives.” It was obvious that my Uncle Bert had submitted his 1909 family tree to the Archives in 1953, and he had identified the file containing information about Andrew Miller. This prompted a trip to the National Archives in Ottawa. For anyone who is not a historian the Archives is an intimidating institution. After showing my ID and being issued a card, giving me permission to use their services I found myself in a room with a microfilm projector. It took a while, but I finally found the right file, and to my surprise and utter delight I found the source of Uncle Bert’s information on Andrew Miller. It is a letter written in 1795 by John Burch and the letter was attached to Andrew Miller’s petition for land as a Loyalist.
Dated at Fall Mills, Sept. 14th, 1795, it reads:
This is to certify that the Bearer Andrew Miller came into this Province Some Time in year 1778 or 1779 & lived in and under my care to the year 1790 being then Marry’d in my house removed to take up a farm for himself, his father & family were Good Loyalists but were unfortunately kild as was his Uncle by a small Scout of Indians that were unknown to them, the boy has ever shewn the Strongest attachment to the British Government wile with me and sence & refused to stay with his family connections in Ulster County when Mrs. Burch took him out to see them in the year 1785.
After reading this letter, suddenly the story of Andrew Miller gets very intriguing and exciting. This letter provided the agenda for my research for the next 20 years and eventually the opportunity to reimagine and retell the Andrew Miller story. The letter raises so many questions. Who was John Burch and how did he become such a prominent figure in Andrew’s life? Why was Burch so vague about the date of Andrew’s arrival in Upper Canada, “some time in the year 1778 or 1779?” The letter states that Andrew’s father and uncle were killed, but who were they, and where did the family live in New York State? Is it possible to identify the “small Scout of Indians that were unknown to them?” How long did Andrew remain a prisoner and a captive before he was brought to Fort Niagara? The Burch letter states that Mrs. Burch took Andrew in the year 1785 to Ulster County to visit “family connections.” Were these family members Andrew’s mother and perhaps siblings? Why did Andrew refuse to live with them preferring to stay with John Burch in Niagara Falls? And since this letter was attached to Andrew Miller’s petition for land as a Loyalist was the petition successful and where did he procure land? This brief letter summarizes the arduous journey of a United Empire Loyalist, a Niagara pioneer who had been uprooted from his family and who after the terrifying experience of captivity began his own quest for a family and for land.
A Genealogical Dead End
My first theory about Andrew’s family origins assumed that since Burch identified the Miller family as “Good Loyalists” they must have been a Loyalist family on the way from Ulster County in New York State to Upper Canada. The Loyalist trek from the Thirteen Colonies into Canada has been well documented. It was easy to picture the family travelling in a covered wagon with all their belongings and suddenly they were ambushed by a group of Indigenous warriors seeking revenge and Andrew’s father and uncle were killed and Andrew was taken as a captive.
I also assumed that John Burch’s story might be the key to locating the origins of the Miller family. Burch was born in England in 1741 and emigrated to New York in 1772. He moved to Albany and established various businesses as a merchant in Albany and also Woodstock and Marbletown in Ulster County. He purchased a huge piece of land on the north side of the East Branch of the Delaware River where he raised cattle and was known for his fine horses. In the summer of 1778 Burch contacted Colonel John Butler and offered to provide cattle as provisions for Butler’s Rangers. Burch and many of his farming neighbours took a herd of cattle to Oquaga, the base for both Butler’s Rangers and also Joseph Brant’s Volunteers. I imagined Andrew’s father as a farmer helping John Burch and getting into trouble with American patriots and needing to leave in a hurry as did Burch. Burch’s home and barns were burned down, and he escaped out a window of his house and walked many days to Fort Niagara. Ulster County in 1778 extended north to the East Branch of the Delaware River and I was so convinced that this was the area that the Miller family came from that I spent considerable time trying to find evidence to corroborate my theory. My brother, Brian Miller, a resident of Franktown, near Ottawa, and I travelled to the area of the East Branch of the Delaware River. Burch’s ranch was near the town of Papecunck, but alas it no longer exists. The whole area is now the huge Pepacton Reservoir that provides drinking water for New York City. When they formed the reservoir all of the cemeteries were moved out of the area. We investigated the small museum in Downsview and checked the lists of names buried in the replacement cemetery, but we found no evidence of the Miller family. Welcome to genealogical research! There are always dead ends. For many years I pursued this theory, convinced that Burch must have known the Miller family. He claimed in his letter that they were “Good Loyalists.” Surely they must have been on the road following in Burch’s footsteps on their way to Upper Canada when they were ambushed.
Then, suddenly, after years of futile research, a breakthrough! Brian Jackson, a descendent of Andrew Miller and his oldest son John Burch Miller had read my website (www.loyalistmillerhistory.com) and he knew of my work on the Andrew Miller story. He sent me an email and asked if I had ever seen a newspaper article about the Pine Bush Raid in 1778. Pine Bush in the town of Rochester in Ulster County was further south, below the East Branch of the Delaware River and below the Catskill mountains. I don’t know why I didn’t look in that area, since John Burch had business enterprises in Woodstock and Marbletown, villages close to Rochester in the Rondout River Valley. The story of the Pine Bush Raid changes the whole saga of Andrew Miller.
Chapter Two: The Pine Bush Raid
A Surprise Attack
Titled “Indian Raid in 1778 on Pine Bush,” the newspaper article was published in the Kingston Daily Freeman on April 7, 1904. It begins with these words, “The Indian raid on Pine Bush, in the town of Rochester, which led to the Grahamsville disaster, took place early in the morning of Saturday, September 5, 1778…” The attackers burned three houses, killing Andries Shurker and taking Peter Miller and Ephraim Baker as prisoners. Further details were provided by Colonel John Cantine who arrived on the afternoon of the day of the raid. He testified that the assault took place about daybreak. “Shurker and Miller were killed and scalped. Baker and Miller’s son were missing and presumed to be prisoners.” A small group of a militia under the command of Captain Benjamin Kortright put out the fire, found Shurker’s body and Miller’s body riddled with bullets and took up pursuit of the enemy.
At first, I was aghast! Can this be true? Was this the event of the killing of Andrew Miller’s father and uncle and Andrew’s captivity? Can Miller’s son be identified as Andrew? The newspaper article was published in 1904, and it is a secondary source written more than a hundred years after 1778. But the article refers to primary sources, letters that were written on the same day as the event described. The basic facts of this raid are confirmed in four letters written in 1778. A letter from Judge Levi Pawling to Governor George Clinton dated September 5, 1778 at Marbletown stated that he had received a letter from Rochester, “that a party of the Enemy had been last night and burnt Three Houses, killd one Andries Shurker, and took Peter Miller and one Ephraim Baker prisoner, what number of the Enemy I have not heard, they sent Shurker’s wife, to John’s G. Hardenbergh’s with the Letter.” Governor Clinton’s response written the next day on September 6, 1778 in Poughkeepsie stated, “Colo. Pawling informs me that the Enemy night before last burnt three Houses, killed one Andrus Shurker, & took Peter Miller & Ephraim Baker, Prisoners.” And in a letter written two days later on Sept. 8, 1778 Governor George Clinton writes that “a small Party of Indians and Tories…burnt 3 or 4 Houses & Barns near Rochester, killed two men & carried off another.”
This is amazing! Can it be true, that after two hundred years of mystery we now know about Andrew Miller’s family origin? The pieces seem to all fit. Peter Miller was Andrew’s father and Andries Shurker was probably Andrew’s uncle (his mother’s brother). They were both killed and young Andrew (“Miller’s son”) was taken prisoner. Further confirmation is found in a letter written by Col. John Cantine from Marbletown on Sept. 9, 1778 in which he states that “I received intelligence that the Enemy had burnt three Barns or Barracks, Viz of Andries Shurker, Peter Millar and Jacob Baker. The two first they have killed and scalped, Baker and a Boy of Millar are not found, therefore think they have taken them along.
Raids on Patriot Villages and Farms
Such a violent raid was not uncommon in 1778. The new world that emerged after European contact with Indigenous People was one of extreme violence. Nathaniel Hawthorne said it best in a short story written in 1832 “My Kinsman Major Molineux,” describing the American Revolution as “our first civil war, rife with divisions, violence, and destruction.” It didn’t matter if you were a Patriot or a Loyalist or an Indigenous person, the common experience was plundered farms, the devastation of frontier settlements and native villages. In 1777 and 1778 the British who controlled forts in Detroit and Niagara were worried about their ability to defend themselves against attack by Patriot forces. It was believed that the best defence was an offense. Many of the hundreds of Loyalist refugees that fled north to Niagara joined with Indian allies to raid Patriot settlements along the Mohawk and Susquehanna rivers and also as far south as the Delaware River and the settlements south of the Catskills. Their method was the forming of small raiding parties. As Alan Taylor points out most history books focus on the big battles between armies.
That approach neglects the broader and more vicious war conducted by many small raiding parties, composed of a mix of regulars and irregulars, militia and bandits. They ravaged farms and towns to take forage, livestock, clothing, and silver, and they kidnapped or killed the partisans of the other side. Swirling around the army camps, this array of ‘nasty little raids, ambushes, and encounters’ ruined thousands of civilians.
The organization of small raiding parties attacking farms and crops originated in Europe during the many years of the Religious Wars. Such violent tactics came to North America and were used by all sides. During periods of war it was common for Indians to target farms and capture as many people and animals as possible, killing the rest and setting fire to crops and farm buildings. In New England, in response to Indigenous quick strike warfare, militia forces were formed comprising both settlers and Indigenous warriors, to attack Indigenous communities and the violence was extravagant: killing unarmed women, children, old people and burning homes and fields. Raiding parties organized at British forts like Fort Niagara put into practice the same methods of small raiding parties.
Defending Against the Raids
Such raids were impossible to defend. Small raiding parties would hide in the bushes along creeks in silence and then suddenly attack with sound and fury, killing farmers and villagers, burning houses and barns. And then they would quickly flee taking cattle, clothing, silver and also prisoners. In June 1778 Mason Bolton, the commandant at Fort Niagara reported, “Scalps and Prisoners are coming in every day, which is all the News (that) the Peace affords.” At Pine Bush it appears that the raiding party was hiding in the bushes along the Rondout River and suddenly attacked the farms and homes in the village of Rochester. It seems that Peter Miller and his son Andrew and Peter’s brother-in-law Andries Shurger were out on the farm either working or on a hunting trip. The raiding party set fire to buildings and opened fire on Peter Miller and Andries Shurger, killing and scalping them. And young Andrew, 11 years old, was taken as a prisoner. One interesting fact mentioned in Levi Pawling’s Sept. 5th letter is that Andries Shurger’s wife was sent by those who survived to take a letter to the home of John G, Hardenbergh, a prominent landholder and government official. Apparently, she ran a few miles to the Hardenbergh house. This letter (which has never been found) was passed on to Judge Levi Pawling and it was the basis of his communication to the governor on Sept. 5, 1778. Although he added that he expected Col. Cantine to write the governor with the particulars.
And not all the homes were destroyed. Some were built by earlier Dutch settlers and their stone edifices were sufficient to withstand attack. Later stories relate how defenders went up to the second floors and fired guns out the windows at the attackers.
The event of the Pine Bush Raid continued with the pursuit of the raiders. Sergeant John Graham took 14 men and pursued the Indigenous raiders up the road about 17 miles into the chestnut woods. An Indian appeared about 30 yards ahead and he was fired upon, but he ducked and escaped being hit. However, as Sergeant Graham’s men turned to go home they were intercepted by Indigenous attackers and Graham and two others were killed and scalped. This event was later referred to as the Grahamsville massacre and its retelling always eclipsed the original event at Pine Bush.
The Identity of the Raiders
John Burch in his 1795 letter stated that Andrew’s father and uncle were killed by “a small Scout of Indians unknown to them.” It is now possible to identify the attackers and it is quite possible that Burch knew more than he was willing to admit to authorities in 1795. In his letter of Sept. 8, 1778, Governor Clinton identifies the raiders as “a small party of Indians and Tories who stole past our Guards burnt 3 or 4 Houses & Barns near Rochester, killed two men & carried off another…” Gavin Watt in a recent book, Fire and Desolation, is even more specific, stating, “At daybreak of September 5, a war party of Natives and Tories led by the Esopus War captain Ben Shanks, burned three barns at Lackawack, killed and scalped two men, and took two other men prisoner.” Loyalist refugees were joining up with Indian allies to form raiding parties all across New York state. The gathering points for such raids took place at Oquaga where Joseph Brant organized “Brant’s Volunteers.” Brant had encountered reluctance on the part of traditional Six Nation’s leaders suspicious of Brant’s colonial education, his coziness with the Johnson family and his recent London visit where he met the King of England, so decided to conduct the war in his own way. He recruited successfully Loyalists in the Susquehanna and Delaware valleys. Loyalist farmers pressured by high taxes, oaths of allegiance and militia service were eager to join with Brant. Brant’s Volunteers consisted of about 100 men, mostly Loyalists and only a fifth were Mohawk warriors. Without uniforms the volunteers dressed and painted themselves as Indian warriors, an effective device in striking fear into Patriot communities. This explains why accounts of the Pine Bush Raid state that the attackers were all Indians. Later accounts also claim that it was Joseph Brant who attacked Pine Bush. Thomas Benedict in his 1912 account states, “In 1778 Brant made an attack on the settlement, killing two men and taking two prisoners.” In 1778 Brant was the most active Loyalist commander, burning houses and killing Patriots and taking their cattle. Alarmed Patriots thought that Brant was involved with every attack on their villages. For example, Col. Butler and Loyalists destroyed Patriot settlements in the Wyoming Valley in July, 1778 and the Patriots blamed Joseph Brant who was not there. Patriot propaganda described him as “the ultimate blood-thirsty savage” but in fact Brant’s Volunteers behaved better than the Patriot soldiers who destroyed Six Nations villages. The claim that Brant attacked Pine Bush is wrong but it is probably the case that the small group of “Indians and Tories” who attacked the settlement were recruited and trained by Brant.
Ben Shanks was an Esopus Indian, a part of the Delaware nation and Joseph Brant had recruited Shanks and other Delaware warriors to join him. Another gathering point was Tory House, a small stockade built by the Middaugh brothers, notorious Tories that Governor Clinton was trying to arrest. The Pepacton Tories included the Middagh brothers, John and Stephen, John Snow, Joel Austin, Henry Bush, jr., Nathan Parks and George Barnhart. Apparently, Francis Ellsworth (a future neighbour of Burch) had joined “a group from Papacunck who had been so frequently among the Indians that ‘they seem to be of one mind and agree very well’ and finally of having ‘gone with the Indians.’” John Burch and Thomas Cummings should also be included, since Tory House was not far from Burch’s estate. Tory House was on the East Branch of the Delaware River near the present-day town of Downsview. From Tory House it was easy for a small raiding group to swoop down on Pine Bush. The story is more complicated than Burch’s letter suggests with his mention of “a small Scout of Indians unknown to them.” My father and grandfather always repeated the same refrain that our ancestor’s father was killed by Indians, and I accepted this for many years. But now it is clear to me that it is much more complicated. The attack was led by a small group of “Indians and Tories.” Andrew’s father and uncle were killed by Loyalists. This is the reality of a Civil War.
The Role of John Burch
Events that happened a month before the Pine Bush Raid are important for understanding the context. John Burch had a tinsmith trade and a dry goods store in Albany, as well as the beginnings of a grist mill in Woodstock. With money from his successful businesses he purchased three tracts of land on the East Branch of the Delaware River at Papacunck or Pepacton, an old Indian settlement. His estate was acquired from Colonel Johannes Hardenburgh for more than 2,500 lbs., Great Lot 37, 6710 acres of the Hardenburgh Patent. As tensions between Tories and Patriots increased Burch tried to remain neutral. In his own affidavit in a petition read in Montreal, Sept. 1, 1787 Burch declares that when “the Rebellion” first began he was compelled to sign an Association oath in support of the Revolution, but he refused. Attempting to escape from the situation he went to his estate on the Delaware in 1778. No doubt he could find many sympathetic Tories in the region of his estate. In fact, Col. Butler was at Oquaga and sent the Esopus Indian Ben Shanks to Pepacton to recruit Tories to join with Butler in raiding American towns. It is quite likely that Burch knew Shanks and would have a good reason for dealing with him later. When Burch heard that Col. Butler was in need of provisions he wrote him a letter that he could supply cattle. And in early August Burch and his neighbours herded 139 cattle from his farm to Oquaga. Burch was not able to return to Albany since many Loyalists had been arrested including his friend Richard Cartwright Sr. Burch arranged for his housekeeper, Janet Clement, a niece of Thomas Cummings, his farm manager and Hugh Alexander to load his valuable possessions on pack horses and bring them to Papacunck. But on the way they were seized and taken to jail and the horses and goods were confiscated.
On August 12, Colonel George Cantine, who was Ulster County’s militia brigadier, sent men to Pepacton to round up anyone who was opposing the Revolution, including the Middagh brothers, Stephen and John. A few days later before his patrol arrived John Burch and the Middagh brothers took grain to Oquaga. The Rebel patrol set fire to the remaining grain at Burch’s estate. In the weeks that followed a number of raids took place on towns south of the Delaware and Colonel Cantine continued to send militia to arrest Tories and destroy grain. He sent out a battalion of 13 men to destroy grain at Pepacton, and they returned on Sept. 4th, the day before the Pine Bush Raid. They returned with a prisoner, Thomas Cummings Sr., John Burch’s estate manager. He was tried and condemned but was released and eventually found his way to Fort Niagara. The battalion also thought they had wounded John Burch. Because Burch refused to sign the oath of allegiance and because he aided Butler’s Rangers, groups of patriots attacked his estate on a number of occasions plundering his house, burning his buildings and destroying his grain. The last occasion was probably on Sept. 4th and he and Thomas Cummings, Jr. escaped through a window and began their trek to Fort Niagara. What is most significant is that the Burch escape happened one day before young Andrew was captured. Burch who was a compatriot with the Middagh brothers at Tory House perhaps was a part of the planning of the Pine Bush Raid led by Ben Shanks. He must have found out later about what happened at Pine Bush.
The Miller Family: Loyalists or Patriots?
The Pine Bush Raid was an attack by a small group of “Indians and Tories” on an American town of patriots. This is a huge shock to our Miller family, because for the last 200 years we have assumed that John Burch’s 1795 letter was correct, that Andrew’s “father & family were Good Loyalists.” Were they Loyalists or Patriots? The small group of “Indians and Tories” no doubt thought they were patriots. This seems to be confirmed by a story that was told later. In a book written in 1887 by Philip H. Smith, Legends of the Shawangunk, his description of the Pine Bush Raid includes a reference to Andries Shurker, Andrew’s uncle, who was mistakenly accused of being a Tory.
During the Revolution three men were living, with their families, in the vicinity of Pine Bush, in the town of Rochester, named Shurker, Miller, and Baker. Shurker had been suspected of being a Tory. A Whig neighbour had once intimated as much to him, personally; but Shurker denied the charge, and made the strongest attestations of fidelity to the cause of liberty. This conversation was overheard by the Tories, and by them communicated to the Indians. Living thus on the outpost, these people had the strongest temptations to keep the good will of the enemy, in order to save their lives and property, though at heart they were Whigs.
Smith’s imaginative retelling of the Pine Bush Raid is embellished and includes grizzly details of the raid. Early in the morning when the alarm of an Indian raid was heard at the military post at Pine Bush, “flames were seen ascending from the doomed buildings in awful grandeur to the heavens…” Capt. Benjamin Kortright marched to the scene with his militia. After extinguishing the flames they found Shurker “with his brains dashed out.” “When they came on the hill, they found Miller, literally perforated with bullet-holes.” Capt. Kortright pursued the enemy and upon return “buried the unfortunate Shurker and Miller, who fell martyrs to the cause of liberty.” Given Smith’s exaggerations and the fact that this story is being told a hundred years later, the accuracy of this account is questionable. Was it the case that Andrew’s father and family were Loyalists or were they Patriots?
Was John Burch’s View Correct?
We cannot rule out the likelihood that John Burch knew the Miller family and his opinion that Andrew’s “father & family were Good Loyalists” could well be accurate. His business interests took him to the Rondout Valley where the Millers lived. Besides his tinsmith business and dry goods store in Albany and his large estate at Papacunck he had been preparing to build a grist and sawmill in Woodstock for which the iron work had been forged. He also had businesses in Esopus and Marbletown, towns that were close to Pine Bush in Rochester. Given the sparse population in those times it is easy to assume that Burch knew the Miller family. We probably will never know the truth about the political allegiances of the Miller family. It is understandable that later American writers would want to depict them as being loyal to the Revolution. But Burch’s judgement can’t be ruled out. It might be the case that Andrew’s father and uncle were just in the wrong place at the wrong time and were the unwitting victims of an “Indian and Tory” raid on an American village. In the civil war of the American Revolution there were calamities regardless of political persuasions. Nevertheless, young Andrew was captured and the story of Andrew Miller would continue and follow a unique path.
