Good day to you! My name is Mary Coon Rushton, (see Rushton Pedigree Chart, see Rushton Family - Mary Coon and John Rushton Descendant Chart) and here I am, an old widow more than 90 years on this earth.1 I tell my story humbly, as best I recollect, if any care to hear what went on last century, when one country turned itself into another.
I was born in 1727,2 probably in Rye, New York Province, and brought up with my brothers Jeremiah and Jacob, and some sisters too.3 Rye 'twas a small but up-and-coming town back then, 2400 people just before the War, on the Boston Post Road, real close to New York City. Any hard-working person could make a good living. 'Twas a good place for tradespeople to make money, with so many travellers going back and forth to the city from Boston. If the travelling slowed down, a body could always go into the city to buy and sell.4
My father, Hanness Coon, oft said he came to these shores a starving peasant, soon orphaned, and the great Caleb Heathcote, the Mayor of New York City himself! took him in and apprenticed him. Mr. Heathcote 'twas a good man. He gave my father a bed, enough food for a growing fifteen-year-old lad, kept him in clothes, gave him an education, and taught him a trade. Indeed, Mr. Heathcote had a large piece of land in Westchester, near to Rye, and he named it Scarsdale after his home in England.5 My father was real proud to be his apprentice.6
My brother Jeremiah bought a lot of land on the White Plains.7 We didn't have much land growing up, but we had enough. I married John Rushton when I were twenty-three and he only eighteen.8 Age doesn't count for much, I don't think. I could tell he were a good man, even that young. John 'twas born in Ireland9 and came to Westchester County with his family, as a child. He had a goodly number of brothers and sisters.10 John stood only five feet and three inches, with light eyes and brown hair.11
We had our children right away, all healthy, three boys and four girls. Only in the end did it get hard; I were worn out by then, I reckon. I named them all for our sisters and brothers; they were real important to me back then. I had my last little baby, Samuel, when I was 44.12
John always said 'twas important to be part of something, to be neighborly, to be a part of your town. When he were 28, he joined the militia in Captain Buckhout's Company. He were just a labourer then,13 but he had big dreams, he did. I didn't see the need for it, with five children under the age of ten, but he felt 'twas proper. If the French or Indians came to attack New York City, he said, we needed to be ready to defend our homes. In the end he didn't have to fight, so that was all right. They only trained a few days, all near to home.14
By and by, we had a good business fashioning saddles, harnesses, bridles and such,15 as well as working a farm. John went to the city so much, buying and selling, he served on a jury there.16 He even voted in the city,17 since he could vote there without owning land or being a resident even. We didn't own land.
I never wanted to leave Rye, but John said the world 'twas getting bigger. He reckoned all Westchester, and the city even, was our home, not just Rye. The whole world 'twere coming to New York, it seemed. Dutch people, Germans, French, Irish, English, Welsh, Scotsmen, Africans, and the Indians too. Everyone got along with each other, real friendly. Nobody cared where your parents were born or how you prayed. As long as everybody had fair dealings and treated people with respect, we could all prosper. And we did.19 Everybody respected John. He 'twere always being asked to witness a will or a land indenture.20
Until Parliament set everybody to anger.
In 1769, John voted for DeLancey, Walton, and Jaunsey,21 men for the common people. They voted for days in the taverns of the city, and DeLancey gave them food and drink to do it too. They put up a Marine Society for the widows and orphans of sailors, and set a viewing gallery in the assembly for the people to come watch.22 I never bothered. I had enough of all that goings-on at home. We had three newspapers a week!23 There weren't a place a body could go to escape men speaking their minds.
The Sons of Liberty oft met at one of the taverns in Rye.24 All the men went most times. 'Twas important for business, John said, to know what were afoot. The men complained about taxes on sugar, tea, and every kind of paper. We have our own General Assembly to tax us, and we elect them. Well, I say we, but 'twas just white men what owned property could vote in Rye. Even still, we had more voters in New York than any other colony.25
'Twas winter when my father died. I thank God he didn't live to see our sad end. My mother and sisters and I nursed him as he weakened. In his will, I were touched he left my daughter Elizabeth his small spinning wheel and his little Bible, just the New Testament. She were always his favorite.
