USA > Connecticut > The loyalists of Connecticut > Part 3
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THE foregoing narrative shows that the loyalists of Con- necticut suffered many hardships in their resistance to the law and to the dominant public sentiment of the state; but perhaps they suffered no more than the defeated party suffers in any prolonged and desperate civil war. Cer- tainly the one execution in Connecticut compares favor- ably with what happened in other states. Stark says:
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"The 'Black List' of Pennsylvania contained the names of 490 persons attainted of high treason. Only a few ac- tually suffered the extreme penalty. Among these were two citizens of Philadelphia-Mr. Roberts and Mr. Carlisle." Sabine cites Massachusetts, Virginia, and New York as "adopting measures of inexcusable severity" to- ward the humbled and unhappy loyalists.
The treaty of peace was followed by a great emigration of loyalists from the United States to the provinces of Canada and elsewhere. Beardsley says: "By the end of the year 1783, so great had been the emigration to the British territory, that not less than thirty thousand persons from New York and the other colonies had arrived in Nova Scotia. . .. Among the thousands thus expatriated were some of the most intelligent and highly educated people on this continent." This emigration from the United States was an important item in the early history of Nova Scotia and New Brunswick; and the American loyalists and their descendants became and have been to the pres- ent time an important element in the population of those provinces. Professor Siebert has estimated that, of the 2,000 male loyalists in Connecticut at the beginning of the Revolution, "she lost well on to a half of these through flight, and that the great majority of the survivors among these refugees found permanent homes for themselves and their families along the St. John River in New Bruns- wick." Thither went, in 1783 and 1784, a considerable group who had been living temporarily at Eaton's Neck, Long Island, and who founded the village of Kingston; and those who had continued in the three regiments, the Prince of Wales's American Volunteers, the Queens' Rangers, and the King's American Regiment, who settled at Lower Woodstock and other places.
Not only did many of the lay Churchmen of Connecti-
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cut emigrate to New Brunswick, but four of the Angli- can clergy went with them. The Society for the Propaga- tion of the Gospel, which refused to continue support to its missions in the United States after the Declaration of Independence, now offered to them new missions with in- creased salaries, besides grants of land, in the British provinces.
Beardsley, who wrote from a standpoint of sympathy with the Anglicans and loyalists, adds: "Connecticut, to her praise be it said, did not share in the spirit of resent- ment and oppression that appeared elsewhere. She knew very well that the Loyalists within her borders had suf- fered severely during the war . . .; and if the General As- sembly neglected to obey the recommendation of Congress and restore their losses, it by no means followed them with the rod of persecution. But they were not in good repute with the public authorities, and scorn was likely to attend many of them for years to come."
That was undoubtedly true of those who kept up their attitude of hostility to the new republican system of gov- ernment. But the people of Connecticut were not disposed to ostracize permanently those who had been on the loyalist side in the Revolution, if they accepted the new regime and were willing to become patriotic American citizens. Thus, the Reverend Samuel Seabury, who had served as a chaplain in the royal army on Long Island, was selected by the Anglican clergy of Connecticut, meeting at the Glebe House in Woodbury after the Revolution, as their choice for the first American bishop. He could not legally obtain consecration from any of the English bishops, but was consecrated by the non-juring bishops of Scotland. His honored and peaceful episcopate was charged with the difficult task of forming the new Protestant Episcopal Church in America, following closely the usages of the
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Church of England, but free from the political national- ism which then marked that church.
Perhaps a more remarkable case was that of William Samuel Johnson, a son of the Reverend Samuel Johnson who had taken part in the declaration in favor of epis- copacy in 1722 at Yale, and a nephew by marriage of the doughty Reverend John Beach. The son chose the law as his vocation instead of the ministry, and was elected rep- resentative to the general court from Stratford in 1761 and 1765, and an assistant in 1766. President Ezra Stiles stated that he was "the first Episcopalian ever brought into the Council." In 1774 he was elected delegate to the Continental congress, but declined to serve. After the Revolution he became a member of the congress of the Confederation, was an influential member of the conven- tion which framed the constitution of the United States, and was one of the two signers from Connecticut of that momentous document. He was also chosen one of the first two United States senators from Connecticut. In 1787 he was elected the first president of Columbia College, of which his father had been the first president under its original name of King's College.
Though circumstances rendered it almost inevitable that there should have appeared in Connecticut a party of loyalists as well as of patriots, it is significant that the conduct of both was usually governed by noble motives and seldom descended to brutal measures. A spirit of mutual conciliation saved to Connecticut, as good and even distinguished citizens, a larger proportion of the loyalists than in most other states, and the newly organ- ized Protestant Episcopal Church promptly proved the sincerity of its adherents as supporters of the United States which had emerged from the conflict as an inde- pendent nation.
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Bibliographical Note
THE most important general works relating to the loyal- ists are: Lorenzo Sabine, The American Loyalists (Boston, 1847; 2d ed., 2 vols., 1864); and Claude H. Van Tyne, The Loyalists in the American Revolution (New York, 1902). Concerning the loyalists of Connecticut there are useful articles by James Shepard (Connecticut Quarterly, vol. 4, pp. 139-151, 257-263, 1898); by G. A. Gilbert (American Historical Review, vol. 4, pp. 273-291, 1899); by Professor W. H. Siebert (Transactions of the Royal Society of Canada, Series III, vol. 10, pp. 75-92, 1916); and by Franklin B. Dexter (Papers of the New Haven Colony Historical Society, vol. 9, pp. 29-45, 1918); and the chapters in E. E. Beardsley, History of the Episcopal Church in Connecticut (vol. I, New York, 1865).
