Jonas Simonds (1755-1816)
of Lexington, Massachusetts
no relationship [Part 3 of 3 posts re: 5th
GGF Jonas Simmons & Jonas Simonds]
Even though Jonas Simonds has no biological connection to our family, his story bears telling. It's entangled with that of my 5th great-grandfather, Jonas Simmons, who was a Loyalist during the Revolutionary War. Through an unfortunate set of circumstances, some of his descendants mistakenly used the military records of the patriot, Captain Jonas Simonds, to join the Daughters of the American Revolution in the early 1900s.
Consequently, a DAR plaque was placed on my 5th great-grandfather's grave. [See the September 2023 post, Jonas Simmons - A Question of Loyalty, and the December 2023 post, Jonas Simonds - A Massachusetts Patriot.]
After completing the December post, I kept wondering what became of Jonas Simonds after the
war. I couldn't shake the feeling that there was one more story to tell. And with that, I began to research.
Left: The DAR plaque on Jonas Simmon's grave at Fluvanna Cemetery, Chautauqua County, New York. (Photo: Jody Bradish, 31 Aug 2019)
− A NEW NATION & A NEW BEGINNING −
From April 1775 to October 1783, Jonas Simonds was on the front lines fighting for the independence of the American colonies. Now, at age twenty-eight and nearly nine years of active military duty, he decided to make his home in Philadelphia. It would be a big change from his life in the small farming community of Lexington, Massachusetts and his time in the military.
In 1776, Philadelphia had a population of 40,000, making it the largest city in the colonies. It was also the nation's capital
from 1775-1785, and the temporary capital from 1790-1800 while
Washington, D.C. was being constructed. (New York City was the capital
from 1785-1790.)
During the Revolutionary War, and in the decades that followed, Philadelphia played an important part in America's history. The nation's first constitution, the Articles of Confederation, were written there in 1777; ten years later fifty-five delegates representing all thirteen states assembled in the city for the Constitutional Convention. The goal was to revise the Articles to meet the needs of their new nation.
After the convention adjourned for the last time on September 18, 1787, Benjamin Franklin was asked, "Well doctor, what do we have? A republic or a monarchy?" Franklin replied, "A republic, if you can keep it."
|
Entry of Franklin's now famous quote
in Maryland delegate James McHenry's diary on September 18, 1787. (Library of Congress) |
− MIXING MILITARY AND CIVILIAN LIFE −
As a resident of Philadelphia, Jonas had an
obligation to join the Philadelphia City militia. Service
in Pennsylvania militias was mandatory for able-bodied men from ages 18 to 45. He maintained his rank from the war and received something in the way of pay.
Like many other veterans, Jonas was owed back pay and a military pension. However, Congress was notoriously unreliable when it came to paying its soldiers due to lack of funds. Finally, on August 3, 1784, Jonas
received the last of his pay for the twenty-eight months prior to his January 1, 1783, retirement date; his pension wasn’t
issued until August 19, 1789. Not surprisingly, he chose to receive five years full pay in lieu of half-pay for life or
drawing lots for bounty land. Evidently, Jonas had no desire to be a farmer, or to gamble with the government's payment schedule.
A more reliable source of income presented itself when Jonas was given an appointment at the Port of Philadelphia Custom House as an inspector in the U.S. Customs Service, established July 4, 1789. The purpose
of the Customs Service was to "assess and collect duties and taxes on imported goods, to control carriers of imports and exports, and to combat smuggling and revenue fraud." (U.S. Custom House, Philadelphia, PA)
An additional opportunity arose after the passage of the Judiciary Act in September 1789. This allowed President Washington to create the U.S. Marshal Service. Clement Biddle, the newly appointed
Marshal of the Pennsylvania District Court, selected Jonas to serve as deputy marshal. The primary function of U.S. Marshals was to serve as the "enforcement arm of the federal courts." Marshals were paid set amounts for various tasks. They "... served court processes, carried out court orders, arrested suspects – mainly
pirates and privateers – and sold condemned goods at auction." (U.S. Marshals)
In November 1792, President George Washington tasked U.S. Marshal Biddle with the arrest of two men
who had started a riot in Washington County in western Pennsylvania. He specified
that Biddle should make the arrests himself. In the letter below, Biddle replied that he planned to send his deputy, Captain Jonas Simonds, in his place.
