“The multi-culturalism and multi-ethnicity of the Loyalists is often ignored and they are stereotyped as ‘English’ because of their support of the Crown and their spoken language. But in a review of its members’ records, the Toronto Branch of the U.E.L. found where national origin of a member’s Loyalist ancestor could be ascertained, 28 percent were originally from Germany, 23 percent from Scotland, 18 percent from England, 12 percent from Ireland, 8 percent from Holland, 5 percent from France, 4 percent from Wales, 1 percent from Switzerland and less than 1 percent from Denmark and Sweden.” [Audrey F. Kirk, UE, & Robert F. Kirk, UE, ‘The United Empire Loyalists’, at Mysteries of Canada]
March 1776 : see March 1779
14 April 1776 : A Daniel Lighthart enlisted in Van Schaick’s battalion of the 1st New York Regiment.[1] Unlike several authors, I believe this was probably Daniel 2.
“[V]irtually every man who lived in New York Province and the New Hampshire Grants between fifteen and sixty years of age was enrolled in the militia at some time. Also, after the founding of the Continental Army in June 1775, and before the campaign of 1777, a number of men served in rebel Regular regiments, and some of these men later had a change of heart.” [Gavin K. Watt, The Burgoyne Expedition: Burgoyne’s Native and Loyalist Auxiliaries, vol. 2 of The British Campaign of 1777 (Milton, Ont.: Global Heritage Press, 2013), p. 60]
Although ages varied, none of the colonial units seem to have admitted men over 60; most enlisted men were between the ages of 15 and 30,[2] with “80 percent under 35 and less than 2 percent, most of them officers, over 55.“[3] This makes it very unlikely that Johann Daniel was the one who joined the 1st Regiment, as he was 61 by spring of 1776, probably too old to take part in the rigours of Washington’s campaign even if he were accepted at such an age.
Under Van Schaick this became the 1st New York Regiment. This unit fought in the battle of White Plains (Oct-November 1776) and at Trenton (late December 1776), where some members deserted to the Hessians. Daniel was still with the regiment on 17 December 1776,[4] but his enlistment would have ended the 31st, as per the New York Provincial Congress.[5]
1777 : Daniel 2 and brother John farming together in Stillwater, where they held a lease from Killan de Ridder of 102 acres.[6] They lived near their father, who appears to have owned his land. (I find no record of John serving in the Continental forces.)
Burgoyne’s Campaign
“When Burgoyne invaded the Champlain Valley in June 1777, his Loyalist forces were small, numbering only 83, against 7,500 regulars, 500 Native Americans, and 300 Canadians. . . . As Burgoyne’s campaign developed, the number of Loyalists serving in a military capacity increased, reaching a peak of about 800, almost ten times those who had left Canada with his armies. . . . [M]ore future Canadian Loyalists joined the British during Burgoyne’s Campaign than at any other time in the war.” [Theodore Corbett, No Turning Point: The Saratoga Campaign in Perspective (University of Oklahoma Press, 2012), p. 137]
Although it ranked only seventh in population, New York probably supplied as many fighting men (23,500) to the British during the Revolution as all the other colonies combined. Famous regiments led by Jessup, Butler, Johnson, DeLancey and others, were made up largely of farmers and other rural folk.” [Wallace Brown, ‘The American Farmer during the Revolution: Rebel or Loyalist?’ in Agricultural History, Vol. 42, No. 4 (Oct. 1968), pp.334-5]
16 July 1777 : John and Daniel (2) Lighthart were among the 46 “armed Loyalists” who arrived at Skenesborough on this day to swear allegiance to the king and join Burgoyne’s army.[7] They were assigned to Joseph Jessup’s company, Kings Loyal Americans (aka Jessup’s Corps).[8]
“. . . forty-six armed Loyalists arrived at Skenesborough from around Albany. Many were the descendants of German immigrants, and they told Burgoyne that the British army would be welcome in Albany.” [Corbett, p. 160]
Daniel 2’s memorial says that he served as a guide under General Fraser on this campaign.[9] Mary Beacock Fryer tells us that “Evidence suggests Peters’ corps spent most of its time with Fraser, but exactly what Jessup’s men did is more obscure. Both corps were intended as foragers, to bring in food, horses, wagons and cattle from the surrounding countryside. Small parties of King’s Loyal Americans may have been sent out on such missions.” Beacock Fryer also mentions the German background of some of these men.[10]
“On July 29, the army was stalled at Fort Edward and parties of Indians, Canadians and Provincials were outposted a half hour in front of the left flank of Brigadier Fraser’s Advance Corps. That evening parties of natives and Jessup’s Corps attacked the rebels’ pickets and drove them across the Hudson River.” [Watt, The Burgoyne Expedition, p. 32]
“On July 30 and August 4, the vanguard of Burgoyne’s army, consisting of Indians, Jessup’s rangers, and Loyalist volunteers, drove the rebels southward.” [Corbett, p. 171]
3-14 August 1777 : Early in August, Continental forces under Gen. Schuyler set up a base at Stillwater, where they remained for about two weeks. It is possible that this is when Johann Daniel was arrested, though I suspect it was earlier.