He left everything to my mother, of course, with just his prized possessions to those he loved best. My brother Jeremiah got his Bible. My sister's husband James got his great chair and brown coat. John and my sister Sarah witnessed the will, along with our son Peter, a man at 24. And my brothers Jeremiah and Jacob 'twere the executors, of course.26
We'd all been too busy with my father and mother to notice, but late that same year, December 1773, the Sons of Liberty brought news that some wild men in Boston threw all the tea off the ships in the harbour. Such waste! They ought to be arrested. And Boston supported those vandals! We just knew King George would do something to punish them. When he closed the whole port of Boston, tho, everyone thought that were too much. The people of Boston would starve without trade! The Sons of Liberty brought word to ask all the colonies to boycott British goods, same as them in Massachusetts.27 I supposed we would too. John made his saddles from hog hide and steer hide he got right here. He had bought British saddle frames in the city, but we started to get them local instead.28
The news changed every day that year, seemed like. I reckon every county in the province of New York wanted to send delegates to some kind of body, they called it a congress, to come from all the colonies. Westchester wanted to, so Rye held a meeting on August 10 1774. John, Jeremiah, and Jacob were all too busy for that foolishness, but we heard plenty about it later. 'Twere full of complaints, all in the most exaggerated words. They made a fuss over the closing of Boston Harbour as a “most cruel, unjust, and unwarrantable act.” They fussed about the taxes, saying that "no man shall be taxed without his own consent." They got all het up over Boston, that the punishments were “most unparalleled, rigorous, and unjust pieces of Cruelty and Despotism.” They did at least confess loyalty to “the illustrious House of Hanover,” King George and his family.
I fretted over the last part, where they wanted a Congress made up, and said they planned to “abide by such Measures as they, in their Wisdom, shall think most conducive upon such an important Occasion.”29 Suppose they voted to do some fool thing?
Worst of all, these delegates tweren't even our true delegates in our true General Assembly. These men may have said they were elected, but that were outside the law, in no regular election. Irregular, 'twas what they were.30
The Square House, tavern in Rye where the August 10 1774 meeting was probably held. Pictured here much later, https://www.ryehistory.org/square-house-info
Two months later, eighty men saw reason and wrote in the paper they were sorry for what they did. They said they tweren't a party to any resolutions, and went on that "we also testify our dislike to many hot and furious Proceedings… which we think are more likely to ruin this once happy Country than remove Grievances, if any there are." Likely to ruin our happiness! That's sure! "We also declare our great Desire and full Resolution to live and die peaceable Subjects to our Gracious Sovereign, King George the Third, and his laws.” What folly these men twere talked into!
A fortnight later, fifteen of them took it back! Changed their minds again.31 I have never seen the like!
In October, this so-called Continental Congress wrote a letter to the King. New York twas the only province to vote against it. So the next January, our own General Assembly, the one we elected proper-like, voted not to follow the Continental Congress. We wrote our own letter to the King, with a whole list of things he needed to fix. A bunch of men didn't like that either; they said we should have our own New York convention.
But in April, we found out King George and Parliament had declared us all in rebellion! Even New York! Our proper General Assembly met over that, and that were the last time they ever met.32
On April 11, 1775, our family all signed our allegiance to the Crown.33 Governor Tryon wanted to show King George he had nothing to worry about in New York.34 We're nothing like that rabble in Massachusetts. I say we, but it's the men of course, my brothers Jeremiah and Jacob Coon, and our sons, Peter and John Junr, who 'twere proud to sign their names along with their father. They all went to Jeremiah's house, and proceeded to the meeting on the White Plains. Three hundred men 'twere there to sign. It was held there on account of the rebels meeting at the same place on the same day... 'twere only two hundred of them.
The next week, that New York convention they called for did meet, in the city. They voted to follow the Continental Congress.35 John said that meant we were in rebellion.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shot_heard_round_the_world
Just a fortnight later, word came that blood was shed!36 The British soldiers holding Boston shot a passel of farmers, and all the men 'twere so het up over that, they attacked the redcoats! The strangest thing was, the farmers won! They made an army like, and took over the city.
All the King's supporters in Boston had to flee, and where did they come? Here.37 First 'twas a couple, on horseback, and then some walking, and then whole families in wagons, and finally just poor people pulling handcarts. They carried all they had...chairs, tables, bedding, even candlesticks. And then the pigs, and chickens and sheep. The little children, and the old people...it looked so sad, to see long lines of sorrowful people coming up the road. Some stopped here, but most went on to the city. Little did I know then, I'd be one of them.
Everyone seemed certain then 'twould be war. The King could not just let a whole city fall. They were right.
The Continental Congress started an army, and they got a man from Virginia, George Washington, to be its general. He started heading for Boston, and of course he had to pass thru Rye. Governor Tryon had been visiting in England, but he 'twas coming back. The two men 'twere in the city on the same day! And can you believe it, both of them had a revelry to welcome them!38
Pretty soon we were selling saddles, harnesses, and bridles as fast as we could make them. When we couldn't keep up, we turned to fixing what customers had. Our son Jeremiah 'twas apprenticed to a cordwainer,39 but his master let him come back to us to work. We had the oldest boys, and my nephews came to help too. John 'twas in the city more than he was home.
