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C.) ^ I HE following pages are reprinted with permission of the writer, at the JL request of the Lundy's Lane Historical Society, and refer to a historic period of great interest and importancie in Canadian annals. The first edition consisted only of 30 copies, intended for family use. Many readers will be pleased at the reproduction. The existence at the present time of two great distinct political confedera- cies in North America, the United States and the Dominion of Canada, is primarily owing to the long continu- ous movements of two opposing sections or parties of the English people in the land of our cummon ancestors ; the party of monarchical and the party of republican tendencies, divisions which seem to be inherent in human nature itself. The Revolution of 1642 was the cul- mination of Puritan ascendency in England, the reaction restored the royal authority in the Constitution. The distinct party lines of English politics take their modern form and under various names have come down to us from that time to the present. It will be found that those party struggles in the mother land furnish the key that unlocks the secret of British Canadian politics, principles, and tendencies — as distinct from the politics, principles, and tendencies of the United Stales — dififerences which perpetuate the di- vision of North America into two dis- tinct and rival, but not, it is hoped, un- friendly nations. To understand the true genius and origin of the English-speaking people in Canada we have to go back to ihe settlement of the New England Col- onies by the thwarted and, to some ex- tent, persecuted Puritans of the seven- teenth century. They left their native land, full 0/ bitterness, with no love for either iis Church or monarchy. The English Commonwealth had been their ideal of civil government, and from the very first settlement of the Puritans in Massachussets their steady endeavor and policy was to separate themselves from the mother country and erect their ideal in a Republican Church and State on this continent. The germ of the American revolt was planted in New England from its very origin, and nothing the mother country could do for them — wars with France undertaken in their behalf, the conquest of Canada, tens of thousands of British lives lost, and hundreds of THE SERVOS FAMILY. millions of British money spent in pro- tecting them — was of any avail to ex- cite a loyal and kindly feeling towards the mother country. There were, of course, thousands of New England men who formed honorable exceptions to the general disaffection of the Puri- tan population ; but they were out- numbered and overborne by their dis- contented fellow-countrymen. In other colonies it was quite differ- ent. New York was colonized first by the Dutch and then by the English ; the English settlers ol New York were largely loyalist in principle. The same may be said of New Jer ey, while the Quaker element in Pennsylvania and the German settlers were for the most part loyal and well affected to the Em- pire. It is not necessary here to go over the causes of the disputes which arose a', first in New England with regard to the mothtr country. The questions once raised grew rapidly lo a head. The Stamp Act and the Revenue Acts of Great Britain, very impolitic cer- tainly, yet in their intention good and excusable, were a bad means of bring- ing round a good end, namely, to sup- plement the want of a united common government among all the Colonies. These proposed measures raised the popular clamor in America. The in- fection of disloyalty to the Empire was zealously propagated from New Eng- land, and the people of all the Colonies, according to their sentiment and opinions, became divided into two great parties which in the end de- veloped into the party of the Revolu- tion and the party of the Unity of the Empire ; the former tending to a sever- ance and the latter to the maintenance of the old National ties with the mother land. Of the progress of that great debate, and of the fierce and warlike tempers which it evoked, and of its final effect upon Canada, this memoir will afford some interesting evidence. If the seeds of disloyalty were sown in the New England Colonies from the beginning, so it is equally certain that the seeds of loyal connection with the Crown and Empire of Britain were sown in Canada and have ever borne the noblest and most glorious fruits. The settlement of this country by the expatriated loyalists of America was the leaven that has leavened the whole lump of Canadian nationality, and made this country what, I trust, it will never alier from — the most loyal, orderly,and progressive part of Britain's Empire. Yet we know and regret that modern history — English history through ab- solute ignorance, American history through suppression or misrepresenta- tion of facts — fails to do the slightest justice to the men who founded this Dominion. I speak not with reference to our French fellow-subjeets, but to the United Empire Loyalists who have given Canada its form and pressure, stamping upon it the