John Montresor - Family

Family

Montresor's romantic life has been the subject of much writing. He married at New York 1 March 1764, Frances Tucker, who was born in New York, 23 April 1744, daughter of Thomas Tucker of Bermuda, stepdaughter of Reverend Samuel Auchmuty and half-sister of General Sir Samuel Auchmuty. She returned to England with her husband, and survived him, dying 28 June 1828, at Rose Hill, Kent. By her, he had, with others, General Sir Henry Tucker Montresor, General Sir Thomas Gage Montresor, and Mary Lucy Montresor, who became the first wife of General Sir Frederick William Mulcaster (half-brother of Capt Sir William Howe Mulcaster).

In addition to these relationships, he also had other more irregular connections. A surviving letter from Detroit, 1763, mentions the death of an apparent mistress, "poor Nancy", and that he had been "on the Common" since. Likewise, he made a small grant for the support of the child of the daughter of a local English farmer, of which John was the father.

Finally, his name appears broadly as the father of Frances, second wife of Ethan Allen. Born to a Mohawk Valley woman on (Ethan Allen would later record) 4 April 1760, Frances was adopted by her mother's later companion, Crean Brush, one-time secretary of the Assembly of the Colony of New York. As to her paternity, when her daughter Frances "Fanny" Allen entered Hôtel-Dieu in 1808, her mother's maiden name was recorded as Montresor. Her tombstone names her Montezuma, while an 1858 history written using family information calls her Frances Montuzan, relating that her father was a British colonel killed in the French and Indian War. Popular opinion makes John Montresor the father of Frances. This has not been in small part due to his role in a popular best-selling novel of the time.