John Connolly, a determined Pennsylvanian who would become a Virginia land speculator, spent much of his life in the backcountry, and by 1774 he believed he had succeeded in capitalizing on his familiarity with the fertile lands along the Ohio River. He utilized his knowledge of the Ohio Valley’s interior to impress many visitors to the frontier, including George Washington, and finally to engage in a plan to acquire from Virginia a valuable tract of land at the Falls of the Ohio (present day Louisville, Kentucky). His knowledge of the land would not be all that he needed to secure his title. To obtain his grant he agreed to enforce Virginia’s control over the Fort Pitt (or Pittsburgh) area, which Pennsylvania also claimed. At Fort Pitt the Allegheny and Monongahela rivers flow together to form the Ohio River, which was at the time the primary route to the Illinois Country and the Mississippi Valley. The colony that possessed Fort Pitt controlled the main route to the West. Connolly also sought to extinguish Native American claims to the Ohio River Valley. Connolly was succeeding in these ventures when the outbreak of the American Revolution posed a new problem. His title to the land could only survive with the support of Lord Dunmore, Virginia’s governor. Connolly consequently maintained his loyalty to his “King and Country” and fled Pittsburgh to join Dunmore in exile off the coast of Virginia. Without the governor and without royal government, Connolly would lose his land and his chance to rise above the “common sort.” However, because of his loyalty, he lost not only his land, but his family, health, property, and his right to return to the United States.
Although John
Connolly would later clash with Pennsylvanian officials, while trying to
establish Virginia’s
control over the contested area, he had been born near Wright’s Ferry in Lancaster County, Pennsylvania. His exact year of birth is unknown but is
believed to have been between 1742 and 1744.
He was the only child of John Connolly, a surgeon in the British Army, who
died in 1747, and Susanna Howard Ewing, who died in 1753. She also had two other sons by another
marriage, one of whom was James Ewing, who would become a general in the
Continental Army.[1]
Upon Susanna’s death, her son John was placed
under the care of James Wright, who apprenticed him to be a doctor. However, it was his “ambition to be a soldier,”
and in 1762 he found his opportunity in
the global struggle of the Seven Years’ War (known in the United States as the French and
Indian War, 1754-1763) and became a surgeon’s mate. In 1764 he briefly joined the British forces
under Col. Henry Bouquet as a volunteer for the march into the homelands of hostile
Native American nations.[2]
Connolly claimed
he made his way west to the backcountry at this time to “make myself worthy to
serve my King and country on future occasions.”
Sometime before 1767, he was living in the frontier village of Pittsburgh,
where he married Susannah, a daughter of Samuel Sample, a tavern keeper. Connolly soon found himself in debt in Pittsburgh and left for
the British forts in the newly acquired Illinois
country. There, Connolly followed the
footsteps of his prominent uncle, George Croghan, and entered into trade with
Native Americans in 1769. Lacking the
skills required to make the business a success, Connolly left the Illinois
Country in greater debt and was back in Pittsburgh
by autumn 1770. He had not amassed the
fortune he had sought in the trade with Native Americans, but he had gained an
intimate knowledge of the land and waterways of the frontier.[3]
In Pittsburgh
Connolly spent much of his time at his father-in-law’s tavern, which attracted
many visitors and land speculators, including George Washington, who dined with
Connolly and “other Gentlemen” at Sample’s on November 22, 1770. He was impressed by Connolly’s knowledge of
the lands to the west and described him as “a very sensible Intelligent man who
had travell’d over a good deal of this Western Country both by land and water.”
Following a trip to the Illinois
Country, Connolly wrote Washington on June 29, 1773, asking for help in securing
from Virginia two thousand acres at the Falls of the Ohio. Anticipating success in obtaining a title, he
had the tract surveyed. The land at the
Falls was valuable because travelers on the Ohio River
unloaded their watercrafts to portage around the cascade. This necessity ensured that every traveler on
the river would be diverted through any town built at the site, making it an
ideal location for settlement and a source of profit to the proprietor of the
land. Possession of this location would
be the key to wealth as people moved west.[4]
Although Connolly
hoped Washington
would help him get the lands, a brighter prospect appeared at Fort Pitt
in the person of John Murray, Fourth Earl of Dunmore and governor of Virginia. In the summer of 1773 Dunmore
toured the Ohio River
Valley, seeking land for
investment. There he met Connolly, who
must have impressed the governor, for Connolly was invited to Williamsburg the following December. That meeting set in motion armed strife between
Virginia and the Native Americans for possession of the Ohio Country and between
Virginia and Pennsylvania for possession
of the Fort Pitt area. Patrick Henry was at the meeting, and in
September 1774 he relayed the details to Thomas Wharton of Philadelphia, as both the war with the Native
Americans and the colonial boundary dispute were approaching the boiling
point. Connolly had described the
richness of the lands in the Ohio Country to Dunmore, who stated that he
intended to move his family to America. The governor wished to build a fortune by
driving out the Native Americans, primarily the Shawnee, from this territory, securing it for
Virginia, and
then selling the land at a profit.[5]
At the meeting Dunmore granted Connolly four thousand acres at the Falls.
In doing so, Dunmore
relied upon Virginia’s
second charter of 1609, which claimed much of the land as far west as the “Western Sea,” including Fort Pitt
and the Ohio River
Valley. The Proclamation
of 1763 had barred settlement west of the Appalachian
Mountains. However, complaints from land-hungry colonials led Britain
in the Fort Stanwix Treaty (1768) to allow them to purchase additional lands
west of the Appalachians from the Iroquois
Confederacy, which claimed sovereignty over much of the area. The Shawnee, Delaware,
and Mingo nations, who actually lived in this region of the Ohio River Valley,
protested the Iroquois claim and the sale.
