SKETCH XXII.
LIEUTENANT TEEPLE’S MISTAKE.
Peter Teeple and John Stone were the two first young married men that settled in Charlotteville. They were the sons-in-law of Frederick Mabee, and came with that old pioneer and his family to Turkey Point in 1793. After the township was surveyed Peter Teeple settled near Forestville, on Lot 8 in the broken front.[1] He was a U. E. Loyalist, having served as a lieutenant of a cavalry company in the British army during the war of the Revolution.[2] It is said that he took part in several notable engagements, and that while scouting in Virginia a bullet from the rifle of an American sharpshooter killed the horse upon which he was mounted. At the close of the war his company was disbanded at Halifax;[3] and, owing to his fine physique, being six feet two inches in height, he was offered great inducements to return with the troops and join His Majesty’s Life Guards. He declined the offer, and ever after considered the act as the great mistake of his life.
Peter Teeple was one of Norfolk’s first Justices of the Peace, having that honor conferred upon him by virtue of the first General Commission of the Peace for the District of London, dated at York, January 1st, 1800. Mr. Teeple was also one of three appointed at the same time to act as Commissioners for administering oaths prescribed by law to the officers of the Government. On the second day of April following he was sworn into office at the house of Lieut. James Monroe. On April 8th, the first session of the first court held on Norfolk soil, was held at Fort Monroe, and Squire Teeple was one of the sitting justices.
Squire Teeple and his wife were two of the constituent members of the old pioneer Baptist church, organized by Elder Finch in 1804; and when the acre of land was purchased from Oliver Mabee, in 1807, upon which to erect a “meeting house,” Mr. Teeple became one of the first trustees.[4]
After the War of 1812 Mr. Teeple moved to Oxford County and settled on land granted by the
Government.[5] At that time land in the vicinity of Woodstock sold at from $1 to $2 per acre. This was only about eighty years ago, and to-day Oxford is known as the “garden of Canada”. Surely, the fathers of that time had opportunities for securing homes for their sons which the fathers of our day do not have. True the forest was dense and heavy, and the soil dark, damp and sticky; but these were advantages in disguise, as the hard timber lands were more easily cleared than the pine lands, while the soil, which was considered too wet and not sufficiently friable for cultivation, proved to be easily tillable and exceedingly fertile.
Peter Teeple had three sons, William, Luke and Pellum, and one daughter, Susan.[6] William, the eldest son, settled near Aylmer, in the township of Malahide. Pellum settled on the homestead in Oxford. Susan married Archibald Burch and settled near Woodstock. The Baptist Institute stands on land formerly owned by him. Mr. Burch had a son, William, who married a daughter of John Hatch, Esq., and settled at Woodstock.
Luke Teeple, second son of Peter, was a tailor, shoemaker and tanner. The first two trades he learned in Oxford. Just before the war of 1812 he went to New Jersey on a visit, and while at his uncle’s home the war broke out, and he was ordered to leave the country or take the oath of allegiance. His uncle had a mail route from New York to some point in New Jersey, and he put young Luke on this route, thinking that while thus employed he would not be molested. He was arrested, however, in the following February, and cast into prison with about a hundred other British sympathizers. According to his version of the affair, these Loyalist prisoners were sorely tempted to desert their first love and join the American army. One by one they weakened, until fifteen only remained, Luke being one of them. At the close of the war they were liberated, and the uncle, although an American, gave Luke a present in token of his British pluck. When he returned to Canada he settled in Vittoria, purchasing the two-story frame house built by Caleb Wood, and which still stands on the hill-side in front of the Baptist burying ground, dark, windowless and vacant, fit companion to the weather-beaten, mossy old grave-stones which mark the background. On the flat opposite this house, Mr. Teeple built a tannery, which was operated by his son Alexander after his death.
Luke Teeple had seven sons—Alexander, Jerome, Lisander, Thurmes, Glatten, Ridley and Latimer; and four daughters—Mabro, Mobra, Clementine and Almira. Alexander was accidently killed while engaged in excavating a large stone on his farm. Excepting Charles Teeple, of Woodhouse, son of Alexander, and one or two others, the name has become extinct in Norfolk.
[1]Peter Teeple had a Crown Grant of Lot 9, Concession A in the front of Charlotteville Township on Long Point Bay in the lee of Turkey Point and made his home on the bluffs overlooking the point. The rear of his lot was about a mile east of the village of Forestville. Source: Abstracts of Deeds Register of Charlotteville Township.
[2]During the American Revolution, Teeple served under Captain W. Stewart as a Sergeant in the King’s American Dragoons, a Loyalist regiment. He later received the commission of Lieutenant in the Charlotteville Company of the Norfolk County Militia in 1798. Sources: Upper Canada Land Petition “T” Bundle 2, Doc. No. 5; Muster Rolls of the Norfolk County Militia.
[3]Following the American Revolution, 295 men of the King’s American Regiment were transported as a Regiment with their dependants from New York to St. John, New Brunswick in the Lady Adventure, a ship in the “Springfleet” which embarked from Manhattan on April 26, 1783. The regiment cleared and prepared the St. John town site for the refugees who followed, then moved upstream to present Fredericton. The King’s American Regiment was disbanded at St. Anns, New Brunswick on October 10, 1783. Source: Esther Clark Wright, The Loyalists of New Brunswick (Wolfeville, NS: 1955), p. 51
[4]This is the Vittoria Baptist Church in the village of Vittoria, Charlotteville Township.
[5] Peter Teeple moved to West Oxford Township, Oxford County by 16 Jul 1808, when he was appointed Commissioner of the Court of Requests in Oxford (Source: Minutes of the London District Court, P. 112). On February 23, 1809, Peter Teeple sold his Charlotteville Township farm to Pellum Mabee Source: Abstracts of Deeds Register of Charlotteville Twp.
[6] The Teeple family was much larger than stated by Owen. The family listed in 6,000 New York Ancestors, A Compendium of Mabie Research by R. Robert Mutrie (Log Cabin Publishing, Ridgeway, ON: 1986):
Louvina Teeple, born May 10, 1786, married Caleb Burdick. She settled in Malahide Township, Elgin County
William Bullard Teeple, born January 8, 1788, married Jemima Leek. He settled in Malahide Township, Elgin County
Susannah Teeple, born January 26, 1790, died on 5 Jun 1824, married Archibald Burtch. She settled at Woodstock
Luke Teeple, born September 12, 1791, married Nancy Finch. Settled in Charlotteville Township
Edward Manning Teeple, b. May 20, 1793, married Jemima Whitehead. He settled in Westminster Township
Frederick Teeple, born April 24, 1795, married first Huldah Townsend; married second Olive Myrick. He settled in Clyde Township, St. Clair County, Michigan.
Mary Teeple, born November 12, 1797, married Andrus Davis. She settled at Orwell, Elgin County
Stephen N. Teeple, born July 16, 1799, married Rachel Smith. He settled in West Nissouri Township, Oxford
Phoebe Teeple, born April 18, 1801, married Henry Tisdale. She settled in Malahide Township, Elgin County
Oliver M. Teeple, born May 16, 1803, married first Jerusha Partlow; married second Elenor McKinney. He settled in Will County, Illinois.
Lemuel Covel Teeple, born May 15, 1805, married Mary Gilbert Tisdale. He settled in Ingersoll, Oxford County
Simon Peter Teeple, born June 28, 1807, married Mary Ann Tisdale. He settled in Iowa
Pellum Cartwright Teeple, born November 28, 1809, married Mary Amelia Gleason. He settled in Woodstock, Ontario then in McHenry County, Illinois