Kaaterskill Books

Rare Upper-Canada Imprint and ALSs of Loyalist

[Loyalist. Canada] Stone, Joel.

[Archive] Three ALS by Colonel Joel Stone Concerning Loyalists in Upper Canada, one on verso of rare Printed Document.

[Ontario, Canada]: 1795-1816. [6]pp. 8 x 12 inches. Very good copies. Item #44631

Three letters from Colonel Joel Stone, Connecticut loyalist who settled in Canada, at three phases in his time there. In the first he is requesting an extension on his timber lease as his business grows, in the second, he is seeking compensation for property remaining in the Connecticut, and in the third, he is reporting on the commission on Forfeited Estates after he has withdrawn from business.

1. ALS. To Brigade Major (Edward Baker) Littlehales. Dated July 7, 1795. Leeds [Ontario, Canada]:1 pp. 8 x 12.5 inches. Very good, minor edge tears, tape remnants to top edge, faint browning and soiling. Copy of letter from Colonel Joel Stone to Brigade Major (Edward Baker) Littlehales, requesting Littlehales ask the Lieutenant Governor to postpone Stone's term of lease for land on Howe's Island. Stone suggests that the lease "...commence on the 18th of April, 1796, instead of 1795. I have not cut any timber, or suffered any to be cut on the island. And I will not cut timber, make any improvements, or suffer it to be done by any other person or persons, until the time specified in the said Lease. Provided his Excellency will have the goodness to indulge me thus far, the singular stagnation of the market for Boards and plank obliges me to pray for time - and as I consider the markets at the worst, of course, they must mend.” Signed by Stone

2. ALS. To Leman Stone. Dated 7th February 1798. Leeds. [3] pp. Bifolium. 8 x 12.5 inches. Very good, minor tears at folds.

Sent, via a Mr. Ford, to his younger brother Leman Stone (1750-1847) back in Connecticut asking for his brother's help in dealing with a British Agent on reclaiming compensation for a tract of land in the town of Winchester he had purchased in 1776 and which was never confiscated and "to endevour to collect the Bonafida debts- their due to me in the state of Connecticut (and as I then considered irrevocable under the 6th article of the Treaty). Of the manner in which I was prevented by a mobb from collecting the assd Debts..." He wants his brother to work closely with the agent to procure the necessary legal documents, but for the transaction to remain quiet. He ends by discussing his son's dangerous illness over the last few months.

Though "Leman did not declare for the British but there was no deep- seated animosity between Leman and Joel in spite of their ideological differences. Leman would not only help Joel escape in 1778 when he was imprisoned at Fairfield but the brothers would correspond throughout the war and for the rest of their lives. Furthermore, Leman would make every effort, after hostilities had ceased, to provide Joel with proof of his losses to lay before the British Claims Commission ," (Kenneth Donovan: ’Taking Leave of an Ungrateful Country': The Loyalist Exile of Joel Stone. Dalhousie Review, Volume 64, Number 1, 1984 p 125-145).

3. ALS. To Charles Jones. Dated “30 January” [after 1816 i.e after the 56th year of George III's reign]. Gananoque, [Ontario, Canada]. 7 1/2 x 12 inches. Written on the verso of two attached printed forms "Upper-Canada. Form of Affidavit, which the Widows of Officers, Non-Commissioned Officers, Private Militia-men or Teamsters, entitled to Provincial Pension, whose husbands have died from disease contracted while in Service... Most likely the forms relate to the Commission mentioned in the letter. Very good, lightly toned, reinforced centerfold and edge

Sent to Charles Jones, Esq. [Brockville] "Sir, Considering it necessary the Government should know the state and standing of the Commission to Inquire of Forfeited Estates now in my hand, and to inform me that I was desirous soon to visit my friends in New York and Connecticut, I wrote accordingly in answer to which the Attorney General is pleased to express himself thus (Mr. Jones will act in it, I daresay) I therefore beg you will have the goodness to answer this by next post...." signed Joel Stone, Gananoque, dated 30 January [after 1816 i.e after the 56th year of George III's reign].

Stone and Jones, two very ambitious men, had locked horns for years, with Stone the better man, fighting Jones avarice, "there has been many things said of Charles Jones, Esq., for many years respecting his oppressing the poor, taking away their lands, making himself opulent on their ruin, etc." See Donald Harman Akenson: "Irish in Ontario, Second Edition: A Study in Rural History" (McGill Univ. Press, 1999; pp 99-102).

Colonel Joel Stone (1749–1833), was born in, but driven out of Connecticut because he was a Loyalist; he then moved to New York City during the Revolutionary war. Never able to return to his home because he was wanted for treason, he settled in Upper Canada and founded Gananoque, Ontario on a grant 700 acres of land on the west side of the Gananoque River. "Once settled at Gananoque, the perennially ambitious Stone gradually established himself as its principal landowner and leading inhabitant. His development of a saw-milling operation in 1791 led to a further diversification of his business interests. By 1795 he was dealing with markets in Kingston and Montreal and had acquired a lease of property on Howe Island for lime kilns.... [He helped defend the town in the War of 1812, and afterwards] showed an increasing preoccupation with religious and moral responsibility. In 1815 he officially turned almost all his business interests over to his son-in-law, Charles McDonald, and he began to concentrate on his civic and judicial duties." (Elizabeth M. Morgan: "Stone, Joel". in Dictionary of Canadian Biography, Vol. 6, 1987).

Charles Jones (1781-1840 ) "was a member of one of the first loyalist families to settle in the upper St. Lawrence valley... held lots and rental properties in Brockville, as well as rural lands, including millsites, throughout Leeds and the Rideau area. His father owned some 11,000 acres at the time of his death in 1812.. Jones was constantly buying and selling lots. To contemporaries such as Joel Stone, he seemed to display a degree of greed and insensitivity which, if real, would blemish a generally upstanding character." (Thomas F. McIlwraith, “Jones, Charles,” in Dictionary of Canadian Biography, vol. 7).

We could find no copy of the printed form on which the letter is written at any library nor in Fleming's: "Upper Canadian Imprints, 1801-1841: A Bibliography." A related item is found in the Library and Archives of Canada. Stone's papers are at the Queen's University archives; the Gananoque Museum Collections; Toronto Public Library Collection.

References:
1. Joel Stone, “The Narrative of Joel Stone” in .J. Talman, Loyalist Narratives From Upper Canada (New York: Greenwood Press, 1969 [1946]), 323-336
2. Elizabeth Margaret Morgan, “Joel Stone: Connecticut Loyalist, 1749-1833,” MA Thesis, (Queen’s University, 1980).
3. Timothy J. Compeau, "Dishonoured Americans: Loyalist Manhood and Political Death in Revolutionary America" (2015). Electronic Thesis and Dissertation Repository. 2712.
4. Donald Harman Akenson: "Irish in Ontario, Second Edition: A Study in Rural History" (McGill Univ. Press, 1999; pp 99-102).
5. Elizabeth M. Morgan: "Stone, Joel". in Dictionary of Canadian Biography, Vol. 6, 1987
6.Thomas F. McIlwraith, “Jones, Charles,” in Dictionary of Canadian Biography, vol. 7

Price: $675.00