UE Loyalist History

We all begin our journey of research into United Empire Loyalists for a reason at some time. For me it began with a story my mom told me of how some of her ancestors had to come to Canada at the time of the American Revolution for refusing to join the rebels. This led me to start searching and found a group about United Empire Loyalists on Rootsweb. In the 1990s Rootsweb was the world's largest free genealogy group on the internet but has gone the way of the buffalo to near extinction.  United Empire Loyalist List My first contribution to the Loyalist Gazette, published by the United Empire Loyalists' Association of Canada (UELAC), was a notice in the Fall 1999 issue that I had established a United Empire Loyalists' Mailing List on Rootsweb to share information and help with genealogy .  I began to do research on my Loyalist connections.  I determined I was a descendant of  James Humphrey who had served as a Private with the Loyal Rangers. When I joined the UELAC i...

This year I have been asked to speak at the annual dinner of the Monarchist League in Halifax,  Nova Scotia on 4 June 2026 and will be making a presentation on United Empire Loyalists and the monarchy.  It has encouraged me to remember one of my own experiences and review some of the history. In 2018 I was asked by John Yogis, Secretary of the Halifax Branch of the Monarchist League of Canada, to attend the official opening of the Queen Elizabeth II Walkway in the Public Gardens at Halifax, Nova Scotia.  John was a friend and professor of mine  when I attended  Dalhousie University Law School.  He knew of my United Empire Loyalist ancestry.  As well he had seen me dressed as a re-enactor  and asked me to be sure I wore a red Loyalist jacket.  At the event, on 9 September 2018, I appeared in the uniform of a Private in the 84th Regiment of Foot and was pleased to meet the Lieutenant Governor of Nova Scotia, the Honourable Arthur J. LeBlanc, ON...

The oldest official viceregal house in Canada was commissioned by a Loyalist, Sir John Wentworth.    Government House , located on Barrington Street, in Halifax, Nova Scotia was built between 1799 and 1805 and has served as the official residence of Lieutenant Governors for over 200 years. Government House, Halifax, NS.  Sir John Wentworth  (1737 - 1820) was born in Portsmouth, New Hampshire and was the British colonial Governor of New Hampshire at the time of the American Revolution. Due to the concern for safety he was forced to flee and in 1778 sailed to England. He was appointed Lieutenant Governor of Nova Scotia in 1792 and served in that role until 1808. The  Wentworth Valley  in Cumberland County, Nova Scotia and several other locations within the province were named for him. On his death he was buried in the crypt underneath St. Paul's Church in Halifax.  A son of a United Empire Loyalist in Nova Scotia who became Lieutenant Governor was  ...

Since 1983, a replica painting of James Moody , UE  Loyalist  has hung in  St. Peter's Anglican Church  in Weymouth North, Nova Scotia. Moody was an officer with the New Jersey Volunteers during the American Revolution who, after the conflict, settled near where the church stands and donated the land for the first place of worship there.  The original painting done while Moody was visiting England passed down in his family before being given to the church and placed on a wall in 1979.  Two years later,  in June, 1981, it disappeared.  James Moody replica painting   A plaque on the wall beside the painting reads: James Moody  1744 - 1809 A New Jersey farmer, who, believing that the unwritten British constitution best guaranteed individual civil rights and that rebellion was constitutional anarchy,  supported the British in the American Revolutionary War.   His daring military exploits made him famous in his time. In England...