The Loyalists of New Brunswick" by Esther Clark Wright

THORN, Robert
Parish of Gagetown, Queens Co., Yeoman. Will dated 14 August 1819, proved 14 September 1819. Wife Sophia the use of all property while widow. Daughter Catharine and to my five grandchildren one-third part of my personal property, half to Catharine and the other half to be divided among Richard HOLLAND, [Jame] HOLLAND, Sophia HOLLAND, Robert BRITTAIN and Catharinee BRITTAIN. Son Samuel residue of estate. Samuel SCOVIL Esq. of the parish of Waterborough and my son Samuel executors. Witnesses: Samuel SCOVIL, Peter [GUIMARIN], Elizabeth BRIGGS.
Inventory, dated 13 September 1819, valued at 483 pounds by P. GUIMARI

On 23 July 1634, Timothy Hatherly turned his servant Ephraim Tinkham over to dwell with John Winslow of New Plymouth. On 2 August 1642 Ephraim was granted 25 acres of upland in Plymouth for his service by indenture. He ived in Plymouth where he took the Oath of Fidelity and was admitted Freeman in 1657. His date of death is based on his will dated 17 Jan 1683/84, proved 5 Jun 1685. Ephraim's grandaughter Martha married John Soule.

On 29 November 1752, Ephraim was warned out of Kingston, MA. He has been living there
with his brother Edward. In 1762, Ephraim was at Yarmouth and in 1768 as owner of a
schooner was at Chebogue. Probably, he returned to Kingston as he mat be the one listed as a
non-resident owner of property in the 1771 tax list for Plympton.

In 1824 Allen Titus was sued by Fredericton merchants William McKeen and Benjamin Blyther to recover £20 for diverse goods and merchandise. He was a defendant again in 1829 when another Fredericton merchant demanded payment of an £11 promissory note.

