Ryerson,George

DICTIONARY OF CANADIAN BIOGRAPHY ARTICLE: Charles Dougall, “RYERSON, GEORGE,” in Dictionary of Canadian Biography, vol. 11, University of Toronto/Université Laval, 2003–. http://www.biographi.ca/en/bio/ryerson_george_11E.html
DCB profile notes:
- Militia officer, teacher, Methodist preacher, and Catholic Apostolic minister; b. probably in March 1791 in Sunbury County, N.B., eldest son of Joseph Ryerson and Mehetable Stickney; m. first in 1820 or 1821 Sarah (d. 10 July 1829), sister of John Rolph, and they had one son and one daughter; m. secondly 15 June 1836 Sophia Symes of London, England, and they had one daughter; m. thirdly in 1853 Isabella Dorcas, daughter of the American jurist and politician Ansel Sterling, and they had one son, George Ansel Sterling; d. 19 Dec. 1882 in Toronto, Ont.
- George Ryerson was about eight when his loyalist family left New Brunswick to settle in Norfolk County, Upper Canada, on a generous land grant on the shores of Lake Erie. George’s father had come to rejoin his brother, Samuel, and the two families set about establishing themselves as part of the local gentry. Being the eldest son, George, with his bookish tastes, no doubt influenced his younger brothers, and Colonel Ryerson was anything but pleased that William, John, Egerton, and Edway Marcus followed George’s example rather than that of the second son, Samuel, the only one to whom farming appealed. Despite their father’s objection to their devotion to reading, the boys attended the London District Grammar School near their farm. If relations between George and his father were strained, they improved quickly when, at the age of 21, George joined his father, and brothers William and John, to fight for their king.
- On 28 November the Americans launched a fierce pre-dawn attack on the batteries; before being repulsed they inflicted heavy casualties, one of whom was Ryerson. A shot hit him in the face, entering his mouth, knocking out several teeth, and exiting through the right side of his badly fractured jaw. Determined to return to combat, in the spring of 1813 Ryerson had “enlisted men for a lieutenancy” in the Volunteer Incorporated Militia Battalion and by summer was back on active duty. He participated in the battles of Stoney Creek and Beaver Dams (1813) as well as Fort Erie and Lundy’s Lane (1814) before being “seized with typhus fever, from which he almost died.” This ended his active involvement in the war although he was listed as in service until the regiment disbanded in April 1816. He then received a land grant in Norfolk as well as an award of £56 9s. 9d. from the Loyal and Patriotic Society of Upper Canada; although he attempted to obtain a government pension, the Medical Board of Upper Canada, despite the severity of his injuries, found that he was “not labouring under any Disability.”
- Despite George’s inability to provide much direction to his own affairs, he was influential in those of Egerton. He was probably the “kind friend” who supplied his teenage brother with books of a classical nature to memorize, and examined him on them afterwards. In 1821, when their father’s opposition to active involvement in Methodism forced Egerton to leave home, George made him an assistant at the school for two years. Further “guided by his brother,” Egerton entered the Gore District Grammar School to continue his classical studies in 1824. George seems to have played a paternalistic role in Egerton’s development, and his counsel continued to be pre-eminent with Egerton until the elder Ryerson withdrew from public affairs.
- George was to outlive all his brothers, dying of “no particular cause, but . . . the result of the infirmities consequent upon his great age.” By his later years he had become known as something of an eccentric, but mainly as the older brother of Egerton Ryerson. The final measure of the obscurity surrounding the man, who at one time seemed the Ryerson who would be remembered, can be seen in the heading of his lengthy obituary in the Globe, “The late Rev. Wm. Ryerson.”
Son of United Empire Loyalist listed in Loyalist Directory: https://uelac.ca/loyalist-directory/detail/?wpda_search_column_id=7251
Find a GRAVE: https://www.findagrave.com/memorial/40715063/george_airey-ryerson