Walter Bates

Walter Bates (14 March 1760 – 11 February 1842) was a British citizen living in colonial New Brunswick. Born on a farm in Darien, Connecticut, he was the son of John Bates and Sarah Bostwick. During the American War of Independence, Bates was captured by rebel sympathizers who pressured him to reveal locations of British Loyalists, including his brother. After escaping, he fled to British-occupied New York City and later became a farmer and teacher on Long Island. In 1783, with the end of the war making it untenable for Loyalists to remain in New York, Bates accepted a British offer of 200 acres of land in New Brunswick, along with supplies and transportation. He was part of the first contingent of Loyalist settlers who sailed on the "Spring Fleet," departing from Huntington Bay, New York, and arriving in Nova Scotia. Settling in Kingston, New Brunswick, Bates served as a selectman and high sheriff of Kings County. He also founded the Anglican Trinity Church in Kingston, completed in 1789. In October 1784, Bates married Abigail Lyon, with whom he had four children. In 1817, he wrote *The Mysterious Stranger*, a popular book about Henry More Smith, a burglar and confidence man he knew during Smith's incarceration in Kingston. The book chronicled Smith's jail breaks and behavior while also describing the local region and its settlers. It sold thousands of copies in the United States and the United Kingdom. Bates planned to publish a second book about the founding of Kingston ...