Clement Biddle finished his four-year term in 1793, requesting that
Washington not reappoint him. This meant Jonas likely lost a source of income, since new marshals rarely retained their predecessors' deputies.
− A GROWING CITY−
During his time as a deputy marshal, Jonas married Mary Pugh at Swede's
Church in Philadelphia. It had been nearly ten years since his first wife, Elizabeth Kinney Simonds, died; his daughter, Sarah, was now about 13 years old.
"Marriage Record of the
Swede's Church, (Gloria Dei.) 1750-1810." (Ancestry.com)
Right:
Old Swedes Church, Frederick De Bourg
Richards, photographer. Taken
between
The photo is a
bird's-eye view of the Gloria Dei Church (Old Swedes') in Philadelphia. Its cemetery is in the foreground; masts of ships
on the Delaware River are visible in the background.
The 1793 Pennsylvania Septennial Census (a tax census) listed Jonas as an inspector residing in Philadelphia's South Ward (outlined in green on the map below). (Local Geohistory Project)
|
(Ancestry.com) |
By
this time, Philadelphia had a population of 50,000. It was a crowded city, a
circumstance created by the residents themselves. The majority of the population lived within blocks of the wharves. This gave people easy access to imported
goods or the ability to conveniently export their own; they were also close to numerous markets.
These tradesmen, merchants, tailors, shipwrights,
sail makers and other working class people squeezed themselves into multi-story
structures, adding onto them to meet their families’ needs. Many had living
quarters above their first floor shops. (Philadelphia and Its People in Maps: The 1790s)
Residents took it upon themselves to make narrow alleyways and streets wherever it suited their needs. Elfreth's Alley is an example of this. It was made as a narrow cart path (about six feet wide) used for easier access to the wharves two blocks to the east.
[The alley was added to the National Register of Historic Places in 1966, as one of the oldest continuously inhabited residential streets in the United States. Its 32 houses date from 1703 to 1836.]
– THE YELLOW FEVER EPIDEMIC OF 1793 –
The summer of 1793 was hot and humid. At the time, Philadelphia had numerous creeks flowing through it, and was surrounded by swamps and lowlands. It was the perfect breeding ground for mosquitoes. Beginning in early
August, the city was besieged by mosquitoes carrying the yellow fever virus. They arrived on ships transporting sugar, molasses, and rum from Caribbean ports. Tens of thousands of people living in close quarters, along with millions of hungry, infected mosquitoes could only lead to one thing – an epidemic.
The disease spread like wildfire. The hardest hit areas were along the Delaware River and west to about Sixth Street. Since Jonas and his family lived in the South Ward, they were probably within six or seven
blocks of the waterfront. And,
unlike wealthy Philadelphians who were able to ride in carriages or
flee the city, the Simonds family most likely walked everywhere. Jonas,
in particular, was at great risk since he walked to, and spent his days at, the Custom
House on Second and Walnut Streets – less than a block from the polluted, slow-moving Dock Creek. (Yellow Fever Deaths 1793, Philadelphia Encyclopedia)
So many people
died from the fever that officials couldn't keep up with identification
of victims and documentation of their deaths. Victims were soon being buried in
mass graves in both public and church cemeteries throughout the city. Consequently,
burial records are far from complete.
In
1706, William Penn designated Southeast Square on Walnut Street as a Potter's Field, one
of several public cemeteries for the poor (marked with a red cross on the map above). It's now called Washington Square.
Victims of the
yellow fever epidemic, numbering more than 1300, filled the remaining space in
the burial ground in 1793. The city closed Potter’s Field to burials in 1794. (National Park Service)
The Quaker Arch Street Meeting House opened its cemetery to the public, regardless of a deceased person's faith. The historic marker below is on the site.
* * *
Partial Transcription of "A First-Hand Account"
Elizabeth
Drinker (1735-1807) was a famous Quaker who wrote in her diary about Arch
Street's burial grounds during the yellow fever epidemic. On September 12th,
1793, Drinker writes that "two or three bodys were thrown into friends
[Arch Street] burying ground over the wall." On the 27th, she saw "10
graves open'd," with 13 more opened the next day.
