Joshua
Peck and the Exeter Assizes
Twelve months prior to Joshua Peck’s case for larceny, John
Herron’s 5th great grandfather was also tried.
The year previously, 1785, Edward Westlake was tried, along
with his brother in law and father in law, Noah and John Mortimer.
Mary Braund faced trial in Exeter in 1786, there is no
mention of Joshua Peck on this record, however his record is as follows:
John
Graves Simcoe (25
February 1752 – 26 October 1806) was a British Army general and the first lieutenant governor of Upper Canada from 1791 until 1796 in
southern Ontario and the watersheds of Georgian Bay and Lake Superior. He founded York (now Toronto) and was instrumental
in introducing institutions such as courts of law, trial by jury, English
common law, and freehold land tenure, and also in the
abolition of slavery in Canada.
Simcoe was the
only surviving son of Cornishman John (1710–1759) and Katherine
Simcoe (d. 1767). His parents had four children, but he was the only one to
live past childhood; Percy drowned in 1764, while Paulet William and John
William died as infants. His father was a captain in the Royal Navy who commanded the 60-gun HMS Pembroke during the Siege
of Louisbourg (1758),
with James Cook as his sailing master. He died of pneumonia on 15 May 1759 on board his ship
in the mouth of the Saint
Lawrence River a
few months prior to the siege of Quebec, and was buried at sea.[4] The family then moved to his
mother's parental home in Exeter. His paternal grandparents were William and Mary (née
Hutchinson) Simcoe.
He was
educated at Exeter
Grammar School and Eton College. He spent a year at Merton
College, Oxford; he was then admitted to Lincoln's Inn, but decided to follow the military
career for which his father had intended him. He was initiated into Freemasonry in Union Lodge, Exeter on 2
November 1773.
Military career in American Revolutionary War
In 1770,
Simcoe entered the British Army as an ensign in the 35th
Regiment of Foot, and
his unit was dispatched to the Thirteen Colonies. Later, he saw action in the American
Revolutionary War during
the Siege of
Boston. After the
siege, in July 1776, he was promoted captain in the 40th
Regiment of Foot.[7] He saw action with the grenadier company of the 40th Foot in
the New York and New Jersey campaign and the Philadelphia
campaign. Simcoe
commanded the 40th at the Battle
of Brandywine on
11 September 1777, where he was wounded. Legend has it that Simcoe ordered his
men at Brandywine not to fire upon three fleeing rebels, among whom was George Washington.
In 1777,
Simcoe sought to form a Loyalist regiment of free
blacks from Boston
but instead was offered the command of the Queen's Rangers formed on Staten Island on 15 October 1777. It was a
well-trained light infantry unit comprising 11 companies of 30 men, 1 grenadier, and 1 hussar, and the rest light infantry. The Queen's Rangers saw
extensive action during the Philadelphia campaign, including a successful
surprise attack (planned and executed by Simcoe) at the Battle
of Crooked Billet.
In 1778,
Simcoe led an attack on Judge William Hancock's house during a foraging expedition opposed
by Patriot militia. The
attack killed 10 militiamen in their sleep and wounded five others. William
Hancock was also killed, although he was not with the Americans. The attack
took place at night and with bayonets. On 28 June of that year, Simcoe and his
Queen's Rangers took part in the Battle
of Monmouth, in and
near Freehold,
New Jersey.
On 31 August
1778, Lieut. Col. Simcoe led a massacre of forty Native Americans, allied with
the Continental Army, in what is today the Bronx, NY. This place is known as Indian Field in Van
Cortlandt Park, Bronx.
NY.
On 26
October 1779, Simcoe and 80 men launched an attack on central New Jersey from southern Staten Island known
as Simcoe's Raid, from what is known today as the Conference House, resulting in the burning of Patriot
supplies inside a Dutch Reformed Church in Finderne, including hay and grain; the release
of Loyalist prisoners from the Somerset County Courthouse; and Simcoe's capture by Armand Tuffin de La Rouërie.
Simcoe was
released at the end of 1779 and rejoined his unit in Virginia. He participated in the Raid on Richmond with Benedict Arnold in January
1781 and was involved in a
skirmish near Williamsburg and
was at the Siege of
Yorktown. He was
invalided back to England in December of that year as a Lieutenant-Colonel,
having been promoted in March 1782.
Simcoe wrote
a book on his experiences with the Queen's Rangers, titled A Journal of
the Operations of the Queen's Rangers from the end of the year 1777 to the
conclusion of the late American War, which was published in 1787. He
served briefly as Inspector General of Recruitment for the British Army, from
1789 until his departure for Upper Canada two years later.
There are no
reports in the British newspapers of his coat being stolen. In fact there are no reports in the papers about any theft associated with Joshua Peck, which is quite unusual.
Perhaps
Joshua Peck was a misunderstood man, who had packed a lot into his early years.
Was he sold
for $10 to the captain of the ship?
Was he
indentured to his family on their agricultural property for 8 years?
Was he
hoodwinked by the declaration that all servants would be freed?
Did he swap
sides from the Continental Army to the English army?
Was he taken
prisoner? And returned to England?
Was he on
the Ship “Jersey” which was scuttled in New York in 1783, as the record
suggests?
Or was he
repatriated after his 8 years servitude was complete?
Like the
other gaps in his life, the years between 1779 and 1786 are blank.
No comments:
Post a Comment