It Happened Here-- In Sir William's Footsteps 
Part 1--The Jessups

 

For a few thousand New Yorkers, and many thousands of Colonists across the English Colonies in North America the end of the French and Indian Wars occasioned an unleashing of dreams.
For most of these thousands the dream was for a few acres or a few dozen acres of land where they could build a home, farm and live without fear of attack from the French and their Indian allies.  During the war the British and colonial governments had fueled these dreams by inducing/rewarding soldiers and officers with grants of undeveloped land for their military service. For a few of these, their dreams were of a much greater magnitude and they looked to the example of Sir William Johnson for inspiration.

Rte 5, Ft. Johnson

William Johnson had come to America in 1738 to look after the estate of his uncle, Admiral Peter Warren in the Mohawk Valley and to supervise and collect rents from the tenant farmers on Warren's lands.  Soon, however, Johnson became involved in the profitable fur trade and in buying and selling all sorts of commodities to both colonial and Native American fur traders. Fur trading with the Indians led to buying land from them and land speculation.  Johnson moved several times from his original house  in Warrensbush, to across the river where his house/trading post would lie astride important trading routes. The Mohawks came to trust him, adopting him into their tribe, giving him the name Warraghiyagey, "Man who does much business." In time, he acquired large parcels of land, north of the Mohawk, into Cherry Valley and beyond, toward Lake Otsego. At the close of the French and Indian Wars he developed a town, Johnstown, building a palatial house for himself in the midst of his tenant farms, and importing craftsmen to sell goods and services to his tenants. Johnson ran flour mills and saw mills.  For clearing his land he owned some-sixty slaves and ran a profitable lumber business.

Ft. Johnson

Johnson's success in turning the wilderness into his private fortune inspired two brothers,  Edward and Ebenezer Jessup.  Edward had raised a militia company and served as its captain in Amherst's campaign in 1759 in the late war. His service acquainted him with the wilderness north of Albany, up into the Champlain region.  In 1764 the brothers moved to Albany to engage in land speculation. They sought out Sir William Johnson for his advise and help. In 1767 they were granted a patent for 41,000 acres around Lake Luzerne and the northern Hudson region.  They would follow it with two more purchases of 15,000 acres, a whopping 800,000 acre purchase, and another of 40,000 acres. They would own most of what would become northern and western Warren County and lands west to the West Canada Lakes. Sir William Johnson became an invaluable negotiator helping them purchase the land from the Mohawks and Caughnawagas (Canadian Mohawks). By 1773 they had established themselves in the lumber industry, cutting timber along the northern Hudson River and floating it down to their mills south of Lake Luzerne.  Their mills along with the ferry they operated and the town that sprung up around the mills became known as Jessup's Landing.  It remained Jessup's Landing until 1886, when its name was changed to Corinth.

In back of Post Office, Jessup's Landing Beach, Corinth

 Edward and Ebenezer Jessup, joined by their brother Joseph, built elaborate log mansions and furnished them richly, entertaining Sir William Johnson, and his entourage--his son John, nephew Guy, and their families; the Clauses and the Butlers. Even Governor Tryon enjoyed their hospitality.

But such opulence on the frontier and the strong Loyalist opinions they espoused generated early and fierce resentments.  In the first winter months of 1775 arsonists struck their mills, and destroyed the ferry. The Jessups closed their mills, laid off their workforce, packed their belongings and escaped with their families to seek refuge up river with the Johnsons at their Fish house camp.* When Sir John Johnson left for Canada in May, 1775, the Jessup men went with him.

