Introduction

As a young lad sitting at my grandmother’s knees, I was thrilled by her tales of Anthony Manuel, our pirate ancestor who sailed the high seas in the middle 1700’s, a special tradition shared by generation after generation at St. Williams on the Charlotteville-Walsingham townline for over a century and a half. Anthony Manuel’s adventurous epoch of kidnapping, piracy, and buried treasure captured a young boy’s imagination and “Pirate” became a favourite game, although perhaps not for those who I forced to walk the gang plank to the pool at stick point.

Descendant Ida Procunier earlier this century told the Anthony Manuel story to Norfolk historian Clayton McCall, also a descendant, and he recorded her words in an article titled “Daughters of a Pirate”:¹

“Anthony Manuel father of the five sisters, was playing on the coast of Portugal, when he was kidnapped by pirates. At that time he was eight or nine years old. Anthony was kept on board the pirates’ ship for twenty-five years, when he was given his freedom in Nova Scotia.”

Upon further questioning of Ida Procunier at a later time, McCall wrote:

“She then stated that she had forgotten to tell me that a few other boys were kidnapped along with Anthony, one of whom was allowed to stay ashore to report what had happened. She also added that the captives were given sugar-cane, a great delicacy to them, to make them contented with their lot.”

Some of the stories at St. Williams linked Anthony Manuel to the reputed buried treasure on Oak Island off the coast of Nova Scotia. On that mound of unstable sand rising from the Atlantic Ocean, an enormous hoard of buccaneer booty was cached with an uncanny engineering skill that has defied the excavating efforts of enterprising individuals and corporations since 1795.

Origins of Anthony Manuel

How does one trace a pirate ancestor? Naturally enough, his life on the high seas would remain undocumented. However, ancestor Anthony left an interesting trail after he set permanent foot on shore. Anthony Manuel became linked by marriage to the Mabee family in New York and then lived near them in New Brunswick and Norfolk County, Upper Canada. As my research into my Mabee ancestry progressed, I picked up documents about the pirate ancestor in both provinces until I had a thick file of puzzle pieces.

The one record that impressed me the most was his oldest son’s 1871 Queensbury, New Brunswick Census record. Anthony Manuel, Jr. gave his nationality as “Portugal”, supporting the tradition we have of the old pirate’s birthplace.

Soldier of the Line

The mystery deepened when I learned that my pirate ancestor served in a British army regiment during the American Revolution. In a list published by Esther Clark Wright in The Loyalists of New Brunswick, her material prepared from New Brunswick Treasury Board Certificates, appears the name of Anthony Manuel with the notation that he served in the 17th Regiment.²

This corps of British Army Lancers, also known as the Duke of Cambridges’ Own, was raised in 1759 then eighteen years later went to New York during the American Revolution. They, with other British Regulars, occupied Princeton, New Jersey under Colonel Charles Mawhood and were routed during their march to Trenton by General George Washington in the Battle of Princeton on January 3, 1777. The British lost heavily in this engagement with nearly four hundred killed, wounded or taken prisoner including a hundred dead on the field. The remnants of the troops retreated towards Trenton and Brunswick.³

The men of the 17th Regiment were later among a corps of 700 soldiers under Lieutenant Colonel Henry Johnson who garrisoned the fort at Stony Point, New York in 1779. On July 16, 1779, American General Anthony Wayne attacked and took the fort forcing the retreat of the British forces to New York City.⁴

There is an interesting tradition of two New York Manuel brothers in the Clements family told by Frank de L. Clements and recounted by Clayton McCall. On August 9, 1952, Clements visited a New Brunswick genealogist, Mrs. Maxwell of the York-Sunbury Historical Society. As the visitor left the home of Mrs. Maxwell:

“Clements chanced to remark that he had been bothering his brother by asking if he had ever found out what had happened to the two daughters of Capt. Peter Clements (of the King’s American Regt., raised in the Colony of N.Y. during the Revolutionary War) who had eloped on horseback with two brothers of Spanish (so-called) descent. Mrs. Maxwell asked the caller if the name of the brothers was Manuel. The reply was “Yes.”

