Lightharts in Sorel
“On July 24, 1783, Lord North wrote in regard to the proposed settlement in the neighbourhood of Sorel, where a number of Loyalists were anxious to settle at once. He ordered that the seigniory at Sorel be settled as quickly as possible. The land was to be divided into small lots to give the seigniory a good population. Rents were to be moderate and were to be remitted for ten years. . . . Some preferred to settle at Sorel owing to the central location of the seigniory, its proximity to markets and to larger centres where mechanics and artificers might find employment. By September 12, 1784, there were 316 persons, of whom 95 were men, settled on the seigniory.” [E. Rae Stuart, ‘Jessup’s Rangers as a Factor in Loyalist Settlement’ in Three History Theses (published under the auspices of the Ontario Department of Public Records and Archives, 1961), pp. 104-5; emphasis mine.]
7 December 1783 : General Return of Refugee Loyalists in the Province of Quebec shows an unnamed wife of Daniel Lighthart(2) living at Sorel.[1] No children are mentioned.
Identity of Daniel’s wife.
Daniel’s first child, Mary, was born about this time. According to a family history of the Conants, she was the daughter of Daniel and Sarah Burk.[2] However, baptismal records for Daniel’s next several children are available (see Generation 4), and they all name his wife Rachel. Rachel was still his wife when he last appears on record, in 1804.[3] Online family trees have concluded that her name was thus Rachel Sarah Burk. However, to my knowledge no record has been found in which the name Rachel is connected with the name Sarah Burk. Equally possible is that the published Conant history is incorrect, or that Mary’s mother was indeed Sarah Burk but like many women in this difficult era she did not live; Rachel would then be Daniel’s second wife.
Furthermore, in no document I have seen is Rachel ever identified as the daughter of Francis Burk, though this seems to be universally accepted. (Certainly the Lighthearts and the Burks were neighbours and frequent associates in Bowmanville after 1797, and a connection to the Burk family, who began arriving in Darlington ca. 1796, could explain the Lighthearts’ move away from the Loyalist settlement in Adolphustown.) People have solved this by assuming that Francis’s known daughter Keturah must be the same person as Rachel (or Rachel Sarah). Aside from the fact that as far as I know there is absolutely no evidence for this identification, there are two serious problems with it. First, according to a letter written by Francis’s grandson Josiah (Jesse), Francis had two daughters: Mary and Katy or Caturah. If Rachel were really Keturah, and her family called her Katy, why would she be known as Rachel by her husband, children, and neighbours, and in civil and legal documents? Second, the Burk family migrated directly from New York to Upper Canada in the 1790s, and as far as I know none of them fought for the king. Jesse’s letter suggests the move to Canada was motivated by desire to improve their lot – he says nothing about political trouble or persecution.[4] I don’t know where their loyalties lay, but they certainly weren’t war refugees. In light of this, why would a member of this family have been living in a Loyalist refugee camp in Quebec in 1783?
A local historian in Bowmanville suggested to me that Rachel might be a granddaughter of Francis, the daughter of one of his sons.[5] That would resolve the first problem but doesn’t address the second. It’s also possible that Rachel was a more distant relative – perhaps a niece of Francis.
At this point, the evidence available to me says only that Daniel’s wife was Rachel, and she was the mother of at least the children born after Mary.[6]
2 February 1784 : List of Loyalists “desirous of settling in Canada” shows Daniel Lighthart living in Sorel with a wife and young daughter.[7] A family history of the Conant family gives Mary Lightheart’s birth year as 1781,[8] but this seems unlikely to me as the provisions list of 7 December 1783 does not mention a child. I suspect she was born in December of 1783 or January 1784 at Sorel.
Summer 1784 : Parish of Christ Church, Sorel, established. From this point on the Lightharts, though previously Dutch Reformed and Lutheran, were members of the Anglican Church.
