Military Correspondence : 1780 - 1781.

            Nehemiah Marks was born in Derby, Connecticut, on 9 October 1746. He was the son of Mordecai Marks (1706-1771), a Shepardic Jew who emigrated from London, England, in 1721 and became a prosperous merchant. He converted to the Anglican faith and in 1729 married Elizabeth [Hawkins] of Derby, Connecticut. Soon after the Revolution began, Nehemiah Marks went to New York where it is believed he carried despatches for the British army. He served as a captain in the Armed Boatmen, a Loyalist corps, with a commission dated 5 October 1782. His commission as a lieutenant in the Maryland Loyalists, dated 1 October 1783, can be found among the papers of his son, Nehemiah Marks, Jr. With the evacuation of New York City, Nehemiah Marks, Sr. was forced to seek refuge in Nova Scotia, and on 1 November 1783, he was appointed a captain in the Nova Scotia Militia for the District of Port Mouton, and charged with the responsibility of settling his men and their families. The refugees remained at Port Mouton for the winter of 1783, but in 1784 Captain Marks decided to move to the Falls of the St. Croix River (St. Stephen, New Brunswick), and a number of his men chose to accompany him. 
In 1770, Nehemiah Marks married Betsy (Elizabeth) Hawkins (1751-1812), the daughter of Abraham Hawkins (b.1725) and his wife, Elizabeth Basset (b.1728) of Derby, Connecticut.  Eight of their children are known to have survived, including: Elizabeth Ann (b.1772), Betsy (b.1774), Hannah (b.1776), George Beckwith (b.1778), John, Nehemiah (1794-1853), Rebecca, and Abraham Hawkins (b.1796). When Nehemiah Marks died in 1799 at the age of fifty-two years, he left an estate that included a house and a store in St. Stephen, a large tract of land on which much of the present town is built, and several hundred acres of woodland. Elizabeth Marks (Betty or Betsy), the widow of Nehemiah Marks, died at St. Stephen in 1812.            

            The Nehemiah Marks, Sr. Papers that have been microfilmed on this reel are part of the Sir Henry Clinton Papers in the William Clements Library at the University of Michigan. The Papers consist, largely, of letters from Nehemiah Marks to General Oliver DeLancey, and are written from various locations between the years 1780-1781. In the letters, Marks reports on his travels, the people he has met, and the intelligence he has gathered in his capacity as a despatch agent and observer for the British. The reel also contains a statement by John Marks of the Prince of Wales American Regiment detailing his capture at the Battle of Cowpens and his escape.
According to genealogical information contained in Reel, F-9861 of the Nehemiah Marks, Jr. Papers in the Provincial Archives of New Brunwick, John Marks was a nephew of Nehemiah Marks, Sr.  The New Brunswick Probate Records for Charlotte County list a John Marks as a mariner, and on 14 April 1787, Letters of Administration were granted to Nehemiah Marks as his next of kin. The last items on the reel are certificates of appointment and declarations of support in favour of Capt. Robert Morrell, who is authorized to raise a Troop of Horse to serve with the Associated Loyalists, and to command the Clinton Redoubt, the militia post at White Stone. The declarations are signed by a number of prominent Loyalists including: William Franklin, Colonel Archibald Hamilton, John Graves Simcoe and others.            

            A brief table of contents is located at the beginning of the reel. A revised table of contents has been prepared by the author of the Loyalist Collection Inventory. It is available in print with the Loyalist Collection Finding Aids and on the World Wide Web.