Hannah Jarvis
| Hannah Jarvis | |
|---|---|
_with_her_daughters_Maria_Lavinia_and_Augusta_Honoria_Jarvis.png) Hannah Jarvis with her daughters Maria Lavinia and Augusta Honoria Jarvis | |
| Born |
1763-01-02 Marlsborough, Massachusetts |
| Died |
1845-09-20 (78 years old) Queenston, Upper Canada |
| Other names | Hannah Peters |
| Occupation | settler |
Hannah Jarvis was an United Empire Loyalist, whose husband, William Jarvis, was appointed to an important position in the first administration of the Province of Upper Canada.[1] However their family could not control their spending, and she spent the decades after his death in reduced circumstances.
Hannah and her husband owned six slaves.[2][3] When Lieutenant Governor John Graves Simcoe introduced a law prohibiting bringing slaves into Upper Canada, Hannah was strongly critical.[2] She incorrectly criticized Simcoe for freeing all slaves. Simcoe's law didn't free any slaves, it prohibited bringing new slaves into the province. Nut the master-slave relationship was preserved for all existing slaves.
William Jarvis's role in Provincial administration
[edit | edit source]When John Graves Simcoe, the new province's first Lieutenant Governor came to set up the province's administration he brought with him men he trusted to be his senior administrators. He had picked William Jarvis to be the Provincial Secretary and Registrar.[1] As registrar it would be his job to oversee the composition of each land deed for new settlers.[4] Tjese deeds were supposed to be handsome documents, written on parchment, not regular paper. Officials were expected to buy their own supplies, but they were entitled to charge citizens a fee for official documents, to pay for those supplies.
His role in issuing deeds, in a province with a booming population, could have been lucrative.[4] But modern commentators suggest, first, other administrators were jealous, and second, that he wasn't very competent. John White, the province's Attorney General, wrested half the fees he collected, based on the argument that deeds were legal instruments. Modern commentators describe Jarvis making costly mistakes, so that many of the deeds he issued weren't valid, and had to be redone. He was caught substituting paper for the more expensive parchment.
Publications
[edit | edit source]- Hannah Owen Peters Jarvis; Gloria Troyer (1994). Every Comfort in the Wilderness: A Personal Journal with Excerpts from the Housewifery Book, Diaries and Letters of Hannah Jarvis, Upper Canada, 1792-1845. Green Dragon Press. ISBN 9780969697794. OCLC 35971872.
References
[edit | edit source]- ↑ 1.0 1.1 Edith G. Firth (1988). "PETERS, HANNAH (Jarvis) – Dictionary of Canadian Biography". Dictionary of Canadian Biography. Retrieved 2025-12-09.
- ↑ 2.0 2.1
"Early Canada Historical Narratives -- AN ACT TO PREVENT THE FURTHER INTRODUCTION OF SLAVES". Early Canada Historical Narratives. Retrieved 2025-12-09.
"by a piece of chicanery has freed all the Negroes by which he has rendered himself unpopular along with White, the member for Kingston, who will never come in again (that is, be re-elected) as a representative." Despite her assertion that Simcoe had "freed all the Negroes," Hannah knew very well that not one slave had been freed by the legislation.
- ↑
Elizabeth Masson (2025-08-06). "Pride and Prejudices: A society matron's gossipy letters expose the class conflicts of early Upper Canada". Canada's History. Retrieved 2025-12-09.
Hannah Jarvis’s gossipy and often withering letters and diaries reveal the social dynamics and class conflicts in pre-Confederation Upper Canada, as she struggled to maintain her family’s position among the province’s upper crust.
- ↑ 4.0 4.1
Robert J. Burns (1983). "JARVIS, WILLIAM – Dictionary of Canadian Biography". Dictionary of Canadian Biography. Retrieved 2025-12-09.
His financial problems were not, however, entirely the fault of White or an uncaring Executive Council. At times, changes in land regulations invalidated his work and often he himself was inefficient and careless. In 1800 Lieutenant Governor Peter Hunter discovered that many of the deeds issued by Jarvis contained irregularities such as erasures and corrections, or were drawn up on paper rather than parchment. Hunter censured him and provided strict instructions for the preparation of documents – instructions which by Jarvis’s estimate rendered useless £475 worth of deeds.