78 THE ROYAL SOCIETY OF CANADA 
for, after engaging in the secret service on the eastern side of Lake 
Champlain for several years, he raised a company for Major Robert 
Rogers’ King’s Rangers, a corps that was formed in 1781-82.1 
Aside from the numerous flights induced by espionage and perse- 
cution and the far larger number due to recruiting, some departures 
from Connecticut were occasioned by Governor Tryon’s incursions in 
April, 1777, and July, 1779, respectively. On the former of these, the 
invading force included the Prince of Wales regiment, almost wholly 
made up of Connecticut men at the time, and had the service of local 
guides to conduct it from its landing-place at Campo, near Norwalk, 
to Danbury, where the Americans had collected a magazine of pro- 
visions and other supplies. Three of these guides, namely, one Jarvis, 
Ephraim Deforest of Redding, and Eli Benedict of Danbury, either 
left with the departing host, or found it advisable to do so shortly 
after. A fourth one, Isaac Wells Shelton of Stratford, was ordered 
to confine himself to the County of Hartford, but after a brief season 
removed to Chippeny Hill. How many Loyalists accompanied Tryon’s 
expedition on its retreat after the burning of Danbury it is impossible 
to say, but the names of some of these are found in the records of the 
Commissioners of Loyalist Claims, including Isaac Hoyt and Josiah 
Benedict of Danbury, Joseph Lyon and Ephraim Tredwell of Fair- 
field, Benjamin Burt of Ridgefield, Jacob Loder of Stamford, and 
James Gray, Ensign Samuel Hawley and Israel Rowland of Redding.? 
Despite the action of the Assembly in May, 1777, in passing a 
resolution offering pardon to those who would return to their duty, 
supplemented by proclamations by Governor Trumbull and General 
Putnam, Loyalists continued to flee from Connecticut, although some, 
even of those who had recently departed with Tryon, now gained 
sufficient courage to return.2 That the movement in the opposite 
direction had not yet ceased, however, appears from an item in the 
Connecticut Courant of June 6, 1777, noting that a sloop bound to New 
York had been seized and carried to Fairfield with several Tory 
passengers on board and adding that thirteen absconding Tories had 
been found on three other captured vessels. A little over a fortnight 

1Sec. Rep., Bur. of Archives, Ont., Pt. II, 1904, 867; Pt. I, 209; Pt. II, 873, 
909; Pt. I, 349. 
2 Conn. Quar., IV, 145; Sec. Rep., Bur. of Archives, Ont., Pt. I, 1904, 225, 282; 
186, 204; Pt. II, 850; Pt. I, 800; Pt. II, 828; Pond, Tories of Chippeny Hill, 73; 
Grumman, Rev. Soldiers of Redding, Conn., 43, 52, 56, 183, 194. 
’ This was true of the three Redding Loyalists, Gray, Hawley, and Rowland, 
who reappeared after Putnam’s proclamation of November 17. 
Pub. Records, I, 254; Am. Hist. Rev., Jan., 1899, 289, 285. 