Marriage and Family

Anthony Manuel married, likely in New York, the widow Margaret (Mabee) Griffin sometime before 1783 when their son Anthony, Jr. was born. Margaret was the youngest daughter of the large loyalist Mabee family of Dutchess County, New York, a child of Simon Mabee’s second marriage to a wife whose name is not known. Family researcher Royal Mabee gave Margaret’s birth date to be January 31, 1757. However, calculating from her gravestone in Johnson Cemetery at St. Williams, it was February 26, 1752. Margaret married firstly in New York to Simon Griffin who seems to have died during the Revolution. Royal Mabee records that the following children were born to that union: Edward, Saunders, John, and Polly Griffin.

The New Brunswick Years

The Simon Mabee family sailed in the post - war 1783 Exodus from New York to New Brunswick in various of the refugee fleets from the spring through to the fall of the year. The name of Anthony Manuel does not appear as the head of a family in the ships’ passenger lists, but then he may have sailed with his regiment, in which case there would be no individual record as an independent passenger. Eighteen men of the 17th Regiment sailed from New York City on the John & Jane in the October Fleet.⁵

Esther Clark Wright, in the list mentioned earlier, recorded that Anthony settled at Mispec, St. John County, New Brunswick and it was likely there that the second child of Anthony and Margaret, named Ann, was born on April 11, 1784.⁶

On January 30, 1787 Anthony Manuel was allotted Lot No. 40, containing 205 acres on the River St. John above Nackawick in the grant to James Brown and sixty-six others.⁷ This was situated at Queensbury, York County, New Brunswick, on the east side of the River, and the following Manuel family baptisms were recorded in the Queensbury Parish Register:

“Baptized 12 June 1792, Leah, daughter of Anthony and Margaret Manuel born 15 May 179O and Frederick their son born 20th May 1792”

At some point after the above record but prior to the birth of their son John c. 1795, Anthony and Margaret Manuel moved to Prince William across the St. John River from Queensbury. Prince William was established as a township in 1783 and a parish in 1786. It was named by Edward Winslow and Daniel Murray for English Prince William, later King William IV, patron of the King’s American Dragoons in which many of the settlers had served.⁸

On April 10, 1799, Anthony and Margaret Manuel of Prince William Parish, York County, sold to William Huggin for 15 pounds, Lot 40 in the block granted to the Queen’s Rangers, Parish of Northampton, York County, a 200 acre property.⁹ This wasn’t much money for the times, just a shilling and a half per acre, reflecting an infertile situation, the common complaint of many New Brunswick loyalists that led to their eventual departure for Upper Canada.

Anthony and his family remained elsewhere in the area for a few years longer. In 1801 Richard Steers filed a land petition noting that Anthony Manuel had purchased from Jesse Crickmore the rights of settlement on a 200 acre property, Lot 5 in the regimental grant of the Queen’s Rangers and that Manuel had in turn sold these rights to Steers.¹⁰ Anthony Manuel filed a land petition dated at Prince William, York County on January 25, 1802 stating that he had a large family to support and had not received a grant of any land from the government. He requested Lot 4, Queensbury, then lying waste and unoccupied.¹¹ In a petition dated May 12, 1803, James Pennington disputed the settlement of Anthony Manuel on Lot 4, Queen’s Rangers Block, Township of Queensbury. Pennington stated that he had earlier made an improvement on this property which had belonged to the Widow Scot.¹²

Map of a part of New Brunswick showing Prince William and Queensbury up the St. Johns River from Frederickton

Charlotteville, Upper Canada

Anthony and Margaret Manuel were among the later adventurers who pulled up roots at New Brunswick for the greener pastures of Upper Canada in 1807. They were preceded fourteen years earlier by Margaret’s brother Frederick Mabee, the pioneer of Turkey Point in Charlotteville Township, Norfolk County. Leaving behind their oldest son, Anthony, Jr., the Manuels brought with them a family of two sons and five daughters, ranging in age from twenty-three down to six years old.