16 August 1777 : Battle of Bennington (Vermont).
“So much conflicting information exists over what exactly occurred when the Germans and loyalists tangled with superior numbers of rebels near Bennington that only the consequences are not open to question.” [Mary Beacock Fryer, King’s Men: The Soldier Founders of Ontario (Toronto: Dundurn Press, 1980), p. 213]
This doubt includes which units were involved, but some sources state that Jessup’s corps had gone with the Germans when they headed to Bennington in search of horses and provisions.[11] If so, then Daniel and John might well have fought in this disastrous battle. (This would be another example of the association between Jessup’s men, many of them German speakers, and the Brunswick units with Burgoyne.)[12] The Loyal Volunteers, formed only the previous day under Francis Van Pfister, were certainly there – they lost 19 men at Bennington (including Pfister) and had 190 captured.[13] The need to rebuild this unit might explain why Daniel appears in their ranks for the rest of the war.
3 September 1777: Daniel listed among the men under Samuel Mackay’s command, Loyal Volunteers,[14] possibly explaining his absence from the Jessup’s rolls later the same month.
12 September 1777 : Daniel Lighthart (2) listed as ‘deserted’ on Jessup’s military rolls, according to Gavin Watt[15]; I don’t see this in the Haldimand Papers, although a list of Joseph Jessup’s men shows John Lighthart deserting on this date.[16] (Watt cautions that the Loyalist rolls are full of confusion and contradictory information, and someone listed as a deserter might in fact have simply been away on other duties or wounded.[17] Coralynn Brown states that “’Deserter’ written after a name must not be taken too seriously. Frequently the men absented themselves to gather crops, to attend a sick wife, or bury a child, but it is found that the soldier generally returned, and was again taken up on the rolls.”[18] According to Roberta Estes, “Up to 25% of the men who served [during the war] were at some point considered to have been deserters. That did not seem to affect their later pensions or qualifications for bounty land”.[19]) In fact, Daniel was already being counted with the Loyal Volunteers, which might well explain his absence from the Jessups’ rolls.
17-19 September 1777 : Battle of Freeman’s Farm. At this point, Continental General Gates set up HQ in Stillwater; he moved on after a few days, but for that brief time, the town was under occupation.[20]
“In mid-September, Burgoyne sought to dislodge General Gates, who had entrenched his army on Bemis Heights beside the Hudson south of the village of Saratoga. . . . On September 19, in the forests around Freeman’s Farm, Burgoyne’s men suffered heavy casualties in a failed attempt to push Gates’s army back.” [Alan Taylor, American Revolutions: A Continental History, 1750-1804 (New York: WW Norton & Co., 2016), p. 181]
7 October 1777 : Battle of Bemis Heights.
“On October 7, Burgoyne again attacked Freeman’s Farm but suffered a second bloody defeat. Pulling back to Saratoga, he was surrounded by Gates’s superior numbers. . . . Dreading capture by vengeful Patriots, Indian warriors slipped away homeward through the forest, while Burgoyne negotiated surrender terms with Gates.” [Taylor, p. 181]
17 October 1777 : Burgoyne surrendered after the Battle of Saratoga. The previous night some of the Loyalist soldiers “decided to make their escape, and struck out through the woods or followed the Indian paths to Canada.”[21] Among them were John and Daniel (2) Lighthart, who next appear at Carleton Island on the 25th.