seal of the Crown, the emblem of the grandest Empire the world ever saw. Esto perpetua ! This memoir of personal history was written solely as a family record, to preserve traditions that have for a cen- tury been kept warm by the fireside. It relates to a family in respectable middle life, which may be taken as completely representative of the great body of the loyalists who founded Upper Canada. The true history of Canada cannot be written withont deep study and in- vestigation into the principles, motives, and acts of the American loyalists. Yet how little does professed history record of them ! English writers on this subject, with few exceptions, take their views at second-hand from American sources, and I have failed to find more than one American writer who is able or willing to do justice to one-half of the American people who, during the revo- lutionary struggle, sided with the mother country ; and when defeated at last in their efforts to preserve the unity of the Empire, left their estates, homes, and honorable positions in THE SERVOS FAMILY. every department of life, and betook themselves to the wilds of Nova Scotia, New Brunswick, and Canada, to start hie afresh under the flag which they refused to forsake. The Americans have held their Cen- tennial of Independence to commem- orate the breaking up of the Empire in 1776. The descendants of the U. E. Loyalists are proposing to celebrate in Toronto in 1884 the Centennial of the arrival m Upper Canada of the ex- patriated loyal Americans who founded this Province. That great design has been warmly taken up by many descendants of the loyalists in Ontario. It will do much to present to the world, the opposite side of the great American question of the past century, and show the true grounds and reasons of Canadian ad- herence to the British Empire — grounds and re^isons which are too little under- stood except by our own people, who in the quiet of their homes live in the solid enjoyment of British freedom, law and security, and desire no other. The lollowing memoir of the Servos family is given as a typical example of the fortunes and fidelity of that old U. E. Loyalist stock to which Canada owes so much : — After the conclusion of the Thirty Years' VVar in Germany, when the country had measurably recovered from the ruin and devastation of that period of trial and suffering in the Fatherland, the ambition of France and the thirst for glory in the young King Louis XIV. again plunged Germany into a long war in which he wrested from her the ancient principality of Alsace and annexed it to France, and which only in our day, 1870, has been reconquered and restored to Germany. The reign of Louis XIV. and that of his contemporary Leopold the First of Austria, were memorable for the long, persistent and cruel persecutions of the Protestants in the dominions of each of those sovereigns. It were hard to tell to which of them the bloody palm was most due. Louis, after years of persecution against the most industrious and en- lightened of his subjects, at last re- pealed the Edict of Nantes, and with it the only guarantee for toleration in France. .The Hugenots were perse- cuted and proscribed ; they escaped by tens of thousands from France to England and wherever an a.sylum af- forded Itself. Leopold of Austria w^s equally harsh and intolerant. Hungary was the chief feat of Protestantism in his dominions. A fierce persecution was directed against them with the result of expel- ling thousands of Hungarian Pro- testants, who found refuge in the Pro- testant States of Germany, Holland, and England. Among the Protestant refugees from Hungary, about the ' middle of the seventeenth century, were the ancestors of the Servos family, of whom a brief account is here recorded. On the right bank of the Rhine, eight miles below Coblentz, lay the ancient principality of Wied, a piinci- pality of the Empire and the inheri- tance of a long line of liberal and en- lightened rulers. Their residence was the old feudal castle of Wied, overlook- ing the broad Rhine and a fertile domain of vineyards, cornfields, and meadows, towns and villages which gave the title to their princes, of Counts of Wied and Lords of Runkel and Issenberg. The most remarkable of these Counts of Wied was Prince Alexander, who in *the beginning of the seventeenth cen- tury founded the town of Neu Wied on the Rhine, and made it the seat of his Government, instead of the old city of Alt Wied, which had previously been the capital. Prince Alexander, at the time of the persecutions in France and Hungary, offered his protection and a free asylum to men of every religion in his new city of Neu Wied, which offer was gladly and eagerly accepted by the persecuted Huguenots and Hungarians, a great many of whom flocked in and THE SERVOS FAMILY. took up their abode under the noble Prince of VVied. The city greatly prospeied, and soon became a bright landmark in Southern Germany, known throughout Europe as a city of refuge for the persecuted Protestants of the continent. Among the refugees from Hungary were the family of Servos. They were probably Hungarian, of