Christian Theodor von Pincier

Christian Theodor von Pincier
Spouse(s) Charlotte Bellefeuille Rivard
Noble family House of Guelph
Father Charles I, Duke of Brunswick-Lüneburg
Mother Claire Desmarets
Born July 8th 1750
Brunswick
Died April 18th 1824
Sorel, Quebec, Canada

Christian Theodor (1750, Braunschweig - 1824, Canada), was an illegitimate son of Charles I, Duke of Brunswick-Lüneburg.

Birth

Christian Theodore von Pincier (Braunschweig 1750– 1824) was the only out-of-wedlock child of Charles I, Duke of Brunswick-Wolfenbüttel. His mother’s husband, a French grenadier captain de Martigny, later killed himself, perhaps out of jealousy, and she remarried a Swedish nobleman Pincier von Konigstein. He had never been recognized by his father and was adopted by Georges-Henri de Pincier, a descendant of Baron Pincier (#109), whose family received the peerage from Charles XII of Sweden in 1698 in Stockholm.

Early life

At age 14 de Pencier volunteered as a cadet and learned to ride in his father's ducal stables. His extraordinary Horsemanship by age 16 enabled him to become standard bearer for his military unit. He received his first commission the next year and in 1771, at age 21, was promoted to lieutenant. Between 1773 and 1774 he moved in France and Italy, visiting Florence, Rome and Naples, and in his early life he was celebrated for numerous love affairs and rumours of liaison with many aristocratic noblewomen. In 1775 he wrote a poem dedicated to Lady Elisabeth de Baffa Trasci (1750–1795) an Albanian aristocrat met in Naples. who refused his marriage’s proposal and gave him an illegitimate daughter Carlotta Maria Amalia. The poem will be published in 1782 under a pseudonym. Theodore became a superb horseman and studied literature, poetry, astronomy, engineering, and also military artillery strategy and tactics while mastering French, German, Italian, Latin and English.

Army career

Since Theodore de Pencier was assigned to Prince Frederick's regiment as part the Hessian cavalry of General Baron Friedrich von Riedesel, the young officer was destined to see action in the North American theatre of war.

In June of 1776 he and 4,000 Hessian 'mercenaries,' many of whom had not left Hesse-Cassel willingly, arrived in Quebec. In the early summer of 1776, Sir Guy Carleton, the British governor and commander-in-chief in Quebec, tasked General John Burgoyne with driving the invading Americans out of the province and south into New York. Faced with Burgoyne's 6,000 British troops and von Riedesel's 4,000 German mercenaries, the weakened Americans retreated to Sorel at the confluence of the St. Lawrence and Richelieu rivers.

The Americans under General Horatio Gates retreated once again, this time to the safety of formidable Fort Ticonderoga. The Hessians, much to the frustration of Baron Friedrich von Riedesel, were largely unprepared for pursuit. Historian Thomas Randall compared "the south-moving procession of British infantry and German infantry and cavalry, batteries of artillery, ammunition wagons, supply wagons" to a travelling circus.

The Hessians seemed alien to their British counterparts. They often sang psalms on the march and caught and tamed wild animals The Baroness Riedesel and her entourage travelled by elegant caleche, while the Brunswick Dragoons, short on horses, had to march with their enormous cocked hats, thick coats, leather breeches, and jack boots rising above their knees. Captain De Pencier, as an officer, was fortunate enough to retain his mount. He also avoided the fate of many Hessians: death under American fire by sharpshooters using the deadly accurate Pennsylvania flintlock.

With significant losses and failed maneuvers on both ends of the Mohawk Valley, Lake Ontario and the Hudson, Burgoyne surrendered after the Battle of Saratoga in the face of heavy Yankee artillery and more than 14,000 men mustered by Gates. The Hessians had recently suffered a major defeat at Bennington with 200 dead and many more imprisoned. De Pencier likely encountered frontier spies Roger Stevens and Stephen Burritt for the first time here at Bennington. Stevens, imprisoned with Burritt after the battle, became the first to settle the Rideau 15 years later, providing his homestead as a meeting place for de Pencier and his Rideau survey teams.

The intervening years for de Pencier began poorly. The Americans reneged on the terms of surrender; rather than sending the captive Europeans home, they sent the British troops to prison camps surrounding Boston, while De Pencier and the other Hessian captives were sent to camps in Pennsylvania and Virginia. Officers were put in cramped quarters, with as many as six to a room; Baron von Riedesel, his wife and children, initially suffered too, living in small, cold surroundings. All found their conditions improve as the British began paying outrageous American fees for the food and lodging of prisoners.

De Pencier, by then a widower, returned to Europe in 1783 with most of the Hessian prisoners. He staid only long enough to receive his honourable discharge from Prince Frederick's regiment and obtain his British citizenship. He arrived back in Canada the next year but could not find employment despite letters of recommendation from Baron von Riedesel. Signs of his mental decline began to emerge at this time. He was described as 'haunting' government offices with a 'drooping spirit,' though he was buoyed temporarily by a grant of 20 pounds. He remarried and his second wife gave birth to a second son, Luke.

A Loyalist grant of 300 acres from General Haldimand proved to be unmanageable. De Pencier was neither a lumberman nor a farmer and lacked the necessary financial and physical resources to clear the land. He wrote that his hands were "accustomed only to the use of the sword and the training of horses, too weak to cut down trees and to sell them at a profit quickly and advantageously." Finally, tired of feeding his family on meager rations, he took up land surveying at the age of 35. His sound education in mathematics enabled him to apprentice using a borrowed theodolite, a calibrated optical instrument used to determine relative position in surveying, navigation, and meteorology. In 1789 he received his full commission as a surveyor.

His quarrels with the British authorities continued to consume him. He later complained to Governor General Sherbrooke that he had become a surveyor because he had very little money, despite the sacrifices he and his father had made in battle on behalf of the English. De Pencier received instructions in 1791 to survey the first townships on the Rideau River in what was to become modern-day Ottawa.[1]

In Canada, after his first marriage with Marie Demerais, he remarried Charlotte Rivard Bellefeuille November 4, 1785 at the Protestant Church in Trois-Rivières. She was born in Sore May 7, 1766, daughter of Jean-Baptiste Rivard and Marie-Josephe Lesieur.

Descendants

The descendants of Christian Theodor de Pincier were numerous.[2]

By his illegitimate liaison with lady Hélène de Tour he had:

By his illegitimate liaison with lady Elizabeth de Baffa Trasci he had:

By his first wife Marie Demerais:

By his second wife Charlotte de Bellefeuille he had:

Death

The Hessian mercenary impoverished, hopeless and indigent committed suicide in a Canadian military asylum in April 18, 1824. On April 19, shortly after Easter 1824, the remains of Captain Christian Theodore De Pencier were placed in a modest grave at Fort William Henry by the Richelieu River in Quebec. Moments earlier, a British subaltern reached into De Pencier's coffin and removed his sword in a final act of discourtesy to the dead Hessian officer. From the register of the Parish of Christ Church William Henry: "Buried on this nineteenth day of April one thousand eight hundred twenty four Theodore Pincier Esquire formerly of the German troops in the British Service and late a sworn surveyor of this province."

Further reading

References

  1. ↑ http://www.thefreelibrary.com/The+Rideau+warriors+Theodore+De+Pencier%3A+in+1791+German+Aristocrat...-a0166275108
  2. ↑ DeMarce V., The settlement of former German auxiliary troops in Canada after the American Revolution, Reisinger 1984 p. 88