Richard Cartwright: Loyalist, Merchant, and Slave Owner

Cartwright monument,
Lower Burial Ground,
Kingston, Ontario

Kingston's Lower Burial Ground is one of Ontario's oldest cemeteries. The first burial, a soldier of the King's Royal Regiment of New York, took place in 1783. Early residents of the town, British soldiers, Provincial Marine sailors, slaves, and free blacks are all buried here. Notable burials include Molly Brant (1736-1796), Rev. Dr. John Stuart (1740-1811), Colonel Sir Richard Bonnycastle (1791-1847), and the Honorable Richard Cartwright (1759-1815).

Richard Cartwright was a merchant, mill owner, shipbuilder, distillery owner, land speculator, judge, Legislative Councillor, author, publisher, and a militia colonel. According to the eulogy delivered by Rev. John Strachan, Richard was a man of considerable intellect who had a phenomenal memory, was a fair and honest merchant, an independently minded politician, and a staunch loyalist.

Most of what has been written about Richard Cartwright has focused on his years in Kingston. Less attention has been given to his years as secretary to Major John Butler of Butler's Rangers, and to his status as a slave owner in Upper Canada.

Richard's story begins on 2 Feb 1759 in Albany, New York. Richard was the son of innkeeper and deputy postmaster Richard Cartwright (1720-1794) who was born in London, England and had emigrated to New York in 1742. Richard Smith, who travelled the river valleys of New York and Pennsylvania in 1769, wrote, "We found Cartwright's a good Tavern tho his charges were exorbitant." Richard's mother was Johanna Beasley (1726-1795), who had been born in Albany "of a loyal Dutch family." Richard was baptised on St Peter's Church in Albany on 16 Mar 1759.

Despite suffering from a loss of vision in his left eye due to a childhood accident, Richard studied “the classics and higher branches of education,” and learned to read Greek and Latin. When the Revolutionary War began, Richard was studying Hebrew and was considering become a Church of England minister.

In early 1777, however, Richard ran afoul of the Albany Committee of Correspondence. A letter to his sister Elizabeth Robison¹ at Niagara had been intercepted and turned over the Committee. What exactly the letter contained is not known, however, Richard was ordered to "enter into security for his future good behaviour." In October, Richard's father successfully petitioned the Committee to recommend that the commander of the Northern Department, Major General Horatio Gates, grant a pass to Canada for his son and his granddaughter, Hannah Robison.²

Loyalists who fled to Canada during the American Revolution rarely had the opportunity to describe their journeys. This was not the case with Richard, who wrote a detailed description of the twelve days he spent travelling from Albany to Montreal in the fall of 1777.

I set out from Albany 27th of October and notwithstanding the tender Feelings of Humanity which I suffered at Parting from the fondest of Parents and a Number of agreeable Acquaintance it gave me a sensible Pleasure to quit a Place were Discord reign’d and all the miseries of Anarchy had long prevailed.

Richard, accompanied by a Major Hughes,³ rode 22 kilometres in the rain that first morning; then spent the next two nights at the home of a Mrs. Peebles because of the rain. At dusk on the first night, Richard and Major Hughes were joined by a Captain Collier and Lieutenant Dowland, "very dirty & wet and not a little cold and Hungry." Richard describes October 28th as, "far from disagreeable, we had an obliging Landlady, a warm Room, good company, and plenty of excellent Victuals and Drink."

Detail of from William Faden's 1777 The
North American Atlas showing the Hudson
River, Lake George and Lake Champlain.
Source: Library of Congress

Richard resumed his journey on the morning of 29th but made a slight detour to visit the site of the Battles of Saratoga. A month earlier, American forces commanded by General Gates had blocked British forces invading from Canada during the Saratoga Campaign. After suffering over 1,100 casualties during two battles fought on the same ground 18 days apart, British Major General John Burgoyne withdrew to Saratoga (now Schuylerville). On October 17th, surrounded by an overwhelming American force, Burgoyne surrendered to Gates. Over 6,200 British regulars as well as soldiers from the German principalities of Hesse-Cassel, Hesse-Hanau and Brunswick-Wolfenbuttel were taken prisoner.

