Lieutenant Paul Averill
by R. Robert Mutrie
by R. Robert Mutrie
“... Your petitioner has been 6 years in the province, had a 1793 agreement with Andrew Pierce to place settlers... was promised 800 acres for himself... placed upwards of 25 families... made improvements, built mills, houses on 4 lots... irons and stone nearly ready for the grist mill...”
Thus read the Upper Canada Land Petition of Townsend Township’s founder Paul Averill dated on May 7, 1799. He with vigour and energy was starting the town of Waterford in Townsend Township, Norfolk County. In Volume 2, Number 1 of The Long Point Settlers Journal, I featured the story of the founding of Townsend Township, Norfolk County. Paul Averill, the farsighted 1793 developer, held in his capable hands the challenging responsibility for the original settlement of pioneering families in this wholly virgin inland territory. The 100 square mile tract under his stewardship, when surveyed, included 330 farm lots, almost all measuring 200 acres, and all undeveloped. Who was this man that so deeply influenced the establishment of a part of this province? What was his background? What became of him? This biography explores those question.
It is rare in the annals of Upper Canadian history that a former American Patriot holding the rank of Lieutenant during the American Revolution had the inclination, nor indeed gained enough favour in this province, to become a Canadian nation builder. Yet this proved to be the case of a man who made difficult choices with alacrity then brought a whirlwind of energy to his enterprises.
Paul Averill, land developer, carpenter, mechanic, and miller came by his prodigious land management talents naturally, he being the descendant of five generations of New England pioneers with a long history of founding settlements and latterly, in land buying and selling. Each generation developed a property a little larger than the one preceding, progressing from a modest thirty acres in seventeenth century Massachusetts to more than a thousand in eighteenth century Ontario.
A detailed account of Paul Averill’s ancestral record may be found included in the 1910 Averill genealogical primer The Averell-Averill-Avery Family, by Clara A. Avery, a two volume work on the descendants of William and Abigail Averill. The ancestral Averill immigrant couple arrived from England to settle in Massachusetts sometime before March 1637, the date on which William Averill received a land grant from the newly formed town of Ipswich. Family historian Clara Avery travelled extensively to diligently seek out documentary records and family descendants, and she meticulously quoted them all verbatim in her landmark work. I found a copy of Avery’s books in the Public Library of Rochester, New York. More copies of her book may be available on the Interlibrary Loan circuit.
What makes the Clara Avery books stand out from others is her attention to documentary quotes of primary sources including the Massachusetts and Connecticut Town Records, the various township registers of deeds, the county registers of wills, and the Revolutionary War service and pension applications of the Patriot soldiers. Avery’s New England research also comprehensively included visits to ancestral locations. However, when Paul Averill’s part of the family moved to pre-Revolutionary Vermont and later to Upper Canada (Ontario), her work became sketchy for the century prior to the 1880-1910 period of those whom she interviewed.
Avery’s book includes an interesting blend of documents and colourful family memories but with lots of gaps for the post - 1770 period. The background of Townsend pioneer Paul Averill started off strong in New England then faded to a hazy tradition reported by a grandson in Michigan who overlooked the whole Townsend Settlement which Paul Averill supervised.
The first part of Paul Averill’s decade in Townsend Township, Norfolk County (1793-1797) was recorded in Volume 2, Number 1 of The Long Point Settlers Journal. This subsequent article outlines his antecedents and his later life.
The following is an abbreviated chronology of the Averill family’s heritage of pioneer settlement and land development leading down to the man who held sole responsibility for a part of this province’s heartland- Paul Averill. This background is based on an examination of the documents quoted in Clara A. Avery’s books.
Paul Averill’s father, Ichabod Averill was born to Thomas and Mary (Baker) Averill in Preston Township, New London County, Connecticut on May 25, 1710. The New England family roots ran deep. Immigrant ancestor William Avery/Averill, with his wife Abigail sailed from England then settled in Ipswich, Essex County near the northern Atlantic coastal area of Massachusetts by March 1637. The first American ancestral homestead measured a modest 30 acres, land granted along Muddy River in Chebacco (Argilla) by the newly formed town. The early family gave their name to two local landmarks- “Averill’s Hill” and “Averill’s Birches” and descendants still lived there as late as 1910. William Averill built a mill, beginning a tradition that would pass down to his descendant, Townsend Township founder Paul Averill.