According to the passenger list of the Jason, Benjamin Titus had a family consisting of three adult females and one child under ten years. When the family was assessed again the following May, it counted three children over ten years of age. From this, it is inferred that Benjamin Titus had a wife and three daughters, two of a marriageable age and one about ten years old, and that his wife may have died during their first winter in New Brunswick. Silas Titus, who also arrived on the Jason, was a single man and was probably the son of Benjamin Titus. Land was later transferred between the two without deed.
Benjamin Titus was a signee of the Huggerford Grievance at Parr Town (Saint John) in December, 1784. Also at Saint John, in a draw of lots he received a grant at Grand Bay, but he did not settle there. Instead he joined his brother at Little Musquash Island and in 1785 both petitioned for lots on Washademoak Lake, Queens County. While John Titus received Lot 13, Benjamin drew Lot 3 on the northwest bank of the lake. The following year Benjamin asked instead to have Lot 11 next to his brother John. This he was denied so instead John Titus purchased Lot 4.
Benjamin Titus also secured land near his brother on St. John River. In 1786 he acquired Lot 10 on Little Musquash Island and Lot 12 on Greater Musquash Island from Jacob VanWart for £100, and immediately sold Lot 10 to Thomas Peters for £11. The lot on Greater Musquash Island, which Benjamin Titus retained, was probably already cleared and improved with a cabin erected. One imagines that John and Benjamin Titus farmed and kept cattle on these islands at the mouth of the Washademoak while working side-by-side through 1787 and 1788 to clear and prepare the land on their grants up the lake.
Ben Titus made only small improvements to his lot on the Washademoak before the Titus brothers abandoned the lake in 1789 in favour of acquiring property on the Jemseg, as noted. At Jemseg Creek, Benjamin Titus settled on Lot 19, a good-sized block comprising 74 acres of "meadow, arable land, pasture, wood & water, with tenements and appurtenances." His new home stood on the east side of the St. John River below Gagetown, at the entrance to Lawson's passage, opposite the northern tip of Greater Musquash Island, (where he also purchased a small piece of pasture next to his old cabin.) His timing and choice of lots would later be the cause of much chagrin, as a long and costly struggle ensued to establish clear title.
Part of the problem was that, after 1790, the New Brunswick government was unable to confirm any further grants of land. A new and booming timber industry was taking hold in the young colony, which had the paradoxical effect of precipitating a halt in the sale of Crown property. Painfully short of capital with which to make improvements to their wilderness homes, and otherwise dependant on agriculture for subsistence, the Loyalists had begun a grand assault on the virgin New Brunswick forest. The woods were magnificent, valuable and seemingly endless, and timber quickly became the lifeblood of the young province. So lucrative was lumbering, many left farming behind altogether. Back in Britain, the Colonial Office was unprepared for the flood of commercial activity in the New Brunswick woods, and leaped to impose some measure of control. In an attempt to slow the voracious timber trade and encourage a balance of agriculture among the Loyalists, the British government completely suspended the granting of Crown lands in 1790. London authorities emphasized that all Loyalists had been given large homestead grants, as promised, with which they should be satisfied. The New Brunswick government, presuming the suspension of grants to be temporary - truly unable to fathom anything otherwise - continued to promise grants of land to Loyalists who had yet to set down roots, and to many subsequent immigrants. The powers in Fredericton assured new petitioners that their claims would be confirmed once the present Royal Instructions were withdrawn.
Benjamin Titus settled at Jemseg Creek under these circumstances, and like many who agreed to such an arrangement, he was no doubt frustrated when years passed and clear title failed to be delivered. Moreover, to add to his woes, the lot on which he settled was one of several previously claimed by William Spry.
The property had originally been part of a grant nearly thirty years previous to William Spry, Esq., an absentee landlord residing in London who resisted anyone who tried to settle on his old holdings without paying rent. Spry's right to much of the land he claimed was a matter of acrimonious contention between him and the New Brunswick government. Under the decree of escheat passed by the Court of Chancery in 1786, all granted lands in New Brunswick that had not been settled or improved according to the terms of the grant was to be forfeit and returned to the Crown. The vast majority of Spry's twelve-mile section of river valley was repossessed, but he fought every inch. Invoking every legal weakness and applying the force of his political influence, Spry carried on a withering fight over a period of fourteen years, to ultimate victory. In the end all ungranted land previously ascribed to Spry was returned to him, much to the fury and frustration of Governor Carleton and Attorney General Thomas Wetmore, who exhausted himself fighting the case. Those who had settled the territory in question and awaited title from the government were disappointed, and obliged to come to terms of purchase from Spry if they wished to remain in possession of their homes and farms.
Spry tried to sell the plot on which Ben Titus lived in 1799, but the purchaser was "ejected by Benjamin Titus, who was in possession." Spry then sent his representative, Captain William Bartlett of His Majesty's Corps of Royal Engineers, to file suit against Titus and William Clark, who had also settled on the lot. Attorney General Thomas Wetmore represented Titus and Clark, as in all such cases, and no doubt performed very capably, but in a losing cause. When arguments reached their conclusion one year later, the decision fell in favour of Spry, to whom Titus and Clark were obliged to pay to the sum of £61 to secure the lot. Acknowledging a measure of culpability in the affair, Thomas Wetmore absorbed one-half the financial burden of the decision on behalf of the New Brunswick government. While details of the matter played out in court, Titus and Clark sold the lot to Mssrs. Gilbert and Hanford of Saint John for £113, of which they received half, thus enjoying a small profit in the end.
Aside from these few pounds sterling, however, Benjamin Titus had nothing tangible to show for his seventeen years of hard life as a pioneer in New Brunswick. No doubt a hardened cynic at this point, and with no prospects for acquiring more land except by purchase, he quit the province immediately afterward and moved to Canada, settling on the Bay of Quinte, below Kingston.
Some descendants of Benjamin Titus remained in New Brunswick, namely Silas Titus and his family. Benjamin Titus is believed to have married a second time, to Elizabeth Clark in 1792. As noted, in the 1790s he shared his property with one William Clark. Possible issue of this second marriage includes Elizabeth Titus (1792-1887) who married Alexander Clark in New Brunswick in 1814. Another child of this second marriage is thought to be Samuel Titus (1794-1882), who was born in New Brunswick and lived at Hallowell, on the Bay of Quinte, and had many descendants. The fate of Benjamin's other children is unknown, but they may have settled elsewhere in Upper Canada. Likewise, there are other stray Tituses found in early Queens and York County records that may trace descent from Benjamin, such as Sarah Titus who was born c1788 and married Robert Thorne of Thornetown, Queens County in 1805.

Benjamin Titus was a witness to the marriage of Olivia Day Titus in 1824. In March, 1829 he was twice sued. Jonathan Yerxa of Douglas parish asked to be paid £15 for diverse goods he had furnished, while John Simpson of Fredericton demanded £44 payment for the same from Benjamin and George Titus.
In 1831 Benjamin married his cousin Elizabeth Foster, daughter of Josiah Foster and Sarah Parks. After their marriage, Benjamin Titus Jr. purchased land on the Den Road in Cambridge parish. He and his sons were listed as farmers there in 1861.
Benjamin Titus died sometime between 1871, when he was still living with his family in Cambridge, and 1881 when Elizabeth was enumerated as a widow, supported by the labour of her sons Benjamin and Charles, still resident on the homestead. She died before 1891, when the family disappears from the Queens County census, probably before 1884, when her sons moved to Saint John.

Benjamin Titus worked on the family farm until his parents had both died. Around that time he and his brother George moved to Saint John. Benjamin married there in 1884 to Margery Boyd. Benjamin and Margery Titus were operators of a grocery store at 271 Main Street in Saint John's north end according to city directory listings from 1888 and 1889. In 1890 Benjamin A. Titus was listed as a teamster living on Adelaide Street. This was his occupation at the time of the 1891 census when he and Margery were enumerated as residents of Saint John's Lorne Ward. This is the last record of them in Saint John.

