• Name:
William Caldwell , Captain
• Sex: M
• Birth: ABT
1750 in Armaugh, Ireland
1
• Death: 20 FEB 1822 in Amherstburg, Essex
County, Ontario
1
• Reference Number: 89996
• Note:
Dictionary of
Canadian Biography Online
• ID: I089996
CALDWELL, WILLIAM,
army and militia officer, merchant, jp, and Indian Department official; b. c.
1750 in County Fermanagh (Northern Ireland), probably the son of William
Caldwell and his wife Rebecka; father of a mixed-blood son, Billy Caldwell*; m.
1783 Suzanne Baby, daughter of Jacques Baby*, dit Dupéront, and they had five
sons and three daughters; d. 20 Feb. 1822 in Amherstburg, Upper Canada.
William Caldwell
came to North America in 1773. He served
as an officer in the campaign of 1774 waged by the governor of Virginia, Lord
Dunmore, against the Indians of the Pennsylvania
and Virginia
frontier. With the outbreak of the American revolution, Caldwell
fought in Dunmore’s forces again, taking
part in the storming of Norfolk, Va,
early in 1776. Defeated, Dunmore had to
withdraw his troops by sea to New York.
When Caldwell
recovered from his wounds, he went to Fort
Niagara (near Youngstown,
N.Y.) and was appointed
captain in Butler’s
Rangers [see John Butler*]. In the rangers’ campaigns Caldwell
was “a very active Partisan,” according to the fort’s commandant. He led,
rather than ordered, his troops into battle and he demonstrated a ruthlessness
that the Americans would remember. When the victory of George Rogers Clark at
Vincennes (Ind.) in 1778 threatened the Detroit River frontier, Caldwell and
some 50 select rangers were sent from Niagara, and thus his long association
with the Detroit area began. In succeeding years he alternated between Detroit
and Niagara, parrying each anticipated
American thrust and on occasion driving deep into enemy territory. In 1782 he
commanded the British forces in two of the most notorious victories of the war.
In June his troops and their Indian allies defeated William Crawford’s
advancing columns on the upper Sandusky
River (Ohio),
and Crawford suffered horribly at the hands of his Indian captors. Then Caldwell
led a force into Kentucky
and in August dealt a devastating blow to the Americans at the battle of Blue
Licks. At this point in the war, action shifted to the diplomatic front, and it
was just as well for Caldwell
because he and his rangers returned to Detroit
hardly capable of taking the field again.
By the war’s end
Caldwell and several associates had decided to settle in the Detroit
area. In early 1783 he and Indian Department officer Matthew Elliott* took up
and began developing tracts of land on the east side of the Detroit
River opposite Bois
Blanc Island.
Late in the year, having been joined by several other men with similar
intentions, they began negotiations with local Indian chiefs for a grant of the
land. Jacob Schieffelin, secretary of the Indian Department at Detroit, heard
of their intentions and secretly attempted to obtain the lands for himself, but
Governor Frederick Haldimand* upheld the claims of the Caldwell group.
Recognizing the value of a quasimilitary settlement on the Detroit
frontier, he also ordered provisions and implements for as many former rangers
as wished to settle in the area. The tract was surveyed and 19 river-front lots
were laid out. Captains Henry Bird, Caldwell, Alexander McKee*, and Elliott
received the largest ones nearest the site of the proposed fort; the lots
downriver were assigned to other Indian Department officers and interpreters. Caldwell
later added to his holdings by obtaining grants in Malden
Township until he had
a compact estate of some 2,000 acres anchored by his river-front lot beside the
rising community of Amherstburg.
Caldwell
was less than successful in establishing the loyalists and disbanded rangers he
had invited to come from Niagara and
settle in the Detroit
region. When they arrived, they found that all the lands along the river had
been taken up. To remedy the situation Caldwell
obtained from the Indians a parcel of land on the north shore
of Lake Erie, which
he called the New Settlement. The provisions promised by Haldimand failed to
materialize in sufficient quantity, however, and little development occurred
until the arrival in 1787 of Major Robert Mathews* as commandant at Detroit.
