Crean Brush’s American Career

Yesterday’s post reported that among the people captured aboard the evacuation ship Elizabeth in April 1776 was Crean Brush.

Eric Wiser wrote a good article about Brush for the Journal of the American Revolution: “Hell’s Half-Acre: The Fall of Loyalist Crean Brush.” More information can be found in “Crean Brush vs. Ethan Allen: A Winner’s Tale” by John J. Duffy and Eugene A. Coyle, published in Vermont History (P.D.F. download). I’ll review just the main points here.

Brush came to America from county Tyrone in Ireland in the 1760s when he was in his thirties and already a widower. He soon established himself as a lawyer and government appointee in New York City.

Brush married Margaretha Schoolcraft, who had a daughter named Frances from her previous relationship with Capt. John Montresor, the British army engineer. (Some sources say this girl was Margaretha’s niece. Others give the girl’s surname as Montezuma. It seems clear those were cover stories.)

In 1772, after accumulating grants of tens of thousands of acres of frontier land, Brush moved his family to the new town of Westminster, New York, between Lake Champlain and the Connecticut River. Soon he was a leader of the new community, variously commissioner of the court, surrogate of the court, county clerk, and representative in the colonial legislature. Brush worked with Philip Schuyler to establish the rule of (New York) law in his new county.

Unfortunately for Brush, others had settled the same region with grants from New Hampshire that overlapped and competed with the grants from New York. These men, led by Ethan Allen, Seth Warner, and Remember Baker, called themselves the Green Mountain Boys. Brush called them the Bennington Mob, becoming an early opponent and target of that faction. The London government had approved New York’s side of that dispute, giving Brush more reason to support royal policies.

On 13 Mar 1775, while Brush was away at the legislature, there was a fatal fight around the Westminster courthouse. Then war broke out in Massachusetts. The Green Mountain Boys seized Fort Ticonderoga for the rebels. Brush realized the region wasn’t safe for him, and neither was his former home in New York City. The Brush family moved into besieged Boston.

On 1 October, Gen. Thomas Gage gave Brush a commission to collect goods from the buildings of people who had left Boston so they wouldn’t be damaged when British soldiers were lodged in those homes and warehouses. The general required Brush “to take all due Care thereof, and to deliver said Goods when called upon, to those to whom you shall have given Receipts for the same.”

What Brush really wanted, though, was the British commander’s approval for his scheme to raise a Loyalist regiment and take back his corner of New York from the Green Mountain Boys. Gage never authorized that, which probably saved Brush from dying in a futile battle. Still, Brush presented the same proposal to Gen. William Howe in early 1776, but he didn’t get any further before it was time to leave.

TOMORROW: Preparing to evacuate.