John Arnold was born in 1769 in Perth Amboy of the New Jersey colony that was later to become part of the United States. John Arnold Senior fought on the side of the British in the New Jersey forces during the American Revolution. When their land was confiscated in New Jersey in 1784, John Senior, with his wife and ten children, was granted 1000 acres in Nova Scotia. However, by 1797 the Arnold family, attracted by the land offers of John Graves Simcoe had settled in the York area.
