Search billions of records on Ancestry.com
   

 

ANCESTRY OF

GENERAL

SIR WILLIAM FENWICK WILLIAMS,

OF KARS,

AND INCIDENTALLY A MATERNAL LINE OF THE PRESENT MARQUIS OF DONEGAL.

 

INCLUDING GENEALOGICAL SKETCHES OF THE HISTORIC ANNAPOLIS ROYAL FAMILIES OF WINNETT, DYSON, WILLIAMS AND WALKER, AND THEIR CONNECTIONS, AND A BIOGRAPHICAL SKETCH OF THE GENERAL.

 

 

 

 

BY

JUDGE A. W. SAVARY, M. A.

 

 

 

 

 

Reprinted from "The Genealogist," N.S. Volume XXVII

 

 

EXETER:

WILLIAM POLLARD & Co. Ltd., PRINTERS, NORTH STREET.

1911

 

 

 

 

 

 

ANCESTRY OF GENERAL SIR WILLIAM FENWICK WILLIAMS, OF KARS, AND INCIDENTALLY A MATERNAL LINE OF THE PRESENT MARQUIS OF DONEGAL.

BY JUDGE A. W. SAVARY, M.A.

A few years ago writers in two English magazines gave elaborate accounts of the ancestry and family connections of those two famous Commanders, General Wolfe and Admiral Nelson. The Career of the former was in line marked out by inheritance and congenital environment, in which respect that of the latter was in striking contrast. Wolfe was an evolution, Nelson a creation. I shall attempt to perform a similar task in relation to the greatest military genius that the Colonies have yet given to the service of the Empire, General Sir William Fenwick Williams, of Kars.

The date of the birth of an eminent man is the subject of almost as much interest as his birthplace. Most authorities give the year and some give the place of the birth of General Williams erroneously. The "Dictionary of National Biography" gives the date of his baptism as that of his birth, and Foster’s "Peerage and Baronetage" inferentially make the place Halifax instead of Annapolis Royal. Among the correspondence of the General which the late Mr. Allison, of Sussex, New Brunswick, had in his possession as part of the materials for a biography, which he did not live to complete, is to be found a letter dated from Malta, 14th February 1841, in which he wrote to one of his sisters in St. John: "Julia Winniett (his cousin, Lady Winniett) found just before I left (that is left England on his way to Turkey) my mother’s certificate of her marriage and my birth and christening, which is now at Cox & Co.’s with my papers….. My birth was the 21st of December 1800, and the day of my baptism late in the next year. "The paper is signed by Mr. Bailey and appears to have been drawn up with great care." From this strange mistake of the General himself the error must have arisen. The certificate was not before him when he wrote, and probably he had never seen it, and was misled by an attempt to communicate to him it’s contents from memory. In fact, General Williams was baptized on 2nd February 1800, as appears by an entry clearly contemporary and in due course in the Parish Register of St. Luke’s Church at Annapolis Royal, in the handwriting of the Reverend Jacob Bailey, the noted Loyalist, Rector of that parish. Therefore, as he recognised (sic) 21st December as the anniversary of his birth, it is obvious that he must have been born on 21st December 1799. Of course, Mr. Bailey’s certificate could have related only to his baptism. The Parish Registers at Annapolis had no columns for dates of birth. What Mr. Bailey must have certified was that the General was baptized 2nd February 1800, and then added that he was born late in the previous year, and the General or his informant got it curiously reversed. Besides I am informed by a nephew1 of the General that it was noted in the family

 

1 O.R. Arnold, Esg., of Sussex, New Brunswick.

Page1

that the General was of the exactly the same age as the Reverend H. N. Arnold, who married his sister, and who, according to the family Bible, was born 21st December 1799.

Another error, which has less excuse, but a very prevalent one, is that the General was somehow indebted to the Duke of Kent for an auspicious start in a military career. But the Duke of Kent died five years before young Williams got his commission. It is scarcely possible that the Duke ever saw of heard of him, for the last visit of his Royal Highness to Annapolis Royal was in October 1799, two months before the General was born, after an absence of nearly a year in England, rendered necessary by being thrown from his horse in Halifax on 8th August 1798. 2 When the Duke first visited Annapolis Royal in 1794, the General’s brother, Thomas Gregory Townshend Williams, to be mentioned later on, must have been about three years old, and may have in later years enjoyed the patronage of the Duke. Of this I know nothing.

As Commander-in-Chief in Nova Scotia, the Duke of Kent could not fail to be acquainted with the General’s father; and that the young Nova Scotian often in years long afterwards attracted the attention and secured the favour of the late Duke of Cambridge, the Commander-in-Chief of the British Army, goes without saying. His promotion sufficiently tells the story, and it is not unlikely that the path of didtinction was opened to him through the Duke’s perception of his ability, and trustworthiness for the important command. But Colonel William Fenwick, of the Royal Engineers, and able and influential officer, aide de-camp of the Duke of Kent, who had married a sister of the mother of General Williams, was his guardian and adviser while he was a pupil in the Woolwich Military Academy, and he and his wife were instrumental in placing him there. The Colonel, however, gives the credit of this entirely to his wife, for in a letter to Mrs. Williams dated early in 1815, he writes: "I think your sister was astonishingly fortunate in procuring his admission to Woolwich Academy"; and adds, "he, too (that is, s well as the son recently deceased), will be a man that any mother may be proud of."