The failure of the Saratoga Campaign marked a major turning point in the Revolutionary War. In his journal, Richard wrote of "traversing these bloody Fields, where many a brave and generous men have met their Fate."

At Fish Creek that evening, Richard waited anxiously for the arrival of the wagons carrying his baggage and his nine-year-old niece Hannah. Richard met up with the wagons the next morning and continued north arriving at Bakers Falls on the Hudson River. On the morning of 31st the party reached Lake George. That afternoon a boat ferried them to Diamond Island where they met up with a detachment of British soldiers. Richard wrote of his "inexpressible pleasure to think myself at a happy distance from those scenes of outrage, tumult, and oppression, and to find myself secure from those petty tyrants."

The following day they proceeded by barge with the soldiers down Lake George to Ticonderoga Landing. Richard relates that when they stopped to dine ashore, Hannah "tumbled headlong into the Lake, and I wet myself much in getting her out. Such a ducking was then not a little unpleasant, but dry cloaths and a good fire prevented us from receiving any detriment."

Richard arrived at Ticonderoga Landing just as the British were in the process of demolishing Fort Ticonderoga which they had captured from the Americans less than four months earlier.

A boat was procured and the party rowed and sailed north on Lake Champlain. After camping ashore the first night, the second night was spent aboard the schooner Liberty which conveyed them to Point au Fer at the northern end of the lake. Returning to their boat the party entered the Richelieu River, and that evening arrived at St. John, now known as Saint-Jean-sur-Richelieu. St. John was an important British fort and shipyard, and had been the location of a 45-day siege during the Invasion of Quebec in 1775.

Richard remained at St. John for two days before proceeding "on the worse road I ever saw" to Laprarie on the south side of the St Lawrence River. The next morning Richard and Hannah walked through falling snow to the ferry which took them across the river to Montreal, "my niece much fatigued and both not a little dirty." The entire trip from Albany to Montreal took 12 days.

Richard's arrival at Montreal was fortuitous. John Butler, Deputy Superintendent of the Indian Department, had been promoted to Major and been given permission to raise a Corps of Rangers to be based at Fort Niagara. The first two companies raised were "to be composed of people speaking the Indian language and acquainted with their customs and manner of making war." Butler needed a secretary and Richard fit the bill.

Richard served as Butler's secretary until 1780, and was quartered at Fort Niagara on the east side of the Niagara River where it empties into Lake Ontario. At Niagara he would meet Magdalen Secord, daughter of Lieutenant James Secord of the Indian Department. Also at Niagara were his brother-in-law, Thomas Robison, and his sister, Elizabeth Cartwright.

In 1780, Richard wrote an account of events during his time as Butler's secretary. His account provides a civilian's perspective of key events in the history of Butler's Rangers including the Battle of Wyoming and the Cherry Valley Massacre.

Massacre of Wyoming by Alonzo Chappel, 1858
Source: Chicago History Museum

In May 1778, Richard accompanied Major Butler to Tioga at the confluence of the Chemung and Susquehanna Rivers. From Tioga, Butler led a joint force of Rangers and Seneca down the Susquehanna to attack settlements in the area known as the Wyoming Valley. On 3 Jul 1778, after capturing two smaller forts, Butler ambushed a force of about 300 Patriot militia who had left the security of Forty Fort in the belief that Butler was withdrawing. The inexperienced militia panicked and ran, and were slaughtered by the Seneca.

Richard wrote:

...a very warm engagement ensued, and lasted for about fifteen minutes, when the rebels retreated with precipitation, and were hotly pursued by the Indians, who took 226 scalps and three prisoners, and several were besides drowned in attempting to pass the river.

The Battle of Wyoming, also known as the Wyoming Massacre, was used as a propaganda tool by the Americans who accused the Rangers and Seneca of atrocities, including the murder of women and children. Richard refutes this:

All this was said to be done without any acts of cruelty being committed by the savages; for the deliberate murder of prisoners after they are brought into their camp is not, it seems, reckoned among acts of cruelty by these barbarous wretches.

Richard noted that Butler returned to Tioga on the 10th "and on the 14th set off for Niagara with a party of the Rangers and several families of Loyalists."

