Richard Cartwright (Loyalist)

His mother, Joanne Beasley, was from a "loyal Dutch family," and his father, an innkeeper and small landowner, was deputy postmaster of Albany and an active member of the Church of England.

In February 1777, a letter Cartwright wrote to his sister Elizabeth at British-controlled Fort Niagara was intercepted by Albany's committee of correspondence.

[1] Cartwright recorded his journey from Albany north to Montreal including his visit to the site of the Battles of Saratoga and Hannah's accidental dunking in Lake St.

[3] Cartwright's parents were tainted by their son's loyalty to the British Crown, and were suspected of having helped Walter Butler escape captivity in April 1778.

[5] In the spring of 1778, Cartwright accompanied Butler to Tioga at the confluence of the Chemung and Susquehanna rivers in preparation for a large-scale raid on the Wyoming Valley.

He referred to the events of the Cherry Valley massacre as "such acts of wanton cruelty committed by the blood thirsty savages as humanity would shudder to mention.

[5] In his journal from 1779 he described Indigenous raiding parties as "bands of lurking assassins" who seek to "glut their cruelty alike with the blood of friend and foe without distinction of sex of age... it is impossible to bring them to leave women and children alone.

"[1] Canadian historian Donald Creighton describes Cartwright as "a modest, sound and able man who built up the most important business in the province.

Lieutenant Governor John Graves Simcoe appointed Cartwright a member of the Legislative Council for the newly created province of Upper Canada in 1792.

[1] At the time of his death at Montreal in 1815, Cartwright owned houses and businesses in Kingston, Napanee and York (Toronto) and more than 27,000 acres of land scattered throughout Upper Canada.

While Cartwright was an enslaver, he supported Lieutenant Governor John Graves Simcoe's 1793 Act to Limit Slavery in Upper Canada.