| Notes |
- John Wedderburen Dunbar Moodie, Esq., fourth and youngest son of
Major James Moodie, ninth laird of Melsetter, was born at Melsetter House,
7th October 1797, and entered the Army in 1813 as 2nd Lieutenant of the
2 1st Foot, or Royal North British Fusiliers, receiving his commission as 1st Lieutenant 5th May 1814. When only 17 years old, he was present at the disastrous night attack, on Bergen-op-Zoom, 8th March 1814, under Sir Thomas Graham, afterwards Lord Lynedoch, where, after entering the works with a
small party of soldiers of different regiments who had got mixed in the darkness and confusion, he volunteered and succeeded in forcing open the " Waterpoort "
Gate and in lowering the drawbridge in the midst of a sharp fire from the town. On this occasion he was severely wounded by a musket ball in his left wrist,
which disabled his arm, and for which he received a special military pension for two years. On the conclusion of peace, he retired on half pay, and, in 1820, he
joined his two elder brothers in South Africa. He returned to London in 1829, and, at the house of his friend Thomas Pringle, the African traveller and poet,
who was then acting as secretary of the Anti-Slavery Society, he met and soon afterwards married Susanna Strickland, the youngest sister of Agnes Strickland,
the historian, and herself a well-known writer. In 1832 he emigrated to Canada, and settled first at Douro (now Lakefield), in the County of Peterborough,
Canada West. He shortly afterwards sold out and continued farming in Douro co. until the rebellion of 1837, when he offered his services to the
Toronto Government and was appointed Captain of the Queen's Own, and, in the latter part of 1838, Captain and Paymaster of the 16 companies of
Militia distributed along the shores of Lake Ontario. On the suppression of the Rebellion, he was appointed Sheriff of the District of Victoria, now co.
Hastings, Canada West, in 1838. This office he resigned, after holding it for twenty-three years, in 1861. He was author of "Ten Years in South Africa"
(Bentley & Sons, London, 1835), and " Scenes and Adventures of a Soldier and Settler during Half a Century" (John Lovell, Montreal, Canada, I860). He was
also joint-editor with Mrs Moodie of The Victoria Magazine, Belleville, 1848.
|
1797 - 1869 (72 years)
[2] 