Richard recorded the attacks that Haudenosaunee war leader Joseph Brant made on the settlements of Cobleskill, Minisink, and German Flatts and briefly describes the attack on Cherry Valley by Captain Walter Butler, Brant, and Seneca war chief Cornplanter: "This settlement was soon destroyed, a number of the inhabitants and some officers and soldiers, who happened to be out of the fort, killed and taken, and such acts of wanton cruelty committed by the blood thirsty savages as humanity would shudder to mention."

Map showing the territory covered by the 1779
Sullivan Expedition. Source: Library of Congress

The Battle of Wyoming, the Battle of Cobleskill, The Attack on German Flatts, the Cherry Valley Massacre and other raids on frontier settlements triggered an overwhelming American response in the summer of 1779. The Sullivan Expedition was a punitive scorched earth campaign against the Haudenosaunee. In his orders to Major General John Sullivan, George Washington wrote:

The Expedition you are appointed to command is to be directed against the hostile tribes of the Six Nations of Indians, with their associates and adherents. The immediate objects are the total destruction and devastation of their settlements, and the capture of as many prisoners of every age and sex as possible. It will be essential to ruin their crops now in the ground and prevent their planting more.

Sullivan led approximately 3200 soldiers deep into Haudenosaunee territory and destroyed more than 40 villages along with their crops and orchards. Thousands of Haudenosaunee refugees fled to Fort Niagara.  Many starved or froze to death that winter, despite efforts by the British to import food and provide shelter.
On August 29, 1779, at Newtown on the Chemung River west of Tioga, John Butler attempted to stop the American advance with a combined force of Rangers and Haudenosaunee. Severely outnumbered, under fire from six artillery pieces, and threatened with encirclement, Butler retreated.

In his report to Lieutenant Colonel Mason Bolton, Commanding Officer at Fort Niagara, Butler describes the action:

After a little while they began to play their artillery, consisting of six pieces of cannon and cohorns, against our breastwork, discharging shells, round and grapeshot, iron spikes, &c, incessantly, which soon obliged us to leave it. I retreated with the Rangers and a number of the Indians to the hill, which I found the enemy had gained before us as I foresaw they intended.

The shells bursting beyond us made the Indians imagine the enemy had got their artillery all round us and so startled and confused them that a great part of them ran off. We then proceeded along the hill, skirmishing with the rebel for above a mile till they had nearly surrounded us and we were obliged then to make the best of our way, some along the hill and others across the river, to prevent being cut to pieces, which the greatest part of must inevitably have been had the rebels acted with spirit.

Butler concludes with:

The consequences of this affair will, I fear, be of the most serious nature and unless there is speedily a large reinforcement sent into the country at any rate those families whose villages and corn have been destroyed will be flocking into Niagara to be supported, and you know the quantity of provisions they will consume.

Richard had spent much of the summer of 1779 with Butler at the Seneca village of Canadasaga⁴ between the northern ends of Seneca and Canandaigua lakes, and was with Butler at Newtown. Richard wrote on July 1st:

We have been now two Months in the Indian Country, a time too long to spend among the savages in the woods, where we are wasting too many of our liveliest and most cheerful days, the days of our youth, in idleness and dissipation.

Richard writes of the arrival on July 5th of Mr. Seacord⁵ with ammunition and stores including some tobacco, which Richard describes as a "useless weed." He writes of refugee families on their way to Niagara, of the "want of provisions," and of thefts of cattle by the Seneca. He describes three waterfalls on the Genesee River but admits, "after one has seen the Falls of Niagara almost every other must appear little." And he writes of the deaths of Lieutenant Henry Hare and Sergeant Newberry who were "taken by the enemy and hanged as spies."

Wolves of the Mohawk Valley by Don Troiani

Richard records Butler negotiating the release of women and children taken captive by the Haudenosaunee: "To a sensible mind no pleasure can equal that of relieving the distressed, and women who have the misfortune to fall into the hands of the Indians are distressed indeed." Richard's journal from the summer of 1779 shows his abhorrence of how the Haudenosaunee waged war. He describes Mohawk raiding parties as "bands of lurking assassins" who seek to "glut their cruelty alike with the blood of friend and foe without distinction of sex or age... it is impossible to bring them to leave women and children unmolested."    

On August 5th, Richard wrote:

Begin to grow more and more tired of this our way of life. Neither my application to business or books can prevent me from sometimes reflecting how disagreeably I am situated in many respects, and looking back to Niagara with a wishful eye.

