Local resident Sarah Newton Underwood got a surprise, during a recent renovation of her home situated in old Roxborough Township, now the Township of North Stormont. Neatly tucked away within a wall of her heritage home, she found two early 19th century documents relating to a man named John Chisholm.
The first document is a bill demanding payment of property taxes for the year 1827. It states that John Chisholm owed 12 shillings and 3 pence, and was given two weeks to pay, starting on February 20, 1828. In this period of our history, British forms of currency were used instead of dollars and cents. The second document is a summons for jury duty, on a pre-printed form, asking that John Chisholm appear at the courthouse in the Town of Cornwall on April 28, 1829 at 10 o’clock sharp. It included a warning: “Herein fail not, as you will answer.”
Who was John Chisholm? To answer that burning question, a certain amount of historical detective work is required.
The documents were found on land first owned by John Burton. In 1797 the Crown issued him a patent for the land, but Burton likely claimed it much earlier than that. Settlers generally had interest in land for many years before receiving their land patent. Indeed, a food provision list from August 1786 shows a man named John Burton – a single man, probably a widower – living in Cornwall Township at that time. It should be noted that Cornwall Township was known as “Royal Township No. 2” at this time, and it included the geographic area that later became Roxborough Township.
John Burton did not always reside on this land, however. In 1800, he described himself (in the third person) as “aged and infirm, and his life precarious” and he noted to the colonial government that he lived elsewhere with his adult sons, who financially supported him. By 1818, John Burton was dead; in that year, his son and heir Joseph Burton sold the land to John Chisholm, the man named in the newly-discovered documents.
As you can imagine, there were many Chisholms in the history of Stormont and nearby Glengarry counties. In fact, there are numerous John Chisholms in the area. This increases the difficulty of identifying the correct man. Thankfully, there are pertinent land registry records linked to the lot where the documents were found. One of these is the last will and testament of the particular John Chisholm who purchased the lot in 1818. It mentions his wife Catherine, and annotations indicate that he died in 1851. These bits of information allow one to conclude that he is the man buried in the old cemetery in St. Andrew’s West, and whose tombstone notes that he died in 1851. The same tombstone commemorates the death of his wife, Catherine McIntosh.
Consulting and comparing many historical documents leads me to believe that this man was John Chisholm Jr. His father, John Chisholm Sr., was a Loyalist who served in the 84th Regiment of Foot, a formation also known as the Royal Highland Emigrants.
The Loyalists were the first permanent non-Indigenous settlers in the area of the upper St. Lawrence River watershed. They were formerly residents of the Thirteen Colonies – now the United States of America – who remained loyal to the British Crown during the American Revolutionary War (1775-1783). When the Loyalists lost that war, they were forced to resettle in the remaining parts of British North America, including Canada. Here they received land grants and assistance to start their new lives. It has been said that they laid the foundations of modern Ontario.
John Chisholm Jr. was only a boy during that war, or he may have been born shortly after the end of that conflict. Nevertheless, he and all other children of Loyalists were eventually entitled to Loyalist land grants in their own right. John Chisholm Jr. applied for this bounty in 1816. He described himself as John Chisholm Jr., “son of John Chisholm of Lot No. 1, 7th Concession of Cornwall, a U.E. Loyalist.” This lot is not far away from the land where the documents were found.
In the land application, John Chisholm Jr. had to certify that he had defended Canada during the recent War of 1812 against the United States. Specifically, it was stated that Chisholm “retained his loyalty during the late war without suspicion of aiding or assisting the enemy” and that he “did his duty in defence of the province during the late war.”
Speaking of war, the documents in the wall of the home were accompanied by a martial artifact: A broken bayonet. This knife-like weapon was normally affixed to the end of a musket, for use in close combat. Bayonets of this kind were used during the American Revolutionary War and the War of 1812. Perhaps it was from the musket that John Chisholm Jr. used during the latter war, or from the one used by his father in the former war.
The owner asked me why these documents and items would have been squirrelled away within the walls of her home. It’s an impossible question to answer, but I told her this: I’d like to think that they were placed there by John Chisholm Jr., at some point during the later part of his life, in hopes that a future resident would eventually find and take interest in them. A message transmitted across the generations, as it were. Mission accomplished, Mr. Chisholm.
Stuart Lyall Manson is a professional historian, local history author, and resident of the City of Cornwall. He is the author of the book series Sacred Ground: Loyalist Cemeteries of Eastern Ontario, the second volume of which is slated for publication this fall. For more information, check out Stuart’s website: stuartmanson.wordpress.com.