They had not been involved in the negotiations and had received none of
the proceeds. The British government
instructed Virginia
not to issue any grants in the area to prevent confrontation with the
disgruntled nations. Dunmore
ignored these instructions and gave Connolly his four-thousand-acre grant. Other colonists whose applications were
rejected made “a great deal of Noise.”
William Preston, surveyor of Fincastle
County, noted to George
Washington that it was “the Opinion of many good Judges that the Patents [which
Dunmore granted were] altogether illegal.” Even though the grant at the Falls may have
been dubious, Connolly returned to Fort
Pitt to assert Virginia’s authority
over the region. [6]
In 1772 Gen. Thomas
Gage, commander-in-chief of His Majesty’s Forces in North
America, ordered that Fort
Pitt be abandoned, leaving
the settlement undefended. This created
a power vacuum that allowed Pennsylvania
to sell land in the region pursuant to the Fort Stanwix
purchase. As settlers flowed westward, Pennsylvania created new
western counties -- Bedford in 1771 and Westmoreland in 1773 -- to govern them. At the same time Dunmore
was evading royal instructions prohibiting the creation of new counties in
western Virginia
by claiming that the Fort
Pitt area lay in the
District of West Augusta, in Augusta
County, which had been
created in 1738.[7]
On January 6, 1774, Connolly
posted a notice proclaiming himself “Captain Commandant of the Militia of
Pittsburgh and its Dependencies” and ordered the Virginia militia to muster on January 25. Arthur St. Clair, a magistrate in Westmoreland County, Pennsylvania,
quickly informed Gov. John Penn of the situation and arrested Connolly. Connolly was soon released, but his
imprisonment marked the beginning of often violent civil disturbances that
continued until the settlement of the boundary between Pennsylvania and Virginia in 1780. However, during 1774 Connolly found great
support among Pittsburgh
residents and easily filled the ranks of his militia. At this time the opposing officials began
arresting each other’s supporters and puling down homes to intimidate their
rivals.[8]
Almost immediately
after Connolly’s announcement of his captaincy in January 1774, Virginian settlers
violently attacked the Native Americans living in the region. When they
retaliated, Connolly issued a circular letter in April that frontier
inhabitants regarded as a declaration of war against the Shawnee and Mingo nations. This development led to the brutal massacre
of the family of Mingo leader Logan.
When Logan
retaliated, Dunmore and the Virginians used these attacks as a pretext to mount
a military campaign against the Shawnee
and Mingo nations. Arthur St. Clair
thought the violent conduct of the Virginians was “part of the Virginia plan” or “at
least part of Mr. Connolly’s plan,” and he “hoped some of the devilish schemes
that have been carrying on here will come to light.” The Pennsylvania Gazette asserted that
“it appears that a scheming party in Virginia … mostly land jobbers, would wish
to have those lands.” While carrying out
this supposedly “devilish scheme” of driving out all rivals to Virginia’s claim to the Ohio Valley,
Connolly advertised lots for sale at the Falls.[9]
Dunmore’s visit to the area in September 1774 reinforced Virginia’s claim to the
region. He arrived at Fort Pitt
at the head of the contingent of troops Virginia
had raised to confront the hostile Native American nations of the Ohio Country.
The Virginia forces were divided into two
groups: one under Dunmore and the other under Andrew Lewis. On October 10 one thousand Shawnee warriors attacked Lewis’s force at Point Pleasant along the Ohio River. The result was a draw, but the Shawnee withdrew toward Chillicothe to counter the
second force under Dunmore. Facing a numerically superior enemy on two
fronts, the Shawnee
sued for peace. Dunmore
held a peace conference, at which final peace negotiations were scheduled for
the following summer at Fort
Pitt.[10]
Because
of Virginia’s
victory and Lord Dunmore’s presence in the region, the Virginia faction grew stronger, and the boundary
dispute more bitter. Virginia officials kept up their harassment
of Pennsylvanians, claiming they held invalid land grants. They formed a jury of twelve men to try each Pennsylvania land-grant
holder. On May 3, 1775, Connolly confiscated the land of Devereaux Smith, a leading Pennsylvania official in
the Fort Pitt region.[11]
In 1775 the
struggle halted not through the diplomatic efforts of governors Penn or Dunmore
but in a manner neither side could have imagined. Around May 1, news of the battles of Lexington and Concord reached Pittsburgh. As a result, even though there had been no
previous agitation in the region against Britain’s policies, Virginia and Pennsylvania settlers
called an emergency meeting on May 16 at Fort Pitt,
which created a committee of correspondence for West Augusta, Virginia. It began mobilizing a militia, securing
ammunition, and cultivating a “friendship with the Indians.” The same day, residents of Westmoreland County
met at Hannastown, the county seat, to give their support to the American
cause.[12]
The Virginians and Pennsylvanians had thus
put aside their land disputes and joined together by signing their names to
fight for liberty. Virginian support for
Dunmore disappeared, although only a few weeks
earlier many Virginians had sent an address thanking him for his help against
the Shawnee and
repudiating a rumor that the governor had deliberately incited them to war. Their resolves of May 16 to create a
Revolutionary committee reversed this position and instead blamed the “wicked
minions of power to execute our ruin, added to the menaces of an Indian War,
likewise said to be in contemplation, thereby thinking to gain our attention,
and divert it from that still more interesting object of liberty and freedom.”[13]
The majority of
frontier inhabitants appeared to favor the American cause. The English traveler, Nicholas Cresswell, a
young aristocrat in search of wealth through land speculation, often found
himself in trouble and was even threatened with a tarring and feathering. Cresswell noted that the frontier population was
“Liberty mad,”
thinking of nothing but war, and that “the best riflemen” were prepared to go
to Boston “for
the humane purpose of killing the English officers.” Pittsburgh Patriots showed their solidarity
and support in August 1775 by confiscating and burning tea at a Liberty Pole in
a local version of Boston’s
“Tea Party.” There were, however, some
who were troubled by the prospect of war.
