Thomas McCargar (1758-1817)

Thomas McCargar was an interesting guy (in a perverse sort of way). Based on the records we have found, and corroborated by family lore, we know:

1. He served on both sides of the US War of Independence (which made him a deserter from the British army).
2. He abandoned his first wife and their 2 children because she (allegedly) didn’t want to move.
3. He became a bigamist when he married a 13-year-old, then abandoned her and their 3 children to take up with the first wife again.
4. Moved his entire family (less 2^nd wife and kids) to Canada ca. 1800
5. Married a third time (after his first wife died) and had one more child at the age of 56.

All told, he sired a total 13 children, from 3 different wives, all before he died at the age of 59. This all sounds like a story-line from a modern daytime soap opera – let’s face it, Thomas is the sole progenitor for a family tree of well over 4,000 McCargars, spread all over North America. All from a 5’9”, black-haired, commoner from (Northern) Ireland. Simply amazing!

Birth

While we do not have an actual birth record for Thomas McCargar, all the documents that we have collected are consistent in showing his birth year as 1758. As for his birthplace, family lore tells us that it was either County Antrim, Ireland or Aberdeen, Scotland. Evidence leans heavily towards Ireland.

We have never found any references to McCargars in Scotland, prior to the mid-1800s, while we have found seven documents from Ireland dating from 1653 to 1774. One such document is a 1759 index of Wills approved by the Diocese of Conner, County Antrim. The Will was for a Thomas McCargar; unfortunately, the Will itself was destroyed in a fire at the Public Records Office of Northern Ireland. It’s unlikely that the Will was for our Thomas (Wills for one-year-olds is unusual, even today), but it may have been for his father.

We have found no trace of Thomas prior to his arrival in Canada with the British Army in 1776. We have no records of his parents’ or siblings’ names, but as tradition seems to dictate, children were named after immediate family members, so Thomas’ parents’/siblings’ names are probably among his 13 children’s names. Even his brotherly relationship to Joseph has no actual documentation – it’s based on family lore and circumstantial evidence. However, unless we find documentation that disproves this relationship, we will continue to refer to Thomas and Joseph as brothers.

The American War of Independence

The oldest record we have of Thomas is a muster roll for the British Army’s 21st Regiment of Foot taken on February 28, 1777 at St. Johns, Upper Canada (Ontario), on which he is identified as a private bring present for the entire muster period (June 25, 1776 to December 24, 1776). Family lore says that Thomas (and brother Joseph) came to America with the 21st Regiment of Foot (Joseph corroborates this in two different land applications); however, neither Thomas or Joseph appear on the previous Regimental muster roll taken in Plymouth, England on March 4, 1776. This muster roll was penned a month before the 21st set sail to America (see McCargars in North America for details on the mystery surrounding the brother’s enlistment).

As a soldier in the 21st Regiment of Foot under General Burgoyne, Thomas would have fought in the campaign at Saratoga and would have been part of the armies that surrendered in October 1777. Under the surrender terms, known as the “Convention of Saratoga”, the prisoners were to be interred in camps in the Boston/Hartford, Massachusetts area. On their march to the internment camps, the British soldiers were split up into small groups that traveled many different routes. It was a six- or seven-day march on which the prisoners were poorly guarded, poorly fed, with many opportunities for escape (according to some accounts, escape was not discouraged). One of the routes passed close to the small town of Halifax, Vermont, where we suspect our Thomas made his escape. Halifax is on the border of Vermont and Massachusetts in an area that was predominately settled by Scottish and Irish, so Thomas probably felt at home there.

In 1779, Thomas appeared on a list of freemen for the town of Halifax. His name on this list is surrounded by known mill workers (according to a local historian), suggesting that Thomas was probably a mill worker as well. In fact, his future father-in-law owned the local Grist- and Saw-mills. The Freeman document was compiled and updated at the beginning of each year, establishing a rough time frame for Thomas’ arrival in Halifax. To make it onto this list you needed to be a prominent citizen – land owners or one who was trustworthy enough to participate in and vote on town affairs. Thomas must have been a resident long enough (a year or so) to have gained the trust of the people; thus, his arrival in Halifax would have coincided with the British prisoners’ march to Boston in October 1777.

