WHITMIRE, John: 1776 - 1853
Tile ordered and paid for by John C. Kirby, Toronto, Ontario, 1889
John Whitmire (Whitmoyer, Whitmore) was the eighth of nine children born to George Whitmoyer and Sarah/Mary Sheets. George Whitmoyer was the son of Peter Whitmoyer who had emigrated to America from either the Netherlands or Switzerland (according to differing accounts). American-born George, a sturdy pioneer, became one of the first farmers in the frontier area near present-day Jerseytown, Pennsylvania after it was opened to settlement in 1772.
In an Indian raid, the isolated Whitmire farm was attacked on Easter Day 1780. The house was plundered and burnt and the parents, their eldest son and their baby were killed. Two daughters who had been collecting syrup in the sugar bush escaped, but five of the children, including four-year-old John, were taken captive by three raiding parties and were separated.
John and his older sister Mary lived with the Delaware tribe. At the age of eight, John was sold to a British officer. Adopted into the family of Daniel Servos (Tile # 48) and his wife Elizabeth Johnson Servos, John married their daughter, Magdalena Servos, and they settled to farm near Four Mile Creek in the Niagara District.
Several years later, John’s sister Mary was exchanged by the Indians for much needed food. She became an indentured servant and remained in the Detroit area where she searched in vain for her younger brother. Mary’s uncle, Jacob Sheets, had been looking for his sister’s abducted children and when a Lutheran pastor discovered Jacob’s niece’s whereabouts, Jacob took her to live with his family in the Long Sault area of Upper Canada on the St. Lawrence River, where he had settled on land granted after the American Revolution. Mary had learned about herbal medicines and edible natural plants while living with the Delaware, knowledge much appreciated in her new community where she became known as Doctor Mary. By chance, she learned of her brother John’s whereabouts many years later and they had an emotional reunion in 1851 when John was seventy-five and Mary was eighty-two.(1)
During the War of 1812, John met two of his sister Sarah’s sons who fought on the American side. Sadly, both boys were killed during a raid on their garrison at the American Fort Niagara just ten days after meeting their long lost uncle. During that war John also had an opportunity to kill the leader of the raiding party that had killed his parents and siblings, but as he lay in wait to ambush Chief De Coignee, who was fighting for the Americans, John had a change of heart and allowed him to pass unharmed.
John Whitmire died in October 1853 and he and his wife, Magdalena, are buried in the Servos Cemetery in Niagara near their former farm. Their daughter, Eliza Magdalena, married the noted novelist and poet, William Kirby, author of an account of the Servos family.
1. Wm. Baillie, The Whitmoyer Saga: Massacre at the Whimoyer Cabin (Bloomsburg, PA: Columbia County Genealogical Society, 2007) .