Servian origin, as this is a Hungarian form for Serbos, pronounced Servos, meaning Servian. They settled in Alt VVied, and subse- quently removed to the new city of Neu VVied, where they lived and pros- pered, some of them taking up the military profession in the service of their adopted and afterwards of their native prince, Christopher Servos, born at Alt VVied aboiit 1670, is the first whom we shall particularize as the ancestor of the Canadian branch of the family. He entered the service of the Prince of Wied as a private soldier of his cuard in 1687, and in which by suc- cessive jjromotiops, he attained the rank of officer. He served In the army thirty-nine years and nine months ; he went through the great campaigns of Mtylborough, servmg in the German contingent which formed a large part ot the army of that great commander. On the termination of his long and honorable military service, Christopher Servos being then a man well in years, with a wife and a faiiiily of six crown children, deterinined to emigrate to one of the English Colonies of North^ America, about which hd had heard a good deal during his campaigns with the English armies. Prince 'Frederick William, of VVied, the reigning prince at that time, gave him the most honorable discharge from the military service, and with it a large letter of introduction and recommend- ation under his own hand and seal, to the Governors of New York and Penn- sylvania, in one of which. Provinces he intended to settle. This letter, written in old German on parchment, with the signature and seal of the Prince of Wied, is still pre- served by the family, and is now in the possession of Mr. Ethel bert Servos, of Hamilton, Ontario. It recommends Christopher Servos to the respective Governors of the Provinces of New York and Pennsylvania, and reads as follows : "We, Frederick Wilhelm, of the Holy Roman Empire, Count of Wied and Lord of Rurjkel and Issenb^rg^ do hereby declare that Christopher Servos, a native of our principality, entered our military service in the year 1687. He served in our Guard as a musque- teer twelve years, as corporal live years, sergeant fifteen years, and as Lands- fahndrick seven years and nine months, in all thirty-nine years and nine months. During this long service he was always distinguished as a brave and honor- able man, faithful in the performance of every military duty and in all the relations of life of strictest integrity, up- right and honorable, as becomes a good man and faithful soldier to he. **We, therefore, of our own motion and free will, understanding that he desires to emigrate to America with his wife and six children, do hereby grant him an honorable discharge from our service, and release him from all our spiritual and civil jurisdictions, de- claring hereby the great satisfaction we have had from his long and honorable services. Not desiring to lose him, yet since of his own desire he has re- solved to go with his wife and six children to America, the better to pro- vide f(jr their future welfare, and will l)etake himself either to New York or Philadelphia, and in order that he may be favorably received by the Honor- able Governors of New York or Penn- sylvania as a man every way worthy of their assistance and patronage, we recommend the said Christopher Servos to them, pledging ourselves by any means in our power to the said Honor- able Governors, to reciprocate any kind- ness, good-will, and assistance which they may be pleased to show to the said Christopher Servos. THE SERVOS FAMILY. with hereby e from om all ns, de- ion we orable ; him, las re- el six o pro- d will ark or : may onor- iPenn- hy of , we ervos any onor- kind- hich the "And in order to further ratify these presents, we subs;.ribe them with our own hand and order them to be sealed with the great seal of our piincipality. "Given in this our Residenz Hoff at Neu Wied am Rhein. "April 27, 1726. "Frederick." In the summer of 1726, Christopher Servos with his family embarked for North America, where this worthy pioneer of German emigration duly arrived and landed at New York. *We can imagine the stout, rigid old German soldier of forty years' service calling and presenting his letter of introduction to Governor Burnet — a clever man, the son of the famous Bishop Burnet — who doubtless received him most kindly. Whether he obtained from the Governor a grant of lands, or whether he purchased lands, is not now known, but he presently acquired possession of a large tract on the Charlotte River near Schoharie, in the Province of New York, and settled there with his sons, who were young men, and commenced to clear the lands and make a new home for his family. His sons were intelligent, energetic, and trustworthy men. They cleared several farms, built grist and saw mills and started stores/ as the fashion then was, upon the frontier settlements, traded with the Indians, and in time became prosperous, rich and widely known. The Servos settlement on the Charlotte was one of the landmarks of the frontier of the Province of New York and Pennsylvania until the Revo- lution. Old Christopher Servos