The King’s Loyal Americans in Quebec
After Saratoga, the King’s Loyal Americans (Jessup’s Corps) had only 115 men left.[22] The unit was dispersed and never regained its established strength. For the next four years it was a semi-independent appendage to Johnson’s regiment, “engaged mainly in building, repairing, and garrisoning fortifications around Montreal, Sorel, and lower Lake Champlain, although it also took part in several raids into New York.”[23]
25 October 1777 : Both John and Daniel (2) Lighthart enlisted on this day with the Loyal Volunteers under Robert Leake “by the General Order” at Carleton Island.[24] Presumably they had arrived at Fort Haldimand and were put into whichever surviving unit was on hand, although Daniel had been with this unit for much of Burgoyne’s campaign.
20 December 1777 : Daniel and John Lighthart appear on the Loyal Volunteers return of this date.[25] John appears to have spent more time with Jessup’s than Daniel did. (This was not unusual: Watt comments that the Burgoyne expedition was marked by “much transferring of men from one organization to another”.[26])
Spring 1778 : Lt.-Col. Ebenezer Jessup was ordered to bring his entire corps to Quebec City. “The King’s Loyal Americans remained on duty in Quebec City, working on fortifications until September”, at which point they were ordered to Sorel. They were quartered at Sorel until August 1780.[27]
25 June – 24 December 1778 : Daniel Lhart and John Lithart “on command at Machiche” with the Loyal Volunteers under Robert Leake.[28]
March 1779 : Beginning of Barnabas Lighthart’s service in the Continental forces. It appears that he served mostly in the Albany County Militia, first with the 13th regiment (ultimately under Van Veghten) and later with Willet’s Levies. However, the people he remembered serving with appear to belong to several different units. Coralynn Brown comments that “Officers and men seem to have served in different organizations almost indiscriminately. At one call, they were in one regiment or company, and at another call, in another regiment or company.”[29]
According to testimony he gave in 1832, Barnabas volunteered in March of 1776 to serve with Capt. Bates’ company of Rangers.[30] However, he admits that his memory is not as good as it was, and I question this.
- In March of 1776, he would have been 13 years old. Not unheard of, but not likely.
- I can’t find a record of Captain Bates anywhere.
- He says that he was living at Fort Edward before enlisting, but in 1776 the fort itself was barely standing,[31] and young Barnabas’s family was living in Stillwater.
- Barnabas says that after his 9 months with Bates, he ‘immediately’ signed on with Captain Peek’s bateaumen, working the river during the Burgoyne campaign, and was with Peek for an additional 9 months before being discharged. However, that would put the end of his bateau service at autumn 1777, whereas his service records show him serving with Peek as part of the Quarter-master General’s department in 1780.[32] In fact, Peek was not a captain until 1779.[33]
I do not think Barnabas enlisted until some time after Burgoyne’s defeat – although he was probably active unofficially during that campaign as it’s hard to imagine an adolescent boy in such times not wanting to be involved somehow. (It’s possible he was even helping the Loyalists at that point: His brothers were with Burgoyne, and their father was imprisoned as a Loyalist, though he would be unlikely to admit to this when trying to obtain a US pension.) After Burgoyne’s defeat, joining the Continentals meant he’d be on the winning side and not exiled like his brothers; perhaps there was some hope he could hold on to the family’s property – a strategy used by families in other civil conflicts.
