8) Researching the Life of British Loyalist Abner Wolcott: Thank You, Roger Wolcott

Roger Wolcott 1946-2012

Thank you for your research about your ancestor, Abner Wolcott

 AND

 thank you to your family

 who generously shared your work with us

 and

 allowed it to be posted on this blog.

FrancoAmerican Gravy

6) Researching the Life of a British Loyalist: Abner Wolcott, Loyalty to the Crown

Abner's Loyalty to the Crown

Exactly what Abner Wolcott did as a Loyalist, isn't documented with sources. The Wolcott Society states he hauled provisions for the British:

Abner Wolcott, b. 1749, d. 1833 Sorrel, Quebec. He purchased 150 acres of land at New Haven VT in 1775, was a Loyalist, and hauled provisions for the British. He was taken prisoner in 1777 and his property declared forfeited in 1778. In 1778 he escaped to Canada where he was given compensation for his losses by the British government in 1783 at Sorel, Quebec. By 1787 he had settled on Isle St. Bouchard in the St. Lawrence River, in Vercheres parish. He and son, John, returned to Vergennes, Vermont, about 1800, and soon after he returned to Canada where they took the Oath of Allegiance to the Crown in 1803. During this visit to Vermont he is said to have visited a Charlotte Wolcott, b. c.1773, who married Hosea Bridges 1797 at Western MA, the marriage also recorded at Brookfield MA; m. (1) Catherine Griffen 1772 Oxford, CT, m. (2) Mrs. Dorothy Redman 1821. NOTE: Members of this family usually spelled their name Wilcott or Willcott in Canada, but some later changed to Wolcott when they returned to the United States.

Source: The Wolcott Family Web Pages accessed 6 June 2014.  

Accessed at http://www.wolcottfamily.com/watertown.html

Another story states Abner was at the Battle of Saratoga, fled after the battle to a refugee camp in Sorel, Quebec. The Battles at Saratoga were fought on September 19th and October 7th, 1777.  When reading the following documents in the Vermont Archives,  Abner appears to still be in the present day vicinity of Vermont and Skenesborough (present day Whitehall) in the following months.  Not only was he present in January 1778, he appears to be still useful in the service of the continental forces which is very strange because the week before the Council and President Thomas Chittenden authorized a Mr. Eli Roberts to dispose of the property of DAVID REMMINGTON and ABNER WOLCOTT.  Perhaps for the well being of his wife and children he cooperated with the Continentals until he could safely bring his family to Sorel, Quebec. 

If there is guilt by association, Abner Wolcott has that too. His father in law, Charles Griffin is documented on the United Empire Loyalist Association of Canada  (UELAC) as a trooper in Jessups's Rangers, the Loyalist band of men who rallied around Ebenezar and Edward Jessup along the upper Hudson River in present day Warren County, New York.  The UELAC site provides a download of a paper by Bill Glidden, a historian associated with the New York State Military Museum in Saratoga and the UELAC, about Jessup's Troops.  I highly recommend checking out his story about the Jessup Brothers.

So there you have it.  For Mylott Family members who check out this blog, you are descended from two Tories or Loyalists. Take your pick.  Abner Wolcott (174 -1833) was the great grandfather of Robert Mylott (Robert Milot) born in Vercheres in 1832, immigrated to Whitehall, married, raised a family, farmed and died there in 1907.  Charles Griffin (1720-   ), Abner's father in law,  trooper in the Jessup Corps, was Robert Mylott's great great grandfather.

5) Researching the Life of a British Loyalist: Abner Wolcott - 3 Dangling Threads

 Abner Wolcott 1747-1833
and
 his wife
Catherine Griffin 1753- 1821

I am going to put aside the origins of Abner Wolcott and his grandfather to focus on the next little mystery with the documentation of his marriage to Catherine Griffin in Oxford, Connecticut Colony on January 8, 1772 or was it December 4th 1751?  The Barbour Collection: "The Barbour Collection of Connecticut Town Vital Records", Vol 8 - Derby 1655-1852, General Editor - Lorraine Cook White, Baltimore, Maryland, Genealogical Publishing Co., Inc, 1997, p. 229 uses the December date.

