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Surnames: CLAUS, CLAUSE, CLAWSE
Classification: Query
Message Board URL:
http://boards.ancestry.com/mbexec/msg/rw/IGJ.2ACIB/71
Message Board Post:
A friendly Hello to all you CLAUS family researchers!
There seems to be some confusion about the roots of
the CLAUS/CLAUSE families who settled in the Upper
Canada areas after the American Revolution. As I can see
from postings on this Rootsweb Board not even 6 weeks
back, a good deal of effort has been devoted to dig to the
bottom of this mystery. Perhaps I can help a bit in clearing
up some brickwalls.
From my perspective there are more than one CLAUS who
can claim to be an original settler. There is the one,
Daniel CLAUS who was in America long before the American revolution and joined the Loyalists and the British Indian Department, and was associated with the famous Mohawk chief Joseph Brant. I have not studied his family tree nor
his actions, but I do know that he went to England to present his case and died there during this undertaking. His family probably stayed in Upper Canada, but I have no idea where settled.
What I do know is that there was another CLAUS, first
name Kaspar (or Caspar - same thing), who was a Jaeger
with the Hessen-Hanau Jaeger Corps, served in the 4.Comp.
from 1777 to July 1783 in Quebec, and was discharged in
Quebec before his Corps went back home.
He was born appr. 1757/58 in Gelnhausen in Hessen, near
the City of Hanau, where the Prince of Hanau had assembled
a whole Regiment of Grenadiers to help his uncle, King
George III of England, to win the war against the American
rebels and to defend Canada. The Jaegers were send over
after the rebels defeated the British at Saratoga in Oct.1777.
and those Jaegers defended Canada from there on.
However, this Jaeger Caper CLAUS, after his discharge
came with a group of other German soldiers to Township
#5 Marysburgh on Lake Ontario, Bay of Quinte , under the
leadership of the Brunswick Lieutenant Baron von
Reitzenstein and arrived there on 4. October 1784 to settle
under the most difficult circumstances.
In Reverend Langhorn's church records you can find an
entry: "John Gasper Claus, 5th Ts., bachelor, married
Deborah BROCK, of the 4th Ts., spinster, 17 May 1790.
Wedding took place at the St. Paul's Church, Fredericksburg,
witnesses were John Allen, Barnard Cole, and Catherine
Cole.
Later you find: Jas. Gasper CLAUS and wife Deborah
baptised daughter Deborah Susan Elizabeth, 15 June 1791,
sponsors were Gasper Claus and Henry RIMMERMANN
(Heinrich Roemermann, a former Brunswick soldier and
also belonging to the same group of settlers).
All this and more you can find in my book "The Hessians
of Upper Canada" published 1997, on deposit at the
Rose House Museum, Waupoos, and many other Genealogical or Historical Societies.
And last not least, I would like to mention that on
Saturday, 21. August 2004, at the Rose House Museum
a "Hessian Day" will be celebrated, with big tent, music, food,
and entertainment, and many descendants will come to
meet old and new cousins of these hardy settlers.
I will be there as well.
John Helmut Merz, hessian(a)sympatico.ca
researching Hessian soldiers of the American Revolution.