Papers : 1792-1817.

            William Jarvis was a son of Samuel Jarvis and Martha Seymour of Stamford, Connecticut. He married Hannah Owen Peters, the daughter of the distinguished Loyalist clergyman, Rev. Samuel Peters, who had fled to London, England, from Hebron, Connecticut, after suffering severe persecution at the hands of the rebels because of his loyalty to the British cause. In 1777, William Jarvis joined the Queen's Rangers, which was commanded by Lt.Col. John Graves Simcoe, and in 1782 received his commission as a coronet. At the end of the American Revolution he received an officer's half pay and returned to Connecticut where he and other Loyalists were treated with such hostility that he left for England. In 1785, Simcoe recommended him to Henry Dundas, the Home Secretary, for the position of provincial secretary of the new province of Upper Canada. He arrived in Upper Canada in 1792 with Simcoe, who had been appointed the first lieutenant governor of the colony, and lived at Newark (Niagara-on-the-Lake) until the seat of government moved to York (Toronto) in 1798. While still in England, Jarvis was named the first grand master of the newly organized Masonic Lodge of Upper Canada. In 1794 he was appointed deputy lieutenant of York County. He was also a justice of the peace for the Home District and a colonel of the Lincoln militia. William Jarvis belonged to the colony's early official families who formed a tiny governing elite, and he, like others of his group, sought to advance his children in society. His son, Samuel Peters Jarvis, became deputy provincial secretary, and later chief superintendent of Indian Affairs, 1837-1845. He  married Mary Powell, a daughter of Chief Justice William Dummer Powell. Two of his daughters married sons of Robert Hamilton, the wealthy Queenston merchant and sheriff of the Niagara District, and a third daughter married William Benjamin Robinson. Munson Jarvis (1742-1825), a merchant and prominent citizen of Saint John, New Brunswick, was an older brother. A second brother and two sisters were also Loyalists, including John Jarvis, who settled in Kingston, New Brunswick, a sister, Polly Jarvis, who married Fyler Dibblee and also lived in New Brunswick, and Martha (Jarvis) King, who resided in Halifax, Nova Scotia.            

            The William Jarvis Papers that have been included in this microfilm reel are as follows: William Jarvis's official accounts as secretary and registrar of Upper Canada, 1792 - 1817 (6 volumes); and  a Letterbook containing letters written to James Green, secretary to Lieutenant Governor Hunter, 1800 - 1801 (1 volume).
The William Jarvis Papers contains in total 13 volumes of documents. They include the following: ledgers; waste-books; journals of business accounts in England, including invoices of goods shipped to Munson Jarvis, Saint John, New Brunswick, 1788 - 1792; schedules of full fee land grants in the Midland, Niagara, and Home Districts of Upper Canada, 1794 - 1799; correspondence, accounts and lists, etc. relating to land grants in Upper Canada, 1792 - 1824, with a résumé of the systems of land granting practiced from 1795 to 1828; papers concerning the issuing of licenses for marriages, taverns and stills, 1792 - 1802; private accounts, 1788 - 1839; Masonic papers, 1792 - 1812; miscellaneous correspondence, 1792 - 1831; unbound business papers, 1798 - 1815; and other records.
None of the papers listed above have been included in the microfilm reel in the Loyalist Collection. They have been listed in this content description for the purpose of informing researchers of the richness of the entire collection.               

They are shelved as follows:
MIC-Loyalist FC LFR .J3E3C4; MIC-Loyalist FC LFR .J3F3C6
MIC-Loyalist FC LFR .J3F3P3; MIC-Loyalist FC LFR .J3M8P3;
MIC-Loyalist FC LFR .J3P5P3.

In addition, there are Jarvis Family Papers held by the National Archives of Canada and the Toronto Public Library that are not available in the Loyalist Collection.