By August 13th, Butler received confirmation that Sullivan's forces had reached Tioga. On the 16th, the Rangers and their Haudenosaunee allies set out to meet the enemy at Newtown on the Chemung River. The day before, Richard wrote a letter to Francis Goring, an employee of Thomas Robison:

I am so much hurried that I have not time to write to Mrs. Robinson. Make my compliments to her and the family. I wish you would send me soon a couple of pairs of trousers as I am beginning to grow ragged.

Richard's account of the battle mirrors Butler's report to Lieutenant Colonel Bolton. In his journal, however, Richard once again questions benefits of working with the Haudenosaunee:

The behaviour of the Indians on this occasion has fully convinced me that tho they may exert themselves against defenceless people or an enemy taken at surprise with great fury, they will soon give way when taken at equal terms in the field.

Butler retreated to Canadasaga where he tried unsuccessfully to persuade the Haudenosaunee to make a stand. Butler abandoned the village and Sullivan's forces took possession on September 7th. Sullivan's army crossed the Genesse River on September 9th and on the 15th reached the Seneca town of Geneseo. After destroying Geneseo, Sullivan turned his army around and sent detachments to destroy the Cayuga villages on Lake Cayuga. Sullivan was back at Tioga by the end of the month. Butler, meanwhile, retreated with his Rangers to Buffalo Creek and then to Fort Niagara.

Robert Hamilton

In May 1780, Richard resigned as Butler's secretary and went into partnership with Robert Hamilton (1753-1809). Hamilton had come to Canada in 1778 to serve an apprenticeship as a clerk first at Montreal and later at Carleton Island with Robert Ellice and Company. During the Revolutionary War, Carleton Island was an important staging area for raids on the Mohawk Valley, and a critical transshipment location where supplies for Niagara, Detroit, and Michilmackinac were transferred from St. Lawrence River batteaux to Naval Department ships. In 1778, the British established a naval base and shipyard on the island in 1778 and began construction of Fort Haldimand.

Details about Cartwright life for the next few years are scarce. At Niagara, Cartwright and Hamilton provided materials for Butler's Rangers, the Indian Department, and the Fort Niagara garrison, and developed a reputation for reliability, respectability, and patriotism. In 1781, Cartwright and Hamilton entered into a co-partnership with merchant and fur trader John Askin of Detroit, however, this  partnership ended in 1784. In 1782, Cartwright and Hamilton were given permission by Haldimand to open a branch of their company at Fort Oswego on Lake Ontario. A year later the Oswego branch moved to Cataraqui (Kingston).

Cartwright, remained at Niagara until the end of the war and appears on the Return of Persons at Niagara dated December 1, 1783.  Also on the return is the family of James Secord including his 19-year-old daughter Magdalen. Richard and Magdalen were married in 1784, likely at Niagara. Their first child, James, was baptised at Cataraqui on 9 Jan 1785, which suggests that Richard moved from Niagara in 1784.

Richard Cartwright went on to became a highly successful merchant. He received contracts to supply the Kingston garrison, and with Hamilton, the military posts on the Great Lakes. Richard became involved in shipbuilding, purchased the Napanee mills in 1792; bought the Kingston Gazette in 1811, and contributed articles to the paper under the pseudonym Falkland. He was appointed Judge of the Common Pleas in 1788, and was made of member of the Legislative Council of Upper Canada in 1792. In 1799, he brought John Strachan, who later became the first Anglican Bishop of Toronto, to Upper Canada as a tutor for his children.

Richard and Magdalen had eight children. Their two eldest sons, James and Richard died in 1811, followed by their 19-year-old daughter Hannah in 1812 and their 13-year-old son Stephen in 1814. Richard, aged 56, died in Montreal on July 27, 1815. Magdalen, aged 66, died in Kingston on January 4, 1827.

Plan of the City of Albany around 1770 by Robert Yates.
Source: Albany Institute of History & Art

In the months that had followed Richard's departure from Albany, his father had come under increasing scrutiny. In his 1787 claim for losses, Richard Sr. wrote "that his well know attachment to the King's Government soon attracted the jealousy of the revolutionists."