Sensing Mathews’s concern, Caldwell
quickly turned over to him the land and a portion of the provisions and
implements that had been sent out, and Mathews proceeded to oversee the
settlement, which became the nucleus of Colchester
and Gosfield townships. Caldwell has nevertheless been credited with the
founding of the New Settlement and, indeed, in 1788 he was rewarded with a
3,000-acre tract of marsh at the mouth of the river, which was granted in the
name of two of his sons.
As well as
accumulating land, Caldwell
engaged in commerce at Detroit
and among the Indians south of Lake Erie.
In partnership with Elliott, he established an agreement in 1784 with David
Duncan and William Wilson of Pittsburgh,
Pa, to obtain flour, cattle,
bacon, and other provisions that were often scarce at Detroit.
Increasingly fierce American competition for the Indians’ business eventually
brought the venture to grief. Rumours in early 1787 that Caldwell and Elliott
were failing led Duncan and Wilson to request payment of their outstanding
debts. Actually, they were not the largest creditors: more was owed to Detroit
merchants Robert Ellice* and William and Alexander Macomb. Pressed by these
local creditors, Caldwell and Elliott assigned their available assets to them,
leaving the Pittsburgh
suppliers wholly unsecured. Duncan and Wilson, in turn, effectively blocked
Caldwell and Elliott from conducting further business. Their debts greatly
exceeded their assets, and their creditors consequently suffered heavy losses,
but Caldwell and Elliott escaped further penalty and retained their substantial
landed properties. Caldwell continued to serve as a supplier of timber, corn,
and teams to the garrison and to seek other provisioning contracts from the
military and from fur-trading companies. On 28 July 1788 he was made a magistrate for the
District of Hesse.
The decade of
apparent peace following the treaty of 1783 was in reality a period of constant
military alert along the Detroit
frontier. The British remained in control of posts in American territory and
continued to encourage the land claims and military activities of their Indian
allies. Whether they would actively intervene on behalf of the Indians was an
open question. When in 1794 a large American force under Anthony Wayne advanced
towards the Miamis (Maumee) River, Richard G. England*, the commandant at
Detroit, sent Caldwell and some 60 volunteers to reinforce Fort Miamis (Maumee,
Ohio), while the militia was held in reserve. Near the fort on 20 August, at
the battle of Fallen Timbers, Wayne
routed the Indians, who retreated behind the cover of a rearguard action fought
by the Wyandots and the white volunteers.
Not satisfied with
the Indian lands obtained by their victory, the Americans soon renewed their
pressure, and tension in the region once again increased. For Caldwell,
as for Elliott and others of their old comrades-in-arms, neutrality was
impossible. The Americans associated their names with border warfare and with
atrocities committed by the Indians. In the fall of 1807 rumour had it that if
war were declared, ten thousand Kentuckians would seize Amherstburg and execute
Caldwell, Elliott, and all the members of the Indian Department. When in 1812
war did come Caldwell
and four of his sons took up arms.
In the autumn of
1812 Colonel Henry Procter, who commanded on the Detroit
frontier, conceived the idea of establishing a ranger force of the sort that
had been so effective during the American revolution. Early in 1813 he received
authorization to create such a special corps, to be commanded by William
Caldwell. These men, known as the Western Rangers or Caldwell’s
Rangers, served in various actions south of Lake Erie
that summer and when in the fall Procter decided that retreat from Amherstburg
had become necessary, they accompanied him. Caldwell
played his usual fearless role in the thick of the battle of Moraviantown in
October. He and his rangers took up position beside their Indian allies and
continued the battle long after the British regulars had surrendered or
withdrawn.
