Roger Hale Sheaffe

General Sir Roger Hale Sheaffe, 1st Baronet (15 July 1763 – 17 July 1851) was a Loyalist General in the British Army during the War of 1812. He was created a baronet in 1813 and afterwards served as Commander and acting Lieutenant Governor of Upper Canada. There is conflicting information to statements regarding his military accomplishments (1812) in the "Letters of Veritas" in and around page 50. Early life Roger Hale Sheaffe was born in Boston, Massachusetts, the third son and eighth child of Susannah Child (1730–1811), daughter of Susannah Hatch and Thomas Child and William Sheaffe (1705–1771), a graduate of Harvard University who became Deputy Collector of Customs at Boston. Her father was an Englishman of the same family as Richard Child, 1st Earl Tylney. He owned considerable property in his native Lincolnshire but emigrated to Boston where he co-founded Trinity Church, in 1733. One of Sheafe's sisters, Margaret, married Robert Livingston, of Clermont Manor, one of the Founding Fathers of the United States. Another sister, Susanna, married Captain Ponsonby Molesworth, grandson of Robert Molesworth, 1st Viscount Molesworth. A third sister married Benjamin Clarke Cutler, brother of Mrs Samuel Ward. Sheaffe was educated at the Boston Latin School with his cousin Sir Isaac Coffin. His father died penniless in 1771 and his mother opened a boarding house to support her 10 children. One of the residents there was Lord Percy, later the 2nd Duke of Northumberland, the leader of the British forces in Boston during the American War of Independence. Lord Percy greatly aided the family during the War and was so struck by the qualities and the leadership potential of Sheaffe that he sent him to a military academy in London. Lord Percy became Sheaffe's lifelong friend and benefactor, purchasing his first commission as Ensign in 1778 in the 5th Regiment of Foot. He later purchased a lieutenancy.