Papers : 1771-1916.

Major Edward Jessup was born in Stamford, Connecticut. The family later moved to Dutchess County, New York, and then to Albany where he and his brother Ebenezer engaged in land speculation. They established a community at a place that became known as Jessup's Landing near Glens Falls on the Hudson River, and the area became a centre for Loyalism during the early years of the American Revolution. The Jessups raised a party of armed Loyalists which were attached, at first, to Sir John Johnson's, King's Royal Regiment of New York, but on 7 June 1777 the corps became a separate unit, the King's Loyal Americans, with Ebenezer as lieutenant-colonel and Edward as captain. Joseph, a third brother, was also in the regiment. The corps took part in the unsuccessful Burgoyne campaign and the brothers were captured at Saratoga. Later paroled, they found their way to Quebec, and their corps existed for a time as a semi-detached unit of the King's Royal Regiment of New York. In 1781, Governor Haldimand decided to establish a new regiment by combining smaller corps, and created the Loyal Rangers from Jessup's, King's Loyal Americans and Peters', Queen's Loyal Rangers with Edward Jessup as major commandant. The new corps was named the Loyal Rangers and became known as Jessup's Rangers.

After the Revolution, the men of Jessup's Rangers were settled in the Townships of Edwardsburg, Augusta, Ernestown and Elizabethtown in what later became Leeds, Grenville and Frontenac Counties of Ontario. Edward received large tracts of land in Augusta Township and was appointed Justice of the Peace and Judge of the Court of Common Pleas

In 1810 he and his son Edward founded a town which he named, Prescott, in honour of Governor Robert Prescott. Edward Jr. (1766-1815) had been a lieutenant in the Loyal Rangers and later became the lieutenant-colonel of the Leeds Militia in 1795, Clerk of the Peace for the Johnstown District in 1800, Clerk of the Court of Common Pleas in 1802, and represented Grenville in the Legislative Assembly of Upper Canada.