Arthur St. Clair, who would later become a major general in the
Continental Army and Pennsylvania’s
highest ranking citizen, wrote in the days after his regions’ mobilization for
war that he was “as much afraid of success in this contest as of being
vanquished.”[14]
The Revolution’s onset led all involved in
the western land disputes to change their priorities. In Williamsburg,
Dunmore was busy combating the Patriotic fervor. On May 21 he infuriated Virginians by moving
the colony’s store of gunpowder to a British warship. In response, Patrick Henry raised a company
of militia, and Dunmore fled to a British
warship in the Chesapeake Bay, but only after
issuing a final order disbanding all Virginia
troops, including those at Fort
Pitt. On July 25 Pennsylvanians from the Fort Pitt
area forwarded a request to the Continental Congress for a temporary boundary. However, Virginia and Pennsylvania delegates to the Congress, including
Benjamin Franklin, John Dickinson, Patrick Henry, and Thomas Jefferson, jointly
asked that the troubles of the Pittsburgh
area be forgotten “for the defense of liberties in America.” The boundary could be settled later.[15]
In May 1775, when most
of the inhabitants of Pittsburgh
had agreed to favor the Patriots, John Connolly had already decided whom he
would support. In reply to a letter from
Connolly, George Washington informed him that matters between the colonies and
Great Britain “wear a disagreeable aspect” and that the “minds of men are
exceedingly disturbed at the measures of the British government.” Washington
ended with the ominous thought that “a little time must now unfold the mystery,
as matters are drawing to a point.” Connolly
now “resolved to exert every faculty in defense of the royal cause.” He feared his land grants would be worthless
if the Americans won the struggle. He
had come too far to abandon his dreams. He
needed Governor Dunmore to stay in power.
At the start of 1775 Pittsburgh
had seemed to be firmly under Virginia’s
control, and it appeared to be only a matter of time before he would reap a substantial
profit from his land at the Falls of the Ohio River.
Without Lord Dunmore, Connolly’s claim to the Falls was tenuous at best. All of the other land grants Virginia had issued
between the Fort Stanwix purchase in 1768 and Lord
Dunmore’s arrival in 1772 had been dismissed by the Privy Council, including
those held by Patrick Henry, Thomas Jefferson, and George Washington, as they
intended in enforcing the Proclamation of 1763.
Dunmore’s grant to Connolly, which had
not been dismissed, was an anomaly and considered “altogether illegal” in the “the
Opinion of many good Judges.” When Lord
Dartmouth learned of Dunmore’s actions, he
ordered him to cease further land grants.[16]
Eventually in 1779
Pennsylvania
and Virginia
agreed to appoint commissioners to determine a permanent boundary. Pennsylvania
won the dispute after surveys revealed that the region was within the area
originally granted to Pennsylvania;
the Mason-Dixon line was extended westward to
its present location. The matter came to
a close on September 23,
1780, when both states ratified the solution. Pittsburgh
was now permanently under Pennsylvania’s
control.[17]
However, in 1775,
as the Revolution was beginning, Connolly had received orders from Dunmore to disband the Virginia militia at Fort Pitt
and to lead the negotiations with the Native Americans that spring in Dunmore’s absence.
His mission was to enlist their support for the Royal cause. Connolly also took it upon himself secretly
to find out who else in Pittsburgh
would remain loyal to the King. He
immediately undertook to persuade the Ohio Indians to join the British. The negotiations held at Fort Pitt
in 1775 had major implications for the war developing in the east. Connolly was determined that the Ohio Indians
should support the Crown, and the American Patriots were equally determined
that they should not.[18]
Between May 19 and
21, 1775, Connolly issued invitations to the Shawnees, Mingoes, and Delawares to attend a conference in Pittsburgh on June 20. Pittsburgh Patriots sent word to the
Continental Congress about the forthcoming negotiations, asking that it send a
representative. Whig leaders in Virginia appointed a
committee to attend the conference as well.
James Wood, chairman of this Virginia Committee, set out for Pittsburgh on June 25.[19]
Pennsylvania officials arrested Connolly on
the evening of June 21 and moved him fifty miles east to Ligonier. In captivity Connolly was informed that he
had been imprisoned because he was a “dangerous person and a Tory, an
appellation lately revived” as well as being “suspected of an intention to
raise a body of men to act against the liberties of America.” Originally Connolly was to
be sent to Philadelphia
to stand trial before the Continental Congress. However, he was not sent there. The Virginia
officials of West Augusta suspected his arrest
was actually another maneuver in the boundary dispute, and not a preventive
measure in the war with Great
Britain.