died at a very advanced age, but in what year is not known. His sons, true to the military spirit of their father, held commissions in the Provincial Militia, and served under Sir William Johnson and Colonel John Butler in the French war. They were at the Battle of La^e George, 1754, and at the sie^e of Fort Niagara, 1759. The family were on familiar and intimate termu with Sir William Johnson, one of their sisters nnarrying a near relative of Si:' William — Colonel Johnso*- whom she accom- panied through all the campaigns of the French war. That lady came to Canada and died at the Servos home- stead, Niagara Township, in 181 1, at the great age of one hundred and four years, ana is buried in the family bury- ing-ground, Lake Road, Niagara, where a monument records her memory. After the close of the French war, the sons of Christopher Servos devoted themselves afresh to /arming, milling, and merchandise, and prospered much. As magistrates, men of business, and officers of the militia, they were greatly respected throughout the district where they resided. When the agitation which preceded the Revolution began in the Colony of New York, the Servos estates were held by grandsons of the old German soldier from the Rhine. The eldest of these, and the acknowledged head of the familv, was Thomas Servos, a man of large property and great business on the Ch irlotte River, who had four sons, young men, living with him at home. The troubles of the Colonies arose mainly out of the permanent di^aflTec- lion of the Puritan element in New England, which was disloyal from the very origin of its settlement in Massachussets ; but the constant wars with France and the dangers ever dreaded from Canada, kept down open manifestations of disloyalty, until the conquest of Canada relieved New Eng- land of all fear of France, and enabled the heads of disaffection to be raised with boldness. The way in which some of the Colonies had shirked their obligations in regard to their quotas of troops and money to be furnished for carrying on the war with France had long been a standing grievence, trouble and com- plaint. As is well known, the proposal for a Colonial union in 1754, at the com- encement of the last French war, was mainly intended to equalize the com- mon share of public expenditures and THE SERVOS FAMILY. the quotas of troops and the money to be furnished by the respective Colonies.. The failure of the Convention that met at Albany* to establish an equitable union of the Colonies, was the true reason of the measures taken up after the conquest of Canada, to equalize by Act of Parliament of Great Britian the contributions of the several Colonies to the common object of the defence of America. As was remarked, the quotas of money and troops to be furnished by the respective Colonies for the French war had been most unequally paid, some Colonies giving their lull shares, others evading their dues in the most dishonest manner. There was no cen- tral authority to compel payment but England, and she had no constitutional machinery to take the task properly upon herself. The passing of the Stamp Aci was an effort — a rash and injudicious one — to raise a common fund for the militaty defence of the Colonies, and do for them what had failed to be ac- complished by the projected union of »7S4- The great error of this policy was in the British Government not consider ing that strong constitutional objection would be raised to the Imperial Parlia ment's legislating on a matter of great public concern which should only be legislated upon by a Parliament of the Colonies themselves. England should have insisted on the project of union being carried out which would have enabled the Colonies to do for themselves constitutionally what the necessity of the case required. The Stamp Actand the other Revenue Bills, the proceeds of which were to be wholly spent in America, were wrong attempts to do a right thing, viz., to make the Colonies deal fairly and honestly- by each other, and contribute equitably to the common burden of their defence and government. An immense agnation was started in New England over the Stamp Act which, by political arts, was extended to the other Colonies, The Province of New York was on the whole loyal to British connection; its local politics had long been headed by the Delancy and Livingstone families respectively, the former repre- senting the Tory, the latter the Whig party, with the preponderance generally in favor of the former. The Tories or loyalists generally disapproved of the Stamp Act and other measures of like nature, but theirs was a loyal, constitu- ional opposition, and few at f^rst of the Whigs even in New York, outside of a band of professed agitators in the city, headed by one McDougal, the pub- lisher of a violent Whig newspaper, ever contemplated revolution The loyal party, while disapproving of many of the measures of the Im- perial Government, saw nothing in them of sufficient importance to justify the factious clamour that was raised in Boston, which they well understood as arising not so much from fear of oppression and taxation, as