In May 1777, the Committee of Correspondence had declared Richard Sr. and several others, "persons whose characters are suspicious and who by their influence in the County are supposed dangerous to this State." Faced with possible incarceration in a prison ship at Kingston, New York, Richard swore an oath that he not involved in any conspiracy against the state.

Richard Cartwright's Claim for Losses

In April 1778, Richard helped Walter Butler escape from captivity. Butler, the son of John Butler, had been captured shortly after the Siege of Fort Stanwix and had been sentenced to hang as a spy. The sentence was commuted and Butler was sent to prison in Albany. Butler petitioned to be moved from the unhealthy conditions of the Albany Gaol, and in February 1778, he was transferred to the home of Richard Cartwright. In his claim for losses, Richard wrote, "that your memorialist saved the life of Captⁿ Butler who afterwards fell in the service by effecting his Escape from his own home, when under the sentence of Death, at the risque of his own life."

On June 4, 1778 a mob attacked Richard's home. Richard claimed that the mob numbered between three and four thousand, but this is unlikely as the population of Albany was less than 4000. Richard was "beat and bruised, and his effects destroyed."

On July 21, 1778 the Commissioners for Conspiracies ordered that Richard "prepare and hold himself in readiness to be removed unto the enemy's lines on Saturday next and at any time thereafter on the shortest notice." It was not until August 19th, however, that Richard and Johanna were "conveyed away by a guard to Crown Point" on the west shore of Lake Champlain.

Richard and Johanna spent the rest of the Revolutionary War as refugees in Montreal. Richard appears on various Returns of Loyalist refugees in Quebec until September 1784. A document in the Haldimand Papers dated May 11, 1781 notes that Richard, "was very useful to the friends of Government whilst he lived in Albany." Richard Sr. and Johanna joined their son in Cataraqui when Richard Jr. moved there from Niagara. Richard Sr. died in 1794 and Johanna a year later.

James Peachey, A South East View of Cataraqui, 1783
Source: Toronto Public Library

One aspect of Richard Cartwright's life that is rarely examined is his status as an enslaver. When Richard moved to Cataraqui from Niagara he brought with him Joseph Gutches, an enslaved person who had been born in 1763 in the Schoharie Valley region of New York. Joseph's original owner, Tunis Vrooman, was killed during a raid by a party of Haudenosaunee and Brant's Volunteers on August 9, 1780. Joseph and other captives were taken to Niagara where Joseph was bought by John Dunn, a volunteer with the Indian Department at Niagara. Dunn sold Joseph to a Mr. Allan,⁶ and Allan sold him to Richard for £125. In the 1786 Provisioning List at Cataraqui, Joseph appears as "Mr. Cartwright's negro."

In 1787, Joseph appeared before a Board of Inquiry and testified, "that he was taken by the Indians and sold for a slave for life but that he was at the time of his capture bound only to serve until 21 years of age.” In his written response Richard stated, "I have every reason to believe that he [Joseph] was always legally a slave, from the Testimony of People who knew him when in the Possession of Vrooman some of whom are still at Niagara." Joseph "continued in the service" of Richard Cartwright, although at some point he became a paid employee rather than a slave. After Richard's death, Joseph was a servant in the household of Richard's son, John Solomon Cartwright.

Joseph's obituary appeared in the Chronicle & Gazette on November 2, 1842:

Died – On Sunday afternoon, Joseph Gutches, a coloured man, well known in Kingston, at the advanced age of 79. He was born in the State of New York, then a British Colony, and came to Canada about 1782, in the family of the late Hon. Richard Cartwright, and continued in the service of that gentleman or his sons every since, a period of 60 years. He remembered Kingston since 1784. He used to say that at that time with the exception of the old French fort and a few wooden houses, this place presented nothing to view but pine woods and girdled stumps – what a change he lived to witness. But few now remain of these early settlers – peace be unto them.

---

Notes:

¹ Richard's sister Elizabeth (? -1829) had married Thomas Robison (? - 1806) at Albany on 11 Oct 1767. Robison was a captain in the Naval Department following the Seven Years War and commanded various ships on Lake Erie including the schooner Earl of Dunmore, and the brig General Gage. During the Revolutionary War he was briefly in command of vessels operating on Lake Ontario. He resigned from the Naval Department in 1777 and became a merchant supplying British forces at Niagara. After the war, he returned to the United States and settled in Portland, Maine where he became a distiller and merchant. Robinson retired to Kingston, Upper Canada in 1805.