The 1904 newspaper article on the Pine Bush Raid concludes with an observation about the fate of the families. It states that Miller (Peter Miller) left a widow, Margaret, and two children. Ephraim Baker who was captured and presumably killed left a widow, Maria, and two children. And Helena Tack, whose husband also had been killed (a reference probably to Andrew’s uncle, Andries Shurker) had four children. Andrew’s mother Margaret, and his brother and sister survived and continued to live in Rochester. Andrew would visit them many years later.
After so many dead ends the discovery of the Pine Bush Raid was a huge breakthrough. After I was told about the 1904 newspaper article, research led me to the primary source letters of Levi Pawling, John Cantine and Governor George Clinton’s responses. And then I discovered eight different secondary accounts of the Pine Bush event, the earliest written in 1873 and the most recent in Gavin Watt’s 2017 book. For more than 200 years no-one among the Andrew Miller descendants knew that Andrew came from Pine Bush, Rochester, Ulster County, New York. Some descendants still insist that Andrew came from Pennsylvania. I always believed that my great uncle Bert was right that Andrew came from Ulster County, New York. The only question was where in Ulster County. Now we have the answer. The story of Andrew Miller, Niagara Pioneer began at Pine Bush in Rochester, Ulster County, New York State.
Chapter Three: Captivity
The Pursuit of the Raiders
On Sept. 5, 1778 Andrew Miller was taken as a captive. After the raid by a small group of “Indians and Tories,” and after Captain Benjamin Kortright and his men put the fire out they pursued the enemy as far as the Vernooy kill, and on the way back they buried Peter Miller’s body. Col. Cantine’s command, consisting of 300 men occupied the fort at Honk Hill. In his absence Captain Tilford ordered a party to go up the Pepacton Road and endeavor to intercept the attackers. This party was commanded by Sergeant John Graham. Graham led a party of 14 men pursuing the attackers about 17 miles up the road where they were ambushed and three men were killed including Graham. Colonel Cantine arrived on the scene and was very critical of Graham’s initiative: too few men and inadequate provisions. This was called the Grahamsville Massacre.
Revenge for the Pine Bush Raid and the Grahamsville Massacre was the order of the day. On Sept. 6th the day after these events, Governor Clinton wrote to Col. Cantine outlining his blunt assessment and plan of action:
I am fully convinced that we are not to have peace on our Frontier, until the Straggling Indians & Tories who infest it are exterminated or drove back & their settlements destroyed. If, therefore, you can destroy the Settlement of Acquago it will in my Opinion be a good Piece of Service.
Col. John Cantine organized a party of 52 men and with adequate provisions set off the next morning under the leadership of Captain Samuel Clark. They had orders to pursue the enemy as far as the Middagh’s Tory House on the East Branch of the Delaware River. The 1904 newspaper article on the Pine Bush Raid written by Jan Van Doll speculates, “How far Captain Clark’s force went I do not know, but they did not catch the marauders, nor were Baker or the Miller boy ever heard from.” When they were close to Tory House, Clark sent out a scouting party to evaluate the enemy’s strength. On Sept. 8th what is considered the only significant battle of the Revolution in Delaware County took place between 52 militia under Captain Samuel Clark and 35 or more Indians commanded by Ben Shanks. The battle took place near Tory House, near Downsview and it began at 5 o’clock in the afternoon and continued until darkness. In the morning the militia discovered that the Indians had disappeared, leaving behind four dead warriors. Clark’s party had lost two or three killed. The Esopus natives led by Ben Shanks and the Pepacton Tories were gone and nothing was heard from them for the rest of the year. Perhaps they retreated to Oquaga, the headquarters of Butler’s Rangers and Joseph Brant’s Volunteers. In mid-September Joseph Brant led “a number of Indians and Friends of the Government” from Oquaga through the Catskills to Marbletown near the Hudson River and they burned down the village, carrying off men and cattle back to Oquaga. The patriot authorities were so angered by this that they vowed revenge on Oquaga. On Oct. 8th Lt. Col. William Butler and 267 patriot militia waded across the Susquehanna River and charged into Oquaga, but they found the village empty. Even though Col. Butler exclaimed that Oquaga was the finest Indian town that he had ever seen, the next day he destroyed the town and the storage of corn. It was also rumoured that some Native children hiding in the cornfields were killed. If Ben Shanks and his Indian and Tory group of raiders had been there they were nowhere to be seen. Gavin Watt suggests that they probably joined a large group of natives and Rangers at Tioga, on the Susquehanna River, and then moved on north further into Six Nation territory.
The Esopus War Captain Ben Shanks
The eleven year-old Andrew Miller was a captive of the retreating group of Indians and Tories. How terrifying was it for young Andrew to be suddenly taken from his family and made a captive? It is hard to imagine what he experienced. Torn away from his family and then thrust into the middle of a battle between the American militia and his captors. It was a dangerous time in Six Nations territory. The Iroquois were in the midst of their own civil war with some tribes supporting the British and others supporting the Rebels. A war party of rebel Oneidas and Tuscaroras attacked Tory villages on the Unadilla River burning houses and barns and taking prisoners. A huge raiding party of more than 400, including Captain William Caldwell’s Butler’s Rangers, Gilbert Tice’s Indian Department Rangers, and Joseph Brant and his Volunteers set out from Oquaga on Sept. 16 to attack German Flatts in the Mohawk Valley. At the same time Col. William Butler’s patriot regiment was pushing up from the south and militias in Cherry Valley and the Mohawk Valley were being strengthened. Patriot scouting parties were on the move throughout Six Nations territory and there were many skirmishes between them and British raiding parties. In the middle of all of this chaos Ben Shanks and his small group of Tories and Indians were making their way through such dangerous territory with the young Andrew Miller in tow, hoping to reach the safety of Fort Niagara. Andrew’s survival depended on the ability and experience of Ben Shanks.
The Esopus war captain, Ben Shanks, was a member of the Delaware Nation. The Delaware inhabited the Rondout Valley when the Dutch first came into the area as settlers in the 1600s. There were many skirmishes between the Dutch settlers and Indigenous People, including the “Esopus Wars” in 1659 and 1663. But throughout the 1700’s the same history repeated itself again and again. Victims of racial contempt and white superiority, the Indigenous population was forced to leave their land. As Martin Luther King, Jr. put it, “Our nation was born in genocide.” American policy was ethnic cleansing, forced migration, the taking of the land and the elimination of all natives. The policy of genocide coupled with diseases such as smallpox, measles and influenza severely depleted the native population. After the Esopus Wars, the 1665 Nicolls Treaty established relative peace between the Delaware and colonists for almost 100 years. Robert S. Grumet, in an interesting book on Delaware names of towns, states, “Most Esopus Indians continued to support the British crown in accordance with their Nicolls Treaty obligations when the Revolutionary War broke out in 1775.” The Delaware/Esopus Nation had to move west and north. They moved first to Oquaga, a Six Nations town on the northwest side of the Catskill Mountains. The Iroquois were adept at assimilating refugees of other Indigenous Nations. There were numerous Delaware families living at Oquaga when Butler and Brant were planning their raids on territory formerly inhabited by the Delaware Nation.
Given the emphasis on reconciliation today we reflect on the plight of Indigenous People with a great deal of sympathy. They had a right to be angry and they found allies in the spirit of revenge with Loyalists who had also been expelled from their land. Even though their understanding of land was different, they joined together as allies. For Indigenous People every place was Indian country—all of the land belonged to Indians as the First Nations in North America. For colonists the land was free to be claimed as private property. Uprooted from land and home they joined together as allies to fight back.
Ben Shanks was well-known at Pepacton and the vicinity of the East Branch of the Delaware River before the Revolution. As one of Joseph Brant’s trained recruits he was one of the leading organizers of raids into Ulster County in 1778, especially raids organized at Tory House. John Monroe recites a long, detailed quote about Shanks:
Shanks Ben (or Ben Shanks, as he was called on the Delaware) was at this time (1780) about forty years of age. In person he was tall, slender and athletic; his hair was jet black and clubbed behind; his forehead high and wrinkly; his eyes pf a fiery brown color, and sunk deep in their sockets; his nose pointed and aquiline; his front teeth remarkably broad, prominent and white; his cheeks hollow and furrowed. Arrayed for war, he was one of the most frightful specimens of humanity that the eye could rest upon. Like the others of his party, he wore a course wagoner’s frock of a grayish color, and a red handkerchief bound close around his head.
Monroe does not document this quote but it is typical of writing in the 19th century that embellished stories about the “noble savage,” feeding the fear of settlers. It is not likely that there is anything accurate in this quote except the name of Ben Shanks. However, there is a factual basis for fear of Ben Shanks. A letter was sent to Judge Levi Pawling from two Esopus war captains, one of whom was Ben Shanks:
Your Old Friends the Esopus Indians had allwase ment to Screen Your part of the Country as musch as possible in the Present Unhappy Contest as they had no Particular spite at you (but if) your Rangers Come out any more to hurt the Women & Children they will Revenge it Dredfully on your Women & Children & will spare none tho they never ment to hurt them.
Perhaps Andrew had reason to be afraid, but the consistent reports from captive children was that they were very well cared for by their Indigenous captors. There is the well-known story of Mary Jemison who was taken captive at the age of 13 in 1755, was adopted by the Senecas and later chose to stay with her captors. Simon Girty was 15 when he was taken by the Seneca, adopted and later became an interpreter and a frontiersman fighting alongside Indigenous warriors. Many captives were so well cared for that they preferred to stay with their captors than return to their families. From the many testimonies of captives we can re-imagine what young Andrew was experiencing.
The Experience of Captivity
The overwhelming trauma of Andrew’s captivity was the fact that he saw his father being killed and he was suddenly deprived of his family home. On the first day he was probably forced to move quickly through the wilderness as his captors tried to escape as fast as they could. They probably did not stop to rest or eat. When they reached the area of Pepacton and Tory House there were many Tory families that could have provided food. At some point the Tory raiders and the Indian warriors separated and Andrew was taken further into Six Nation territory by Ben Shanks and his warriors.
All reports indicate that captives were well cared for. When Simon Girty was captured the message to captives was clear, the warriors were not only guarding them but also taking care of them as best as they could. Ben Shanks was experienced at taking captives to Fort Niagara and it was in his best interest to care for them given the possibility of reward at the end. We can only wonder at what kind of relationship was established between Ben Shanks and the young Andrew. As happened with most white captives Andrew’s shoes were probably replaced with moccasins. And one of the most traumatic experiences for captives was watching the process of the preparation of scalps. The 13 year-old Mary Jemison watched her captors drying and scraping scalps by the fire, scalps that she recognized as belonging to her mother and father. Perhaps Andrew experienced the same sense of horror as she did upon seeing the scalps of his father and uncle. It is important to remember that scalping originated with settlers in New England in the mid-1670s. Originally promoted as a method to encourage settlers to take their own initiative against Indigenous people and be rewarded with a bounty for scalps, scalping became a permanent element of settler warfare against Indigenous people. In the Pine Bush Raid the scalping of Andrew’s father and uncle could have been carried out by the Tory raiders or Ben Shanks and his warriors. Regardless of who did it the whole experience was horrifying for the young Andrew.
As anthropologists point out the Six Nations had a long history of violence and warfare, especially in relation to the Neutrals and the Hurons. And they also had extensive periods of peace as demonstrated by their “Great Law of Peace.” Violence and war was always directed at their enemies. Violence was excluded from the realm of family and household. Young Andrew was considered either as the enemy or as a child deserving of care. “A captive warrior might either be treated with loving care and affection or be the object of the worst treatment imaginable.” The “Indigenous Critique” of European Civilization was that Europeans would not hesitate to torture and kill their own people. And that also applied to the American Revolution, a civil war in which Americans tortured and killed each other. But Indigenous people would never hurt their own families. Andrew was no doubt overcome by fear but the care offered to him by his captors treating him like a family member probably gradually diminished his fear and trepidation.
Some captives reported being bound as prisoners, and even at night being bound to Indian warriors sleeping on each side. But while walking through Indian territory there was more freedom for captives. Many captives like Mary Jemison and Simon Girty went through the arduous process of being adopted, experiencing a long period of trials and testing, and for Simon Girty the running of the gauntlet. Andrew was probably too young to be considered a candidate to run the gauntlet. And the process of adoption usually involved a whole village including women and children and it lasted three or four days. There is no evidence that Andrew was adopted. But an important observation must be made at this point. Identity for Indigenous People was cultural and not racial. A good example is the Mohawks of Kahnawake, who adopted white children as full members. Descendants of captives taken from a 1704 Mohawk raid on Deerfield, Massachusetts retained ties to their white families even as they participated as full members of the Mohawk community. Even without being adopted Andrew was probably treated as an equal to his captors and perhaps he was assigned a new name and no doubt he carried this cultural identity with him into his later years.
Andrew could have been a captive for a few weeks or a few months. Regardless there was ample opportunity to learn from his Indigenous captors. In the evening as they sat around the fire there would have been lots of conversation, storytelling, humour and insults. Perhaps Ben Shanks told the creation story of the fall of Sky Woman onto the back of a turtle, and how she created an island on the back of the turtle (Turtle Island was the Indigenous name for North America). Sky Woman had a daughter, and the daughter’s son learned to plant corn. His twin brother decided to leave his mother through her side and in the process killed Sky Woman but her death yielded a huge bounty in corn, beans and squash that sprang forth from her grave. Or perhaps Ben Shanks told the story about the Twin Boys. The Good Twin, the Creator provided all the good things of the earth, the plants, animals, rivers and human beings, and the Evil Twin created the poisonous plants and monstrous animals. Young Andrew was probably riveted to such stories, and probably worried about meeting the Evil Twin in the dark woods.
They probably stopped at villages along the way. Moving north and west through Six Nation territory they would have rested at Cayuga or Onondaga villages. The typical dwelling was the longhouse which housed a number of families. Small villages had four or five longhouses and larger villages more than a hundred. Entering a longhouse Andrew would have been impressed by its immense size with an arching roof held up by numerous poles. Perhaps they gathered around the hearth or fire of a family and watched the smoke curl up through an opening in the roof. It was the fall, harvest season, and there would have been dancing and stories and laughter as they gave thanks to their Grandparents, their Grandmother the Moon that provided light for wanderers through the darkness, Elder Brother the Sun who warms the earth, their Life Supporters, the Three Sisters, the Corn, the Bean and the Squash. The food was undoubtedly an improvement from wandering through the woods. Andrew might have been impressed by the fact that women were in charge of the affairs of the longhouse. They were in charge of planting and harvesting the corn, beans and squash. They gathered wild berries, fruits, nuts and roots from the woodlands. And as they sat around the hearth Andrew would have enjoyed a cup of tea, made by placing sassafras roots or birch bark into boiling water with some maple sugar.
Arriving at Fort Niagara
I had no idea where they were taking me. For weeks we faced long treks through the wilderness, in the heavy rain, crossing many rivers and streams, climbing hills, facing the threats of skirmishes, with very little food. After a long gruelling journey we finally reached the end. We came to a wide-open area filled with tepees. As far as the eye could see there were Indian camps and many children running around. In the distance there was a large building with many windows surrounded by grassy walls and a palisade, with soldiers in uniform shouldering their muskets. I was told that this was Fort Niagara. I was taken inside a large warehouse just outside the fort in which there were huge stacks of grain, corn, and mounds of furs. Then suddenly I heard someone calling out my name, “Andrew,” and I recognized a familiar face, Mr. John Burch. There was a lot of talking and gesturing, and Mr. Burch dragged huge bags of corn toward my captors, and Ben Shanks and his men took the bags and left. Burch put his arms around me and for the first time in weeks I felt relieved and safe.
That is how I imagine Andrew’s liberation from captivity. Bert Miller’s 1909 family tree states that Andrew was “redeemed” or “purchased” by John Burch. Let us back up a few weeks or months. A couple of days before the Pine Bush Raid on Sept. 5, 1778, John Burch’s farm was attacked and destroyed, and he escaped into the woods and walked to Fort Niagara. He wanted to join up with Butler’s Rangers, but he was considered unsuitable for service perhaps because of the wounds he had received during his escape. Instead, he was appointed as the sutler, “the keeper of the Indian stores” at Fort Niagara which also provided supplies for Butler’s Rangers. While he was working as the sutler at the fort, bartering and trading with the huge numbers of Indigenous people coming to the fort, he encountered Andrew Miller and “redeemed” him. Ben Shanks and his men handed over their prisoner in exchange for corn. Indigenous communities throughout the continent were the “Peoples of Corn.” In 1791 during a treaty negotiation, an American official stated that “the Indians lived chiefly by hunting and fishing,” and “growing only a little corn.” The irony is that this official was speaking to Chief Cornplanter. The Iroquois had grown corn in great abundance long before the settlers arrived. It seems symbolic that our ancestor should have been redeemed for corn.
Col. John Butler, reporting on a tour of Six Nation’s country in the fall of 1778, stated that “they had nothing to subsist upon but the remains of last year’s corn which was near expended…” Frequent war parties in the summer of 1778 prevented the Six Nations from cultivating the usual quantities of corn. The American strategy was similar to the British. The best defence was an offense, to destroy Indian villages and burn crops. Corn was the key. The American armies waged war against Indian cornfields. In the winter months between November 1778 and March 1779 a total of 7,365 Indigenous people had come to Fort Niagara looking for food, fleeing from their villages and crops which had been burned and destroyed. Fort Niagara was also “home, at least temporarily, to white captives of several Indian nations, and there were various proposals for exchange of prisoners.” Indigenous groups bringing captives to Fort Niagara was a common occurrence. “Indians often brought in patriot prisoners from their many raids. Those that were not adopted by various tribes were often kept in captivity at the fort until exchanged.” Andrew was probably thought of as a patriot prisoner and as such was brought to the fort for some sort of reward. Many prisoners were taken on to Carleton Island or Montreal. Andrew was fortunate that he was “redeemed” by John Burch.
Other Captives Redeemed at Fort Niagara
Andrew was not the only white captive to be “redeemed.” William Lamb, Jr. and his father were taken captive by Joseph Brant in April, 1780 when the boy was ten years old. He was brought to Fort Niagara, and later lived with Molly Brant for eleven years at Carleton Island. The story of David Ogden has been told by many, the story of his capture by Joseph Brant and his many hardships on the way to Fort Niagara. In the fall of 1778 Peter Brugher and his son were out in the field harvesting on their farm near Middletown. Indians killed the father and took the son as a prisoner to Fort Niagara where he was sold to a British officer. Several years later the son returned to Middletown and drowned trying to cross the Delaware River near where his father was killed. Frederick Schermerhorn of Catskill, near the Hudson River was captured by Indians when he was a boy and he was taken to Fort Niagara and turned over to the military and he served as a soldier for many years. Frank Severance in his 1899 book states that he had traced out the stories of 32 persons who were brought to Fort Niagara as captives during the years 1778 to 1783 and he estimates that hundreds were brought as captives by war parties to the fort.
It is likely that Burch negotiated directly with Ben Shanks for Andrew’s freedom. Later in the Spring of 1780 Captain Jeremiah Snyder and his son Elias were captured by Ben Shanks at their family farm, after which they were taken by Shanks to Fort Niagara. John Monroe states that Captain Snyder and his son arrived on May 26, 1780 and were questioned by Joseph Brant and “a Tory by the name of Burch, who had known Benjamin Snyder, a brother of the Captain…” It is easy to imagine that Burch participated in many such negotiation sessions including bargaining with Ben Shanks in “redeeming” Andrew Miller.
Arriving in 1778 or 1779?
Burch in his letter is ambiguous about the date of Andrew’s arrival in Upper Canada. He states that it was “some time in the year 1778 or 1779.” Burch himself, probably arrived at Fort Niagara in September or October of 1778. We don’t know how long Andrew was in captivity, but given the fact that Ben Shanks was on the move right after the battle on September 8 he probably was not far behind Burch. John Burch’s words “some time in 1778 or 1779” could simply mean that Andrew arrived during the winter months and Burch wasn’t sure whether it was November/December 1778 or January/February 1779.
What did Andrew learn from his experience in captivity? Many captives took advantage of their experience. James Dean served as an interpreter during the Revolution having spent his boyhood years among the Oneidas, and became more efficient in the Oneida language than any other white man. Simon Girty was captured as a boy by the Senecas and made his home in Indian country and became a well-known interpreter. Did Andrew learn the language of his captors? Was an eleven year-old boy’s experience with Indigenous people of any use to John Burch in his work bartering and trading with the variety of Indigenous peoples that surrounded the fort looking for food.