20 May 1779 : Daniel Lighthart on the list of Loyal Volunteers who were not active because they were “in Barracks, Sick”.[34]
“Five companies comprising 300 men were stationed in Sorel under the command of Captains Daniel McAlpin, Ebenezer Jessup, John Peters, Robert Leake and Samuel Adams.” [‘The Loyalists of Sorel‘, in The Loyalist Gazette, June 1985, p. 6]
23 May 1779 : “Leake ordered to raise a company from the remnants of the Loyal Volunteers to operate with Sir John [Johnson]’s Royal Yorkers.”[35] This company took part “in several large expeditions into New York in the next several years.”[36]
“The first real break in the ennui came when Robert Leake, who had inherited command of the ‘Loyal Volunteers,’ was appointed to raise a 100-man company from his corps, augmented if necessary from the others, to serve on campaign with Johnson’s Royal Yorkers. This company saw extensive active service.” [Watt, Burgoyne Expedition, p. 11]
31 July 1779 : Daniel Lighthart (2) is with Leake’s Independent Company, a “detachment of the most fit” of the Loyal Volunteers.[37]
11 Sept. 1779 : Expedition for the relief of the Six Nations left Montreal under Sir John Johnson. Some or all of “Leake’s large independent company” was part of this expedition, which returned to Canada on 15 Oct. 1779.[38]
Late 1779 : Leake’s Independent Company stationed at Carleton Island.[39]
1 January 1780 : Daniel, a carpenter/wheeler, is on a list of “Officers and Men Proposed to form Two Companys of Artificers in Canada”.[40]
May 1780 : Johnson led another expedition into New York, this time to his old properties in Johnstown and to destroy the Mohawk Valley. Fifty volunteers were raised from the other Loyalist units in Sorel, including Jessup’s, Peter’s, and McAlpin’s[41]; it’s possible that John Lighthart was part of this group.
1 August – 1 December 1780 : Barnabas on the roll of Capt. Peek’s bateaumen.[42]
22 Sept. 1780 : Sir John left Oswego (on the NY side of Lake Ontario) with a force including Indians and some of Leake’s Independent Company – “veterans – picked men of known high quality and zealous for the cause” – to burn and raid the Mohawk Valley.[43] Daniel might have been with this expedition.
27 Sept. 1780 : A force under Christopher Carleton left from St. John to burn the Hudson Valley settlements and capture rebel forts. “Some of those under Carleton were KLA men with Edward Jessup and David Jones”,[44] possibly including John Lightheart.
10 May 1781 : Both John and Daniel 2 appear on the rolls of Leake’s Independent Company in Carleton Island.[45]
20 May 1781 : Barnabas, in Stillwater, signed with his mark that he had received pay for his service with Joseph Peek.[46]
During the next several years, Burgoyne’s loyalist veterans were fruitfully employed in detachments on raids and scouts and many individual officers and soldiers joined the Secret Service in which they performed very valuable work.” [Watt, Burgoyne Expedition, p. 11]
14 July 1781 : Loyal Volunteers roll states that Daniel Lighthart (2) is “on secret service” for 14 days.[47]
Autumn 1781 : Barnabas enlisted for nine months’ service with Willet’s Levies under Capt. Dunham.[48]
12 November 1781 : King’s Loyal Americans (Jessup’s Corps), the Loyal Volunteers and several other units merged into the Loyal Rangers. The Loyal Rangers were formed just as things in the southern department seemed to be falling apart (with Cornwallis’s surrender at Yorktown); Haldimand was focused on defence and the new group “spent their time on fatigue or garrison duty, guarding border access points, and assisting refugees who arrived in search of protection. Loyal Rangers were on duty at the two block-houses on the Yamaska River, at Riviere du Chene, Isle aux Noix, and the Loyal Blockhouse on North Hero Island in Lake Champlain.”[49]
January 1782 – Autumn 1783 : Daniel 2 in Sorel with the Engineer’s department in Jonathan Jones’ company.[50]
‘[T]he Corps of Loyalists . . . under the Command of Major Jessup, were chiefly employed in the Engineer’s Department, and were of essential Service in constructing the several Posts erected for the Defence of the Province, and were more particularly useful in providing Timber for the New Works at Quebec: and that the Men of this Corps did their Duty with great chearfulness. . . .’ – William Tiss, engineer in Canada, writing on 3 March 1782 [GB Public Record Office, Audit Office, Class 13, Vol. 55, folio 334]
About 1782 : Daniel 2 was married about now, probably at Sorel. (No record has been found, but as there was no Protestant church there before 1784,[51] they might have been married by a military chaplain or even in the Catholic church. Loyalist refugees were not housed in Sorel before 1781.[52]) His wife is not named. (See discussion at 7 December 1783.)
