1753 - 1846
Patriot, Privateersman, Mariner, Trader, Gunner, Soldier,
Homesteader and St John Harbour Pilot
Farmer, Fisherman, Husband and Father
United Empire Loyalist
18th Century Superstar
The Belding family came from Kippax, Yorkshire, England to the Massachusetts Colony by 1641. At some point they and others decided the surrounding land wasn’t sufficiently fertile while the Connecticut River valley was a rich paradise. They shipped their furniture to meet them at the head of navigation on the Connecticut River, and they walked about 100 miles through the wilderness driving their herds and flocks for a little over two weeks to reach the river and the ships with their heavy goods moored and waiting for them. That was the place they founded the City of Wethersfield, Connecticut in the south end of what is now Hartford, Ct. Wethersfield is the name of a town in Yorkshire quite near to the Kippax area. By the middle of the 1700s, there were many Beldings or Beldens or Beldons in Wethersfield as well as families that had moved to Stamford, Fairfield, New Haven and other towns in Connecticut. They were farmers and mariners for the most part arising from the fact that you could bring a ship up the river from Saybrook on Long Island Sound to Wethersfield and safe haven. They had the best of both worlds and prospered mightily.
From about 1630 on, sailors from New England took ships up and down the Atlantic seaboard and into the Bay of Fundy to trade in furs with the natives and fish in the bountiful waters. Plentiful food of all kinds and lumber was from early times a feature of life in the New England settlements and they were able to trade a substantial surplus with England and increasingly in other ports of Europe and the Caribbean. During the occasions that England was at war with Spain, the New England sailors would obtain Letters of Marque from British authorities and sail down to the Caribbean where they would prey on Spanish shipping hoping to take trade goods and sometimes gold and silver. Some of these privateering voyages were quite successful and fortunes were built in New England on the multiplier effect of money that came from these ventures. The ports of Boston and New York grew rapidly and to a smaller degree, places in Connecticut like New London, New Haven, Stamford, and others. Local industries produced trade goods for traders to take to Europe and into the Mediterranean for profit. By the year 1775, there were 13 colonies in all on the Eastern Seaboard of North America with a total population of some 3 million people and the governing authorities from England were implementing rates of taxation to the benefit of England that were seen as too high. The British administrators had fallen into disrepute with at least one third of the colonial population who wanted to be independent of the mother country. Another third of the people wanted to avoid all disruptive politics and the final third generally remained loyal to the British who they felt could be persuaded to make special concessions for the New World. The Continental Congress composed of representatives from all colonies failed to come to terms with the English and the American Revolution began with the onset of armed opposition to British troops in Massachusetts in 1775.
By 1776, the Continental Congress in Philadelphia was openly in arms against the English government and the war began in earnest. General Washington’s first success was to drive the English governing authorities out of Boston in the spring of 1776. He then marched down to New York in hopes of repeating his success. The British strongly reinforced New York before his arrival and he was forced, after some battles on Long Island, to withdraw to New Jersey and finally Philadelphia. Why the numerically superior British forces allowed this to happen is one of the mysteries of the Revolution. But the traders and merchants in England particularly London were not unsympathetic to the American cause and had a strong voice in Parliament as well as at the court of King George. Because of this, the British commanders on the scene in North America could never be sure that British policy toward America wouldn’t change at the drop of the hat such that they might be criticized for successful and devastating battles they might win in the month or so before the news of the policy change could reach them. As late as the end of 1776, back channel negotiations were underway between the Continental Congress and Parliament in London in hopes of resolving the dispute.
The land war in the colonies dragged on year after year until the main British force under Cornwallis was forced in 1781 to surrender at Yorktown by Washington’s forces with the help of the French fleet. A relieving force of soldiers for Cornwallis arrived on the British fleet too late to be of assistance in the situation. The shear distances involved in moving around the colonies was another major factor leading to the British loss. Combined with the naval successes of the small American navy together with the additional harm to British trade everywhere inflicted by some 800 privateers licensed by the American governments, the Revolution was brought to a successful end with the formal ceasefire of June 30th, 1783. The agreement permitted the British forces and huge numbers of supporters of their cause, refugees known as Loyalists, to remove themselves from New York in the months that followed. This is the year some 15000 came to each of Nova Scotia and New Brunswick and some 20000 more to southern Ontario around Lake Ontario and up the St Lawrence into Quebec and the eastern Townships of Quebec along its new border with the USA. The last British left New York in late November of 1783 when General Sir Guy Carleton, the British military commander in North America, turned control of the city over to American forces, the British troops took ship and sailed off into history.
