ANDERSON, Col. Samuel: 1736 - 1836
ANDERSON, Capt. Thomas Gummersall: 1779 - 1875
Tile ordered and paid for by G.A. Anderson,* Deseronto, Ontario, August, 1889
Samuel Anderson, an experienced soldier who had earlier fought in the Seven Years War, was in Albany, New York at the beginning of the American Revolution. Evidently, he was offered and refused command of the rebel army, the Continental Regulars. In February 1776, he went from Albany to Ticonderoga on Lake Champlain to help burn rebel shipping. Taken prisoner in May 1776, he was imprisoned in Connecticut. He escaped in July 1777 and joined the King’s Royal Regiment of New York (KRRNY) at Ticonderoga where he was commissioned as Captain, October 1777, backdated to June 19, 1776.(1) The rank of Colonel on the tile may be honorary or from later militia service.
Although they were very young at the time, several sons of Samuel are also listed on the rolls of the KRRNY: Ebenezer (enlisted 1778), Elisha (enlisted 1779), James (enlisted 1780) and Joseph (enlisted 1778). Samuel’s young son, Thomas Gummersall, born in 1779, although only four years old, was also listed as a volunteer with the explanation that he was appointed as “financial assistance for his father.”(2)
Samuel and his brother Joseph, also later a captain in the KRRNY who had been imprisoned with him, were accused of having sold beef to the British army in November 1775. Their Vermont property, over 400 acres of land, as well as horses and cattle, was confiscated and sold by the people of Vermont early in 1776 before they were indicted. After they were resettled in Canada, they filed a joint claim for their losses.(3)
Samuel settled with other men of his company in Royal Township #2, near present-day Cornwall, Ontario. Samuel was appointed Justice of the Peace and then first judge in the Eastern District. He was one of the founders of Trinity Anglican Church in Cornwall. Samuel died on October 13, 1836 at his residence near Cornwall, aged 101 years.(4) (The KRRNY lists Samuel’s birth date as 1736 rather than 1739 as inscribed on the tile. The earlier date correlates with his age at time of death as stated in his obituary.)
Samuel Anderson’s son, inscribed as Captain G. Anderson on the tile, was actually Thomas Gummersall Anderson, named after Thomas Gummersall, a fellow captain with his father Samuel Anderson in the KRRNY. For fifty-eight years, Thomas worked closely with the Indians as a trader in the Indian Department (which was under the jurisdiction of the military until 1830), and held the rank of captain. He devoted much of his life to the welfare and settlement of the Indians, and wrote copious journals and reports on their behalf. In 1845 he was appointed Chief Superintendent for Indian Affairs.(5)
* Gustavus Alexander Anderson, sponsor of this tile, was the son of Capt. Thomas G. Anderson and grandson of Samuel Anderson. He served for a time as priest at the Mohawk Church in Tyendinaga.
1. Ernest A. Cruikshank, King’s Royal Regiment of New York, rev. ed. (Global Heritage Press, 1984), p. 166.
2. Cruikshank, p. 166.
3. Peter Wilson Coldham, American Loyalist Claims (National Genealogical Society).
4. William D. Reid, Death Notices of Ontario, 1810-1849 (Hunterdon House, 1980).
5. “Anderson, Thomas Gummersall,” Dictionary of Canadian Biography Online, Vol. X.