VAN ALSTINE, Major Peter: 1747 - 1811
Tile ordered and paid for by F.A. Corkindale, December, 1889
Two Van Alstein (Van Alstine) brothers who emigrated from the Netherlands around 1640 were the original members of the family to settle in North America. More than a century later, in 1747, Peter Van Alstine, memorialized on this tile, was born in Kinderhook, New York, into the fourth generation of this pioneer family. Peter inherited land from his family, and acquired more property when he married Alida Van Alen in September 1769. They built a fine home and began to raise a family in Kinderhook. An important man in his community, he owned property, held the rank of captain in the militia, and was appointed a magistrate.(1)
Soon after rebellion surfaced in the colony, Van Alstine, who supported the Loyalist cause, was forced to flee his home. He joined the army of General Burgoyne, and after the defeat of Burgoyne’s forces at Saratoga in 1777, took refuge in Canada. His New York property was confiscated and his wife and children were left destitute. In 1778, he returned to British controlled New York City where he was awarded the rank of major with the Associated Loyalists. His family was eventually allowed to join him there, and in 1783, in the general exodus, evacuated to a refugee camp at Sorel, Quebec where Alida died in August 1784. Peter led a group of the Associated Loyalists, who were granted land in Fourth Town, present-day Adolphustown, Ontario.
Five children of Peter and Alida had been born between 1770 and 1779: Alexander (baptized 1770), Alida (baptized 1772), Cornelius (baptized 1774) and two younger sons Elbertje and Abram who both died in infancy. In 1784, Peter settled with his three surviving children on their allotted land in Adolphustown.(2)
Peter Van Alstine soon became a leader in his new community as a member of the first Legislative Assembly for Upper Canada from 1793-96 and then Justice of the Peace. In 1796 he received a land grant of 500 acres alongside the Lake on the Mountain, including land at Glenora beneath the cliff. It is here that he spent much of his time and energy building and developing a gristmill. When he died in 1800, his property included the gristmill, a ferry service, numerous parcels of land in Prince Edward County and his original farm in Adolphustown.
Peter’s eldest son, Alexander, married Ursula Allen, the daughter of a fellow Loyalist settler. Alexander and his wife had one son, but Alexander died soon after his father, just a few years after his marriage. Peter’s youngest son, Cornelius, ran Glenora Mill for a time after Peter’s death. Peter’s daughter Alida married George W. Meyers of Belleville.
It is written that Peter Van Alstine is buried in the Loyalist burying ground in the U.E.L. Park, Adolphustown, near the landing site of the Associated Loyalists in 1784.
1. David R. Taylor, The Lake on the Mountain-Glenora Community (Picton, Ontario, 2004).
2. Larry Turner, Voyage of a Different Kind (Belleville: Mika, 1984), p. 148.