On the Map of Connecticut herewith, note that Wethersfield in yellow is about
30 miles inland and the same distance from the port town of New Haven in blue.
Stamford is in the lower west quadrant of Connecticut near the border with New
York and it’s also in blue, and about 30 miles from New Haven.
It is thought that Daniel Belding, born in New Haven, Ct in 1753, was an officer on a privateer, the Polly, during the Revolution following which, he brought his wife Mabel Bristol, born in New Haven in 1764 and their daughter Mabel Belding born in the same place on December 13, 1783, to Saint John in 1784. There are records of them having their son Jared baptized at Trinity Church in Saint John in the summer of 1786 by the Rev Clarke, a New Haven Episcopal minister who was on his way to take up his new post as the Church or England minister for the large body of Loyalists settled in Gagetown, NB along the St John River. Likely the Beldings knew him from their days in Connecticut which might be the reason he recorded this event in his papers.
Some members of the family say that Daniel Belding was not an American and that he was born in Scandinavia, that he became a favourite of King George and that he was in he British navy. They say he was a British naval Lieutenant when he came out to America during the Revolutionary War and that he sailed on a privateer called the Polly. They also say that King George favoured he and May Belle Bristall with the gift of a silver service at the time of their wedding. Some say that May Belle Bristall was a favourite of Queen Charlotte and accompanied her on a visit to Josiah Wedgwood’s studio on the occasion that Queen Charlotte purchased three different sets of dishes from the potter and established him as a preeminent maker of fine ‘Wedgwood’ china.
When Daniel Belding filed his petition for a crown grant in 1819, he swore an oath that he had been born in the USA. (Apologies to Bruce Springsteen)
Daniel Belding is recorded as joining the artillery militia unit in Saint John in 1793. There were political problems in Europe at the time and British involvement was spilling over into their dealings with the Americans. Saint John had to be ready to defend itself from all comers. A number of 24 pound cannon were purchased by the merchants in the city and placed on the high ground in West St John at the harbour mouth where skilful use thereof could deny entry to a fleet of invaders. Gunners, the people with experience in use of cannons, were enlisted to man same. Sailors were ideal for this work since the use of cannons were their main defence at sea. This battery of cannon was to be protected from assault by land by a number of companies of militiamen deployed around the position.
Daniel Belding paid his dues and registered as a freeman of the City of St John in 1795. Since his account book now lodged in the archives of the NB Museum on Douglas Avenue in St John reveals some of his business dealings of the time, we know that he was a trader in Saint John and also provided and transported trade goods and foodstuffs to settlers in Musquash and Dipper Harbour. From oral family history, it seems that Daniel Belding establish a trading post on the mainland facing Crow Island in Little Dipper Harbour soon after arriving in Saint John. From there, he fished and bought and sold goods, fish and furs to various settlements on the coast and with the native Indians who were still present in numbers at the time. From his account book, we know that he was active as a Pilot for ships heading into and out of St John Harbour. From the vantage point in his trading post he could see ships coming from the south, row out to them with his fish, furs, and other goods for sale in St John, and then pilot them in to Saint John with his boat tied on behind. This allowed him to sell his lobsters, fish, furs or other produce in Saint John while he waited at his home with the family until the ship was ready to go to sea again. He would then pilot the ship out of Saint John Harbour. The ship would drop him off at Little Dipper Harbour in his boat loaded with goods bought in Saint John for further trade. From his account book, this would seem to be his pattern for a number of years.
In other matters, in the Land Registry Office at Saint John, Daniel Belding registered a deed for the purchase at auction in April 1799 - for 80 pounds sterling - a property on St James Street West. The auction had been advertised with that description in the St John Gazette and Advertizer in early April of 1799. The ad says the house had two “dwelling” rooms and a bedroom on the lower floor, a good kitchen and excellent cellar under one half of it, with a woodhouse (woodshed?) adjoining. One selling feature was that there was a good well with the most excellent water ‘which supplied an extensive neighbourhood with that necessary article.’
In his petition for a crown grant filed with the colonial government of New Brunswick in Fredericton in 1819, he notes that he and his family have lived in Chance Harbour for fourteen years, built a home, barn and various other building and cleared a substantial acreage of land for farming. This establishes the year 1805 as the year in which he moved his family from Saint John to Chance Harbour becoming the first residents of Chance Harbour village. 2005 is the 200th anniversary of this move.