from the natural disaffection of the New England people, and the selfish interests of the merchants of Boston, who, like Hancock, had grown rich by their systematic violation of the cus- toms and trade regulations of the Colony. The Stamp Act was a god-send to these people, in giving them a taxation cry, and presenting the question before the people, as a violation of their con- stitutional rights. The loyalists of the Revolution were not blind defenders of arbitrary and unconsitutional power, any more than the Whigs were the virtuous assertors of pure liberty, which they pretended to be. The former, while admitting the impolicy of the Stamp Act and other revenue measures, saw nothing in theip to warrant the disruption of the Empire. The majority of the people were opposed to violence. The Col- onial Assembly, lawfully representing the whole people of New York, was loyal to British connection, and refused THE SERVOS FAMILY to sanction the Declaration of Inde- pendence. The election of the so called Pro- vincial Congress of New York, chosen by Whig partizans exclusively (the loyalists being disfranchized unless they would swear allegiance to Con- gress), threw New York into the most violent civil war of any of the Colonies. The Provincial Congress of the State decreed the confiscation ot the pro- perty of all persons v«ho adhered to their lawful Government. Loyalists were arrested, proscribed and declared to be "traitors" by men who were them- selves legally and undeniably the only traitors in the Colony ! The most wealthy of the loyal peo- ple of New York were marked out for ])!under, the most spirited for arrest and confinement. Men who had been born in the Colony and lived all their lives creditably as good subjects — magistrates, officers of Militia, members of Assembly, merchants, farmers, and clergymen who had taken the oaths of allegiance to the King, and upon whose consciences these oaihs were held bind ing — were required, on pain of losing both property and liberty, to fall in with the revolutionary course of the Whigs and swear allegiance to the rebel Congress. The majority of the people of the Province of New York refused to be- come rebels, and would undoubtedly, if left to themselves, have preserved New York from revolution. The tem- porizing and conciliation policy of Lord Howpand General Clinton enabled the Whigs to terrorize the people of the interior until the whole civil adminis- tration of the Colony was overthrown and the seizure of the persons anji,pro- perty of leading loyalists led speedily to the fierce civil war that followed. It is undeniable that the loyalist party in the Colonies was composed chiefly of native Americans and of the betier and more wealthy classes of society, while the bulk of the Whigs outside of New England was composed of the foreign element, needy emigrants of late arrival, which formed the main strength of the continental army as distinct from the militia of the several States. It was the consciousness of this fact that caused the loyal and venerable Seabury, afterwards con- secrated first Bishop of the Anglican Church in the United States, to ex- claim in retort to some Whig perse- cutors : "No! If I must be enslaved, let it be to a King, and not to a parcel of upstart, lawless committeemen ! If I must be devoured, let it be by the jaws of a lion, and not gnawed to death by rats and vermin ! ' At this time which, it was said, 'tried men's souls,' the descendants of Chris- topher Servos were one and all loyal to the King and to British connection. They were neither to be frightened nor cajoled out of their principles. Thomas Servos, the head of the family, was a man of clear mind and independ- ent character. He had served in the French war with honor — had taken oath of allegiance as a magistrate and a military officer to the King, and was not one to ever think of breaking it. The Servos family were all men of determined character. They were ob- noxious in a high degree to the Whig committees of the Schoharie Country, whom they opposed and kept down with a prompt and heavy hand, and they had prevented the carrying out of the Whig programme in all their section of the Charlotte. The Com- mitte reported to General Washington their inability to establish the Revolu- tion in that part of the Province, and called upon him to furnish a military torce to aid them in subduing the loyalist population of the Charlotte. Their request for troops was complied with, and a body of cavalry was des- patched to overawe the people and arrest the principal loyalist inhabitaftts of Schoharie and the valley of the Charlotte. Thomas Servos was, in June 1778, living quietly at home, at- tending to his farms and mills, when the expedition sent to arrest him en- tered the valley and suddenly sur- 8 THE SERVOS FAMILY. rounded his house ; it was in the ni^^ht but the Lmily were still up. The four sons of Thomas Servos were all away at the ;ime. His wife, a worthy lady of Dutch family, with his son Daniel's wife and his granddaughter Magda- lene, three years old, with the servants, white and black, were all that were in the