Jarvis, Samuel Peters

  • DICTIONARY OF CANADIAN BIOGRAPHY ARTICLE: Douglas Leighton and Robert J. Burns, “JARVIS, SAMUEL PETERS,” in Dictionary of Canadian Biography, vol. 8, University of Toronto/Université Laval, 2003–. https://www.biographi.ca/en/bio/jarvis_samuel_peters_8E.html
  • DCB profile notes:
    • Militia officer, office holder, and lawyer; b. 15 Nov. 1792 in Newark (Niagara-on-the-Lake), Upper Canada, eldest surviving son of William Jarvis and Hannah Peters; m. 1 Oct. 1818 Mary Boyles Powell, daughter of Chief Justice William Dummer Powell, in York (Toronto), and they had five sons and four daughters; d. 6 Sept. 1857 in Toronto.
    • Samuel Peters Jarvis enjoyed an initial advantage in the emerging colonial society of Upper Canada. His father, who had gained the patronage of Lieutenant Governor John Graves Simcoe, was the first provincial secretary and registrar, and, while the Jarvis family was not wealthy, it did enjoy the comparative luxury of three servants to minister to household needs. Young Jarvis was educated along with many of his peers by the Reverend John Strachan at his Cornwall grammar school. His law studies in York were interrupted by the War of 1812.
    • He joined Captain Stephen Heward’s flank company in the 3rd York Militia which assisted Major-General Isaac Brock at the capture of Detroit in August 1812 and at Queenston Heights in October. Jarvis later saw action in the engagements at Stoney Creek and Lundy’s Lane. He also obtained several minor administrative posts during the war: in January 1814 he was commissioned to act as assistant secretary and registrar to his father, and that December, in the absence of John Powell, he was made clerk of the Legislative Council.
    • Jarvis was called to the bar in 1815. Two years later he was appointed clerk of the crown in chancery, an administrative post in the House of Assembly which he was to hold for the next 20 years. His real ambition, however, was to follow in his father’s footsteps as provincial secretary and registrar, a position which he seemed to feel should be his by right of succession as the eldest Jarvis male. Circumstances and his own personality thwarted that ambition. Jarvis possessed a fiery temperament and an impetuous nature combined with a strong sense of family and personal honour. In 1817, however, the feud which had simmered for a decade between the Ridout and Jarvis families came to a head when Samuel quarrelled with 18-year-old John Ridout, a son of Surveyor General Thomas Ridout. On 12 July Jarvis and Ridout, confronted each other just north of the town of York, and Ridout was killed. The duel badly split the local élite: the Ridouts certainly never forgave Jarvis for his part in the affair. The timing of the duel was also unfortunate for the development of his career, since his father died that August while Samuel was in jail awaiting trial. Although the courts exonerated him in the fall, his position at the centre of controversy temporarily ruined his chances for preferment. Duncan Cameron was appointed to the coveted secretaryship, though Jarvis briefly filled the position in Cameron’s absence. He also succeeded Cameron as civil and private secretary to the acting lieutenant governor, Samuel Smith, and served in that capacity until August 1818.
    • Samuel Peters Jarvis, attempting the life of an 18th-century tory squire, had become an anachronism. The mid 19th century with its growing emphasis on commerce and industry – and proper bookkeeping and procedures – was an age which he never fully understood. Along with his outdated attitudes went a mediocre intelligence that spelled disaster for him as an administrator. These factors were sufficiently powerful to neutralize the advantages he had enjoyed at the beginning of his career, so that he was left on the fringes of power in the small Upper Canadian community. In Jarvis’s life can be seen a partial answer to the question of what became of the “family compact.”
  • Son of United Empire Loyalist listed in Loyalist Directory: https://uelac.ca/loyalist-directory/detail/?wpda_search_column_id=4203
  • Find a GRAVE: https://www.findagrave.com/memorial/60336959/samuel-peters-jarvis