Thomas Gregory Townshend Williams was born in 1791, having been baptized on 21st September of that year, and, had he been spared, would have probably attained to as great distinguished as his brother eight years younger. He was distinguished himself under Wellington in Spain opposing Soult in 1813, aged 22. In July, 1814, he was at the head of the list of 2nd Lieutenants. He probably became 1st Lieutenant soon afterwards. He died 28th December 1814, of yellow fever, at New Orleans, being with the army which was sacrificed in the attach in that city eleven days afterwards. Although Mr. Calnek, the Annapolis County historian and genealogist, believed he had married a daughter of Viscount Galway, there is no tradition of any such marriege in the family, and he left no widow, as may be infered from a letter

2 His Royal Highness embarked for England 28th October, and returned to Halifax 6th September 1799.

Page 2

from Colonel Fenwick to the bereaved mother respecting the money that he left in the hands of his London Banker.

I think that it will appear that if heredity contributes in any great degree to forming the character and shaping the destinies of individuals, these two brothers were born with natural aptitude for the profession in which one gave ample promise and the other compassed the achievement of high distinction.

Thomas Williams, the father of the General, commonly known in his day as Colonel Williams from his command in the militia, was Commissary and Ordnance Storekeeper at Annapolis Royal from the death of his father in 1789 to 1806. Although only thirty-eight years old when he died, he had been for years one of the leading men of the County in civil and military affairs. No man in the County of Annapolis stood higher in public estimation or was better known in his day than he. His brother, Edward Williams, the General’s paternal uncle, attained the rank of Major in the British Army, and died without issue. Colonel Williams married Anna Maria, daughter of Lieutenant Thomas Walker, who, according to Mr. Calnek, was Naval Officer at the Port of Annapolis, and who certainly was a Lieutenant in the 40th Regiment, to which he was commissioned 30th June 1755, and was Barrack Master at Annapolis Royal. This Regiment, 3 the "Fighting Fortieth," was long stationed at Annapolis, where it was organized from several independent companies in 1717. Lieutenant Walker was a native of Cumberland, England. His descendants are numerous in New Brunswick, in which Province a grandson, a cousin of General Williams, was long a leading Church of England Clergyman.

The father of Colonel Thomas Williams, also named Thomas, the General’s paternal grandfather and "immigrant ancestor" was Commissary and Ordnance Storekeeper at Annapolis Royal in 1763; how long previous to that date I cannot say, but at his death, 22nd April 1789, it was said that he had served the King in the Department of the Ordnance during forty-five years. He was also Justice of the Court of Common Pleas, and held other civil offices of importance. In Foster’s "Peerage and Baronetage," published in 1881, it is stated, no doubt on the authority of the General himself, that he was of Carnarvon, Wales. Probably he was of a collateral branch of the family of Sir Nicholas Williams, Knt., M.P. of Edwinsford, Carmarthenshire, who died sine prole in 1745, and whose crest was "out of a mural crown ppr. a demi lion." The arms of General Williams were "Az. Three men’s heads in profile ppr., on a Chief embattled Or a mural crown Gu. within two branches of Laurel saltirewise Vert." Crest. - -"Out of a mural crown Or, a tilting spear surmounted by a sword saltirewise and encircled by a wreath of laurel ppr., on an escroll above, the wors KARS." Thus the two families are armorially identified by the mural crown common to both. The General would approve the selection of these armorial bearings as geing those of his ancestors with appropriate variations, or "difference."

3 Now merged in the 1st Battation Prince of Wales’ (South Lancashire) Regement.

Page 3

Thomas Williams, the elder, married Anne, only daughter of Captain Edward Amherst, of the 40th Regiment, a Member of the Council at Annapolis Royal in 1736 and Surveyor General of the Province, and one of the executors of Governor Armstrong in 1739. Promoted to the rank of Major, Amherst was later in command at Placentia, Newfoundland; he died in London in 1754 of paralysis, leaving a will dated 5th June and proved 25th June of that year, mentioning only his wife, Mary, and naming as executors Philip Bromfield and Thomas Blamire. Major Amherst’s widow died in 1757 at Annapolis Royal and administration of her estate was granted to Thomas Williams "in right of his wife" who was evidently her only child. I have been utterly unable to get any trace of her ancestry.