This 1819 petition also indicates that Charity French, a Loyalist war hero in the Revolution who lived in Dipper Harbour at the time, had purchased from another Loyalist that Loyalist’s right to a 770 acre grant at Chance Harbour. It is this right to receive a deed for the land from the colonial government that he sold to Daniel Belding for 30 pounds sterling on or about 1805 according to Daniel’s statements in the petition. We know from the records in the archives at the NB Museum that Charity French wrote to the lawyer and political fixer Ward Chipman in 1809 asking for Chipman’s help to have the colonial administration waive the requirement of a costly survey for the property prior to making the actual written grant so that he could get Daniel Belding a deed for the property to register in the Saint John Registry office. He told Chipman that Daniel Belding wouldn’t pay him in full for the land until he had his deed and the survey cost would exceed the 30 pounds sterling that he was to get for it. Charity French died in 1813 and Daniel finally got his grant in 1819 so it must have been his son Charity French Jr to whom Daniel eventually paid the money.
Daniel’s land grant of about 770 acres was all of lots 25, 26, 27 and 28 with the east limit running approximately north and south from the granite formation that dries out at low tide on Belding Cove beach to the road to Lake Retreat and then west to a line roughly north and south from a point on the beach of Little Dipper Harbour just east of the mouth of Moose Creek. It follows the various course of the shoreline westerly from the aforesaid point on Belding Cove to the aforesaid point on the beach of Little Dipper Harbour just east of Moose Creek. The waterfront access is on Belding Cove, Little Dipper Harbour, and the basin area inside the spit bordering the east side of Little Dipper Harbour that is known variously as Belding Creek or Thompson Creek at the north of which is a sizeable salt marsh as well as the Bay of Fundy from Reef Point to Crow Island.
It was 1807 that he sold and deeded the house and lands on St James St W to William Godsoe for 100 pounds sterling. The deed recorded in the Saint John Registry office indicates that the deal includes some tents and other improvements from which it appears that Daniel was providing temporary accommodations for new arrivals or other transients at the site which just happens to be quite close to the docks on the west side of the harbour in West St John or Carleton as it was known at the time. It also overlooks the harbour entrance at Partridge Island such that new arrivals would have been able to see the operation.
Since his son Jared turned 20 in 1806, it is likely that Jared and one or more of the younger children was involved in the Saint James St West operation while Daniel Belding went on with his trading and work as a harbour pilot from Chance Harbour.
In 1809, Daniel Belding joined the NB Militia serving in Captain Thomas Menzies company according to records published in the Saint John paper at the time of the centennial celebration of the arrival of the Loyalists in 1883. Menzies received a grant to substantial acreage in Musquash and others member of the company also had land in Musquash or elsewhere in the Parish of Lancaster west of the borders of Saint John. This militia unit and others would come to the defence of Saint John or any nearby place that should be invaded by the enemy in what became the War of 1812. Thankfully, this never happened although that war was a period in which both Canadian and American privateers made out like bandits in the target rich environment of the shipping lanes from Europe and the Caribbean. More fortunes were made in New England and the colonies of New Brunswick and Nova Scotia, and in particular, that of the Barrs family in Nova Scotia.
During the war of 1812, a ship, The General Smythe, named after another governor of the colony, was outfitted as a privateer. The objective was to capture or to run out of the Bay of Fundy a French privateer that was causing concern. No list of the crew seems to be available from which it can be determined if Daniel Belding or any of the Thomas family were members. There is a record in the archives of the NB Museum that indicates Munson Jarvis was a part owner of The General Smythe and that his share was further subdivided with Captain Felix Thomas buying in to the ownership of the ship along with a number of others.
There were many Thomas men who came from New Haven, Ct to Saint John at the end of the revolution. The Thomas family was extensive in that area of Connecticut. Daniel Belding’s mother was Dinah Thomas. Mabel Bristol, his wife, was the daughter of Mabel Thomas who in turn had brothers Charles Thomas, Thomas Thomas and Samuel Thomas. That particular Charles Thomas died in 1778 but may have a son Charles Thomas – Captain Charles Thomas. Brothers Thomas (who died in Mispec in 1831) and Samuel Thomas did come to Saint John as Loyalists and had sons Thomas and Felix respectively. The Thomas family members settled mostly in the Mispec area where the live to this day although a lot of them found work in St John and lived there at least part of the time although in this day and age, the commute is a snap.