So now there are two dangling threads that need to be snipped or pulled: 1) Abner's parents, birthplace and 2) marriage dates with Catherine Wisebury.

After his marriage records of Abner Wolcott's divided loyalties and the Abner researcher is making a note to locate and read the original marriage document. Sometime after their marriage, Abner and Catherine moved west like many other colonists in the lands of the Wentworth or New Hampshire Grants.  These were the lands, east of the Hudson River and Lake Champlain, claimed by New Hampshire as part of their westward expansion and New Work as part of their northern New Netherland legacy. Eventually, the settlement created the state of Vermont.

Thanks to the kind person who created this map and put on Wikipedia

and then here is #3 dangling thread.....
Accordingly, Abner purchased 150 acres of land in the vicinity of Castleton, New Hampshire Grants or today Vermont.  This was also where his father in law, Charles Griffen, acquired land.  As an Abner researcher, want to locate the deed whereby Abner acquired this land after his marriage and before the American Revolution because he was soon to loose it and everything he had except his life, wife and children!

1) Researching the Life of a British Loyalist: Abner Wolcott in Focus,

Back in November 2010 I wrote about the line of British Loyalists in the paternal family of Arthur Mylott. The family name Mylott is an Anglicized form of Milot.  The name is from Nicolas Damien Milot dit Champagne a soldier in the French and Indian War who hailed from Villiers-le-Sec, France. Nicolas Milot had twelve children with his wife Marie Josephte Guyon.  Al of the children were baptised in Vercheres, Quebec and sadly, only six lived to adulthood. Their eighth child, Marie Joseph Milot married Catherine Wolcott, the daughter of Abner Wolcott and Catherine Griffin in Saint Sulpice, Quebec.

Abner Wolcott (spelled Robine Wilcotte in the image above) and the father of Catherine Griffin, Charles Griffin, were both British loyalists during the American Revolution.

In his lifetime, Abner left a trail of documentation from Connecticut, Vermont, Quebec and finally New York and all are tasty morsels of information for a family historian.  One Wolcott family researcher was Roger Wolcott of Quebec (1946-2012), another descendant  of Abner Wolcott and Catherine Griffin through their son Solomon Wolcott.

Roger Wolcott 1946-2012

In my next few entries, I hope to share some documentation a relative of Roger Wolcott, has kindly shared with me.  We will follow the trail of  documentation and perhaps discover what is missing to establish his line of ascendancy to the New England Wolcott families.  Ultimately, I hope the next several blog posts will help other Wolcott family members to share research about the life and times of Abner Wolcott as well as his ancestors and descendants.

A Loyalist in the Family: Pierre Nicolas Côme Damien Millot dit Champagne and his son, Joseph Marie Millot who married the daughter of the English Loyalist, Abner Wilcott

Just when you think you know about the family, there comes an unexpected oddity.  For example, Arthur Homer Mylott and his brothers Milo Mylott and Edgar Mylott are direct descendent's of Nicolas Millot dit Champagne (full name is Pierre-Nicolas-Côme-Damien Millot dit Champagne), who was briefly discussed in an earlier post. Nicolas was a soldier who came to French North America from Villiers-le-Sec, Champagne, France to fight in the Regiment Guyenne in the French and Indian War.  Fighting in North America ended in 1760 but it officially ended with the signing of the treaty of Paris on February 10th, 1763.  Nicolas survived the war and remained in Quebec marrying Marie Josephe Guyon on April 8th 1766, six years after the English conquest.  Their written marriage record is below, left page. Click on the image to enlarge and read and remember it is in French!