“The Anglican Church in Sorel owes its foundation to the Reverend John Doty, a missionary of The Society for the Propagation of the Gospel. . . . On his arrival in Sorel in [late June] 1784, the Reverend John Doty found that . . . [t]here remained seventy families of Loyalists and other Protestants within the town and district. [Doty] writes that these ‘though a mixed society consisting of Dissenters, Lutherans, and churchmen, all attend Divine worship. The Dissenters conforming to the liturgy, and the Lutherans, without exception, declaring to be members of our church.’ “ [Rev. Edward P. Vokey, The 175th Anniversary History of the Parish Christ Church, Sorel, Que., Project Canterbury]
12 September 1784 : Daniel Lightheart listed among the ‘Disbanded Troops and Loyalists, Settled on the Seigniory at Sorel’.[9]
16 September 1785 : Barney Lighthart is one of the signatories on a plea written in Stillwater for pay due for service under Van Veghten.[10] Barney Lightheart and Barnabas Lighthart must be the same person. Like Barnabas, this Barney was in Dutchess County, and then Stillwater, at the same times as my Lightharts. Furthermore, before joining Peek under the Quartermaster General’s department, Barnabas served in the 13th regiment of militia, which is the unit Van Veghten commanded.
5 July 1787 : Daniel 2 gave his memorial/land claim as a veteran of the loyalist forces during the American war. He states that during the war all his livestock was taken, and the property he and his brother had leased for life from Killian Ridder was sold by the landlord.[11] He was granted land in Adolphustown & Ernestown, Upper Canada,[12] but he had acquired a plot of land in Sorel and for a time he attempted to stay there.[13]
“Some of the loyalists who had spent most of the war years in Lower Canada were unwilling to be uprooted, and nearly eight hundred of them acquired property around the garrison towns of Sorel, Chambly, and Fort St-Jean on the Richelieu River.” [Christopher Moore, The Loyalists: Revolution, Exile, Settlement (Toronto: McClelland & Stewart, 1994), p. 230.]
November 1789 : Daniel Lightheart appears on a list of ‘the names of the many thousands of U. E. Loyalists settlers who founded the Province of Upper Canada’; he is described as a “soldier in Jessup’s” whose land is in the M district.[14] The petition of 1792 however suggests that 1789 is when the land was granted, not when he took possession.
8 March 1792 : Daniel Lighthart is one of the signatories to a petition asking that the signers be allowed to choose land in the Sorel area, where they and their families were already settled.[15] Apparently this petition was not allowed and he and his family settled in Adolphustown, among others of Jessup’s Corp.
28 June 1796 : property in Sorel sold by Daniel Lighthart to Gabriel Pernault.[16]
26 July 1796 : Procuration (proxy) registered in Sorel by Daniel Lighthart “à son épouse” – presumably Rachel, though she is not named.[17] A procuration was recorded when a “relative grants power to another individual to handle his business or represent him in a transaction,” according to Ancestry — often when the grantor was in the process of relocating.
Upper Canada
“Probably at least 80,000 Loyalists were permanently exiled: about half settled in what is now called Canada; the Maritimes receiving up to 35,000, Quebec (which then included the westward region of the Great Lakes) between 6 and 10,000. Despite a few famous names . . . the great bulk of the settlers were humble, often illiterate, farmers (plus a few artisans), sometimes from Massachusetts, but more likely from New York, New Jersey, Connecticut and Pennsylvania. Generally speaking these pioneers were much better additions to a country engaged in opening up the wilderness than all your Harvard alumni.” [Brown, ‘The American Farmer’, p. 331]
14 Apr 1797 : Census for Adolphustown lists Daniel Lightheart in a household containing one adult man, one adult woman, 2 male children (Francis and Daniel) and 3 female children (Mary, Elizabeth & Phebe).[18]
7 June 1797 : Council Chamber at York heard petition from Daniel Lightheart requesting more lands for his military service and for that of his late brother and father.[19]
1797 : Land petition registered in this year for Daniel Lightheart in Northumberland County.[20] This might be when they moved to Darlington. (The Burk family had started setting in Darlington in 1796; if indeed Rachel is related to them, that could explain the Lightheart family’s move to an area with no connection to the original Loyalist military settlements.) Certainly they do not appear in the next Adolphustown census (April 1799).[21]
12-14 July 1803 : Daniel Lighthart served on the jury (or as king’s evidence) for the District of Newcastle Court of Quarter Session in The King v. James Stevens.[22] Also serving were Luke & James Burk (possibly the brothers of Daniel’s wife) and Abel Conate (the husband of Daniel’s daughter Polly [Mary]).