* * *
By
the first frost in early November, over 10,000 of the city’s 50,000
residents had contracted the fever – 5,000 of them died. I suspect that Mary, Jonas's wife of only two-and-a-half years, was one of the yellow fever casualties, since Jonas remarried in 1796, and I have been unable to find any record of Mary's death or burial.
It's possible she was buried in one of the
mass graves in the city, along with other undocumented victims. If
Jonas contracted the disease, he was one of the fortunate people who recovered.
– A NEW CHAPTER –
Three years later, Jonas's 18-year-old daughter, Sarah, married Samuel Rhoads Franklin. Jonas, twice widowed, married his third wife, Elizabeth Miller.
|
(newspaperarchive.com) |
|
Marriage record from the First Baptist Church, Philadelphia. (Ancestry.com) |
Sadly, Sarah and Samuel had two young sons who died, quite possibly, during the less severe, but
still devastating, 1797 and 1798 yellow fever epidemics in Philadelphia. Sarah gave birth to their third child, Walter
Simonds Franklin, on November 6, 1799. Then tragedy struck again when the
couple buried their one-year-old daughter on July 2, 1802. The loss of three young children had to have taken a tremendous toll on the entire family.
|
(U.S.,
Quaker Meeting Records, 1681-1935, Philadelphia Monthly Meeting, Southern
District, Record of Births and
Interments, 1730-1810. Image 17. Ancestry.com) |
In
April 1801, Captain Jonas Simonds, wrote to President Thomas
Jefferson regarding his employment at the Custom House. Jonas's superiors had not considered him for promotion
since he began in 1789 due to his political beliefs. They were Federalists; Jonas was a Jeffersonian
Republican with opposite views. [A letter such as this was a curriculum vitae, Latin for the “course of one's life.” It served as the résumé of the time, and even into the 1930s.]
By
March 1804, Captain Jonas Simonds had been promoted
to the rank of major in the Philadelphia City militia. This notice, published in the March 29
issue of the Aurora General Advertiser in Philadelphia,
states that Major Simonds had orders to be a member of a court of
inquiry that would convene on
March 27. (Newspapers.com)
On July 4, Jonas attended a meeting of the Pennsylvania chapter of The Society of the Cincinnati, now the oldest patriotic society in the nation; Jonas was one of the original members. This exclusive group of officers, named after "the ancient Roman hero Lucius Quinctius Cincinnatus, an embodiment of civic virtue,"
was founded by General Henry Knox, Jonas’s former commanding officer, and
several other officers in the last months of the Revolutionary War. The society
took care of its own, providing monetary support for families of soldiers
who died or were disabled.
– THE CALL TO SERVE –
President Thomas
Jefferson's April 1803 Louisiana Purchase – 828,000 square miles of land west
of the Mississippi River – nearly doubled the size of the United States. However, the U.S. and Britain were at odds regarding control and settlement of the North American frontier, and policies
related to Native Americans. Britain’s war with France,
and its subsequent involvement in the Napoleonic Wars, resulted in additional tensions from 1789-1815.
|
“States and Territories of the United States of
America July 4, 1805 to March 1, 1809.”
|
Additionally, from 1793-1812, over 15,000 American sailors (roughly 70 per month) were impressed
into the British Navy and forced to serve on British ships against France. When
Britain began capturing American ships in 1803, U.S. trade was disrupted,
threatening the American economy. Hostilities escalated quickly despite President Jefferson’s efforts to
resolve the issues. To deter further aggression, he ordered a buildup of troops.
On
April 12, 1808, the formerly disbanded Sixth Regiment of Infantry was
reorganized under an act of Congress. President Jefferson appointed 52-year-old
Revolutionary War veteran, Major Jonas Simonds as the regiment's colonel. Newspapers all over the country followed the movements of
the Sixth Infantry and other regiments.
|
Cropped image of an article published in the Hartford Courant, Wed, 17 Aug 1808, p. 2. [Hartford, Connecticut]. (Newspapers.com on Ancestry.com) |
Left: Colonel Jonas Simonds is
"under orders for the north western frontier, and “under orders
of march, in the direction of Oswego" on the southern shore of Lake Ontario in New York.