In June of 1779, Thomas enlisted in the 8th Massachusetts Militia from the nearby town of Colrain, Massachusetts. We can only speculate on Thomas’s reasoning for joining the Militia. He may have (as a former British soldier) had to prove his loyalty to the independence cause, thus being trustworthy enough to marrying one of the town’s prominent citizen’s daughters. Or it may just have been for the $600 bounty he received for enlisting. Who knows?

He served for 9 months at Fort Arnold (which is West Point today), including the bitter winter of 1779/80, and was discharged on April 1, 1780. His discharge records described him as being 5’9”, black hair and twenty-one years old. There is a brass plaque mounted inside the front entryway of the Griswold Memorial library in Colrain, MA titled “In the memory of the citizens of Colrain that served their country”. The name Thomas McCarger (sp) appears under the section for the Revolutionary War.

One note of interest regarding Thomas’s 8th Massachusetts Militia enlistment can be found in the collection of documents known as the George Washington Papers in the Library of Congress. George Washington took a dim view of the practice of recruiting deserters from the British Army to serve in place of local residences. He wrote the following to the President of the Council of Massachusetts.

“It gives me inexpressible concern to have repeated information, from the best authority, that the Committees of the different towns and districts in your State hire deserters from General Burgoyne’s Army, and employ them as substitutes to excuse personal service of the inhabitants. I need not enlarge upon the danger of substituting, as soldiers, men who have given glaring proof of a treacherous disposition, and who are bound to us by no motives of attachment, instead of citizens, in whom the ties of country, kindred, and sometimes property, are so many securities for their fidelity” Valley Forge, March 17 1778. (Trevelyan’s The American Revolution Vol. IV, page 206)

In 1779, George Washington had Major General Von Steuben prepare a list of recruits rejected from service in the Continental army due to them being military prisoner/deserters or otherwise unfit for service. Thomas’ name is on this list as being assigned to Col. Jackson’s regiment, yet on the 8th Massachusetts Militia muster roll for the first half of 1780 (Jan 1 to July 1) he is shown as serving his full term under Col. Michael Jackson. Some family speculation has Thomas joining one Militia unit, being rejected, then joining another unit. However, there is no evidence to support this theory. The truth is probably that Col. Jackson needed men, and being the rebel that he seemed to be, just ignored the rejection notice. Thomas probably never knew that he was on a rejection list. The rejection notice called “List of recruits not accepted, and the reason why”, signed by Friedrich Wilhelm, Barron von Steuben, also shows that Thomas was a prisoner and received a bounty of 600 dollars for his service.

After being discharge from the Massachusetts Militia, Thomas returned to Halifax, VT. On April 21, 1780, he was a signing witness to the property transfer of a Halifax lot #47, owned by Samuel Thomas. This property was sold to Samuel’s brother, Captain John Thomas, for the sum of three hundred Spanish Milled dollars. Lot #47 contained two mills (a gristmill and a sawmill), most likely Thomas McCargars’ place of employment. Around that same time, Thomas McCargar married Samuel Thomas’s daughter, Sarah Thomas. (Too many Thomas’)

After the War

We have no records that specifically names Thomas from 1780 to 1799, but we do know where and when his kids were born, so we can, with a high degree of accuracy, speculate where he was 9 months prior to their births. This speculation and extrapolation fits with family lore in determining his whereabouts and actions – that is, within the accuracies that can be attributed to family lore.

In his 1934 McCargar news bulletin, Fred S. McCargar presented the following story dictated (circa 1900) to his mother Lydia by Jonas J. McCargar (Fred’s first cousin twice removed). Fred also noted that there are several versions to this story, but they are all essentially the same.

“About 1775 Lincoln’s great grandfather Thomas McCargar came to America as a British Soldier in company with his brother Joe. Quite likely they landed at Quebec. They both fought in the Revolutionary War, were taken prisoner and were separated. After the war Joe returned to Canada and settled in the woods.