William and Abigail’s oldest son, also named William was born in Chipping Norton, Oxfordshire, England on June 26, 1625 and was a youth when the family emigrated. He married in Ipswich on July 31, 1661, Hannah Jackson, daughter of John and Katherine Jackson, and they made their pioneer home on a 100 acre farm in Topsfield several miles to the southwest, between Springvale and Mile Brook Bridge. William built a gristmill which remained in the Averill name until 1835, and he held several town offices including supervisor of the highway between Ipswich and Topsfield. In after years, this Averill neighbourhood gained the name of “The Colleges,” some family members being among the most intelligent people in the town. The family prominence had an infamous side to it. In 1692, William Jr.’s sister, Mrs. Sarah (Averill) Wildes, was convicted of witchcraft and then executed.
Paul Averill’s Grandfather Thomas Averill (son of William, Jr. and Hannah), continued the pioneering tradition. Thomas left to establish his home in Preston in eastern Connecticut by January 27, 1701/2, the date being recorded in Preston town records for Thomas’ marriage to Mary Baker. On September 15, 1703, Thomas Averill purchased a tract of land in Preston and raised his family there. Thomas’ will dated in Preston, New London, Connecticut on November 26, 1734 named his son Ichabod as the principal heir to his estate.
Ichabod Averill married in Griswold, Preston Township on December 15, 1742, Bathsheba Paine, and their son, Townsend founder Paul was probably born the next year. About a year or two after they married, the couple moved to Great Barrington, Sheffield Township in southwestern Massachusetts, then soon after moved again to Ichabod’s birthplace back in Preston, Connecticut.
In 1753, the family finally returned to western Massachusetts where on December 26, 1753, Ichabod Averill formerly of Preston, Connecticut, now of “Shiffield” sold his land in Preston. On March 29, 1757, Ichabod received a tract of land from the Stockbridge Indians (Mohican Tribe) on Taconic/Tachonock (et.var.) Mountain, Massachusetts, having the right to a forty-eighth part of the township west of Sheffield, the present town of Mount Washington. In September 1767, John King, claiming to be the purchaser of this property brought suit against Ichabod Averill “living on Taconack Mountain so called in Sheffield” to force his removal from the land. This, Ichabod Averill successfully defended at first but then lost two years later, but afterwards may have finally won again. After the court actions there is no further record of Paul Averill’s parents.
Helping to establish Townsend founder Paul Averill’s year of birth, a descendant stated that Paul Averill was aged 63 in 1805 when he assisted his son-in-law John Earle in erecting a grist mill in Otterville, Ontario. However, one would think Paul must have been at least a year younger- circa 1743, allowing time after his parents’ December 1742 marriage. During this period, Paul’s parents, Ichabod and Bethsheba, lived in Griswold, Preston Township, New London County, Connecticut. They then lived for a brief period in Great Barrington, Massachusetts, and next settled for a decade back in Preston and finally in Tackonuck Mountain, Sheffield Township, Berkshire County in southwestern Massachusetts in 1753.
Our first record of Paul Averill as an adult was in the form of a deed dated on September 17, 1772, when he would have been about 29 years old. In this Paul Averill of Tackonuck Mountain purchased from David Calkins a half right of land on the Mountain. A second deed from Paul Averill, “of a Place called Tackonock Mountain, yeoman” to Thomas Caide, dated on March 18, 1773, sold his half right. It may have been then that he moved to pioneer in Vermont. Prior to this move, he married his wife whose name is only known as Elizabeth and two or three of his older children were born in this earlier location.
About ten miles east of the present New York - Vermont state line is a small village named Dorset was the home of the Paul Averill family during and immediately after the American Revolution. In the pre-war period of 1769-1775, Vermont was the “new frontier” for adventurous sons and daughters of New England families. Claimed both by New York and New Hampshire, Vermont did not exist as a separate colony. Dorset’s southwest corner location was in Charlotte (since renamed Bennington) County, largely under the influence of the Hudson River corridor of New York.
When the War of the American Revolution broke out the residents of Vermont, like those of all American colonies, stood divided in their allegiance. Uncertain even as to which colony to which they belonged- New York or New Hampshire- each Vermont town had its own influences and sympathies towards the two sides in the Revolution. Even after the war the residents of Vermont wavered on whether to join the United States or Canada and an internal division continued for nearly a decade. Those who arrived in this province in after-years generally sympathised with, or actively served on the Loyalist side, but Paul Averill, and indeed all of his brothers and cousins, supported the Patriot cause. Averill’s characteristic ambition that transformed a Patriot Militia Lieutenant into a later Upper Canadian nation builder was evinced in his meteoric rise through the ranks of the Patriot forces.