Daniel Belding and Mabel Bristol has a son David Belding who, in January of 1825, married a Jane Thomas in Trinity Church in Saint John. The witnesses were Thomas Thomas and the Rev Coster’s wife Matilda. Of course, there is no way to determine which Thomas Thomas it was – the Thomas Thomas born in New Haven that died in 1831 or his son Thomas Thomas. What we do know is that Captain Felix Thomas bought the right to obtain a crown grant of land adjoining the Belding grant on the east in or about 1925 when he built a dwelling thereon. This we know from his formal application for the crown grant in 1840 a copy of which is located elsewhere on this site. That he would come in that year to Chance Harbour is persuasive evidence on the point that Jane Thomas was his daughter. When Jane Thomas died at an early age, she was buried in the Belding Cemetery on the Graveyard Spit on the east side of Little Dipper Harbour. It was that year or the next that Captain Felix Thomas made his formal application to obtain his crown grant of the Chance Harbour land. After all, did he not have 6 granddaughters living in Chance Harbour. Later, when he died in 1849, the Saint John newspaper made it clear that he also was buried in the Belding Graveyard on the spit at the east side of Little Dipper Harbour, known as the “Old Place”, as it was his wish to be buried by his friend Daniel Belding who had died three years earlier.
Going back to Captain Felix Thomas and his grant of land in Chance Harbour, it seems that in 1840, Felix Thomas learned that George Mills had filed a petition to the colonial government for a 100 acre crown grant of land immediately adjoining and to the east of the Daniel Belding land. This is the very property that Felix Thomas had occupied since 1825 entering into possession though an agreement with Robert Foulis who apparently had the right to receive a grant of this parcel from the government although he had never formally taken it out. Felix Thomas successfully opposed the application of George Mills and was granted lot 26 by the government.
This is the land that came to be owned by the Abbotts and Jarvis Mawhinney at a later time. It fronts on Belding Cove over to a point 2/3rds of the way across the beach of Belding Cove from its east side where the two government wharves were built in the 1900s to the high water mark above a large granite formation that dries out a low tide also the east limit of what was the east limit of Willy Belding’s property. It runs north and east for a distance to a point and then east over the road to Musquash to a point and then south parallel to the west line down through Jarvis Mountain to a point on Chance Harbour about 100 meters more or less east of the new wharf at the east point of Belding Cove.
Note that Felix comes to occupy the land in Chance Harbour in 1825. That’s the same year that David Belding marries Jane Thomas. While no record has yet been found of any marriage of Felix Thomas, he was married to Sarah who died at age 64 on 10 Jan 1840 [Johnson 8:965 – 11 Jan 1840 edition of Saint John New Brunswick Courier]. Another daughter of Felix and Sarah Thomas, Elizabeth, died on Sunday, 23 Nov 1823 at age 26 [Johnson 2:1800 – 27 Nov 1823 edition of the Saint John City Gazette]. This indicates the Captain Felix Thomas was married prior to 1797. Felix also became a Freeman of the City of Saint John. In his obituary in 1849, it says that “Captain Felix Thomas” was a mariner and that he was buried in Chance Harbour beside his friend Daniel Belding. There appears to be enough circumstantial evidence from which to see Captain Felix Thomas and his wife Sarah as the parents of Jane Thomas, the wife of David Belding.
In Daniel Belding’s account book are records for his doing business with Captain Charles Thomas, Thomas Thomas and, of course, Felix Thomas, among many others. This is further conformation of his and his wife’s relationship with the Thomas family.
There is a bill of sale in the archives of the NB Museum in Saint John. Dated April 23rd, 1783 at Huntington, Long Island, NY or New York City, Henry Tisdale and Bradford Gilbert sold the 80 ton schooner Polly to Munson Jarvis for 440 pounds sterling. Daniel Belding signs as a witness together with Isaac Smith. The Revolutionary War was over and people on Long Island and in New York city were anxious to relocate to NB and NS. These men, save perhaps Isaac Smith, later that year or the next turned up in St John as Loyalists. Had Daniel Belding been one of the officers on the Polly operating under Tisdale and Gilbert ownership as a privateer during the war prior to this date? Did Daniel Belding work for Munson Jarvis as one of the officers that would sail the Polly on his behalf – or both. Did Munson Jarvis charter the Polly from Tisdale and Gilbert during the war and sail it as a privateer at which time Daniel Belding worked as an officer on it on his behalf. There may be records still to be located that might solve this question. Family lore would tend to support the idea that he worked on the Polly which was sailed as a privateer prior to the end of the Revolutionary War.