Most scholars date the Loyalist trek as beginning in April, 1777 and lasting through 1778 and 1779. It was a confusing and horrific time. There was the ambush at Oriskany, the attack on the Wyoming Valley, the Pine Bush Raid, and the Cherry Hill Massacre. American accounts focus often on the atrocities carried out by the attacking Tories and their Indigenous allies. But it is clear that there were atrocities on both sides. We forget that the policy of the American Congress was to eliminate all Indigenous people. The British forces of Col. John Butler and Joseph Brant and the American forces of Col. Cantine and General Sullivan took turns destroying villages and farms. British, Indian, and American armies continued to devastate farms and villages in New York State, destroying their enemies’ crops and supplies even while short of food themselves. Indigenous people deprived of their lands and Loyalists uprooted from their homes headed for Fort Niagara where there was food and safety. The survival of the eleven year-old Andrew Miller and his arrival at Fort Niagara is one of the great stories of the Loyalist trek to Canada.
Chapter Four: Fort Niagara
The History of Fort Niagara
A visit to Fort Niagara is quite rewarding. It is well preserved and its prominence on the American side of the Niagara River overlooking Lake Ontario tells us all we need to know about its strategic location. Fort Niagara was built by the French in 1727 at the site where the French explorer LaSalle had built a wooden fort. Its central large stone building surrounded by a simple wooden stockade made it clear to the Indian population that the fort was intended to enhance the fur trade but not to engage in warfare. In fact, the central building that became known as the “French Castle” was at first known as the “House of Peace.” The French and Indian War would totally change Fort Niagara. The French realized its importance as a military fortress and they enlarged the fort with better earthwork defenses, and added barracks, warehouses, a powder magazine, and a church. Throughout the French and Indian War the Six Nations had remained neutral, but their animosity toward the French and the persuasiveness of the British Indian Superintendent, Sir William Johnson shifted the support especially of the Mohawk Nation to the British side. In 1759, Johnson led 2000 soldiers and 1500 Indigenous warriors to lay siege to the Fort Niagara. It lasted 19 days. The French surrendered and Fort Niagara became a British fort. For the next two decades the main concern at the fort was unrest among the Indigenous population. The “Pontiac Uprising” of 1763-64 expressed native dissatisfaction with the British. Most repairs and changes to the fort were attempts to protect it from Indian invasion. The main function of Fort Niagara, however, was the transshipment of furs from the west beyond the Great Lakes to Detroit and Niagara and on to Montreal, and the storage and transshipment of manufactured goods from Montreal to Niagara and along the portage route to Lake Erie and on to Detroit. Fort Niagara was the midpoint of the vast St. Lawrence fur trading empire.
Fort Niagara during The Revolution
By 1775 and the beginning of the American Revolution Fort Niagara was an important frontier outpost and the centre of operations for both the British and Indigenous traders. Protecting the Niagara portage was still the main function but now the threat was from a different source. Most of the Six Nations were supporting the British. All eyes looked south to the movements of American troops. Fort Niagara was a strategic buffer between British forces in the north and the American armies to the south. Fort Niagara during the Revolution was “a military headquarters, a trading post, a supply depot, a diplomatic hub, and a multiethnic, multiclass society.” By 1777 Fort Niagara was actively involved in the war as the organizing base for offensive operations as Col. John Butler recruited and organized his fellow refugee Loyalists into a full regiment, Butler’s Rangers. In 1778 Joseph Brant recruited Indigenous warriors for “Brant’s Volunteers” ready to spring into action. The Pine Bush Raid in 1778 was sandwiched in between the raid on Wyoming Valley in Pennsylvania in June and the raid on Cherry Valley in November. Given all of the coming and going at Fort Niagara no-one noticed the arrival of an eleven year-old boy. But for the young Andrew, arriving at the fort and into the protection and care of John Burch must have been a tremendous relief. Captivity was over.
Fort Niagara was overcrowded. It was occupied by the 34th Regiment under Commander Mason Bolton, but in and around the fort lived members of the Indian Department, the members of Butler’s Rangers, Joseph Brant’s Volunteers and hundreds of Loyalist families and also thousands of Indian refugees. Outside the fort there were Indian tepees as far as the eye could see. By the end of 1779 there were more than 5000 Indigenous people encamped around Fort Niagara, a “refugee nation.” For Andrew the safety and security of being at the fort was tempered by the stark realities as described by the historian Ernest Green: “Men bereft of kin, widows whose babes had been butchered before their eyes, young children who had spent months or years among the Indians, aged folk driven into the wilderness to perish—every conceivable form of broken life and relationship was to be found a score of times among the wretched victims of the struggle on the frontiers.
The Bottoms
Andrew was taken into John Burch’s care. As the sutler for Butler’s Rangers and “keeper of the Indian stores,” Burch probably lived just outside of the fort, in one of the many buildings between the fort walls and the Niagara River. Barracks were built for the Butler’s Rangers on the west side of the Niagara River opposite Fort Niagara. Built during the autumn of 1778 by Col. Butler, they accommodated his Rangers and also “distressed families” who found refuge at Fort Niagara. Since John Burch was the sutler for Butler’s Rangers and in charge of the Indian stores, it is more likely that he lived close to the fort. Two paintings of Fort Niagara by James Peachy, dated in 1785 show many buildings, both houses and large warehouses immediately outside the fort, between the walls of the fort and the river. The watercolour painting of Elizabeth Simcoe also shows a few buildings just outside the fort along the river. This civilian area of warehouses became the commercial centre of Fort Niagara and was known by the names “lower town,” “trader town,” and most frequently, “The Bottoms.” Brian Dunnigan writes, “From 1760 until the early 1790’s, this was a rollicking, boisterous area of traders’ stores, warehouses and grog shops.” He goes on to say, “During the American Revolution, the Indian Department constructed many new buildings in The Bottoms to support their dealings with the Six Nations of the Iroquois.” Alan Taylor writes,
Beyond the walls and beside the river, crude taverns, stores, and bordellos sprouted on ‘the Bottom.’ A pious Quaker described Niagara as a ‘strong fortification, but a dark, noisy, confused, dirty place’.”
This is where the young Andrew lived, under the care of John Burch, but experiencing all the noise and dubious activities of the notorious “Bottoms.”
Every day was busy and noisy. I went with Mr. Burch to the warehouse which was stacked with furs. Mr. Burch complained a lot that there were not enough furs being brought in by Indians and frontiersmen, mostly beaver pelts and deerskins. The warehouse was called the “Indian store” because it contained huge quantities of goods for them to purchase or receive in a trade. There was always a line-up of people, some obviously quite hungry. But many were quite fussy about what they wanted. We had corn, flour, peas, rice, sugar and tea, as well as hams, salt pork and beef. Mr. Burch seemed to know his way around when it came to selling clothes and blankets, knives, thread and needle, and he was extra careful in measuring out amounts of rum and madeira. After a lot of practice, I could run and fill orders and bring them to where people were lining up to negotiate deals with Mr. Burch. Sometimes I had some time off and I could wander outside down the main street of the Bottoms. It was always noisy with people milling around. Sometimes I stood back in the shadows when fights broke out between Indians and off duty soldiers. Mr. Burch warned me about staying out of trouble, so I mostly just watched everything that was happening. It was never boring!
John Burch as Sutler
John Burch was ideally suited to operate the “Indian stores” at Fort Niagara. He emigrated to New York City in 1772. A tinsmith by trade he advertised his services in the New York Gazette and Weekly Mercury, on May 3, 1773, “Tin-Plate Worker and Japanner…he has by him a large collection of tin ware of all kinds. Both plain and japan’d…Many block-tin articles for kitchen use, warranted to stand the fire…” He set up his tinsmith business and opened a dry goods store in Albany in 1775. Albany and the Mohawk Valley was the centre of a great deal of tension as the British and the Americans vied for the loyalty of the Six Nations. In 1775 Albany was still the centre of trade with Indians bringing furs in exchange for manufactured goods, an economic competitor of the St. Lawrence system. At a Council of the Six Nations attended by American commissioners in Albany on Aug. 20, 1775 in addition to their declaration of neutrality Six Nations chiefs requested that trade at Albany be re-established, and in particular they wished to bring their axes, hoes and kettles to be repaired. Good for Burch’s business! However, tensions increased, and the Committee of Safety for Albany that had been organized already in 1774 was putting pressure on inhabitants to take an oath of allegiance to the rebel cause. It was time for Burch to leave, and eventually he found himself at Fort Niagara carrying on the same business of trade with Indigenous people.
His role as sutler was to provide provisions for the soldiers garrisoned at the fort, Butler’s Rangers and for Indigenous people surrounding the fort. And there were also hungry Loyalists who had come to stay. It was a difficult task. In terms of supply there was considerable uncertainty. Shipments from England were sporadic, given the realities of the war. British ships sank in the Atlantic or were captured by the Americans. And in England there were many disagreements about what commodities should be shipped and how often. And in terms of demand there were many mouths to feed. During the winter of 1778-79 when Burch began his work as sutler there was disagreement between the military at Fort Niagara and the Indian Department. Both Col. John Butler and Joseph Brant complained that the Indians working with them had poorer provisions compared to the provisions of the troops. There was little fresh meat. Fresh meat marked for the Indian Department instead went to the garrison at Niagara. This explains why Butler was so eager to receive John Burch’s cattle in the summer of 1778. And it also explains in part why Butler had confidence in Burch as the sutler. Burch was squeezed by the British policy. On the one hand the policy set years before by Lord George Germain was to give massive gifts of cattle, flour and rum to Indigenous people to ensure their allegiance as allies. On the other hand, there were constant scarcities. Not enough provisions from England, and Indigenous communities had very little produce from corn crops or cattle to spare. Then there was the issue of decay and disease. Shipments of American flour via England were too old and too wet, from sitting on wharves too long, and quite inadequate for the troops at Niagara. Bread from England was too often spoiled. In 1781 food caches were devoured by caterpillars. For young Andrew, helping Mr. Burch in the “Indian stores” was quite a challenge and an enormous learning experience.
“No Useless Mouths”
1779 was a disaster for the Six Nations. Major General John Sullivan’s campaign had the intention of the total destruction of the Six Nation villages and crops. George Washington’s plan was to create hunger and in their distress they would welcome provisions provided by the Patriots. Sullivan’s army marched into Cayuga and Seneca villages and destroyed everything. For example, on Aug. 13, 1779 at Chemung they lit a “glorious bonfire of upwards of 30 buildings at once,” and cut down about 40 acres of fields. Sullivan claimed that his men destroyed 160,000 bushels of corn, and vegetables and animals. The result of the Sullivan campaign was that the Six Nations were evicted from their villages, creating famine, pushing them toward the British. Many hundreds would die of starvation and diseases during the harsh winter of 1779-80. More than 5000 Six Nations people arrived at Fort Niagara. The pressure on Burch and the “Indian stores” was immense.
General Frederick Haldimand was concerned. He worried about the high cost of feeding such numbers. In a Sept 1780 letter he wrote,
…the number of Indians victualled at Niagara is prodigious, and if not by some reason reduced, must terminate very disagreeably. No useless Mouth, which can possibly be sent away’ could be allowed to remain for the winter.
For Haldimand if the Indians were not going to aid the troops in fighting the enemy they were useless. The Six Nations saw this as bad faith on the part of the British. They began to charge higher prices for the little beef and corn they had. And they even practiced fasting to increase their own bargaining power. They thought that the British should share the experience of hunger with them if there was a shortage of food. Food diplomacy was a complex issue and John Burch was in the middle of it. Haldimand’s plan of reducing supplies did not work. Food distribution expanded. The superintendent of Indian Affairs estimated how many would need rations and Burch would issue tickets to redeem for provisions. But it was difficult to accommodate the Indian tastes. They preferred corn to flour. If there was no corn they preferred baked bread to flour supplies. Burch issued more salt pork than beef, but they did not like salted meat that just made them sick. In 1781, British expenditures on supplies to Niagara increased from 500 lbs in New York currency to 100,000 lbs. Six Nation people also refused to grow food themselves. They were encouraged to plant crops at their community at Buffalo Creek, but they complained that the corn seed they received was too paltry to grow an abundant crop and the tools they received were inadequate (anticipating the similar complaint of Loyalist farmers in the future). They showed up at the fort demanding more rations. John Burch’s negotiating skills were truly tested. He was successful in redeeming Andrew in exchange for corn but the challenge of dealing with more than 5000 hungry people was overwhelming. And in the midst of his busy life as a sutler he took the time to establish a home life.
John Burch Marries Martha Ramsey
In 1779 John Burch married Martha Ramsey, who had come with her two brothers and a sister from Cherry Valley in 1778. Her father, James Ramsey, Sr. was a Loyalist from Cherry Valley. When Butler’s Rangers and Indian allies attacked Cherry Valley under the leadership of Col. John Butler’s son, Walter, James Ramsey joined with the Rangers but was discharged a year later and retired to Detroit, and later took up land near Niagara Falls. The Cherry Valley Massacre was on November 11 of 1778, and Martha probably arrived at Fort Niagara with her two brothers and a sister a few months later.
There is an alternative theory about Martha Ramsey. There is a rather curious letter written by Richard Cartwright to Francis Goring on July 1st, 1779 that refers to Burch. He writes,
Give my complements to Mr. Cunningham and Mr. Burch. I suppose Burch is disconsolate at the thought of parting from his widow. Tell him, I say he will be well off if he keeps his intellect safe between her and the Lodge.
This letter suggests that Martha had not arrived at Fort Niagara until after the summer of 1779. And later on Aug. 2, 1779 Cartwright wrote,
I am happy to hear Mr. Burch is so well employed, the Progress indeed from Brotherly Love to Sisterly Affection and from that to Matrimony is quite Natural and regular. I would however not have him delay the latter till my coming as that is rather precarious and will not I fear be very soon.
Hazel Mathews in The Mark of Honour assumes that Martha Ramsey was the widow of one of the Cherry Valley Ramseys. This is the only reference I have found for this theory. The preponderance of evidence suggests that she was the daughter of James Ramsey, but of course she might have been a widow. Cartwright’s letters imply that the romance between John Burch and Martha Ramsey had been going on for some time and their marriage probably took place in the late summer or fall of 1779. Andrew had been living under the care of Burch for perhaps six months, while Burch was “so well employed” as a sutler at the fort. Nevertheless, Andrew and Martha had a lot of horrifying experiences to share, both being victims of the incredible violence of 1778. For Andrew, living with John and Martha Burch must have seemed like being part of a normal family again. Andrew resided with John Burch and his wife Martha for four years, probably in a home just outside the fort in The Bottoms as their “son” (John and Martha’s only son, John Burch,Jr. was born in 1784). An indication of the close relationship of Andrew to John and Martha Burch is the fact that he later named his oldest son John Burch Miller.
The Cast of Characters at Fort Niagara
What a unique education for the young Andrew! What kept him busy each day at the fort? He probably worked alongside John Burch in “the Indian store,” the warehouse of furs and provisions. Each day provisions had to be provided to both Loyalist families and the huge number of Indians gathered at the fort. Perhaps Andrew worked in the gardens around the fort, gardens noted for the fine quality of their vegetables. Given John Burch’s status as sutler and as a merchant Andrew had the opportunity to meet or observe the most interesting people who congregated at Fort Niagara. There was the commander of the fort, Colonel Mason Bolton, a very austere figure who was in charge of about 400 soldiers stationed at the fort. Men of the Indian Department probably stopped by to visit with John Burch, including Colonel Guy Johnson, the Superintendent of Indian Affairs, and Sir John Johnson, the son of the famous Sir William Johnson, who had captured the fort from the French in 1759.
Col. John Butler (1728-1796)
There was the familiar figure of Colonel John Butler who had employed Burch as a sutler, and their business relationship was just beginning. Butler was born in 1725 in Connecticut and moved with his family to the Mohawk Valley in New York State where he owned a large estate at Butlersburg and served as an interpreter for Sir William Johnson. Sir John Johnson and Guy Johnson did not think highly of Butler and tried to undermine him on many occasions. It appears the John Burch setting up his businesses in Albany had good relations with both Butler and the Johnson family. John Butler organized a Masonic Lodge in Albany and he founded the St. John’s Lodge of Friendship at Fort Niagara. In 1790 it moved from the fort to Newark. John Burch was probably a member of this Lodge.
In December, 1777 Butler organized the first company of rangers at Fort Niagara and in May of 1778 they marched from Niagara to Unadilla on the Susquehanna River to establish the headquarters of “Butler’s Rangers,” both at Unadilla and Oquaga. From that base they organized many expeditions to harass patriot villages, destroy as much of their food supply as possible, recruit Loyalists and drive horses and cattle back to Fort Niagara. Butler was involved in organizing the infamous raid on Wyoming Valley in June 1778 and also the raid on Cherry Valley led by his son Walter in November 1778. By December 1778 around the time that Andrew arrived at Fort Niagara Butler’s Rangers consisted of six full companies and they stayed during the winter at “Rangers’ Barracks” newly built on the west side of the Niagara River. Andrew would have seen the rangers walking the streets of the Bottoms at the fort wearing their distinctive uniform, dark green cloth trimmed with scarlet with a low, flat cap and a brass plate in front with the monogram G.R. encircled by the words “Butler’s Rangers.”
Walter Butler
Born in 1752, the son of Colonel John Butler, Walter joined the Rangers and was commissioned as a Captain. In 1777 he was captured and imprisoned in Albany but he escaped. John Burch was no doubt aware of the plight of Walter, the son of his friend John Butler. In November 1779 Walter led the Rangers with Joseph Brant and raided Cherry Valley. The patriots labelled this as the Cherry Valley Massacre, but Walter who was only 26 was welcomed at Fort Niagara as a hero. Apparently, he was a handsome man and Andrew would have seen him on the streets of the Bottoms during the winter of 1778-79. His mother and family were in custody in Albany and Walter wrote letters and went to Quebec and appealed directly to General Haldimand to arrange an exchange of the Butler family for Cherry Valley captives, an exchange that happened. Walter continued to be involved in campaigns organized at Fort Niagara through 1779 and 1780. Walter Butler was killed while retreating from a battle in the Mohawk Valley on Oct. 30, 1781.
Six Nation Leaders
Fort Niagara was on Seneca land and the king (or Sachem) of the Seneca Nation, Sayenqueraghta (Old Smoke), often visited Fort Niagara. In his full headdress, this six foot-tall Sachem was a stunning figure. Another Indigenous leader visiting the fort was Gyantwahia or Kayethwahketh (Chief Cornplanter). The majority of warriors of the Mohawk, Seneca, Onondaga and Cayuga looked to them as war chiefs. Fort Niagara was a traditional place for holding councils and Andrew must have viewed the important council on January 29, 1779 that gathered representatives of eight different nations. Col. Butler shared messages from Lt. Governor Haldimand and he spoke on behalf of Col. Bolton urging harmony and assuring assistance to the Indian population.
Joseph Brant
The Mohawk leader, Joseph Brant was present at the fort often for consultations and planning. He was born in 1742 and at the age of 15 he joined a group of warriors fighting with Sir William Johnson. He was with Sir William when Fort Niagara fell to the British in 1759. He was educated at an Indian Charity School in Connecticut which later in 1796 became Dartmouth College. After his marriage he became a Christian and working closely with the missionary to the Mohawks, Rev. John Stuart, translated the Gospel of Mark, a Catechism and a Prayer Book into Mohawk. In 1775 he crossed the Atlantic to England where he impressed people dressed in his traditional Indian clothes. In 1778 he organized his band of “Brant’s Volunteers” and from his base at Oquaga on the Susquehanna River he led campaigns to destroy patriot villages and farms and capture horses and cattle. From Oquaga he and his men opened a trail through the Catskills to the Hudson River. This trail probably went along the East Branch of the Delaware River through Pepacton and down through the Catskills to Esopus and Marbletown. It is along this route that he would have encountered John Burch at his estate and also where he recruited Ben Shanks. After a patriot militia destroyed Oquaga, Joseph Brant returned to Niagara. In the following year, 1779, General Sullivan’s scorch earth campaign destroyed Six Nations villages and crops and more than 5000 Iroquois refugees arrived at Fort Niagara. In huts and tents they formed a line of settlement from Lewiston to Buffalo. Brant settled among them taking charge of 450 Mohawks close to the fort. His son Isaac was the same age as Andrew, and it is easy to imagine that they spent a lot of time together.
Molly Brant
The most interesting person at Fort Niagara was Mary Brant (Miss Molly), the sister of Joseph Brant. She was the widow of Sir William Johnson, the British “Indian Affairs Superintendent” and she escaped from the Mohawk Valley, and lived with her family for a short time in Cayuga. British authorities recognized her power and influence and Col. John Butler urged her to come to Fort Niagara. She arrived in late 1777 and lived with her brother Joseph during the winter of 1777-78. By the summer of 1778 she had her own home and a number of trunks of clothes were sent to her from Montreal by Col. Daniel Claus. Her house was probably just outside the fort, built for her by General Haldimand, commander of the British forces. There was always activity at her house.