On March 4 1780, Paul “Avaril”, Ensign, served in Tozer’s Company of the Dorset Regiment of the Charlotte County Militia and then rose to Sergeant under Tozer and Armstrong. Averill’s early military record was found in the Archives of the State of New York, Revolutionary War Volume, p. 133, 276:
“The Charlotte Co. Militia, Dorset Regt., Paul Averill, Ensign;Vice Fuller, Mch. 4, 1780; Alex Webster, Colonel, vice Williams, Daniel Bromdage 1st Lieut., Ephraim Fuller 2d Lieut.; in Tozer’s Co.; also Sergeant under Tozer and Armstrong. Col. John William’s Regt. of Charlotte Co. Militia was called out from April 22, to 25, 1778. It was in pay under Major Armstrong’s - during 1781.”
A certified record of the American Revolution Adjutant General’s Office, State of Vermont shows:
“Paul Averill served as a Private 6 days in Capt. Jacob Hind’s Co. in an alarm to the Northward up to Castleton, in Oct. 1781, and rec’d £1.4.8. Residence not given.”
The Vermont Revolutionary Roll, p. 736 records Paul Averill’s wages. This certifies that:
“Paul Averill a soldier in Capt. Jacob Hind’s Co., did go up in the Alarm to the Northward up to Castleton; in Oct. 1781. Sd. Avery was not made up in the Pay roll. These are to desire the Honorable Board of Pay Table, to pay said Avery for six days, and this shall be your Security-
For his services on this occasion, Averill received one pound, four shillings and eight pence. In the course of the Revolution, Paul Averill rose up through the ranks of the Patriot militia serving as Private, Ensign, Sergeant and Lieutenant. Recorded in the Roster of State Troops for the Charlotte Co. Militia:
“Col. John Williams, Maj. Thomas Armstrong, Maj. Alex. Webster; Captn John Armstrong, Alex McNitt, Elishama Tozer, Lieut Shaw; Capt. Silas Childs, Lieut Paul Averill.
When John Graves Simcoe, the first Lieutenant Governor of this province arrived in Upper Canada from England in 1792, he had extensive territories surveyed for settlement and advertised widely for new settlers. Anyone who settled could receive a government grant of 200 acres of land. This was much larger than those in the United States currently owned. Large settlement companies were formed in the United States and approaches made to Simcoe for grants of entire townships. On February 20, 1793 Andrew Pierce of Southbury, Connecticut formed a partnership and drew up a petition to the government of Upper Canada for the transfer of Loyalist New England residents as a group to large blocks of land in Upper Canada. Pierce met with Simcoe in March 1793 at which time the organizer proposed to settle 50 families in each of six townships, but received three, two of which were Townsend and neighbouring Windham in Norfolk County.
With government approval of his massive settlement scheme, Pierce returned to New England and appointed Paul Averill of Vermont as his local agent for Townsend and Windham Townships in Norfolk County. It is ironic that Pierce chose a man who had led troops opposing the Loyalist cause during the American Revolution, but then Averill’s outstanding talents, contacts and his ambition apparently overrode any reservations. The subject of Averill’s revolutionary past never came up in later official records. Averill accepted the assignment and removed with his wife and four youngest children to this province.
Prior to the August 1793 survey of Townsend Township, Averill may have lived in the bustling capital in Newark (present Niagara-on-the-Lake), the destination of all Loyalist families seeking to enter Upper Canada. As the families arrived on their treks walking and riding anywhere from 200 to more than 800 miles, Averill and several land speculators waited for their approvals from the seat of government then offered to buy, sell, or settle their grants, settlement being Averill’s specialty. While Averill maintained a high profile in Townsend after the survey of the township with extensive interests of his own there, he also seems to have maintained a second home or office in the town of Newark. On May 26, 1796, he filed a petition to the Executive Council requesting a town lot at Newark and received the grant.
Averill stands as a giant in Upper Canada development and a man of many talents. Not only did he prove to be a judicious land developer, but also an “industrious and honest mechanic,” a carpenter, and a mill builder and operator. From 1793 to 1803, he brought all of his energies to bear on the development of the township under his charge, with particular attention to focusing the heartbeat of Townsend on his own grants in the present town of Waterford
The details of the early part of Paul Averill’s 1793 to 1803 were presented in Volume 2, Number 1 of The Long Point Settlers Journal, under the heading of “The Founding of Townsend Township” transcribed into this website. To summarize in a nutshell, Averill received the appointment of Andrew Pierce and Associates to settle the township with pioneers from New England, under a set of guidelines and restrictions set by the Executive Council of Upper Canada. Averill established several families from his Vermont home area but The Pierce Associates’ main scheme of transferring Massachusetts and Connecticut families failed. Undaunted, Averill approached other new arrivals in Upper Canada, and the sons of those already established, to find his government mandated requirement of fifty families for Townsend Township. He achieved a considerable amount of success. In doing so Averill gave land to some not qualified and fell out of the favour of the government in 1797. From that point, Averill continued in Townsend as a private party developing his own land with a milling interest that blossomed into the town of Waterford.