1 January 1783 : John Lighthart listed as a private in Jessup’s Loyal Rangers, serving under John W. Meyers. He was 26 years old.[53]
October 1783 : John Lighthart died in October of this year.[54] No other details.
November 1783 : Haldimand received orders from the British government to disband all his provincial troops by the end of the year. The Loyal Rangers were disbanded 24 December 1783.[55] Daniel remained at Sorel over the winter.[56]
copyright (c) by Lynn McAlister, 2022
Generation 2: The Albanians Generation 3: After the War
[1] Lighthart, Daniel, private; Van Schaick’s New York Battalion (Revolutionary War). Compiled Service Records of Soldiers Who Served in the American Army during the Revolutionary War, microfilm publication M881, Roll 765. (Washington, D. C.: National Archives and Records Service, General Services Administration, 1972).
[2] ‘The Fighting Man of the Continental Army’, at The American Battlefield Trust web site.
[3] Volo & Volo, Daily Life during the American Revolution (Westport, CT: Greenwood Press, 2003), p. 110.
[4] NARA, Compiled Service Records of Soldiers Who Served in the American Army during the Revolutionary War.
[5] New York Provincial Congress, “Instructions for the inlisting of Men”, June 20, 1775 (Library of Congress, Broadside Coll. Port. 108 – #27A [item] [Rare Book RR]); digital image, Library of Congress (http://hdl.loc.gov/loc.pnp/cph.3a49735: accessed 13 March 2023).
[6] ‘Memorial of Daniel Lighthart in the County of Albany and the Township of Stillwater’, Claims, American Loyalists, 1785-1788 Minute Book, Halifax and Nova Scotia, Public Record Office Reference A.O. 12/98 (Public Record Office, London). 5-6 July 1787. (Photocopy.)
[7] The National Archives (UK), AO13/15/107: “List of Loyalists inlisted for His Majestys service in the neighbourhood of Saratoga by Samuel Perry with whome he joined His Excy Genl Burgoyne’s Army at Ticonderoga the 16 July 1777 and Mustered by Captn Campbell of the 29th Regt at M’Lelans Mills about the 24 August”; digital copy obtained from The National Archives (https://www.nationalarchives.gov.uk). Theodore Corbett, No Turning Point: The Saratoga Campaign in Perspective (Norman, OK: University of Oklahoma Press, 2012), pp. 159-60.
[8] ‘Pay Roll of Captain Joseph Jessup’s Company of the King’s Loyal Americans Commencing 25th of June and ending the 24th of October 1777 Inclusive’, in Haldimand Papers, Add. Mss. 21827, part 1, ff. 51-2; digital images, Heritage Canadiana (heritage.canadiana.ca), H-1654, B-167-1, images 0959-0960.
[9] ‘Memorial of Daniel Lighthart in the County of Albany and the Township of Stillwater’, 5-7 July 1787.
[10] Mary Beacock Fryer, King’s Men: The Soldier Founders of Ontario (Dundurn Press Ltd., 1980), p. 187. Fryer says that both Peters’ and Jessup’s corps (officially, the King’s Loyal Americans) had German-speaking men, and it’s possible that this included the Lightheart brothers, whose grandparents were part of the Palatine group.
[11] Philip Katcher, The American Provincial Corps, 1775-84 (Oxford: Osprey Publishing, 1973), p. 11. Fryer, King’s Men, p. 213.
[12] Fryer, King’s Men, pp. 187.
