rovince lost his services as a political reformer just as a new man,
who was destined to win as great a reputation as himself, was stepping
on the stage. Samuel Leonard Tilley was born at Gagetown, on the St.
John River, on May 8th, 1818, just thirty-five years after the landing
of his royalist grandfather at St. John. He passed away seventy-eight
years later, full of years and honours, having won the highest prizes
that it was in the power of his native province to bestow.

{OF LOYALIST STOCK}

In these days, when a man becomes eminent an effort is usually made to
trace his descent from distinguished ancestors, but most of the early
inhabitants of New Brunswick were too careless in such matters to leave
much material to the modern maker of pedigrees. Sir Leonard Tilley was
unable to trace his descent beyond his great-grandfather, Samuel Tilley.
At one time it was thought that his first ancestor in America was John
Tilley, who came over in the _Mayflower_ in 1620, but a closer search of
the records of the Plymouth colony reveals the fact that John Tilley
left no sons. But there were persons of the name of Tilley in the
Massachusetts Bay colony as early as 1640, and there seems to be no
doubt that Sir Leonard Tilley's ancestors had been long in America. They
belonged to the respectable farming class which has given the Dominion
of Canada and the United States so many of their most distinguished
sons. Samuel Tilley, the great-grandfather of Sir Leonard, was a farmer
on Long Island at the time of the American Revolution. His farm was then
within the boundaries of the present borough of Brooklyn, and the
curious in such matters can find the very lot upon which he resided laid
down upon some of the ancient maps of that locality. At the time the
British occupied Long Island, after the battle which took place there in
the autumn of 1776, resulting in the defeat of the Americans, the
Brooklyn farmers were called upon to provide cattle for the sustenance
of the troops. Samuel Tilley, being a loyal man and a friend of the
government, complied, and for this he was made the subject of attacks by
the disloyal element among his neighbours, and in the course of time was
compelled to seek shelter within the British lines. The occupation of
Long Island by the British during the whole period of the war made it
secure enough for Samuel Tilley, as well as for all loyal men who lived
in the vicinity of Brooklyn; but when the war was over it