Captain George Welbank

Other Events and Attributes:

• Note: 20 Nov 1773, New York, USA; Letter from James Rivington to Henry Knox, written and signed by George Welbank, adding more names to a list of newspaper subscribers. Gilder Lehrman Collection GLC02437.00098
• Occupation: 1774, New York; Apprentice to James Rivington, printer and publisher of the Loyalist Royal Gazette. George Welbank was a subscriber to a Rivington-published book about Captain Cook's voyages, (with engravings by Paul Revere) 1774.
• Note: Jun 1776, Albany; Held in jail for refusing to sign the Association (or possibly his father was). 7 Jun 1776 Albany Committee Chamber 4 others and ...George Welbank appeared before this Board, and refused to Sign the New Association, Ordered that they be remanded back to the Tory Goal [433a] Adjourned till 4 OClock P M. Met according to Adjournment. Present. Abraham Yates Junr Jacob Bleecker Junr Philip P. Schuyler John Price Abraham Ten Eyck Jo... 8 Jun...George Welbank and Thomas Joy were brought before this Board, refused to Sign the Association and also to find: Security for their future good behaviour ordered that they be remanded back to Goal . 2 July George Welbank and Thomas Joy were brought before this Board and after hearing them in their Defence [460] Resolved That the said Persons above mentioned be Liberated from their Confinement upon their entering into Bond with security for their future good behaviour 3 Aug Resolved that a Committee of three be appointed to examine...George Welbank, and Joseph Ferris and Report their proceedings by Tuesday next. The Committee appointed are, Dirck Ten Broeck, Joseph Young, John Ten Broeck & Robert Yates or any three of them
• Occupation: 25 May 1778; Captain-Lieutenant in Emmerick's Chausseurs. Roll of Officers of the British American or Loyalist Corps
• Note: 1783, New York City; Believed to have met William Augustus Bowles in New York and joined him. In 1783 a ship leaving New York for Abaco in the Bahamas was inspected for runaway slaves and 2 free Negroes were travelling with George Welbank.
• Note: 1788, Florida; In 1788 George Welbank sailed from the Bahamas to Florida with Bowles, who planned to set up an Indian nation under British protection and with British sponsorship. When Bowles was captured by the Spanish, George Wellbank as his second-in-command, continued his project. In 1791 he is living with Creeks in East Florida and described by them as "one of the head warriors of this Nation". He helps the Cherokees negotiate treaties with the US, and travels to Detroit with a party of Indians to ask for help from the English. He annoys the US by encouraging Indians to fight them. In 1793 letters are sent encouraging the tribespeople to murder him and in 1794 he is murdered by the Creeks.
• Note: 18 Jul 1793, Fort deTroit; 18th. I had an interview with capt. George Welbank, who appeared an intelligent, cool, dispassionate man. He came with a detachment of Cherokee and Creek Indians.. more than a thousand miles from home in a straight line; and that they were ninety days on their journey...[Welbank explained Indian grievances about deceitful treaties and encroachments on their land] ...there were some reasons for believing capt. Welbank was now here to negotiate a friendship with the British. Jacob Lindley's Account of a Journey to attend the Indian Treaty, proposed to be held at Sandusky, in the year 1793
• Note: 1794; (Here I was also Informed, that George Welbank Bowles's Second, and who said, as usual, that he was come from Fort DeTroit, but I suppose no further than the Chirokee Nation, had gone up to the Upper Euphalies, in the Upper Creeks in pursuit of some horses that had been stolen from him, as he said - where he found the Indians drunk, and he got drunk among them, when, on his return to his camp, a half breed, named Lesslie - (son of a White Man that goes by the name of great footed Lesslie) followed him, & said, that he was a Virginia man (a name they give to al Americans) and that he would knock him in the head, & accordingly came up with him, & knocked out his brains, with a lightwod Not, and left him to be devoured by Vermin) The Diary of John Hambly, published in Florida Historical Quarterly

Other Events and Attributes:

• Residence: 1780, No. 40 Water St., New York City; George Wellbank listed in NYC Census, 1779 Welbank, G., Sr., No. 40 Water St., New York City - may be paid by those indebted to Robert Hull, late tavernkeeper, who has gone to England (8/19). Page 231 in excerpts from 1780 from James Rivington's New York newspaper. (As he is described as G Welbank Senior, it seems reasonable to guess that he is the father of a younger George Welbank known to Rivington).