² Hannah Robison, the daughter of Thomas Robison and Elizabeth Cartwright, was born in Albany, New York in 1768. She married Stephen Codman in 1788 in Portland, Maine, and died there in 1819.

³ Possibly William Hughes of the 53rd Regiment of Foot

⁴ Cartwright refers to the village as Canadasagoe, which was also called Kanadaseaga.

⁵ Possibly John Secord who had been discharged from Butler's Rangers in October 1778 due to his age.

⁶ Possibly Ebenezer Allan of the Indian Department.

Sources:

Cartwright, Richard. A Journey to Canada. Richard Cartwright Fonds, Library and Archives Canada, MG23-H17

Cartwright, Richard. Continuation of a Journal of an Expedition Into the Indian Country 1779. Cartwright Family Fonds, Archives of Ontario, F24

Cartwright, Richard. "Memorandum of Indian Operations from 1778 to 1780, Made at Niagara in 1780." in Cartwright, Conway Edward (Ed.) Life and Letters of the late Hon. Richard Cartwright, member of Legislative Council in the first Parliament of Upper Canada. Toronto: Belford Bros., 1876.

Durham, J. H., Carleton Island in the Revolution: The Old Fort and its Builders: with Notes and Brief Biographical Sketches. Syracuse, New York: C. W. Bardeen, 1889, p. 87-8.

Ford, Ben and Taylor Napoleon. "Life Outside the Walls: Recent Archaeological Investigations at Fort Haldimand, Carleton Island. The Bulletin and Journal of the New York State Archaeological Association. Numbers 131-132, 2017-2018, p. 67-80.

Gibson, Sarah Katherine. Carleton Island 1778-1783: Imperial Outpost during the American Revolutionary War. MA Thesis, Queen's University, 1999.

Graymont, Barbara. The Iroquois in the American Revolution. Syracuse: Syracuse University Press, 1972.

Library and Archives Canada. Francis Goring Fonds. MG24-D4

Library and Archives Canada. Haldimand Papers. (MG21, Add. MSS 21765, Volumes B105, B166, B167, B168)

Paltsits, Victor Hugo (ed). Minutes of the Commissioners for Detecting and Defeating Conspiracies in the State of New York: Albany County Sessions, 1778-1781. Albany: State of New York, 1910.

Rawlyk, George and Janice Potter, “Cartwright, Richard,” in Dictionary of Canadian Biography, vol. 5, University of Toronto/Université Laval, 2003. http://www.biographi.ca/en/bio/cartwright_richard_5E.html

"Slavery in Kingston: The Story of Joseph Gutches," Stones: Black History Walking Tour
http://www.stoneskingston.ca/black-history/slavery-in-kingston-the-story-of-joseph-gutches/

Smy, William A., editor. The Butler Papers: Documents and Papers Relating to Colonel John Butler and His Corps of Rangers. Brock University Library Archives & Special Collections, 1994. https://dr.library.brocku.ca/handle/10464/9242

Strachan, John. "Life of the Hon. Richard Cartwright" in Cartwright, Conway Edward (Ed.) Life and Letters of the late Hon. Richard Cartwright, member of Legislative Council in the first Parliament of Upper Canada. Toronto: Belford Bros., 1876.

The National Archives of the UK. American Loyalist Claims, 1776–1835 (AO 12–13).

Watt, Gavin. Fire & Desolation: The Revolutionary War's 1778 Campaign as Waged from Quebec and Niagara Against the American Frontier. Toronto: Dundurn, 2017.

Watt, Gavin K. Loyalist Refugees: Non-Military Refugees in Quebec 1776-1784. Milton, Ontario: Global Heritage Press, 2014.

Watt. Gavin K. No Despicable Enemy — 1779: The Continental Army Destroys Indian Territory. Carleton Place, Ontario: Global Heritage Press, 2019.

Wilson, Bruce G. Enterprises of Robert Hamilton: A Study of Wealth and Influence in Early Upper Canada, 1776-1812.  Ottawa: Carleton University Press, 1983