Loyalists of Ashburnham
The final part of a series on the Loyalists looks at their presence in what’s now East City
One of the best local accounts of local families tied to the Loyalist Emigrants was published in 1885. As we might expect, the local Loyalist descendants were treated as survivors, but in the language of the time they were also seen as builders of new settlements.
C.P. Mulvany’s History of Peterborough Ontario was his second county history (he had begun with York County) but he probably planned to do more. The first 248 pages of this volume was a history of Canada written in broad opinionated strokes in the style of Macaulay that could be placed at the front of any county history. His discussion of the American Revolution deals only with the American efforts to capture Montreal and Quebec City; the American general Montgomery was killed on New Year’s Eve in Quebec City. The second American general, Benedict Arnold, was wounded in the leg. To Mulvany, Arnold was the “Judas of the American Revolution.”
The county history was a joint effort with researchers who were sent to Peterborough, or who wrote about their part of the county which then included the provisional county of Haliburton. The third part consisted of biographies of leading citizens. The volume is not free of errors, but its greatest strength is that Mulvany and his assistants relied on local sources for these parts. The biographies, for example, reveal the particular people as they wished to be seen.
Even in telling of the Loyalists, Mulvany does not make links between the American history and the people who he called Royalists. However, in telling his story he several times flashed back to the Revolution. For example, he discussed the Loyalist roots of Peter Robinson and his brother, John Beverley Robinson. (274).
Mulvany’s most interesting Loyalist stories relate to the Rogers family, whom he described as “descendants of a remarkable race of loyalist soldiers.” (324) Commenting on the 1880s, he observed, “To the patriotic exertions and person popularity of the Rogers’ family the various corps of Peterborough volunteers have been always deeply indebted.” (324) Col. H. C. Rogers, then postmaster of Peter borough and Rear Commodore of the American Canoe Association [ACA] visited the Rogers’ Leap tourist site on Lake George during the annual meeting of the ACA held nearby. Col. Robert Rogers, who had led the Rogers Rangers during the 1750s French and Indian War and later the Loyalist Troops in the Queen’s Rangers, was captured by the Seneca Indians, allied with George Washington, and had to run the gauntlet; he escaped certain tortured death by leaping from a cliff into Lake George. (326)
Robert David Rogers (1809-1885) was the patriarch of the Ash burn ham family. Mulvany described his paternal grandfather, James Rogers (17281790) as“the he roof a hundred battles” and his maternal grandfather, George Playter (1736-1822), as an “uncompromising Philadelphia loyalist.” (584)
R.D. Rogers, born near Grafton, in 1840 married Elizabeth Birdsall (1822-1875) the daughter of Richard Birdsall, the surveyor of Peterborough and parts of the county and Elizabeth Burnham, whose father gave Peterborough its name. Zaccheus Burnham, a Late Loyalist, came from New Hampshire to the Cobourg area in 1797. They had eleven children who all grew up in Ashburnham: Eliza Maria (1841-1870), James Zacheus (1842-1909), Sophia Louisa ( 18441899), Maria McGregor ( 18451908), Amelia Mary (1848-1917), Mary Birdsall (1850-1851), Cecilia Emily (1852-1853), George Charles (1854-1883), Richard Birdsall ( 1857-1927), Edwin Robert (18591917), and Alfred Burnham ( 18641937).
On the local military front, Mulvany described Col. H C. Rogers as the commander of “a fine troop of cavalry,” the C Company, third Cavalry Regiment of the Prince of Wales Royal Canadian Dragoon Guards. In the 57th Regiment, Lt. Col. J.Z. Rogers was the commandant and Captain G.C. Rogers until he drowned in 1883, and then Lt. R. B. Rogers led No. 3 Company (Ashburnham).
When the Ashburnham Infantry Company No. 2 was organized in 1863, R. D. Rogers was in command, and he was assisted by his son, J.Z. Rogers who in later years commanded the 57th Regiment, and more importantly was the founder of the Ontario Canoe Company.
