Beardsley, Bartholomew

  • DICTIONARY OF CANADIAN BIOGRAPHY ARTICLE: H. V. Nelles, “BEARDSLEY, BARTHOLOMEW CRANNELL,” in Dictionary of Canadian Biography, vol. 8, University of Toronto/Université Laval, 2003–. https://www.biographi.ca/en/bio/beardsley_bartholomew_crannell_8E.html
  • DCB profile notes:
    • Lawyer, politician, and judge; b. 21 Oct. 1775 in Poughkeepsie, N.Y., son of John Beardsley and Gertrude Crannell; m. Mary Jenkins, and they had six sons and one daughter; d. 24 March 1855 in Oakville, Upper Canada.
    • Bartholomew Crannell Beardsley was the son of the chaplain to the Loyal American Regiment and the grandson of Bartholomew Crannell, a prosperous Poughkeepsie attorney, both loyalists who settled by the Saint John River (N.B.) following the American revolution. Young Beardsley studied law in Saint John at the office of Ward Chipman and was admitted to the New Brunswick bar in October 1796. The following spring he headed for Upper Canada where he set up practice in Newark (Niagara-on-the-Lake).
    • Beardsley developed a close acquaintance with William Lyon Mackenzie, who, in May 1824, read the first issue of his Colonial Advocate “word for word to my worthy friend Mr. Beardsley . . . who, as a whole, was pleased to approve it.” With the Advocate’s enthusiastic backing, Beardsley was elected in the summer of 1824 as one of the four members for Lincoln in the House of Assembly. Riding on a wave of anti-government, economizing sentiment, he proposed legislation “to guard against corruption in the selection of juries” and opposed government financial support for the Welland Canal.
    • By the end of March 1831 Beardsley’s popularity in Lincoln was said to be at an all-time high. During the next session he fought against Mackenzie’s expulsion from the assembly and even favoured the dissolution of parliament on the issue. For some unknown reason Beardsley left Upper Canada in the fall of 1832 and relocated his practice in Woodstock, N. B. In 1834 he was appointed a judge of the Inferior Court of Common Pleas and judge of probate for Carleton County. That year he ran unsuccessfully for the House of Assembly, but he was elected three years later. 
    • Beardsley returned to Upper Canada, nevertheless, and opened a practice in Oakville where he had purchased land in 1847. A resident there remembered the judge, as Beardsley liked to be called, for his “fine knowledge of men and events” and his many interesting stories of bygone days in Upper Canada. He also noted that Beardsley “had some peculiar ideas which were too advanced for his time.” Beardsley remained active to the end of his life, riding on horseback to pick up his mail a day or two before his death.
  • Son of Proven Loyalist listed in Loyalist Directory –https://uelac.ca/loyalist-directory/detail/?wpda_search_column_id=456
  • Find a GRAVE: https://www.findagrave.com/memorial/112404659/bartholomew_crannell-beardsley