As a part of his agreement with the Government of Upper Canada and Andrew Pierce and Associates, Averill was granted 800 acres of land in his own right. His chosen location centred on a block of land along Patterson’s Creek in southwestern Townsend - Lots 6 and 7 in the seventh and eighth concessions, the central core of the present town of Waterford. Further, he received Lot 9, Concession 8 for his 200 acre allowance as a settler.
Averill formed a business partnership with financier Mordecai Sayles and energetically developed his grants not just as a farm, but as an ambitious enterprise. In a petition to the Government of Upper Canada dated May 9, 1797, Averill wrote that he had built a sawmill and had preparations for building a gristmill underway. He placed the mills at the centre of his block in the northwest corner of Lot 7. The mill dam created an extensive pond covering parts of the property that he owned, and which back-flowed into land further west, Lots 5 of the seventh and eighth concessions. The two Lot 5 properties were government reserves available for lease, and granted to Averill in 1799, bringing a total of 1,400 acres under his ownership or control.
During the prime of his life, and with substantial financial backing from Mordecai Sayles, Paul Averill had energy to burn and focused it all on his home area. In his Upper Canada Land Petition dated on May 7, 1799, he applied to have the lease on Lot 7, Concession 5 converted to a grant noting that he had placed upwards of 25 families in the township and “made improvements, built mills, houses on 4 lots.” He further mentioned irons and stone nearly ready for a gristmill. Attached to this petition flowed a glowing testimonial dated August 4, 1800 signed by some of the foremost residents of the district- Thomas Welch, Jabez Culver, Wheeler Douglas, James Campbell, Richard Cochrell and Thomas Horner:
“... gristmill and sawmill built by Paul Averill and Mordecai Sayles are both now doing good business.... the Gristmill is a masterly performance of the kind and a very good convenience to the surrounding settlement.”
The Averill - Sayles partnership which started off so successfully fell on the rocks of distrust soon after it began. On June 3, 1800, Mordecai Sayles wrote to the Executive Council that he had invested £500 in the grist mill “which will be ready to go in 5 weeks.” Sayles expressed his fear that should Averill obtain the grant of the land under the mills, his investment might be lost. The Executive Council responded that “If Sayles has any claim on the land or against Paul Averill, he must resort to a Court of Justice.” The partners became enemies and their rivalry went to the court.
Sayles, holding the security on the mills, took them over and Averill did not give up his part of the enterprise easily. On April 14, 1801 Averill filed a complaint to the London District Court of the Quarter Sessions that Sayles took a toll higher than the allowed - one-twelfth part of the product for grinding and bolting at his mill. Sayles lost the case, and was fined £10 plus costs. Also in 1801, Averill and Sayles filed competing applications to the Court of the Quarter Sessions for a tavern license, but both were disappointed. The conflict escalated and became physical. Sayles was arraigned by the court on March 10, 1802 for assault and battery on Paul Averill, and Paul’s wife Elizabeth, appeared as a witness. Sayles was found guilty by the jury, and the justices demanded that Sayles keep the peace, particularly towards Averill.
There appears to have been a reconciliation for a time between the two men. On May 27, 1803, Averill and Sayles jointly petitioned for a Crown Lease on Lot 5, Concession 8, Townsend Township.
Earlier, about 1799, Paul’s daughter Mary married John Earle, who stepped in to act as a much needed intermediary for Averill’s interests in Waterford. On May 27, 1803, John Earle made out an Upper Canada Land Petition in which he stated that he had been in the province for five years and that he resided with Paul Averill and married his daughter. On June 1, 1803, Earle received a gift of Paul Averill’s land at Townsend Township. In February and April 1804, Earle resold the Averill lands to miller Leonard Sovereen and financiers Mordecai Sayles, Benjamin Canby and Reuben Rice. From those four developed subdivisions for the town lots in Waterford.
Averill’s business disappointments in Townsend may have led to his subsequent interest in the area of Niagara Falls, Niagara County, New York another newly developing area. Although aged about 60 in 1803, Paul Averill continued to assist in founding milling centres elsewhere. After giving his Waterford lands to John Earle, Averill moved to a location near Niagara Falls. In the 1803 petition mentioned above, Averill stated that he was “obliged to take a journey to the United States.” While building a mill he discovered the `burning spring’ a local Niagara Falls tourist attraction.