December 1803: A fight broke out between the Lighthearts and the family of Isaac Smith. The two families “appear to have been in a state of feud”, and the Smith family brought charges against their neighbours.[23]
January 1804: Daniel, Rachel, Francis and Phebe charged with assault against Lucy Smith, Ruth Long (her black servant) and the Smith children. (Susan Lewthwaite, in her PhD thesis for the University of Toronto, says that Elizabeth was also involved, but she does not appear to have been criminally charged.) Smith accused the Lighthearts of attacking them with dogs and clubs the previous December; Smith’s husband claimed that “Daniel Lightheart had ordered his children to violently attack the Smith children whenever the opportunity arose, and his wife and hired help too”. However, Lucy Smith was also bound over to keep the peace, “which implies that she was not held entirely blameless for the state of bad relations between the families”.[24]
7 April 1804: “Assessment Bill – Darlington 1804” shows Daniel Lighthart holding 360 acres, 25 under cultivation; this is forty acres less than he held the previous year. This is the last year that Daniel is listed in Darlington.[25]
10 July 1804: Three of the Lighthearts convicted of assault against the Smith family — probably Daniel, Rachel, and Francis, as Phebe was only 13 (though it’s possible that Phebe was in fact the third and Daniel was already dead). The three guilty Lighthearts were fined five shillings apiece.[26]
October/November 1804: probable death of Daniel Lightheart 2.[27] According to a letter written by his grandson Vincent, Daniel “was enerjettic, and he and his boys, cleared land and planted, and had a comfortable home, when he suddenly died in the harvest field.”[28] He was not listed with his wife in the Darlington township assessment of 1806.[29]
15 June 1805: Rachel Lightheart along with Francis Lightheart of Darlington was a witness at the marriage in Darlington of Luke Burk (possibly her brother) to Nancy McBane.[30]
4 March 1806: An assessment of this year for the town of Darlington, Newcastle District, lists Rachel Lightheart among the township’s (otherwise exclusively male) landholders. She was holding 365 acres, 25 of them under cultivation; she had two oxes, four cows, and three “young horned cattle”. The ink is smeared, but it appears that there were two houses on the property – perhaps one of her children had built a home there, or someone else was living with them.[31]
March 1811-1812: An assessment for this year of the combined townships of Darlington and Clarke, Newcastle District, again lists Rachel as a landholder. She was now holding only 160 acres, and only one house. Rachel’s son Francis is also listed in this year; he held 80 acres, only ten under cultivation, and also had a house, though his was built of timber while his mother’s was raised logs. It’s possible that he had been living on this land in 1806 as well but the property was now divided; even so, the total acreage was only 240, so the property was considerably diminished.[32]
copyright (c) by Lynn McAlister, 2022
[1] Haldimand Papers, “Returns of Loyalists in Canada, 1778-1785” (British Library, MG 21, Add. Mss 21826 [B-166], n.d.): Sorell, 7 December 1783; digital images, Héritage Canadiana (https://heritage.canadiana.ca : accessed 25 October 2022), H-1654, images 782, 832.
[2] Frederick O. Conant, A History and Genealogy of the Conant Family in England and America, p. 326.
[3] Susan Dawson Lewthwaite, ‘Law and Authority in Upper Canada: The Justices of the Peace in the Newcastle District, 1803-1840′, PhD thesis, University of Toronto (Ottawa: National Library of Canada, 2000), pp. 112-13.