Nicolas Millot probably arrived in Québec in the last year or two of the conflict. He was in Québec in 1759, the year of the decisive English victory at the Plains of Abraham in Québec and it is probable that he saw action there with his fellow soldiers in the regiment Guyenne. It was a brutal defeat for the French troops.  Despite his wartime experiences, he and Marie Josephe Guyon went on to have more than fourteen children, several dying in childhood. On the church record for his funeral in March 1812, Nicolas  was noted to be the "mâitre de l'école".

One son of Nicolas was Joseph Marie Millot (Marie was also used as a male name in Québec as odd as it seems to our 21th century notions).   Joseph Marie was born 31 January 1779 and married Catherine Wilcott, on October 28th , 1798.  Catherine was the daughter of Abner Wilcott and Catherine Griffin. You may wonder, who was Abner Wilcott with this very English sounding name and what was he and his family doing in Québec at this time? Why was an English speaking daughter marrying a Québec son?  In 1798, this was still rather unusual.  The French Catholic church records transcribe Catherine's family name as "Villest" instead of Wilcott. 

Abner Wilcott, the son of an early New England family whose ancestor immigrated from England in 1634,  is believed to have remained steadfast to the crown of England during the rise of the patriot cause in the thirteen colonies. Abner's father in law, Charles Griffin was also a Loyalist or Tory. It is estimated that one fourth of the colonists were Loyalists.  Some information suggests Abner fought for the crown at the Battle of Saratoga, was captured and escaped, fleeing to English held Canada. His wife later joined him there. He was fortunate. 

Recall, some Loyalists or Tories were tarred and feathered and/or executed for their sentiments.  Such was the fate of  David Redding, another Loyalist who fought at the Battle of Saratoga.  He was captured and executed by the patriots in Bennington Vermont... Perhaps Abner heard of Redding's fate and realized he would fare better in Québec.

In an incident more like a lynching than a legal procedure, New Yorker David Redding was the first person to be tried and hanged in the state of Vermont. Redding had been a Loyalist with Burgoyne's army at Saratoga, stolen horses, shot and powder in New York, and eluded arrest there by riding into Vermont, where he was caught and tried in Bennington for theft and treason and convicted. When it appeared that Redding would go free because of an improperly empaneled jury, Ethan Allen, back in Vermont only a few days after nearly three years as a British prisoner, arranged with Governor Thomas Chittenden to serve as prosecutor in a new trial on June 6, 1778. Allen ignored the threshold issue of jurisdiction, which the Bennington court lacked for crimes committed in New York. Moreover, as Vermont was independent of the thirteen states, the United States' cause against Redding was also not in the court's jurisdiction. Nonetheless, Allen's impassioned anti-Loyalist rhetoric swung the jury away from the legal question to the patriotic requirement of hanging a loyalist, and Redding was hanged in the afternoon of the trial before a large crowd on Bennington green. -- The Vermont Encyclopedia, John J. Duffy, et. al.

For more details about David Redding see Sipsey Street Irregulars

Others were lynched..

Here are more details about Abner, whose daughter Catherine Wilcott married Joseph Marie Millot

Abner (Ebenezer) Wilcott (Wolcott) and Catherine Griffin  were married on Jan. 8, 1772, in Oxford, Conn.  He was in New Haven VT during the American Revolution.   Abner was taken prisoner in Oct. 1777, after the Battle at Saratoga, for he was with the British. He later escaped to Canada where his wife eventually joined him.

------------------

Abner Wolcott, b. 1749 New Haven CT, d. 1833 Keeseville NY at home of son. He purchased 150 acres of land at New Haven VT in 1775, was a Loyalist, hauled provisions for the British, was taken prisoner in 1777 and his property declared forfeited.

In Canada, he was given compensation for his losses by the British government.  He settled at St. Sulpice and on an island in  the St Lawrence River, Bouchard Isle.

Anber Wilcott married (1) Catherine Griffen 1772 Oxford, CT, married (2) Mrs. Dorothy Redman in 1821.

 NOTE: Members of this family usually spelled their name Wilcott in Canada.

Acknowledgement to The Wolcott Family Homepage