Having escaped
death or capture, Caldwell
and his sons fought again as rangers at the battle of Longwood (near
Thamesville) in March 1814. In May, Caldwell
replaced Elliott as superintendent of Indians for the Western District. He then
secured places for his sons William and Thomas in the Indian Department;
Francis Xavier* continued in the rangers. Members of the Caldwell
family fought together again at the battles of Chippawa and Lundy’s Lane and at
the siege of Fort Erie.
Caldwell
was less than successful in establishing the loyalists and disbanded rangers he
had invited to come from Niagara and
settle in the Detroit
region. When they arrived, they found that all the lands along the river had
been taken up. To remedy the situation Caldwell
obtained from the Indians a parcel of land on the north shore
of Lake Erie, which
he called the New Settlement. The provisions promised by Haldimand failed to
materialize in sufficient quantity, however, and little development occurred
until the arrival in 1787 of Major Robert Mathews* as commandant at Detroit.
Sensing Mathews’s concern, Caldwell
quickly turned over to him the land and a portion of the provisions and
implements that had been sent out, and Mathews proceeded to oversee the
settlement, which became the nucleus of Colchester
and Gosfield townships. Caldwell has nevertheless been credited with the
founding of the New Settlement and, indeed, in 1788 he was rewarded with a
3,000-acre tract of marsh at the mouth of the river, which was granted in the
name of two of his sons.
As Indian
superintendent Caldwell
was soon involved in a heated controversy between the deputy superintendent
general, William Claus, and John Norton, spokesman for the Six Nations of the Grand
River, a major native force in the war. Norton’s success
and obvious popularity with the Indians had earned him the temporary confidence
of military leaders, who ordered the Indian Department not to interfere with
his leadership or disposition of presents. Claus and other Indian department
officers complained that although they operated under severe quotas and
restraint, Norton lavished gifts and alcohol on his followers. When some 120
Ojibwas and Ottawas
deserted Caldwell for
Norton’s camp, he took up the Indian Department’s fight. He complained to the
military authorities that Norton “debauched” the Shawnees,
hogged stores, and followed a policy calculated to draw the western Indians
from their officers. Norton’s tactics, he feared, would damage the
effectiveness of the Indians as a fighting force.
 |
| John Carradine as Caldwell |
The termination of
the war in December 1814 offered an excellent opportunity for
commander-in-chief Sir Gordon Drummond* to end the feud while reducing the
complement of the Indian service. Norton was pensioned off and eased out as
graciously as circumstances would permit. Caldwell’s
dismissal took longer and was preceded by more bitterness. Indeed, his
competency had already been questioned. Claus was disappointed with his
leadership of the western Indians, and members of the Indian Department
anonymously accused him of trying to establish his sons at their expense.
Moreover, his belligerent views were out of harmony with Britain’s post-war intentions towards the Americans.
Moreover, his belligerent views were out of harmony with Britain’s post-war intentions towards the Americans.
With the war over,
Caldwell’s task was
the dispersal and resettlement of the western Indians. The problem was immense
because the Indians were near starvation and almost in open revolt by the
latter stages of the conflict. The military, from Procter to the highest
levels, sought to make scapegoats of them, and hence of the Indian Department,
for their own failures in the war. Moreover, conflicts between Caldwell and
Amherstburg’s commandant, Reginald James, developed into a classic
confrontation between a military seeking retrenchment and an Indian Department
defending its prerogatives. Lamenting military interference in departmental
affairs, Caldwell
blamed James for lack of progress in the resettlement of the Indians and the
planting of their crops, as well as for their general dissatisfaction. He
charged him with violating Indian Department usage and with lack of
communication. James, in turn, described Caldwell’s
charges as “without foundation . . . originating, I hope, in the imbecility of
the Deputy Superintendent.” He complained, as well, of Caldwell’s
insubordination and inability to keep private information confidential.