Consequently, they arrested three Pennsylvania
magistrates and sent a “spirited” letter to the Westmoreland County,
Pennsylvania, Committee, demanding Connolly’s release. St. Clair avoided any potential violence by
releasing Connolly.[20]
Meanwhile the
council with the Ohio Indians had already begun without Connolly. Upon his release, he joined the conference
and took an active role until its close on July 6. The conference was productive, and all of the
attending Native American nations as well as all of the whites left satisfied,
desiring peace. Connolly did not
complete the alliance that Dunmore sought;
however, that did not stop him from boasting that he had done so, when he applied
after the American Revolution to a parliamentary commission for Loyalist claims
for compensation in London. Even the committee appointed by Virginia’s revolutionary
government to oversee the conference was pleased with Connolly’s performance. On July 9 James Wood, the Virginia commissioner
appointed to the conference, commended Connolly on his “most open and candid
manner.”[21]
Now that negotiations were over, Connolly was
free to leave Pittsburgh
to join Lord Dunmore, who had been in exile since July 25 aboard a British
warship stationed off the Virginia
coast. While making preparations to
leave, Connolly carefully sought out the men in Pittsburgh who remained loyal to the
King. He composed a list of their names,
which he later submitted to Lord Dunmore.[22]
With three Shawnees and Alan Cameron, a fellow Loyalist,
he traveled to Williamsburg
under the pretense that the Shawnees
wished to meet with Virginia’s
revolutionary leaders. Pittsburgh Patriots
sent warnings ahead, alerting officials to his presence. At Warm
Springs, Virginia local
officials detained Connolly, intending to investigate further. However, the committee appointed to do so never
materialized, and Connolly left in a hurry. Near Winchester,
his party was detained again because of similar warnings, one of which came
from the West Augusta Committee. As the
local committee inspected Connolly and his entourage, a messenger arrived
declaring that the West Augusta Committee desired Connolly’s presence in Richmond. The kind words that James Wood had written
about him had changed the Winchester Committee’s attitude toward him. It congratulated Connolly on his service to America
and sent him on his way. The following
day he sent the Shawnees
to Richmond,
but he continued to Dunmore’s warship.[23]
Connolly stayed with
Dunmore for two weeks, discussing a plan of
war he had developed to defeat the American cause. On August 9 Connolly wrote to John Gibson, whom
he believed to be a trustworthy Pittsburgh Loyalist. Connolly enclosed a message from Dunmore to the Ohio Indians and asked Gibson to translate
it. In exchange for their neutrality, Dunmore promised that the King would protect their land. The
message never made it to the intended recipients, for Gibson turned it over to
the West Augusta Committee of Correspondence.[24]
Following the
letter to Gibson, Connolly and Dunmore completed their plan of attack, which
they hoped would crush the rebellion.
Connolly’s scheme relied upon the assistance of the Ohio Indians and the
Pittsburgh Loyalists, whom he had identified before departing. The plot called for Connolly to start in Detroit and to lead Native
American and Loyalist troops to Pittsburgh,
gathering additional men along the way. After seizing Fort Pitt,
Connolly’s force was to proceed to Alexandria,
Virginia, where they would meet Dunmore’s troops, successfully cutting the colonies in
half. With this plan, Connolly traveled to Boston.
He met General Gage, received his approval, and immediately left for Virginia. He began his journey to Detroit in late November with Alan Cameron,
who had accompanied him from Fort
Pitt.[25]
Connolly’s party did not get very far. Upon reaching Hagerstown, Maryland,
Connolly met a man who had been a private under his command while in Pittsburgh. The private recognized and publicly addressed
him as “Major.” This alerted some
Patriots, and Connolly left immediately before anyone questioned him. Meanwhile, the private headed for the local
tavern. The Continental Congress had already informed the Virginia Committee of
Safety of Connolly’s activities. The
committee ordered that he be secured. With the private’s help, the colonel of
the Hagerstown militia
now realized that Connolly was a wanted man. The committee set out after him and captured
Connolly’s party on November 23. The
committee searched the group’s baggage and found a copy of Dunmore’s
instructions, explicitly implicating Connolly in the Loyalist military plot.[26]
Connolly and his
comrades were held until further instructions were obtained from Congress,
which notified Washington
of his arrest. On December 8 Congress
ordered that the prisoners be jailed in Philadelphia. Washington
was pleased Connolly was now in prison and no longer a threat. He reported to Joseph Reed, who would become Pennsylvania’s radical
Constitutionalist President, that he was “exceeding [sic] happy to find that
villain Connolly is seized” and hoped that he would “meet with the punishment
due to his demerit and treachery.”[27]
While in confinement with Cameron, Connolly
managed to write warnings to those involved in his plot. He wrote to Alexander McKee in Pittsburgh, asking him to
send a warning to the British officers on the frontier. He also wrote to Capt. Richard Beringer
Lernoult, the commanding officer at Detroit,
and Capt. Hugh Lord, commander at Illinois,
informing them of his failed plot. These letters were given for delivery to a
Dr. John Smyth, who was part of Connolly’s party but who had escaped on December
29, just before the group was moved to Philadelphia.[28]
The trip to Philadelphia was difficult
for Connolly and Cameron. They spent the
first day of 1776 being paraded through Yorktown,
Pennsylvania, at the head of a
“Rogue’s March,” during which they were ridiculed by the townspeople, who
sarcastically wished them a Happy New Year. From York,
they were taken to Wright’s Ferry, Connolly’s birthplace. There, his half-brother, James Ewing, watched
as he was taken to prison, making it a very “melancholy” experience for the
prisoner. They arrived in Philadelphia on January 3
and were brought before the Continental Congress, which handed them over to the
Pennsylvania Committee of Safety, which then confined them in a miserable
makeshift prison that Connolly described as nothing more than a “dirty room.”[29]
Although Connolly
had been captured, he hoped that the warnings Dr. Smyth had smuggled out would
alert the British to the failure of his plot and thereby possibly salvage the
plan without him. However, Smyth had
been captured on January 10, just before he reached Pittsburgh. Not only did Connolly’s letters fail to reach
and alert the British, but they also encouraged the Patriots to keep a close
watch on suspected Loyalists, including Connolly’s friend Alexander McKee.[30]
Soon
after being imprisoned, Connolly sought parole from the Pennsylvania Committee
of Safety. He wrote on January 26, 1776, promising
to remain idle in “the present unhappy contest.” However, the committee found him to be too
dangerous and denied his request. The
jail’s deplorable conditions began to affect Connolly’s health. In February he wrote to the Continental Congress
and the Pennsylvania Committee of Safety, notifying both of his deteriorating condition
and asking to be exchanged in order to save his health. Dr. Benjamin Rush examined him and prescribed
exercise, particularly riding a horse and exposure to fresh air. Instead, Congress modified his incarceration
by allowing him to walk the prison yard.[31]
Even from jail,
Connolly did what he could to support the British cause and to warn the western
posts of a possible American attack. He
found an opportunity when the Pennsylvania Committee of Safety began to grant
paroles to British and Loyalist prisoners, who would take an oath to remain passive
throughout the war. Connolly persuaded a
fellow inmate to take the oath and then to transmit messages to Pittsburgh, where other
Loyalists would pass them on to the British posts. However, Congress discovered the plan and
revoked his prison-yard walking privileges.[32]
In February 1776
Connolly suffered a more substantial loss -- all of his land. In his role as Virginia’s agent, he had amassed a large
debt in rebuilding Fort
Pitt. His creditors had been frustrated, when he
left Pittsburgh
in the summer of 1775 to join the British, but they were overjoyed in January
1776, when they heard that he was in the Philadelphia
jail. They took advantage of his
imprisonment to collect the debts he owed.
