Ebenezer Jessup UE (1739 - 1818)

Born 1739 in Stamford, Connecticut

Ancestors

Descendants

Died 1818 at about age 79 in Calcutta, India

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Biography

Lt. Col. Ebenezer Jessup UE was a United Empire Loyalist in the American Revolution.

Note: First cousin of Dr. Ebenezer Jessup, who shared his first name but was apparently not a Loyalist.^[1]

Ebenezer Jessup was born in July 1739. He was the son of Joseph & Abigail James Jessup and the younger brother and associate of Edward Jessup. He apparently grew up in family homes in Westchester and Dutchess Counties.

Both Jessups had served in the last colonial war and afterwards were awarded land grants by the royal government of New York.

By 1761, Ebenezer was married to Elizabeth Dibble who also appears to have been his first cousin [her mother was Sarah Jessup]. The marriage produced at least 6 children. Their first children were christened in Dutchess County. Beginning in the mid-1760s, he was a member of St. Peter's Anglican church in Albany. During the 1770s, he is said to have given two tracts of land to St. Peter's.

During the early 1760s, he received substantial acreage in what later became Columbia County from his father. In 1764, he and his brother Edward sold those holdings and moved to Albany. Another brother, Joseph Jessup, was their sometime associate but was less historically visible in an Albany context.

During the late 1760s, he began to acquire lands north of Albany (chiefly along the upper Hudson) in what later became Warren County. One of those parcels was known as "Jessup's Patent." They soon granted leases for lands located along the Hudson at today's Luzerne, New York. Working from a budding settlement called "Jessup's Landing," by 1773 the Jessup brothers themselves were sawing and rafting wood down the Hudson. Throughout this period, Ebenezer was a client and business associate of Sir William Johnson -- the pre-eminent British operative in the region.

At the outbreak of hostilities in 1775, Jessup initially contributed toward the relief of Ticonderoga. However, he was known as a Royalist adherent and soon took sides with the British.

Early in 1776, Jessup solicited the Royal Governor offering to raise a soldiers to support the King. Later that year, he enlisted and outfitted 90 men and joined the British on Lake Champlain. By the end of the year, he had taken his family to Canada and never returned to Albany. The last of the lands he held in the city were conveyed to others in 1785.

Ebenezer Jessup was known as a colonel of Loyalist troops and saw considerable action against the Rebels in the upper Hudson and Champlain valleys. In 1779, he was among those "attainted of treason" by the State of New York. That act condemened him to death and confiscated his property -- thus closing off any ambitions he might have of re-establishing himself on his upper Hudson Valley lands.

After the war, Ebenezer Jessup petitioned for compensation for the properties he lost as a result of his support of the King. For a time he lived in the new province of Ontario.

Some sources say that he received an appointment to serve in Calcutta, India, where his wife died in 1813. Ebenezer Jessup died in 1818.

1771: Member of St. Peters Anglican Church in Albany, New York:

• http://exhibitions.nysm.nysed.gov//albany/coerec1771.html

Note: Ebenezer & his brother Edward married their first cousins Elizabeth & Abigail Dibble, who were sisters.

Jessup's Loyal Rangers: History & Impact

• https://web.archive.org/web/20071027032931/http://www.ripnet.com/sites/colonel_edward_jessup/UEL_Col_J/edwardjessup.html

Sources

1. ↑ https://www.wikitree.com/wiki/Jessup-558

Source of biographical text above, by Stefan Bielinski:

• http://exhibitions.nysm.nysed.gov//albany/bios/j/ebjessup1051.html

King's Men: The Soldier Founders of Ontario by Mary Beacock Fryer

Dictionary of Canadian Biography (his brother):

• http://www.biographi.ca/en/bio.php?id_nbr=2480

• https://www.burningviolin.org/family/Web%20Cards/ps04/ps04_134.htm