[4] Burk, Jessia (Jesse), personal letter to his nephew Harvey Burk, dated 4 March 1867; digital image, Ancestry.com (https://www.ancestry.com); posted 27 Sept. 2010 by Joyce Brownell. I have not seen this letter in person, and have no way of ascertaining its reliability. However, the letter was quoted in John T. Coleman, History Of The Early Settlement Of Bowmanville And Vicinity (Bowmanville, Ont.: West Durham Steam Printing and Publishing House, 1875), so it did exist.
[5] Personal correspondence with historian Sher Leetooze, 23 July 2019-1 August 2019.
[6] Doherty, evidently unaware of the parish records, questions the existence of Rachel (Settlers of Beekman’s Precinct, vol. 8, pp. 165-66). Apparently misled by the baptismal record for Rebeka (see Generation 2, 1766) and perhaps by Henry Jones, Doherty believes that the Daniel who fought with Burgoyne was in fact the third Daniel and that Marietje Heens was his wife rather than his mother. He accepts that Rachel Burk, if she existed, might have been a later wife. As explained at Generation 2: 2 Dec. 1766, aside from this baptismal record I have found no evidence for the existence of a Daniel between Johann Daniel b. 1715 and Daniel b. 1761. He does not appear on tax records in Beekman’s Precinct or Albany County, or in church records aside from Rebeka’s. Furthermore, making him the father of the Daniel who fought with Burgoyne requires that John be a younger brother to this middle Daniel, when military records make clear that he was in fact the elder brother of the Loyalist soldier (Watt, Service History, p. 168). It seems more likely that at Rebeka’s baptism the parents also served as witnesses – as also happened with Daniel 2’s daughter Phebe (see Generation 4, Phebe Lightheart).
[7] Haldimand Papers, “Musters of Refugee Loyalists desirous of settling in Canada, 1784” (British Library, MG 21, Add. Mss. 21828 [B-168], n.d.): 2 February 1784; digital images, Héritage Canadiana (https://heritage.canadiana.ca : accessed 25 October 2022), H-1655, image 102.
[8] Conant, A History and Genealogy of the Conant Family, p. 326.
[9] “Return of Disbanded Troops and Loyalists, Settled on the Seigneury at Sorel. Mustered the 12th day of September, 1784.” Report on Canadian Archives by Douglas Brymner, Archivist, 1891, pp. 16-17. Watt, Loyalist Refugees, p. 203.
[10] NARA M881, Compiled Service Records of Soldiers Who Served inthe American Army During the Revolutionary War, roll 0767, New York, Van Veghten’s Regiment, Militia (https://www.fold3.com/image/20467447).
[11] ‘Memorial of Daniel Lighthart’, 5-7 July 1787. History of Saratoga County, NY, mentions the sale of a farm by Killian de Ridder in 1783, but adds that the farm “may have been settled earlier than the deed indicates” (p. 264) – might this be the farm Daniel 2 and John had leased?
[12] Reid, William D. The Loyalists in Ontario: The Sons and Daughters of the American Loyalists of Upper Canada (Lambertville, NJ: Genealogical Publishing Co., 1973), p. 180; digital images, Ancestry.com (https://www.ancestry.com): Lightheart, Daniel, of Adolphustown, Ernestown and Darlingon.
[13] “List of Town Lots in the Seigneury of Sorel Granted to the Refugee Loyalists in 1787”, Lower Canada Land Papers, pp. 24766, 24768. Public Archives Canada. ‘The Petition of . . . Daniel Lighthart . . . and others, Resident in and near the Parish of Sorel’, Lower Canada Land Papers (Public Archives Canada, RG 1 L 3, Vol. 140). Both spellings of the surname are used in this document.
[14] Appendix B, copy of old U. E. List preserved in the Crown Lands Department at Toronto, Centennial of the Settlement of Upper Canada by the United Empire Loyalists. . . (Toronto, 1885).
[15] ‘The Petition of . . . Daniel Lighthart . . . and others, Resident in and near the Parish of Sorel’, Lower Canada Land Papers (Public Archives Canada, RG 1 L 3, Vol. 140). Both spellings of the surname are used in this document.
