The Cemetery on the Nith: Henry Rupert

Riverside Baptist Cemetery, Blenheim, Oxford, Ontario

Riverside Baptist Cemetery lies close to the Nith River on the 5th Concession of Blenheim Township, Oxford County, Ontario. The land for the cemetery was donated by pioneer Henry Rupert and contains the graves of many Loyalist migrants from New Brunswick, as well as those of immigrants from the United States and the British Isles. A church was built east of the cemetery entrance on the banks of the Nith. The river, named after the Nith River in Scotland, would have been the scene of many baptisms, as worship continued at the church until 1875.

The American Revolution (1775-1783) resulted in the migration of tens of thousands of refugees to Canada. After the war several thousands of these “Loyalists” were granted land in the Saint John River valley in New Brunswick.

Not all remained. Within a decade quite a few New Brunswick Loyalists had moved west to the colony of Upper Canada (Ontario), no doubt attracted by the land grants offered by Lieutenant Governor John Graves Simcoe. While these land grants were discontinued after the War of 1812, emigration to Upper Canada from New Brunswick continued, driven by the shortage of arable land.

The area which is now Blenheim Township had been acquired by the Crown from the Mississaugas through the 1792 Between the Lakes Treaty. For many years settlement was limited to the southernmost part of the township, along the Governor’s Road, but by the 1820s pioneer families had begun clearing the forest and establishing farms to the north.

Henry Rupert (1774-1848)

Henry Rupert 1774-1848

One such pioneer was Henry Rupert, a descendant of German Palatines, who brought his family to Upper Canada in 1828. The journey would not have been particularly easy. A surviving passenger manifest shows that Henry, his wife Elizabeth, and their children sailed to New York from Saint John, New Brunswick in the spring of 1828 aboard the brig Wanderer. From New York they would have travelled up the Hudson River to Albany, and then by barge to Buffalo along the newly opened Erie Canal. After making their way to Dundas at the head of Lake Ontario, they would have followed the Governor’s Road until they reached Blenheim Township where Henry had purchased 200 acres beside the Nith River from the Canada Company.

Henry Rupert was born on Cuffytown Creek in the Ninety Six District, South Carolina on October 31, 1774 to Johann Paul Christoph Rupert and his wife Margaret. Henry's father (Christoph) had been born 22 years earlier to Heinrich Rupert and Maria Barbara Braun in Imsbach, a village in the densely forested and mountainous northern part of the Palatinate, then part of the Holy Roman Empire.

Heinrich and Maria Barbara had two other children: Elizabeth, born in 1747, and Friedrich, born in 1755. Maria Barbara appears to have died before the family emigrated to South Carolina in 1764.

The 18th century was a period of mass emigration from the Palatinate due to poverty and overpopulation. Thousands travelled down the Rhine River to Rotterdam, across the North Sea to London, then onwards to the New World.

After the defeat of the French during the Seven Years War, Great Britain actively encouraged Protestant emigration to their colonies in North America, but left the recruitment of colonists to individuals. Not all recruiters, however, were competent or honest. Heinrich Rupert fell victim to one such unscrupulous recruiter, Johann Heinrich Christian von Stuemel.

In February 1764, Stuemel received approval to settle 20,000 acres in Nova Scotia. That spring he recruited a few hundred colonists from the Palatinate and made arrangements for them to come to London. Stuemel then disappeared with their money. Many of the Palatines were still aboard their ship moored at the customs docks, unable to disembark. Other were encamped in Goodman's Fields north of the Tower of London.

Reverend Gustav Anton Washsel of St. George’s Lutheran Church described their situation in a letter to Lloyd’s Evening Post:

[...] some of them have lain, during the late heavy rains, and are now lying the open fields adjacent to this metropolis, without covering, without money, and, in short, with the common necessaries of this life [...] More than two hundred remain on board the ship which brought them over, on account of their passage not being paid for, where they are perishing for food, and rotting in filth and nastiness.

Response to Washsel’s letter was swift. The Palatines were permitted to disembark; and tents, food and clothing were delivered to Goodman's Fields. Over £4000 was raised including a £300 donation from King George III. Soon arrangements were made to hire three ships to take the Palatines to South Carolina where land grants would be made available.

Heinrich and his three children departed London aboard the Union on 7 Oct 1764. They arrived in Charlestown, South Carolina ten weeks later on 14 Dec 1764.

Heinrich Rupert's Grant on Cuffytown Creek

Heinrich was granted 200 acres on Cuffytown Creek (a tributary of the Savannah River) in the South Carolina backcountry. His daughter Elizabeth, then 16, was granted 100 acres on the adjacent Beavendam Creek.

