Peters, Hannah (Jarvis)

  • DICTIONARY OF CANADIAN BIOGRAPHY ARTICLE: Edith G. Firth, “PETERS, HANNAH (Jarvis),” in Dictionary of Canadian Biography, vol. 7, University of Toronto/Université Laval, 2003–. https://www.biographi.ca/en/bio/peters_hannah_7E.html
  • DCB profile notes:
    • Gentlewoman and author; b. 2 Jan. 1763 in Hebron (Marlborough), Conn., only surviving child of the Reverend Samuel Andrew Peters and his first wife, Hannah Owen; m. 12 Dec. 1785 William Jarvis in London, and they had seven children; d. 20 Sept. 1845 in Queenston, Upper Canada.
    • Hannah Peters’s father was the Church of England minister in Hebron; her mother died when she was two. Hannah was sent to school in Boston, where she remained when her father’s strong tory views forced him to flee to England in 1774. She later joined him in Pimlico. After her marriage to William Jarvis, another loyalist exile, the young couple lived with Peters in Pimlico, where their three eldest children were born.
    • On John Graves Simcoe’s recommendation, Jarvis was appointed provincial secretary and registrar of Upper Canada, and in April 1792 the Jarvis family sailed for Canada. Her husband reported that “Mrs. Jarvis leaves England in great spirits.”. ” and ” Society there was small and insular, but still had dissension within it between those from Britain and those from the United States. Hannah Jarvis and deeply resented the bias against the Americans, including loyalists, shown by the British families. 
    • In her early days, Hannah Jarvis wrote long letters to her father and her half-brother, with detailed descriptions of her life in the upper echelons of society, as well as bitter invective against those she disliked. In her declining years she kept a diary notable for its pathetic record of toil and hardship. Many Upper Canadians, of course, spent their entire lives in such drudgery, but Hannah Jarvis was a gentlewoman in a classed society. Through the imprudence of her husband and son-in-law, and the insensibility of her son, she became almost destitute. It was Hannah Jarvis’s misfortune that she had more energy and sense of responsibility than the men whose duty it was to protect her. 
  • Daughter of United Empire Loyalist listed in Loyalist Directory: https://uelac.ca/loyalist-directory/detail/?wpda_search_column_id=6554
  • Find a GRAVE: https://www.findagrave.com/memorial/60333881/hannah_owen-jarvis