Moses Dunbar's dying statement and letter, in a form differing slightly from that given above, are printed in full in Anderson, Town and city of Waterbury, vol. I, p. 434, from a "true copy made by Sylvanus Cooke." The copy used in this Pamphlet is one made by James Shepard of New Britain from the reprint which he found in the Calen- dar of Hartford for August 22, 1846, the heading of which stated that it was reprinted at the request of Dunbar's daughter, then "an aged woman," from a pamphlet which Dunbar's son had caused to be printed, probably several years after Dunbar's death, as his children were then quite young. Neither the original pamphlet nor a copy of the Calendar of Hartford containing the reprint is now in existence, so far as is known to the writer.
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Printed at the Printing-Office of the Yale University Press
PUBLICATIONS OF THE TERCENTENARY COMMISSION OF THE STATE OF CONNECTICUT
The Committee on Historical Publications of the Connecticut Ter- centenary Commission will issue, during the next few years, a series of small Pamphlets upon a great variety of topics, selected for the purpose of making better known among the people of Connecticut and others as many of the features as possible of the history and life of Connecticut as colony and state. No attempt is to be made to deal with these subjects in either logical or chronological order, the intention being to issue Pam- phlets at any time and upon any subject that seems to be of interest and worthy to be made a matter of record.
PAMPHLETS THUS FAR ISSUED
I. Connecticut and the British Government, by C. M. ANDREWS. 36 pp. 25c.
II. The Connecticut Intestacy Law, by C. M. ANDREWS. 32 pp. 25c. III. The Charter of Connecticut, 1662, by C. M. ANDREWS and A. C. BATES. 24 pp. ·
VI. The Settlement of the Connecticut Towns, by D. DEM- ING. 80 pp. Illustrated. . 75c. 25c. 25c. 25c. 25c. 25c. 25c.
25c. 25c.
IV. Thomas Hooker, by W. S. ARCHIBALD. 20 pp.
V. The Story of the War with the Pequots Re-Told, by H. BRADSTREET. 32 pp. Illustrated. . 25c.
VII. The Settlement of Litchfield County, by D. DEMING. 16 pp.
VIII. George Washington and Connecticut in War and Peace, by G. M. DUTCHER. 36 pp. Illustrated.
IX. The Discoverer of Anaesthesia: Dr. Horace Wells of Hartford, by H. W. ERVING. 16 pp. Illustrated. .
X. Connecticut Taxation, 1750-1775, by L. H. GIPSON. 44 Pp. .
XI. 'Boundaries of Connecticut, by R. M. HOOKER. 38 pp. Illustrated. ·
XII. Early Domestic Architecture of Connecticut, by J. F. KELLY. 32 pp.
XIII. Milford, Connecticut: The Early Development of a Town as Shown in Its Land Records, by L. W. LABAREE. 32 pp. Illustrated. 25c.
XIV. Roads and Road-Making in Colonial Connecticut, by I. S. MITCHELL. 32 pp. Illustrated. · 25c.
[See Over
XV. Hitchcock Chairs, by M. R. MOORE. 16 pp. Illustrated. . 25c. XVI. The Rise of Liberalism in Connecticut, 1828-1850, by J. M. MORSE. 48 pp. 5ºc. 25c. XIX. The Indians of Connecticut, by M. SPIESS. 36 pp. 25c. 25c.
XVII. Under the Constitution of 1818: The First Decade, by J. M. MORSE. 24 pp. . XVIII. The New England Meeting House, by N. PORTER. 36 pp. ·
XX. The Fundamental Orders of Connecticut, by G. M. DUTCHER and A. C. BATES. 20 pp. Illustrated.
5ºc.
XXI. The Litchfield Law School, 1775-1833, by S. H. FISHER. 32 pp.
XXII. The Hartford Chest, by H. W. ERVING. 16 pp. Illus- trated.
25c. 25c. XXIII. Early Clockmaking in Connecticut, by P. R. HOOPES. 32 pp. . XXIV. The Hartford Convention, by WILLIAM E. BUCKLEY. 25℃. 32 pp.
XXV. The Spanish Ship Case: A Troublesome Episode for Connecticut, 1752-1758, by R. M. HOOKER. 34 pp. XXVI. The Great Awakening and Other Revivals in the Reli- gious Life of Connecticut, by MARY H. MITCHELL. 64 pp.
XXVII. Music Vale Seminary, 1835-1876, by FRANCES HALL JOHNSON. 24 pp. Illustrated.
XXVIII. Migrations from Connecticut Prior to 1800, by LoIs K. M. ROSENBERRY. 36 pp.
XXIX. Connecticut's Tercentenary: A Retrospect of Three Centuries of Self-Government and Steady Habits, by G. M. DUTCHER. 32 pp. 25c. 25℃.
XXX. The Beginnings of the Episcopal Church in Connecticut, by ORIGEN STORRS SEYMOUR. 32 pp. . XXXI. The Loyalists of Connecticut, by EPAPHRODITUS PECK. 32 pp. . 25c.
5ºc. 25c. 25c.
Published and for sale for the Commission by
YALE UNIVERSITY PRESS, NEW HAVEN, CONNECTICUT
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25c.
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