I will now return to the mother of General Williams and her ancestry. She spent her widowhood with a daughter, Mrs. Anna Maria Smith, in St. John, New Brunswick, where she died 15th June 1823, aged 55 years. There are no descendants of her intimate associates to whom I could apply for traditions concerning her. But there is living in the old town an aged man4 who inherited from his parents and cultivated himself a warm interest in and knowledge of local family history, and who gave to me information derived from them which always proved strictly accurate when capable of being tested by public records. His tradition is that the General’s mother was a lady of the highest character, and enjoyed equally with her husband the esteem and respect of the community. This might be presumed not only from the two brilliant sons whom she bore and trained, but from her five daughters, who filled with credit the positions in society to which they were born and bred. Her father, Lieutenant Thomas Walker, was probably ordered to Boston on some duty connected with the American Revolution, for on the King’s Chapel records in that city we find the following : --"Buried 26th June 1775, Margaret, wife of Thomas Walker, formerly a Lieutenant in the Army, aged 52 years." At Halifax, 30th March 1778, Letters of Administration on the estate of Thomas Walker, Esq., "late Barrack Master at Annapolis Royal," were granted to William Allen, principal creditor. In this connection I will cite from a draft of a letter to H.R.H. the Duke of Kent by Maria, wife of Captain (afterwards Colonel) Fenwick, already mentioned, dated 22nd August 1796.5 "My father served His Majesty as an officer of the 40th Regiment and as Barrack Master of Annapolis Royal. During the American War he died, and left myself and several destitute children, my mother having been dead a short time before." Lieutenant Walker and his wife, Margaret, besides the mother of General Williams and the wife of Colonel Fenwick, had a son, Thomas, born 10th September

4 Mr. W.H. Roach, nephew of the former Member of the Provincial Parliament of Annapolis County of the same name. His memory of the dates of important events in his own time is prodigious.

5 I am indebted for this to Charles Greenwood, Esq., F.C.I.S., of 1, Mitre Court Buildings, Temple, London, Registrar of the Manorial Society, whose wife was a grand-daughter of Sir William Winniett.

Page 4

1763, who entered a Loyal Regiment, the "New York Volunteers," commanded by Colonel George Turnbull, which afterwards became the 60th Regiment of the line, was commissioned Lieutenant 10th August 1780, and after strenuous service attained the rank of Captain, with which, after the war he returned to Annapolis Royal, entered into mercantile pursuits and was a Member of the Provincial Parliament. Thus General Williams had a maternal as well as a paternal uncle distinguished in military service. The wife of Lieutenant Thoams Walker and maternal grandmother of General Williams was Margaret, daughter of John Dyson and Alice his wife, of Annapolis Royal. This John Dyson was a noted citizen of the town for many years. His name occures often in the minutes of Council and in official correspondence. He is sometimes styled "Sergeant and Ordnance Storekeeper" and sometimes "Clerk and Storekeeper"; in formal documents "Clerk and Storekeeper to His Majesty’s Board of Ordnance."6 Whatever may have been in his military rank, and he certainly was of the Army, he was a man of considerable property and social position in the town, and all his daughters married in the first rank of citizens, cicil and military. This is as far back as the ancestry of General Williams in Annapolis Royal goes, and I think I have shown that like General Wolfe, he was descended from good military stock.

But it will be interesting to trace this John Dyson back to his first known ancestor, and then say a little more about his descendants. For this ascending line I am indebted to a very interesting book, Fea’s "Flight of the King." John Dyson, the maiden name of whose wife Alice does not appear, was a son of Thomas Dyson and grandson of Thomas Dyson of Ketterling, Northants, by his wife Elizabeth, daughter of Francis Yates, who married Elizabeth (perhaps Hardwick), of Brewood, afterwards of Whitechapel, London, a widow in 1679. Francis Yates was that faithful Corporal in Colonel Carlos’ Company in the Royalist Army, who after the Battle of Worcester acted as a guide to Charles II from Kinver to Whiteladies, for which service and refusing to tell where he left the King, he was imprisoned and executed at Oxford by Cornwall. At the Restoration, King Charles settled on his daughter Elizabeth and her heirs for ever, a rent charge annuity, which John Dyson enjoyed during his residence at Annapolis Royal, and which, as his sons all died without issue, was divided among his four daughters or their heirs, and one-fourth of which is now enjoyed be a descendant in St. John, New Brunswick, of Margaret Walker, the maternal grandmother of General Williams. For further information on this see Chart VIII in Fea’s "Flight of the King," the pedigree in which, in respect to some of the descendants of John Dyson, I am correcting in some particulars.

Thus we have Sir Fenwick Williams, a descendant in the seventh generation from Francis Yates, the noble martyr for his loyalty, in the following line: (I) Francis Yates, mar. Elizabeth (?) Hardwick. (II) Elizabeth, mar. Thomas Dyson. (III) thomas Dyson, mar. (?).

6In Philipps pedigrees he is called Lieutenant of Artillery.

