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A great deal of Canadian documents exist for John Willson, Esq., of which a selection is recorded here:
PART ONE:
1760 Oct. 16 - Will of John Langstaff of Piscataway, NJ. To wife Mary & grandson John Langstaff, lands south of Ambrose Book. Witnesses John Willson, Jr. and John Arnold,
Note1: The two, Langstaff and Arnold, also went to Upper Canada, where they were amongst many New Jersey exiles located near each other on north Yonge Street, Toronto. - PJ Ahlberg. - - -
- John Wilson of Piscataway, Middlesex Co., Memorial, Summary now of Miramichi, Northumberland Co. 1786, joined troops at Woodbridge in 1777 in Forge Dept. Claim for 50 Acres & an house.
Ref: Commission for Loyalist Losses. # 12 /16 /187 -192, 63/115 and 109/320. Jan. 1787. - - -
- Old United Empire Loyalists List
Wilson John Senr., (Home District) From Staten Island. Came in a settler in 1878 with three sons. Ref. Appendix B.
Willson, John of Piscataway, Middlesex Co., Memorial, now of Northumberland Co., NB, sworn St. Johns, NB, 1786. He fled to the Army at Perth Amboy in 1777. Claim for a house and 81 acres; cattle. Evidences: Cites as a witness Joshua Willson.
Ref. 12/1/187; 53/115m 109/320; 13/20; 13/20,347-349. - - -
Settled 1784 May, New Brunswick, Canada: John Wilson, Esq. Eight in the family, 2 acres improved and house. - - -
1789 -11 Jul 1793. John Willson, Esq. Sr., JP was the first Registrar for Northumberland, NB, 1787 to 1793 ...
John Willson & Family landed in New Brunswick, Canada in 1783 and was granted land on the Miramichi River, in Northumberland County. Gov. Thomas Carlton made him a Magistrate & Justice of the Peace. The salary for a magistrate in NB was £300 a year. His adventures there in this wild land would be enough for one lifetime, and to speak nothing of what preceded the Miramichi or what would come after.
A full history with documentation may be found at North York Public Library, Toronto and the Richmond Hill Public Library may be found under Richard Lawrence, John Brown Lawrence & John Willson of New Jersey, NB and Ontario. by P J Ahlberg, U.E., May 2009. - - -
1791 Nov. 18 - Upper Canada Proclamation, creating the new province; and John Willson had already visited Gov. J G Simcoe in Quebec City by the 17 Jun 1792 when Simcoe arrived Montreal and again 26 July 1793 when he arrived in Niagara, Upper Canada). - - -
1793 Apr 26, John Willson, JP, paid for a tombstone at Willson's Point, Miramichi, NB made for his grandson, Abraham Willson. - - -
WHY HE LEFT NEW BRUNSWICK:
Mr. Wilson further says, that when he left the Miramichi Settlement in the NB, he did it because the lands are not valuable for farmers and not worth clearing from the severity of the climate; that one of his sons-in-laws had already left the Settlement. Mr. Wilson says that a due care to provide for his family was the sole reason of this quitting Miramichi. He is his own person being better off there then he would possibly be elsewhere living almost without labour upon offices he possessed in that Country. A true statement, signed E B Littlehales, 16 July, 1794, Niagara. - - -
1796 UPPER CANADA LAND PETITION details his REVOLUTIONARY MUSTER:
To John Graves Simcoe, Lieut. John Willson, Jur. He suffered much by this Rebel party (at the point of the bayonet) before the British Army Landed on Staten island, the making several attempts to join them but always hindered till when the British Army was Advancing from the White Plains (NY) to the Jersey. I then joined them at Woodbridge [New Jersey] and went with them to Brunswick (NJ).
I then entered into James Christies' employ [ i.e. the Quartermaster ] as a Forage master and ran Many risks of my Life, being twice taken Prisoner and confined but maid my escape and returned to my service again, till when the army returned from the Jerseys to Staten Island, and embarked for the Head of Elk [river] flowing towards Philadelphia] were my health would not admit of my going on board to retrieved with my family on said Island where I continued till the commencement of the peace.
I then embarked with my family for Nova Scotia (since New Brunswick), where I drew 270 acres in Northumberland where I served in Sivil Commission and offices under Governor Carleton till July the 19th, 1793. There I set out with sixty men, women and children (Including my own family) for Niagara where we arrived on the 7th of next October. ... He wants Lots 4 & 5 on the River Humber and Lot 30 on west side of Yonge Street. March 25th, 1796, John Willson. - - -
- 1795, Jul 29 - John Willson, Junr. Town Lot and 400 Acres. Ref. YORK REPORT, Summary of Land Grants. Ref. C2980, Page 178, etc.
Schedule of grants to pay full fees to the Home District - William Jarvis Copy Books:
Grant # 166 Wilson, John, Jun, 190 Acres, York, 12 Mar. 1794, U.E., Fee £3.5.2 Ref. Wm. Jarvis Papers, TPRL. - - -
Willson I, John Sur., UE, UCLP W Bundle 2, 1795-97. Vol. 522, Petition #57, Microfiche C2950.
On March 16, 1810 John purchased a Town of York Lot 3 and 4 N side, Hospital Street for £100 and sold it at an apparent lost of £50, the next year to Jesse Ketchum. - - -
- 1800 Apr 8 > FIRST APPOINTMENT for the first HOME DISTRICT, Toronto, are Magistrates Wm. James, John Willson, J Small, J McGill. Ref. Toronto Sundries, Quarter Session Minutes. |