I was affrighted without him, because the roads were full of marauders, and we never knew what kind would walk into the shop. I was affrighted for him too, on account of no telling who he might meet on the road, nor whether he should say he 'twas Tory or Whig. Some of our friends and neighbors had declared a side, and published their names in the paper. We had declared too, I guess, when we signed the Oath of Allegiance. Governor Tryon set the militia to attack all the rebels as traitors, but he couldn't keep up. When they threatened his life, he thought 'twas best to take to a warship, a 64-gun manowar, in New York Harbour, so he ran the province from the Asia after that.40
Most of us in Rye were cross with those busybodies calling themselves patriots, turning our lives topsy-turvy. Almost every night the rowdy boys in Rye threw eggs and rotten vegetables, even rocks, at some of the patriots' houses in town, breaking windows. They set into their yards and let their livestock out, took some chickens for dinner. Sometimes they even broke into their houses and stole whatever they could find. Every night, eight or ten raids a night.41
On the roads, Loyalists would harass the Patriots, scare the horses into bolting, call them names. Some of us ladies didn't want to go out, even with a man to protect us; we started shopping in groups only. In Mamaroneck Harbour, just four miles away, they sent ships with supplies to the troops in Boston; sundry Rye people loaded on what we could;42 John added some bridles and harnesses.
Godfrey Haines, a Rye man, was always on the corners and taverns talking against the rebellion. They arrested him, but he escaped to the Governor's ship. Turned out, he plotted with James Lownsbury to kidnap rebel John Thomas! James Horton Junr and sundry Purdy men were arrested for plotting to capture General Washington! Divers Loyalists went down to King's Bridge to spike the cannons there; they were arrested too.43 All Rye men! 'Twas like Rye was the teapot that the tempest was in.
First Public Reading in New York of the Declaration of Independence in White Plains on July 11, 1776 - Rye Free Reading Room, Prelude to the Revolution in a NY Town
The same John Thomas, him they tried to kidnap, read what they called the Declaration of Independence on July 11, 1776,44 from the steps of Grace Church. (fool patriots burnt the church down four months later!) The New York delegation hadn't voted on it; they hadn't the authority. Real quick, they had to send somebody to ask for authority, and hold a separate meeting to vote on it. They voted Aye.45
And here we were...declared a separate country.
In August and September, General Howe took over New York City. We thought 'twould be safe again. But 'twas no better. We thought of moving into the city, since John was there so much. But the rents 'twere far too dear. Every Loyalist in the colonies, it seemed, 'twere moving there, leaving their homes, 'twasnt safe where their families had lived, some for generations. Then a great fire laid waste to a quarter of the city...poor souls had to live in Canvas Town, in tents just built on the ashes.46 We decided 'twould be best to stay in Rye, whatever the danger of going back and forth.
British Occupation of New York City, Bowery Boys Podcast, https://www.boweryboyshistory.com/2018/06/new-york-city-during-the-revolutionary-war-beseiged-and-occupied-by-the-british-1776-1783.html
One day John was attacked. In broad daylight, three riders approached and demanded his goods. Didn't even claim a side; likely on no side, just the side of mischief. They threw him off the wagon. Luckily he 'tweren't hurt bad. The saddles and such 'twere too much to carry, so they left them, but took all his coin. I told him at almost fifty, he were too old to be traipsing that far every day. He didn't much argue, and when the boys told him the girls and I needed him home to protect us in the shop, 'twould be them to take the wagon into the city every day, it just happened.47
Nary a battle were fought in Rye, but plenty came close. 'Twas the Battle of Throgs Neck, the Battle of Pell's Point , the Skirmish of Heathcote Hill, and the big one, the Battle of White Plains. All that first year, 1776.48
Mary and John’s granddaughter, Elizabeth Rushton Worden, daughter of Jeremiah Rushton, about 1860
All my children grew up in wartime. Peter were 26 when it started...he didn't marry till late when we were all settled.49 He kept our shop going and the wagon moving, and 'twas always ready with the gun just in case.
John Junr were 24 at the start...he moved to Hempstead where 'twas safer, more Tories, less battles. He got married there to Mary Colefield, on March 10 1781.50 They went with us at the end. He did most of our trade in the city for us.