…she kept open house for all the leading men and women of the Confederacy. She remained always available to Indians who came seeking her advice. She listened patiently to their complaints, provided counsel, prevented mischief, and served as their valued confidante. Even as she had once encouraged the Loyalist fugitives by hiding, feeding, and protecting them, so now she encouraged her own people and kept steadfast in the king’s cause.
Molly Brant had much more influential power than her brother. This is not surprising given the political structure of the Six Nations. There was no central power, and each village practiced a system of decision making on the basis of consensus. Women had political authority and controlled the choice of male representatives at councils. Women had the right to speak at council meetings and clan mothers had the right to recall unsatisfactory representatives. Daniel Claus wrote in a letter dated Aug. 30, 1779 that “one word from her goes further with them than a thousand from any white man, without exception.” She had seven children. The oldest, Peter, was tragically killed on Oct. 21, 1777 while serving in the British army in New York. Her two eldest daughters, Elizabeth and Magdalene were away at a boarding school in Montreal, and her next two children, Peggy and George would soon follow. Her two youngest children, Mary and Susanna were only 5 years younger than Andrew. George was the same age. It is easy to imagine Andrew hanging out with some of the Brant children in and around the fort. Andrew was probably a frequent visitor in the Brant home up the street from the Burch home in the “Bottoms.”
Survival at the Fort
Living at Fort Niagara was a very precarious existence. In the Spring and Summer of 1779, General John Sullivan and the American army began their campaign of destroying Iroquois villages throughout New York State. In retaliation for the Cherry Valley massacre General Sullivan destroyed villages and crops and advanced toward Fort Niagara. Molly Brant and her children for their own safety departed for Montreal and later Carleton Island on July 17, 1779. Apparently, Commander Bolton was glad to see her go for she had been a thorn in his side. John and Martha Burch and Andrew remained at the Fort and prepared for the worst. In February 1779 1,346 people were drawing rations at Fort Niagara, including 64 “distressed” families from the Mohawk Valley and 445 Iroquois refugees. By October, 1779 in the aftermath of the Sullivan campaign 3,678 more refugees were receiving rations. John Burch was no doubt a busy man overseeing the warehouse of food at the fort.
The Beginning of Upper Canada Commerce
It was also a precarious existence for merchants working at Fort Niagara. They were completely dependent on the military. They could not work at the fort and engage in trade or acquire land or build houses without permission from the military. But in the flux of change provoked by the American Revolution there were many opportunities for merchants. The story of the commercial development at the fort is important. It is the beginning of commerce in Upper Canada, and John Burch and Andrew Miller were present in the middle of this development. The center of handling the fur trade had shifted from Albany to Fort Niagara. The amount of provisions for Indigenous people and the Loyalists at the fort increased exponentially. John Butler took advantage of the situation. As Acting Superintendent of Indian affairs while Colonel Guy Johnson was away in England, Butler had formed an alliance with Edward Pollard who had been the post sutler for fifteen years. Together Butler and Pollard monopolized trade and the distribution of provisions to First Nations people. Pollard retired to England in 1779, and his business passed on to Thomas Robinson, an employee of Pollard. John Burch’s status is not clear. Was Pollard the sutler for the fort and John Burch sutler for Butler’s Rangers? Regardless, from the time that Burch delivered cattle to Butler’s Rangers in 1778 he was a loyal supporter of Colonel Butler and worked in the “Indian stores.”
The Butler monopoly of trade did not last. Guy Johnson, the superintendent of Indian affairs, nephew and son-in-law of Sir William Johnson returned from England and broke up the Butler monopoly. William Taylor became the new fort sutler and supplier of provisions for the fort in place of Thomas Robinson. Taylor formed a business alliance with George Forsyth and the new firm of Taylor and Forsyth controlled trade at the fort. Butler’s influence was reduced but he still maintained his authority over the Rangers. It appears that John Burch as an independent trader supported both John Butler and the Johnson family. Before Burch had delivered cattle to Butler’s Rangers in 1778 he had connections as an Albany merchant with Richard Cartwright Sr. who was a personal supplier for the Johnson family. As an independent merchant, Burch probably worked with whoever was in charge of the trading network.
A Business Scandal
Taylor and Forsyth because of their connection with Guy Johnson thrived and extended their business, but the fortunes of wartime merchants could change swiftly. One of their clerks (a former employee of Butler’s business) travelled to Montreal and revealed to authorities that Taylor and Forsyth had padded the books. They were accused of keeping a double set of books, defrauding the government and entering into private deals to earn personal fortunes. There was a lot of money to be made in providing provisions for the soldiers and the Indians. Rum bought wholesale in Montreal for eight shillings a gallon could be sold at Fort Niagara for twenty or twenty-four shillings. Annual rum consumption at Fort Niagara exceeded 7000 gallons a year. Traders did not hesitate to overcharge the government for provisions, and they often entered into private transactions with individual soldiers. One soldier at the end of the war had an incredible debt—too much rum! Taylor and Forsyth were arrested, found guilty, dismissed from their positions as sutlers and denied any further trading at British forts. This scandal also tarnished the reputation of Guy Johnson. It was obvious that there was collusion between Johnson and the Taylor-Forsyth firm. Johnson was notorious in being highly selective in distributing provisions to the Indians, favouring some and ignoring others, and he did not hesitate to set aside as much as possible for his own use. His own table was always full of the best food and wine. Johnson was suspended from his position and forbidden to return to Fort Niagara. When Johnson departed from Niagara he left behind eight and a half barrels of brown sugar and two barrels of white wine.
One would have expected that John Butler would have returned to power, but it did not happen. Lieutenant-Governor Haldimand thought that Butler was in spite of his extensive experience and abilities, “deficient in Education and liberal Sentiments,” so he appointed Sir John Johnson, son of Sir William Johnson as Superintendent of Indian affairs. However, the scandal and fall of Taylor and Forsyth proved to be beneficial to the smaller firms that were trying to enter the profitable trading business.
Opportunity for John Burch
This proved to be fortunate for John Burch. Oher merchants appeared on the scene, including the young ambitious Richard Cartright, jr who was favoured by the Johnson family and his future partner, the enterprising and promising Robert Hamilton. Hamilton came to Canada in 1776 and worked with commercial firms in Montreal, but he had his eye on opportunities to get involved with the whole elaborate Laurentian trading system. He began quite modestly in 1779 by speculating on a package of silk handkerchiefs and hand-made shirts, by sending them to Fort Niagara to be sold. He divided these items “among Archibald Cunningham, a clerk at Carleton Island, Francis Goring, a clerk at Niagara, and ‘brother Burch’ an independent trader at Niagara.” The affectionate phrase “brother Burch” suggests the close relationship between Hamilton and Burch, and both would form a business relationship that endured even as they settled on the Canadian side of the Niagara River. It was the beginning of one of the most important merchant businesses in Upper Canada before 1812. Cunningham, Goring, Burch and Hamilton would eventually become neighbours on the west side of the Niagara River. During these key years from 1779 to 1783 living with John and Martha Burch at the fort, Andrew had the opportunity to learn a great deal about the military, the plight of the First Nations, the intricacies of the fur trade, and the know-how of merchant entrepreneurship.
The Hamilton/Cartwright company that Burch worked with thrived at Fort Niagara. Their reputation for respectability was already in place before the scandal happened, but their connection with the reliable Montreal firm of Todd and McGill helped them establish themselves both in the fur trade and the provision of goods for the fort and indigenous people. By 1783 business began to slow down. Both the military market and the indigenous demand had diminished and there were too many merchants competing for a smaller market. Some merchants just closed shop and moved elsewhere and some merchants like John Burch abandoned trading for farming. For John Burch, along with Andrew Miller it was time to explore new possibilities.
The Acquisitive Ethics of Upper Canadian Businessmen
As many scholars have indicated the beginnings of the first commercial empire in Upper Canada occurred at Fort Niagara. Local merchants through their initiative and cleverness gradually moved away from military control. A. R. M. Lower seems to be correct that a new type of person emerged, the businessman, who is in a hurry and wants to get things done.
From the first the New World has released in men the passion of greed. Greed in itself as a human quality the peasant can understand well enough but not greed erected into a way of life and fortified not only with the majesty of the law, but with the sanction of a religion. Yet no other group has so systematically set up acquisition as an object in itself and made it the centre of a cult as have the men of business of the English-speaking world.
At Fort Niagara the usual restraints of civilization including the church was absent, and everything including the natural world seemed to be wide open for exploitation. Given our present preoccupation with environmental issues it is an important question to ask: Did the birth of Canada take place in the context of the spirit of domination, the domination of Indigenous people and the domination of nature? As Lower points out it is the case that other values did emerge, the Anglican emphasis on service to the state, the Scottish ideal of the learned man, and the importance of humanitarianism. And I think it is obvious that both John Burch and Andrew Miller attained besides their success in business the stature of gentlemen. It also must be said that the capitalist spirit of acquisitiveness which was obviously present among the merchants at Fort Niagara was mitigated by the desire for survival. Uprooted from their land south of the border, life at Fort Niagara was a liminal, in-between existence, just trying to survive and hoping for a better day. Survival is an important theme in the early life of Upper Canada, and especially at Fort Niagara.
Survival at Fort Niagara
Numerous war parties were organized and carried out from Fort Niagara in the years that Andrew was living with the Burch family at the fort. The lack of provisions at the fort was a constant concern and this fueled the ambition of war parties to attack rebel villages and farms and bring back cattle and grain. A typical attack occurred in July, 1779. Brant was not willing to attack in the Mohawk Valley or the Schoharie Valley because of the buildup of rebel militia, so he turned his attention on the New York area south of the Catskills. On July 20th 60 natives and 27 Tories struck a settlement at Minisink, on the Delaware River, killing and scalping four inhabitants, burning ten houses, eleven barns, a church and gristmill, and drove off horses and cattle. This was the Pine Bush Raid all over again, in the same area, an event that was repeated continually between 1779 and 1781. The last raid out of Fort Niagara happened in the fall of 1781. It was comprised of 33 regular soldiers, 150 Loyalist rangers, and 200 Indians, and it was on this expedition that Walter Butler was killed.
The winter of 1779-80 was horrific. Mary Jemison who had been a captive of the Senecas said that it was the hardest winter she had known. The snow was five feet deep for months. The Niagara River remained frozen from January to March. Indian families huddled in their makeshift tents and dugouts, and Loyalist families eked out an existence in crowded conditions. Many refugees died from starvation and exposure and also disease. The only doctor at the fort, Dr. James McClauseland faced a medical crisis. Refugee loyalists, refugee Indians, British soldiers, Butler’s Rangers, and prisoners were suffering from exhaustion, malnutrition, injuries and scurvy, given the scarcity of fresh meat and vegetables. Colin Calloway summarizes the doctor’s work:
Although the fort seems to have escaped smallpox that winter, McClauseland treated scurvy, malnutrition, nausea, diarrhea, constipation, dysentery, stomach complaints, bowel pains, bladder infections, dropsy (from spoiled meat), gout, croup, headaches, tetanus, hernias, chilblaines, colds, fevers, ague, rheumatism, skin diseases, and various wounds, bruises, and burns.
With inadequate medical supplies the soldiers assigned to medical duties also had to cut wood, feed the horses, sweep the chimneys, make coffins and bury the dead. Life for John and Martha Burch and the young Andrew was challenging indeed. It is amazing that the young Andrew survived. But things would change for the better
Discovery of Niagara Falls
For all of the Loyalists land was the preeminent issue. Deprived of their land in the Thirteen Colonies they yearned for a new beginning on their own piece of land in the Niagara area. Development had already begun on the west side of the Niagara River in the fall of 1778 with the building of Navy Hall and the Barracks for Butler’s Rangers. John Burch as the sutler for Butler’s Rangers and the fort must have visited the west side many times taking the opportunity to check out possibilities for settlement.
The most exciting event for Andrew while living at Fort Niagara was probably his first visit to Niagara Falls. Everyone talked about it. At some point during the four years that he lived with John and Martha Burch at Fort Niagara Andrew must have ventured out probably accompanied by John Burch. The easiest way to get to the falls was along the Portage Road on the east side of the Niagara River, beginning at the “Lower Landing,” where ships crossing Lake Ontario brought goods for the portage. At the Niagara Escarpment there was a long, steep slope that the Seneca called “Crawl-on-all-Fours,” because they had been employed by the French to carry furs and push barrels of salt pork up the slope and along the Portage route for many years. The British used horses and oxen to pull wagons up the hill. Just past a notch in the gorge of the river there was a cave called Devil’s Hole. In 1763 twelve wagons of provisions were ambushed by Senecas and horses and wagons and drivers were driven over the edge into the gorge. The only person to escape was the wagon master named John Stedman who was on horseback in front of the wagons. Hearing gunfire, a battalion of troops rushed to the scene and they were also ambushed and most were killed. One who survived was a drummer boy named Matthew, who was pushed over the gorge bank, where he landed in the branches of a tree, and hung there undetected by the Indians until he was rescued later by British soldiers.
I was walking south from Devil’s Hole, and soon I could hear the roar and see the huge mist in the sky of the great cataract. The immense noise of the falls and the spray that rises to the clouds was breath-taking. Gazing at the falls for the first time I was stunned. I had no words to express my awe at the grandeur and immensity of the falls. Then, walking on past the falls we arrived at a small fort, Fort Schlosser. The fort was located at the Upper Landing of the Portage, where goods could be transferred from wagons to boats and continue up the Niagara River to Lake Erie. Here we met Mr. John Stedman who was the chief operator of the Portage. Full of stories Stedman told us about his escape from the Indians at Devil’s Hole, and how he was considered a hero and awarded land by the Senecas. He explained how he recently transported his goats in a flat-bottomed bateau out to an island between the two falls, the Horseshoe Falls and the American Falls. All but one tough old billy goat survived the winter, so that island became known as Goat Island. Fort Schlosser was the best place to cross the Niagara River above the falls to the Canadian side. It was not an easy trip. In a small bateau we had to row as hard as we could against the current and then in the middle relax and steer the boat to the other side, arriving at the mouth of a small river, named Chippawa Creek. A mistake in judgement might mean plunging over the falls. I was never so glad to reach the shore safely. From there it was a short walk along the river to the lip of the falls, where there was a huge slab of rock jutting out over the falls. It became known as “Table Rock” and I crawled out to the edge to watch the torrent of water plunge into the abyss. The highlight for me was clambering down the cliff beside Table Rock, aided by rope ladders placed there by Indians and walking behind the cascade of water—an incredible experience. I knew then that Niagara Falls would be very important to me in my life.
John Burch’s interest was looking for good places on the west side of the Niagara River to settle. There was urgency since in the Paris peace treaty of 1783 the British decided to give up their forts along the frontier including Fort Niagara. It was time to move on. The peace treaty made life at the fort quite difficult. The new border through the Great Lakes and along the Niagara River was a rebuke to the Six Nations by placing their land on the American side of the border. Their anger at being betrayed by the British led Lt. Governor Haldimand to delay relinquishing Fort Niagara. Another reason for delay was that the Americans soon violated the treaty. They refused to allow British merchants from collecting prewar debts, and Loyalists were prevented from reclaiming the properties they had lost. This hurt Burch immensely. In his petition of September 1, 1787 he listed in detail all of his losses, his confiscated properties in Albany, Woodstock, Esopus, Marbletown and his estate on the East Branch of the Delaware River. It was obvious to him in 1783 that he would lose everything and given the angry mobs in New York State he would not be able to return. He couldn’t go back to his home in New York and he couldn’t stay any longer at Fort Niagara.
Burch was familiar with the land around Butler’s Barracks opposite to Fort Niagara. Many of Butler’s Rangers decided to settle there in a new town named Newark. To acquire land was the ultimate goal of uprooted Loyalists. But Burch preferred the land near the top of Niagara Falls. No-one had settled there yet. Burch thought that land at the corner of Chippawa Creek and the Niagara River was ideal for farming and his merchant eye already began thinking about how he could utilize the power of the river. The iron work for a gristmill and sawmill were confiscated in Woodstock, but perhaps he could build a new mill on the Niagara River. John Burch and Andrew must have made the trip from Fort Niagara to Niagara Falls numerous times. Fortunately for John Burch and Andrew Miller their own ambitions about land fit very nicely into the plans of Lt. Governor Haldimand.
Chapter Five: Niagara Falls
General Haldimand’s Agriculture Plan
Fort Niagara is on the east side of the Niagara River on the shore of Lake Ontario. The west side of the river had not yet been developed before 1778. Navy Hall and the barracks for the Butler’s Rangers were the only buildings on the west side. On June 26 1778 General Frederick Haldimand replaced Sir Guy Carleton as Governor-in-Chief of the Province of Quebec that included all the territory ceded by the French to the British. Col. Mason Bolton complained to Haldimand that the number of recruits to Butler’s Rangers and the number of Loyalist refugees were increasing, and this coupled with the demands of the Indians caused a huge expense for provisions at the fort. Haldimand responded in a letter dated October 1778 urging the cultivation of land around the fort to supply the fort with crops and raise cattle. On March 4, 1779, Bolton wrote Haldimand explaining that because of promises made by Sir William Johnson in 1767 to the Indians that no land would be taken from them without their permission it was Bolton’s view that the land on the west side of the river would be better for development. Haldimand’s response on March 8, 1779, was that no time should be lost in beginning a settlement on the west bank, and he recommended that Col. Butler get busy settling families. He considered Butler best suited because of his influence with the Loyalists and his knowledge of farming. And a statement in Haldimand’s letter of June 7, 1779, is interesting because it focuses attention on the importance of land, which was the most important matter to Loyalists.
…if you can find amongst the distressed families, three or four who are desirous to settle on the opposite side of the river, who are good Husbandmen and who discover Inclinations for improvements of LAND ONLY, exclusive of every other view or pursuit, I would have you establish them there…
Purchase of Land from the Mississauga Nation
But, of course, the land belonged to the Indigenous people. In a July 7, 1780, letter to Col. Bolton at Fort Niagara, General Haldimand, with the approval of Lord George Germain expressed his wish to purchase land from the Mississauga Nation for the Crown. The land would be divided up into lots for the Loyalists. The land would remain as the possession of the Crown and no rent would be charged. Farmers could keep a portion of their produce, but any surplus was for support of the garrison. Tools such as ploughs would be provided. On July 13, 1780, Haldimand instructed Col. Guy Johnson to purchase a tract of land on the west side of the Niagara River, four miles in width from Lake Ontario to Lake Erie. There was considerable delay in gathering all the chiefs together. In the meantime, Butler went ahead and settled some families around the Rangers barracks on the west side. A Council of Six nations met at Fort Niagara on October 29, 1780, to welcome the new commandant, Brigadier General H. Watson Powell and say goodbye to Col. Mason Bolton who was in ill health. Bolton left on a new ship, the Ontario, with an officer and 30 men of the 34th Regiment. Two days later the ship was seen near the Genesee River and then never seen again. It sank in a storm on October 31, 1780.
On May 9, 1781, the long-delayed council meeting bringing the Chiefs of the Chippawa Nation and the Misssissauga Nation together with Col. Guy Johnson took place and a deed for the land was negotiated in exchange for 300 suits of clothing. A great deal indeed for the Crown (reminiscent of the absurd sale of Manhattan for 24 dollars). For the Indigenous people it is again another example of dispossession of their traditional territory. They did not understand the European concept of ownership of land by individuals. For them the land was sacred, a gift of the Maker, and it belonged to the people both now and in the future. The agreement made no mention of the surrendering of rights to fish and cultivate the land. Misunderstanding eventually turned into bitterness and resentment that still exists today. A Mississauga chief later summed up their plight as follows, “We planted you—we nursed you. We protected you till you became a mighty tree that spread thro our Hunting Land. With its branches you now lash us.”
As I noted Col. Butler did not wait for the official purchase to take place. He asked Col. Mason Bolton to choose three or four families from those living around the fort. And in the summer of 1780 the work of clearing the land had begun. The winter wheat that was ordered came too late for summer and fall planting and it was returned to the commissary’s store at the fort. Col. Butler wrote on Dec. 17, 1780, “I have got four or five families settled and they have built themselves houses.” These families included the names of Michael Showers, Peter and James Secord, Adam Young, Thomas McMicken, and Philip Bender. The Commanding officer of the Fort would provide provisions for one year and no rent would be charged and in exchange all crops in excess of the needs of farmers were to be sold exclusively to the Crown. Colonel John Butler wrote in 1783 that the farmers were unsatisfied with the uncertainty of holding their lands, “and would rather be subject to a small rent if they could be more effectually secured to them.” This lack of ownership of the land was a cause of anxiety for the settlers in the years to follow, even up to the turbulent years of the 1837 Rebellion.