Thomas married and lived in New York State. The first child was a boy whom they named Thomas. One day Tom told his wife that at a certain time he was going to move away and told her to be ready but her parents lived near and she didn’t want to leave them, she didn’t think he would go without her so she made no preparations. The time came and he went without her. He settled near Rochester married another girl and had two sons. One died young but the other, Joseph, grew to manhood.

After living there some years, his first wife moved nearby but did not know it. One day while at the mill old Tom heard someone call a boy McCargar. He knew that there were no other McCargars in America but himself and brother Joe so he questioned the boy and found he was his son Thomas. He saw his first wife and then told his second wife all about it. She agreed to give him up saying the first wife had the prior right. He offered to support them both but she would not allow it, her people being wealthy.

After several years and after at least four more children were born, the family moved to the Province of Quebec about 25 miles from Prescott and within a half mile of his brother Joe, although they did not know it for some time. Think the move from Rochester was Tom, his wife and five children, Thomas, Mollie, Robert, Garner, and Hugh with a Miss Thomas, a relative of General Thomas. Not sure but think the other children, Philander, Milo, Barnabus and Lottie were born here (Canada) while the first five were born in New York.

After his wife died he married a Mrs. Stoten (my grandmother on my mother’s side) and they had a daughter Sarah.”

We know Thomas’ first wife was Sarah Thomas (they were married ca.1780 while Thomas was in Halifax), but there is no record of any such marriage in the Halifax town records. However, since Sarah’s family were devout Baptists and the nearest Baptist church was several miles away in Leyden, Massachusetts, the marriage may have taken place there instead of Halifax. Unfortunately, the Leyden Baptist church no longer exists, and according to the American Baptist Historical Society the church traditionally did not keep marriage records as part of church records. Although some ministers did keep a private log of marriages performed, it is very unlikely that there will ever be a marriage record found for Thomas and Sarah.

In 1781, Thomas and Sarah had their first child, Mary (Mollie). She was more than likely named after Sarah’s mother, Mary, who died in 1780. Then in 1783, their second child, Thomas William, was born. This birth order differs from family lore, but we have evidence of both Mollie and Thomas Jr.’s ages from South Gower census records (Mollie is listed as the wife of Dennis Barton). Sometime after Mollie and Thomas Jr. were born, Thomas Sr. decided to leave the Halifax area. Sarah was unwilling, unable or (maybe) unwelcome to accompany him, so when the time came, Thomas just headed south by himself.

When Thomas was in the 8th Massachusetts Militia stationed at Fort Arnold, he probably wasn’t among the regular Troops billeted at the garrison. Most of the Militia Troops that were brought into Fort Arnold to bolster the fort’s defenses were split up; one encampment was a couple of miles west of the Fort and the other across the Hudson River in Dutchess County, New York. Now, isn’t it a coincidence that Fredericktown, New York, where Thomas’ second wife, Rebecca Nowlin and her family lived, was also just across the river from Fort Arnold. Who knows what motivated Thomas to move to that area, but somewhere around June or July 1784 Thomas married (or took up with) Rebecca – we know this as their first child, Joseph, was born in April 1785. The “took up with” may have resulted in a later marriage as Rebecca used the McCargar name for the rest of her life. There are several references to their union, but no marriage record has ever been found:

1. The Nowlin-Stone Genealogy has Thomas McKargar (sp) as Rebecca’s husband, and correctly names their two sons and their grandchildren.
2. The grave markers for Rebecca and son Joseph are inscribed with “wife of Thomas” and “son of Thomas”, respectively.
3. A Lancaster Nebraska history article refers to William McCargar (Rebecca’s second son) as the son of Thomas McCargar.

Rebecca was very young at that time (the math says 13), so she would have still been living with her parents in Dutchess County, NY. Her father, Michael Nowlin, moved to that area about 1750 and remained there into the 1800s.