Moreover he asserted that Caldwell had failed to explain properly to the
Indians that under the terms of the treaty which had ended the war there had
been strict limitations placed on their freedom to cross the border with the
United States, and he therefore blamed Caldwell for the border troubles
involving Indians that occurred. The feud between Caldwell and James reached
its peak in October 1815. According to James, Caldwell
called him a liar in public and demanded that all further communication between
them be conducted in writing. James suspended Caldwell on 21 October and
replaced him with Billy Caldwell, who had collaborated against his father.
Aged and ailing,
William Caldwell spent his last years restoring his property in Malden
Township. His losses
had been heavy – his wife died in 1812 and his home and barns were destroyed by
vengeful Americans. Although he claimed compensation of some £2,600, his
refusal to provide adequate evidence led a military claims board to reduce the
sum by 50 percent. He could, however, take some comfort in his successful
petition to receive the half pay owing to him as a reduced ranger captain,
which was finally granted in 1820.
Meanwhile, Caldwell
continued his role as civic leader. Still a magistrate, in December 1817 he
chaired a meeting in response to Robert Gourlay*’s inquiry about the state of Malden
Township. The old
loyalist and sole surviving founder of the township could not but have been
pleased at the public recounting of the area’s development. His ongoing
interest in building up the community is evidenced in his efforts to have the
court-house and jail transferred from Sandwich
(Windsor) to
Amherstburg and to establish Amherstburg as the district town of a divided
Western District.
In January 1818 Caldwell
drew up a will dividing his property among his legitimate children. A convert
to Roman Catholicism, during his lifetime he had donated land for both the
Anglican and the Catholic churches in Amherstburg. He died on 20 Feb. 1822. Writing after
the action at Fallen Timbers, Lieutenant-Colonel
England had
called him a “very very odd but very gallant fellow.”
L. L. Kulisek
AO, RG 22,
ser.155. BL, Add. mss 21761–65 (mfm. at PAC). Can., Parks Canada, Fort
Malden National
Hist. Park
(Amherstburg, Ont.), Arch. coll., Caldwell
family papers; Information files, Caldwell
family. Essex Land
Registry Office (Windsor, Ont.), Abstract index to deeds, Malden
Township, vols.1–2
(mfm. at AO). PAC, RG 1, L1, 22: 714; 26: 248–52, 256–59, 298–99, 357; L3; RG
8, I (C ser.); RG 19, E5(a), 3728, claim 5. “Board of land office, District of
Hesse,” AO Report, 1905. “Campaigns of 1812–14: contemporary narratives by
Captain W. H. Merritt, Colonel William Claus, Lieut.-Colonel Matthew Elliott
and Captain John Norton,” ed. E. [A.] Cruikshank, Niagara Hist. Soc., [Pub.],
no.9 (1902): 3–20. Corr. of Hon. Peter Russell (Cruikshank and Hunter). Corr.
of Lieut. Governor Simcoe (Cruikshank). Doc. hist. of campaign upon Niagara
frontier (Cruikshank). John Askin papers (Quaife). Mich.
Pioneer Coll. Select British docs. of War of 1812 (Wood). “Surveyors’ letters,
notes, instructions, etc., from 1788 to 1791,” AO Report, 1905. Windsor
border region (Lajeunesse). Commemorative biographical record of the county
of Essex, Ontario,
containing biographical sketches of prominent and representative citizens and
many of the early settled families (Toronto,
1905). Christian Denissen, Genealogy of the French families of the Detroit
River region, 1701–1911, ed. H. F. Powell (2v., Detroit,
1976). Officers of British forces in Canada
(Irving).
Katharine
Buchanan, “A study of the William Caldwell involvement in the establishment of
the Anglican and Roman Catholic churches in the town of Amherstburg, Ontario”
(undergraduate essay, Univ. of Windsor, 1981). E. [A.] Cruikshank, The story of
Butler’s Rangers and
the settlement of Niagara (Welland,
Ont., 1893; repr. Owen Sound,
Ont., 1975). Reginald Horsman, Matthew Elliott, British Indian agent (Detroit,
1964). Allen, “British Indian Dept.,” Canadian Hist. Sites, no.14: 5–125. F. H.