At the close of the military parade in May 1867, the Ashburnham Company gave Major R. D. Rogers a “beautiful and valuable sword, procured from London for that purpose.” The accompanying address “referred to his long connection with the military, both as a volunteer and as an officer of the Sedentary Militia, and recounted for the interest of his hearers something of the memorable incident in Canadian history, the cutting out of the steamer Caroline, in the Niagara river, in which feat he had participated.”
R.D. Rogers, during the Rebellion of 1837, was one of the thirty soldiers who captured the steamer “Caroline” at Navy Island. It was believed that William Lyon Mackenzie, the rebellion leader, was on the vessel. One American, Amos Durfee, died in the attack. The boat was set on fire and allowed to drift over Niagara Falls. This led to retaliation by some Americans; the dispute was settled by diplomats in the Webster-Ashburton treaty of 1842, which defined what could be accepted as self-defence in international law.
R.D. Rogers, a farmer by training, came to the Peterborough area in 1834, and to Ashburnham in 1842, then styled as Peterborough East. He served as a magistrate for the Newcastle District, and then for the Colborne District and Peterborough County; in 1870 he was the warden of Peterborough County, and was often Reeve of Ashburnham.
Romaine’s 1875 map of the town of Peterborough shows the Rogers raceway was in operation. It controlled the power of the Otonabee River and channeled water to power several industries on both sides of Elizabeth Street (now Hunter Street). Of these, R. D. Rogers owned a saw mill, a grist and flour mill, and a store.
The Otonabee Mill was built in 1848 and during the 1860s and 1870s was producing 250 barrels of flour a day. The store, famously with 1856 carved into the brick of the front gable, replaced an earlier 1842 building. For many years, the family lived above the store. According to the chain of title, this property was deeded to R. D. Rogers by Zaccheus Burnham in 1857.
George C. Rogers helped modernize the mill. Farmers in the surrounding area brought their grain here, and in 1930, the Examiner reported, “Old residents recalling those days, speak of the times when the farmers wagons loaded heavy with grain, stretched more than a quarter of a mile on either side of the mills doors, waiting their turn to be unloaded.” In December 1882, George oversaw the first trial in the Peterborough area of a new process for the manufacture of flour by rolls in the mill; the machinery was fine and the trial very successful.
In April 1883, George Rogers, aged 29, died in a tragic accident on the raceway dam. While adjusting the bracket boards to relieve the dam from pressure by the spring floods, he was thrown into the river and drowned.
Strenuous efforts were made by the men whom he was at the time directing and assisting, to his rescue. It was assumed afterwards that he must have been hurt by his fall from the top of the dam as for a few moments he made little or no effort to save himself. He was a fine swimmer and athlete and could have saved himself under ordinary circumstances. The body was not recovered, despite constant search, until two weeks afterwards.
The attendance at the funeral was the largest in the history of the town. When the band reached the gates of Little Lake Cemetery, vehicles in the procession line were still crossing the Hunter Street bridge.
The Rogers boys were notable athletes. R B. and Alfred excelled at cricket. R.B. and George were medal winners in canoeing and swimming. Peterborough’s athletic fields were in Ashburnham by the 1870s, likely because space was at a premium in the Town of Peterborough.
As Maya Jasanoff observed in Liberty’s Exiles, “But some realized that these turbulent times might offer great opportunities as well.” For the Rogers family, the American Revolution had been disruptive and in that context they were victims to Canadians and villains to Americans. However, through subsequent generations, they and the Loyalist Emigrant families with which they were interconnected, had a great impact in Ashburnham. They were victors.
Elwood H. Jones, Archivist of Trent Valley Archives and Professor Emeritus of History at Trent University can be reached at Elwood@trentvalleyarchives.com The Trent Valley Archives is selling tickets for its Loyalist bus trip next September and these would make good Christmas gifts for history buffs. Call 705-745-4404 and ask Heather for details.