Who Were the Loyalists?
Background information for Teachers

Biographies of the Loyalist Era

Sarah Kast McInnis, Loyalist

Sarah Kast was born near German Flats, New York in 1713. She died on September 8, 1791 near Napanee, Ontario in Fredericksburg Township.

Sarah Kast lived in the Mohawk River Valley, west of Albany, New York. She was the daughter of Palatine Germans who were brought to America by the British Queen Anne in the early 1700's. She married Timothy McInnis in the 1740's. Sarah became a widow when he was killed fighting for the British Army at the Battle of Lake George in 1755. She was left to run their family farm with a large family. She also went into the fur trading business with her sons-in-law to make more money.

When the Revolutionary War started, she stayed loyal to the British. She used her trading ties to the Iroquois to keep them on the side of the British. As punishment, her son-in-law, her trading partner, was jailed. All her property was taken and sold at auction to rebel buyers. Sarah McInnis, her daughter and a granddaughter were put in jail at Fort Dayton (now Herkimer, New York). There her granddaughter was badly treated by their guards and died. Sarah and her daughter were let go when the General St. Leger and his troops attacked the area. She escaped to Fort Stanwix and then retreated with the troops north to Oswego and then Canada. But she lost her son, William, who was somehow burned alive in their house after the British attacked.

Sarah Kast McInnis and the rest of her family arrived in Canada at a British fort on Carleton Island, just south-east of Kingston on the St. Lawrence River. It was August 1777; she was 64 years old, but safe. Soon after, though, Colonel Daniel Claus got her to return to New York to live with the Iroquois. He was the Superintendent of Indians and a family friend.

The Iroquois were upset that a large number of their warriors had died at the Battle of Oriskany in 1777. They had been asked to fight like "white men" or like "soldiers". As a result of following orders, many were killed. They did not wish to fight along side the British any longer. They wanted to fight as they were used to, as Iroquois warriors using Iroquois ways.

In the autumn of 1777, she went first to Niagara on a British ship. Then she travelled east to a Cayuga (Iroquois) village. She spent the winter near Geneseo, New York (just south of Rochester, N.Y.), calming them and keeping them loyal to the British. She came back to Canada in the spring of 1778, but returned to New York again as a favour to Daniel Claus in September 1779. During this visit, her son George was hurt in the Battle of Stone Arabia in 1780.

After the end of the Revolutionary War, she moved to Upper Canada with other Loyalists. She petitioned the British government for land and money to cover her losses in New York. She and her son, George, received a small amount of money but no land. She later died in the home of her grandson, Lieutenant Timothy Thompson, north of what is now Kingston, Ontario. Only in 1998 did she receive a certificate making her an official United Empire Loyalist.