Among his creditors were Alexander Ross and the firm of Simon and Campbell.
The latter reached an agreement with
Connolly giving John Campbell two thousand acres at the Falls of the Ohio. Connolly mortgaged the remaining two thousand
acres to the firm of Simon and Campbell.
Alexander Ross also visited Connolly in jail. They resolved a portion of the debt owed to
Ross, but a larger amount went unpaid.
Losing these parcels of land strengthened Connolly’s attachment to the
British cause. He seemed to have
reasoned that only through the restoration of British rule would he regain his
lands.[33]
Connolly’s next scheme
came in late March 1776 when his father-in-law, Samuel Sample, visited him in
his Philadelphia
cell. Connolly shared with him a plan he
hoped would free all the Loyalists imprisoned in Philadelphia.
The details are not known, but Congress once again discovered the plot,
placed Connolly in solitary confinement, and even contemplated imposing a harsher
punishment on him in retaliation for the conditions American prisoners endured
in British prisons.[34]
On May 13 Susannah
Connolly came to see her husband but after five days asked Congress to let her
leave. Her application was denied, and
she was directed not to depart the city without permission. They feared her
husband might have given her information to transmit to Pittsburgh Loyalists. Throughout
the summer and fall, Susannah repeatedly and unsuccessfully applied to Congress
for permission to leave. In November
1776 she reported to Congress that her husband was planning to escape. They investigated immediately but could find
no evidence to support the claim. She
then complained to Congress that her husband had been mistreating her since she
had revealed the plot, and it was now impossible for her to stay with him. She was finally granted permission to depart;
she now had the freedom to leave Philadelphia
and her husband for good.[35]
The approach of
the British army into New Jersey
in 1776 induced Congress to vacate Philadelphia
and move to Baltimore
in December. On December 12 it ordered
that Connolly be sent there, but the order was not carried out. Connolly then requested that he be moved to a
remote jail in the country, where he might regain his health; but this request
was denied. He remained in Philadelphia, where his
half-brother, Gen. James Ewing of the Continental Army, soon took command. Ewing was a
veteran of the French and Indian War and a member of the Pennsylvania Assembly
from 1771 to 1775. He was appointed a brigadier
general in 1776. In mid-January 1777 Ewing obtained permission for Connolly to stay at his
farm, near Wrightsville, Pennsylvania. However, in mid-February Connolly was ordered
to return to prison. On February 26 he
again complained of ill health, and on March 9 Dr. Benjamin Rush examined him and
once more concluded that Connolly could only be cured by living where fresh air
was available. On March 29 James Ewing presented
Connolly’s case to Congress and vowed to take responsibility for him. Congress referred the matter to the
Pennsylvania Committee of Safety, which on April 2 accepted Ewing’s
offer of responsibility for Connolly, released him on two thousand pounds bail,
but limited his freedom. Now that Ewing was responsible for Connolly, the Pennsylvania
Committee would not have to worry about him, and the bail money was greatly
needed for the war effort. Connolly enjoyed his time on Ewing’s
farm, where he improved his health and re-focused his attention on being exchanged. He remained on the Ewing
farm until October 14, 1777,
when he was forced to return to prison because of Sir William Howe’s advance on
Philadelphia. Connolly was moved to the jail in Yorktown, Pennsylvania,
where he again complained of his confinement. In May 1778 he and his fellow inmates informed
Congress of the horrible conditions and asked for parole, if they could not be
exchanged. Congress investigated the
claims and concluded on May 23 that the accusations were groundless and
recommended that the jailers be stricter with the prisoners. Connolly’s next request for an exchange also failed,
and he was returned to the Philadelphia
jail in early August after the British had retreated from Philadelphia.
He again campaigned for release, but the congressional committee created
to hear his case denied his parole for fear he would join with the Loyalist and
British forces on the frontier and because he had been arrested as a spy. This accusation surprised Connolly; and he
bitterly denied he was a spy. He argued
that he was a commissioned officer under Lord Dunmore and that America
had not even been an independent nation when he was captured; therefore there
was no country to spy against at the time.
The committee promised to consider his request for parole if an exchange
could not be achieved.[36]
On November 12 the
committee reported its findings to Congress and argued that Connolly should be
treated as a spy guilty of repeatedly attempting to escape. The committee was upset, too, with his
frequent complaints of ill treatment, news of which had reached British
ears. Joshua Loring, the British
Commissary of Prisoners, had written to the Continental Congress threatening to
retaliate against American prisoners of equal rank if his conditions did not
improve. Congress wrote to Loring,
advising him of Connolly’s status as a spy rather than as a prisoner of war and
of the groundlessness of such complaints.[37]
Congress then appointed
another committee to handle Connolly’s case.
