As that series of postings indicates, on 19 April 1786 at Halifax, Nova Scotia, David filed a land claim for his Loyalist military service, noting that he took up arms under General [William] Cunningham in 1775 [sic], joining Campbell in Georgia. This was Colonel Archibald Campbell, who sought to secure coastal Georgia for the British as the war began. He arrived off Savannah from Jamaica in December 1778, taking Savannah that month. He then moved to Augusta to establish a base for backcountry Loyalists, taking that locale for the British in January 1779. His troops were joined in February by troops led by Zachariah or Zacharias Gibbs, whose name appears in various records of David Dinsmore’s military service in these years.

Gibbs was a Virginian who settled on Fair Forest Creek in South Carolina a few years before the Revolution. When war broke out, he recruited troops and marched through Ninety Six District into Georgia. He was taken prisoner at Kettle Creek and marched to Ninety Six, where he was sentenced to death, though the sentence was commuted and he continued in prison for sixteen months. 

In 1780, Gibbs was commissioned a major for the Spartan or Upper Regiment of the royal militia for South Carolina, and mustered men for this unit, gathering them largely from Ninety Six District, which had many residents with decided Tory sympathies.  It seems very likely that those mustered by Gibbs at this time included David Dinsmore, since he is on a payroll for Lieutenant Colonel Zachariah Gibbs of the Spartanburg Militia, Ninety Six Brigade, from 13 June to 14 December 1780. It seems likely that David took part in Campbell’s military actions in Georgia and then served in Gibbs’s Spartanburg Militia. In June 1780, two hundred Loyalists from Ninety Six District mustered there, as General Clinton returned to South Carolina in the spring of 1780 and trapped rebel troops in Charleston in May.

Gibbs brought about 100 men from his Spartanburg unit (presumably with David included) to the battle of Kings Mountain on 7 October 1780. Many of these were killed or captured in that battle. Gibbs and his men were also involved at the siege of Ninety Six from 22 May to 18 June 1781, in which Gibbs was captured, and, again, it seems very likely that David Dinsmore was with Gibbs at Ninety Six, particularly because his pay abstract for service in Gibbs’s Spartanburg Militia states that he was paid for accompanying Lieutenant Colonel John Cruger as he assisted Cruger in evacuating Loyalists from Fort Ninety Six to Orangeburg following the fall of Ninety Six. David was apparently captured by the Revolutionary side at Ninety Six. His Loyalist land claim application in Canada says that he spent six months in prison.

John Harris Cruger was the British commander during the siege of Ninety Six, and when the British were defeated there, many of the Tories and their families then evacuated to Orangeburg and finally to Charleston with Colonel Francis Rawdon, who had brought British troops to Ninety Six in June 1781. The majority of these evacuees were from Ninety Six District. Many of these Loyalists then left South Carolina for various places, leaving from Charleston. David’s 1786 Loyalist land claim in Nova Scotia states, “At the Evacuation of C. Town he came to this Province, and is now settled in Rawdon.” Rawdon, in Hants County, Nova Scotia, drew refugees largely from Ninety Six district, South Carolina. David was indubitably among South Carolina Loyalists who sailed from Charleston to Halifax in the fall and winter of 1782, and at some point after his arrival, it’s clear he settled at Rawdon, since, when he filed his Loyalist land claim, he noted Rawdon as his residence.

In response to his claim, David received 100 acres at Rawdon from the Crown. On 24 August 1786, he also bought from a William Densmore who may well have been his kinsman 300 additional acres in Hants County out of a tract of 1,500 acres at Noel Shore granted to James Densmore of Newport, Nova Scotia. James was an Ulster immigrant who had come to Nova Scotia by 1768. 

Several months after he bought 300 acres from William Densmore, David Dinsmore sold his 100-acre Loyalist land grant at Rawdon on 9 January 1787 to Thomas Parker with Zachariah Gibbs and Richard Fenton witnessing the transaction. The deed leaves David’s place of residence blank (“of the Province of —“). Zachariah Gibbs proved the deed on 3 June 1788, and it was recorded on the same day. This is the last record I can find for David Dinsmore in Nova Scotia. I don’t know what became of him after he sold his Loyalist land grant.