When the Revolutionary War broke out in 1775, Christoph, now married and with an infant son, remained loyal to Great Britain, as did his father and younger brother, Friedrich. Most of what we know about Christoph's activities during the war comes from the evidence presented to the Loyalist Claims Commission, established after the war to compensate Loyalists for their losses. 

Christoph and Friedrich were present at the Siege of Savage’s Old Fields in November 1775, the first major battle in South Carolina. They were captured a month later during the Snow Campaign and appear on a list of prisoners taken at Great Cane Break. Christoph was taken to Charlestown but was later released and presumably returned home to Cuffytown Creek.

The Snow Campaign effectively stalled Loyalist activity in the South Carolina backcountry. for the next two years. In early 1778, however, a few hundred Loyalist volunteers from the Ninety Six District, including Christoph, Friedrich and their father, left South Carolina for Saint Augustine in East Florida. When they arrived in early April, the South Carolinians were formed into a regiment called the South Carolina Royalists consisting of four companies of infantry of forty-five men each and two troops of dragoons of 40 men each.

In his evidence to the Loyalist Claims Commission, John Hamilton, who knew Christoph "almost from the beginning of the dissentions in America," wrote: 

Christopher Rupert rather than to be compelled to take up arms in a cause so abhorrent to him forsook his habitation leaving his family and property at the mercy of those from whom he had no reason to expect they would receive any indulgence. He joined the Royal Army in East Florida in the beginning of year 1778 and entered a private dragoon in the South Carolina Royalists then commanded by Lieutenant Colonel Robinson wherein from his merit he was made sergeant.

In his own evidence, Christoph records that he was a private until September 1779 and thereafter a sergeant, but was not paid for 18 months.

A detachment of the South Carolina Royalists saw action at the Battle of Alligator Bridge in June 1778. The regiment was present at the capture of Fort Morris in January 1779, the Battle of Brier Creek in March 1779, and the Battle of Stono Ferry in June 1779.

On 2 Oct 1779, Heinrich Rupert was killed by shrapnel from a French ship during the Siege of Savannah when French and Continental Army forces attempted to retake the city. A surviving muster roll dated 1 Dec 1779 shows Friedrich Rupert at Savannah, Georgia, and notes the death of his father.

Siege of Charleston (1780) by Alonzo Chappel

A few months later the regiment was at the Siege of Charlestown, a major engagement and British victory fought between March 29 and May 12, 1780.

Christoph obtained a discharge in June 1780, “having enlisted a man in his stead,” and returned home to the Ninety Six District. Friedrich also obtained a discharge at this time. Both joined the Little River Militia, Ninety Six Brigade, where Christoph was commissioned a Lieutenant.

South Carolina in 1779

After their success at Charlestown, the British defeated the remnants of the Continental Army at the Battle of Waxhaws. This battle is noted for the massacre that occurred when British commanding officer Colonel Tarleton was shot at as the Americans were surrendering, causing his horse to fall and trap him. Tarleton’s men, thinking their commander dead, and outraged at the breaking of the truce, attacked the surrendering rebels with an “indiscriminate carnage never surpassed by the most ruthless atrocities of the most barbarous savages.”

“Tarleton’s quarter” soon became a battle cry for the Patriots, meaning no prisoners would be taken. A year later, at the Battle of Kings Mountain, the rebels refused to cease firing when Loyalist soldiers began to surrender. A few days after the battle the rebels held a mock trial and convicted 36 Loyalist prisoners of treason. Nine Loyalist officers were hanged before the American commander ordered the executions stopped.  

It was into this environment that Christoph and Friedrich returned home to their families. Fighting in the South Carolina backcountry. had deteriorated into partisan warfare with both Patriots and Loyalists looting homes, executing prisoners, and killing civilians. Contemporary accounts describe the plundering and burning of farms, as well as revenge killings and hangings. A British officer described one backcountry home that was, “stripped of everything that could be carried off; the woman of the house left standing in her shift; her four children stripped stark naked.”

Continental Army Major General Nathaneal Greene wrote:

The animosity between the Whigs and Tories, rendered their situation truly deplorable. There is not a day passes but there are more or less who fall a sacrifice to this savage disposition. The Whigs seem determined to extirpate the Tories, and the Tories the Whigs. Some thousands have fallen in this way in this quarter, and the evil rages with more violence than ever. If a stop can not be put to these massacres, the country will be depopulated in a few months more, as neither Whig nor Tory can live.

