Clayton Tilton (abt.1748-abt.1808) | WikiTree FREE Family Tree

Capt. Clayton Tilton

Born about 1748 in Shrewsbury, Monmouth, New Jersey

Ancestors

Son of Silas Tilton and [mother unknown]

Brother of Ezekiel Tilton [half], John Tilton and Deborah (Tilton) White [half]

Husband of Catherine (Scott) Tilton — married [date unknown] [location unknown]

Husband of Elizabeth (Heath) Tilton — married Jul 1805 in New Brunswick

Descendants

Father of William Tilton

Died about Oct 1808 at about age 60 in Musquash, St. John, New Brunswick, Canada

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Profile last modified 10 Jan 2024 | Created 14 Mar 2020

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Clayton Tilton was a United Empire Loyalist.
UEL Status:
Date: Undated

Biography

Clayton was born about 1748. He passed away about 1808.

Clayton Tilton, the last of the three Loyalist brothers, died three years after John. He and his wife Catherine had come to what is now New Brunswick with their children: William, Samuel, Ann and Elizabeth. The family eventually settled in Musquash, a community about 35 km west of Saint John, where they operated an inn.

Clayton died at the relatively young age of fifty-two. He would have lived longer had he not tried to arrest a deserting soldier. But then, Clayton Tilton had a history of capturing deserters.

Back in August of 1782 —the same summer in which his brother Ezekiel had been imprisoned– Clayton was a witness at a court martial for a young Loyalist soldier accused of desertion. With the help of another officer, Clayton captured Michael Meany six miles from his post. The deserter blamed his absence on the fact that he was intoxicated. Nevertheless, the military court sentenced Tilton’s prisoner to receive 500 lashes with a cat-of-nine-tails.

Twenty-six years later, Clayton Tilton once again gathered local men to round up a deserter. This time the culprits were three privates in the 101st Regiment that was stationed in Saint John. Henry Baldwin, James Lannon and Patrick McEvoy abandoned Fort Howe in October of 1808, heading west for the American border. Six days later, the armed deserters knocked on the door of a house near that of Clayton Tilton’s to ask directions to Dipper Harbour. Knowing that there were deserters in the neighbourhood, Tilton called on two servants to help him capture the soldiers.

Tilton confronted the deserters on St. Andrews Road as they were leaving Musquash. Private Baldwin shot and killed Tilton with his musket, and then escaped into the woods with his two companions. The local militia eventually captured the three privates and took them back to Saint John for trial. Lannon and Baldwin were found guilty and sentenced to be hanged. Both men testified that they had persuaded Patrick McEvoy, a teenager, to desert with them. Since the youth had no part in Tilton’s murder, he received mercy.

The deserters’ execution was set for November 23, exactly a month following the murder of Clayton Tilton. Lannon and Baldwin marched to the King Street gallows that Wednesday morning in the company of a Methodist layman who sang hymns in the hope of comforting them. Many who witnessed the men swinging from their nooses must have wondered if there was some form of divine intervention. Both of the deserters’ ropes snapped and the men dropped to the ground unharmed. The convicts then had to stand beneath their gallows until new rope could be acquired and put up a second time. With fresh nooses around their necks, Lannon and Baldwin once again stood on the gallows. This time the ropes held, and the men died.