Back in Upper Canada, Paul Averill’s son and son-in-law continued his mill-building tradition. In 1806, John Earle and his brother-in-law Paul Averill, Jr. purchased lot 11 in the ninth concession of South Norwich Township, Oxford County. A family tradition states that Earle and Paul Averill, Jr. received a government grant to cover the cost of the machinery for their water powered mill, the first in the area of Otterville village. Paul, Sr. returned from Niagara Falls to join the venture and took a hand in the construction, particularly of the mill stones. American troops burned the mill during the War of 1812-14 on November 3, 1814 but the mill stones survived to be re-used in another mill built by one Mr. Bullich in 1845.
Descendant family researcher Willard Tottle wrote in January 1996:
“We had known for a long time that the original [mill] dam on Otter Creek had been built where the pavement today runs west out of Otterville, and that the 1st mill stood just a short distance to the south. Thanks to that band of steel that Paul Sr. wrapped around his mill stones in 1806 our metal detector located one of these stones and we brought a sample home.”
At the time of the mill’s burning in 1814, Paul Averill and his wife lived on Lot 17, Concession 7, South Norwich Township, with their son Paul, Jr. and his wife and family. Paul’s daughter Mary and her husband John Earle lived nearby on Lot 20 in the same concession. A month after the burning, Paul, Jr.’s wife died while giving birth to their fifth child. John Earle built another mill, this one on his Lot 20, powered by the waters of Spitler Creek, the construction possibly assisted by Paul Averill, Senior and Junior.
In 1823 Paul’s youngest son Samuel, moved to Farmington Township, Oakland County, Michigan. A grandson Mortimer G. Averill stated that Paul, Sr. joined Samuel, but afterwards returned to Upper Canada. If this is so, no record has been found as to his final years in this province. By 1825, Paul, Sr.’s daughter Mary and her husband John Earle removed to Edwards, St. Lawrence County, New York, leaving some of their children in Upper Canada. Son Paul Averill, Jr. left Otterville to live “near London” followed in 1828 by a move to New York State. Some of his children also remained in Upper Canada.
All of Paul Averill’s known lineal male descendants lived in Michigan, continuing the tradition of pioneering new territory. However, several granddaughters married and established families in this province.
Concerning the later years of Paul Averill, we have the family tradition told by a great-grandson, Mortimer G. Averill who wrote what was said of the patriarch in the Michigan branches of the family in December 1900:
“After the settlement in Canada, Paul, Sr., went to New York State and worked, and did business in different locations there. He helped build a mill near Niagara Falls; and while engaged in that enterprise discovered the `burning spring,’ which is still there, and has been seen often by visitors. He returned to Canada, and settled at a place called Otterville, in Oxford Co., Ontario. A family record stated that he built the first grist mill ever operated there; and it is said that up to a few years ago a set of millstones that he made with his own hands were still in existance. He at one time lived in Oakland Co. in this state (of Michigan), but only for a brief period; I am quite positive that he returned to Canada and died there. My father remembered seeing his grandfather Paul, Sr. often; and knew about when and where he died.”
Canadian descendant Willard Tottle has amended this account to state that Paul Averill, Sr. built the millstones and that his son Paul Averill, Jr. and son-in-law John Earle built the mill in Otteville. Tottle has a part of one of those old millstones in his collection.
Another descendant, family historian Barbara Targall wrote:
“At age 63 Paul moved to Otterville where he made the mill stones for the first griss (sic) mill in that settlement in 1807. This mill was built by his son Paul, Jr. and his son-in-law John Earl Sr. (Lot 11 Con. 9, South Norwich Township).”
Barbara Targall stated that Paul Averill had seven children of whom the four youngest came with him to Upper Canada. The names of only five children are known and only two of the connections have been documented. Others are the subject of family tradition. One such tradition is a biographical family chart in the Waterford Public Library. Levi Averill, a son of Paul Averill, Jr., wrote in December 1900:
“My father’s name was Paul Averill; my grandfather’s name was Paul Averill. My uncle’s name was Samuel Averill; my aunts’ names by marriage were Mrs. John Earle, and Mrs. Howell. My great-uncles’ names were Thomas, Cyrus, and Silas Averill.”
Levi Averill seems to have omitted an occasional “great” before uncle or aunt in his brief summary. Mrs. John Earle was his great-aunt, and presumably also Mrs. Howell. Thomas, Cyrus, and Silas Averill all seem to have been great-great uncles, men who served in the American Revolution, but then the men Levi mentions could also have been separate namesakes of their Patriot uncles.