Heritage and the Early Years

This story is about a great patriot who gave all he had to America's fight for freedom and democracy. It is also an updated account of an important eighteenth and nineteenth-century Scottish family in world history, which traces its heritage back over one thousand years to the Saint Clair's of France, which became the St. Clair's and the Sinclair's of Scotland, England, and America.

The St. Clair French-Norman ancestry in Scotland was the result of the Norman conquest of France and the British Isles, which included Scotland, in the eleventh century by William the Conqueror. William, son of the Comte de Saint Clair of France, a close relative of William the Conqueror, settled in Scotland in 1066. William became the acknowledged patriarch of all the Saint Clair's in the kingdom.

There is disagreement on the date of Arthur St. Clair's birth; it was either March 23 or April 3 in 1734, 1736, or 1737. However, it's most often reported that he was born in Thurso, Caithness, Scotland, on March 23, 1734.

Arthur St. Clair's own Scottish lineage traces back nine generations to the joining of two noble Scottish families, the Saint Clair's and the Sutherlands, through the marriage of John Earl Caithness Sinclair and Elizabeth Sutherland in 1500. In 1533 they had their only son, George Earl, who, during the forty-nine years before he was laid to rest in Rosslyn Chapel, fathered seven children. After seven generations, this lineage produced Arthur St. Clair. The Sinclair's built and often defended Girnigoe Castle in Caithness County and both Rosslyn Castle and Rosslyn Chapel in Midlothian County.

Research indicated that all St. Clair's and Sinclair's are descended from the original Saint Clair's who came to Scotland from the Bass-Normandy Region of France. The English often derived the St. Clair name into "Sinkler." The names St. Clair and Sinclair were derived from Saint Clair and the French-Norman area from which they came, "Saint-Clair-sur-L'Elle." Both Scottish family strongholds began in the Orkney Isles of North Scotland, in Caithness, the northernmost county in Scotland.

We should note here that studies of this family are ongoing and that theories under study reach back to AD 600. Eight years ago, Steve Sinclair, of New Jersey, and Stan Sinclair, of Tennessee, cofounded a St. Clair/Sinclair DNA research effort that has attracted a team of researchers worldwide. According to Steve Sinclair, before Ellis Island, there were six major points of immigration through which St. Clairs and Sinclairs passed into North America: Pennsylvania/ Philadelphia, New Hampshire/Boston/New York, Halifax/Quebec, New Jersey, Virginia, and the Carolinas. Said Steve Sinclair:

"Arthur St. Clair was fortunate in that he had been able to make a choice to come to North America. Of course, as a British officer, he earned his passage to North America by fighting the French and Indians in Canada for five years. Others fled Scotland because of its wars or famine, selling themselves as indentured servants for many years to pay for their passage. Still others convicted of crimes in Scotland often saw their prison sentence take the form of indefinite servitude to plantation owners in North America."

Perhaps because of his ancestry, and the fact that he was tall and raised as a gentleman, Arthur St. Clair is said to have carried himself with an aristocratic bearing, not unlike George Washington. Some even say that young Arthur was born wealthy. It does not appear that this is true. There are many lines of Sinclair's and St. Clair's who came from an aristocratic history, but not all were wealthy. It is generally held that Arthur St. Clair was of old aristocratic Saint Clair descent, specifically the Sinclair's of Lybster and Scotscalder both of whom used the spelling, St. Clair.

Arthur's father, William, was the youngest of his family. Traditionally, even if there was family wealth, there was never much left for the youngest. So William led a modest, uneventful life as a merchant in a small town. He died at an early age, and young Arthur's education and upbringing were guided closely by his mother, Margaret. She placed great value on their family heritage. She managed their meager income and took charge of Arthur's education. She took great pains to prepare him for the study of medicine at the University of Edinburgh and to develop in him what she perceived to be the best qualities of his noted ancestry.

After university, young Arthur was indentured to the celebrated doctor William Hunter, one of London's first surgeons. Arthur was well on his way to a fulfilling medical practice when two things happened. First, his mother died in the winter of 1756–57. Second, the Duke of Cumberland was recruiting troops and seeking officer material from men in the professions and the universities. The French and Indians were threatening British colonial policies in Canada and would soon be doing the same in America, and they needed to be stopped.

Perhaps his decision on the military was prompted by his historic warrior genes, dating back to his St. Clair and Sinclair ancestors. In any case, Arthur decided on a career in the British military. He bought out the remainder of his indenture from Dr. Hunter, which he combined with a small inheritance after his mother's death. With this and the influence of a family friend, he obtained an ensign's rank in the Royal American Regiment of Foot, known as the Sixteenth Regiment. While unknown to him at the time, with that decision, he was also destined to become the patriarch of one of the largest St. Clair/Sinclair clans in America.

In 1758, St. Clair sailed with Admiral Edward Boscawen's fleet headed to North America. He was under the command of Major General Jeffery Amherst, who was charged with leading one of the last campaigns of the Seven Years' War against the French and Indians at Louisbourg, Nova Scotia. Ironically, St. Clair's great...