Settlement of Niagara West Begins
While it is the case that we have nothing written by the earliest Loyalists it is easy to find documents that list their names. On August 25, 1782, Col. Butler made a survey of the settlement and listed 16 families: 68 persons who had cleared 236 acres producing 1,178 bushels of grain, 630 bushels of potatoes and herding horses, cattle, sheep, and swine. Most of these families settled on the strip of land between Newark (Niagara-on-the-Lake) and Queenston, but three families settled closer to Niagara Falls, above the escarpment: Philip Bender, Francis Elsworth, and Thomas McMicking. It is interesting that Col. Butler records next to the name of Thomas McMicking many items including a slave: “1 married woman, 1 young or hired man, 2 boys, 1 male slave; 2 horses, 1 cow, 20 hogs, 8 acres cleared; produced 10 bushels of Indian corn, 10 bushels of oats, and 10 bushels of potatoes.” Many Loyalists brought African American slaves with them to Canada. I have found no evidence that John Burch possessed African slaves.
A second census was conducted in 1783, showing 46 families, and 10 of these settled beside Niagara Falls, including John Burch. According to this census, dated Dec. 1, 1783, John and Martha Burch had cleared 20 acres of land between the falls and Chippewa Creek. A July 20th 1784 list of settlers includes John Burch’s name (C706), and next to his name it lists, “one man, one woman, one child over 10 and one child under 10.” Since John and Martha Burch’s first child was born in 1784 (“one child under 10”), the “one child over 10” was undoubtedly Andrew Miller. The name of Andrew Miller appears on this list (C761).
On a July 24, 1784 Niagara Return, Andrew Miller’s name appears on a list of settlers intending to cultivate land at Niagara and receive rations. It begins with these words,
From Lt. Col. A.S. De Peyster to General Haldimand, Niagara, the 21st July. 1784: A list of the Persons who have subscribed their Names, in order to settle and cultivate the Crown Lands opposite to Niagara.
The ration that Andrew was to receive was “1 ration per day.” One full ration consisted of a daily issue of one pound of flour and 12 ounces of beef or pork. These were basic military rations and were given to settlers up to three years until they had cleared enough land to grow crops. The Haldimand agriculture plan assumed that farmers would have difficulty in the first year and perhaps by year two they would be able to support themselves and in the third year provide support to the fort, but realistically it would take six or seven years to get established, thus the need for rations.
Clearing the Land
John Burch and Andrew were probably camping out on land beside the Niagara River and Chippawa Creek as early as the summer of 1782, or even earlier. Philip Bender and Thomas McMicken are listed on Butler’s census of 1782 as clearing land next to Niagara Falls. And the evidence of bountiful crops suggests that clearing of the land began as early as 1781. A British visitor to Niagara in 1785 commented:
It does one’s heart good to see how well they are all going on…The settling of the Loyalists is one of the best things that George III ever did. You see the abundance of fine wheat, Indian corn, and potatoes wherever you go.
Burch probably knew about General Haldimand’s desire to purchase land from the Mississauga Nation and distribute it to the Loyalists, as Haldimand had expressed his vision in a 1780 letter. The British government promised free land, tools, and provisions for Loyalists for the first two years of clearing their land. But Burch didn’t wait for the official purchase of land from the Mississaugas. He didn’t wait for Land Boards to be organized. He took the initiative and claimed land near Niagara Falls. This “land grabbing” action that could be characterized as squatting on land in the hope of future ownership reveals a typical pattern of land acquisition. The land was occupied by Indigenous People, but since the inception of Europeans arriving in North America the pattern was the same, take the land and deal with the moral issues later. After all, the saying seems to be true that possession is nine-tenths of the law.
The Puritans in New England arrived in North America with a sense of purpose, which Perry Miller described as “an Errand into the Wilderness,” the mission to establish a new way of living together under God in obedience to his Covenant. They encountered the wilderness and responded to the challenge by conquering the land and creating a governance model which they thought would be a “city on the hill,” and an example to the Europe that they left behind. This does not describe John Burch and the Loyalists. They conquered the land, yes, but they did not seem to have such a higher purpose. They were like the Puritans at the very beginning as they were leaving Europe, eager just to escape and locate somewhere else. The Loyalists were like the early Puritan immigrants as “the Uprooted,” eager to find a new place that was less dangerous and provided new opportunities. Sidney Mead is quite helpful in enabling us to understand this early stage of escape to a new place. In the new land the relationship between time and space was reversed. Time was not on their side. They had to clear the land and build log houses. Like the Puritan pilgrims during their first winter, “There is no time to grieve now, there is no time. There is only time for the labor in the cold.”
Mead argues that there were three types of pioneers, the eager beavers, the reluctant pioneers, and the settlers. The eager beavers were the doers who saw the unoccupied land as an opportunity for conquest. Forget the past and the “east” and move on to something new in the “west.” The Loyalists were more like the reluctant pioneers forced to leave their homes and faced with the challenges of conquering the wilderness. They still thought longingly about what they had lost and often complained bitterly about losing land, houses, cattle and even relatives who were killed. They were reluctant pioneers on the way to becoming settlers. Faced with a new space they had to depend on their courage and resources to create new homes and settlements. John Burch and young Andrew were reluctant pioneers, especially Andrew who was torn away from his family and carried away as a captive, but now they could become true settlers and builders. What they would build would not look like the old, but it would be their own and the first step in finding hope for the future. Burch’s experience as a merchant would be an asset. The same pragmatic spirit that enabled the Puritans to conquer the wilderness was nurtured at Fort Niagara among the soldiers and the merchants.
Building a New Home
The first surveying of the land around Niagara Falls was done by Deputy Surveyor Frey in 1787, who gave each settler a ticket stating the number of his lot on the plan. But because there was a scarcity of paper Frey used playing cards, writing a few words on the backs of the cards along with his signature. Most of these cards did not survive mildew, fire, or mice—causing a great deal of anxiety on the part of settlers. The next step was to petition the Land Boards. Loyalists were entitled to at least 200 acres of land.
On January 3, 1791, the Land Board read the petition of John Burch for two hundred acres and the Surveyor General assigned to him Lots 43 and 56 in Township No. 2 (Stanford). There is no evidence that he developed these lots. On August 19, 1796, Burch was assigned Lots 191, 192, 193, 223, and 224, properties along the Niagara River at Chippawa Creek. Since Burch began constructing his mills in 1786, I assume that it was here close to the mills that Burch first cleared the land and built his house and barns. And it makes sense to imagine John Burch and Andrew Miller working on this land as early as 1782. The French diplomat, Michel-Guillaume Jean de Crevecoeur visited Niagara Falls in 1785. After crossing the Niagara River above the falls from Fort Schlosser to Chippawa, he visited the large farm of John Burch. Crevecoeur said that his conversation with Burch was pleasing and instructive. Burch told him to go on to the farm of Francis Ellsworth closer to the falls. By 1885 farms along the Niagara River were thriving, long before they received official recognition.
Finding a piece of land was a start, but then the arduous work of clearing the land began. Felling trees, burning stumps, and cultivating the ground was horrifying to Indigenous people, who considered Mother Earth sacred. For settlers this exhausting work was the necessary starting point. Beginning as early as 1782 John Burch with the help of Andrew Miller cleared the land and built their log home. John Burch’s name was on a “List of Settlers in 1783” which noted that he had cleared 20 acres. This amount of clearing within one or two years probably indicates that Burch profited from a “logging bee,” in which neighbours from the long Niagara frontier gathered to help. Building a log house was quite an enterprise. Typically, neighbours would pitch in and work together as a team to cut and lay up the logs, chink them, cutting holes for windows and doors, building a chimney of mud and sticks with a bark roof. Sawing boards for the floor and doors was a long process. Andrew was used to camping out in the wilderness. The skills he learned from his father were useful as they hunted for deer, wild turkeys, partridge, ducks and pigeons. During rest breaks he could always walk to Niagara Falls and sit and watch its awesome power. Learning how to clear the land and build a log house with John Burch gave him important experience for the time when he would build his own home.
Burch’s Mills
One of the greatest needs for settlers was a sawmill and grist mill. At first, settlers had to crush kernels of grain with a stone or axe or use a hand operated coffee grinder type of machine to reduce grain to powder. The first mills were built by Peter and James Secord in 1782 near the Ranger’s barracks at Newark, but in the summer of 1783 the iron work for the mills had not yet arrived. There was a great need for a sawmill and grist mill to serve the farmers in the Stamford area next to the falls. In 1786 Burch asked Major Campbell, the British commander at Fort Niagara for permission to build a grist mill on the Niagara River just above the falls near the foot of Dufferin islands, the location of the present-day Ontario Hydro Toronto Power Generating Station. When one visits this site, it seems like a strange place for a grist mill right next to raging rapids and only a few meters from the edge of the falls.
Burch, no doubt impressed with the potential of utilizing the power of the Niagara River insisted that this location be developed. Permission was granted after the fort’s engineering officer recommended this as the best site, and Burch proceeded as follows:
He cut a channel for his mill race, to bring water from the northern shoreline where the water returned to the main river after flowing around the embayment, now known as Dufferin Islands. His mill was built on the bank of the river, with the water wheel located on the west or land side of the building. After the water passed his water wheel, it re-entered the Niagara River, downriver from the mill. Burch created an artificial island, which became known as Sumac Island.
At first Burch’s mills were a tremendous gift for farmers near the Falls and Fort Niagara. In 1786 Robert Hamilton proposed to the commandant of Fort Niagara that local grist mills could provide flour for the fort. Up until this point flour had to be shipped from America via England to Canada. The government agreed to very generous terms covering the cost to farmers, mills owners and shippers like Hamilton. And Burch’s sawmill was also popular. Sawn boards were available for making doors, floors and partitions and furniture for their log houses.
However, Burch’s Mills were not successful. His sawmill was not accessible by water, with the Falls so close by. And farmers bringing their grain along the Portage Road by horse drawn wagon found the hill down to the mill too steep. They also complained that the flour from Burch’s Mill was too moist to transport because of the humidity caused by the spray from the Falls. Burch sought permission a second time to build a mill further upriver so that logs could be transported to the mill by water, but this request was not granted. Burch’s Mills operated from 1786 to 1794. He then sold his mill to Samuel Street, Jr. shortly before he died in 1797. Cruikshank comments on Burch’s Mill, “The latter was built that summer by John Burch, but eventually passed into the possession of Samuel Street, by whom it was owned when it was burnt by the American troops in 1814” Benjamin Canby and John McGill were given permission to build mills upriver from Burch’s Mill. Later the Canby-McGill Mills were named the Bridgewater Mills. During the years that Burch’s Mill was in operation, 1786 to 1794, Andrew was residing with John and Martha Burch.
I am not certain where exactly the Burch home was located. It is possible that the Burch house was opposite to the mill on the other side of Mill Road. A small community developed along Mill Road with houses for the Mills employees. This was known as “The Hollow.” If the Burch house was in the Hollow Andrew was moving up in the world moving from the Bottoms at Fort Niagara to the Hollow at Niagara Falls? It is not difficult to imagine that Andrew might have been living here and that he helped with the construction of the mill and assisted in its operation.
Another possibility is that the Burch home was furth up the Niagara River closer to Chippawa Creek. The Burch sawmill and gristmill was actually on a piece of property owned by Timothy Skinner. The Land Board understood that 59 acres was assigned to John Burch for the building of his mills. Most of Burch’s property consisted of lots from Dufferin Islands south to the mouth of Chippawa Creek. And this was close to the first property that was awarded to Andrew Miller.
Visitors to Niagara Falls
What an interesting place to live! Visitors began to flock to Niagara Falls to see the spectacle of the great cataract. One of the earliest and most detailed description of the Canadian side of Niagara Falls comes from the journal of Captain Enys written in 1787. After viewing the falls from the American side he rowed across the river,
…landed about four miles above the Falls at a farm of Mr. Stedman’s…taking the right-hand road after a walk of two miles came to Chippawa Creek where we found our horses at the house of a Mr. Burch, one of the principal people in the settlement. As the squire was not at home we were glad to waive the ceremony of a visit, so as soon as our cavalry were ready we set out towards the Falls. Another mile brought us to the head of the rapid and short way further we came to a mill Mr. Burch has lately built; it appears to me to be a very elegant piece of workmanship, and is to be both a grist and a saw mill, but I am very much afraid from the rapids above it he will find it difficult, if not dangerous, to bring down boats and rafts to it, although the man who superintends it says he thinks it may be done with ease when they become better acquainted with the currents…
Who was this “man who superintends,” working for John Burch in his mill? Could it have been Andrew?
Another visitor from Scotland wrote a book titled “Travels in the interior inhabited parts of North America in the years 1791 and 1792 by P. Campbell.” After a long journey from Newark to the Grand River area where he met Joseph Brant, he was accompanied to Chippawa by a member of the Land Board and a Justice of the Peace, Squire John McNab, and at Chippawa he enjoyed a party of playing cards and dancing “till daylight.” In the morning, “Breakfasted at Mr. Burch’s house, who has some saw and grist mills on a small stream cut out from the side of the Great River.”
Andrew Visits his American Family
John Burch’s 1795 letter states that Andrew “refused to stay with his family connections in Ulster County when Mrs. Burch took him out to see them in the year 1785.” By 1785 emotions had calmed down so that such a trip was indeed possible. The Revolution was America’s first civil war and many families including the Millers were split. And in the early years of life on the Niagara frontier, settlers maintained contact with friends and families who remained behind in the new republic. There were many trips back and forth even though it was not easy. Martha Burch and Andrew would have travelled by boat along the shore of Lake Ontario to Oswego, and then down the Oswego River to Lake Oneida. After crossing the lake there was a portage of ten miles near Fort Stanwix to Wood Creek. And then navigating the Mohawk River they would have arrived at the Hudson River. Down the Hudson River they would arrive at Kingston, and inland to Woodstock, Marbletown and Rochester. It is possible that one of the goals of the trip was for Mrs. Burch to check on the status of John Burch’s properties both in the Albany area and in Woodstock and Marbletown. Andrew Miller’s “family connections” lived in the town of Rochester (the location of Pine Bush). His father and his uncle were killed when Andrew was taken captive. But his mother and an older sister and an older brother were living in Rochester and perhaps other relatives. But Andrew did not wish to stay with them on a permanent basis. Two reasons seem clear. There is the evidence that the Miller family in Rochester were Patriots, faithful to the cause of liberty. And Andrew, after living with John and Martha Burch for 7 years, developed a loyalty to the British cause. The second reason is obvious. The bond of affection between Andrew and the Burch family was already too strong for him to abandon. After Andrew and Mrs. Burch returned to Niagara Falls it was not long before Andrew was ready to settle down on his own land and raise a family.
Andrew Miller was unique among the Loyalists. Most Loyalists just continued to be what they always were, loyal to the crown. It was the Patriots who changed, deciding to oppose the crown and form an independent existence. Andrew chose to be a Loyalist. He did not continue to be what he always was, since his parents were probably Patriots and as a teenager, he probably was just beginning to develop his own views. However, it seems clear that under the influence of John Burch who had always been loyal to the crown Andrew chose to be a Loyalist.
Squire John Burch: Justice of the Peace
John Burch’s initial success as a farmer and as a mill operator was probably due to his connections with the other successful merchants that he had worked with at Fort Niagara. The firm operated by Robert Hamilton and Richard Cartwright progressed with control over the Laurentian trading system. Cartwright was at Kingston and Carleton Island overseeing the storage and transportation of goods there and Hamilton was at Niagara overseeing the transshipment of goods through the portage at Niagara and on to Detroit. Control of transportation shifted from the military to private enterprise. It is not surprising that the first appointments to public office in the Niagara region were merchants. In the early days of settlement Col. John Butler as we have noted was the superintendent of the settlement and had oversight of the distribution of land. Butler expected that he or his sons on his own recommendations would be favoured. When he saw the list of recommendations for Justice of the Peace and his sons were not on the list, he was not impressed and refused accepting a commission. John Burch was on the 1786 list, and he was appointed Justice of the Peace in June 1786. General Haldimand’s personal secretary wrote about Burch and Hamilton:
…Major Campbell (the commandant of the garrison) has had most convincing proofs of Mr. Burch’s (a local merchant) zeal, activity and impartial justice, and has everything to hope, too; in the good qualities and abilities of Mr. Hamilton.
The commandant of Fort Niagara favoured Burch and Hamilton because of their service in providing provisions for the fort. Although Burch had provided his cattle to Col. Butler and had worked with him as the Sutler for Butler’s Rangers he had been a personal supplier for the Johnson family in the Mohawk Valley years before. And so had Richard Cartwright’s father. When we consider that recommendations for Justice of the Peace were also provided by Sir John Johnson, the son of Sir William Johnson, who probably knew Burch from his Mohawk Valley days, the selection of John Burch instead of Col. Butler is understandable. Squire John Burch, Andrew’s patron, was one of the first settlers to attain public office in Niagara as Justice of the Peace.
The definition of a squire is a man of high social standing who owns an estate in a rural area. This was true of Burch in New York State with his ownership of a large estate on the East Branch of the Delaware River. In 18th century England the social hierarchy began with the king supreme above the landowning aristocracy and upper squirarchy. The House of Lords was comprised of such aristocrats. Below this level were local squires, employers, merchants, justices of the peace and members of Parliament. In Niagara in the 1780s there appear to be only two levels, soldiers, and farmers and above them the merchants who were the first appointed to public offices. Burch was certainly in the Niagara aristocratic squirearchy, such as it was. For young Andrew this certainly provided advantages.
Andrew and Elizabeth Are Married
During the years 1783 to 1790 the young Andrew who was in his late teens met a young woman named Elizabeth. We have no details about their courtship. How did he meet her? Family tradition claims that her family were also Loyalists. Did they also live close to the Niagara River and close to Niagara Falls? Perhaps Andrew learned from Indigenous customs and brought presents to her, a pretty hat, or ribbons for her hair. As their relationship blossomed perhaps Andrew was staying out late at night and Martha and John Burch became concerned about what was happening. It was customary for a suitor to spend time at his beloved’s house and sit with her next to the hearth. This was called “keeping company.” If a young woman received a marriage proposal but refused to give her consent this was called “giving the mitten.” Perhaps Martha persisted in asking Andrew if he was serious. Obviously, he did not receive the mitten and Elizabeth consented and agreed to be married. This development no doubt brought considerable joy to the Burch household. There was some uncertainty for Andrew and Elizabeth about how to get married since there were few ministers in the new colony and a minister only appeared on horseback every few months. Andrew and Elizabeth’s fears were put to rest when they were told that Squire John Burch could marry them as the Justice of the Peace.
Following custom their banns were probably announced by attaching a notice to the door of Burch’s Mill, and in 1790 Elizabeth Everett and Andrew Miller were married in the Burch home by Squire Burch, Justice of Peace. There was some doubt about the validity of such marriages, but the Marriage Act of 1793 confirmed all previous weddings by lay magistrates and military officers in a time when the clergy were not available. The bill limited future legal marriages to those performed by the Church of England or a magistrate if no Anglican clergyman lived within 18 miles—a major concern since there were only three Anglican clergy in the whole of Upper Canada.
There is no account of this happy event, but from the description of celebrations written by the Scottish visitor P. Campbell who participated in many such parties in 1791, the Burch home was no doubt the occasion for a sumptuous feast with plenty of port, rum, Madeira wine and dancing all night.
Elizabeth Everett’s Origin
My great Uncle Bert wrote on the family tree that Elizabeth Everett was also from a good Loyalist family. There are two theories about her origin. One view is that she was born in 1772 in Barley, Hertford, England. Her father was Jeremiah Everett, born in 1756 in Hadleigh, Suffolk, England and her mother was Mary Parker, born in 1752 in Little Wymondley, Hertford, England. Presumably Elizabeth came to the Niagara region with her parents, probably as a part of the Loyalist trek to Canada.
A second view is that Elizabeth was born in Pennsylvania, the daughter of Martin Evert, who arrived in Welland County around 1781-1785 with his wife and five children. Elizabeth had a brother named Jacob who married Susannah Burwell in 1804 at the age of 22 and settled in Willoughby County. There are properties belonging to a Martin Everitt and Jacob Everett close to the Miller land at Miller’s Creek. This theory argues that Elizabeth was Palatine German in origin. The descendants of Jacob Everett confirm this through their DNA testing. I first learned about this theory from Marguerite Hanratty with whom I had a long correspondence before she passed away. I met her once in the Fort Erie Public Library and we shared our information about the Miller family. A friend of hers, William Everett, claims to be a descendent of Jacob Everett, Elizabeth’s brother. He believes that his ancestor Jacob Everett married Susannah Burwell who was the daughter of the Loyalist Adam Burwell. This association may have led my great Uncle Bert to think that Elizabeth Everett was from a good Loyalist family.