Co. Rte. 44, Lake Luzerne

Rockwell Falls (since widened for logging)

Though the Jessups had made a successful escape, apparently Edward, Ebenezer and Joseph returned to the Patent to recruit Loyalist supporters the following year. In the summer of 1776 they were able to meet Sir Guy Carlton's invasion force with eighty recruits at Crown Point. Though Carleton's army was ultimately forced to turn back because of the lateness of the season, the following year, Edward was again recruiting in the region, this time narrowly avoiding capture. A rebel militia unit from Ballston Spa seized 31 recruits he had persuaded to join up and they would have taken him as well, but Edward managed to jump across Rockwell Falls, on the Hudson, and make his escape. Eventually he would meet up with General Burgoyne's army, and his brother Ebenezer at Willsboro. Plans were made for the Jessups to field a their own regiment, The King's Loyal American Corps, with Ebenezer as Lieutenant Colonel, and Edward as Captain. Previously the Jessups and their volunteers had been attached to Sir John Johnson's King's Royal Regiment of New York. But for the present campaign, Ebenezer remained with Johnson's Regiment and Edward took over Burgoyne's batteaux service.

The campaign, of course, did not go as they had hoped. Stopped at Bemis Heights, Burgoyne's Army was surrounded and forced to surrender. Most of the Loyalists, fearing they would be mistreated by the Patriots, if captured, opted to try to slip away at night before the surrender and try to make their way back to Canada. Not until 1781 would Jessup's Loyal American Corps have enough soldiers to become an independent unit. The Jessup brothers were said to have been taken into custody, then paroled to be allowed to make their way back to Canada, after promising to not engage in future combat. Whether they were paroled or simply escaped with so many other Loyalists, they continued as active combatants. Ebenezer Jessup led the loyalist contingent in a 1778 ship and batteaux raid that devastated the lower Lake Champlain valley and towns in the interior of Vermont, via the Otter Creek.

In 1779 with 57** other prominent Tories they were named in a remarkable document of the New York Legislature. Condemned for Treason, in absentia, they were banished from New York; their property was seized; and they were condemned to death if they were ever captured within the state.

Co Rte 35, 3mi. west of Kingsbury

The Jessups undoubtedly
knew the Jones' family, if
in fact, they didn't recruit
them to the cause. The
1781 Loyal Ranger roster
lists both a Capt. John Jones
and a Lt. David Jones. 





 
For the next four years,  following the Burgoyne debacle, Jessup's "Loyal Americans" saw service mainly along the northern-most end of Lake Champlain and the Richelieu river, building up fortifications from Montreal to Sorel and doing garrison duty, with occasional raids south into rebel territory. Edward accompanied Sir John Johnson on his raids into the Mohawk and Schoharie valleys in the summers of 1780 and 1781. Finally in November 1781 members of the still incomplete Loyal American Corps were combined with fragments of other units to form the Loyal Rangers but by now, with the war winding down, the new unit saw action in only a pair of minor raids. By the summer of 1783 Edward Jessup was involved in resettling his men in townships allocated to them along the Saint Lawrence River. The Jessups would pass from American history into Canadian history, becoming important developers of Upper Canada. Edward would found the town of Prescott, Ontario, and be honored by having a chapter of United Empire Loyalists named for him. Ebenezer eventually moved his family to England to try to gain compensation from the Crown for the vast acreage lost by the brothers. He finally was awarded an administrative post in Calcutta, India, where he died in 1818.



Next Week -- In Sir William's Footsteps, Part 2 Will Gilliland

Marker(s) of the Week--


Question:  What do you do after
you have built the town's major
industry, run the general store,
built most of the houses in town 
and held many town offices?


 

Co. Rte. 4, Hadley

Answer:  Become the town's
Postmaster.














 *The Sacandaga river empties into the Hudson at Hadley/Lake Luzerne. "Upstream" from there is southwest, past the "Fish house" to Mayfield where it makes an abrupt turn northward and continues into the Adirondacks. The section from Mayfield to Conklinville is now dammed, forming the Great Sacandaga Reservoir.

** Others included Sir John Johnson, Daniel Claus, John Butler, Ex-Governor Tryon, Ex-Albany Mayor Cuyler, and Phillip Skene of Skenesboro.