Paul Bunnell's genealogical research has taken him in directions he never expected when he began his exploration almost 30 years ago - from a bucolic farm to a bloody battle led by Benedict Arnold, down to New York and New Jersey, up through Canada, and even, serendipitously, to a psychic fair on Cape Cod.

The Milford genealogist and author remembers his tremendous shock at discovering an ancestor, Benjamin Bonnell, who was loyal to the British crown during the American Revolution and fought on the British side under Benedict Arnold. It was a turning point in Bunnell's research, a journey that became a passion and led him to become a genealogist who helps others, especially those with Loyalist roots, trace their family histories.

"My first reaction was, 'Oh, no, what am I going to tell the family?'" Bunnell says of the moment he discovered his Loyalist roots. "They're going to think we're traitors."

Bunnell, 58, and his family have come to embrace their roots, which are more common in New England than one might think, he says. Bunnell recently founded the Loyalists Quarterly, the only U.S. journal dedicated specifically to Loyalist studies, which bears his motto, "Loyalty is Everything."

Bunnell sells copies of this portrait of Benedict Arnold at all his lectures. Coutesy photo. Zoom

"What I learned left me with a different impression than I started with," Bunnell says, sitting before a wall of family portraits dating back to the 19th century. "It was difficult to go against the king. Britain was a huge military power. Loyalists were not necessarily rich, although the establishment was well represented, but there were also so many farmers and merchants."

Bunnell considers the colonists who launched the American Revolution - the patriots, or, as Benedict Arnold called them, the rebels - a brave lot. But he considers the Loyalists equally brave.

"Both ways were very hard," Bunnell says. "There were over 100,000 people on the side of the king. You never learn that in school. There were a lot of Americans that lost."

In more ways than one.

Many Loyalists lost their homes and were forced to flee. Those from the Northeast took refuge primarily in British-controlled New York or sheltered in tents in the Canadian Maritime Provinces. The Treaty of Paris, signed in 1783 at the end of the war, assured Loyalists safe return to their homes and the return of their property; however, many states passed measures contradicting it.

"The Banishment Act of the state of Massachusetts prevented the return of Loyalists to the state and stopped them from reclaiming their goods and estates,"Bunnell says.

He participated in a 2004 reenactment of the evacuation of Boston Loyalists at Fort Independence in Boston, during which ships carried Loyalists to Halifax, Nova Scotia.

"There were 10,000 tents in Saint John (New Brunswick)," Bunnell says. "A lot of people starved to death or froze to death. Some snuck back into the country. They came through Vermont and New Hampshire."

Granite State Loyalists

Bill Copeley, librarian at the New Hampshire Historical Society, says New Hampshire tended to be less severe than Massachusetts in many ways, including the treatment of Loyalists. Many people fled Massachusetts and came to New Hampshire, where religious freedom was generally greater.

Bunnell, who himself moved to New Hampshire from Massachusetts in January, has also written of the end of British rule in New Hampshire. Gov. John Wentworth -the second and final royal governor of New Hampshire - and his family were forced to leave the state in 1775 for Canada, where he later served as royal governor of Nova Scotia.

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