And as I wrote in a previous posting discussing this, I had found no record to show what became of his 300 acres from William Densmore — until a descendant of the Densmore family of Nova Scotia, Pat Whidden, contacted me last June to tell me that she had found a document showing David mortgaging the land he bought from William Densmore, hence this addendum to my previous series of postings about David. Some historians have suggested that after David sold his Loyalist grant in January 1787, he went back to South Carolina and rejoined his wife Margaret and their children. I have found no evidence of this. By 1790, Margaret appears on the federal census in Spartanburg County as head of their household, and subsequent references to the land David had owned there speak of it as Margaret’s land. When Margaret went with her son John and daughter Mary Jane and Mary Jane’s husband Mark Lindsey — my ancestor — to Kentucky in 1800 and sold the Dinsmore land in Spartanburg County, Margaret and John sold the land with legal title to it.

Many of the South Carolinia Loyalists who were exiled to Nova Scotia did, indeed, return to South Carolina. By 1791, Rawdon tax records indicate that fewer than half of the families who had come there from Charleston were still there. In 1791, Zachariah Gibbs gave notice that his two farms at Rawdon were for sale, and he planned to leave that spring.

In the final posting of my previous series about David Dinsmore, I note that I made a trip to Halifax in May-June 2016 to see if I could find any further records about David explaining what became of him after he bought land from William Densmore in August 1786 and then sold his land grant in January 1787. On that trip, I met Pat Whidden, mentioned above. She graciously showed me the document for the original 1,500-acre land grant given to James Densmore at Noel Shore in Nova Scotia, out of which David purchased 300 acres from James’s son William. On that trip, I could still find no trace of David following his sale of his Loyalist land grant, and I wrote in the posting linked at the head of this paragraph,

Have I mentioned that part of the puzzle here is that his purchase of 300 acres from William Densmore the preceding year is recorded in the Hants County deed books with no follow-up deeds showing what became of this land — whether he resold it, or he died and it was bequeathed to someone else, etc.?

All of the above is by way of a lengthy prolegomenon to my sharing the mortgage of David Dinsmore that Pat Whidden located last summer, and another document she found at the same time that explains what became of the 300 acres David bought from William Densmore. With the introduction above, the documents I’m now going to share perhaps would not make a great deal of sense to readers.

On 2 September 1786, David Dinsmore mortgaged to Peter Hall the land he bought from William Densmore on 24 August 1786.^[1] (The first page of this mortgage is at the head of this posting.) The reason I had not found this document in searching Hants County deed indices is that David’s surname is transcribed in the mortgate as Innsmore; it’s indexed under that surname. The mortgage states that David was of Rawdon in Hants County, Nova Scotia, and Peter Hall of Windsor. It describes the land as “wild and uncultivated,” and says that it was at a “place called Noel” on the south side of Coppergate Bay bounded east by lands granted to Mungo Campbell, south by lands reserved to Small, and west by lands of James Dinsmore with the bay on the north (the Dinsmore spelling is used for James’s surname here). David was paid ₤20 by Hall and was to pay off the ₤20 with interest by 2 September 1789 or forfeit the land to Hall. David signed the mortgage by mark (though other documents show him signing his name) with witnesses Joseph Aplen and Job B. Clarke.

David Dinsmore evidently did not pay off his debt to Peter Hall, since a subsequent record Pat Whidden has located indicates that on 13 February 1798, Kenneth McKenzie, a yeoman of Douglas township in Hants County, deeded this tract of land for love and affection to his father Donald McKenzie of the same place, with the deed stating that the land had originally belonged to James Densmore Sr., who deeded it to his son William Densmore, who deeded it to David Densmore [sic], who conveyed the land to Peter Hall of Windsor, from whom Kenneth McKenzie acquired the land.^[2]

These documents don’t explain, of course, what became of David Dinsmore after he sold his Loyalist land grant on 9 January 1787 to Thomas Parker with Zachariah Gibbs as one of the witnesses. This remains the last document I’ve found for David Dinsmore in Nova Scotia, and the last document I’ve found for him, period. I have found no documents explaining what became of him after that land sale.  As I state above, despite what some historians claim — though with no documentary evidence I can see — I’ve found no evidence at all that David returned to his wife Margaret and their children in South Carolina.