Page 5

(IV) John Dyson, mar Alice … (V) Margaret Dyson, mar. Lieutenant Thomas Walker. (VI) Anna Maria Walker, mar. Colonel Thomas Williams. (VII) General Sir William Fenwick Williams, of Kars.

To shew (sic) the relationships of the several allied families more clearly, I will now give a genealogical table of the descendants of John dyson and Alice, his wife, for two or three generations: _ _

  1. John Dyson and Alice his wife, had issue, sons: --
  1. 1. Thomas, d. s.p., 1756

    2. Daniel, d. s.p., 5th October 1750. Was partner in business of his brother-in-law, Joseph Winnett, of whom presently.

    3. George, d. s.p., 2nd April 1763. His will is the first expanded on the Probate Records of Annapolis County; his mother, Alice, sole beneficiary; brother-in-law, Joseph Winniette, executor.

They had daughters: --

    1. Ann (II), of whom presently.
    2. Mary (III)., b. 1728, of whom presently
    3. Margaret (IV), b. 1733, of whom presently.
    4. Jane, married Captain William Adlam, of Leatherhead, Surrey, England; descendants in England.
    4.
  • (See chart VIII, Fea’s "Fight of the King.")
    •

    • II. Ann Dyson, married Lieut.-Colonel Erasmus James Phillips,7 49th Regiment, of the distinguished military and civil service, Member of Council, Judge Advocate General, Member of the Provincial Parliament. He was nephew of Colonel Richard Philipps, Governor for a long time (see "History of Annapolis"). They had a daughter, Ann, who married Captain William 8 Fenwick, of the Royal Artillery, to whom in turn was born, at Halifax, a son, William, afterwards Captain and Colonel William Fenwick, of the Royal Engineers, who was baptized in St. Paul’s Church, Halifax, 4th February 1767, before mentioned as the uncle of General Williams, which he became (prospectively) by marriage at Annapolis Royal, 20th December 1794, with Maria, daughter of Lieutenant Thomas Walker. In the draft letter from her to the Duke of Kent, cited above, she says that her husband was then, 1796, enjoying a share of the annuity to which reference has been made above, which

    7 1st July 1778, Administration on the estate of Alice Dyson, widow, was granted to Joseph Winniett and Alice Phillips, next of kin.

    8 The Phillips pedigree says: Robert Fenwick, who died at New York, 1779. William may be an error in the name of the father in the baptismal record, which is but a copy of the original. Older children than Ann were Erasmus John, b. at Annapolis Royal, 30th April 1741, Captain 35th Regiment, d. at New York, December 1776; Elizabeth, married Captain Horatio Gates; and Dorothy. Erasmus James Phillips had the further distinction of being the first Worshipful Master of the first Masonic Lodge organized in Nova Scotia.

    Page 6

    shews (sic) that his mother was then dead, and that he was the eldest (or only) son. Their daughter, Augustus Julie, named Augustus in honor of H.R.H. Edward Augustus, Duke of Kent, her godfather,9 married Sir William Winniett, to be mentioned later. This lady was, therefore, a first cousin of the General, their mothers being sisters; and her father was a second cousin through their maternal grandmothers being sisters. Colonel Fenwick was Commander at Portsmouth and Aide-de-camp to the Duke of Kent, and died at Paris, where he was buried 8th February 1817.

    1. Mary Dyson, b. 1728; d. 1804; mar. 26th December 1751 Joseph Winniett, b. about 1726, fourth son and ninth child of William Winniett, to be mentioned more fully presently. He d. 3rd December 1789. They had children: - -
      1. Anne, b. 1752; probably d. unmar.
      2. Joseph, b. 1755; was (it is said) Ensign, probably Lieutenant, in the Army, probably 97th Regiment, but was Deputy Prothotary of the Supreme Court at Annapolis Royal, where his last entry was on 8th April 1795, in which year he died.
      3. Mary, b. 1757; d. 1811; mar. John Hamilton, Captain 40th Regiment.
      4. Elizabeth, b. 1760; d. 1808; mar. John Nunn, Officer of 40th Regiment.
      5. Margaret, b. 1762; d. 1811l mar. 21st December 1791 Robert Wolseley, an Officer of the Royal Engineers in the garrison of Annapolis.
      6. William (V), b. 1765, of whom presently.
      7. Alice, b. 1768; d. unmar.
      8. Martha, b. 1771; d. unmar.
    1. Margaret Dyson, mar. Lieutenant Thomas Walker, and, d. in Boston, as already mentioned. They had children (besides perhaps others of whom we have no account): --
    1. Thomas, b. 10th October 1763; d. 2nd March 1811; mar. first 11th August 1791, Phoebe Totten, daughter of a prominent Loyalist of the Revolution, who d. s.p. 1794; second, 13th December 1795, Phoebe, daughter of Colonel Thomas Millidge, a Loyalist Officer. His career has been sketched

      9 The Duke also appears in the baptismal register at Annapolis Royal as godfather at a baptism in a distinguished family. According to Dr. Smith’s "History of Methodism in Eastern British America," page 390, the Duke became very pious in his later years and looked with favor on the Methodists, even before he left Halifax.