[13] T. B. Allen & T. W. Braisted, The Loyalist Corps: Americans in the Service of the King (Tacoma Park, Md.: Fox Acre Press, 2011), p. 85. Gavin K. Watt, The Burning of the Valleys: Daring Raids from Canada against the New York Frontier in the Fall of 1780 (Toronto: Dundurn Press, 1997), pp. 294-95.
[14] “Subsistence account of the Loyal Volunteers Commanded by the late Capt. Samuel Mackay in the Campaign under Lieutenant General Burgoyne in 1777”, in Haldimand Papers H-1654, B-167-1 (heritage.canadiana.ca), images 1007, 1010.
[15] Watt, A Service History and Master Roll of Major Edward Jessup’s Loyal Rangers (Carleton Place, Ontario: Global Heritage Press, 2017), p. 168.
[16] “Roll of His Majestys the King’s Loyal Americans Commanded by Lieutenant Colonel Ebenezer Jessup with the Casualties between 25th June and 24th of October 1777. Captain Joseph Jessup’s Company”, in Haldimand Papers H-1654 (heritage.canadiana.ca), image 973.
[17] Watt, Burgoyne Expedition, p. 58.
[18] http://dunhamwilcox.net/ny/0-ny_rev_war_index.htm
[19] Roberta Estes, “Deserters and the Revolutionary War”, Native Heritage Project, 26 March 2012. Estes is writing about the Americans, so apparently ‘desertion’ was common on both sides.
[20] Nathaniel Bartlett Sylvester, History of Saratoga County, New York : with historical notes on its various towns (Chicago: Gersham, 1893), p. 286.
[21] Siebert, “The Dispersion of the American Tories”, Mississippi Valley Historical Review, vol. I, no 2 (Sep. 1914), p. 186 (https://www.jstor.org/stable/1894949).
[22] Allen & Braisted, The Loyalist Corps, p. 54.
[23] bio of Edward Jessup in Dictionary of Canadian Biography on line (http://www.biographi.ca/en/bio/jessup_edward_5E.html).
[24] National Archives (UK), WO28/4/281: “Muster Roll of the corps of Royalists Commanded by Robert Leake Esquire, taken for 182 days from 25th decemr 1780 to 24th June 1781”. Digital copy obtained from The National Archives (https://nationalarchives.gov.uk).
[25] National Archives (UK), WO28/10, ff. 17-18: “Roll of the Officers, Non-commissioned Officers & Privates of Royalists who have served under General Burgoyne last Campaign; and those who came in for Protection; and those who were taken Prisoner at Bennington, and at different Places; and Killed; Belonging to the Corps under My Command. Dated at Chateaugeaye 20th Decr 1777”. Digital copy obtained from The National Archives (https://nationalarchives.gov.uk).
[26] Watt, Burgoyne Expedition, p. 58. This was true not only of the Loyalists but also among the Continental forces (see note 29).
[27] Fryer, p. 197-8. E. Rae Stuart, ‘Jessup’s Rangers as a Factor in Loyalist Settlement’, in Three History Theses, pp. 36-37.
[28] National Archives (UK), WO28/4/273: “Mustered Present in the Loyal Volunteers Commanded by Capt. Robt. Leake . . . commencing 25th June 1778 and ending 24th December following. . . .”. Digital copy obtained from The National Archives (https://nationalarchives.gov.uk). Also, “The Loyal Volunteers Commanded by the Late Captain Samuel Mackay to the Crown”, in Haldimand Papers H-1654, B-167-1 (heritage.canadiana.ca), image 931.
[29] http://dunhamwilcox.net/ny/0-ny_rev_war_index.htm; this was also true of the Loyalist forces (see note 26).
[30] ‘LIGHTHART, Barnabas’, Case Files of Pension and Bounty-Land Warrant Applications Based on Revolutionary War Service, compiled ca. 1800 – ca. 1912, documenting the period ca. 1775 – ca. 1900 (NARA M804, roll 1563; pension number S.13756), National Archives (US) (http://www.archives.gov).
