Thomas Flewelling – Loyalist

The name Flewelling, and its variations, derives from the Welsh surname, Llewellyn which, in turn, is derived from a given name. The Welsh adopted the use of inherited surnames about the 16th and 17th centuries. The English, often phonetically attempting to write Llewellyn, would write one of the “F” versions. Throughout the 17th century, the “F” versions were often used, later reverting to the more proper “L” versions as literacy became more common. By this time, however, the ancestors of Thomas Flewelling had come to North America, and the “F” versions stayed in use.

The progenitor of the family in North America is Thomas Flewelling, probably first in Jamaica, Queens Co., Long Island, NY before 1663. When he came to North America, or if he was born here, are mysteries. There are only a few facts known of him. He was in Jamaica, Long Island, New York before 1663, he married Hannah Ashman, and he had at least one child, Thomas Flewelling. About 1664, he and several other families went to what was then known as Passayunk. A little less than twenty years later, the land they took up together was sold by Thomas Flewelling’s future in-laws, with other lands, to William Penn to become the new city of Philadelphia. About 1671, Thomas Flewelling and others returned to Jamaica on Long Island, N.Y., where they remained for several generations.
The whole family early took the Loyalist side during the American Revolution. One was hung by Patriots in 1779; one was arrested, imprisoned, and later escaped. Abel Flewwelling acted as a pilot for the British forces on the Hudson River. Thomas Flewelling stoutly refused to take any oaths “tendered by the Rebels”, opposed Committees of Safety and Congresses, and was taken into custody several times as a result of his opposition. He lived “in continual fear of assassination”, and, in 1779, the Patriots, by severely beating him and threatening him with death, made him to understand that his presence was no longer healthy for him in Westchester County. He must have had to depart quickly, as he had to leave his wife and younger children behind. His four eldest sons, including Enos, had left home in March of 1777, travelling overland to Long Island to join Col. Edmund Fanning’s Kings American Regiment which had been raised the previous December. Before Thomas fled, much of his stock and personal property had already been stolen. By May, 1780, his farm had been seized, and Elizabeth with her son Adam and the younger children fled to join her husband. It was in the late summer of 1783 that Thomas and his family, including six children, came to Saint John, New Brunswick on the ‘Cyrus’. Thomas did not wait for the grant of land to which he was entitled as a Loyalist, but sought land on which to build a home immediately. He found a place above Oak Point on the Saint John River.

Thomas Flewelling must have been devoutly attached to the Anglican Church (somewhat of an eccentricity peculiar to his father’s family considering the family’s very early and long association with the Religious Society of Friends) as a number of his descendants became or married Anglican priests, and others were involved as church wardens and vestrymen, deacons, lay preachers, etc.

It is clear that he was vociferous, perhaps opinionated, certainly conservative. As a Loyalist, he was certainly single-minded in his conviction that total separation from Britain would be disastrous, yet he does not seem attached to the British on emotional grounds. Indeed, couched in his language in petitions and in his Loyalist claim are tinges of animosity towards officialdom in general. It is as if he preferred government to stay far from him until needed, and resented its interference in his getting on with the process of raising a family and creating as bountiful a life for them as possible.
There is some indication that, in later years, the Flewellings became involved in the shipping that took place up and down the River, especially in the river boats that used the River for decades, and in transportation of coal and lumber from Grand Lake. The Saint John River assumed the aspect of a main highway through much of New Brunswick, and Oak Point, jutting out into Long Reach, was a logical landing place. For a time, Oak Point was known as Flewelling’s landing. One enterprise which Thomas entered was the construction and operation of a fulling mill – a mill for the treatment of fabrics, cleaning them, or preparing them for use as rag paper.

Source: Thomas A. Murray, “Thomas Flewelling of Oak Point, Kings County, New Brunswick: ca. 1730-1809,” The Canadian Genealogist, Vol. 7, No. 1, March 1985, p. 53, Generation Press, Agincourt, Ontario.