Below: Jonas
commanded detachments
(smaller
units in a regiment, such as
companies) along the
Canadian border,
according to this June 19, 1809, article in the National
Intelligencer and Washington
Advertiser, Washington, D.C.
The Army kept Jonas on the move.
In 1809, he was ordered to establish his headquarters at West Point, New York, but spent most of the year in Albany. As the buildup of U.S. troops continued, he was assigned
to recruit and organize more regiments.
Jonas was at Fort Fayette (Pittsburgh) for most of 1810. In
May 1811, he was ordered to take count at Cantonment (Fort) Washington, near Baton
Rouge, Louisiana. It appears he remained there through August 1812.
On
April 15, 1812, Jonas was issued a receipt for $500 “on account of bounties and
premiums to recruit.” Brigade orders were issued on April 17 for “all officers on
recruiting to obey orders from Colonel Jonas Simonds.” (Indiana University)
|
− THE WAR OF 1812 − 18 Jun 1812 – 18 Feb 1815
Jonas was still in Baton Rouge when the U.S. declared war on Great Britain in June 1812. One month later, Jonas’s
daughter, Sarah (Simonds) Franklin, and
Captain John Walworth, of the Sixth Regiment were married.
[Sarah and her first husband, Samuel Rhoads Franklin (1773-1834), must have
divorced, a rare occurrence at the time.]
During the war, the Sixth Regiment was stationed in New York State. In 1812-1813, it was in Greenbush across the Hudson River from Albany. The regiment was stationed in Sackett's Harbor in 1814, and Plattsburgh in 1815. (New York State Library) It distinguished itself in four major battles: Queenston Heights, York (now Toronto), and Fort George, all in Upper Canada, and Plattsburgh (aka Battle of Lake
Champlain), in New York.
The Battle of Queenston Heights took place on October 13, 1813. Americans, including detachments of the Sixth Regiment, fought to
gain control of the 230-foot bluff overlooking the Niagara River from its
western bank. Their position at Lewiston, New York on the lower
eastern shore was about 200 yards away. Americans had the upper hand until British reinforcements arrived with 300 Mohawk warriors. Now outnumbered, the British were able to force them to the edge
of the bluff, where Lieutenant Colonel Winfield Scott surrendered to avoid more casualties. (Internet Archive, Cruikshank)
| "The Battle of Queenston Heights" by eyewitness James B. Dennis, ca. 1812-1855. Oil on canvas. (Wikimedia Commons)
|
The Sixth Regiment, which included Jonas’s son-in-law, spent the winter of 1812-1813 in Plattsburgh, New
York with three other regiments. One was Brigadier
General Zebulon Pike’s (of Pike's Peak fame) Fifteenth Regiment. The soldiers
lived in crude cabins they built in the forest southwest of the village. Somehow they managed to survive the brutally frigid winter. (Battle of Plattsburgh Association) Sarah
Simonds Walworth was not so fortunate. She died at Plattsburgh on February 8,
1813, leaving her father, husband and thirteen-year-old son, Walter Simonds Franklin,
to mourn. On April 27, 1813, almost three months after Sarah’s death, General Zebulon Pike
led the attack on York. Captain John Walworth led an
advance on the battery. The British and Canadians were outnumbered and, during
their retreat, blew up a gunpowder storehouse, causing debris to rain down
on the attackers. Captain Walworth was among the injured; General Pike was
killed.
| Bird’s-eye
view looking northeast from approximately foot of Parkside Drive, showing the arrival of the American fleet prior to the capture of York, 27 April 1813.
Watercolor, ca
|
From May 25-27, 1814, newly
promoted Colonel Winfield Scott commanded land forces in the Battle of Fort
George. Naval forces were led by Master Commandant Oliver Perry.
During the battle, Scott led a bold charge against two Canadian regiments and
their First Nations allies, with significant support by the 300 soldiers of the
Sixth Regiment. It was an American victory. |
The Battle of Fort George where the
Niagara River meets Lake Ontario, May 25-27, 1813.
(National Army Museum)
|
|
The Battle of Plattsburgh, September 6-11, 1814, pitted Colonel Alexander Macomb, commanding 1,500 American
regulars and 2,500 militia from New York and
Vermont, against 14,000 British regulars. Commodore Thomas Macdonough’s 14-ship
naval squadron provided support on Lake Champlain with warships USS Saratoga, Eagle,
Ticonderoga, Preble, and ten gunboats. The Americans were outnumbered on both fronts.
