Loyalist Ships: The Apollo
The Apollo arrived in New York, it appears, on June 8, 1783, to sail to Port Roseway (now Shelburne), N.S.
The Immigrant Ships Transcribers Guild website has some information on the Apollo consisting of a bit about the ship’s sailing along with the passenger list, transcribed from a private document.
As reported by Robert Wilkins UE, on that page, the place name “Barrying Place” should be “Carrying Place”. The private document was then in the possession of Thomas B. Wragg, a son of Thomas B. Wragg of the City of Montreal and Mary Ann Wilkins of the Carrying Place, Ontario, daughter of the late Robert Charles Wilkins of the same place.
My ancestor eventually settled in 1792 at “Carrying Place” near Trenton, Ontario. Things in Nova Scotia did not go too well. In 1789 he returned to England to press his claim for compensation, and in 1792 he returned with Simcoe’s group of “Treasury Loyalists” (I think) and was granted 3000 acres (as a former Captain) for himself and 600 additional acres for each of his three children, around Carrying Place and the present-day Trenton, Ont.
The Robert Charles Wilkins referred to in that same introductory paragraph at the top of the list was the son of Loyalist Captain Robert Wilkins. Born in New York City in 1782, RCW served as a Commissary Agent at Carrying Place during the War of 1812 and later commanded the Prince Edward Militia (I have his sword) and was made a member of the Legislative Council of Upper Canada, becoming Col. the Hon. Robert C. Wilkins. For a few years, he also was in the importing business here in Montreal, with Joseph Shuter. His wife was Mary Smith, one of the daughters of Elias Smith, U.E., one of the founders of Port Hope. Col. Hon. RCW died in 1866 and is buried, as is his father, at Carrying Place. A portrait of him, by Antoine Aim Plamondon, hangs on the living room wall over the piano in our home, and Mary Smith’s portrait is on our dining room wall.
The reference to Mary Ann Wilkins is to one of RCW’s daughters, who married Thomas B. Wragge. I believe their portraits were also painted by Plamondon, but I do not have them. I understand they are now in the collection of the Art Gallery of Ontario in Toronto.
[submitted by Robert Wilkins, UE, currently President, Heritage Branch UELAC]