In April 1781, Greene crossed into South Carolina and began attacking British outposts. By mid-May, the only remaining British garrison in the backcountry was at Ninety Six.  In 1780, the British had fortified Ninety Six in 1780 with a palisade surrounded by a deep ditch and abatis, and two redoubts. The larger redoubt was known as the Star Fort. Manning the defenses were the 1st Battalion of De Lancey’s Brigade commanded by Lieutenant Colonel John Harris Cruger, the 3rd Battalion of the New Jersey Volunteers, and the Ninety Six Brigade of Loyalist Militia.

Star Fort at Ninety Six

Greene arrived at Ninety Six on May 22 and began constructing siege lines. When his demand to surrender was rebuked by Cruger, Greene ordered his artillery to open fire.

On June 7, a relief force commanded by Lieutenant Colonel Francis Rawdon left Charlestown. On June 18, Greene made one final attempt to capture the Star Fort but was repulsed in a fierce battle dominated by bayonets and clubbed muskets. With Rawdon less than two days away, Greene ordered a withdrawal.
 
After his arrival at Ninety Six, Rawdon ordered the garrison to abandon the fort and return with his forces to Charlestown. Hamilton wrote:

That in consequence of his Loyalty and Exertions, he [Christoph] was obliged to accompany his Majesty’s Troops when they retired from the Frontiers of that Province and his family were afterwards banished [from] their habitation and obliged to follow his to Charlestown where he performed Militia Duty until his embarkation for Halifax with your memorialist.

In a separate document concerning Friedrich, Hamilton notes “that when the Troops abandoned Ninety Six he [Friedrich] was obliged to accompany them. His family were soon after compelled to follow him to Dorchester [outside of Charlestown] a post there held by the Loyal Militia where his Wife died.” At the time Friedrich had two daughters, Catharine, born in 1774, and Elizabeth, born in 1778.

Christoph and Friedrich both appear in the pay abstracts for the Little River Militia while they were at Charlestown.

Records of refugees receiving financial aid and donations in Charlestown in 1782 also survive. One one list, Margaret Rupert appears with one child. On several other lists a Catherine Rupert appears. As she is usually described as a widow, Catherine may have be the second wife of Heinrich Rupert, although no other records of her exist.

In the late fall of 1782, a year after their defeat at Yorktown, the British began evacuating their soldiers and Loyalist supporters from Charlestown.
 
A Loyalist émigré in London, provided a vivid description of the evacuation as relayed to him by a British officer:

There were old grey-headed men and women, husbands and wives with large families of little children, women with infants at their breasts, poor widows whose husbands had lost their lives in the service of their King and country, with half a dozen half-starved bantlings tagging at their skirts, taking leave of their friends. Here you saw people who had lived all their days in affluence (though not in luxury) leaving their real estates, their houses, stores, ships, and improvements, and hurrying on board the transports with what little household goods they had been able to save. In every street were to be seen men, women, and children wringing their hands, lamenting the situation of those who were about leaving the country, and the more dreadful situation of such who were either unable to leave or were determined, rather than run the risk of starving in distant lands, to throw themselves upon, and trust to, the mercy of their persecutors, their inveterate enemies, the rebels of America. 

Christoph left Charlestown in the early states of the evacuation. On 1 Nov 1782, a convoy of eight transports escorted by HMS Belisarius departed for Halifax, Nova Scotia. Crowded onto two of the ships were over four hundred refugees, mainly from the Ninety Six District. Christoph arrived at Halifax with his wife and Henry on November 21, 1782. With him were the orphaned daughters of his brother, Friedrich, who had died aboard ship eight days earlier.

Nova Scotia governor John Parr describes the condition of the arriving refugees:

Those from Charlestown are in a much more miserable situation than those from New York coming almost naked from the burning sands of South Carolina, to the frozen Coast of Nova Scotia, destitute of almost every necessary of life.

At Halifax the refugees were given six months provisions from military stores. Christoph and family wintered in Halifax then embarked for the mouth of the Saint John River. Christoph was one of over ten thousand Loyalists who, between 1783 and 1785, arrived in what became the colony of New Brunswick.

In June 1783, Christoph was assigned Lot 770 in Parr Town¹ on the east side of the Saint John River. Building lots were given to many of the Loyalists while they waited for grants of land upriver. Each Loyalist was given a quantity of lumber, as well as shingles and brick with which to build a shelter. Most of the Loyalists in Parr Town built log houses, saving the lumber for the roof, while the brick was used to construct fireplaces. Christoph and his family would also have received full provisions for one year, two thirds provisions for the following year, and one third provisions for the year after, drawn from the Fort Howe commissary.

