Percifer Carr

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Percifer Carr, sometimes spelled Parsifer, Persifor, Persefer, or Persafor Carr, died in 1804. He was a British loyalist living in what is now Otsego County, New York during the time of the American Revolution. He had served as a sergeant with Colonel William Edmeston in the French and Indian War and later worked as an agent for Edmeston and his brother Robert to claim land along the eastern bank of the Unadilla River near the Otsego patent, close to the area now known as South Edmeston. He became the caretaker of these lands, which were called Mount Edmeston, Edmeston Plantation, Edmeston Manor, Carr’s Garden, or the Carr farm.

The Edmeston brothers eventually returned to England but sent settlers, including some Irish indentured servants, back to the estate. In 1773 William Edmeston returned to Mount Edmeston to supervise its development, and by 1775 its population was nearly 100. When the Revolutionary War began, Edmeston – by then a British major – was detained by American patriots, and Carr continued to manage Mount Edmeston. Because he was a known Tory, patriots in Cherry Valley and German Flatts suspected him of selling provisions to the Mohawk leader Joseph Brant.

In September 1778, a group of Native Americans allied with the British burned Carr’s house and carried him and his wife to Canada via the Niagara region. One account says he was treated harshly, forced to lie in streams so captors could use his body as a footbridge. He and his wife returned to Mount Edmeston in 1783. Edmeston later had him rebuild the estate, but in 1788 Robert Edmeston returned to America and fired Carr. Local mediation by John Tunnicliff failed, though neighbors vouched for Carr’s frugal and industrious conduct. Carr also appealed to Edmeston for relief in old age and poverty, but was denied. Eventually a small piece of property was secured for him, and he stayed in Otsego County until his death in 1804, being buried on John Tunnicliff’s farm near Schuyler Lake.