by Edward Holden, Genealogist

Finding a Loyalist ancestor in the family tree today fails to produce the embarrassment and down right shame that having a relative of that persuasion was likely to evoke among the vast majority of New Hampshire citizens during the American Revolution. Opposition against those despised Tories was so intense that large numbers of them chose to seek refuge behind the British lines to escape the wrath that was often expressed through acts of violence by their "patriotic" fellow townspeople.

Following the conclusion of hostilities it was the general practice among the displaced residents of the thirteen colonies to petition the British Government, respectfully requesting compensation for the loss of property they had abandoned when they fled their former homes. Petitions of the New Hampshire expatriots can be examined at the State Library where they are recorded in very legible longhand in a set of five oversized eighteenth century volumes.

These records reveal many little-known and surprising historical facts. One of the most fascinating disclosures is contained in a petition filed from the Province of New Brunswick. Part of that petition of one John Stinson, formerly of Dunbarton, who alternately refers to himself in the third person as the claimant or petitioner, its reproduced below.

In 1775 the claimant's uncle by whom he had been educated took your petitioner to Cambridge to fight the British. Not approving of these measures your claimant...got within the British lines in New York for protection and joined the Loyalist troops. His only brother, Samuel, came with him.

That uncle was the American "Hero of the Battle of Bennington," General John Stark. Further examination of the petitions of New Hampshire Loyalists to His Majesty's Government reveal that the general's older brother, William Stark, and another of the general's nephews, William's son, John Stark, had joined the British forces even before the Stinson brothers enlisted with the King's troops. The general's brother was a major in the British army until his death, probably of a heart attack, in 1781. The general's three nephews remained true to the King's cause throughout the war.

Those who are interested in the lives of Loyalists from any of the thirteen colonies, whether as ancestors, or simply as citizens who were persecuted for standing firmly on their principles during a crucial period in our nation's history, will find an ample number of sources in the State Library's collection ranging from Lorenzo Sabine's classic The American Loyalists [1827] to the Loyalist Lineages of Canada, 1785-1983, published by the Totonto Branch of the United Empire Loyalists Association of Canada [1984].