It reported to Congress on July 14, 1779 that Connolly was indeed a commissioned
officer, not a spy, and suggested parole.
Congress rejected the recommendation.
On August 24 and again on October 14 Connolly petitioned Congress to
follow the suggestions of the committee.
These petitions were forwarded to the Board of War, which quickly tired
of his complaints and referred his case back to Congress with the suggestion
that he be exchanged for an American officer of equal rank. By November 17, 1779, Congress believed Connolly’s release
would pose no danger to the war effort and agreed to exchange him.[38]
Connolly was granted parole and in July 1780
traveled to New York City
to exchange himself for Lt. Col. Nathaniel Ramsey. This exchange indicates the importance of
Connolly, as Ramsey was one of the heroes of the 1778 Battle of Monmouth. The deal was completed on October 25, 1780. As part of his exchange, Connolly pledged
that he would do nothing to harm the United States. However, he immediately began to design a
second scheme to destroy the new nation.
He also evidently hoped to regain his land in the Ohio Valley. To accomplish these goals he presented British
General Sir Henry Clinton with a plan similar to his original one. He would lead British troops across Lake Erie, take Fort Pitt,
and proceed toward the Potomac River, where he
would join British troops coming from the east. General Clinton liked the idea and hoped to
implement it later in 1781. However, by late
March 1781, Washington
had already received intelligence of the plot and warned Fort Pitt. British troops on the frontier outposts did
not learn of the plan until September 1781, and by then it was too late to
carry it out.[39]
Realizing the plan was no
longer feasible, Clinton
sent Connolly to join Lord Cornwallis in the South. Connolly was placed in charge of Royalists
from Virginia
and North Carolina,
as well as the Loyal York Volunteers.
Before he could organize these troops, Connolly was ordered to Yorktown, Virginia,
to counter the recent arrival of the French fleet. Connolly fell ill and received permission on
September 21 to travel to the countryside to regain his health, but he was
captured instead. Eventually, he was
brought before General Washington, whom he foolishly believed remained his
friend. Much to his dismay, Connolly
lamented that the “friendly sentiments that he once publicly professed for me no
longer existed.” Washington ordered him back to prison, where
he stayed until March 1782, when he was released and allowed to go to British
occupied New York City
for his voyage to Europe.[40]
In
that year Connolly left New York
for London,
where he survived on his pay as an officer in the Provincial army. While there, he requested compensation for
his losses in service of his King. In
1783 he published “A Narrative of the Transactions, Imprisonment, and
Sufferings of John Connolly, an American Loyalist and Lieut.-Col. in his
Majesty’s Service,” in which he chronicled his actions.[41]
To compensate Loyalists for their losses in
the Revolution Parliament created a special commission to evaluate their pleas
for recompense. Among the committee’s
standards in compensating Loyalists was that payment would not be granted for
uncultivated lands. Most of Connolly’s
claim was of this type. On February 2, 1784, he
presented his case to the commission, claiming a loss of £6,849 for the four
thousand acres at the Falls of the Ohio;
for other lots he owned elsewhere; and for his wages, while in the service of Virginia. After reviewing the case, the commission
allowed him £793 in compensation. The
loss of his wife, family, and health went uncompensated.[42]
By the winter of
1787-1788, Connolly had moved to Quebec,
from where he was sent to Detroit
to act as lieutenant governor in 1788.
While in Detroit,
he sought to regain the Falls of the Ohio
and the Kentucky
territory for Great Britain. Also, he sought to secure for himself the
lands Dunmore had previously granted him. By this time settlers had moved near the
Falls in the Kentucky
territory of Virginia, naming the place Louisville. The following year Louisville settlers petitioned the Virginia
Assembly, asking that Connolly’s claim be forfeited, that their town be
established, and that titles be granted to inhabitants for plots of land. The
Virginia Assembly complied with this request the following year, completing
Connolly’s loss. To counter this act he
set out in September 1788 for Louisville,
where he told his old partner John Campbell that he had come to estimate the
value of the land, and he also offered to help seize New Orleans from Spain. Campbell
felt Connolly posed no threat as he was too “obnubilated” by alcohol.[43]
By
1788, the Kentuckians wished to separate from Virginia because they were too remote from
the capital to be adequately represented there.
They held a constitutional convention, at which they decided to become
an independent member of the United
States.
Virginia
approved this resolution, but before Kentucky’s
situation could be discussed in the Continental Congress, the United States
Constitution was adopted, and Kentucky’s
statehood was postponed. Connolly used
this opportunity to make a public offer to the people of Kentucky to join Great Britain. He suggested that the King would supply them
with men and arms so that they could secure the Mississippi
River and the port at New
Orleans, which would provide access for shipping. Kentucky’s
settlers rejected his offer and forced him to flee.[44]
Little
is known of Connolly’s activities over the next few years. By 1798 he was at L’Assomption, Montreal, Canada. He wrote to his half-brother James Ewing and suggested
that the war raging in Europe would eventually
involve the United States
in a war with Spain. Surprisingly, he offered to assist the
Americans in such a war.[45]
Connolly’s final attempt to obtain a position
of importance came with the death of his old friend Alexander McKee, Deputy
Superintendent General of Indian Affairs at Detroit.
