Reverend Daniel Batwell’ s Property is Stolen

Robert Moore, a Carlisle weaver, was appointed to take care of Reverend Daniel Batwell’s land in Middleton Township, Cumberland County. On Friday, October 1, 1777, Moore spotted John Lemmon of West Pennsboro Township, “with a wagon loaded chiefly with Hickory wood.” He was accompanied by William Pollock of Carlisle, a cooper, and David Brown. They were leaving Reverend Batwell's property with the wood and making their way into Carlisle. Moore said that "Two half grown boys" were with them and “each had an ax resting on his shoulder.”¹ Coopers made the hoops of barrels out of Hickory wood, and it is possible that William Pollock consented to provide Lemmon with some barrels in return for the wood.

Robert Moore reported what he saw in a deposition given before Justice of the Peace, John Creigh. As a result, John Lemmon was summoned to appear before the Justices of the Court of General Quarter Sessions of the Peace at Carlisle.² Hugh McClintock, a Carlisle shoemaker, was also summoned to appear to answer the complaint of George Stevenson, as well, on behalf of Daniel Batwell “for cutting and carrying away the wood off and from the land now or late of Daniel Batwell.”³

Who was Reverend Daniel Batwell? And why weren’t the men who stole his wood prosecuted for theft? No further action was taken by the court because the incident of the stolen wood was “settled” by the parties concerned; likely because we were at war, and Reverend Batwell who was accused of being a British sympathizer was in jail in York.

Reverend Batwell was an English missionary who was sent to the Colony of Pennsylvania in 1774 by the Society for the Propagation of the Gospel, i.e., the Anglican church. He ministered to the congregations of the Town of York, York Sulphur Springs, and also Cumberland County. During a church service, Reverend Batwell said prayers for King George III, and this angered those supporting America’s fight for liberty. He was arrested and jailed in York. A Memorial [a statement of facts] from Rev. Batwell was read in Continental Congress sitting in York, Pennsylvania on October 2, 1777. He was accused “of being concerned in a conspiracy to destroy the continental magazines” in Pennsylvania.⁴

Having returned to England, Reverend Batwell presented a Memorial to the Lords Commissioner of his Majesty’s Treasury in London on April 4, 1780. He stated, “That for steadfastly adhering to his loyalty he sustained various insults and indignities, was thrown into a river [the Codorus Creek in York] by the barbarous populace, was seized in the dead of night by order of the usurping powers, imprisoned for the space of five months, and at length, in February 1778, sent by a resolve of the rebel Congress into the British lines at Philadelphia with the loss of his health and property.”⁵

He said that when he arrived in Philadelphia “he was appointed Chaplain of a Battalion of Provincials and remained in sick quarters there and at New York [until] the last fleet sailed for England,” and he returned home to recover his health. He stated that he has a wife and three children and is applying for relief to the Royal Bounty for Suffering Loyalists.⁶

Meanwhile, taxes on his land in Cumberland County went unpaid. In August 1783, the Commissioners advertised that owners of unseated land in the county who were in arrears for taxes, would have their land sold at a public vendue in Carlisle on November 25, 1783 to satisfy the unpaid taxes. Rev. Batwell, with 200 acres in Middletown [Middleton, Township] was listed among those who owed taxes.⁷

It was reported that after he returned to England “he received a preferment in the county of Kent where he ended his days.”⁸