At some point after 9 January 1787, he left Nova Scotia — and the lack of a place of residence for him in the deed to Parker may mean he had left prior to that date. Note, however, that the deed doesn’t show David acting with a power of attorney for the land sale, and does show him signing, though atypically by mark. As Pat Whidden notes — and I think she’s right — the fact that David mortgaged his land and didn’t pay the debt back may well mean he was amassing money to go elsewhere, and note that, soon after, he sold his Rawdon land and obtained more money. One can speculate about what became of him: he died suddenly in Nova Scotia; he tried to return to South Carolina and died en route; he moved elsewhere in Nova Scotia or back in the United States, and perhaps had a new identity; he returned to Ulster. Was David signing by mark in his final documents in Nova Scotia because he had had some kind of injury or was seriously ill?

Take your pick. My own pet theory: as I note above, in 1791, Zachariah Gibbs gave notice that his two farms at Rawdon were for sale, and he planned to leave that spring. According to Suzanne Wheeler Watt, Gibbs sold his 1,000 acres at Rawdon in June 1791, and in October 1792, another upcountry South Carolina Loyalist, William Meek sold half of his 1,000 acres at Rawdon.^[3] Meek was a Northern Irish immigrant to South Carolina who arrived there in 1768, the year after David came to South Carolina, settled in Ninety Six District, joined Cunningham in 1775, and was at the battle of Ninety Six. He then hid until Campbell came to Georgia and joined Campbell, where he was taken prisoner.^[4] Meek and his wife Mary Coleman became refugees in Charleston and then in Canada, with Mary’s siblings remaining in South Carolina.

Late in 1792, Gibbs left Rawdon. At some unspecified date not long after this, Meek wrote a letter (the letter is not dated) from Shelburne, Nova Scotia, to his brother John, also an Ulster Scots Loyalist who had fled South Carolina for Canada, to tell him that he, Zacharias Gibbs, and John Lewis were setting sail with another unnamed traveling companion. Gibbs’s second wife Jane, widow of Major William Downes, a merchant who came from Ulster to South Carolina, was living in County Down, Ireland, at this time. It is presumed the ship, which was not named in Meek’s letter to his brother, as neither the date of the letter nor of the sailing is named, was sailing for Ireland, given both Gibbs’ and Meek’s connection to Ireland. Gibbs and Meek were not heard from again after this letter was sent, and it’s assumed their ship sank.^[5]  

It’s tempting to wonder if David Dinsmore was the unnamed other member of this party presumably sailing to Ireland from Nova Scotia around 1792 or 1793. If the lack of a residence for David in the deed in which he sold  his Rawdon land to Thomas Parker indicates, however, that he had left Nova Scotia by January 1787, and given that his wife Margaret was listed as head of the Dinsmore household in Spartanburg County, South Carolina, in 1790, it’s possible he had left Nova Scotia by January 1787 and died by 1790 — or was presumed to be dead by 1790.

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^[1] Hants County, Nova Scotia, Deed Bk. 4, pp. 508-510. The deed gives David’s surname as “Innsmore.”

^[2] Ibid., Deed Bk. 7, pp. 225-6.

^[3] Suzanne Wheeler Watt, “Colonel Zacharias Gibbs, Loyalist,” at Dr. Frank O. Clark’s South Carolina Loyalist site online.

^[4] See AO 12/49/259, cited in Donald E. Graves, Guide to Canadian Sources Related to Southern Revolutionary War Records, a research project for Southern Revolutionary War National Parks online at website of National Parks Service History.

^[5] Watt, “Colonel Zacharias Gibbs, Loyalist,” who does not cite information about her source(s) regarding this letter.