Date Published:
March 2005

L’Encyclopédie de l’histoire du Québec / The Quebec History Encyclopedia

Nils Gustaf Schobtewiski Von Schoultz

Von Shoultz, Nils Gustaf Schobtewiski (d. 1838), filibusterer, was a native of Poland who took refuge in the United States. His sympathies were engaged by the filibusterers in the United States who were planning to free Canada from the British yoke; and, being an experienced soldier, he was placed in command of a force which landed near Prescott, Upper Canada, on November 12, 1838. He took up his headquarters in a stone windmill, where he held out for three or four days; but on November 16, after what was known as the battle of the Windmill, he and his companions were compelled to surrender unconditionally. He was tried before a court-martial at Kingston, and though defended by John A. Macdonald, then a rising young lawyer, he was sentenced to death, and was hanged at Kingston on December 8, 1838. See I. R. Struthers, The trial of Miles von Schoultz (Can. mag., 1917).

[Consult Von Schoultz's biography at the Dictionary of Canadian Biography for more information.]

Source  : W. Stewart WALLACE, ed., The Encyclopedia of Canada, Vol. VI, Toronto, University Associates of Canada, 1948, 398p., p. 247.