Rebecca and Thomas had a son, Joseph, in April 1785, a daughter (her name may have been Charlotte or Lottie) in 1789 or 1790, and another son, William, in 1791. The existence of the girl is unproven, but family lore suggests that there was a daughter and the 1790 New York census record for Rebecca’s father may support this theory – this census lists three males over 16, three males under 16 and four females, for his household (10 in all). From the Nowlin-Stone genealogy we know that Michael Nowlin’s family in 1790 consisted of himself, his wife Nancy, their four boys (William, age 22; John, age 19; James, age 15; Bardine, age 10) and one girl (Polly, age 13). This leaves two females and one male under 16 unaccounted for. We believe that these were Rebecca (probably pregnant), son Joseph (age 5), and Lottie (the mystery daughter). Also supporting the additional child theory is the six-year gap between Joseph and William, which differs significantly from Thomas’ average of a child every two years.

Sometime before the Aug. 2, 1790 census, Thomas left Rebecca, and sometime before Nov 1790 he reconnected with 1st wife, Sarah, in the northern New York area.

• Why Aug. 2, 1790? Thomas McCargar does not appear in the census taken on that date, but the above-mentioned record for Michael Nowlin does account for Rebecca and children.
• Why northern New York? Well, Sarah’s father had moved there from Halifax, VT as evidenced in the 1790 New York census, and, more than likely, Sarah moved with her father at the same time. That area is also where Sarah’s Grandfather, Peleg Thomas, and his family had moved after leaving Rhode Island in the 1780s. A 1790 census record for Samuel Thomas from the Livingston, NY area has 7 people in the household, which may have included Sarah and children.
• Why on or before November 1790? November is nine months before the birth Sarah and Thomas’ 3rd child, Robert – born August 13, 1791 in NY.

The circumstances surrounding the Thomas/Sarah reunion and the Thomas/Rebecca separation probably fall into one of two situations:

1. If we accept the story as told in Fred’s newsletter, then sometime in the latter part of the 1780s, Thomas, with Rebecca and family, must have moved to northern New York. This is where Thomas encountered his son (Thomas Jr.), rejoined Sarah, and left Rebecca. Rebecca returned to Dutchess County before 1790 (with Joseph and daughter) to live with her parents, and gave birth to her third child, William, in 1791.
2. The less romantic, but probably more realistic, version of the story would be that, for some unknown reason, Thomas left Rebecca (then pregnant with their third child) and sought out Sarah and family. He either returned to Halifax only to discover that Sarah had moved to New York with her father, or he heard that Sarah had moved and went there to find her. In either case, we know that the separation/reunion occurred sometime between April and November 1790, since both his “wives” gave birth to boys in 1791; Rebecca had William in early 1791 and Sarah had Robert on Aug. 13, 1790. William was probably born in Dutchess County and Robert was born in Granville, New York.

There are two other coincidences involving McCargars and the Granville and Dutchess County NY area:

1. Thomas’s brother, Joseph, appears in the 1800 Granville, NY census at the same time that Thomas was on the 1799 and 1800 Granville, NY property tax rolls.
2. A Robert McCarger (no relationship proven) appears on the muster roll for the New York Volunteers. This was a British regiment, raised in America, whose soldiers were recruited from the Hudson valley, Dutchess County area.

Moving to Canada

Thomas and Sarah stayed in New York, having six more children (Robert b.1791, Garner b.1792, Hugh b.1795, Philander b.1796, Milo b.1798, and Barnabus b.1800), before moving to Canada ca.1800. Sarah had one more child (Charlotte b.1802) after their arrival in Canada. The move to Canada must have been quite a trek as there would have been Thomas, Sarah, 7 kids, a Miss Thomas, and probably Mary (Mollie), her husband, Dennis Barton, and their two kids. Fourteen people, traveling three or four hundred miles, overland or on poorly maintained roads (by our standards), by ox cart, in 1800 – that would be some adventure.

The Miss Thomas (as per Fred’s newsletter), a relative of General Thomas that accompanied them on their move to Canada, may have been Sarah’s half-sister, as her father had remarried and had a second family. There were no Generals in the Thomas family, no one higher ranked than Captain, so the “General” designation may have been the result of a family lore phenomenon commonly known as “time embellishing military ranks”. We even have evidence of this phenomenon in our family as Joseph McCargar (Thomas’ brother) had elevated his own rank from Private to Sergeant by the time he was 82.