house. The cavalry rode up suddenly to the door, and the house was surrounded before any alarm was given. Their leader called for Thomas Servos, who went out to speak to him. Seeing the slateof affairs and guessing at once their business, he went back into the house to pacify his family and bade them be prepared to face quieJy wiih courage whatever fate was before them. The officers. Long, Murphy, and Ellerson, with several of their men, dismounted and went into the house, and wiih much irritating langua;^e proceeded rudely to arrest Servos, and ordered him to ac- company them as their prisoner to Albany. He refused, and when Murphy laid hands on him, he broke away and took up an axe ihat lay near and lifted it to defend himself, when he was instantly shot by the rifle of Filer- son and fell dead upon his hearth- stone. The women of ihe househo'd were not injnred, but the house was ran- sacked and plundered of its money ahd valuables of every kind. The troops then rode off rapidly, fearing an a Jack from ihe loyalists of the valley as soon as the news of the murder of Servos should be known. The dead body of the father of the family they left on the hearth, lamented over by the women and servants, while the troopers re- turned in great iriumph to their camp with the plunder they had carried off, and boasting of the murder they had perpetrated. The two young sons of Thomas Servos returned home from the woods. Seeing the house surronded by rebel troops and not knowing what had hap- pened, they watched on the edge of the forest until the troops departed, and then ran in and found their father killed and their mother and the rest of the family in terrible distress. The boys aroused the neighbors, who promptly armed themselves and came to the house, too late to do any good. Thomas Servos was buried in the family ground. The boys placed their mother and the wife and child of Daniel with relations, who gladly re- ceived them, and then took to the woods and made their way towards Niagara in order to join the Regiment of Eutler's Rangers in which their brother Daniel served. As a matter of course, the whole of the large estates of the Servos family were confiscated, and the owners of them were pro- scribed by the revolutionary Conven- tion. The murder of Thomas Servos was not unaven?;ed by his sons, for very shortly after his death, Jacob Servos was despatched, with the Indian chief Brant and a fo.ce of loyalists and In- dians down the Scnoharie to destroy the foris that had been erected there — tnree in number — and to clear the country of the enemy and bring in such of the loyalist families as desired to escape to Canada. The four sons of Thomas Servos were conspicuous for their military services throughout 'the revolutionary war. Daniel was a captain, and two of his brothers privates, in Butler's Rangers. Jacob was an ofBcer in the Northern Confederate Indians. They were at Oriskany, Wyoming, and other engage- ments on the frontiers of New York and I'ennsylvania. The war, dragging through a period of eight years, seemed at times as if the rebellion had collapsed, and would end in th^'restoration of the Empire. It is not too much to say that one-half of the people of the Colonies outside of New England, if they had been left to themselves, were against the Revolu- tion. In 1 78 1, Washington's army was reduced to 7,000 men, unpaid, starved, and mutinous to the last degree, and less in number than that of the loyalist THE SERVOS FAMILY. Americans serving in the British army. In the winter of 1 781 82, it really seemed as if the time had come that Washington would have to surrender. His whole Pennsylvania line had mutinied and left him, and it only needed a vigorous attack from Clinton to put an end to the war altogether. But vigour was no attribute oi that general. He temporized and delayed until even the gentle poet Cowper, in his Task, could not but express his indignation : "Have our troops awaked? Or do they atilJ, i»8 if with opium drugged, ^nore to the music of the Aiiantic wave ? " At that critical moment the Govern- ment of France, which had narrowly watched the progress of affairs, saw that it was at last necessary to strike in all their force in order to save the Revolution. They did so. A large French army and a powerful fleet were sent to the rescue. That combined movement of the French fleet with Washington's forces was suddenly made on Yorktown, where Cornwallis had gone to meet the reinforcements of Clinton from New York. As is known, the French and Americans arrived at Yorktown first. They at- tack Cornwallis with an overpowering strength, and compelled him to ^\xx- render only a week before the tardy reinforcement of Clinton appeared off Yorktown, which would have turned the scale the other way. Party spirit in England completed the victory over Cornwallis. The Government was compelled, by a vote of the House, to accept overtures of peace on ♦he basis of recognition of the independence of the Colonies. The cause of the Empire was even then far from lost, and, as is known, no persons in America were more surprised than Washington and