An American Family History

Benoni Wiltse was born on July 2, 1758 in Dutchess County, New York. His parents were Jeremiah Wiltse and Mary Smith.

He married Rachel Marks. Their children may have included:

Benoni Wiltse, Jr. (1777, married Mary Slack),
Joseph Wiltse (1782),
Susannah Wiltse (1782, married John Wiltse, Jr.),
Elizabeth Wiltse (1784, married John Conley),
James Wiltse (1786, married Christina Coleman).
Rachel Wiltse (1789),
Comfort Martin Wiltse (1790, married Hester Coleman),
Mary Wiltse (1790, married Daniel Brown, son of Benjamin Brown),
Hannah Wiltse (1792, married Samuel Kelsay), and
Sarah Wiltse (1794, married William Howland).

During the American Revolution, he remained loyal to the Crown.

In October, 1777, orders were issued by the Committee of Safety at Albany, to remove every Tory or disaffected person to Connecticut. The Tories flocked to the British for protection. Benoni Wiltsee and James, crossed the Hudson River at Esopus, and followed the war path constructed by the Indians and Tories to near the head waters of the Schoharie River, and followed the stream to Schoharie. They took the oath of fidelity to the crown, and joined the forces of Capt. George Mann. Each one was given a scarlet cap to wear, as visible manifestation of his loyality to his soverign. They were mustered, and paraded and drilled daily uptil Mann's forces were dispersed by Capt. Woodbrake and his cavelry. (from A Genealogical and Psychological Memoir of Philippe Maton Wiltsee and his Descendants)

In 1784 the family moved to Canada.

In 1784, Benoni appeared on the provisioning list for disbanded troops as a member of the Loyal Rangers. He was mustered in Augusta. James was listed as a refugee.

Benoni, Sr. and Jr., Joseph, and James were assessed in Yonge Township in 1805.

In June, 1812 Comfort and James petitioned for the land in Yonge that they were entitled to as Benoni's sons.

During the war in 1812, Benoni was a captain in the Second Leeds Militia.

from History of Leeds and Grenville, Ontario

Colonel Benoni Wiltse arrived in the spring of 1792 (this assertion is disputed.) Soon after Mr. Wiltse s arrival, his two brothers, James and Jeremiah, and a half brother, John arrived, and, in consequence, the Settlement became known as Wiltse Town. Benoni Wiltse, who settled on lot No. n, in the 8th concession, where there was a small supply of water, built the first grist and saw mill, Paul Glassford superintending the work.

from The Rear of Leeds & Lansdowne: the making of community on the Gananoque River frontier, 1796-1996

The roots of anti-administration or Reform sentiment in the countryside around Farmersville [now Athens] were deep. Benoni Wiltse, patriarch of a prominent local Loyalist family, as early as 1808 was vexed at not being appointed a top militia officer, and complained about those "who faced us as Enemies through the late Revolution [being] placed to command and sit as judges."

Despite being a lieutenant-colonel in the second regiment of Leeds militia, Wiltse's poor example to the young men in the Farmersville vicinity during the War of 1812 landed him in a court-martial, and as late as 1815 he was still imprisoned at Brockville.

Rather than chastening Wiltse, the court martial and imprisonment were viewed by his neighbours in the Farmersville vicinity as unfair treatment by a provincial administration and a local Tory elite whose own privileged position was attributed to unwholesome family connections rather than personal merit.

The anti-administration views of local American-origin inhabitants were confirmed as they beheld individuals such as Nathan Hicock, despite faithfully discharging his duty during the war, being refused a promotion in the militia, because he had attended Robert Gourlay's county convention. The Alien Bill and the heavy influx of ultra-Conservative Wexford Protestants in the 1820s only exacerbated the call by local American-origin settlers for political reform.

from A Genealogical and Psychological Memoir of Philippe Maton Wiltsee and his Descendants

.....Having exeperienced mistreatment and the resulting hardship of contact with the Bennington Mob. Jeremiah's sons by his second wife, could not espouse the cause that the Mob supported subject to conciliatory proposals from the British officers, and as a consequence, gave their support and sympathy to the Loyalists.

Determined to take the part of those oppressed to the despoilers of their father's home, and not feeling safe at Nobletown, Benoni in his ninteenth year and James in his thirteenth, sought personal safety by joining the Loyalist forces.

It was only necessary to cross the Hudson River, to receive safe conduct to the Loyalist organization, and receive friendly treatment. ....

In October, 1777, orders were issued by the Committee of Safety at Albany, to remove every Tory or disaffected person to Connecticut. The Tories flocked to the British for protection. Benoni Wiltsee and James, crossed the Hudson River at Esopus, and followed the war path constructed by the Indians and Tories to near the head waters of the Schoharie River, and followed the stream to Schoharie.

They took the oath of fidelity to the crown, and joined the forces of Capt. George Mann. Each one was given a scarlet cap to wear, as visible manifestation of his loyality to his soverign. They were mustered, and paraded and drilled daily uptil Mann's forces were dispersed by Capt Woodbrake and his cavelry [sic]...

The descendants of Benoni and James are not communicative in relation to the part they took in these aff'airs. They talked to their descendants of Cherry Valley, and told of having lived at Bethlehem 12 miles from Albany, N. Y. and of having gone from there, in 1783, to St. Johns, Canada, and thence to Leeds Co., Canada by boat.

Benoni acted as a spy for the British. If he and James were at the massacre of Cherry Valley, November 18, 1778, they belonged to a detail from Edward Jessup's forces, and engaged in all of his military enterprises. They, probably, received commissions as officers of his Rangers, November 12, 1781. ...

""My father, Joseph Wiltse, says John Wiltse of Leeds County, Canada,

was born April 17, 1892. I have heard him say that he was from 12 miles west of Albany, New York. When he was 10 months old, they moved to Canada, about half way between Brockville and Prescott, on the bank of the river St. Lawrence. When he was ten years old, they moved about 15 miles west onto Lot No. 13, in Eighth Concession of Yonge, which lot I still own.

Benoni Wiltse emigrated from the United States to Canada in 1784, says Mrs. Charles Wiltse. He crossed the St. Lawrence river below where Brockville now stands, built himself a shanty for his family; and, when the British Government granted him his lands, he built himself a log house and commenced a settlement as did his brother James, and his half brother, John's, sons who soon arrived and followed them there. Their father, John Wiltse, Sr., emigrated in 1793, and lived a few years, and died of cancer of the face. The settlement they made was about 12 or 15 miles west of the St. Lawrence river, on land granted to Wiltses by the British Government. The settlement was called Wiltsetown at first, then Farmersville; but it is now called Athens. Only two Wiltse families now [1901] remain. The rest have sold out and moved to other lands.