With the aid of the Duke of Kent, Connolly was appointed to the vacancy
in December 1799. However, the position
had already been promised to Capt. William Claus, the grandson of Sir William
Johnson, the famous Indian agent of the mid-eighteenth century. Claus obtained the aid of Canada’s Lt.-Gov. Peter Hunter, who
wrote to the British ministry, which forced Connolly out by July 1800. Writing from Montreal to his half-brother James, Connolly
noted that “the repeated disappointments I have met with in my life, & the
late unexpected shock has brought on me complaints which I much fear. My old nervous disorder is much increased accompanied
with others of a serious nature.” Little
is known of his life following this letter, but after suffering a “long and
painful illness,” he died at about the age of seventy in Montreal on January 30, 1813. According to his then wife, Margaret, his
final years were spent mulling over the many frustrations and disappointments
that had filled his life.[46]
Only
death could bring an end to the pain and frustrations that plagued John
Connolly. He had made grandiose plans throughout
his life, hoping they would bring him wealth.
He failed as a trader with the Native Americans on the frontier and
lacked the skills necessary to succeed in business. He came closest to success through his
valuable grant at the Falls of the Ohio. To obtain this title, he promoted a vicious inter-provincial
dispute and a war with Native Americans.
These ventures nearly made him a wealthy man. But he was stymied by the American Revolution,
which displaced the government that would have granted his wishes. He chose to support Governor Dunmore and the
British to achieve his dream of making a fortune. But Britain and he lost the Revolution. In failure, he moved to Canada with neither land nor
wealth. Not only had he lost his dreams,
he had lost his health, his family, and his property.
Notes
[1] F.
R. Diffenderfer gives either 1742 or 1743 as the year of Connolly's birth in F.
R. Diffenderfer, “Col. John Connolly: Loyalist,” Lancaster County Historical
Society Publications 7 (1903): 109.
[2]
John Connolly, “A Narrative of the Transactions, Imprisonment, and Sufferings
of John Connolly, an American Loyalist and Lieut.-Col. in his Majesty's
Service,” Pennsylvania
Magazine of History and Biography (PMHB) 12 (1888): 310.
[3]
Connolly, “A Narrative,” 311; Charles Hanna, The Wilderness Trail, 2
vols. (New York, 1911), 2: 84; Clarence Walworth Alvord, ed., Trade and
Politics, 1767-1769, vol. 16 of Collections of the Illinois State Historical
Library, British Series, vol. 3 (Springfield, Ill., 1921), 519-20; Franklin
Ellis and Samuel Evans, History of Lancaster County, Pennsylvania (Philadelphia,1883), 954.
[4]
Donald Jackson, ed., The Diaries of George Washington, 6 vols.
(Charlottesville, Virg., 1976), 2: 322-33; Stanislaus M. Hamilton, ed., Letters
to Washington and Accompanying Papers, 5 vols. (New York, 1901-1902), 4: 208.
[5]
“Letters of Thomas Wharton, 1773-1783,” PMHB 33 (1909): 445-46.
[6]
“[John Connolly land grant], December
10, 1773,” Reuben T. Durrett Misc. MSS,
University of Chicago Library, Special Collections
Research Center;
“William Preston to George Washington, March 7, 1774,” Hamilton,
ed., Letters to Washington, 4: 345-47.
See also Patricia Johnson, William Preston and the Allegheny Patriots
(Pulaski, Virg., 1976), 114.
[7]
See John W. Huston, “The British Evacuation of Fort Pitt, 1772,” Western
Pennsylvania Historical Magazine (WPHM) 48 (1965): 317-29: Donna B. Munger,
Pennsylvania Land Records (Wilmington, Del., 1991), 63; Woody Holton,
“The Ohio Indians and the Coming of the American Revolution,” Journal of Southern History 60 (1994):
457-71; Thomas P. Abernathy, Western Lands and the American Revolution
(New York, 1937), 94.
[8]
William Smith, ed., The St. Clair Papers, 2 vols. (Cincinnati, Ohio, 1882), 1: 272, 279, 309; Boyd
Crumrine, ed., Virginia Court Records in Southwestern Pennsylvania (Baltimore, Md., 1974), 18.
[9]
Anne M. Ousterhout, A State Divided: Opposition in Pennsylvania to the American Revolution
(New York, 1987), 250-53.
[10]
Nicholas B. Wainwright, “Turmoil at Pittsburgh,
Diary of Augustine Prevost, 1774,” PMHB 85 (1961): 118, 131.
[11]
Samuel Hazard, ed., Pennsylvania Archives, ser. 1, 12 vols.
(Philadelphia, 1853-1856), 4: 625-26.
[12]
Edward G. Williams, “Fort
Pitt and the Revolution
on the Western Frontier,” WPHM 59 (1976): 131, 133-35; Peter Force, ed.,
American Archives, ser. 4, 5 vols. (Washington, D.C., 1837-1844), 2:
612-15.
[13]
Ousterhout, A State Divided, 253; Force, ed., American Archives
ser. 4, 2: 612-15; also found in Edward Williams “Fort Pitt
and the Revolution,” 133-35.
[14]
Nicholas Cresswell, The Journal of Nicholas Cresswell, 1774-1777 (New
York, 1924), 74, 97-99; “The Pittsburgh
Tea Party,” PMHB 39 (1915): 230-31; Smith, ed. The St. Clair Papers, 1:
353-54.
[15]
Williams, “Fort Pitt and the Revolution,” 27-31, 32-33,
131.
[16]
Connolly, “A Narrative,” 314-15; “William Preston to George Washington, March 7, 1774,” Hamilton,
ed., Letters to Washington,
4: 345-47; Holton, “The Ohio
Indians,” 467-473. See also Patricia
Johnson, William Preston and the Allegheny Patriots, 114.
[17]
Williams, “Fort Pitt and the Revolution,” 52; Percy B.
Caley, “Lord Dunmore and the Pennsylvania-Virginia Boundary Dispute,” WPHM
22 (1939): 100; J. W. F. White, “The Judiciary of Allegheny County,”
PMHB 7 (1883): 153.
[18]
Connolly, “A Narrative,” 315.