Adams, in 1783, at the sudden and unexpected offer of peace from England. The recognition of the independence of the Colonies completed the ruin of the loyalists, for though the treaty of peace contained stipulations for the security of their persons and property, and for the collection of their debts, those stipulations were everywhere shamefully evaded. Congress made the treaty, but these stipulations were left to the separate States for perform- ance. The loyalists were everywhere persecuted. Their property that had been confiscated was in no instance re- stored, they were disqualified from civil rights and from voting at elections ; and, in short, life in their native country was made intolerable to them. They left their country in tens of thous- ands, to seek a new home under the flag for which they had fought for so long and so bravely. It is estimated that up to November, 1784, a hundred thousand loyalists left the port of New York alone. Charleston, Savannah, Philadelphia. Baltimore, and even Bos- ton added thousands more to the number of refugees, while upwards of ten thousand loyalists from the interior of New York and Pennsylvania tra- versed the vast wilderness ot forests and took up their future homes in Canada, formin;^ settlements at various points from the Detroit River to the St. Lawrence. Such a wholesale flight of the most respectable, intelligent, and industrious population of any country had not been seen since the exile c<" the French Pro- testants after the revocation of the Edict of Nantes, 1687. While the United States lost the very best and most moral of their people, Canada was the gainer by having its territory settled and the foundation of its greatness laid by the advent of these loyal, hi^h-principled men, who per- ferred starting the world anew in the wilderness, rather than be untrue to their King and the British flag, which was their own native symbol. The King, in order to relieve their sufferings and trials, granted them lands in Canada and tTe other Pro- vinces — to every loyalist, man, woman, and child,and every child born of them, two hundred acres of land. These "United Empire Grants," as they were called, formed the inheritance of the to THE SERVOS FAMILY. people of Canada, and are a perpetual reminder of the loyalty of the founders of our Province, who have impressed their character upon it to this day. Parliament voted 6fteen million dollars by way of partial indemnity for the losses of the Loyalists. But as Daniel Servos said : — "It was impossible to pay fur the loss of a continent, and the King was the g'eatest loser of all ! None ot the Servos family would apply for any share of that indemnity." ■| hree of the brothers settled in the Niagara District, and one at the Long Sault. near Cornwall. Strangers ask, "Why are the British Noith Americans so loyal to Britain and to the Empire ? " If they had read our true history, they would know and not wonder at it. A higher and more ennoblmg character is not to be found in any nation. Fort Niagara was one of the posts re- tained by the Briiish on account of the evasion by the Americans ot the Articles of the Peace of 1783, relating to the property and debts ol the loyal- ists. It was not given up to the Americans until 1796, when the American Government, by Jay's treaty, engaged afresh to allow the loyalists to recover their lands and debts. The fort was then ceded to them, but, as is known, neither the treaty of 1 783 nor Jay's treaty of 1795, has, as to these stipulations, been curried out up to the present time.and, it is safe to say,never will be. Upon the breaking out of the war of 18 1 2, the three sons of Captain Daniel Servos, with the traditional spirit and loyalty of their race, look up arms in defence of their King and country. They all held commissions as officers in the First Lincoln Militia, under the command of Cols. Butler and Claus. They served in all the engagements on the Niagara frontier. Capt. John D. Servos superintended the transhipment of the boats across the land from the Four-mile Creek to the Niagara River, on the night of the i8th of December, to convey the troops across for th«? assault on Fort Niagara, which took place before daybreak on the morning of 19th December 1813, six days after the burning and evacuation of the town of Niagara by the enemy. He and his brother Daniel were active in the storming and capture of that fort, as their father be- fore them had been in its capture from the French in 1 759. The widow of Capt. Daniel Servos of the Revolution was a woman of great spirit and resolution. It is re- lated of her that during the occupation of Niagara by the Americans, from May to December, 18 13, marauding parties of the enemy plundered the houses in the country without mercy, there being usually only the women of the family at home, the men being awav with the army. A party of eleven marauders rode out one day to the house of Capt. John Servos, where she lived, and began to search the house for valuables and money. Not much was found, as such articles were generally buried in the ground during the war. On turning up a