Sunday, April 22, 2007

And If This Were Today?

I came across this while doing some genealogy data entry:

Regarding Hezekiah Brown (d. 1777), husband of my second cousin eight times removed Rachael Prindle:
He was a Loyalist. In Oct., 1775, certain inhabitants presented a memorial in the case of Hezekiah Brown:

"That he had said that the Congress ought to be punished for putting the country to so much cost and charge, for they did no more good than a parcel of squaws; that it was an unnecessary expense, and the Assembly had no right to do it; that our General Assembly was as arbitrary as the Pope of Rome when it cashiered Captain Bronson and Ensign Scovill (who belonged to the Northbury Company which was so disaffected toward the cause of American liberty that the Co. was dissolved and these two men cashiered), and that he would not go one step further for the relief of the people of Boston than he was obliged to go."

Two months later, laws were enacted that any persons defaming Congress or the General Assembly should be deprived of arms and office, and should be punished by fine and imprisonment or disfranchisement. He was tried and deprived of holding any further military office. He left Waterbury not long after and joined the British in New York, where he received a Captain's commission, and died there Aug. 27, 1777.

His wife, the daughter of Lieut. Jonathan Prindle, remained loyal to the cause of the Colonies, and the real estate of her husband, which had been confiscated because of his giving help to the enemy, was restored to her.


From The Prindle Genealogy, compiled by Franklin C. Prindle, 1906, pp. 118-119.

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