Christoph Rupert's 1784 Grant

In 1784, Christoph was granted 200 acres along the Kennebacasis River. In 1786 his farm became part of Norton Parish, Kings County. In 1786, Christoph was granted an additional 200 acres on Belleisle Bay which he immediately sold. In 1799 he purchased Lots 18 and 19 on the east side of the Kennebecasis River in Norton Parish. He sold Lot 18 to his son Henry three years later. Henry purchased Lot 19 from his siblings in 1810.

Christopher's will is dated 26 Sep 1807. In his will he describes himself as “sick but of sound mind and memory” and bequeaths “to my beloved Wife Margaret Rupert all my real and personal estate.” Christoph died within a month of writing his will.

Christoph and Margaret had four other children, all born in New Brunswick. An eighteen year gap exists between Henry, born in 1774, and his brother Christopher, born in 1792. William was born in 1794, followed by Elizabeth in 1795, and Frederick in 1796. All four remained in New Brunswick.

Around 1799, Henry married a very young Elizabeth Dickie. Elizabeth, the daughter of Hector Dickie (1744-1837) and Sarah Walker (1740-1839), had been born in Claradon, Jamaica in 1784. Hector had been born in Northern Ireland but had emigrated to South Carolina in 1768. During the Revolution he was a Lieutenant in the Steven’s Creek Militia, Ninety Six Brigade. After the British withdrew their forces to Charlestown in 1781, Hector served as a quartermaster to the refugees. He was one of many evacuated from Charlestown to Jamaica in 1782. A number of years later he brought his family to New Brunswick where in 1797 he was granted 274 acres in Norton Parish.

There is uncertainty as to the number of Henry and Elizabeth’s children. Three of their children are buried at Riverside: Christopher (1802-1877) John (1823-1899) and Alexander (1826-1874). Christopher married his first wife, Sarah Fritch, in New Brunswick shortly before coming to Upper Canada. A fourth son, Henry (1817-1891) later moved to Essex County, while a daughter, Margaret (1812-1892) moved to Brantford after the 1879 death of her husband, William Peregrine Cochran.

Part of the 1857 Tremaine Map of Oxford County

The 1828 passenger manifest also shows William, aged 24, Catherine, aged 28, and Elizabeth, aged 13. William may have returned to New Brunswick while Catherine may have been the daughter said to have died shortly after the family arrived in Upper Canada. Elizabeth Rupert appears in the 1852 Census living with her mother and in the 1861 Census living with her brother Christopher.

Henry received title to the 200 acres at Lot 4 Concession 5, Blenheim on 7 Nov 1832. In 1834, 65 acres were transferred to his son Christopher, while 40 acres were transferred to William Peregrine Cochran. The remaining 95 acres were inherited by Henry’s sons John and Alexander.

Henry Rupert died “of dropsy” on 15 Mar 1848. Elizabeth Dickie died twelve years later on 9 Jan 1861. Both are buried at Riverside.

¹ In 1785, Parr Town amalgamated with Carleton on the west side of the river to form the City of Saint John.

Sources:

Bell, David. American Loyalists to New Brunswick: the Ship Passenger Lists. Formac Publishing, Halifax, 2015.

Coldham, Peter Wilson. American Migrations 1765-1799. Genealogical Publishing Co., Inc., Baltimore, 2000.

Hoock, Holger. Scars of Independence: America’s Violent Birth. Broadway Books, New York, 2017.

Jones, Thomas. History of New York during the Revolutionary War, Vol. 2, edited by Edward Floyd de Lancey. New York Historical Society, New York, 1879.

Lambert, Robert Stansbury. South Carolina Loyalists in the American Revolution. 2nd ed., Clemson University Digital Press, Clemson, South Carolina, 2010.

Rampy, Gordon A. “The South Carolina Palatines of 1764.”  http://upamerica.org/roots/scpalatines.htm.

Rubin, Ben. “The Rhetoric of Revenge: Atrocity and Identity in the Revolutionary Carolinas. Journal of Backcountry Studies, Vol. 5, no. 2, 2010. http://libjournal.uncg.edu/jbc/article/view/102.

Troxler, Carole Watterson. “Refuge, Resistance, and Reward: The Southern Loyalists' Claim on East Florida.” The Journal of Southern History, vol. 55, no. 4, 1989, pp. 563–596. JSTOR, www.jstor.org/stable/2209041.

Troxler, Carole Watterson. “A Loyalist Life: John Bond of South Carolina and Nova Scotia”. Acadiensis, Vol. 19, no. 2, Oct. 1990. https://journals.lib.unb.ca/index.php/Acadiensis/article/view/11853.

Wright, Esther Clark. The Loyalists of New Brunswick. Self-published, Fredericton, 1955.