The obituary of a daughter of Anthony and Margaret, Frances (Manuel) Procunier, reported that her parents came to Ontario in 1807, settling at Charlotteville Township, Norfolk County near Vittoria on “what is called the Walter Anderson estate”.¹³ The Long Point Settlement homestead owned by Walter Anderson was located in lot 20 of the fourth concession of Charlotteville west of the village of Vittoria. This property was held by Anderson until his death in 1818 and then by his widow and sons for many years afterwards. As no transaction to Anthony Manuel appeared in the deeds pertaining to the lot, he was apparently a tenant. The early assessments of Charlotteville showed him having livestock but no land ownership.

Anthony Manuel was listed in the 1808 assessment of Charlotteville, his assets evaluated under £100 and his tax 6 days of work on the roads. In 1809, he had no land, two oxen, two “milch” cows, and two swine. In 1810, he was taxed six days of labour. In 1815, his property was evaluated at £85 and his tax again six days of labour.¹⁴ On April 24, 1810, Anthony Manuel of Charlotteville, stood surety for a Crown lease of his brother-in-law Silas Mabee.¹⁵ Although he must have been in his sixties by the time of the War of 1812, Anthony once again took up arms in defence of the Crown. In 1814, he was recorded on the Muster Roll of Captain John Bostwick’s Company of the Norfolk County Militia.¹⁶

Anthony’s life in the Long Point Settlement was a short one. On December 3, 1816 Margaret Manuel, widow of Anthony Manuel, and their son John Manuel, applied for letters of administration over the estate of Anthony Manuel, deceased.¹⁷ The oldest son who would normally have applied with the widow was Anthony Manuel, Jr., but he was in New Brunswick and never came to Upper Canada. The estate papers are unclear as to Anthony’s final residency. There is one mention of Walsingham Township and two of Charlotteville. Margaret later lived at Walsingham Township and survived her husband by twenty-five years.

Sources

1. Clayton W. McCall (1891-1973), historian and antiquarian, took an interest in the historical background of his Norfolk County birthplace from his youth. He was a prolific letter writer and his carbon copies are in the possession of the author. “Daughters of a Pirate” is an undated article among the letters apparently written for the Simcoe Reformer. Reference is made to his earlier article, “The Five Sisters” published in the Simcoe Reformer issue of July 16, 1936.

2. Esther Clark Wright in The Loyalists of New Brunswick (p.p., Wolfville, NS: 1955), P. 304

3. Scheer, George F. & Hugh F. Rankin, Editors. Rebels & Redcoats. Da Capo Press, New York, NY: 1957, P. 219

4. Ibid. P.361

5. Bell, D.G. Early Loyalist Saint John (New Ireland Press. Fredericton, NB 1983. P. 31

6. Wright. P. 304

7. Provincial Archives of New Brunswick Grant #104

8. Rayburn, Allan, Geographical Names of New Brunswick, (Surveys and Mapping Branch, Dept. of Energy Mines & Resources, Ottawa, 1975)

9. Register of Deeds of York County, New Brunswick Vol. 2 P. 273

10. New Brunswick Land Petitions, Provincial Archives of New Brunswick 1801/65

11. NBLP 1802/646

12. NBLP 1803/Pennington

13. Norfolk Reformer, August 6, 1880

14. Yeager, William R., Ed., Pioneers of Charlotteville Township, Norfolk County, 1798-1816, Norfolk Historical Society, Simcoe, ON: 1977)

15. Upper Canada Land Petitions, “M” Bundle Leases 1798-1823, P. 66

16. Norfolk Militia Muster Roll in R. Robert Mutrie, The Long Point Settlers, Log Cabin Publishing (Ridgeway, ON: 1992), P. 253

17. Will of Anthony Manuel, London District Surrogate Registry #63