Glasier, Beamsley

• Gleazier, Beamsly

Beamsley Glasier was a British army officer born in Ipswich, Massachusetts, the child of Stephen Glasier and Sarah Eveleth. He married Ann Stevens on 17 April 1739 in Newbury Massachusetts. They had two children together, a son and a daughter. He joined the military sometime before 1745. He began as an ensign in the 5th Massachusetts Regiment, moving up to the rank of captain in August 1745, adjutant general in Lake George, New York (then called Fort William Henry), lieutenant-colonel in the New York Regiment, and then colonel in 1756. He was commander of Fort Herkimer (in Herkimer, N.Y.) in 1757. Glasier was an active member of the Saint John River Society (also called the Canada Company), who surveyed and planned for the settlement of Nova Scotia. He also participated in the founding of a Massachusetts outpost on the Saint John River that later grew into the colony of New Brunswick. Glasier was commandant of Michilimackinac (Mackinac City, Michican) from 26 July 1768 to 24 May 1770. In 1772 he was in Albany County, New York. He was promoted to major in 1775. He also served in the West Indies and the southern American colonies, especially Florida and Georgia. He retired to the estate that he had acquired in Nova Scotia. He died in August 1784.

Dates of activity and biographical details based on content of the collection, the description for the Beamsley Glasier papers, 1771-1773 held by the Library of Congress, and an entry in the Canadian Dictionary of Biography: http://www.biographi.ca/en/bio/glasier_beamsley_perkins_4E.html