Our daughter Mary married Abraham Barker after we left...we knew him from Westchester.51
Jeremiah, our third boy, were 17 when it started. He joined the war when he turned 23. He fought with James DeLancey's Westchester Refugees.52 I worried myself sick. But he can tell you about that himself.53 He married Sarah Hall the same year. Their baby, Abraham, was born the year before we left.54
Our daughter Easter were 12 when it started. She married Jonathan Worden, who served with Jeremiah, once we got to our new home.55
And our baby Samuel twere only 5, so he knew nothing else, poor little mite.
I cannot tell you about our other girls, Elizabeth57 and Sarah,58 because they grew up and married during wartime when no records were kept. The stone churches were used as prisons, so not a body got married or baptized in them, and no preacher to write it down. People got married at home. Once we got our land grant, weren't no keeping count then neither. People too busy building houses and birthing babies to write it down.
In the end, we lost the war. The Patriots took everything. We didn't have land, but everybody who did, lost it. They said no Tory could sue a Patriot for damage or stealing, but the Patriots could sue the Tories for doing it to them!59 Everybody in Rye knew our son were in the Cowboys.60 We reckoned they would take it out on us. The only place safe, if you could call it that, was inside the city.
Jeremiah 'twas promised a land grant for his service, in the King's colony of Nova Scotia. The general the King sent, Sir Guy Carleton, 'twas a great man. He promised a land grant to everybody who had sworn the oath of allegiance, or done anything for the cause, really. Everybody from every colony just fled to the city...we all counted the days till we could get out.
Sir Guy Carleton, https://blackloyalist.com/cdc/people/influential/carleton.htm
We were luckier than some. All the ones from Westchester banded together. We were all Westchester Refugees, really, all of us turned away and couldn't go home. We left all together on a ship from New York Harbour to Halifax, Nova Scotia. 'Twas terrible cold, and nothing there...just a garrison town, and thousands of refugees pouring in! We had brought everything we could carry. They gave us food, if you could call it that.
The men worked on our claim so we could get out of Halifax. We finally got our land, one big grant in the Cobequid Mountains for us all to split up. Every family got 500 acres. Well, John and I did, and Peter, and Jeremiah, and my nephew William Coon. John Junr only got 200 acres and he had to go to Ramsheg.61 I don't know why.
All us Westchester Refugees sailed on the same ship to Fort Cumberland. They didn't know what to do with us there either, but at least 'tis a real stone fort. We lived there till we could get to our new land.
Mary and John’s 4th great-grandchildren, Joseph Junior, Anne, Frank, and Jean Robertson,“on the cannon to the right of entrance to Fort Cumberland N. B. July 12th 1929”
Our grants are next each other, on the road from Cumberland to London-Derry.62 Road! Hah! 'Twas a trail more like, just wide enough for a horse or a body to fit through the trees. A true wilderness. But 'twas a road all right after the wagons went through, back and forth with the belongings of 400 families. Our lot 'twas all trees, but 'tis a nice stream here. We farm it. 'Tisn't real fertile, like the land in Westchester, and no city to sell in, but 'tis all right. We've got our friends and neighbors after all, and our children.
We gave it the name Westchester.
Rushton Land Grant Map
Part of Mary and John’s land is now the Portapique River Wilderness Area -https://trailpeak.com/trails/6583
Author’s Note: This is a work of fiction. Mary, John, and Hanness’s thoughts and feelings come from my imagination. John was a documented saddler, but what his business was like is my imagination. I don’t know whether they moved into New York City or stayed in Rye for the duration of the war, or went somewhere else. I inferred what their lives in Rye, New York City, and Nova Scotia were like based on factual information from the listed sources. Some of the Nova Scotia sources are not listed.
Mary died 18 January 1822, making her 94 years old. Cumberland County Genealogies, John Rushton and Mary Coon, Westchester Township Book, Public Archives of Nova Scotia
Cumberland County Genealogies
Will of Hanness Coon, probated 28 April 1773, Record of Wills, 1665-1916; Index to Wills, 1662-1923 (New York County); Author: New York. Surrogate’s Court (New York County); Probate Place: New York, New York, Ancestry.com
Pamela McGuire, Revolutionary Rye 250, The Stirrings of Resistance, Resistance Comes to Rye, presentation on 3 February 2026
Caleb Heathcote, Wikipedia
There is no evidence that confirms or refutes that Mary’s father Hanness Coon is the same person as the Palatine orphan Hans ffellacoons who was apprenticed to Caleb Heathcote. The similarity of the names and the proximity of Scarsdale, where Caleb Heathcote lived; Rye, where Hanness Coon died and his grandson John Rushton Junior lived; and White Plains, where his son Jeremiah Coon owned land, suggest this possibility.
