Quest Biographies Bundle — Books 31–35. Rosemary Sadlier

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СКАЧАТЬ to be short-lived. Four years later Mercy would die of tuberculosis, and once again the three Ingersoll girls would be motherless.

      Although Massachusetts had, as early as 1647, mandated that every town with a population of more than fifty families support elementary schools, Laura most likely received what education she had at home. One source suggests that Thomas had hoped to send her to a boarding school for young ladies in Boston, one of the few large towns where secondary education was available. No doubt he was aware how quick she was to learn. But by the time Laura might have been of an age to attend a boarding school, conditions in the state were so out of control that it was unwise for her to leave home.

      Family members later described Laura Ingersoll as having a fair complexion, dark eyes, and masses of light brown hair. She was a delicate-looking young girl with a slim build. But she was far from fragile. At thirteen, she was already capable of looking after her younger sisters and managing the Ingersoll household in her father’s absence, providing direction to the two family servants who tended to the more menial tasks.

      Now that the war was over, Thomas, who had risen through the ranks of the state militia, was appointed magistrate upon his return to Great Barrington. There had been no children from his marriage to Mercy Smith, and four months after her death, on September 20, 1789, he married Sarah (Sally) Backus, daughter of Lieutenant Gamaliel Whiting and the sister of General John Whiting. Sally, a widow, already had one daughter, and Harriet quickly became part of the Ingersoll family. At ten, she was the same age as her stepsister Elizabeth.

      Sally and Thomas Ingersoll subsequently had seven more children, four boys and three girls. The first, Charles Fortescue, was born in Great Barrington on September 27, 1791. Laura had just turned sixteen.

      Although Laura may well have missed Mother Mercy’s art instruction, there were new babies to look after, and Sally proved to be a robust and cheerful ally, more like an older sister than a parent.

      Times were hard after the war ended. Many people were destitute, and there was no work to be had. The United States was gripped by a severe depression. English merchants were dumping goods in America, but allowing Americans to sell in Britain only those goods the English couldn’t get anywhere else.

      The colonists’ paper money was useless, and even law-abiding citizens were jailed for lack of funds to pay their taxes. The editor of one Massachusetts newspaper, the Worcester Spy, accepted salt pork for subscriptions. When Thomas Ingersoll had difficulty collecting the fees due him for his magisterial duties he took feed and grain for his horses as payment. Massachusetts was close to bankruptcy.

      Shay’s Rebellion, a citizens’ revolt against these difficult conditions, broke out in the state in 1786, led by Daniel Shay, a veteran of the war. Thomas helped to put down the rebellion, and it was at this point that he was promoted to the rank of major. Although the revolt had been a failure, it had caused more and more people to recognize the need for stronger government.

      The Loyalists, having lost the American War of Independence, found themselves aliens in their own country, with no jobs and their land and possessions confiscated. Those Loyalists who didn’t flee the country were at risk of being tortured or even murdered.

      With the Treaty of Paris, signed in 1783, the British had been generous to the Americans in terms of settlement, with the understanding that the individual states would return the Loyalists’ land or compensate them for it. Congress had no power to force the states to do right by the Loyalists, however, and except in the case of South Carolina, where some compensation was made, it didn’t happen. Wagonloads of Loyalist women and children left their homeland, moving north through New York State to find refuge in settlements at Cataraqui (Kingston) or Niagara.

      Thomas Ingersoll was disgusted by the continued persecution of the Loyalists after the war was over and the fact that such criminal behaviour went unpunished by the American courts. In better times he had borrowed heavily, hoping to grow his business, but by that time he had realized that no matter how hard he worked, he would never be as prosperous as he once was. He heard there was land available on generous terms in Upper Canada and, deeply in debt, he began to think of leaving the country.

      2

       Departure for Upper Canada

      Prior to the American War of Independence there had been no white settlement west of the Niagara River. By the time that war ended in 1783, the population of Niagara had grown to ten thousand. Those early settlers were the Loyalists, who’d fought on the side of the British and had fled the tyranny of the colonies south of the border. Settlement at that point was largely along a narrow frontier bordering the Niagara River.

      In 1791 the Constitutional Act divided the province of Quebec into Upper and Lower Canada. Colonel John Graves Simcoe, once a commander of Loyalist troops himself (the Queen’s Rangers) was appointed the first lieutenant-governor of Upper Canada.

      Simcoe recognized the need for more settlers if the young province was to thrive. He issued a proclamation inviting Americans to move to Upper Canada — Americans who were British at heart, who were fed up with the lawlessness and corruption that was rampant in the United States at the time — Americans like Thomas Ingersoll. Although some Loyalists and members of his government warned against it, Simcoe was confident that he was on the right track.

      Lured by glowing reports of fertile land, abundant forests, and teeming rivers in Canada, Thomas Ingersoll felt ready to return to the pioneering life his ancestors had led 150 years earlier, even if it meant living under British rule again and swearing allegiance to King George III.

      About this time, while he was in New York on business, Thomas was introduced to the celebrated chief of the Six Nations, Joseph Brant, who along with his sister Molly Johnson, had persuaded his people to fight on the side of the British in the American War of Independence. Chief Brant had already selected land along the Grand River in Upper Canada as a home for the Six Nations people, and he offered, if and when Thomas came to Canada, to show him the best place for a settlement.

      Thomas Ingersoll and four associates, including the Reverend Gideon Bostwick of Great Barrington, Massachusetts, drew up the necessary petition asking Lieutenant-Governor Simcoe for a township grant in Upper Canada. In order to present the petition in person, Thomas, as the group’s representative, journeyed in March 1793 to Newark (the name Simcoe gave Niagara, today’s Niagara-on-the-Lake), which was then the seat of government for Upper Canada.

      Two months later, the government granted Thomas and his associates sixty-six thousand acres (twenty-seven thousand hectares) of land. The township chosen was in the Thames Valley, and the new settlement was to be called Oxford-on-the-Thames. It is today the site of the town of Ingersoll, near London, Ontario.

      It is possible that Laura, then almost eighteen, accompanied her father on an initial journey to Upper Canada to see for herself their future home, before making the trek with the whole family. She was accustomed to helping Thomas with his business accounts, and it seems reasonable that he would seek the approval of his trusted eldest child on this latest, and boldest, enterprise.

      If she did go with him on one of his early expeditions, Laura may have been able to allay the fears back home somewhat. What would life be like in a new country where the Ingersolls would suddenly be thrust into the role of pioneers and farmers?

      At the very least, Laura could assure the younger ones that their father would be with them in their new home, not away fighting wars or tending to his magisterial duties.

      As he’d promised, Chief Joseph Brant sent six of his men to escort Thomas СКАЧАТЬ