*** Welcome to piglix ***

Christopher Billopp


Christopher Billopp (c.1738 – March 29, 1827) was a British loyalist during the American Revolution who commanded a Tory detachment during the war, earning him the sobriquet, "Tory Colonel". After the American Revolution he emigrated to New Brunswick, Canada along with other United Empire Loyalists and became a politician. He represented Saint John in the 1st New Brunswick Legislative Assembly.

He was born on Staten Island in New York, the eldest of eight children born to Thomas and Sarah Farmar Billopp. His father Thomas was the son of Anne Billopp who married Colonel Thomas Farmar in 1705. Anne Billopp and her sister Mary were the daughters of British sea captain Christopher Billopp who was awarded 932 acres (3.77 km2) of land on the southern tip of Staten Island, where he built a stone manor house he called "Bentley Manor". Billopp served as a colonel in the loyalist forces during the American Revolution. Col. Billopp’s brother, Thomas Farmar (he reassumed the family name Farmar) fought as a private against the British Crown.

Billopp was captured twice by American patriots, one occasion occurred on June 23, 1779, when they rowed across the Arthur Kill from Perth Amboy, New Jersey. He was held as a P.O.W. in the Burlington County, New Jersey jail, where he was chained down to the floor and fed a diet of bread and water by order of Elias Boudinot, appointed by Congress as Commissary General of Prisoners. He was informed that his harsh treatment was in retaliation for the suffering of John Leshler and Captain Nathaniel Fitz Randolph of Woodbridge, New Jersey, being held by the British. Fitz Randolph would later be killed in the Battle of Springfield.


...
Wikipedia

...