Editor’s Note: Bruce Murduck, a family-historian who specializes in Ontario research, has researched land records, Loyalist records, etc., for SGS. His first report, carried in the August 2018 SGS Newsletter dealt mostly with Augustus Seeley. In this report Murduck lists early Seeley Loyalists in Upper Canada.

Beginning in 1796, all Loyalists residing in what had become, after 1792, the Province of Upper Canada, were required to appear before a magistrate, proclaim that they had adhered to the royal standard during the American Rebellion, and swear an oath of allegiance.

The names of those who did so were recorded, sometimes with their place of residence noted. The earliest record also gave the name of the Justice of the Peace who presided over the requirements within each district in the province.

The original records are held at Library and Archives Canada—Record Group 1, Series L-7, Volume 52B.

The lists of names have been published, as detailed below:

Ontario People, 1796-1803 [transcribed & annotated]

E. Keith Fitzgerald, Genealogical Publishing Co., Inc, Baltimore, MD, USA; 1993

• U.E. Roll—Eastern District—1797 [RG1, L7, Vol 52B, File 1] (Original Page 5; Transcription Page 17)
• No. 108/108 SEALEY, Justus
• No. 110/110 SEALEY, Joseph (endorsed by Ephraim Jones, JP.)

Original Page 13; Transcription Page 25

• No. 386/389 SEALEY, Joseph of Augusta
• No. 387/390 SEALEY, Justus of Elizabethtown – (endorsed by Samuel Wright, JP.)

Original Page 40; Transcription Page 52

• No. 1250/1253 SEALYE, Augustus of Lancaster

Original Page 41; Transcription Page 53

• No. 1268/1271 SEALEY, James – (endorsed by Walter Sutherland, JP.)

U.E. Roll – Eastern District – n.d. [RG1, L7, Vol 52B, File 3]

Original Page 29; Transcription Page 109

• No. 2506/108 SEALEY, Justus
• No. 2507/110 SEALEY, Joseph

Original Page 30; Transcription Page 110

• No. 2540/389 SEALEY, Joseph Remark: ‘omitted’
• No. 2541/390 SEALEY, Justus

Original Page Page 31; Transcription Page 113

• No. 2621/1253 SEELYE, Augustas [sic]
• No. 2622/1271 SEALEY, James

In 1803, lists of all those who were entitled to be designated as U. E. Loyalists were compiled by various provincial authorities. With numerous corrections, amendments, and “expungments,” but not formally closed until the 1860s, by the start of the War of 1812 these became known as the official “U. E. Lists” for the province.

A version of the U. E. List was maintained by the Crown Lands Department of the Province of Upper Canada, through 1841, and is housed today in the Archives of Ontario as part of the massive Crown Lands Department Fonds.

The Crown Lands Department list was published in 1884 during centennial celebrations of the arrival of the U. E. Loyalists as Centennial of the Settlement of Upper Canada by the United Empire Loyalists, 1784-1884 and republished by the Genealogical Publishing Company in 1969 as The Old United Empire Loyalists List. This Crown Lands Department list contains the following names:

• SEALYE, Augustus Lancaster had a wife and nine children per provisioning list 2d, 1786
• SEALYE, James E. District, Lancaster
• SEALEY, Joseph Augusta Sol[dier] Loyal Rangers, L.B.L. [Land Board Lunenburg]
• SEALEY, Joseph Elizabeth Town Original Roll
• SEALEY, Justus Elizabeth Town A drummer Loyal Rangers, L.B.L.
• SEALEY, Justus E. District, Augusta, R.R.N.Y., Muster Roll, one a soldier Loyal Rangers

The subsequent Names Inserted on U. E. List by order of the Honourable the Executive Council, published in the same work, contains no SEELY references.

There also exists a distinctly different list, updated differently, which is held at the Archives of Ontario within the papers of the Inspector General’s Office of Upper Canada. Yet another one, the Executive Council’s U. E. List, is held at Library and Archives Canada. Neither of these other Lists has been examined in this round.

By a proclamation issued in 1789, all of the various sons and daughters of U. E. Loyalists who resided in the province of Quebec were declared to be eligible to receive free grants of two hundred acres of “waste” land in the Crown’s possession. The only stipulation was that each son or daughter had to have attained the age of twenty-one years before he or she could apply for (or petition for) a grant. Daughters were deemed to be entitled to apply for their free grant upon marriage, if they did so before reaching the age of twenty-one years.

This right carried over to the province of Upper Canada, when it was formed in 1792, and indeed, as was the case for some SEELY descendants, carried over to the province of Canada West, when it was formed in partnership with the province of Canada East in 1841.

Those petitions for grants of land that were submitted to the Executive Council initially of Quebec, then of Upper Canada, and later of Canada West, by sons and daughters of U. E. Loyalists, indeed, petitions from all persons and groups who applied for land in any context, have been preserved in Library and Archives Canada.

When he was Chief Archivist with the provincial Archives of Ontario, William D. Reid compiled data from many of the original petitions for land which had been received from sons and daughters of U. E. Loyalists who showed a residence in this province. Reid compiled an initial typescript set of “family groups,” which was later [1973] published by Hunterdon House of Lambertville, NJ, as The Loyalists in Ontario: The Sons and Daughters of the American Loyalists of Upper Canada. Details extracted from this published work appear below:

The Loyalists in Ontario – The Sons and Daughters of the American Loyalists of Upper Canada

SEALEY, Joseph of Augusta

• Mary m Joseph FAULKNER of Elizabethtown 1792, OC 5 Nov 1799
• Kezia m Shubel SEELYE of Elizabethtown OC 9 Jul 1802
• Charlotte m Oliver SWEET of Augusta OC 17 Mar 1836

SEELYE, Augustus

• Ruth m JUDSON of Elizabethtown OC 29 Jul 1800
• Margaret m1 WICKWIRE OC 13 Apr 1799 (m2 Benjamin SALTS of Elizabethtown)
• Jane m Frederick (?) ELLIOTT of Elizabethtown OC 20 Oct 1801
• Sarah m Hassard WILLCOX of Loughborough OC 16 Feb 1811
• Joseph of Elizabethtown OC 14 Jan 1812

SEELYE, Justus of Elizabethtown, Drummer Loyal Rangers

• Orilla m John G BORDEN of Elizabethtown OC 24 Apr 1810
• John of Elizabethtown OC 22 Oct 1817
• Guy of Elizabethtown OC 21 Feb 1821
• Peter of Augusta OC 26 Jun 1822
• Olive m Edmund G RAWSON of Elizabethtown OC 6 Nov 1834
• Betsey m Enos BEACH Jr of Elizabethtown OC 24 Oct 1831
• Charlotte m Matthew BEBE of Leeds OC 31 May 1830

SWEET, Oliver of Augusta m Charlotte do/ Joseph SEALEY UE

• Mercy m Nathaniel MANN of Brockville OC 17 March 1836
• Lucinda m Benjamin ROBINSON of Brockville OC 17 March 1836
• Darius T of Elizabethtown OC 17 March 1836
• Timothy of Elizabethtown OC 17 March 1836
• Mary m Arunah St. John of Elizabethtown OC 17 March 1836

* OC denotes “Order in Council,” and shows the date on which the council ordered that a grant of land be issued by the Executive Council. This date can indicate that a male was at least twenty-one years of age when the order was issued (although he could be older), and that the female petitioner was at least twenty-one years of age, or that she had married, if younger than this age.