Christopher Harrison and Priscilla Peddle
6. Christopher HARRISON (29) was born in England.
He emigrated in 1772 to Hunterdon Co., New Jersey.
(30)(31) He came as a groom
to John Allen, Esq., of Hunterdon County. (There is a reference
to Allen having imported "that elegant horse Whirligig,"
a racing horse born about 1765, in the Pennsylvania Journal, April
19, 1775, so it is likely that he raised horses.) He was living
in 1776 near Sussex Co., New Jersey.
(32)
When the American Revolution broke out, Christopher
became a Loyalist,
remaining loyal to the Crown. A certificate signed by Richard
Bowlby and his son Abraham confirming Harrison as a Loyalist stated
that he was the neighbor of the Bowlbys in New Jersey, "that
he was loyal from the beginning of the revolution; that he had
suffered persecution and imprisonment, and that he accompanied
Richard Bowlby (along with 80 other neighbors) into the British
lines in December 1776." (Bowlby had settled in Sussex county,
NJ in 1746 and was a justice of the peace there. At that time
Hunterdon Co. bordered on Sussex Co.--the part that in 1824 became
present-day Warren Co.) Harrison's schedule of property included
two English-bred mares and a colt. He was allowed £45 from his
claim of £260.14s. Along with other Loyalists, Harrison was evacuated
from New York in 1783. Harrison was among the Loyalists who went
to Nova Scotia in 1783 and had in January 1784 been promised grants
of lands by Governor Parr. On 20 February 1784 the Governor granted
to Harrison (mistranscribed as Hamson in the text) and about 200
others (including Thomas Harrison, Jr. and Richard Bowlsby) "a
township between Annapolis and Clare, heretofore known as Conway,
but which was thereby and therein named 'Digby'" and which
covered an area of 100,000 acres. He appeared on the census
on 29 May 1784 in Digby, Nova Scotia.
(33) In the "Muster
Roll for Digby - Civillians" Christopher Harrison is
listed as heading a household of five persons. In 1786 he as still
living in Digby.(34)
He and his family moved to York, Canada West (later Upper Canada,
now Ontario) sometime before 1800. He died in 1814 in York.
7. Priscilla
PEDDLE(35). Listed
in the "New Loyalist Index" by Paul Bunnell (Bowie,
Md., 1989): "Priscilla Harrison, wife of Christopher, not
Quakers, daughter of Joseph Peddle, from Burlington, NJ, settled
in New Brunswick." Source: Quaker Loyalist Settlers in New
Brunswick and Nova Scotia, by the Dean of William Penn College.
Children were:
3 i. Ann (Nancy) HARRISON.
ii. William HARRISON
was born in 1784 in Nova Scotia. He died in Feb 1838 in Buffalo,
New York.(36) William was
"a keen reformer, being a close friend of Thomas Shepard
... Like Sheppard, he threw in his lot with Mackenzie in 1837,
and took part in the skirmishes at that time," the rebellion
of 1837. After fleeing to the US he died of wounds received when
fighting under Mackenzie at Montgomery's tavern. It is said that
Loyalists stopped the funeral several times while his body was
being taken from Niagara to the churchyard at Hoggs Hollow for
burial. He was buried in Feb 1838 in St. John's cemetery, York
Mills, Ontario. (He's buried in the Harrison family plot, the
one west of the Van Nostrand plot, in the shadow of the giant
elm tree.)
iii. Charlotte
HARRISON married Archie WRIGHT.
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Last revised 29 Feb 2004