      Page 7

      above. His second and only son who had issue was Rev. William Williams Walker, b. 1802; d. 1889. Descendants are in St. John, New Brunswick.

      1. Anna Maria, b. 1768; d. 15th June 1823, aged 55; mar. Colonel Thomas Williams
      2. Maria, date of birth and death unknown to me, mar., as already appears, 20th December 1794, Captain, afterwards Colonel Fenwick, R.E. Their daughter, Augustus Julie b. 2nd April 1800, at Halifax, Nova Scotia, mar., 9th August 1828, Sir William Robert Wolseley Winniett, and d. 28th November 1865. (For her descendants see Chart Pedigree No. VIII, in Fea’s "Flight of the King.")

    V. William Winniett, b. 1765; d. (bur. 7th December) 1824; mar. 1788, Mary Totten, daughter of Joseph Totten, a prominent Loyalist of Annapolis, whose name is now extinct in the Province. She d. 18th February 1848. They had children: - -

    1. Joseph, b. 17th January 1789; d. s.p., probably 4th /December 1829; mar. Mary, eldest daughter of Lieutenant Colonel MacColla, Town Major of Halifax, and was in the Commissariat Department of that city.
    2. Susan Mary, b. 16th December 1791; mar. 6th July 1814, Rev. John Thomas Twining, D.D.
    3. William Robert Wolseley, b. 2nd March 1793; d. 4th December 1850. Known as Sir William Winniett, he was Captain, R.N., Govenor of the Gold Coast, Africa. He mar. 9th August 1828, Augustus Julie, daughter of Colonel William Fenwick, R.E., as already mentioned. He was second cousin of General Williams, their maternal grandmothers being sisters.
    4. Elizabeth, b. 1795; d. unmar.
    5. Mary Ann, b. 16th April 1799; mar. 26th June 1823 Benjamin Lester Peters, of St. John, New Brunswick, Barrister, Police Magistrate, etc.
    6. George Gilbert Totten, b. 31st May 1801; d. unmar.
    7. Alexander Howe, b. 10th June 1803; mar. Sophia Upham.
    8. Isabella Charlotte, b. 19th 1805; d. unmar.
    9. Phillips Cosby Fenwick, b. 10th October 1807; d. unmar. Page 8

    10.Henry Charles Darling,10 b. 18th October; d. 1879, unmar.

    11. Thomas Williams, b. 19th December 1811; issue in United States.

    12. John Thomas Twining, b. 21st April 1814.

    This brings me to a maternal line of the pedigree of the present Marquis of Donegal, whose Annapolis Royal ancestry can be more fully illustrated by going back to Hon. William Winniett, father of Joseph Winniett, who married Mary Dyson. William Winniett is said to have been born of Huguenot parents and educated in England, and to have come to America from London with Nicholson,11 but this has been doubted of late, and the question raised whether he might have been of a noted New England family of Wingate, an instance of a change or perversion of name not uncommon in his day. A descent has him also been suggested from Gwynnet and Wynn of Wales. I am inclined to think the accepted tradition is the correct one, although no such name occurs in the various lists of French Protestant exiles in England or America. He was a Lieutenant in the Colonial troops under General Nicholson, about twenty-five years of age, at the taking of Port Royal from the French in 1710. In the following year he resigned his position in the army and married Marie Madeleine Maissounat, an Acadian lady of the Roman Catholic faith, and became the founder of the oldest English-speaking family in the Dominion of Canada. He father was Pierre Maissinnat, who, under the soubriquet or additional surname of Baptiste, had been Master of a private armed vessel which had sprung terror amoung the New England shipping suring that and the preceding wars (Murdock, "Hist. Of Nova Scotia," vol. I, p. 215). He was son of Helie Maissonnat and Jeanne Segure, from Bergerac, Diocese of Perigueux, France. Marie Madeleine’s mother was probably Pierre’s second wife, Madeleine Bourg, sister of the Notary, Alexander Bourg of Drand Pre, a name that has assumed the form of Bourque in later generations of Acadians. If so, her mother died at her birth in 1694, and she was adopted by maternal relations. By this marriage Winniett incurred and rested for a time under the suspicion of Governor Nicholson, who wrote from Boston to Lieut.-Governor Caulfield, 20th November 1714, not to admit him to the garrison.12 As a merchant and for that day a large vessel owner, he became the pioneer of the commerce of English Canada. He served as a Member of the Council from the year 1729 for many years, and was probably the most influential and popular man in the Province both amoung the French and English. He died by

    10 Sir Charles Darling, Governor of Victoria, was born in 1809 at Annapolis, where his father, Colonel Darling, was Commandant of the Garrison and Inspecting Field Officer of the Militia.