[16] Ancestry.com: Quebec, Canada, Notarial Records, 1637-1935, Bibliothèque et Archives nationales du Québec; Montréal, Quebec, Canada; Collection: Fonds Cour Supérieure. District judiciaire de Montréal. Cote CN601. Greffes de notaires, 1648-1967; District: Montréal; Title: Bonnet, Louis (1790-1804).
[17] Ibid., notarial act number 562.
[18] ‘A Return of the Inhabitants of Adolphustown, April 14, 1797’, Ontario Bureau of Industries, transcribed and contributed by Linda Herman. It is interesting that Isaac does not appear to be with the family. If, as is generally believed (and stated on his gravestone) he was born in January of this year, he should have been counted. I wonder if his birth actually took place in June and the ‘Jun’ was misread ‘Jan’. However, until I can find a birth record, this is only a guess.
[19] Héritage Canadiana: Upper Canada Land Books, Vol. 19-23, lac_reel_c101, C-191, RG 1 L 1, 205068 (image 336) (Library and Archives Canada).
[20] Public Archives/Achives Publiques Canada, “Petition of Daniel Lighthart of Adolphustown, M District”, 1797.
[21] ‘A Return of the Inhabitants of Adolphustown, April 2, 1799’, transcribed by Linda Herman, at The People of Adolphustown (http://my.tbaytel.net/bmartin/adolph03.htm).
[22] Edwin C. Guillet, The Valley of the Trent (Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 1957), pp. 287-88.
[23] Lewthwaite, ‘Law and Authority in Upper Canada′, PhD thesis, University of Toronto, pp. 112-13.
[24] ‘The King vs. Daniel Lighthart, Francis Lighthart, Rachel Lighthart, Pheobe Lighthart’, in Guillet, The Valley of the Trent, p. 290. Lewthwaite, ‘Law and Authority in Upper Canada‘, pp. 194-5.
[25] Newcastle District, County of Durham, Upper Canada, “Darlington Assessment for 1803” and “Assessment Bill – Darlington 1804”; Trent University Library and Archives (Petersborough, Ontario), Newcastle District Assessment Records Fonds, 1802-1834, accession #84-021; digital copies provided to me by the archivist in November 2022.
[26] Lewthwaite, ‘Law and Authority in Upper Canada’, PhD thesis, University of Toronto, pp. 113, 194-5.
[27] It seems to be universally agreed that Daniel Lightheart UEL died in 1804; his son William apparently never met him. His place of burial is unknown (the Daniel Lightheart buried in Snyder’s Cemetery, Durham Township, is his grandson: the headstone reads ‘Daniel died Dec 22 1846 aged 9 yrs 3 mos 18 das, son of Wm. & Mary Lightheart’ [Snyder’s Methodist Cemetery transcriptions, Halton-Peel Branch, Ontario Genealogical Society, 1989, 2004]).
[28] For my assessment of this letter, see Generation 4, footnote 10.
[29] Newcastle District assessment records fronds, 1802-1843, Assessment roll for the Township of Darlington for the year 1806 Commencing the 4th March; Trent University Library & Archives (Peterborough, Ontario), Accession number 84-021; digital copy sent to me by the archivist, November 2022.
[30] J. T. Coleman, History of the Early Settlement of Bowmanville and Vicinity (Bowmanville: West Dunham Steam Printing and Publishing House, 1875), p. 12.
[31] Newcastle District assessment records fronds, 1802-1843, Assessment roll for the Township of Darlington for the year 1806 Commencing the 4th March.
[32] Newcastle District assessment records fronds, 1802-1843, “An assessment for the townships of Darlington and Clark for the year Commencing the first monday of March 1811 and ending on the first monday in March 1812”; Trent University Library & Archives (Peterborough, Ontario), Accession number 84-021; digital copy sent to me by the archivist, November 2022.
Lightheart-Lückhard family 