[31] Paul McCarty, ‘The History of Fort Edward’, Town of Fort Edward website (fortedward.net)
[32] Lighthart, Barnabas, private; Capt. Joseph Peek’s Co. of Bateaumen, Continental Troops. Compiled Service Records of Soldiers Who Served in the American Army During the Revolutionary War, compiled 1894 – ca. 1912, documenting the period 1775-1784. (NARA M881, roll 0149, Continental Troops, Bateaumen). National Archives (US) (http://www.archives.gov).
[33] Willis T. Hanson, History of Schenectady during the Revolution, pp. 199-200.
[34] National Archives (UK), WO28/4/273: “Commissary General’s Roll: Muster Roll of Loyal Volunteers Commanded by Capt. Robert Leake, Sorel 24th May 1779”. Digital copy obtained from The National Archives (https://nationalarchives.gov.uk).
[35] Watt, Burning, p. 16.
[36] Allen & Braisted, The Loyalist Corps, p. 85.
[37] Allen & Braisted, p. 85. Watt, Service History, p. 168.
[38] Watt, Burning, p. 61.
[39] Watt, Burning, p. 296.
[40] Watt, Burgoyne Expedition, pp. 229, 288.
[41] Watt, Burning, p. 77.
[42] Lighthart, Barnabas, private; Capt. Joseph Peek’s Co. of Bateaumen, Continental Troops.
[43] Watt, Burning, 160, 163.
[44] Watt, Burning, pp. 94-95.
[45] Watt, Service History, p. 168. National Archives (UK), WO28/4/281: “Muster Roll of the corps of Royalists Commanded by Robert Leake Esquire, taken for 182 days from 25th decemr 1780 to 24th June 1781”. Digital copy obtained from The National Archives (https://nationalarchives.gov.uk).
[46] NARA M246, Muster rolls, payrolls, strength returns, and other miscellaneous personnel, pay, and supply records of American Army units, 1775-1783. Roll 0122.
[47] Watt, Burgoyne Expedition, p. 229.
[48] Lighthart, Barnabas, Case Files. . . . (NARA M804, roll 1563; pensions number S.13756); Muster Rolls . . ., Roll 0078.
[49] Fryer, p. 230.
[50] National Archives (UK), WO 28/10/137: “Return of the Country, Age, Size and Times of Service of the non-commissioned officers, Drummers & Privates of Capt. Jonn. Jones’ Company of Loyal Rangers for 1st January 1782”; digital copy obtained from the National Archives. ‘Memorial of Daniel Lighthart in the County of Albany and the Township of Stillwater’, Claims, American Loyalists, 1785-1788 Minute Book, Halifax and Nova Scotia, Public Record Office Reference A.O. 12/98 (Public Record Office, London), 5-6 July 1787.
[51] Although there were three temporary Protestant ministers at Sorel in the years before this (one of whom, Thomas Charles Heslop Scott, might not have been legit), the first Anglican Church dates to the arrival of Rev. John Doty in June 1784. (Rev. Edward P. Vokey, ‘The 175thAnniversary History of the Parish of Christ Church, Sorel, Que.’, http://anglicanhistory.org/canada/quebec/vokey1959/).
[52] Gavin K. Watt, Loyalist Refugees: Non-Military Refugees in Quebec, 1776-1784 (Carleton Place, Ontario: Global Heritage Press, 2016), p. 73.
[53] Watt, Service History, p. 168.
[54] “John Lightheart is dead Claimant is his next brother and heir” (‘Memorial of Daniel Lighthart’, 5-7 July 1787). “[Y]our Petitioner’s Eldest Brother John Lighthart, who served in the same corps with himself, . . . died in the fall of the year 1783 (about the month of October) without having received any lands” (Upper Canada land petitions “L”, Public Archives/Archives Publiques Canada, Bundle 3, RG 1, L3, Vol. 284).
[55] Allen & Braisted,p p. 61.
[56] ‘Memorial of Daniel Lighthart’, 5-7 July 1787.
Lightheart-Lückhard family 