Re: Was Nathaniel Harriman a Tory?
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In reply to:
Re: Was Nathaniel Harriman a Tory?
Melissa Sedlis 5/09/08
We assume that Nathaniel's brother Jonathan Harriman served in the Continental Army as he did receive a pension until he died in Upstate NY.
Nathaniel and Bethania moved from Rupert Vermont to what is now called Cobourg in May 1797. They like other so called Simcoe Loyalists (Lord Simcoe was the Governor General of Canada at the time), received a grant of 200 acres.The British thinking then was to bring Americans to the border of Canada and the United States and give them land to settle and stop fruther expansion of the US.
That strategy worked because 15 years later during the War of 1812, Nathaniel's sons Nathaniel and his brother Luther served in the Provincial Dragoons and the Canadian Militia in the War of 1812-1814. The thinking in the US was that many of those former Americans would join the invading Fenians and others and upset the British rule.What they did't figure was that once given land, they would defend it.
I have visited the Forestville NY cemetery where Nathaniel is buried along with a few other Harriman'sWe can track most of the children and my direct line is Nathaniel, Nathaniel Angus Augustus, Eugene Augustus, Lloyd Eugene, Stafford Eugene and me.
I recently visited our Ancestral gravesites in Owen Sound Ontario to commplete a memorial service for my brother Lloyd Charles who now is remembered along with his father, granfather, great, great great and great great great grandparetns, their wives and children at Greenwood Cemetery in Owend Sound.
Paul E. Harriman Banko