Andrew Miller’s Land at Chippawa
On September 13, 1794, the Land Board read the petition of Andrew Miller for his grant of 200 acres of land in Township No. 2 (Stamford) and the Board deemed him qualified to receive land as a Loyalist. The Acting Surveyor General D. W. Smith assigned to him 70 acres “in Lot 2 on the Chippeway,” Lot 223 on Major Holland’s plan. In the Archives in Ottawa there is an original copy of the plan of “Township No. 2”, dated 1791, outlining the lots and names, identifying most of them. If one uses a magnifying glass, the name of “A. Miller” can be seen on a lot adjacent to Burch’s property on the shore of Chippewa Creek. The hand drawn reproduction of the plan clearly delineates “A. Miller.” On the web site “Pioneer Names on Early Maps,” there is this statement: “On a map of Stamford Township No. 2, District of Nassau copied from a map prepared by Philip Frey dated 1791, A. Miller was named on a lot at the mouth of Chipeway Creek and the Niagara River in Stamford Twp.” However, on the same day, September 13, 1794, the Land Board agreed to transfer this land from Andrew Miller to John Burch.
Did Andrew do anything with this land? It was only his land officially for one day. Andrew and Elizabeth were married in the Burch home in 1790 and their first child was born in 1791, named Martha, obviously in honour of Martha Burch. Sadly, she died in 1794. Their second child, John Burch Miller, born in 1792, was named in honour of their esteemed patron, John Burch. My guess is that the family already were establishing themselves at Miller’s Creek, near Fort Erie. Given the swapping of land with John Burch it still remained to be determined where Andrew would be assigned the 200 acres.
It is still interesting to speculate about Lot 223. The name “A. Miller” is on the map. Andrew was no doubt helping Burch begin farming his extensive land along the Niagara River at Chippawa Creek. Also noteworthy on the Stamford map is the name J. Ramsey. Adjacent to the Burch property was the farm of James Ramsey, probably Martha Burch’s father. During the raid on Cherry Valley in 1778 by Walter Butler, Ramsey joined Butler’s Rangers but after one year he was released because of illness. He settled at Detroit and then came to Niagara some time in 1782 or 1783 to take up farming as a neighbour of John and Martha Burch. Thomas Cummings, Jr. who escaped with John Burch in 1778 farmed nearby and he married Jenny (Jane) Ramsey, Martha Burch’s sister. Thomas Cummings Sr., Burch’s former estate manager took up land on the other side of Chippawa Creek from Burch. Family meals and parties with friends at the Burch home were probably quite large.
Fort Chippawa
Andrew and Elizabeth’s property beside Chippawa Creek was adjacent to the Portage Road which linked Queenston with Niagara Falls and Niagara Falls with Chippawa. The Portage Road was already in use as early as 1782, and the first settlers all built homes along the road. In 1791 the road was adopted for Government transport and communication. In the same year the Government built a blockhouse, a storehouse and wharf on John Burch’s land. Lot 192 was claimed by the Government as Military Land. These buildings became known as Fort Chippawa and was the only military garrison in the area. It was not an impressive structure. It consisted of a small blockhouse surrounded by a stockade of cedar posts which was probably sufficient to defend against musket attack. Elizabeth Simcoe, the wife of Lt. Governor John Graves Simcoe wrote in her famous diary about her travels to the Niagara area. She first glimpsed the Falls on July 30th, 1792 and spent time at Table Rock viewing the magnificent sight. Then she writes, “After taking some refreshment on the table rock we went 3 miles to the Chippewa Fort admiring the Rapids all the way.” Mrs. Simcoe’s visit to Fort Chippawa meant that for a moment she was right next door to the John Burch farm and perhaps she met Andrew and Elizabeth. Later, on May 29, 1793 she wrote in her diary,
Breakfasted in the Camp and rode on to the falls 7 miles, dined there and went to Birch’s Mills 2 miles above the falls. We returned to tea in the Camp. But the heat was so excessive we were obliged to stop on the road and drink milk and eat fruit at Mrs.Tice’s. The Thermometer has been at 96 today. We slept in the Hut but I determined in future to sleep on the Mountain. I saw a stuffed Rattlesnake which was killed near Queenstown in the act of swallowing a black Squirrel. The snake measured 5 feet six inches long & had seven Rattles.
Mrs. Simcoe’s Diary which included sketches and maps gives an indication of the frequent travelling of people to and from the falls, and the hospitality offered to visitors by the Burch family and presumably also the Miller family.
The Development of the Portage Road
Portaging of goods around Niagara Falls was one of the most important commercial enterprises connected to Fort Niagara. The portage for about one hundred years was on the east side of the Niagara River. As settlement increased on the west side the focus of the portage shifted. There were already trails on the west side but not roads. One of the first trails along the bank above the Falls started at John Burch’s home at the mouth of Chippawa Creek and continued north past the homes of Ramsey, Ellsworth, Forsyth near the Falls and then by Millard, Reilly, Pugh, Rowe, Tice, McMicking and Rose, and then down the steep face of the escarpment to the river below. This trail eventually became known as the Portage Road. As early as 1784 Colonel Butler saw it as a business opportunity, and he petitioned Lord Dorchester asking for the portage contract for his two sons. This was refused and Butler’s patronage success was diminishing. Montreal merchants were unhappy with John Stedman’s control of the east side portage route. As early as 1778 they complained that he showed favoritism to certain merchants and he overcharged his services, so the merchants lobbied the government to develop the portage on the west side of the Niagara River. In 1789 Montreal merchants were lobbying the government to allow the shipment of goods on both sides of the Niagara River and recommended the building of a new road on the west side.
By 1790 all transportation of goods was shifted to the west side under the supervision of the very successful trading firm of Hamilton and Forsyth and goods were being transported between the “New Landing” at Queenston and Chippawa. Since the Portage Road went through private property the transportation business continued to be a private enterprise without government oversight. In 1790 Lord Dorchester decided that the road should be officially established. The Land Board at its March 31st, 1790, meeting declared itself open to contract offers. Two tenders were submitted. The first was from the Philip Stedman, Sr. (the brother of John Stedman the survivor of Devil’s Hole) and his nephew Philip Stedman, Jr. Anticipating that they would win the new contract they settled on land near Chippawa and moved a herd of cattle over from the east side to the west side. The second tender was from a syndicate that included Robert Hamilton, George Forsythe, John Burch and Archibald Cunningham. The Stedmans proposed to use their own teams of oxen and drivers, while the syndicate proposed to continue to employ settlers and their farm teams. On June 20, 1791, a petition of support for the syndicate was presented to the Land Board, signed by eleven “inhabitants of the Niagara District, situated near the portage.” The Land Board unanimously recommended in favour of the syndicate and awarded them a three-year contract to transport merchandise over the Portage Road. A year later, on May 3, 1791, John Burch became a new member of the Land Board. A visitor to Niagara commented,
The Niagara is not navigable higher than Queenston, consequently there is a portage from this place to Chippawa, which employs numerous teams, chiefly oxen; each cart being drawn by two yoke of oxen, or two horses. I passed great numbers on the road, taking up bales and boxes, and bringing down packs of peltries.
The farmers along the Portage Road, including no doubt Andrew Miller all took their turns building the road and doing transport work along with their usual farm duties.
Niagara Politics
In the beginning of settlement there was not much organization. The vast territory named the District of Nassau extended from the Trent River in the east to Long Point on Lake Erie in the west. Community affairs were handled by local magistrates, usually officers of disbanded regiments. On Nov. 8, 1788, Lord Dorchester expressed his opinion that the district should be divided into counties and that a Lieutenant-Governor should be appointed and that there should be an assembly for the region.
This became a reality on Nov. 18, 1791, when the British Parliament proclaimed the Canada Constitutional Act dividing the huge colony of Quebec into two new provinces, Upper and Lower Canada. This is the first time that “Canada” was used as the official title of the country. The name is from the Huron-Iroquois word “kanata’ meaning village or settlement, and Jacques Cartier used the term as early as 1535. In the early 1700s Canada referred to all the French lands from Quebec City to Louisiana. And in 1791 the name became official with the recognition of the two colonies, Upper and Lower Canada. “Lord Dorchester” was the new honorific title for the esteemed Guy Carleton who had already served in British North America on three previous occasions. For him the Canada Act of 1791 would ensure British sovereignty over a diverse population consisting of French Catholics, English Protestants, and Indigenous people. It would promote the church, aristocracy, and the king at the same time. It would enshrine elected assemblies but modeled on the House of Lords composed of appointed members. And in one of the more controversial acts it warranted the setting aside of one-seventh of land in townships for the Church of England.
Early in November 1791 Colonel John Graves Simcoe arrived in Quebec as the new Lieutenant Governor of Upper Canada. Lord Dorchester was not pleased. He wanted Sir John Johnson to be appointed. And the continuing rift between Dorchester and Simcoe led to his resignation in 1793. Recognizing the importance of Simcoe’s appointment, the magistrates and other important people of Niagara hastened to send him a congratulatory letter, dated Feb. 30, 1792. This letter was signed by John Butler, Robert Hamilton and John Burch and many others. Their enthusiasm for the new regime was mitigated by the many challenges facing settlers, from uncertainty about ownership of land to failed crops and problems with getting produce to market. Merchants like Burch and Hamilton complained about the harsh terms that the government placed on development including the building of mills. It is not surprising that the first appointments to public office went to Niagara merchants since their own interests were at stake.
Simcoe did not share Lord Dorchester’s vision of a multiethnic empire in North America. Simcoe saw the merit of establishing an imperial British constitution on an undeveloped land. He was committed to building a new Britain in Canada west. In the autumn of 1792 in the first session of the new provincial Parliament a bill was introduced for the election of town officers, but it was postponed by Lt. Gov. Simcoe who thought that the members “seemed to have a stronger attachment for the elective principle in all town affairs than may seem advisable.” Simcoe from the outset was nervous about the Loyalists who had learned something about freedom during the Revolution, even though they refused to sign oaths in support of the Patriot cause. For me, I see the Loyalists as continuing the championing of freedom even as they opted to support the Crown. Refusing to sign allegiance to the Patriot cause was itself an act of freedom. Freedom meant having space to build a home and farm. When that space was encroached upon by external forces it was time to express one’s freedom by moving to another place. And in their new home freedom demanded that they have a say in local affairs. On July 9, 1793, the Parish and Town Offices Act was passed to provide for the appointment of town officers and this legislation remained in place for the next 50 years. To be sure such town officers and town meetings were limited from dealing with big money matters, but their experiences with town meetings in the Thirteen Colonies were now replicated in Niagara.
There was also the challenge of lawlessness. Many of the settlers had been Butler’s Rangers and Members of the Indian Department and they had recently been engaged in the systematic destruction of the American frontier. Brawling and assaults were common at the Bottoms next to Fort Niagara and crime continued to be a problem in the new settlement. Merchants had a history of cheating both Indigenous people and soldiers and soldiers had a history of pilfering goods on the portage roads. Perhaps Burch was reminded of one of the 17th century’s great texts, Leviathan, written by Thomas Hobbes who argued that human beings lived a life that was poor, nasty, brutish, and short, and therefore government must be strong to prevent outbreaks of a wolfish nature. It was necessary for settlers to step up, enter public service, and establish law and order. John Burch did just that through his appointment in 1786 as a Justice of the Peace. And in in 1791 he was appointed to the Land Board. All the meetings of the Land Board were in Niagara-on-the-Lake (Newark) and Burch had the best record of attendance, even though he had the greatest distance to travel.
On August 17, 1793, there was a Town Meeting in Niagara-on-the-Lake to elect township offices. Simcoe’s distrust in such meetings as the seedbed of revolution led to the stipulation that such meetings must be overseen by two justices of the peace. Both Robert Hamilton and John Burch as Justices of the Peace were involved in calling this meeting and making the needed appointments (clerks, assessors, the collector, overseers of highways, and wardens). Clerks were to keep lists of all inhabitants of the town or township and record decisions of the town meetings. Assessors were to keep track of all rates and taxes imposed by legislation. The Collector was to demand and receive such rates and taxes. The Overseers of highways were to check on any decisions relevant to roads, and fences. And Wardens were elected to oversee the government of the township.
John Burch epitomized the “new” social order of Niagara, as a farmer, grist mill operator, merchant, and Justice of the Peace. Along with other merchants he had his complaints about the military, and the top-down control of the British government that promised more than it delivered, but there is no indication that he preferred another social arrangement than the usual hierarchical order of government under the authority of the Crown. However, it must be noted that the freedoms that Loyalists had experienced in the past came to expression immediately in the organization of town meetings and the appointment of local officers. Andrew Miller’s most teachable years occurred in this crucible of creating a new community on the Niagara River. His own experience at first was not freedom, but captivity. However, in beginning a new life in Niagara, he had experienced teachers and role models in John and Martha Burch, enabling him to exercise his own freedom to take up farming and building his own family and household.
The Loyalists and the First Churches
There had been very little religious practice at Fort Niagara. The clergy only visited the fort on a few occasions. There was no heavy church presence to put a public break on the violent campaigns into the Thirteen Colonies, or the acquisitive spirit of merchants or even the wild, boisterous life of the Bottoms. But as settlers cleared their land and built their homes and began developing communities, they began to think about the possibility of organizing churches. However, the kind of religion that emerged was also not a public brake on the ethos of the entrepreneur and businessman. It was not Catholicism or even Anglicanism that predominated but the Calvinism of Dissenting Churches. George Grant’s thesis that Canada begins with the meeting of the alien and conquerable land with English-speaking Protestants is in general correct. But it must be amended since most Loyalists were not English Protestants. Very few Loyalists were English-speaking. It was Palatine Germans like my ancestor who brought their Calvinist Protestant beliefs with them, beliefs that far from putting on the brakes of a commercial capitalist society legitimized the spirit of mastery in conquering the land. British officials were worried about this runaway freedom to conquer the land and they were convinced that loyalty to the Crown required the Anglican faith. The challenge facing officialdom was that there were few Anglicans among the Loyalists, and in 1793 there were only three Anglican ministers in the whole of Upper Canada.
Most Loyalists were from Dissenting churches such as Lutheran, Reformed, Presbyterian, Mennonite, Quaker, and Dunkers. Dissenting sects were not as prominent in Newark (Niagara-on-the-Lake). The religious elite consisted of mostly wealthy Anglicans. Robert Hamilton and Colonel John Butler wrote a letter to the Bishop of Nova Scotia in 1789 requesting an Anglican clergyman and promising financial support. Rev. Robert Addison arrived, and he lamented that this promise of financial support was true in word but not in deed.
The Dissenting Presbyterians were more ambitious, first meeting together in 1784 and building a church in Newark in 1795 long before the Anglicans. The Presbyterians were also active early in Stamford (Niagara Falls). On October 12, 1792, Richard Cartwright reported to Governor Simcoe that the Scots Presbyterians were pretty numerous, and they have built a meeting House and raised money for a minister. This was a reference to the Presbyterian meeting house in Niagara Falls. From the beginning of the settlement at Niagara Falls the Presbyterian settlers worshipped together in each other’s homes. In 1791 they erected the first church in the area. Included in the 61 members that had pledged financial support is the name of John Burch. He probably had an Anglican background but building a church in Niagara Falls was close to his home. A second church, a church for the use of all denominations was built in 1795 on Lundy’s Lane not far from the Portage Road. It was here in the adjacent yard that John Burch was buried in 1797 with the inscription, “The first internment in this yard.” There is no evidence that Andrew Miller attended the new Presbyterian Church, and the non-denominational community church was built after he left the area. If Andrew and Elizabeth were interested in religion, it is not obvious until years later after they relocated further up the Niagara River. In the early days of settlement religious affiliation does not seem to be the most important factor. Clearing the land and survival seemed to be the more important goals.
Andrew and Elizabeth Depart from Niagara Falls
Married in 1790 and with children born in 1791 and 1792 Andrew and Elizabeth were more than ready to strike out on their own. Perhaps the establishment of the British fort at Chippawa adjacent to Andrew Miller’s property was an incentive to move. Perhaps the Miller family was ready to move away from John and Martha Burch. Andrew Miller’s identity as a Loyalist warranted him to apply for free land, and John Burch as a member of the Land Board probably encouraged him to submit his petition for land. Whatever the reason, Andrew and Elizabeth had their sights focused on a new beginning in a different part of the Niagara Peninsula. A new chapter in their journey was about to begin.
Chapter Six: The Miller’s Creek Tavern
Settlement along the River Road
In 1784 Butler’s Rangers and Brant’s Volunteers were disbanded. The Indian Department was reduced and soldiers of the 8th and 34th regiments were discharged. Suddenly many soldiers and settlers were looking for land. Butler employed a settler, Allan A Macdonell and an officer, Lt. William Tinling to survey the land and divide it up into lots. They figured that given the distance of 36 miles from Lake Ontario to Lake Erie the midpoint was Chippawa Creek. There would then be room for four townships, two above the Creek and two below. Settlement was slow. Discharged soldiers were reluctant to proceed given uncertainty about ownership of the land, an issue that would fester for years. The deal was that they would be granted land, but it remained crown land and they would not have to pay rent for ten years. What would happen after that? Many settlers did not wait for official recognition, including Andrew and Elizabeth who began farming their lots as early as 1793. Evidence for this is that Andrew Miller’s name appears on one of the earliest maps of Bertie Township, according to a web site named “Pioneer Names on Early Maps.” It states, “On an undated map of Bertie Township in the Surveyor General’s Office, probably prepared in the early 1790’s, Edward Turner and Andrew Miller were named on Lot 14 Concessions 5 and 6 from the Niagara River, Bertie Twp.”
Philip R. Frey took up the job of surveying as early as 1786 and he proceeded with his surveying of lands along the Niagara River between Chippawa and Fort Erie. A space of 66 feet from the river (referred to as “the Chain Reserve”) was protected for the use of public transportation, a road, or a towing path. The Portage Road was extended along the Niagara River from Chippawa to Fort Erie and became known as the “River Road.” The settlers were not very happy with this since they wished to have unrestricted access to the river. A military reserve of about one thousand acres was delineated around Fort Erie with its northern boundary being Garrison Road. The surveyor began at Garrison Road and surveyed ten lots of 100 acres each north along the river. Then the land bends westward, opposite the south end of Grand Island and here nine lots were identified. Then moving north there were six lots along the river on each side of Miller’s Creek.
The first settler along the Niagara River in what was later named Bertie Township was probably Frederick Berger, a German soldier of the 34th regiment, and he settled at the mouth of Frenchman’s Creek in the summer of 1784. Berger stated that his lot had been staked out by Allan Macdonell in April 1786 and again by Philip Frey in Sept. 1786. Soon after 1784, many other discharged soldiers settled along River Road, including the Wintermute brothers. They had been expelled from Wyoming Valley during the famous raid in 1778 and many of the brothers had served in Butler’s Rangers. They became familiar neighbours of Andrew Miller. Many settlers took up their land before receiving official tickets for their property, with the dimensions of their lots written on the backs of playing cards. By 1786 more than 147 loyalists had settled around Fort Erie, and in 1787 many Quakers arrived from New York and Pennsylvania bringing with them cattle and horses and Conestoga wagons full of furniture and farm implements. The surveyor Philip Frey hired Amos Chapman in 1789 to complete a survey of the townships south of Chippawa Creek and his plan was entitled, “Survey of the Quaker Township as made by Mr. Chapman, 1789, Fort Erie Township.” He only identified the lot numbers between Chippawa Creek and Black Creek and around Fort Erie. Later in 1793 the two townships south of Chippawa were named Willoughby and Bertie.
Andrew Miller’s Petition for Land
The old feudal system, the seigneurial system in Quebec was in place until 1791. The settlers did not understand it and most went ahead to acquire and exchange land as if the ownership of land was vested in themselves. Fortunately for the settlers the Constitutional Act of 1791 ended the old feudal system and cleared the way for settlers to obtain a legally valid patent or deed of ownership. But due to poor communication and uncertainty about a table of fees (fees paid to Land Surveyors) a new system was not in place until 1796. Decisions about petitions for land were first processed by Land Boards. The first Land Board of Niagara consisted of magistrates, including Colonel John Butler and Robert Hamilton. There were no representatives from townships between Niagara Falls and Fort Erie so on May 3, 1791, John Burch and John Warren were added. The Land Board met usually in Newark but on November 21, 1791, it met in Fort Erie. The procedures of petitioning had been outlined much earlier on instructions given by Governor Haldimand. First, the loyalty and character of each petitioner was to be examined, and then oaths of fidelity and allegiance were to be administered. The applicant was then provided with a certificate of satisfactory examination and within two days he would be assigned 200 acres. Settlement and improvement of the land must begin within two years, or it would be revoked. On November 6, 1794, the Land Boards were dissolved by a resolution of the Executive Council and all petitions for land were to be made to the governor in council, using the same steps of examination. But before the Land Board was dissolved in November, it read Andrew Miller’s petition for land on September 13, 1794. Andrew Miller was approved for 200 acres and the petition was forwarded to the Executive Council Office.
