Loyalist citadel on Mohawk : loyalism in Tryon County New York during the American Revolution

Abstract

Tryon County, colonial New York's western upstate boundary named after the last royal governor William Tryon, became a separate political and geographic entity in March 1772. Before that date, the vast agrarian territories of the Mohawk and Susquehanna Valleys were an appendage of neighboring Albany County. Tryon County was composted of a population of nearly 10,000 inhabitants by the Revolution, spread across the northern New York frontier in small clusters of burgeoning towns. The county was conterminous with the expansive Indian territories of the Iroquois to the west and northwest. During the second half of the eighteenth century until the outbreak of the Revolution, the territory within these geographic bounds was the political bailiwick of the influential Johnson family. Operating from a strong base of support centered around the county seat at Johnstown, the Johnsons symbolized royal authority in western New York, founded upon the vivid legacy of the country's foremost patron, Sir William Johnson. The names synonymous with royal authority before the Revolutionary War were those most conspicuous of Loyalist leadership in the region during the war: Sir John Johnson, Guy Johnson, John Butler, Walter Butler, Daniel Claus, Joseph Chew and Joseph Brant. Tyron County was the scene of some of the most fierce civil warfare manifested during the Revolution. This warfare fragmented communities, families, and long established personal relationships. The Loyalists in Tryon constituted a decided minority of the frontier population. With the crisis of royal authority and uncertainly of continued British rule, the Loyalists were placed in a threatened position. Most of the Tryon Loyalists fled across the adjacent Canadian boarder, following a Johnson directed exodus. The Loyalists who remained in Tryon suffered unremitting persecution, social ostracism, and for some banishment at the hands of the Whig directed committees of correspondence. From Canada the Loyalists, in concert with their Iroquois allies, attacked the defenseless Tryon border settlements with impunity. The boarder warfare, carried on throughout the course of the war between the attacking Loyalist-Indian bands and the defending Tryon militia, resulted in the progressive deterioration of the once prosperous county.

The widespread destruction witnessed by the Whigs and remaining Loyalists was complete by 1781, as evidenced by the ruination of the crops, the burnt buildings, the displaced and broken families, and the precipitous decrease in the size of the country's population. The 1775 growing population of 10,000 had been reduced to approximately 3,000 due to death, displacement, capture, and voluntary relocation. Following the war, the exiled Tryon Loyalists resettled in the United Empire Loyalist settlements in Upper Canada.