The
land battle lasted six days. When the British finally launched
their naval assault on September 11, the Americans were ready and waiting in Plattsburgh Bay. After
the starboard batteries on USS Saratoga were damaged, “Macdonough
used anchors to swing the ship so their port guns could fire broadsides.” British
Captain George Downie of HMS Confiance was killed, and his ship and others were severely
damaged. The British had been defeated on both land and water in what would be the last major British operation of the war.
|
Macdonough’s
victory on Lake Champlain and defeat of the British Army at Plattsburg by Gen'l Macomb, Sept. 11, 1814. Engraver: Benjamin Tanner, after a painting by Hugh Reinagle, 1816. (Wikimedia Commons) |
Even though Jonas commanded the Sixth Regiment
throughout the war, he was also in command of the 3rd Recruiting
District, “from the sea to the highlands, and East Jersey." Recruiting was a vital component of the Army due to constant losses
from illness, injury, death, and desertion. His 1813 letters sent from
New York (probably the city) to his superiors, were signed, “Jonas Simonds Col 6th
Infantry Commander 3rd Recruiting District.” (Fold3, 1813, 93)
In this capacity, Jonas's duties
were many and varied. He deployed troops to reinforce his regiment on the frontier,
coordinated transportation of troops, delivery of food, supplies,
and uniforms, ordered soldiers’ transfers
and the arrests of deserters, oversaw small pox vaccinations for his regiment, and submitted weekly accounting statements
for recruiting bounties and contingencies. (Fold3, 1813 folder, 48 enclosures)
In
February 1814, Jonas was appointed President of General Court
Martial, the Army's highest level trial court. On the 16th, he received orders to transfer to Reading,
Pennsylvania to “establish his regiment” there. (Fold3,
1814, 15)
Left: This November 8, 1814 notice from the Adjutant and Inspector General's Office in Washington was published in the Long Island Star on November 23. (Newspapers.com)
"A General Court Martial, for the trial of maj. gen JAMES WILKINSON, will assemble at some suitable place in the village of Utica, state of N. York on the 3d January next."
[Wilkinson was an unscrupulous man
who managed to dodge his peers’ attempts to unmask his treasonous acts as a Spanish spy. President Theodore Roosevelt said, "In all our history, there is no more despicable character."]
One
month after the trial notification, the war officially ended when the Treaty of Ghent was signed in
Belgium on December 24, 1814.
– JOURNEY’S
END –
After the January 1815 trial, Jonas returned to Reading, where things were about to change. On March 3, Congress passed a reduction act that resulted in the consolidation of military forces. The Sixth Regiment was merged with four other regiments. Colonel
Jonas Simonds was ordered to meet with
Adjutant General Daniel Parker in Philadelphia. In an April 1 letter, Jonas informed Adjutant General Parker that he had arrived in Easton,
Pennsylvania and would proceed to Philadelphia, as ordered. (Fold3,
1815, 3)
This meeting is likely where Jonas learned that Colonel Henry Atkinson would be the new commander of the consolidated Sixth Regiment. Jonas Simonds, Colonel of the 6th Regiment of Infantry for nearly seven years, officially
retired on June 15, 1815, at age 59. (Indiana
University)
At the end of March 1816, Jonas, now 60 years old, was offered
the position of Assistant Commissary at Fort Belle Fontaine in St. Louis,
Missouri Territory. Below is the letter of acceptance he sent to the Honorable William
H. Crawford, Secretary of War, in Washington, D.C. (Fold3,
1816, 4)
Transcription:
Chester on the
Delaware April 11, 1816
Sir
I have the honour to acknowledge the appointment
of Assistant Commissary, by the President of the United States, communicated to
me by yours of the 29 letter, of which I accept. I have had an interview with
the Commissary General and reported my self accordingly. My station is
assigned at St. Louis on the Mississippi, to which Post I shall leave this to
occupy in all the first of May next, if not [illegible]
With great respect
I have the
honour to be
Sir your very ObtSt *
JSimonds
*Obedient Servant
|
Location of Fort Belle Fontaine on the Missouri
River. [Google Maps with added highlighting and location.]
|
Jonas
arrived at Cantonment Belle Fontaine on July 13, 1816, after making the
900-mile journey from Chester, Pennsylvania. He was extremely ill. His
condition is described in letters written on July 15, 1816, by Thomas J.