Charles Hiram Titus was a farmer on his family's homestead on the Den Road in Cambridge, Queens County. He died a young man, sometime after the birth of his only daughter and 1890, when his wife remarried in Saint John to Hiram Alward. Hiram Alward worked in the sawmills on the Portland waterfront.

Ernest H. Titus resided in the north end of Saint John, and worked as a young man as a labourer and a lime burner. He married in 1900 to Matilda Breen and they had at least one son. Ernest Titus was the proprietor of a grocery at the time of his untimely death in 1906. His widow remarried two years later to John J. Galbraith, a widowed fisherman.

George Titus first appears in the archival record in 1829 when he and Benjamin Titus were sued for a combined sum of £44 by Fredericton merchant John Simpson, who claimed an outstanding debt for "diverse goods, wares and merchandize." In 1833 George was again sued, this time in partnership with John Segee, for an unpaid promissory note made to James Balloch for £15. The court later reduced the debt to £13, acknowledging that Titus and Segee had begun payment by delivering "two scow loads of hay."
George Titus reappears in 1859 in Victoria County, (which then also included all of what is now Madawaska County.) Having converted to Catholicism he married Bridget, widow of William Clancy. George and Bridget resided at Edmundston, where they were enumerated in the 1861 Census.
George Titus died 15 December, 1863 and his wife Bridget died five days later, presumably from the effects of flu or pneumonia. There were no children implicated in the ensuing probate, and there was no mention of known relatives. George Titus' real estate was valued at £100, and he owned sixty-four tons of birch timber valued at £355. His personal estate was appraised at £60 and included the following: one horse, one horse sled and cart, one cow, one hog, a hayrake, an auger, two scythes, some rope, a hand saw, three axes, a pair of wooling cards, a spinning wheel, a milk strainer, pails, a churn, a stove, a flat iron, a tea kettle, candlesticks, two tables, seven chairs, three chests, wearing apparel, two pair of men's boots, two watches, a rifle with powder and shot, and sundry promissory notes. Three tons of hay were in the barn and a barrel of pork lay in storage. Against the estate was his outstanding account at Costello's store, where over the previous year he had purchased homespuns, boots and a parka, as well as bolts of cotton, some flour, sugar and tea, several gallons of strong rum, and oats for his horse.

George Titus was a farmer. After his marriage to Susanna Parks they lived near his father's farm at Washademoak. Their only son, Ernest was born there one year later. After the death of George's widowed mother, he and his siblings Benjamin and Elizabeth left the farm and moved to Saint John.
In Saint John, the family lived on Bentley Street in Portland and George was listed in city directories in 1887 and 1888 as a labourer and lime burner. He is absent in listings from 1889 to 1893, and from the 1891 census, but is afterwards listed as a gardener from 1894 to his death in 1898, always on Bentley Street.
George's widow remained in the north end neighbourhood and resided for a time with her son and daughter-in-law on Adelaide Street. Susanna Titus remarried in ? to ?

When the Loyalists drew lots in 1784, Silas Titus received 100 acres of land at Lorneville, Saint John County, but he did not settle on his grant and it reverted to the government. Instead he followed his family to Queens County and in 1794 he married Rachel Parks at St. John's Anglican Church, Gagetown. Rachel was a daughter of Sgt. Nathaniel Parks, a veteran of the 2nd New Jersey Volunteers who settled first at Queens County, and later moved up the Saint John River above Fredericton.
Early in 1794, Silas Titus and Thomas Creighton were sued by Reuben Williams for an unpaid debt of £10, and appears to have lost the suit. Shortly thereafter Silas Titus sold Lot 25 on Greater Musquash Island, which belonged to his father, probably to pay his debt. After his father went to Canada, in 1802 Silas Titus filed a petition for Lot 8 on the southeast side of the Washademoak Lake, but because the government was not issuing grants during that period, the petition stalled. It is likely that Silas and Rachel Titus lived during the early years of their marriage in proximity to her family near Fredericton. Titus appeared in court records again in 1813, when he was sued by Alexander Nevers and Ezekial Sloot of Fredericton for a promise of £22.
Although only two children can be attributed to their marriage with certainty, there are several others suggested by circumstance. Abigail Titus who married in 1816 at Fredericton, Mary Titus who married there in 1822, Olivia Titus, who married in 1824 at Douglas, and Frances Titus who married in Douglas in 183… may be daughters. Allan and Benjamin Titus appear at different times in court documents between 1824 and 1836, mostly for small debts incurred at Fredericton and Douglas, and may be sons. On one occasion, in 1829, Benjamin Titus was named with George Titus for a combined debt of £44 to the merchant John Simpson of Fredericton, for "divers goods, wares, and merchandize." There is no doubt that George Titus was a son of Silas and Rachel. George Titus was a lumberman and later lived at Edmundston.
Silas and Rachel Parks were still living in New Brunswick in 1817, residing in St. Mary's parish, York County, when their daughter Andelina Titus was baptized at Gagetown. This is the only child for whom a baptismal record has yet been found.

Obit says he is a Captain and leaves 5 children.