Irish Palatines left for The American Colonies before The American Revolution.
John Lawrence, Sr. m. 1775, New York, Margaret Switzer.
Their child, John Lawrence, Jr. m. Margaret Dulmage.
Another of their children, Agnes Lawrence m. Samuel Dulmage.
http://www.geocities.com/PicketFence/Garden/4972/lawrence1.html Broken LinkLAWRENCE
From Nancy Williams:
From the book "History of New Oswegatchie and the Blue Church Cemetery 1780-1986" by Edwin A. Livingston:
John Lawrence (1742-1822) or (1756-1832) and his wife Margaret (1744-1807) are both buried there. Margaret was a widow of Philip Embury when she married John Lawrence. Her maiden name was Switzer. John Lawrence was born in Ireland of Palatine ancestry. He came to America with the Hecks and the Emburys. He left the U.S. for Canada in 1775 as a Loyalist. First he settled in Montreal where he was in the Commissary Dept. Then he settled in Augusta Township in 1785. Their four children were:
Elizabeth - married Robert Bickam of Wolford
Rebecca - married David Breakenridge Jr.
Agnes - married Samuel Dulmage
John
John Sr.'s dates may be wrong if the following is correct:
In Death Notices of Ontario by William D. Reid - from the Christian Guardian 1829-1835 - page 74
March 14, 1832
"In Edwardsburgh on Friday evening, 24th inst., John Lawrence, Sr., in the 76th year of his age. He came into Upper Canada in the year 1786 as a U.E. Loyalist and partollk of all the privations and hardships of the first settlers of this Province. He married the widow of the late Rev. Mr. Emory from the North of Ireland, the first Methodist Preacher that ever landed and formed a church at New York. His mother is still living in Kamaraska, L.C. [lower Canada = Quebec] aged 103 years (Grenville Gazette)"
In William Reid's "The Loyalists in Ontario - the Sons and Daughters of the American Loyalists in Upper Canada" I found:
Dulmage - Margaret, baptised March 11, 1792 married John Lawrence Jr. of Edwardsburgh.
And from "Leeds and Grenville - the first two hundred years" by Ruth McKenzie, page 78:
" Among the first [settlers] were the Methodists. Paul and Barbara Heck with their sons, along with John Lawrence, his wife (the former Margaret Switzer Embury) and their son Samuel Embury, settled in the Maynard area on the third concession of Augusta, in 1785. Twenty years earlier, Barbara Heck and Philip Embury had founded the first Methodist church in North America. Barbara Heck was born in Ireland in 1734. She and her husband, the Emburys and other Palatine Methodists, had gone to New York from Limerick, Ireland in 1760. Philip Embury had been their religious leader in Ireland, but in New York the people had drifted away and religious services were no longer held." Barbara Heck went to Philip Embury and pleaded with him to become their religious leader again.
"Soon after a congregation of five met in the Embury house to hear Philip preach. The members were his wife Margaret, Paul and Barbara Heck, John Lawrence and the Heck's servant..... The congregation increased in numbers and a few years later built the first Methodist chapel in America.
When the American Revolutionary War broke out, the Hecks and Emburys were living in Washington County, New York. Philip Embury died in 1775 as the result of an accident while mowing hay with a scythe. The rest of the family with the Hecks and John Lawrence left their prosperous farms and made their way to Montreal, where they remained for the duration of the war. In 1785 they decided to join some of their Loyalist friends who had settled in Augusta. By this time, Philip Embury's widow, Margaret, had become Mrs. John Lawrence."