bed, the party found a new regimental red- coarof her son, Capt. John, which they began to cut in pieces with their swords, with many derisive and of- fensive remarks, which fired the old lady with such anger (she was Welsh by the way) that she gave them a plain piece of her mind, calling them cowards, who would not have dared look at the coat if her son had it on! This enraged the ofificer in command of the party so much that he grew savage and dealt the old lady a violent blow on the breast with the hilt of his sword, wounding her severely, from the effects of which blow she never re- covered, but suffered acutlely from it until her death The short, futile rebellion of Mc- Kenzie, in 1837, found the old hereditary spirit active ?s ever in the 1 = THE SERVOS FAMILY II three brothers. On the news of the risins; of McKenzie, near Toronto, Colonel Servos immediately ordered the First Lincoln out on the Queen's servi e, and although its limits ex- tended nearly forty miles, the famous old regiment assembled next day on the common at Niagara, nineteen hundred strong. The rebellion was suppressed at Toronto as soon almost as started, but on the occupation of Navy Island by McKenzie, Colonel Servos did duty at Chippawa with his regiment until the evacuation of the island in January, 1837. His brother, Capt. D. K. Servos, of Barton, led his troop of cavalry, under the command of Colonel MacNab, to the township of Scotland, and put out all sparks of re- bellion in that quarter. After the peace of 1783, Capt. Daniel Servos, formerly of Charlotte River, relying on the stipulations of that treaty for the recovery of the lands and debts of the loyalists, went from Niagara on horseback through the wilderness — well known to him how- ever — down to his former home, in order to bring back his little daughter, Magdalene, then nine years old, whom he had left with her mother's relations during the war, and also to recover, if possible, his estates and the debts ow- ing to him. The lands he found irrecoverable, notwithstanding the treaty. The State of New York, in order to secure the Whig spoils, had immediately after the treaty lepislated afresh on the subject, and effectually prevented the claims of any royalist from being prosecuted in the State Courts. The debts were placed in the same condition. Nothing could be got back from the greedy hands which had seized them, and, exrept in the case of a few honourable men, former loyalists, who paid their debts, all the rest repudiated their liabilities and set him at defiance. And as no State Court would allow suit he gave up the attempt and returned to his new home at Niagara with his little daughter, thankful that by the liberality of the King and his own efforts he could live in Canada in plenty. HV returned home by way of Oswego, coasting in an open boat along the aouth shore of Lake Ontario from Oswego to Niagara. That child, Magdalene, became in time the mother of the wife — still living — of the writer of this memoir. The descendents of this loyal old family are numbered by hundreds in various parts of Upper Canada, being very numerous with their collaterals, the Whitmores and others, in the County of Lincoln. It is safe to say that not a disloyal man has ever been found among them. This narrative may be taken as fairly representative of that of thousands of American loyalists, who in the war of the Revolution "stood for the King," and whose brave and self-sacrificing exertions in defence of the unity of the Empire brought ruin upon themselves in their ancient homes, but was the making and glory of Canada by filling this Dominion with men of such chosen virtue "If England," as a Puritan divine once boasted, "was winnowed of its choice grain for the sowing of America," it is certain that America was reaped and winnowed afresh at the Revolution, and its very choicest men selected by Providence for the peopl- ing of this Dominion By the loss of thes-^ men America was drained of its best elements, and suffered a moral loss which it could ill spare. The obligations of duty in defence of right against the many or against the few, f^.delity to the flag and Empire,fear of God and honour of the King, keep- ing inviolate their oaths of allegiance and their very thoughts free from sedi- tion, privy conspiracy and rebellion, — all these things were summed up in the one word, ''Loyalty," as understood by the men who left the United States to live under their native flag in Canada. Some of the best and wisest men of 12 THE SERVOS FAMILY. the United States have brushed aside the thicl^ covering of fiction and obloquy olst over the memory of these men in popular American histories,and do not conceal their admiration of their character, courage, and devotion to the highest principles for which they will- ingly sacrificed everything except their honour. Truth will have its revenge in justice at last, and I venture to say that a century hence, America will be more proud of her exiled loyalists than of the vaunted patriots who banished and despoiled them. k v* '^ £."■ S* J'VffiiL''2 . ,:.^^ -st?^" '"mm ?^^}£)i?4!^^^^k^^rSi*P9^\S