Panton, George

  • DICTIONARY OF CANADIAN BIOGRAPHY ARTICLE: Neil MacKinnon, “PANTON, GEORGE,” in Dictionary of Canadian Biography, vol. 5, University of Toronto/Université Laval, 2003–. https://www.biographi.ca/en/bio/panton_george_5E.html
  • DCB profile notes:
    • Church of England clergyman; b. in Scotland, possibly at Kelso, one of eight children; d. 8 Aug. 1810 in the British Isles.
    • George Panton received his ba and ma from Marischal College (University of Aberdeen). In 1771, shortly after his ordination as a Church of England clergyman, he emigrated to New York.
    • Two years later, in November 1773, he entered the employ of the Society for the Propagation of the Gospel as rector of St Michael’s Church in Trenton, N.J. 
    • Panton never made a secret of his loyalist sympathies. In the early 1770s, as part of his campaign to “quiet the Minds of the People,” he joined three prominent loyalists, Charles Inglis, Myles Cooper, and Thomas Bradbury Chandler, in publishing essays supporting the British cause.
    • Following the skirmish at Lexington, Mass., on 19 April 1775, he drew up a petition from the freeholders of Nottingham (near Allentown) expressing their attachment to the crown and urging the New Jersey House of Assembly to use its influence to effect a speedy reconciliation with Britain. The evidence is contradictory, but it seems he left Trenton after the signing of the Declaration of Independence.
    • In October 1776 he joined the British army in the field at White Plains, N.Y. For the next couple of months, as the army marched through New York and New Jersey, Panton played an important role in furnishing his officers, including Captain John Montresor, with valuable military intelligence.
    • With the evacuation of the city in late 1783, Panton joined those loyalist refugees who made their way to Shelburne, N.S. There he immediately became involved in a bitter struggle with a rival Anglican clergyman, a struggle that exposed a conflict between New World and Old World methods of clerical appointment.
  • Proven United Empire Loyalist listed in Loyalist Directory: https://uelac.ca/loyalist-directory/detail/?wpda_search_column_id=13259
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