[19]
Robert L. Scribner and Brent Tartar, eds., Revolutionary Virginia: The Road
to Independence, 8 vols. (Charlottesville, Virg., 1983), 3:148-55; Hazard,
ed., Pennsylvania Archives, ser. 1, 4: 629; “Virginia Legislative
Papers,” Virginia Magazine of History and Biography 14 (1907): 56.
[20]
“Virginia Legislative Papers,” 60-61; Connolly, “A Narrative,” 318, 320,
356-57.
[21]
Connolly, “A Narrative,” 315; Scribner and Tartar, Revolutionary Virginia,
3: 272.
[22]
Hanna, Wilderness Trail, 2: 79-80.
[23]
Connolly, “A Narrative,” 321, 322-23.
[24]
Force, ed., American Archives, ser. 4, 3:72, 72-73; Louise Kellogg and
Reuben Gold Thwaites, The Revolution on the Upper Ohio, 1775-1777
(Madison, Wis., 1908), 71.
[25] Connolly,
“A Narrative,” 410.
[26]
Ibid., 413-14; Scribner and Tartar, Revolutionary Virginia, 4: 262.
[27]
Force, ed., American Archives, ser. 4, 4: 155, 201, 216; John C. Fitzpatrick,
ed., The Writings of George Washington, 39 vols. (Washington, D.C.,
1931), 4: 167.
[28]
Force, ed., American Archives, ser. 4, 4: 479-80, 617; Connolly, “A
Narrative,” 417.
[29]
Connolly, “A Narrative,” 417-19; Force, ed., American Archives, ser. 4,
4:508; Connolly, “A Narrative,” 420.
[30]
Force, ed., American Archives, ser. 4, 4: 615; Walter R. Hoberg, “Early
History of Colonel Alexander McKee,” PMHB 58 (1934): 30-35.
[31]
Hazard, ed., Pennsylvania
Archives, ser. 1, 4: 703; Force, ed., American Archives, ser. 4, 4: 958-59,
1563, 1666.
[32]
Connolly, “A Narrative,” 62.
[33]
William W. Hening, ed., The Statutes at Large: Being a Collection of All the
Laws of Virginia, from the First Session of Legislature in the Year 1619, 13
vols. (New York, 1819-1823), 11: 321; T. L. Montgomery, ed., Pennsylvania
Archives, ser. 6, 15 vols. (Harrisburg, Penn., 1907), 13: 10-11, 13-15, 22,
27.
[34]
W.C. Ford, ed., Journals of Continental Congress, 18 vols. (Washington, D.C.,
1905-1910), 4: 239, 257.
[35]
Force, ed., American Archives, ser. 4, 6: 784, 1667, 1674; Peter Force,
ed., American Archives, ser. 5, 3 vols. (Washington, D.C.,
1853.), 3: 777.
[36] Force,
ed., American Archives, ser. 5, 3:1606; Hazard, ed., Pennsylvania Archives, ser. 1,
5: 101, 130-31; Connolly, “A Narrative,” 64-70, 155-58; Force, ed., American
Archives, ser. 4, 5: 1122; J. B.
Linn and William Egle, eds., Pennsylvania Archives, ser. 2, 19 vols. (Harrisburg,
Penn., 1879), 1: 719; Colonial Records, 16 vols. (Harrisburg, Penn.,
1852-1853), 11: 196, 229; Ford, ed., Journals of Continental Congress,
7: 229, 9:1004, 12: 1102,1136.
[37]
Connolly, “A Narrative,” 159-62.
[38]
Ford, ed., Journals of Continental Congress, 14: 514, 623, 825, 825-26,
990, 15: 1170, 1231; Connolly, “A Narrative,” 165-66.
[39]
Connolly, “A Narrative,” 167; Williams, “Fort Pitt
and the Revolution,” 435, 436-39.
[40]
Connolly, “A Narrative,” 13: 281-83, 284-85, 286.
[41]
Ibid., 286; Percy B. Caley, “The Life Adventures of Lieutenant-Colonel John
Connolly: The Story of a Tory,” WPHM 11
(1928): 23, n. 13.
[42]
Claude H. Van Tyne, The Loyalists in the American Revolution (Gloucester, Mass., 1959), 299-302; Clarence
M. Burton, “John Connolly: A Tory of the Revolution,” American Antiquarian
Society, new series, 20 (1909): 95; “Deposition of John Connolly,” Papers
of the American Loyalist Claims Commission, Audit Office (AO) 13/134, Public
Record Office, Great Britain (PRO); AO 12/109:102, Records of the American
Loyalist Claims Commission, PRO.
[43] Burton, “John Connolly,”
99; Wilbur H. Siebert, “Kentucky’s
Struggle with its Loyalist Proprietors,” The Mississippi Valley Historical
Review 7 (1920): 122-23; Caley, “The Life Adventures,” 248-49; William
Vincent Byars, ed., B. and M. Gratz:
Merchants in Philadelphia,
1754-1798. (Jefferson City, Mo., 1916), 18.
[44] Caley,
“The Life Adventures,” 251; Burton,
“John Connolly”, 100, n.89.
[45]
“John Connolly to James Ewing,” June
25, 1798, MG 23 I20, vol.1, James Ewing Fonds, National Archives of
Canada, Ottawa, Ontario.
[46]
“John Connolly to James Ewing,” July
30, 1800, MG 23 I20, vol.1, James Ewing Fonds, National Archives of
Canada; Burton,
“John Connolly,” 105.
---------------------------------
This piece was originally published in in The Other Loyalists: Ordinary People, Royalism, and the Revolution in the Middle Colonies, 1763-1787, edited by Joseph S. Tiedemann and Gene Fingerhut (SUNY Press, April 2009).