There are records of British privateers and naval vessels seizing American vessels name Polly held in the archives at Halifax - ditto with the American privateers with respect to similar records in the archives of Connecticut at Hartford. In fact this enticing blurb appears on one of the many websites about the war:
According to “EBENEZER DAYTON - Patriot Peddler”, by Hervey Garret Smith, Long Island Forum, April 1975, Dayton acquired a small schooner, the Suffolk, and early in 1778 was commissioned as a privateer by Governor Jonathan Trumbull at New Haven. In June he sailed around Long Island into the Great South Bay and at Blue Point captured three sloops the Dispatch, the Polly, and the Jane and the pettiaugre Lively, all loaded with stolen food and supplies for the British in New York City. Taking aboard their cargoes, Capt. Dayton sailed back to New Haven and filed claims, called "libels". The prizes were awarded in court on July 6, 1778 and Capt. Dayton took his loot to his home in Bethany.
It seems that Connecticut Vice Admiralty Court records include crew and cargo lists from the captured vessel. A visit to Hartford Archives might identify Daniel Belding as an officer on that particular Polly, or some other captured prize during the war.
On the subject of privateers in general, many ordinary trading vessels of the time were armed and manned by more than the necessary complement. These ships, while carrying cargo from place to place, would also have the opportunity of capturing any weaker ship of the other side that they came upon. Being a privateer might well have been a possible bonus operation where the main use was for trading.
As to Munson Jarvis, he was a noted silversmith, merchant and Town Constable in Stamford Ct prior to the war. His father was Stamford’s Town Clerk. Because of their loyalist sympathies, both had to seek safety in New York city under British control shortly after the beginning of hostilities. At that time, Munson Jarvis owned shares in a couple of ships. Munson Jarvis became an officer in a British regiment of American Loyalists on Long Island and was involved in recruiting on the mainland and in a raid to destroy an American supply depot in Danbury Ct. He inexplicably then leaves the army and goes to New York where he works for the duration of the war in unknown enterprises. His father dies. Then he buys the Polly. Then he goes to Saint John where he set up as a very successful trader and general businessman of some influence. His wife is an Arnold and is related to Benedict Arnold’s sons who have also come to St John and become merchants. Then Benedict Arnold himself comes to St John and works with his sons until he becomes involved in a lawsuit that results in his leaving he community and returning to settle in London, England where he later dies in reduced circumstances. Meanwhile, Munson Jarvis starts an insurance business to cover ships and cargo. It seems to correspond to the time that Daniel Belding starts his account book recording some of his activities as a pilot. Did Munson Jarvis’ influence as an insurer positively influence the use of Daniel Belding as a pilot – that could be no more than idle speculation or it may be fact. There are no records to prove it.
It’s also known that Thomas Thomas Sr was a silversmith just like Munson Jarvis. Did they know each other in the small world of colonial Connecticut or early St John.
After getting his crown grant in 1819, the next record is of Daniel getting a replacement grant in 1829. Even though the first grant unmistakably identifies the property as being on Chance Harbour on Little Dipper Harbour which most certainly was in the Parish of Lancaster and County of Saint John, the document says the land is in Charlotte County. Daniel Belding probably was concerned that his registration should be in Saint John, the county town for the Parish of Lancaster rather than in St Stephens, the county town for Charlotte County. Likely getting the amending grant and registering it in St John was the right thing to do.
Finally, there is his 1846 obit in the St John newspaper.
As noted, Daniel Belding passed away in 1846 at a great age. Part of his legacy is that he came as a settler to a wilderness. He carved a home for his family out of that wilderness. He provided succeeding generations with the means of earning a living and most of the land and houses in Chance Harbour village today are built on property for which he received the original grant and are occupied by his descendants. One of his greatest legacies is the shear number of New Brunswickers, his descendants, who took part in the development of this great province and are still enjoying the benefits thereof while contributing their labour to its continued success in the present. Most of the present 250 people residing in the village of Chance Harbour are his descendants still living on land that either he or Felix Thomas received as crown grants. Finally, like so many Patriots and Loyalists, Daniel Belding, never waivered in his support of his point of view – his loyalty to his king - and in that he continues to show the way for us all in the 21st century, a time when Christianity, our western civilization and our personal security are threatened.
21 Jul 05
Harry MacDonald
RR 2 Gananoque, ON
K7G 2V4
613 382 8607