Crean Brush

Crean Brush ( 1725 – May 1778) was an 18th-century Irish-born Loyalist, "Yorker", and Tory from Cumberland County, New Hampshire Grants (present-day Vermont). He is remembered as one of the "notorious Yorkers" who resided for some time in eastern Vermont, and for his participation in Loyalist armies during the American Revolution. Early years and education Crean Brush was born in Dublin, Ireland, about the year 1725. Educated for the bar, he held a military office prior to emigrating to the Thirteen Colonies in British America, reaching New York City before 1762. There he married his second wife, Margaret Montuzan. Career Brush was first employed by the deputy secretary of the Province of New York, Goldsbrow Banyar, and in 1761 was licensed as an attorney in all of the king's courts in the province. It is supposed he became associated in this profession with John Kelly, who also figures in the Vermont records. In New York, he found employment in the office of the Provincial Secretary. In 1771, Brush removed to Westminster, Vermont, and in February 1772 he was appointed clerk of Cumberland County. His main purpose in coming to Vermont was to sell his lands there, many thousands of acres of which had been acquired by him through New York grants. He was a member of the New York colonial (royal) assembly from January 5, 1773, to its dissolution on April 3, 1775. In this body, he proved himself an able, eloquent, and influential member, but strongly loyal and violent in his measures against Patriots in Vermmont and adherents to the New Hampshire Grants. He wrote much for Rivington's Gazette, a Loyalist newspaper published in New York City. In the troubles which existed on the "Grants", as Vermont was then called, he took the side of New York. In 1775, he delivered a set-speech against electing delegates to the Second Continental Congress, which Patriot leaders George Clinton, Philip Schuyler and Woodhull answered.