    11 Nocholson went to England in the winter of 1709, returning to Boston in the spring.

    12 For these particulars I am indebted to Placide P. Gaudet, Esq., the able Acadian genealogist and Archivist.

    Page 9

    drowning in Boston harbour in August 1741, at the early age of 56 years. His family of thirteen children were born in Annapolis Royal, and for thress generations the name, now extinct in the county, was identified with the conduct of public affairs. But, strange to say, no public memorial of any of the family exists in the old capital, except the almost indistinguishable tomestone of a little daughter Margaret, whom he specially mentioned in his will as visited by a "sore affliction, " but who pre-deceased him. His career is fully set forth in the "History of Annapolis." He had children: --

    1. Ann b. 20th March 1712; mar. Alexander Cosby, 40th Regiment, for many years Lieut.-Govenor of the Town of Annapolis. As a widow she was long known and respected at Annapolis as "Madam Cosby."
    2. Elizabeth, b. 17th August 1714; mar. John Handfield, afterwards Lieut.-Colonel 40th Regiment, and Commandant of the garrison who ‘superintended the deportation of her mother’s compatriots and co-religionists at Annapolis in 1755. A son, Thomas Handfield, mar. at Quebec, 7th January 1761, Marie Ann Poulin.
    3. William, b. 1716. He is known in the French parochial records as Guillaume Ouinete. On 7th October 1742 he was received into the Roman Catholic church, and married 16th of the same month, Louise, daughter of Francis Robicheau13 and Madeline Theriau, and cast in his lot with the neutral French. In 1745 he was compelled by Marin during the siege of Annapolis to act as English interpreter, in which capacity he is mentioned in Pote’s "Journal of His Captivity," edited by Victor H. Paltsits. He had two children: Guillaume David, b. 26th February 1744; and Elizabeth, baptized as Isabelle, b. 4th February 1746. The latter mar. in Boston, 31st January 1769, Timothy Bourgeois. Guillaume Ouinate d. 6th May 1747, but his widow and children were transported to Boston in that great crime against civilization, the cruel and unnecessary deportation and dispersion of 1755.
    4. Mary Madeleine, b. 30th July 1718; mar. Edward How, the distinguished Member of the Council, Commissary, etc., whose treacherous murder during a parley with the French and Indians at the Misseguash in October 1750, is a conspicuous matter of history (Parkman’s "Montcalm and Wolfe," I, 118, 119). She d. 1793. (Letter from Governor Wentworth to Secretary of State, 4th June.)
    5. Charles, b. 1720; d. unmar.
    6. 13 It was her brother, Pierre Robicheau, who married Francoise, daughter of the Seigneur Alexander le Borgne de Belleisle and Anastasie de St. Castin, the Madame Robichean to whom Governor Mascarene wrote the letter published in Nova Scotia Archives, p. 136.

      10

    7. Edward, b. 1721 or 1722; Captain of the Warren, 1752; mar. Elizabeth, daughter of Timothy Dallor or Dallow, in England.
    8. Margaret, b. 6th April (17th, n.s.) 1723; d. 28th May 1730
    9. John, b. 1724 or 1725; mar. 15th September 1746, at Boston, Elizabeth Winslow, probably niece of the celebrated General John Winslow, who deported the Acadians from Grand Pre’ in 1755, and cousin-german of Edward Winslow, the distinguished Loyalist. (See "Winslow Papers," by Rev. W.O. Raymond, St. John, New Brunswick, 1901.) She d. (bur. 1st September) 1770, aged 42. He d. (bur. 24th July) 1794, in his 70th year. Two sons, John, bapt. 12th August 1750; and William, bapt. 13th May 1752, d. (bur.2nd Sept.) same year. "John Winnet Jr." sailed from Boston to Halifax with the British army in 1776.
    10. Joseph, b. about 1726 or 1727, whose family record is given supra.
    11. Marie Anne, b. 1729; married 28th April 1746, at Boston, Archibald McNeal or McNeil, a noted Loyalist, whose sufferings in the cause and tragic death in 1784 are recorded in Sabins’s "Loyalists."
    12. Matthew, survived his brother Joseph many years; was Major of Militia and Deputy Prothonotary of the Supreme Court.
    13. Alexander, b. 1733; d. unmar.; 2nd Lieutenant, 40th Regiment, 1755; 1st. Lieutenant, 1761.
    14. Susanna, b. 1735; mar….Page.
  • Joseph Winniett, the ninth of these children, in partnership with his brother-in-law, Daniel Dyson, carried on the largest mercantile business conducted by any person or firm in the County of Annapolis in the middle years of the eighteenth century. He was educated at the old Boston Grammar School, and filled with ability in his native town the offices (several of them at the same time) of Justice of the Peace, Justice of the Court of Common Pleas, Collector of Excise and Customs, Judge of Probate and Registrar of Deeds, and was Member of the Provincial Parliament from 1761 to 1770. (See "History of Annapolis," pp. 185, 330.) Henry Charles Darling, sixth son of William Winniett, who was sixth child and second son of Joseph Winniett, lived in Annapolis Royal, and died in 1879, probably the last male survivor of the family bearing the name in Nova Scotia, and with him it became extinct in the County where it was so prominent for a hundred and sixty-nine years. There are some descendants of the name in the United States, and probably in Ontario and New Zealand.

