“Died.—At his house, in Ernesttown, on the 7th Feb. 1816, in the 47th year of his age, W. Fairfield. His funeral was attended by a numerous circle of relatives, friends and neighbors. He left a widow and seven children. The first link that was broken in a family chain of twelve brothers and three sisters, all married at years of maturity. His death was a loss to the district, as well as to his family. He was one of the commissioners for expending the public money on the roads. Formerly a member of the Provincial Parliament; many years in the commission of the Peace. As a magistrate and a man, he was characterized by intelligence, impartiality, independence of mind and liberality of sentiments.”
Grass.—Captain Michael Grass, the first settler of Kingston township, was a native of Germany. The period of his emigration to America is unknown. He was a saddler and harness-maker by trade, and for years plied his trade in Philadelphia. It would seem that he removed from Philadelphia to New York, for his son Peter was born in this city in 1770. According to the statement of his grandson who often heard the facts from his father, Peter Grass, soon after the commencement of the rebellion, Michael Grass was taken prisoner by the Indians, who were staying at Cataraqui. In this he is probably mistaken. We learn from another source that it was during the previous French war, which is more likely to be correct. It would seem that Grass and two other prisoners were not confined in the fort, but held in durance by a tribe of Indians, who permitted them to hunt, fish, &c. They made an effort to escape, but were caught and brought back. Again they attempted, carrying with them provisions, which they had managed to collect, sufficient to last them a week. But it was nine weeks before they reached an English settlement, one having died by the way from hunger and exposure. It was the knowledge which Grass had acquired of the territory at Cataraqui, while a prisoner, which led to his appointment to the leadership of a band of refugees at the close of the war.—(See settlement of Kingston.)
It does not appear that Captain Grass occupied any office in the army during the war. His captaincy commenced upon his leaving New York with the seven vessels for Canada. By virtue of his captaincy, he was entitled to draw 3000 acres. Beside lot twenty-five in Kingston, he drew in fourth concession of Sidney nearly 2000 acres in one block.
Captain Grass had three sons, Peter, John, and Daniel, and three daughters. Daniel, some years after, went sailing and was never heard from. Peter and John settled in the Second Town and became the fathers respectively of families. The land drawn by the captain, and the 600 acres by each of his children, has proved a lasting source of wealth and comfort to his descendants.
Captain Grass naturally took a leading part at least during the first years of the settlement at Kingston. He was possessed of some education, and was a man of excellent character, with a strict sense of honor. Although opportunities presented themselves to accumulate property at the expense of others, he refused to avail himself of all such. He was appointed a magistrate at an early period, and as such performed many of the first marriages in Kingston. In religion, he was an adherent to the Church of England. Probably he had been brought up a Lutheran. His old “Dutch” Bible still is read by an old German in Ernesttown; but it seems a pity that although none of the Grass family can read its time worn pages, it should be allowed to remain in other hands than the descendants of the old captain.
In connection, it may be mentioned that some time before the war, a poor German, a baker by trade, came to New York. Michael Grass assisted him into business, and even gave him a suit of clothes. When the refugees came to Canada, this baker accompanied them. He settled in Quebec, where he amassed eventually great wealth, and the P—— family are not unknown to the public.
Gamble.—The subjoined somewhat lengthy notice is taken from the Toronto Colonist:—“Dr. Gamble and family were for many years residing at Kingston, and he was intimately associated with the first days of Upper Canada, as a Province, while his offspring as will be seen, form no indifferent element of the society of the Province,” we therefore insert the notice in extenso. “Isabella Elizabeth Gamble, the third daughter of Dr. Joseph Clark and Elizabeth Alleyne, was born at Stratford, in Connecticut—then a colony of Great Britain—on the 24th October, 1767. In the year 1776, her father, faithful to his allegiance, repaired to the British army in New York, to which place his family followed him. At the peace of 1783, Dr. Clark removed with his family to New Brunswick (then known as the Province of Acadia) and took up his residence at Mangerville. There his daughter, the subject of this memoir, then in her seventeenth year, was married on the 18th of May, 1884, to Dr. John Gamble, the eldest son of William Gamble and Leah Tyrer, of Duross, near Enniskillen, Ireland. Mr. Gamble was born in 1755, studied physic and surgery at Edinburgh; emigrated to the British colony in 1779, and landed in New York in September of that year. Immediately on his arrival, he entered the King’s service as Assistant-Surgeon to the General Hospital; subsequently he was attached to the “Old Queen’s Rangers,” and for some time did duty with that regiment as surgeon. At the peace of 1783, he, with other American Loyalists, went to New Brunswick. After his marriage Dr. Gamble practised his profession at St. John’s, and resided in New Brunswick until 1793, when having been appointed Assistant-Surgeon to the late regiment of Queen’s Rangers, by General Simcoe, then Lieutenant-Governor of Upper Canada, he joined his regiment at Niagara, where it was then quartered, having left his wife and five daughters at Mangerville. Mrs. Gamble continued to reside with her father until 1798, when her husband, having in the meantime, been promoted to the surgeoncy of his regiment; she, with her five daughters, the eldest then but thirteen years of age, accompanied by her father and a sister (afterwards married to the Hon. Samuel Smith), ascended the river St. John in a bark canoe, crossed the portage by Temi conata to the Rivierie du Loup, came up the St. Lawrence, and joined Dr. Gamble then with his regiment in garrison at York.
“In 1802, the Queen’s Rangers were disbanded, and Mrs. Gamble accompanied her husband and family to Kingston, where he practised his profession until his death, in the fifty-sixth year of his age, on the 1st December, 1811. She remained in Kingston till the year 1820, when with the portion of her family then at home, she removed to Toronto, and there remained surrounded by her offspring until her death on the 9th March, 1859.
“Mrs. Gamble had thirteen children, nine daughters and four sons; Isabella, the eldest, married to Robert Charles Home, Esq., Assistant-Surgeon, Glengary Light Infantry; Mary Ann, married to Colonel Sinclair, Royal Artillery; Sarah Hannah Boyes, to James Geddes, Esq., Assistant-Surgeon, Medical Staff; Leah Tyrer, to the Hon. William Allen; Catharine, who died unmarried; Jane, married to Benjamin Whitney, Esq.; Rachel Crookshank, to Sir James Buchannan Macaulay; Magdaline, to Thomas William Birchall, Esq.; and Mary Ann unmarried; John William, of Vaughan, William, of Milton, Etobicoke; Clarks, of Toronto, and Joseph who died in infancy; of these thirteen, six only survive, but Mrs. Gamble’s descendants have already reached the large number of 204, and some of her children’s children are now upwards of thirty years of age.
“The remarkable longevity of a large number of the American Loyalist emigrants who came to the British Provinces after the American Revolution, has been noticed by the Lord Bishop of New Brunswick, as a striking instance of the fulfilment of the promise contained in the fifth commandment, embracing, as that commandment unquestionably does, the duty of obedience to civil rulers. Mrs. Gamble may well be counted among that number, having, in October last, entered upon her ninety-second year.”—Colonist.