Armstrong, “The oligarchy of the Western District of Upper
Canada, 1788–1841,” CHA Hist. papers, 1977:
87–102. John Clarke, “Aspects of land acquisition in Essex County, Ontario,
1790–1900,” and “Land and law in Essex County: Malden Township and the abstract
index to deeds,” SH, 11 (1978): 98–119 and 475–93; “The role of political
position and family and economic linkage in land speculation in the Western
District of Upper Canada, 1788–1815,” Canadian Geographer (Toronto), 19 (1975):
18–34. Reginald Horsman, “American Indian policy in the old northwest,
1783–1812,” William and Mary Quarterly (Williamsburg,
Va.), 3rd ser., 18 (1961):
35–53. C. M. Johnston, “William Claus and John Norton: a struggle for power in
old Ontario,” OH,
57 (1965): 101–8. J. M. Sosin, “The use of Indians in the war of the American
revolution: a re-assessment of responsibility,” CHR,
46 (1965): 101–21. G. F. G. Stanley, “The Indians in the War of 1812,” CHR,
31 (1950): 145–65.
Marriage 1 Unknown
Mohawk
• Married: BEF 1780 2 1
Children
1. Billy Caldwell b: 17 MAR
1780 in Fort Niagara,
New York
Marriage 2 Suzanne
Baby b: 23 NOV 1766
in Detroit, Wayne
County, Michigan
• Married: 1783 3
Children
1. William Caldwell b: 9 MAY
1784 in Detroit, Wayne
County, Michigan
2. Jacques (James) Caldwell
b: 26 DEC 1785 in Detroit,
Wayne County,
Michigan
3. Thomas Caldwell , Captain b: 17 SEP 1788 in
Sandwich/Windsor, Essex County, Ontario
4. Suzanne Caldwell b: 8 SEP 1790 in Sandwich/Windsor,
Essex County, Ontario
5. François-Xavier Caldwell
b: 4 MAY 1792 in Detroit,
Wayne County,
Michigan
6. Rebecca Caldwell b: 29 AUG 1796 in Detroit,
Wayne County,
Michigan
7. Jean-Baptiste (John) Caldwell
b: ABT MAY
1800 in Amherstburg, Essex County,
Canada
8. Thérèse Félicité Caldwell b: ABT
FEB 1803 in Amherstburg, Essex County,
Canada
9. Andoie Caldwell b: 27 DEC 1806 in
Amherstburg, Essex County, Canada
10. Elizabeth Caldwell b: 12 JUL 1807 in Amherstburg,
Essex County, Canada
· ID:
I092830
· Name:
Billy Caldwell
· Sex:
M
· Reference
Number: 92830
· Note:
Source: Dictionary of Canadian Biography Online
CALDWELL, BILLY (possibly baptized Thomas, sometimes called Sagaunash), Indian Department official and merchant; b. 17 March, c. 1780, in the vicinity of Fort Niagara (near Youngstown, N.Y.); d. 27 Sept. 1841 at Trader’s Point (near Council Bluffs, Iowa). Billy Caldwell was one of the frontier personalities who were born out of passing liaisons between British men and native women and who spent their lives on the social boundary between British or American and Indian institutions. The natural son of William Caldwell*, a captain in Butler’s Rangers, and a Mohawk woman whose name is unknown (she was a daughter of Rising Sun), Billy Caldwell was abandoned by his father while an infant. Ordered west to Detroit, the elder Caldwell left Billy to spend his childhood among the Mohawks near Niagara and later on the Grand River (Ont.). About 1789 he brought the boy into the family created by his marriage to Suzanne Baby at Detroit. There Billy Caldwell received a basic education aimed at making him into a family retainer, the manager of the Caldwell farm on the south side of the Detroit River. He rejected the status of second-class son, however, and crossed into American territory to enter the fur trade. Caldwell began his 37-year association with the Thomas Forsyth–John Kinzie trading partnership in 1797, first in what is now southwestern Michigan and along the Wabash River, later in the northern part of present-day Illinois, where in 1803 he rose to the position of chief clerk in the firm’s new post at Chicago. A Potawatomi woman named La Nanette, of the powerful fish clan, was his first wife; she died shortly after the marriage, whereupon he married a daughter of Robert Forsyth and an Ojibwa woman. After his second wife’s death he again married, this time a