John Matthew Jeffery

     John Matthew was born on Wednesday, 11 April 1759 in Edinburgh, Midlothian, Scotland, at West Kirk, St.Cuthbert's. John married Lydia Ann Randall, daughter of Joseph Randall and Mary Bartlett, in 1784 in Argyle, Yarmouth, Nova Scotia, Canada. Before the revolution, he lived in the colonies and was a loyalist. About 1775, determined to remain loyal, he removed to Nova Scotia where he served in the British Army in the American Revolutionary War and was discharged in Halifax, Nova Scotia in 1784. His wife, Lydia, was a member of a United Empire Loyalist family and had fled from New York to Shelbourne, Nova Scotia in the spring of 1783. The family settled on a grant of land in Argyle near Yarmouth, Nova Scotia and raised their family there. In the mid 1820's, John & Lydia, along with their sons, John & Robert and other relatives moved to Oakville, Ontario.² Sometime after the birth of their children, the family moved to York County where John practiced his trade of ship backsmith and iron worker.² John departed this life in 1850 in Strathroy, Middlesex County, Ontario, Canada.