    William Winniett, who was Deputy Prothonotary in 1796, filled in his turn the office of /Sheriff of the County for a quarter of a century, and was at different periods Clerk of the Peace, Judge of the Court of Probate, Registrar of Probate and Deputy Naval Officer. He also held the rank of Captain in the Nova Scotian

    Page 11

    Legion, and colonel of the Militia. The husband of Susan Mary, his eldest daughter, the Rev. John Thomas Twining, afterwards D.D., was a son of the Rev. William Twining born 1750 in Pembrokeshire, Wales, a Church of England clergyman in sympathy with the Methodists, but who remained fixed in his attachment to the Church.14 Mr. Twining, the elder, married 5th October 1789, a daughter of the Rev. Joshua Wingate Weeks, a Loyalist clergyman, a brother of the wife of the Rev. Jacob Bailey, noted in literature as "the Frontier Missionary." It was the refusal of the Church authorities of the day to appoint the Rev. Twining to the Rectorship of St. Paul’s Church, Halifax, that led to the memorable secession from the church in 1828. (See "History of St. Paul’s Church," by the Rev. George W. Hill, D.D., in Transactions of "Nova Scotians Historical Society," vol. Iii, and "History of Annapolis," p. 303.) Dr. Twining was afterwards appointed to, and held during many years, the post of Chaplain to His Majesty’s Forces at Halifax, and was esteemed and respected by military and civilians alike. He was also Chaplain of the House of Assembly. A spiritually minded and most earnest Minister of the Gospel, his name is conspicuous in the memoirs of these two Christian solders, ‘Captain Hedley Vicars and Hammond, the former of them whom fell at Inkerman.

    The second son of the Rev. John Thomas and Susan Mary (Winniett) Twining was Henry Charles Darling Twining, Barrister-at-Law, Master in Chancery and long Chief Clerk of the House of Assembly of Nova Scotia, who married Mary Martha, third child of the Hon. Charles Rufas Fairbanks, Master of the Rolls and Judge or the Court of Vice Admiralty of Nova Scotia, of a family that gave some distinguished men to the political and mercantile life of the Province. He was a son of Rufas Fairbanks and was born 25th March 1790, married 25th March 1815, Sarah Elizabeth, daughter of William and Elizabeth Lawson, of another old and noted Halifax family, and died 15th April 1841. Henry Charles Darling and Mary Martha (Fairbanks) Twining were the parents of Henry St. George Twining, Bank Official and Insurance manager, who married Ada Louisa, second daughter of Charley Henry Miller Black, grand-daughter of Hon. William Anderson Black, President of the Legislative Council of Nova Scotia, and great-granddaughter of the Rev. William Black, 15 an eloquent and very celebrated Methodist pioneer minister in the Province, some of whose sons and nephews acquired great wealth as merchants in Halifax. Charles Henry Miller Black married 1st September 1855 Elizabeth, daughter of Thomas B. Smith, of Frederictown, New Brunswick. Violet Gertrude, only daughter of Henry St. George and Ada Louisa (Black) Twining, married the fifth Marquis of Donegal, being his third wife, and is the mother of

    14 See Smith’s "History of Methodism in Eastern British America," pp. 338, 388.

    15 See "History of the Blacks," by Cyrus Black, Amherst, 1885; Smith’s "Methodism in Eastern British North America."

    Page12

    Edward Arthur Donald St. George Hamilton Chichester, the sixth Marquis, born 7th October 1903, succeeding his father in 1904.

    Thus the Marquis of Donegal is descended in the eleventh generation from the same Francis Yates, the martyr for his loyalty, in the following line: -- (I) Francis Yates, married Elizabeth (?) Hardwick. (II) Elizabeth, married Thomas Dyson. (III) Thomas Dyson, married … (IV) John Dyson, married Alice … (V) Mary Dyson, married Joseph Winniett. (VI) William Winniet, married Mary Totton. (VII) Susan Mary Winniett, married Rev. John Thomas Twining. (VIII) Henry Charles Darling Twining, married Mary Martha Fairbanks. (IX) Henry St. George Twining, married Ada Louisa Black. (X) Violet Gertrude Twining, married the fifth Marquis of Donegal. (XI) The present Marquis.

