Pellum Cartwright Teeple [37654]

  General Notes:

From the Maybee Society files. Not all data is verified. Say dates are estimates and are probably within 20 years. The Maybee Society keeps its data on The Master Genealogist�, and has been modified by Gary Hester?s WIT2NOTE� to form the GedCom file. This information is also available in a TMG file.

  Noted events in his life were:

• Anecdote, 1837. ⁴¹¹⁹ Pellum Cartwright, (originally spelled Pelham) thirteenth and
youngest child of Peter Teeple, was born 28th November 1809,
and was a participator in the Upper Canadian Rebellion in 1837,
or the Patriot War, as it was then often called. He was the
leader of a band of young Canadians opposed to the long
mis-government of the county by an irresponsible body of men
known as the Family Compact, who ignored the statutes passed by
the parliament representatives of the people, and frustrated
their will; and when it was determined to fight, he was chosen
a captain, but on the flight to the United States of the two
principle leaders, William Lyon MacKenzie and Hon. John Rolph,
all those who had been leaders under them were compelled to
follow them into exile or forfeit their lives.

Pellum, on attempting to flee, fell in with a party of soldiers
who made him their prisoner. The story of his capture and
escape is thus told by his nephew, Luke, son of Simon Peter
Teeple, who heard it from his own lips:

"The price set upon his head by the Canadian Government was
$600. He was determined to leave Canada and was then on his way
to the western frontier line. He was riding a horse and had
reached a point some seven or eight miles westerly from London,
Ont., on the road leading from that city along the southern
side of the River Thames. His brother, Edward Manning Teeple,
lived on the road some two or three miles from London, and he
was coming from his house. On turning a bend in the road, he
came in full view of a sergeant and six men advancing towards
him. He could neither retreat or conceal himself, so he rode
steadily on and met them. The sergeant halted him and piled him
with questions, and as his answers were unsatisfactory, he was
taken in charge, faced about and obliged to go with them
towards London. They dismounted him and the sergeant rode the
house. Plodding along for some time, darkness overtook them
before they reached the city. They stopped at a tavern, and the
soldiers ordered a meal, which was at once prepared. They then
asked him to come and eat with them, but he assured them he was
not hungry, and they left their guns in the bar room and went
into the next room and sat down to eat.

He also went with them into the same room and asked the
waitress for a drink of water. He was on the side of the table
next to the outside, and as the girl gave him the drink of
water, she flung this door wide open, and in an instant he was
through it and made for the woods. The men sprang for their
arms and came rushing out, firing after him. He could hear the
orders given to surround the cluster of tavern buildings, and
saw lights moving, but he made good his escape into the
adjoining forest. There was snow on the ground and running was
difficult, yet for fear of being overtaken, he kept at it until
almost exhausted. Taking what he supposed to be a course
between the public road and the river, he at length came upon
the latter, but he did not know whether above or below his
starting point. Going down to the water, which was frozen over,
he followed along until he espied an airhole; into this he
threw a stick to see which way the water ran; then going down
the stream he finally came upon a house. By this time he was
excessively fatigued and very very hungry from his long fast.
He went up and knocked at the door, and a man appeared and
began talking with him. He had no means of ascertaining whether
this man was a Patriot or not, so he feigned himself an urgent
dispatch bearer of important official papers which must be
delivered in London with utmost haste. He said he had given out
in travelling and insisted upon the man's acceptance and
conveyance to London forthwith, as he was utterly unable to go
on himself. The man demurrred, so after an earnest discussion,
Pellum said, "Well, if I could rest a few minutes and get some
food to eat, I might possibly try to go on". He then heard the
man's wife getting up, and she vehemently protested that her
husband could not go, but said she would get Pellum something
to eat at once, which she did. While eating he became satisfied
they were Patriots, and revealed his true position.

The man then said they could not keep him there, but that they
would see that he was hidden and fed at a neighbour's over the
hill. Pellum went with him to the neighbour's and was concealed
there for a time. If there was any likelihood of capture one of
the children at the first house was to come over the hill and
notify him. He was alarmed one day by seeing one of the
children come running over the hill, but it proved to be only a
neighbourly call. After a few days had passed and he thought
search for him had ceased, he worked his way through the woods
at night up to his brother Edward's, and soon after went in the
same way to the home of his sister, Mary, wife of Angus Davis,
of Orwell,Ont., on Talbot Street. Several weeks were spent in
this hazardous trip.

Mary and Andrus Davis were reputed to be staunch Loyalists, and
there is no account of any attempt to search for him at their
place. There he was supplied with food for a short time, but
the danger of recapture was so great that he did not remain all
the time in the house but kept concealed sometimes in the
woods. Still fearing arrest and execution, as some of his
compatriots had thus suffered, his sister, Mary Davis, nephew,
James Teeple, and sister-in-law Jemima Teeple, conducted him
secretly in the dead of winter by sleigh from Orwell, to the
Niagara frontier, where his relative Rev. Samuel Rose, of
Lundy's Lane, though a political opponent of the Patriots,
espoused his cause and under the pretense of being the employer
of Pellum, sent him on an errand to friends across the Niagara,
and at once hired a man to row him across a point below the
Falls.

He, Pellum, grew very intense when relating this part of the
narrative and declared that had any one ordered the boatman
back to the Canadian shore he would have leaped overboard and
attempted to swim to the American side. But no difficulty
arose; he was safely landed in New York State and waving a
parting adieu to his relatives, who sat in their conveyance and
witnessed his crossing, he began his career in the United
States.

Through the Patriot War, thus came to so inglorious an end, it
is now generally admitted in Canada, that had it not been for
that uprising by which the attention of the British Government
was called to the untold grievances of the Canadians and a just
form of responsible Government quickly conceded, it would in
all probability have been many years before the people of
Canada would have obtained that full measure of Home Rule which
they henceforth enjoyed.

We next hear of Pellum's journey down the Ohio River with a
party intending to go to Texas, but becoming dissatisfied with
the rolstering of his companions, he left them and struck
across the country to a place called Pekin, on the Illinois
River. From there he eventually went to the city of Rockford,
Ill., where on the 28th of March 1841, he married Mary A.
Gleason, who is still living.

His father and mother were now so old they were desirous he
should come home to Canada, and care for them the rest of their
days, but although he had already paid them one secret visit he
would not do this until a special amnesty was sent him by the
Canadian government for his part in the Patriot War. This was
readily obtained by the then parliamentary member for Oxford,
and forwarded to him, and he journeyed to the old home in
Oxford county, accompanied by his wife, son Charles, and Luke
(son of Simon H. Teeple), who lived with them, in a two-horse
buggy, there being no railroads, and remained there till the
two old pioneers were laid away in the church yard. Later he
returned to Illinois, and settled at Marengo, where he died on
the 12th of December 1878, and where his son, Charles, above
referred to, still resides. Pellum Teeple had six sons, viz:
Charles Gleason, Addison, Vebelle, Levant, Jared, Lester and
Frank, and four daughters Elmina, Elvira, Ruth L., and Lydia
Mary.

Pellum married Mary Amelia Gleason [37653] [MRIN: 551605035] on 28 Mar 1841. (Mary Amelia Gleason [37653] was born on 20 Sep 1816 and died on 1 May 1901.)