Samuel THORN

Birth:   abt 1771   Duchess County, New York

Death:   abt 1836   Hillier, Ontario

Father:   Robert THORN (abt 1734-1819)

Mother:   Sophia PELS (~1750-)

 

Spouse:   Phoebe CHASE

Birth:   abt 1770   Duchess County, New York

Death:   abt 1840   Hillier, Ontario

Father:   James P. CHASE

Mother:   Elizabeth "Betty" DOUGLAS

Marriage:   10 Feb 1794   Gagetown, New Brunswick

 

Children:

Esther (1797-1797)  Buried October 23 1797 in Ontario

Robert (1794-1866)  

Seth (1802-) 

William (1808-1885) 

Joseph (unknown ~1809-1809) Killed by accidental gun shot. Buried Aug 10 1809

Edward (1809-1809) Baptized Mar 9 1809. Buried Mar 19 1809.

Catharine Ann (1814-1870)

Elizabeth (1809-)

Sohpia (1815-)

Samuel Michael (~1817-1889)

Mary T. (~1822-)

 

Other Marriages: (Research results by Bircham & Mary VanHorne)

Second wife:  Elizabeth PETTIT (Aug 21 1814 - Feb 18 1843)

Third wife:   Mary BLOUNT  (1823-1905)
Further information for Samuel Thorn:

 

  • Samuel's marriage to Phoebe Chase is recorded in Queen's County, New Brunswick Marriages VolA 1812-1861 p39) (The second printing of Pioneer Life on the Bay of Quinte notes them as being married before he left New York. See below.

 

  • Samuel Thorn, (from notes of Bircham & Mary Van Horne) with his parents, moved from New York with the Loyalist migration of 1783. As a child of a Loyalist, he would have been awarded property in New Brunswick, when of age. Because of this, he (or his descendants) considered himself to have been a Loyalist.  The "Bay of Quinte" history notes that he was a Loyalist. It is usually believed one must be at least 18 years of age to have one's name appear on the Old UE (United Empire) List. The name of Samuel Thorn is noted on said list from the same place and place of settlement as Robert Thorn. This means that Samuel was much older (and his father's birth date incorrect); or Robert had a brother Samuel who settled near by. There were many cases where fathers and sons were Loyalists; however, until more research is done, the Loyalist ancestor should only be Robert. 

    On 10th Feb 1794, at Waterborough Parish, Gagetown NB, Samuiel Thorn married Phoebe Chase (her sister became the grandmother of Sir S. Tilly of NB). Phoebe was born around mid-1770s in Dutches Cnty. New York, also from a Loyalist family who settled Gagetown NB. Their children (and at least one grandson) were born in Gagetown area; later (around 1826), the family removed to the Bay of Quinte vicinity of Hillier, Prince Edward County, Ontario, (settled by Loyalists in 1784).

  • UE Loyalist - Samuel Thorn settled in Gagetown, New Brunswick 28 years before moving yto Hillier.  All children born in Gagetown.  Robert's oldest son was 4 at [time of] the move.

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  • Excerpt from Pioneer Life on the Bay of Quinte published by Rolph & Clark Ltd. 1904 reads:  "He [Robert Thorn] recalls his father serving as a non-commissioned officer in the Rebellion of 1837; that brief but momentous epoch in the history of the Dominion's making.  The father, [Robert Thorn] who was an active Conservative, died at the age of sixty-six years; his wife, Miriam Cyphers, surviving him by ten years, when she died while living with their son, George, on Manitoulin Island."

 

 
           

 

 

 

 

 

 

                                                       

  • Excerpt from Pioneer Life on the Bay of Quinte published by Rolph & Clark Ltd. 1904 reads: 

"The Thorns are an old family in Prince Edward County who find their common progenitor in Samuel Thorn, an United Empire Loyalist who migrated during the Revolutionary War from Dutchess County, New York, to New Brunswick, where he settled for a number of years and reared a family of eight children [eleven children born of which 3 died within their first year]. Before leaving New York he married Phoebe Chase, who was a sister of the founders of the Chase family in Prince Edward. Her sister Mary was the grandmother of the late Sir S. L. Tilly, of New Brunswick.

Samuel Thorne lived about twenty-with years in New Brunswick, and then removed to Prince Edward County and settled in Hillier.

The Thorns came accompanied by such well-known county families as the Babbits, Morgans and Giles. Samuel Thorn and his son Seth, who had married Rhoda Babbit before leaving New Brunswick, worked a two hundred acre lot, on which they lived in two small houses. Robert, the eldest of the family, had married Miriam Cyphens and had a son four years old at the time he came to Prince Edward. He procured a hundred acres of virgin forest land in the third concession of Hillier, now owned by the Kirk and Nethery families. The pioneers were not only subjected to the encroachments of the forest, but to the depredations of the wolves, who occasionally wrought sad havoc among their flocks. Deer, partridge and many kinds of the best game abounded; and mink, muskrat and duck were to be had in plenty by the creek which ran through the farm and turned Trumpour’s mill-wheel."

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