Spencer at Cantonment Belle Fontaine, to Adjutant General of the Army, Daniel Parker,
and William Crawford, Secretary of War.
|
Letter to Adjutant General Daniel Parker, p.1. (Fold3, 1816, p7)
|
Partial transcription from pages 1 (above) and 2 (not shown):
“I am extremely sorry to inform you of the death of Col
Simonds late of the United States Army and ordered to this territory as
Commissary of Purchases. He arrived here two days since in so reduced a
situation that he did not even report himself to Genl Smith. His affairs
are as I expect in a very confused state and I think that it should be attended
to by [illegible] immediately. . . . Col S will be
interred in about one hour with all the honours that can be paid him within our
power.”
Partial transcription from page 1 of the William Crawford letter (not shown):
“With extreme regret
I inform you of the death of Comy
Genl
Simonds late Col. U.S. army. He died last evening of a Tiphus Fever. He will be
interred this evening.” (Fold3, 1816, 11)
Jonas was buried in the Cantonment
Belle Fontaine cemetery on July 15, 1816.
Death notices appeared in newspapers
all over the country.
Death
notice in the Missouri
Gazette and
Public Advertiser, Saturday, July 27, 1816,
St. Louis, Missouri
Territory.
(Newspapers.com)
Jonas’s
obituary in The Franklin Repository Weekly), Chambersburg, Pennsylvania,Tuesday, August
27, 1816. (Newspapers.com)
*Should be 1808.
“The
intrigue which throughout the War, as well as before it, and under all
the Heads of that Department, prevailed over fixed principles, and public
right and wisdom, kept him from his Regiment for many months : though he
constantly solicited to be permitted to join it."
– AFTERWARD
–
As the years passed, the frontier moved
westward and, in 1826, Fort Belle Fontaine was abandoned as a military post.
Troops were relocated about 20 miles south to the newly built Jefferson
Barracks. The buildings and the cemetery at Fort Belle Fontaine fell into a
state of disrepair and decay.
In 1904, the
Daughters of the American Revolution obtained permission to identify, exhume,
and relocate the remains of those whose headstones had not succumbed to the
ravages of time. Based on the fort’s records, it's possible that over 100
individuals were buried in the cemetery; only thirty-three were identified.
Most were officers since they
usually had above-ground tombs. The majority of the graves would have been
marked with wooden crosses that eventually deteriorated.
At the time, Mr. P. V.
Rabbitt of the Army, one of the men assigned to oversee the excavation and
removal of the remains, stated that about 10 acres were searched for burials, and “a part of
the graveyard is now overgrown by an orchard of some years’ standing. It is
probable, therefore, that all of the bones may not be secured for removal” to Jefferson Barracks. (Browman, 7)
Left: “Graves
of Officers at Ft Bellefontaine,” published in The St. Louis Republic,
St. Louis, Missouri on April 10,
1904, pg. 1. (Library
of Congress)
In November 1904, the DAR placed a monument
at Jefferson Barracks National Cemetery. It honors the unknown soldiers who still rest at
Fort Belle Fontaine. Colonel Jonas Simonds is among them.
|
An aerial view of Jefferson
Barracks National Cemetery and Bridge in 2015. (Wikimedia Commons) [My red dot marks the approximate location of
the DAR memorial on Old Post Road.] |
* * *
– FURTHER READING & VIEWING –
The
Pictorial Field-Book of the War of 1812 by Benson J. Lossing was published in
1868. It contains a wealth of information, including interesting, detailed descriptions
of battles and the people who fought in the war. There are 882 illustrations (indexed),
many sketched by the author.
W. T. Norton's essay, "Old Fort Belle Fontaine," was first published in the Journal of the Illinois
State Historical Society in October 1911 (Vol. 4 No. 3,
p. 337). Norton includes a brief history of the fort and, beginning on page 337, describes the cemetery from his 1911 visit. I think of Jonas still lying there.
* * *
* * *
Bradish-Scott Family History – September 2024
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