The Hill Brothers Settle in Canada at Last
In that news item her husband, John Hill, had “Esq.” after his name, a genteel reflection of his service to the Crown inspecting the Brooklyn ferry.
Also by that time, the Americans had won the war. Gen. Guy Carleton was about to be appointed commander of the British forces, charged with holding things together till the end. Gen. George Washington’s Continental Army was pressuring New York City, but not trying anything too risky. Lt. Col. Benjamin Thompson was getting his combat experience by leading dragoons on Long Island. But basically people were waiting for the final peace terms to be settled.
John’s brother Richard led one of the first contingents of Loyalists to leave New York, embarking in June 1783. He was in Carleton, Nova Scotia (which would become St. John, New Brunswick), in September when he wrote back to John about a ship captain named John Mason who had tried to make off with the vessel under his command.
Richard Hill was described as the first Loyalist to build a frame house in the town of Digby, Nova Scotia. He became a justice of the peace and a vestryman.
John Hill and his family evacuated New York late in 1783, eventually joining his brother in Digby. By the next year, John had remarried. His household consisted of him, his wife, a child over age ten, and three “servants” over age ten.
In 1786 the Loyalists Commission held hearings at Halifax. John Hill applied for “half pay, as a Quarter Master, but was told by their Honors that Pensions, and Half Pay, was to be Settled in England.” Four years later he was in London, petitioning for support for himself and his brother. Returning to Digby, he managed a store and was first treasurer of the local Freemasons’ lodge.
People think that Richard Hill died around 1803, three years after his wife Jane (her gravestone shown above).
John died on 23 Nov 1817—forty years after he had been released from the Boston jail, accused of helping to loot the town during the evacuation.
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