This petition is on microfilm in the Canadian Archives in Ottawa. There are seven pages. The Upper Canada Land Petitions (1763-1865) lists the Miller petition at C2191, pages 747 to 753 as “M-Bundle 2.” The first page is the jacket of the petition with the various dates of approval. For most Loyalists the first step was the receiving of certificates or tickets with specific lots listed and then registration with the District Magistrate. There is no evidence of these steps for Andrew Miller. Since he had lived in the home of a Magistrate for many years perhaps these steps were unnecessary. The next step was submitting the petition to the Land Board which read and approved the petition on September 13, 1794. Then it was forwarded to the Executive Council Office, and it was received on June 30, 1796. It was read by the Council on July 12, 1796.
The petition consisted of a pre-printed form with a hand-written fill-in part. The form begins with these words:
To his Excellency John Graves Simcoe, Esquire, Lieutenant Governor, and commander in Chief of the Province of Upper Canada, etc. etc. IN COUNCIL, The Petition of”
What follows is the hand-written portion,
Andrew Miller, Respectfully shews—That your Petitioner has a Family—has been in the Province since the year 1778 or 1779--& never received any Land.”
The petition continues with these formal words:
That your petitioner is desirous to settle on the lands of the Crown in this Province, being in a condition to cultivate and improve the same. That he is ready to take the usual oaths, and to subscribe the declaration, that he professes the Christian Religion, and obedience to the laws, and has lived inoffensively in the country. Prays your Excellency, would be pleased to grant him land upon the terms and conditions expressed in your Excellency’s proclamation bearing date the 7th day of February, 1792, or such other quantity of land as to your Excellency in your wisdom may think meet. And your petitioner as in duty bound will ever pray.
A note appended to this petition on October 5, 1796, by Acting Surveyor General Thomas Ridout confirmed the grant of 130 acres in Dorchester and 70 acres in Stamford. And another note from the Surveyor General’s Office indicates that the 130 acres in the Southern Division of Dorchester are not described. The other items on file include item 149c, John Burch’s 1795 letter, attached to the petition, a receipt for payment of fees for the patent in 1818 (149e), a receipt for the paying of surveyor fees in 1821 (149) and a certificate defending Andrew Miller’s loyalty, dated May 7, 1821 (149d).
There are a few interesting points to observe about this petition. The hand-written portion is quite brief. This was unusual since many of the petitions were quite long. Each land petition was supposed to outline the applicant’s loyalty to the British government and demonstrate that he was present in the province to make the actual statement. Non-military applicants would have to give their date of arrival in the province and mention their wife and the number of children in the province by 1789. And included would be a declaration of the applicant’s status as United Empire Loyalist. Andrew’s petition does not include a declaration of loyalty in the hand-written portion, but it is there in the rest of the form. The petition only uses the word, “Family,” and does not mention his wife Elizabeth or his two children who were born before 1796.
What is very interesting is the statement that he “has been in the Province since the year 1778 or 1779,” which are the exact words of John Burch’s letter of 1795 which was attached to this petition. The similarity between Burch’s letter and the wording of this petition leads me to conclude that John Burch, Esquire probably wrote the hand-written portion. Although it must be remarked that the handwriting style of the Burch letter and the style of the writing on the petition are different. Perhaps Burch dictated the words for someone else to write. In any case this was specialized assistance since magistrate Burch had served on the Land Board and was used to reading such petitions. Obviously, he didn’t think elaboration was necessary. Apparently long-winded and illegible ramblings were often too difficult for the Executive Council to deal with. John Burch, of course, would know the best way of preparing such a petition.
Another interesting point is that the awarding of land mentions 130 acres in Dorchester and 70 acres in the Township of Stamford. Stamford was once named Mount Dorchester and Township No. 2. I am not sure why the term Dorchester is still being used in 1796. And the most interesting fact is that the land Andrew Miller claimed at Miller’s Creek is not in Dorchester or Stamford, but in Bertie Township. However, there is the note attached to Andrew’s petition that mentions “Southern Division of Dorchester.” Can we assume that the northern portion of Dorchester included land between Newark and Chippawa and the southern portion of Dorchester included the land between Chippawa and Fort Erie. I have not been able to confirm this.
Andrew Miller had already begun farming his land before 1796. And his name was inserted on an early surveyor’s map of Bertie Township. Does the awarding of 200 acres just mean that as a Loyalist he was entitled to land, but the exact location remained to be determined. Philp R. Frey who surveyed Townships 1 and 2, and also Bertie Township wrote on May 7, 1789, “The change of property is so frequent, three or four alterations are made in a week.” Because of the confusion surveyors were directed to prepare large scale maps of each township so that names could be inserted on the blank space of each lot. In each township magistrates were to decide given universal acceptance which owner’s name should be placed on the map. Andrew Miller’s name does appear on one of the earliest maps of Bertie Township.
Andrew Miller, a True Loyalist, or a Late Loyalist
By 1796 Andrew Miller’s petition was received along with those of many recent emigrants from south of the border. Between 1793 and 1796 Simcoe had attracted twelve thousand newcomers. He had a grandiose vision for Upper Canada as a land of true liberty, regulated by an official elite not like the chaos of republicanism to the south. He wanted to establish a New Britain, but he needed more people. New York State had more than twenty-four times the population of Upper Canada. Simcoe was convinced that there were many closet Loyalists throughout the Thirteen Colonies, so he offered them free land and freedom from taxation. An English traveller met two families on their way to Niagara and they said with a note of scorn, “We fought for seven years to get rid of taxation and now we are taxed more than ever.” In 1794 farmers in western Pennsylvania grumbled about the difficulties of getting their grain to market so they began to make whiskey which was easier to transport and sell. Alexander Hamilton saw this as an opportunity to level a flat tax on whiskey and raise funds for Congress. The farmers were irate, and their protest became known as the “Whiskey Rebellion of 1794.” General Washington organized an army of thirteen thousand and marched against the rebellion which quite quickly disbursed. Many of the small farmers angry about taxes accepted Simcoe’s invitation to come to Canada.
But the question loomed large: Would these late Loyalists be considered true Loyalists like those who came in the 1780s, like John Burch. Simcoe insisted that the definition of Loyalist should be quite broad, anyone who sympathized with and assisted British forces in any way. On Feb. 7, 1792, Simcoe issued a proclamation to anyone desiring to settle on lands of Upper Canada that townships would be divided with one-seventh being Crown land and one-seventh land for the clergy, and the remainder for settlement. Lots of two hundred acres were offered with the possibility of up to one thousand acres. Many of the Late Loyalists had taken no part in supporting British forces and many of them were Quakers and Mennonites, who refused to serve in the military. Sympathy for the British cause, yes, but assistance to the British forces, not so much.
There was considerable nervousness about these Late Loyalists. Would they have the same devotion to the British cause as the earlier Loyalists? In May 1790, Lord Dorchester expressed his concern that when settlers received free tenure, they should be available for service in the militia to defend Great Britain. He gave instructions to the Land Boards that “Those Loyalists, who have adhered to the Unity of the Empire, and joined the Royal Standard before the Treaty of separation in the year 1783, and all their children and their Descendants by either sex, are to be distinguished by the following Capitals, affixed to their names: U.E., alluding to their great principle The Unity of the Empire.” Andrew Miller received recognition as a United Empire Loyalist and thus, all his descendants can attach U.E. after their name as I also have permission to do. But I have the same sort of ambivalence about the inherited title as perhaps many of the Loyalists had in the beginning. For most, ideology and commitment to the Republic or the British Empire was not the most important issue. Most of the Late Loyalists were bargain hunters and the offer of free land and no taxation was too good to turn down. The tradition in business of acquisitiveness that began at Ford Niagara among the merchants and soldiers was certainly accentuated by the influx of the Late Loyalists. In the beginning many of the Loyalists, perhaps most were neither ideologically bound republican Americans nor monarchical British subjects, but something in between. How about “Canadian!”
However, Andrew Miller was a Late Loyalist chronologically, but in sentiment he was an early Loyalist like John Burch. He submitted his petition for land along with the Late Loyalists, but he had already been in the Niagara region since 1778. And living with Squire John Burch a well- known Loyalist, his identity as a “true Loyalist” was assured. In fact, he was one of the earliest and youngest of the Loyalists. But I am not sure how much this mattered to him. By 1796 when he submitted his petition for land he was married and had two children. The opportunity to obtain free land for his family was obviously the most important matter.
The Homestead at Miller’s Creek
Andrew and Elizabeth like most settlers did not wait for official approval from a system they did not understand. They chose the location of their 200 acres, and it appears that as early as 1793 they moved to land about five miles north of Fort Erie on the Niagara River, at Wintermute’s Creek. George Wintermute arrived with his family in 1788 and was the first to settle at the mouth of the creek which was first named after him. The original Miller homestead was built next to River Road at the junction of the old “Indian trail” to Abino Point, on the north side of the Creek. Andrew received the deed to this land in 1801, and the creek became known as Miller’s Creek.
On June 19, 1801, the Crown granted to Andrew Miller a patent for 88 acres in Lot 14, Concession 5 in Bertie Township. Why 88 acres? The survey of the land in Bertie Township determined that each lot would be 100 acres comprising 16 concessions westward from the Niagara River. But where the river bends opposite Grand Island some lots were 88 acres instead of 100. Andrew Miller’s 88 acres was on both the north side and the south side of Miller’s Creek. Lot 14, Concession 5 was originally granted to John Fanning, who later became a well-known tavern owner in Chippawa, and he transferred it to Edward Turner who transferred it again to Andrew Miller. On the same day, June 19, 1801, the Crown granted Andrew Miller 100 acres in Lot 14, Concession 6, which extended the Miller property well back from the river. On September 7, 1807, Frederick House sold 100 acres to Andrew Miller in Lot 13, Concession 5 and on July 14, 1809, Isaac Swayze sold 100 acres to Andrew Miller in Lot 13, Concession 6.
This is an interesting fact considering the notorious reputation of Isaac Swayze. He served time in jail on Long Island suspected of committing a robbery. Apparently, he and his brother were attacked by armed Patriots, and he hid under the floor of his brother’s house. The intruders searched for Isaac and couldn’t find him so in anger they bayoneted his brother to death, just above where Isaac was hiding. He escaped and was captured several times and escaped again. He escaped to Niagara and settled at St. Davids in 1784. In 1799 he was acting as an emissary for the British Government when a Republican magistrate in Pennsylvania found important documents in his saddle bags, secret documents from a British ambassador to the Colonial Government in Upper Canada boasting about his close cooperation with the Federalist Administration. This angered the Republicans and helped Thomas Jefferson eventually to defeat the Federalists. Swayze was thought to be a republican radical, like the Irish radicals opposed to the British in Ireland. However, by 1803 Swayze had changed his views and was elected as a Member of the Legislature for the Lincoln 4th District, and re-elected in 1805, and again from 1812 to 1820. At first he tried to champion ordinary poor farmers and their issues but soon was easily persuaded by the elites to support their wishes and in fact he became a rabid anti-republican by the time he sold land to Andrew Miller.
Radical feelings were certainly floating around Niagara in the early 1800s, and there must have been many heated discussions at Miller’s tavern. Perhaps Isaac Swayze was a frequent visitor. He never managed to overcome his tainted reputation and later in 1816 Robert Gourlay exclaimed, “How could such a man as Isaac Swayze be elected, and repeatedly elected.” Gourlay answered his own question by commenting that Swayze could cover over all the stains upon his character with hypocrisy. As a former MLA myself I often looked at many of my elected colleagues and wondered how it was possible that such characters got elected. Perhaps some wondered about why I was elected! Andrew Miller trusted Swayze enough to enter into a business transaction and buy land from him. And with this transaction Andrew owned property on both sides of Miller’s Creek and about a mile back from Niagara River.
We can only speculate about why the Millers settled there. Farms along the Niagara River were a popular choice given the transportation advantages of a river and Indian trails that became roads. Since Miller’s Creek was at the end of an Indian Trail which led back through the woods to Point Abino and Port Colborne this trail along a limestone ridge provided a natural roadway and was probably used as a portage route from the Niagara River to Lake Erie. My great Uncle Bert Miller described the Ridge Road as follows:
The Ridge Road, originally an Indian Trail, was a beautiful winding road flanked by the low height of the Onondaga escarpment. To escape the Fort Erie rapids, goods were carried along the high dry edge of the ridge, avoiding and skirting an extensive cedar swamp and other obstructions.
E. A. Cruikshank writes a wonderful description of the land settled along the River Road:
In general the land was thickly wooded with beech and maple, interspersed with hickory and walnut with a few pones on the uplands and oak, ash, elm and other trees on the lower lands, which in many places were decidedly swampy. The buildings were constructed almost exclusively of wood, pegs and pins being used instead of bolts or spikes. Agricultural implements, carts, sleds, and waggons, household furniture, rafts and boats were constructed by the settlers themselves from the same material using a minimum of iron, which was difficult to procure and costly. Their main effort was directed to win a comfortable subsistence from the cultivation of the soil, supplemented at times by fishing, hunting, and trapping. The conversion of grain into flour and meal with hand-mills or mortars was excessively laborious and for six or seven years, the nearest grist and sawmills were those built by John Burch in 1786 near Niagara Falls.
Was Andrew still connected to Burch’s Mills in some way while he was clearing his new land. Perhaps he hauled some lumber from Burch’s sawmill for his new log home. G. Elmore Reaman suggests in his book, The Trail of the Black Walnut, that trees such as the black walnut, basswood, elm and cherry were an indication of the best soils. Pine, oak and chestnut trees grew in sandy soils. Palatine Germans always followed the trail of the black walnut. And as evidence I inherited from my father a wooden serving tray. He attached a note taped to the bottom, “The wood in this tray, cherry & black walnut was grown on the farm of the late Edward K. Miller on the Niagara River.” Edward K. Miller was Andrew Miller’s grandson and he lived on the same property originally owned by Andrew Miller.
Within the next five years, ten more Loyalist families arrived. When Andrew and Elizabeth took up the land at Miller’s Creek in 1793 their neighbours included many discharged members of Butler’s Rangers such as the Wintermute brothers, Benjamin, Abraham, Philip, Peter and George, who had been expelled from the Wyoming Valley in 1778. Others who served with Butler’s Rangers included neighbours Henry Windecker, Cornelius Bowen, Henry Putnam, Henry Anguish, Christian Risely, Frederick Home and John Maybee. John Maybee joined Butler’s Rangers in 1783 at the age of 14. Andrew must have known him while living at Fort Niagara. He probably knew the others as well. Another neighbour, John Powell, had worked for the Indian Department at Fort Niagara and carried dispatches between Quebec and Niagara and between Fort Niagara and General Burgoyne. After serving as a Justice of the Peace in Newark he built a house at Frenchman’s Creek, which was later sold to Samuel McAfee. Along with John Warren he was appointed as commissioner of roads, overseeing the River Road between Chippawa and Fort Erie.
The roads including the River Road were terrible. Muddy in the spring, big frozen ruts in the winter and dusty in the summer, travel on roads was a jolting, bumpy experience. Initially the maintenance of roads was the responsibility of the farmer through whose property a road was built. The appointment of “oversees of roads” or “commissioners of roads,” was progress.
Some of the settlers on River Road near the Millers were Palatine Germans and Mennonites. Abraham Hershey came from Lancaster County, Pennsylvania in 1795 with his family and a small herd of cattle, and a Conestoga wagon full of farm implements. George Wintermute just to the north of Miller’s Creek was also a Mennonite and he sold his property to another Palatine German family also named Miller in 1809 and this family would be very important to the Andrew Miller family in the future. Since Andrew Miller was also a Palatine German from Ulster County, New York it is interesting to speculate if the German that he learned as a child was helpful in communicating with other Palatine German settlers. A plaque beside Miller’s Creek states that in 1780, “Pennsylvania Deutsch came across the Niagara River including English Quakers, German Lutherans, Reformed, Mennonites and Dunkards, Loyalists and British ex-soldiers.”
A Thriving Household
The first challenge in choosing land covered with heavy timber was the physical labour of clearing the land. The German method was to chop down the trees and remove the stumps. The Miller children were too young to be of much help. Andrew could no doubt count on help from retired Butler’s Rangers living along the river, and it was also customary for settlers with Palatine German connections to get together for “logging bees.” Teams of men would chop the trees and with the help of their oxen haul them to a place on the property where they could pile them up. The small branches, dried leaves, and underbrush was gathered for a huge bonfire. The best wood would be used to build a house and the rest was burned providing piles of potash that could be used for soap making. The building of a cabin was in most cases also a social event in which families came together. “Barn-raising” was a common experience among Palatine Germans. Then of course the task of working the ground and planting crops was a tremendous challenge. The average farmer only cleared about three acres every year. The Millers had 200 acres.
The Miller homestead soon became a thriving busy family home with the birth of Martha (1791) and John Burch (1792) before the move and after the move the birth of Peter (1793), Henry (1795), Elizabeth (1798), Andrew (1799), Benjamin (1803), Jacob (1805), Edward (1806), Malinda (1811), and Eliza (1814). Martha died at three years old. Henry died in infancy. Elizabeth died at 11 years of age, drowning in the Niagara River when she slipped through the ice. Andrew continued to buy other properties, giving his sons a good start at farming, both in Bertie Township and as far away as Simcoe and St. Thomas. On the north side of the creek Andrew and Elizabeth built a simple log cabin that was replaced by a frame house in 1822. On the south side of the creek they erected a larger building that became the Andrew Miller Tavern.
Andrew Miller as Tavern-Keeper
The importance of a tavern can’t be underestimated. James Boswell wrote in 1776, “There is nothing which has yet been contrived by man, by which so much happiness is produced as by a good tavern or inn.” Situated at a key point on the River Road, the Andrew Miller tavern was an ideal stopping point for horse drawn carriages traveling from Fort Erie to Chippawa and the Falls. A wagon train moves along at about 3 miles per hour, so after about two hours of travel from Fort Erie, the Miller’s Creek tavern would have been a welcome place to stop and water the horses and to pause for refreshments. Typical travellers along the River Road included tourists from Buffalo taking ferries across to Fort Erie and journeying by stage coach along the River Road to Niagara Falls. Merchants, fur traders, the military, and local farmers travelled up and down the River Road. John Fanning of Chippawa was the first to establish a stagecoach run in 1798 between Newark and Fort Erie. In 1801 James Macklem was a part owner of a route between Chippawa and Fort Erie. The schedule was 3 times a week and the fare one dollar with room for 5 passengers and no more than 14 lbs of luggage. The stagecoaches stopped at all the taverns. The main complaint was that stoppages were too long. That was not a drinking man’s complaint! After imbibing at every tavern between Newark and Fort Erie was it possible to climb out of a coach without stumbling to the ground?
Andrew Miller purchased his license for a tavern on April 5, 1802 (Eleventh Report of the Bureau of Archives for the Province of Ontario, p. 750). The first year that statistics were kept on taverns was 1801 and there were 108 taverns in Upper Canada. It is possible that the Andrew Miller tavern was built a few years before he received his license. In 1801 the population of Upper Canada was about 34,000 and that meant there was one tavern for every 320 people. By 1801 there were certainly that more than 320 people living in Bertie Township between Fort Erie and Chippawa. With so many discharged Butler’s Rangers living along the River Road there were plenty of customers for the Miller tavern. Andrew Miller knew most of them at Fort Niagara and he knew all the details of selling rum to soldiers at the fort. Living in the “Bottoms” just outside the fort Andrew would have observed life in the taverns and grog shops. It is easy to picture young Andrew taking supplies from the warehouse to the taverns and asking questions about the tavern business.
Tavern owners along the River Road included Benjamin Wintermute and Benjamin Hardison in Fort Erie, Thomas Cummings and James Macklem in Chippawa. Macklem’s Tavern was well-known and established soon after James Macklem arrived in Upper Canada in 1792. In 1799 Macklem purchased the John Maybee farm just south of Miller’s Creek at the time Andrew was building his tavern. Macklem’s experience as a tavern keeper was no doubt of great value to Andrew. Andrew Miller’s own property (Lot 14 in concession 5) was transferred to him from John Fanning. John Fanning owned a stage coach enterprise and was in a business partnership with James Macklem, another source of information about the tavern business on the River Road.
