MACNAB, Dr. James: 1730 - 1780
James Macnab was born in Norfolk, Virginia. His family had emigrated from Scotland to Virginia sometime after the Stuart cause they supported was finally lost at the Battle of Culloden in 1750. By the outset of the Revolutionary War, they owned considerable property near Norfolk in Elizabeth County, Virginia. Once again on the losing side, and like many other Loyalist families, the Macnabs’ properties were confiscated without compensation by the American government. At the outset of the war, Dr. James Macnab joined a Loyalist regiment. By 1777, he was with McAlpin’s Royal Americans serving as a military surgeon. He continued to serve with this unit until his death.
After their arrival in Canada, the family was awarded grants of land in compensation for the services of Dr. Macnab and the lands in Virginia that they had lost as a consequence of loyalty. Historian William Canniff writes of Dr. Macnab: “Many years after Surgeon James Macnab’s death, in consideration of his distinguished services in the American Revolutionary war, as the departmental records attest, his heirs received grants of land from the Crown.”(1)
James and his wife, Anne, had four sons: Colin, Alexander, Simon and James. These boys probably came with their parents to Quebec and settled, at least initially, in Canada.
Colin Macnab, born about 1761, joined a volunteer corps in Nova Scotia in 1780 and later settled as a Loyalist in the Niagara area. He petitioned for and received a land grant in reward for his own military service. He died there in 1810.
Alexander Macnab, born about 1768, settled originally in the Niagara area and later joined the British Army. He was aide-de-camp to General Picton at the final British battle against Napoleon, and was killed on June 8, 1815 at the Battle of Waterloo. He is memorialized on a marble tablet in the crypt of St. Paul’s Cathedral, London, UK.
Simon Fraser Macnab became a merchant in the Belleville area, and served as a captain in the Hastings Militia. His son, the Reverend Canon Alexander Macnab DD, is noted on this tile as the sponsor of this memorial dedicated to his Loyalist grandfather.
James Macnab received land grants in Augusta and Fredericksburgh. He became a merchant in the Belleville area and a member of the provincial legislature representing Hastings. He was influential in the early days of the establishment of Belleville.(2)
Dr. James Macnab died at the Loyalist settlement of Yamachiche, Quebec in 1780.(3)
His widow, Anne, married widower Conrad Sills (Tile # 2) on February 28, 1782 at Three Rivers, Quebec. They had one son together.
1. William Canniff, The Medical Profession in Canada, 1783-1850 (Toronto: Wm Briggs, 1894), p. 497.
2. Phyllis H. White, The Lost Loyalist: The family of Dr. James Macnab (United Empire Loyalist Assoc., 2008).
3. “Macnab, James,” Dictionary of Canadian Biography Online, Vol. V.