Johann Hendrick Ulson (abt. 1763 - 1810)

Descendants

Died Jan 1810 at about age 47 in Markham Twp, York Co, Upper Canada

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Biography

Johann was one of the “Berczy Settlers” who endured many tribulations, including bitter winters without adequate food or shelter, to settle in Markham Township, just north of present-day Toronto, Ontario.

Berczy’s group of 220-odd men, women and children, recruited from various parts of Germany, arrived in the New World on two ships, one docking at Philadelphia, one at New York. Among the Philadelphia arrivals was “Johan Hendrik Olsen, 24 years”. That is how he appears in the passenger list of the ship Catharina, which arrived from Hamburg on 28 Jul 1792. This list is at the Pennsylvania Archives, Harrisburg, PA.[1] The settlers left the ship in which they had been packed for 13 weeks on 3 Aug.[2]

Family tradition has it that Johann had come to America previously as a Hessian mercenary fighting for the Britsh in the American Revolution. According to Johann’s son, Joseph Elson—

“. . . my father John Elson as I have been informed was one of the Germen leageon that was hiered by the British government to come to America for to try and put down the rebellion then going on there this leagon ten thousand in number was raised in and near Hesson Casel in Germany and they were called Hessons and at the close of the war the greater part of them settled in Upper Canada around York and near Niagara falls up Chipawa creek they were among those who were call United Empire Loyalists . . .”[3]

If he were indeed 24 at his arrival in 1792, he would have been only 13 at the time of Cornwallis’s surrender at the end of the Revolution in 1781. A census by Berczy in 1804 has Ulson’s age as 40[4]; if so, he would have been about 17 in 1781, which makes it barely possible that he could have fought in the Revolution. Joseph’s grandfather, John Steinhoff, not his father, went to Canada as a Loyalist in 1785 and settled on Chippawa Creek. Could the story of his “Hessian” service have been erroneously transferred from Joseph’s mother’s father to his own father?

The Berczy group first attempted to settle on the British land syndicate’s Genesee Tract. This property comprised more than a million acres in upstate New York stretching across the state from present site of Rochester on Lake Ontario to the Pennsylvania border. Just getting there required the settlers to devote four months to improving the horse trail through the rugged country between present-day Williamsport, PA, and Painted Post, NY, a distance of about 75 miles, to make it passable by their wagons.[5]

The local representative of the overseas proprietors was Charles Williamson, a visionary of another sort than Berczy who considered Berczy to be an obstacle to his grandiose schemes. After two years of continuing disagreement between Berczy and Williamson, including Berczy’s being jailed[6] and food riots among the Germans, most of the group abandoned the Genesee Tract and, accepting Lieutenant Governor Colonel Simcoe’s invitation to settle in his new province of Upper Canada, arrived late in 1794 at Markham Township, just then being surveyed.

There the Berczy pioneers, still about 190 strong, suffered harsh winter privation in the uncleared forest. To forestall starvation, about a third of the settlers were forced to move to the more-developed Niagara region and spend several years there. Johann Ulson was likely one of these, for he married teen-aged Elizabeth Steinhoff, one of the fourteen children of Johannes/John Steinhoff, who lived on Chippawa Creek, about five miles from Niagara Falls.

Johann eventually returned with his new wife to Markham Township, where he patented 200 acres (Lot 13 in Concession 3) in 1803. Elizabeth and her husband produced four or five sons and a daughter. Besides being a farmer, Johann made clothing. One source[7] describes him as a “tailor” and his son Joseph’s autobiography says he was a “knitter”.

“. . . I have been told by some of my uncles on my mothers side that my father was a knitter to his trade, We would think in our days that would be small business for a man to follow for a living, but when we come to know that there was a great deel more of it done in them days when the men prity much all wore knitt caps and stockings that came above the knee in order to meet the legs of their short breeches, . . .”[8]

Sources

• [1] It was also published as List 370 in Strassburger and Hinke (1934), v 3, p 49–51.

[2] Andre (1967), p 27. [3] Elson (1864), p 1. [4] Andre (1971), p 187. [5] Shank (1992), p 3–4. [6] Champion (1979), p 13. [7] Andre (1971), p 38. [8] Elson (1864), p 1.