Taverns in Upper Canada
There were three kinds of taverns in Upper Canada in 1800. The larger, Georgian style taverns were prominent in urban centers such as Gilbert Field’s House near Newark and Forsyth’s Pavilion in Niagara Falls. There were frontier taverns in one room log cabins in isolated areas in Upper Canada. The majority of taverns were the minor public houses, such as were found along the River Road next to the Niagara River. Andrew Miller’s tavern was a minor public house perhaps built with Georgian features. In the 1790’s and early 1800’s the tavern was the focal point for community life. Julia Roberts defines a tavern as follows,
A tavern in the colonial context was a building that was open to the public (and, for travellers, open at all hours), licensed to sell spiritous and fermented liquor by small measure (by the glass, gill, half-pint, or pint), and had the facilities to provide food, lodging, and stabling. The tavern was almost always a family home.
There were few places for the community to gather, so the tavern was a good substitute for the lack of public buildings. The tavern could function for town meetings, a place to post public notices, and eventually a post office. In 1800 there was no public postal service. The delivery of mail was restricted to official dispatches and the letters of prominent merchants. Such deliveries of news took place in Newark and York but didn’t reach the River Road in Bertie Township. The Andrew Miller tavern was a good place to post news items. There was only one newspaper, the Upper Canada Gazette, completely controlled and subsidized by the Government. It’s editor, Gideon Tiffany, was considered by the elites as too American and he was removed. He then published an independent newspaper, the Canada Constellation in 1800. Stagecoach service to taverns probably brought copies of these newspapers along the Portage and River Roads. The impact was minimal since literacy levels were quite low among Loyalist farmers, but the recent movie “News of the World” is a reminder that someone might have stood up in the tavern and read items of local and national news, to the delight of the audience.
Taverns in Upper Canada were public spaces and brought together a mixture of people despite differences in religion, class, and gender. William Lyon Mackenzie’s description of the crowd gathered in front of Forsyth’s tavern in Niagara Falls is classic.
There were Christians and Heathens, Menonists and Tunkards, Quakers and Universalists, Presbyterians and Baptists, Roman Catholics and American Methodists; there were Frenchmen and Yankees, Irishmen and Mulattoes, Scotchmen and Indians, Englishmen, Canadians, Americans, and Negroes, Dutchmen and Germans, Welshmen and Swedes, Highlanders and Lowlanders, poetical as well as prosaical phizes, horsemen and footmen, fiddlers and dancers, honourables and reverends, captains and colonels, beaux and belles, waggons and tilburies, coaches and chaises, gigs and carts; in short Europe, Asia, Africa and America had there each its representative among the loyal subjects and servants of our good King George.
That was Niagara Falls in 1824. The Andrew Miller tavern in 1801 was not as diverse but it was a public space, and a place for social gatherings and public meetings. The earliest Bertie Township recorded public meeting took place on Monday, March 7, 1807 at Andrew Miller’s Tavern. At this meeting the first item of business was the keeping of a detailed account of each farmer’s livestock identification methods, usually the nicking and cutting of an animal’s ear to mark ownership. The second item of business was the setting up of a poor relief fund to aid settlers who found themselves in dire need. On March 7, 1808 there was another meeting at the Andrew Miller tavern during which it was proposed to subscribe two shillings from each person to raise a sum to purchase a town book and grant temporary relief to people in distress, with a list of contributors listed. This was a significant gesture illustrating the solidarity and compassion of the Loyalist settlers in helping one another. Such compassion reached across ethnic and religious differences, such as Mackenzie describes.
Daily Life at the Andrew Miller Tavern
Recent research helps us to reimagine life at the Andrew Miller tavern in 1800. A typical minor public house had different rooms for different functions. Entering through the front door, the barroom would be to the left and the parlour or sitting room to the right. Floors would be bare wood with a few rush mats. Most windows had no curtains. There would be pine benches, coarse earthenware, cheap tin, brass candlesticks (not silver). The kitchen would be separate in the back of the house. Cooking took place in a fireplace of stone or brick with a crane built into the side of the fireplace to hold the kettles and cauldrons for heating water. Upstairs there might be three extra beds with straw mattresses for lodgers. The bar was the most important room in a tavern, and it was usually well equipped with benches and tables, barrels, decanters, glasses, jugs, kegs and a scale and weights for measuring out “drams” of whiskey (a dram was one-eighth of a fluid ounce or one tsp.). Whiskey was bought probably from stills in Chippawa or Niagara Falls. Rum was imported from the West Indies through Halifax and Montreal. Other drinks included brandy, gin, cider, and of course beer. Many tavern keepers made their own beer. A popular drink in the 18th century was shrub, a fruit liqueur made with rum or brandy mixed with sugar and the juice and rinds of oranges. One can easily imagine raucous dancing to fiddler music that with the aid of liquor might last most of the night.
Taverns also served meals. Elizabeth Simcoe described a meal at King’s Head tavern in Burlington,
They prepared me some refreshment at the House, some excellent Cakes baked on the coals, Eggs, a boiled black squirrel, tea & Coffee made of Peas which was good, they said Chemists Coffee was better. The sugar was made from black Walnut Trees which looks darker than that from the Maple, but I think it is sweeter.
A typical meal would be wheat bread, butter, boiled potatoes, fried pork, pickles and tea. This “meat and potato” meal was usually offered at any time of day, but could be supplemented by fresh fish, beefsteak, poultry, eggs and ham, cheese, pies and cakes.
Who was the cook at the Miller tavern? Probably it was Elizabeth Everett. Most taverns were a combination of public house and private home. In many instances the tavern was operated by a woman who was both hostess and cook. At the Miller tavern the whole family must have been involved. Andrew was a farmer and there were many times when he would be away, taking grain to a mill, getting supplies, or out working in the fields. Elizabeth no doubt was the cook and hostess and tavern manager, and perhaps the children were also involved. In 1802, the first year of Andrew’s license, John Burch was 10 and Peter was 9, old enough to help with serving guests and doing the chores. Elizabeth at 6 and Andrew, jr. at 4 were probably too young. All the evidence points in favour of the tavern business being a family affair.
Like most Loyalist families settling on farms, they would have had a few cows for milk, butter and cheese, and a few fowls for eggs. Their garden would have provided the vegetables that they needed for the tavern. I have always been impressed by the Miller expertise in gardening. Great uncle Bert Miller was a well-known horticultural expert in Niagara (an Arboretum at Ball’s Falls was named after him). And my Uncle Neal had a busy greenhouse business for many years. My father inherited the green thumb of the Miller heritage, but alas he constantly complained that nothing could grow in Ottawa like it did in the Niagara peninsula. The gardening expertise began early with Andrew and Elizabeth at Miller’s Creek.
Andrew Miller as Public Figure
Local government in Upper Canada in the early years was carried out by the British system of local magistrates meeting in Courts of Quarter Session. Simcoe was in favour of strengthening this system. Loyalists were of course used to town meetings, and they wanted to continue this practice. Under Lieutenant-Governor Simcoe town meetings were made legal as long as the power of magistrates was not threatened. Magistrates had power over financial matters and no town meeting could take place without two signatures of judges. If a settlement had at least thirty resident householders it could hold an annual town meeting and choose officers such as clerks, assessors, collectors, overseers of highways and fences, and wardens. Bertie Township was created in 1784 and the 1793 Parish & Town Officers Act stipulated that Town Wardens were to be elected annually by the inhabitants of every settled township, to be in charge of the local government. Town Wardens were “to sue, prosecute or defend inhabitants” and oversee the poor and the guardianship of orphan children. Andrew Miller was town warden in 1818, 1819, 1820 and 1827. His son Peter Miller was an Assessor in 1820, and Andrew Miller, Jr. was an Assessor in 1824 and 1827. The function of the warden caring for the poor was carried over from England to Upper Canada, and there are many references to wardens overseeing the care of the poor including Andrew Miller in Bertie Township. At both Bertie Township meetings at the Andrew Miller Tavern in 1807 and 1808 decisions were made about those in distress needing financial help. As a former Legislator myself I am impressed by the Miller legacy of public service. Politics seems to be a part of the Miller legacy.
The innkeeper typically was one of the most important personalities in the community. Richard Merritt commenting on tavern owners in Newark states, “The innkeeper of the day was indeed a resourceful and enterprising fellow who probably knew more about life in the capital than did any other member of the society.” This applied to Andrew Miller who was well-known and respected as a town councillor, a church member, a farmer, and a tavern owner. How long was Andrew in the business as tavern owner? I have only found evidence for his acquiring a license in 1802 and 1803. According to Julia Roberts most Upper Canada tavern-keepers spent less than five years in the trade. But 11 years after his first license, the Andrew Miller tavern was still in operation during the War of 1812.
The Religious Pluralism of Niagara Settlers
Focusing on the religious situation of the early 1800s may seem to be an aside in the Andrew Miller story, but religion became very important to the Miller descendants throughout the 19th century. As an ordained minister it is important to me to review our family history and religious convictions. I have often wondered where my zeal for preaching and interest in social justice came from.
An eminent historian has stated that all Englishmen in the 18th century, including those in England, but certainly those in America were known throughout the Western world for their insubordination, their insolence, their stubborn unwillingness to be governed. One source, perhaps the most important source for this spirit of independence is the fact that most Americans, and also most Loyalists were from “Dissenting Churches.” This spirit of dissent, which was a counter-cultural world view, was rooted in the Puritan Awakening of 1610 to 1640. The Puritans favoured the authority of the Bible over against tradition, the separation of church and state as well as the right to follow one’s conscience. The Puritans uprooted themselves, and tens of thousands embarked on cramped, frail ships for the new World. As Calvinist Protestants they wanted to establish a new covenant with God on a special errand into the wilderness of North America. But they brought with them the church divisions and sects which were present in England, sects such as Anabaptists, Diggers, Enthusiasts, Sabbatarians, Socinians and Ranters, as well as the more main-stream Presbyterians, Mennonites and Quakers. In England Dissenters were only one-tenth of the population but in the Thirteen Colonies Dissenters comprised three-quarters of the population. It was the theology of Dissenting Churches that legitimated the conquering of an alien land, but it also fueled the passion for democracy. It was said that the American Revolution was a civil war, but it contained many of the elements of a war of religion.
Dissenting churches in America with their roots in England flourished during what is called the First Great Awakening, 1730s-1760s. Scholars agree that the Great Awakening and its outburst of religious intensity gave impetus to democratic yearnings during the Revolutionary period. Revivalism hit America in 1734 begun in New England by Jonathan Edwards—emphasizing conversion experiences, inner light from God, and with different interpretations of scripture hundreds of the new churches and sects emerged. And it was travelling, itinerant preachers like George Whitefield that kept it going. Influenced by both Calvinism and Methodism Whitefield evangelized throughout the colonies from 1730 to 1740 and his impact was impressive. After 1739 the whole of British North America, from Georgia to Nova Scotia seemed to explode like a string of firecrackers.
The same kind of preaching came to Upper Canada with the Loyalists. George Whitefield was only 23 when he began preaching in America (he had been already a sensational preacher in England), and his style of preaching
was riveting. He would sing hymns, wave his arms, tell stories in colloquial language, employ vivid imagery, weep profusely over his own melodramatic appeals, and pray extemporaneously and directly to God, as though he was actually speaking to God. The effect on Americans was electric. I can identify with this. Many of my parishioners would say that even though I am clearly progressive and liberal in my theology I preached with the enthusiasm of a TV evangelist, flapping my arms around and raising my voice. The only criticism was my wife’s comment that when I preached about sin and social evils I shouldn’t smile so much!
The First Great Awakening led to the formation of new denominations such as the Separates or Strict Congregationalists and the Separate Baptists, and to many perfectionistic sects like the Shakers. Ann Lee came from England in the 1770’s to the Albany area, and she attracted attention because she worshipped by ecstatic dancing or “shaking”, and she considered herself to be Christ’s female partner, so she frowned on sexual relations and marriage—with the consequence that the Shakers went out of existence, but they left us great furniture. John Burch lived and worked in Albany after 1772 and might have heard Ann Lee preach.
Religious pluralism characterized the Loyalists. Andrew Miller’s neighbours included some Anglicans and Lutherans but mostly Mennonites and Quakers. There were also Dunkers or Dippers or Tunkers (from the Germans word tunken meaning “to dip”). For example, Jacob Miller Sr. lived in Willoughby Township a few miles north of Miller’s Creek. No relation to Andrew Miller, he was a Palatine German Mennonite from Pennsylvania, and he served as a Bishop and itinerant preacher and was well-known for baptizing (“dipping”) people in the Niagara River. Dissenting churches like the Mennonites and Quakers believed in an alternative vision of the Kingdom of God, a peaceable kingdom without war and
violence. They refused to serve in the military. But they believed in the importance of submitting to the civil authorities. It made sense to support the British Crown and move away from the violence of the Thirteen Colonies.
At the time of settlement there were no churches, and in 1793 there were only three Anglican priests in the whole of Upper Canada. The most frequent Anglican visitor to the Niagara area was Rev. Robert Addison who preached sermons and presided at marriages and baptisms at Newark and throughout the Niagara Peninsula. On his visits, couples married earlier by a magistrate were “re-wed” by Rev. Addison and children were baptized. There is no evidence that Andrew and Elizabeth were “re-wed,” but it can be safely assumed that their children were baptized as Anglicans. From the beginning of settlement at Miller’s Creek the Miller family worshipped with Anglicans in Fort Erie. The British had encouraged conformity to the Established Church, the Church of England but given so many dissenting churches, pockets of nonconformity the British hope was not realized. However, it seems to me clear that Andrew Miller, under the influence of his patron John Burch was on the side of conformity. There is a parallel here with my father’s generation that survived the Second World War and returned home intent on establishing good order and peace. This kind of conformity triggered rebellion on my part, and I have always identified with the pockets of resistance and nonconformity in Canada’s history. But I understand and sympathize with my ancestor. After experiencing the horrors of the American Revolution what else did he long for but peace and order for his large growing family. The Anglican religion offered the stability that he yearned for.
However, there was another religious movement that had a great impact on the Miller family, the Methodist revival movement. Given the weakness of the more established churches and the popularity of dissenting churches it is easy to understand the success of the Methodist Circuit Rider. Travelling on horseback, he held meetings in the homes or barns of settlers, organizing outdoor revival meetings, where emotional preaching was featured. The first Methodist preacher in the Niagara area was Major George Neal, who arrived from Pennsylvania in 1786. Formerly a major in the British army during the Revolutionary War, he settled in Queenston. At first, he was forbidden to preach on the grounds that only clergy of the established Church of England were allowed to conduct worship services, and he was ordered to leave the province. But before his time expired his accuser died and Neal stayed and established the first Methodist class meeting in Niagara in 1788. He preached throughout the Niagara area and founded a small community of Methodists at Lyon’s Creek near Chippawa. His protegees included Christian Warner and Nathan Bangs, popular Circuit Rider preachers who covered the whole area of Upper Canada. Nathan Bangs was an Anglican from England and became a Methodist convert while working as a surveyor in the Niagara area. When Major George Neal preached, Nathan Bangs said that “his words came like a dagger to his heart.”
One of the ways the Methodist preachers sparked the fire of revivals was through the camp meeting. The first camp meeting in Upper Canada was held at Hay Bay in the Bay of Quinte area in 1805. Two hundred and fifty people gathered in September for an event which began with singing, prayer, and sermons. After a whole day of sermons there was a prayer meeting during which it was reported that “the power of God descended on the assembly and songs of victory and praise resounded through the forest.” Nathan Bangs said, “I felt an unusual sense of the divine presence and I thought I could see a cloud of divine glory resting upon the congregation.” One preacher shouted, “Drive on, brother! Drive on! Drive the devil out of the country! Drive him into the lake and drown him!” Then after the Lord’s Supper, “the people wept, prayed, sang, shouted aloud and had at last to break away from one another as by force. As the hosts marched off in different directions the songs of victory rolled along the highways.”
The Millers had ample opportunities to experience such camp meetings in the Niagara area. Methodism was more popular than established churches. By 1802 the Niagara circuit had grown to more than 600 members requiring three itinerant preachers. In 1801 there was a revival that moved quickly throughout the Niagara region from Lake Ontario to Long Point on Lake Erie. Was Andrew too busy with hi tavern to get involved with a religious revival? By 1810 the Methodists were the largest denomination in Upper Canada with twelve ordained ministers compared to just five for the Anglicans. Andrew Miller was a committed Anglican but some of his children were influenced by Methodist preaching. His youngest son Edward and daughter-in-law Salome are buried in the McAfee Methodist Cemetery close to River Road. The Methodist influence on the Miller descendants is obvious as many of them attended more evangelical churches in Winona, Hamilton, and Simcoe. My grandparents and my parents attended Winona Gospel Church in Winona, and Philpott Tabernacle in Hamilton, and later joined a Baptist Church in Ottawa. From a young age it was a mystery to me how my astronomer/scientist father could stomach the emotional, individualistic, revivalist Baptist faith. As I later came to understand the history of religion in Canada this split between the public work world and privatized, individualist faith has been there from the beginning of Canada. As George Grant described it, the primal was the meeting of the alien and conquerable land with Calvinist Protestantism. The Calvinism was left behind as evangelical Christianity became popular providing a veneer of emotionalism over the acquisitive spirit of capitalism. My Miller ancestors were all very successful farmers who went to church every Sunday to hear messages focusing on individual salvation. My own career as a United Church minister, politician and university professor was a rebellion against this split personality in religion. For my whole career I was focused on social justice and making the links between faith and the issues of poverty, war, and protection of the environment. But my fiery, enthusiastic preaching revealed my roots in the evangelical heritage of my parents and grandparents. I also would like to think that my commitment to social justice and public service was rooted in the social centrality of the tavern and Andrew Miller’s role as a public figure? It is interesting that along with the Methodist influence was the emergence of the temperance movement in the 1840’s as more and more Canadians thought that they should sign pledges avowing abstinence from liquor. The descendants of Andrew Miller never touched wine or liquor and neither my grandfather nor my father ever told me about the Andrew Miller Tavern.
The Andrew Miller Tavern on the Eve of the War of 1812
In 1800 the tavern received very little news about politics. There was no postal service. There were various plots to overthrow the government organized by republican rebels south of the border in alliance with sympathetic ears north of the border. Nothing was accomplished by these plots. Upper Canada appeared to be fertile territory for republican subversion especially after the Republican Thomas Jefferson became President. But given bad roads and long distances between communities very little news reached Miller’s Creek. But as the decade went on communication improved. The regular stage-coach service with stops at the tavern helped. Bertie Township was located in Lincoln 4th Riding and was represented by elected members of the Legislature, and it is not hard to imagine Isaac Swayze (who sold property to Andrew Miller) or Ralph Clench dropping by to have a beer and share the latest political happenings.
The pro-British attitudes of many Loyalists and recent British immigrants was stronger in the Kingston area than the Niagara region. Given the location of people like Andrew Miller living on the border and welcoming American travellers who often stopped at his tavern, there were considerable pro-American feelings in Niagara. Simcoe’s vision of creating a Little England in Upper Canada was in the past, and opposition to the domination of the British elite in politics was growing. In 1800 Swayze and Clench who represented Bertie Township in the Legislative Assembly opposed the seven-year residence requirement imposed on American immigrants. In Niagara there was more tolerance of the pluralism of religious sects than in Kingston or York. Swayze and Clench supported legislation that favoured the religious sects of Niagara, liberalizing marriage laws. Joseph Willcocks, with roots in Ireland and American radicalism led the opposition to Lt. Governor Gore. Winning an Assembly seat in 1807 he published a newspaper, the Upper Canada Guardian or Freeman’s Journal. In 1809 a Judge travelling through Niagara found the Upper Canada Guardian “in almost every house.” More ordinary farmers were elected to the Legislature outnumbering the elites, and many of them were Late Loyalists, with republican ideas. 1807 and 1808 were the years that the Miller tavern was being used for town meetings.
What did they know about the British policy of impressment and the capture of American ships and the arrest of British born sailors, considered to be deserters? Trying to avoid another war with Britain the U. S. Congress passed the Embargo Act 0f 1807, stopping the export of wheat, flour, fish and cattle to Britain. There must have been a lot of discussion about this at the tavern. The embargo encouraged smugglers to take American products into Canada in exchange for British manufactured goods. So they placed cattle and potash and wheat and flour on boats and rowed across the Niagara River. Farmers like Andrew Miller would not have been happy with this development. Tensions along the border were increasing. The Embargo ended with Jefferson’s last day in office in 1809, but the Republicans continued to dominate Congress with the election of James Madison as President and since the Embargo didn’t work many began to talk about invasion of Canada as the best policy. For farmers along the Canadian border the annual muster day of the militia suddenly became important.