https://members.tripod.com/~David_Cooke/Roots/1763.htm - Jeremiah Coon, weaver, freeholder in the White Plains, 1763
Cumberland County Genealogies
A Muster Roll of the Men Raised and Passed Muster in the County of West Chester, for Captain William Gilchrist, his Company, April 30, 1759, p. 57, Westchester County, New York and the French & Indian Wars : 1755-1762, Ancestry.com
Will of Peter Rushton, probated 14 August 1767, New York, U.S., Wills and Probate Records, 1659-1999, New York County, District and Probate Courts, Ancestry.com
Muster Roll
Cumberland County Genealogies
Muster Roll
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Provincial_troops_in_the_French_and_Indian_Wars
Will of Hanness Coon.
https://www.grunge.com/493580/what-life-was-like-as-a-saddler-in-the-colonial-era/
https://www.history.com/articles/13-colonies-jobs
John Rushton, saddler, freeman, as juror, New York City. Court Minutes 1750–1751, 1750–1752, p. 372, Andrew Maverick vs. Thomas Pell, Family Search
Minty, Christopher, Loyalist Beginnings in New York, presentation at Putnam History Museum, 29 January 2026
McGuire, The Stirrings of Resistance
John Rushton, witness, mortgage of Jeremiah Coon, 1756, Westchester. Mortgages 1755–1774, Family Search
John Rushton, witness, deed of Jonathan Purdy, 7 June 1759, Westchester Deeds 1715-1786, Family Search
Poll list
Minty, Loyalist Beginnings in New York
Minty
McGuire
Minty
Will of Hanness Coon
McGuire
https://www.grunge.com/493580/what-life-was-like-as-a-saddler-in-the-colonial-era/
McGuire
Dawson, Henry B., Westchester County, New York, during the American Revolution, 1886
McGuire
Minty
Dawson, p. 73
Mary's brothers, Jeremiah and Jacob Coon, and her husband John Rushton, didn't sign the first statement, but they did sign one in Spring 1775, along with another John Rushton and a Peter Rushton, probably their two oldest sons. All three spelled their name Rustin. Peter actually has his name transcribed as Rusting, probably because the printer saw a handwriting flourish near his name and mistook it for a g.
McGuire
Minty
Minty
McGuire
Minty
Burns, Brendan S. The Loyal and Doubtful, Index to the Acts of British Loyalism in the Greater New York and Long Island Area, Vol. 4. 2023. Rushton, Jeremiah. Oath of Fidelity to King George 1777
Minty
Minty, eight or ten raids a night. The specifics of what was done during the raids is my creation.
Minty
Minty
McGuire
Minty
https://www.newyorkalmanack.com/2023/08/british-occupation-new-york-city/
This story is completely made up by me.
Minty
Peter Richton in Poll Tax Records, 1791 - 1795, Census Returns, Assessments & Poll Tax Records, 1767 - 1838, Nova Scotia Archives
John Rushton, Mary Scolefield, Marriage, 1781, Hempstead, Queens, New York, Marriage ID2220298098, On microfilm at Family History Library, Salt Lake City, Utah, Source The New York Genealogical and Biographical Record (quarterly), 1884, selected extracts, Publisher New York Genealogical and Biographical Society, New York, NY Page 79
Records of St. George’s Church, Hempstead
Cumberland County Genealogies
Marriage records differ as to whether Mary was from Rye or Hempstead. Marriage records have Scolefield, Cumberland County genealogies have Colefield
Cumberland County Genealogies
Jeremiah Rushton, Memorial, Coldham, Peter Wilson, American (Loyalist) Migrations 1765-1799, p. 330
See my post on Jeremiah Rushton, Revolutionary Cowboy in New York, Jeremiah Stole for King and Country, Parts 1 and 2
Cumberland County Genealogies
Cumberland County Genealogies
Cumberland County Genealogies
Elizabeth Rushton as granddaughter in will of Hanness Coon
John Rushton didn’t leave anything to Elizabeth in his will in 1799, so she must have died before then.
Will of John Rushton, proved 10 July 1800, Probate Records Old Wills: Cumberland. Probate Indexes 1789–1945, Familysearch
Minty
See my post on Jeremiah Rushton at grandmasgrannysfamilyalbum/revolutionary-war-cowboy
Loyalists and Land Settlement in Nova Scotia, Ancestry.com, /search/collections/48452/records/353022?tid=26629049&pid=1884306141&ssrc=pt
John Richton in Poll Tax Records, 1791 - 1795, Census Returns, Assessments & Poll Tax Records, 1767 - 1838, Nova Scotia Archives
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