    Page13

    BIOGRAPHICAL SKETCH OF GENERAL WILLIAMS

    Educated at the Common School at the old Academy at Annapolis Royal, and at the Royal Military Academy at Woolwich, William Fenwick Williams was commissioned in 1825, and after serving in various home and other stations, he went in 1841 to Turkey, where he was employed in the arsenal at Constantinople, and in aiding the re-organization of the Turkish army. In the negotiation of the treaty signed at Erzeroum in 1847 he was British Commissioner, and was in 1848 British Commissioner in the settlement of the Turko-Persian boundary. For these services he received two brevets and was made a Companion of the Bath, Civil. In 1854 he was appointed British Commissioner with the Turkish army in Anatolia. The Army was in such a condition that he soon was obliged to exercise the functions of a Commander-in Chief, which he was the better enabled to do by the rank of Pasha conferred on him by the Porte. He saved the remnants of the army from dwindling away, inspiring courage and confidence in troops ill-provided for, who had sustained severe defeat by the Russians not long before, and were badly demoralized. He went to Kars in September 1854, left an accomplished officer there during the winter to drill and discipline the troops there, and returned to Erzeroum, from whence he sought to obtain from the Porte, through pressure from the British Government, supplies of money, ammunition and clothing, while working unremittingly in organizing the men and material at hand. In the spring of 1855 he was enabled to attend to the defences of Erzeroum, which he did with laborious zeal and conspicuous ability. Learning on the 21st of June that the Russian army under Mouravieff was advancing on Kars, he hastened thither, arriving on the 7th. The Russian forces of 25,000 attacked in the early hours of the 16th of June and were defeated, but in a few days had the place blockaded, and on the 7th August made another unsuccessful attack. In September provisions became scarce in Kars, cold weather set in, and at length the cholera broke out. Very early on the 29th Mouravieff attacked again with the bulk of his army, but after desperate fighting was signally defeated by General Williams and his Turkish troops, and retired with a loss of 6,000 men. Cold, pestilence and famine finally did the work which Russia skill, valour and superior numbers failed to accomplish, troops and citizens being reduced to a state of starvation. It was not until all hope of expected relief was taken away that, retreat being impracticable to his exhausted army, he was obliged to capitulate. The terms granted him were very favorable, the garrison marching out with honors of war. Mouravieff told him he had no inclination to inflict unnecessary degradation and punishment on a gallant army which had covered itself with glory and only yielded to famine. He said to General Williams, "You have made yourself a name in history, and posterity will stand amazed at the endurance, the courage and discipline which this siege has called forth in

    Page14

    the remains of an army." Lord Palmerston said in the British Parliament, "A greater display of courage or ability, of perseverance under difficulties, or of inexhaustible resources of mind than was our military history." On his return to England he received the medal and clasp of Kars, and was voted a pension of L1,000 a year, was made a K.C.B., received the Freedom of the City of London, with a sword of honor, and was made an honorary D.C.L., of Oxford, besides high honors and decorations from the Emperor of the French and the Sultan of Turkey. In Nova Scotia the Legislature presented him with an address and a sword, and King’s College, Windsor, the honoray degree of D.C.L. He was General Commandant at Woolwich Garrison from 1856 to 1859 and was a Member of House of Commons for Calne in Wiltshire. He was Commander-in-Chief in Canada from 1859 to 1865, and was in the latter year appointed Governor of Nova Scotia. From 1870 to 1876 he was Governor of Gibralter, and in 1871 received the Grand Cross of the Order of Bath. In 1881 he was appointed Constable of the Tower of London, and died unmarried 26th July 1883, and was buried at Brompton Cemetery.

    "His former aide de camp, sir Christopher Teesdale, wrote of him, "He had a marvelous self-reliance and perfect fearlessness of responsibility. He trusted his subordinates, but only consulted with them on points of detail. He would walk for hours alone, working out plans and ideas in his mind, and once settled, they were never departed from. Every one knew that an order once given had to be obeyed without comment. Firm as a rock on duty, he had the kindest heart that ever beat." He was a tall man, splendidly proportioned, of an impressive and commanding, yet kindly aspect, features regular and handsome, with the nose slightly aquiline, a man whose physical appearance seemed that of one born to rule. His sisters, or at least two of them, are said to have resembled him.16 The following anecdote, illustrating his cordiality of manner, is told of him in his native place. Meeting there after his return to Nova Scotia a son17 of his old schoolmaster, the latter said to him, "Well, General, you thrashed the Russians!" "Yes, said he, "and many’s the time your father thrashed me." The rod was not spared by schoolmasters in the General’s schoolboy days, but doubtless the remark was a jocose exaggeration.

    16 The General and one of his sisters were the only two members of the family whom the writer ever saw.

    17 The late A.W. Corbitt, Esq.

    Page15

    •

    End

    I have kept the pages intact so they can be quoted as a source. This work was transcribed from CIHM no. 76028 ICHM no Ancestry of General Sir William Fenwick Williams of Kars : and incidentally a maternal ...-

    {Exeter?}, 1911. ISBN 0-655-76028-0

    Ruth Davison rdavison@telus.net

     

    Home