person known only as the Frenchwoman, likely the daughter of an influential Métis trader in Chicago. He had some eight to ten children in all, none of whom lived to adulthood or survived him. Until 1820 Caldwell identified himself as a “true Briton,” remaining faithful to the values he had acquired in the Detroit River border communities where he was raised, in spite of the fact that his father never recognized him as his rightful eldest son. By early 1812 he was reputed to be especially influential among the powerful Potawatomi, Ottawa, and Ojibwa communities around Lake Michigan, so that both American and British officials vied for his services in the coming war. Spurning overtures from Governor William Henry Harrison of Ohio, during the winter of 1812–13 he made his way back to Amherstburg, Upper Canada, and there he obtained a commission as captain in the Indian Department. His first combat experience came at the River Raisin (Mich.) in January 1813, where he was severely wounded while attempting to rescue an injured American officer. He later served as a liaison officer with Indian forces at the sieges of Fort Meigs (near Perrysburg, Ohio) and Fort Stephenson (Fremont, Ohio), at the battle of Moraviantown, and on the Niagara frontier. Upon the death of Matthew Elliott* in 1814, efforts were made to have Caldwell replace Elliott as superintendent of Indians for the Western District, but his father was appointed with Billy as second-in-command. Subsequently Billy collaborated with Lieutenant-Colonel Reginald James, commanding the garrison at Fort Malden (Amherstburg), in successful attempts to depose his father, and thus secured the post of superintendent. However, he proved inept in his administrative duties and was discharged from the Indian Department in September 1816. Thereafter he tried ineffectually to establish himself as a merchant in Amherstburg and vicinity. By 1820 he had left Upper Canada forever. Having immigrated to the Chicago area he worked in the Indian trade and soon became an American citizen.  Caldwell was influential in aiding the negotiation of the final series of treaties signed by the United Bands of Potawatomis, Ottawas, and Ojibwas of Wisconsin and Illinois, which ended in 1833 when they ceded their last block of lands at the Treaty of Chicago. His services no longer needed, he was then abandoned by his American patrons and thereafter entered the full-time employ of the united bands. He migrated with them to western Missouri and Iowa where he made his final home, managing their business affairs and negotiating on their behalf with American officials until his death of cholera in 1841. James A. Clifton An exhaustive bibliography of the primary sources relating to Billy Caldwell and of the various printed traditional sketches of him can be found in two works by the author, “Merchant, soldier, broker, chief; a corrected obituary of Billy Caldwell,” Ill. State Hist. Soc., Journal (Springfield), 71 (1978): 185–210, and “Personal and ethnic identity on the Great Lakes frontier: the case of Billy Caldwell, Anglo-Canadian,” Ethno history (Tucson, Ariz.), 25 (1978): 69–94. Among the important manuscript sources are BL, Add. mss 21885: 121 (copy at PAC); Chicago Hist. Soc., Billy Caldwell to Francis Caldwell, 17 March 1834; and Wis., State Hist. Soc., Draper mss, 175229–35, 238–40; 21574–88. Most of the extensive correspondence from, to, and about Caldwell during his Indian Department years is found in PAC, RG 10, Al, 4, and A2, 28, 30–34; further information from these years and also concerning the 1816–19 period is in the Caldwell papers, PAC, MG 24, B 147 (photocopies). Father: William Caldwell , Captain b: ABT 1750 in Armaugh, Ireland Mother: Unknown Mohawk Marriage 1 LaNanette Potawatomi Indian
Marriage 2 Miss Forsyth |
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