The tale told in Fred’s newsletter that the brothers were reunited after Thomas’s move to Canada is probably not true (in the sense that this was their first reunion since the war). With both Joseph and Thomas being found in the same small town of Granville, NY, in 1800, it’s highly likely that they were, at least, aware of each other at that time. By 1802, Joseph was in the town of Edwardsburg, Ontario, which is about 25 miles north of Prescott (as mentioned in the lore). The town of Edwardsburg is not far from South Gower (pronounced Gore) where the brothers ended up settling.

In 1803, Joseph and Thomas, along with 30 others (including Thomas’s son-in-law Dennis Barton), applied for Crown land at South Gower. The 32 applicants claimed to be emigrants who had been in the province for upwards of four years. Thomas and Joseph, by making the four-year residency declaration, were stretching the truth as they both were in Grenville, NY in 1800. Of the 32 applicants, 29 received 200-acre parcels of land, with each applicant having to pay 5 pounds for the land plus 1 pound 7 shillings 6 pence for survey costs. Thomas received lot 3 concession 5, and Joseph received lot 1 concession 5. These land purchases have provided us with an abundance of information on the early McCargars in Canada. We have copies of South Gower census records and property assessments from 1804 to 1850 (over 80 records in total), which provide us with details like names and ages of people in each household, amount of cultivated vs. non-cultivated land, and numbers of each kind of domesticated animal on the land.

In 1809, Thomas applied to lease lot 4 concession 5 (the lot next to the land he already owned), then in 1817 (probably after Thomas’s death), this lease was transferred to his son Hugh. In 1818, half of Thomas’s original land (lot 3) was transferred to sons Milo and Barnabus, with the other half being transferred to son Hugh. It’s interesting that Thomas William, the first born, was left out of the land inheritance, possibly a father-son abandonment rift?

Late Life

In 1814, about a year after his wife Sarah died, Thomas remarried (for the third time) to the widowed Elizabeth Stoughton. Elizabeth already had a daughter Mary (who later married Thomas’s 6th son, Hugh) and possibly a son from a previous marriage. In 1815, Elizabeth gave birth to Thomas’ last child, a girl they named Sarah.

Thomas died on March 20, 1817. This date comes from a family source; the analysis of the South Gower census and land assessment records supports this date. Thomas showed up on the 1813 census, but not on the next one, in 1817. His name appears on the Land assessment records for all years between 1804 and 1816, but not 1817. He also appears on the district’s special land assessment list for both 1816 and 1817. This means he died between the tabulation date (Jan 1) of the 1817 special assessment and the enumeration date (May 10) of the 1817 census, which supports a March 20 death date.

Thomas was probably buried in the Old Methodist graveyard in Kemptville, Ontario. This graveyard was neglected for years until the 1950s, when the town decided it was time to clean it up. All the grave markers were in such disarray that they were unable to determine their proper locations. The decision was made to record as much information from the remaining stones as possible and then erect a memorial monument. Today, in the center of the graveyard sits a wrought iron fence enclosing a tall grave marker with eight headstones laying flat on the ground around it; two of which are of McCargars. One of the transcriptions done in the 50s that is of interest to us was a partial stone with the only remaining inscription being “homas McCarg”. We can assume this is for a Thomas McCargar, but we are unsure if it is for father or son (Thomas William). The simplicity of the stone would seem to indicate Thomas Sr. as Thomas Jr., by the time of his death in 1855, was an important individual in the community, thus worthy of a more elaborate grave marker. Also, Thomas Jr. owned property and was living in the Oxford District, so he was probably buried there instead of in Kemptville.

The Descendants

Thomas was a very prolific father, and his descendants account for the majority of the documented McCargars. He produced nine boys and three (possibly four) girls, who in turn produced a known total of 83 grandchildren. At last count, there were over 6,500 names in the McCargar roster, of which 4,745 are directly descended from Thomas.

Thomas’ children in birth order: