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Piecing Together a Passenger List: The Bridgewater, Part Four of Four
copyright Stephen Davidson UE
Piecing Together a Passenger List: The Bridgewater
Part Four of Four
While the documents of the late 18th century can be used to reconstruct the passenger list for the Bridgewater, a refugee evacuation vessel that took Loyalists to what is now New Brunswick, they have their limitations. Victualing musters give the names of the heads of households, but only give numbers for spouses, children, and servants. Death notices and probate records provide dates for the end of lives, but fail to tell the stories of how the passengers established themselves in a new land.
Finding Bridgewater passengers in other documents can at least save them from being more than just a name on a list. For example, William Bogle’s name appears in both the victualing muster for Fort Howe and the Book of Negroes. He is known to have been a merchant on Long Island, New York and to have come to Saint John as a single man with a servant. But because he accompanied a Black Loyalist on the voyage from New York City, we know about 22 year-old Daniel Cary.
Enslaved in Virginia, Cary escaped his master in 1779, and received a General Birch certificate to affirm his status as a free man. Over the next 8 years, Cary married and began to raise a family. Because his name is on a list of passengers heading for Halifax in December of 1791, we know that Cary’s family was among the seventy-two men, sixty-four women and eighty-six children from New Brunswick who set sail for Sierra Leone in January of the following year.
Another passenger associated with the Black history of New Brunswick was Amos Strickland. He, his wife and their 2 older children had fled persecution in Bucks County, Pennsylvania. As he is listed among a company of Loyalists and Quakers, it is likely that Strickland was a member of the Religious Society of Friends – a denomination that did not permit its congregants to own slaves. In the aforementioned list, he is described as being a farmer who was a “sober, industrious man but poor“.
Stickland’s name later appears on a list of the original grantees for town plots in Beaver Harbour, a settlement along the Bay of Fundy coast in Charlotte County. In the years that followed, the settlement at Beaver Harbour swelled to a population of 800. Belle View, the name given to the town at Beaver Harbour, was comprised of 15 streets and 149 lots. It was incorporated in 1785, and by the following year the settlers began the task of building a house of worship.
The settlement had posted the following sign: NO SLAVE MASTERS ADMITTED. Here were loyalists with a vision of a post-revolutionary society that included equality and freedom for all. Belle View is the only known exception to the universal slavery of early loyalist New Brunswick.
Within four years time, a forest fire engulfed the town, burning all but one settler’s home. The original hope of building a community based upon merchant shipping had never materialized and so Belle View’s founders sought better opportunities in other settlements along the coast.
Only a handful of the Bridgewater’s passengers have their names included in Lorenzo Sabine’s biographical dictionary that was published in 1847.  Fort Howe’s victualing muster lists William Williams as a married carpenter from Wales. Sabine adds that he had his Pennsylvania property confiscated, and that he died in New Brunswick’s King’s County in 1802.
John Sharp was also from Pennsylvania and traveled with a wife, young child, and servant. He became a member of the colony’s first civil jury for a case tried on October 5, 1784. Sabine adds that this shipwright may have resettled in Upper Canada.
Another Pennsylvania shipwright was John Mosely who brought a wife, two children and a white servant with him. Sadly, his oldest child died within the family’s first year in New Brunswick. An 1828 probate record notes that Mosely had been granted land in Queen’s County.
Another shipwright was David Elmston who arrived in Saint John with his wife, 2 children and a white servant. Originally from New England, he was eventually granted land in the loyalist city.
Thomas Cutler was a tobacconist from Rhode Island who came to Saint John as a single man. All that Sabine could discover was that rebels in New England denounced Cutler as a traitor and had him banished in 1778.
Fort Howe’s records include a merchant from New Hampshire named John Holland who sought refuge with his wife, two small children and 3 white servants. A Loyalist of that name was an alderman on Saint John’s first common council in May of 1785, and then was later appointed the sheriff for Saint John County in 1792.
There are about 41 other Bridgewater passengers who have this kind of minimal information stored away in the records of Fort Howe’s commissary.  But even this pittance of data can be helpful if one steps back and looks at the overall make-up of the Bridgewater’s passenger list. By considering their colonies of origin, marital status, and occupations rather than their biographical details, one can get a sense of the demographic composition of those who sailed on a loyalist evacuation vessel.
Using the Fort Howe records, we know that there were about 185 passengers on the Bridgewater when it left New York City on June 13, 1783. They were divided into four “companies” with captains to supervise their departure and arrival. Fort Howe distributed food and provisions to the ship’s “households” – headed by married men, single men, and widows. The Bridgewater had 46 such households. Twenty-six of them had servants; 20 included children. Sadly, five of those children died during their first year in Saint John.  There were 29 wives and one widow on board the Bridgewater as well as 14 single men. While two “households” came from unnamed colonies, others came from Connecticut (7), New York (14), Massachusetts (5), Pennsylvania (8), New Jersey (2), Wales (1), Scotland (3), Rhode Island (1) and New Hampshire (2).
Occupations for the heads of the 46 households included farmers, merchants, mariners, shoemakers, surgeons, tobacconists, shipwrights, carpenters, boat builders, chandlers, cabinetmakers, sawyers, traders, and a student. The only “white collar” profession listed was that of a civil servant.  Clearly, the Bridgewater‘s passengers were members of the colonial middle class and not its elite society members.            The 21 African descendants who sailed on the Bridgewater in 1783 were either enslaved by white loyalist passengers or were free Black Loyalists. The four enslaved Blacks ranged in age from 4 to 38, and the 17 free Blacks ranged in age from infants to 40 years of age. One of the latter came as an indentured servant (only free persons could enter into indenture agreements).
When they had been enslaved, these Blacks had lived with masters in New York, Virginia, and Connecticut. One had run away from slavery in 1782; others had made their escapes as early as 1776. None of the Black Loyalists who sailed on the Bridgewater were later listed as the heads of households on the Fort Howe victualing muster. They had either hired themselves out to white households or attempted to settle outside of Saint John. When Black Loyalists were listed in Fort Howe’s records, their evacuation ships were not recorded.
Piecing together the passenger manifest of the Bridgewater and uncovering the stories of its Loyalists required consulting a variety of primary sources, but in the end the effort has shed light on the experiences of 185 refugees who hoped for a better life in what became the colony of New Brunswick.
To secure permission to reprint this article contact the author at stephendavids@gmail.com.

Book Review: Heart of American Darkness
Author: Robert G. Parkinson (New York, NY: W. W. Norton, 2024)
Review by Gene Procknow 5 August 2024 Journal of the American Revolution
Robert G. Parkinson, a history professor, chronicles the pre- to post-American Revolutionary War events in the Ohio Valley through the experiences of two families—the Native Shickellamys and the colonialist Cresaps. Each of the families suffered premature loss of kin and other tragedies during the French and Indian War, Pontiac’s Rebellion, Lord Dunmore’s War, the American Revolutionary War, and the later Native/Colonialist conflicts.
The Shickellamy clan begins with its eponymously named patriarch, born circa 1700, a Oneida Indian and Iroquois/Six Nations diplomat residing at Shamokin (modern-day Sunbury, Pennsylvania). Shickellamy’s wife, Neanoma, bore one daughter, Koonay, and five sons, John Logan Shickellamy (Tachnedorus), James Logan Shickellamy (Soyechtowa), John Petty Shickellamy, “Unhappy Jake,” and an unnamed infant. Jesse Logan, grandson of Tachnedorus, who died in 1916, is the last member of the Shickellamy clan to appear in Parkinson’s narrative. Shickellamy enjoyed close, friendly relationships with several influential colonists. The patriarch named his first two sons after James Logan, a controversial Pennsylvania Indian agent. John Gibson, a prominent Indian trader, married Shickellamy’s daughter, Koonay.
The Cresap family patriarch, Col. Thomas Cresap, was also born around 1700, served in many influential public positions, and founded Oldtown, Maryland, a central launching point for contesting the Ohio Valley. He and his wife Hannah produced two daughters, Elizabeth and Sarah, and three sons, Daniel, Thomas, Jr., and Michael. All three sons were involved in Indian trading, land speculation, and warfare. Daniel established a settlement in modern-day Williamsport, Maryland, and sent three sons to fight in Lord Dunmore’s War and the Revolution. Thomas was killed in the French and Indian War. Contemporary news accounts inappropriately attributed to Michael the murder of eight Natives. Michael died of natural causes on his way to join George Washington’s army besieging Boston in 1775, becoming a minor hero afterward. Thomas Cresap also engaged in a long-term, bigamous relationship with Elizabeth Lamy, fathering a daughter, Jane Cresap….
…The author’s long-term interest in the Cresap and Shickellamy families is palpable throughout the monograph. The focus on the two families avoids the tendency of many writers to homogenize cruelty, death, and derangement by recounting history in the abstract. Parkinson avoids this trap, providing readers with a troubling account of what it was like to live in the contested Ohio Valley. The region’s residents experienced bewilderment and horror, which the author fittingly includes in his subtitle. Read more…

Thomas Hutchinson, Patrick Henry, and the Stamp Act
by James M. Smith 8 August 2024 Journal of the American Revolution
When the stamp act crisis arose, a number of American colonial legislatures opposed the measure and sent remonstrances to Parliament objecting to it. Two of those colonies were Virginia and Massachusetts. The methods utilized by each were different and had differing results. The difference may be attributed to what may be called “Patrick Henry’s Hoax”.
When the stamp act was announced, Thomas Hutchinson, the lieutenant governor of Massachusetts, opposed the act. However, as an official of the colony’s government it was his duty to execute all the laws of the colony and Great Britain as they applied to the colony. Therefor he was in no position to speak publicly of his opposition. He was able to speak privately. In July of 1764 he wrote to a friend in London who had political connections. He instructed his friend to share the letter with as many people within the government as possible.
Hutchinson’s letter made four points in opposition to the stamp tax. First, the British government had long ago conceded to the various colonies in America the power to make their own laws and to tax themselves through their own legislatures. Second, Americans were not represented in Parliament and thus Parliament had no authority to tax the colonies. Third, the colonies owed no debt to the British government for their existence. The colonies had been founded by private enterprise, bearing the costs themselves along with the settler’s own costs in clearing land, establishing communities and dealing with the Native Americans. They had cost the British taxpayers nothing. Fourth, he advised readers that the stamp tax would jeopardize the profits expected from British trade with America and that lost profits from reduced trade would not be offset by revenue gained from the stamp tax. No radical patriot could have put the case against the stamp tax more clearly and as succinctly.  Read more... especially the Virginian hoax

Massachusetts Mandamus Councillors
The Massachusetts Charter (1691) established rules for government with a General Assembly — the lower house of the legislature (House of Representatives) — and the upper house known as the Governor’s Council.  The members of the Governor’s Council were elected by a vote of the members of the incoming House of Representatives and outgoing members of the Council.
The Massachusetts Government Act (May 20, 1774), part of the Intolerable Acts, revoked the Massachusetts Charter (1691) and stripped the General Assembly of the right to elect the members of the upper house.
Governor Thomas Gage, who was also a General and Commander-in-Chief of British Forces in North America, was given the authority to appoint the members of the Governor’s Council through a “royal writ of mandamus.”
Governor Thomas Gage appointed 36 men as Mandamus Councillors in 1774, to be effective 1 August 1774. Thirty-six men were appointed, only 25 accepted and 9 resigned afterward. Only two of them had served on the council in the past, which concerned leaders of the radical Sons of Liberty and the Patriot Cause.
The appointment of these councillors contributed to the establishment of the Solemn League and Covenant, which led to the organization of the First Continental Congress and the Continental Association. Read more details…

What Freedom Meant to Prince Whipple, The Black Revolutionary Soldier Famous for Rowing Across the Delaware
by Timothy Messer-Kruse  August 2024 in Common Place
A boy was born in Amabou, Ghana, in 1750. His father was a hereditary leader of his place, but whether we call him a king, a lord, a chief, or a headman, is a matter of custom and cultural perspective. Let’s call him a king after the English fashion. This ruler, seeing the obvious power and influence of the English seafarers, traders, and missionaries who crowded the coast in increasing numbers, decided it was wise for his son to study their ways and arranged with a ship captain to take him to America to get an education. An older relative had previously made this journey and returned with a Christian education. It is not known where he thought to send them, though there were renowned missionary “negro schools” in New York and Philadelphia and academies in New England who would accept Native Americans and other pupils of color.
After some sort of deal was struck with an English or American captain to take the now ten-year-old boy and his younger brother and conduct them to the school, either the captain changed his mind en route and simply the kept the boys as his own slaves, or the ship was seized by pirates and the boys sold off with the other prizes, or the captain sold them himself once he arrived in an American port. What is known for sure is that the African boys were claimed by a former slave ship captain who lived in Portsmouth, New Hampshire, in 1765.
That ship captain, named William Whipple, was born in Maine in 1730 and like many boys who grew up along the great harbors and inlets along the Piscataqua River that divided the state from New Hampshire, Whipple went to sea at a young age. He proved himself a skilled mariner and by the time he had reached his twenties he captained his own ship. Like much of the rest of the American fleet, Whipple plied the Africa trade, carrying rum eastward and human beings west. Such trade was so handsomely profitable that Whipple could afford to marry his cousin and retire to the relatively quiet life of a town merchant before he reached the age of thirty.
Captain Whipple called the older of the boys “Prince,” which was probably a callous joke on his royal pedigree. The other boy was given the common slave name “Cuffee.” Both lived and worked in Whipple’s house and stable.
When the revolution advanced to the point that patriots began setting up shadow governments, Whipple became a member of New Hampshire’s first independent assembly. He attended the sessions in Exeter accompanied by Prince, who had grown into an imposing strong man of twenty-five. Read more…

Hamilton, the Humanist: Philosophical Collision in Federalist No. 6
by Vincent Calvagno 6 August 2024  Journal of the American Revolution
In December 2023, intellectual history lost one of its greatest innovators: J. G. A. Pocock. Professor Pocock, who dedicated his life to reconstructing the relationship between written text and historical context, leaves behind a body of work that has dramatically altered our understanding of Atlantic political thought. Underpinning much of his scholarship is a strong conviction that European and American history are not separate chronologies but linked variations of the same story. In 1972, Pocock reflected on the scholarly movement of which he had become a key part: “an effect of the recent research,” he noted, “has been to display the American Revolution less as the first political act of revolutionary enlightenment than as the last great act of the Renaissance.” Three years later, in his monumental monograph, The Machiavellian Moment (1975), he contributed his own findings to this reassessment of the Revolution by arguing that its inspiration came less from Enlightenment thinkers like Locke than from humanist thinkers like Machiavelli. That the ghost of the Renaissance frequented the American Revolutionaries is clear from their writings; The Federalist, for example, is a fundamentally humanist document which references the classics and is structured like the treatises of Italy’s golden age of political philosophy, the cinquecento.
To appreciate the innovations of The Federalist, the historian must regard its authors not just as pioneers of “federalism and constitutionalism” but also as learned scholars who invoked, appropriated, and modified an existing tradition of political theory. Read more…

A UE Loyalist Descendant? “The airman from Sierra Leone who was shot down over Nazi Germany”
By Tim Stokes 7 January 2021, BBC News
John Henry Smythe, an RAF navigator from Sierra Leone in West Africa, was shot down and captured in Nazi Germany in 1943.
War had broken out four years earlier when he was 25 years old, and Johnny volunteered to join the fight against fascism after a call from Britain to its colonies for recruits. Again and again, he and his comrades risked their lives in the skies above occupied Europe.
After he was liberated from a prisoner-of-war camp, he would go on to become a senior officer aboard the Empire Windrush and then an amateur courtroom talent of such promise he was invited to train as a barrister in England. As the attorney general of Sierra Leone, he would meet President John F Kennedy in the White House.
But as a black man in the clutches of a murderously racist Nazi regime, how did Johnny Smythe survive the war?…
…Smythe returned to Sierra Leone’s capital Freetown, where he had been born in 1915. Might he have been a descendant of a UE Loyalist?
Read more…
Noted by Tom Wardle

Hessian Soldiers Travelling to America: New York – A Soldier’s Life October 1780
From a Hessian Diary of the American Revolution.
This excerpt from the diary of Johan Conrad Dohla (170 pages).

Major Moves during Johan’s deployment:

  • March 1777:   Depart Germany
  • 3 June 1777:   Arrive New York, then Amboy NJ
  • November 1777:  To Philadelphia
  • June 1778: to Long Island
  • July 1778: To Newport RI
  • October 1779: to New York

October 1780: At New York (page 88)
Continuation of Occurences in North America During the Fourth Year, 1780

IN THE MONTH OF OCTOBER [1780]
2 October. I took leave in the city of New York until evening.
3 October.  Private  [Wolfgang  Adam]  Kipp,  of  Quesnoy’s  Company,  died  in  the  English hospital at Vauxhall.
5 October. I went on a fatigue detail at the blockhouse at Harlem.
6 October. Today I drilled with the company.
This  evening,  at  tattoo,  General  von  Knyphausen  informed  our  regiment  that  Major General Benedict Arnold, who had deserted from the Americans, had been named a brigadier colonel of an English regiment. On the other hand, the loss of the brave and good Major John Andre was  lamented.  He  had  been  captured,  unexpectedly,  by  the  Americans  as  he exchanged letters with General Arnold and, at the same time, conducted espionage. At twelve o’clock  noon  on  October  2,  after  [trial  by]  a  courtmartial  [board]  consisting  of  eleven generals,  he  was  hanged  at  Washington’s  camp  at  Tappan,  on  York  Island.  His  death  was mourned by the entire army.
10  October.  The  companies  were  drilled.  We  had  at  this  time  a  shortage  of  provisions, received oatmeal for peas, and occasionally wheat and old ships’ zwieback instead of  bread, and since 3 October, bad meat, because the provisions fleet from England has not arrived for such a long time.
11 October. I escorted wood to Kingsbridge.
18 October. During the afternoon our  recruits,  150  men,  arrived  here  from New York. They had been en route from Ansbach since 3 March. Our regiment received orders today to move into winter quarters in New York. The Ansbach Regiment, however, remained here.
19 October. We moved out of our campsite near Bloomingdale and entered winter quarters in our former barracks on the North River at New York.
20  October.  The  newly  arrived  recruits  were  divided.  Quesnoy’s  Company  received  a corporal  and  fourteen  privates.  During  the  evening  I  went  on  picket  duty  in  the  city  at Clinton’s quarters, as lance corporal. Four thousand English, under the command of General Leslie, landed in Virginia, but shortly thereafter again departed.
26  October.  I  went  on  command  on  a  ship  called  the  Ranger’s  Sloop.  This  ship  stood twenty miles from New York, in the North River, beyond Fort Knyphausen, on the outermost channel. We had to perform duty thereon as marines and remained on board ten days.
30 October. I went on watch on the ship as lance corporal.on was conducted. We had to put up with many bugs and mosquitoes here during this month.
(to be continued)

Advertised on 4 August 1774: “That large commodious Room”
What was advertised in a colonial American newspaper 250 years ago today?

9 Aug 1774

“That large commodious Room, (for the better accommodating Business for the Public Utility).”

Jacob Valk continued to do well as a broker for “Lands, Houses, and Negroes” in Charleston in the summer of 1774.  He attracted so many clients that the advertisements he placed on their behalf filled two of the three columns on the first page of the August 9, 1774, edition of the South-Carolina Gazette and Country Journal.  In addition to that publication, he regularly bought a significant amount of space in the South-Carolina Gazette and the South-Carolina and American General Gazette.  His investment in advertising testified to his belief in its effectiveness, while the number of advertisements demonstrated the extensive demand for his services.
Such success prompted him to move his brokerage office to a new location.  He announced that he “has taken the House where Mr. Thomas Pike, lately lived … together with that large commodious Room, (for the better accommodating Business for the Public Utility).”  Pike had recently departed the city after offering dancing and fencing lessons to its residents for a decade. Read more…

Pellew and the Dutton – rescue despite the odds
We’ve met Edward Pellew (1757 – 1833) on this blog before  and it’s probable that we’ll meet him again as he ranks just  below Nelson, and certainly with Cochrane, as one of the Royal Navy’s most intrepid commanders during the Revolutionary and Napoleonic wars. His earliest fighting experience came during the American War of Independence, when he was present at fighting on Lake Champlain, and his career was to culminate as Admiral Viscount Exmouth when he commanded a combined British-Dutch squadron in operations against Barbary pirates in Algiers in 1816. A humane, generous and decent man, his personal courage was legendary and although his career was studded with desperate naval actions one of his most notable feats of heroism was not to be in a combat situation, but rather a fearless rescue when the East Indiaman Dutton was driven aground in 1796.
1795, the third year of the [French] Revolutionary War, saw Commodore Pellew commanding a squadron of frigates from his own HMS Indefatigable. Operating in the Western Approaches and off North-Western Coast of France, Pellew’s force was to score significant success through the year. By January 1796 however Indefatigable had been brought into Plymouth for refitting. It was an opportunity for Pellew to relax ashore on and 26th January he was on the way with his wife to dine at the house of a well-known clergyman, Dr.  Robert Hawker. As the Pellew arrived Hawker ran out and called “Have you heard of the wreck of the ship under the Citadel? ” This was enough to send Pellew racing to the scene of the disaster.  Read more…

Borealia as a Teaching Resource
It is always gratifying to learn that secondary, college, or university teachers are using Borealia in their classrooms. Over the years, we have had educators tell us they have included essays in their syllabi, have found them useful to get up to speed on new research, or even as a model for student assignments.
Thanks to the financial support of the Canadian Historical Association Communication Project Fund and the good work of co-editor Laura Smith, there is now a simple way to discover Borealia posts that may connect to your teaching themes.
At our Topics and Themes for Teaching page, you will find a list of common teaching themes in Canadian history linked to essays tagged with those same themes.
To be sure, not every important theme is represented in this list – something that we hope to address in the next chapter – but we are grateful for the variety of scholarship that is found here.
Educators will want to give special attention to our occasional Teach My Research posts, which include classroom ideas and primary sources.
In the years ahead, we intend to foster new connections between educators and researchers, but in the meantime, we hope this list will help make some of our posts more accessible to teachers and students.
More and links…

Wanted: Book Reviewers
The Loyalist Gazette Committee is looking for volunteers to read a book which will be supplied and then write a short review following the Gazette guidelines. The review will be published in the Gazette and you will be noted as the reviewer – and, you get to keep the book.

To volunteer, or for more information, reach out to Bill Russell UE, chair of the Communications Committee at billrussell10@gmail.com

Loyalist Certificates Issued to 31 July 2024
The publicly available list of certificates issued since 2012 is now updated to end of July 31, 2024.
When a certificate is added there, it is also recorded in the record for the Loyalist Ancestor in the Loyalist Directory.

Events Upcoming

Grand River Branch: “The Fugitive Slave Chapel” Fanshaw Sun 11 Aug 1:30

Speaker Heather Rennalls will be speaking in the Fugitive Slave Chapel; the public may be present as well.
Heather is a local historian with a passion for the rich history of Oxford County. She is regular speaker and advocate to raise awareness of Black history in Oxford County. She is well known for her exhibit, ‘Almost Forgotten: Black History in Oxford County’.
Fanshawe Pioneer Village, located inside Fanshawe Conservation Area, enter at 1424 Clarke Road. (Veterans Memorial Parkway & Clarke Road, London, Ontario.) Entrance to Pioneer village is $10.00 for seniors, $12.00 for adults.
Lunch if interested at 11:30 at Jame’s Place for brunch, 1055 Clarke Road, 10 minutes form the Pioneer Village.

St. Alban’s Centre, Hoozhear? ~ Sat. Aug. 17, 2024 ~ 7:30 p.m.

Talented and versatile, this young group of musicians and singers will impress with their energy, and a repertoire that covers 9 decades.  A great young group of musicians and singers all playing multiple instruments for a rousing good time. Tickets $25 online, at Hallowed Grounds Cafe at St. Alban’s Centre, Adolphustown ON (Thursday to Sunday 9 am – 2 pm),  $30 at the door on August 17th. More about St. Alban’s Centre.

Annual Pilgrimage at Old Hay Bay Church, Napanee ON. Sun. 25 Aug 2:00 – 5:00

Welcomes you to the Pilgrimage of exploration at 2 pm & the Annual Pilgrimage at 3 pm
Liturgist: Rev. Aaron Miechkota
Guest Speaker: Rev. Paul Reed
Guest Singers: Valerie Nunn & Gordon Burnett
Refreshments to follow.
2365 South Shore Road, Napanee. 613.373.9759

America’s History LLC Bus Trip –  Forts, Raids, Battles and Mayhem: The Schoharie Valley, 1776 to 1780 – September 7, 2024, day bus trip

Many contributing factors made living on the western edge of Albany County, near the frontier, a very dangerous place during the war. Events here are indelibly linked to the people and events of the Mohawk Valley, as well as New York State and beyond. What happened in the Schoharie Valley region was part of a particularly brutal civil war that erupted on New York’s frontier.
Many of the opposing participants knew each other, as German, Dutch, and Mohawk friends, neighbors, and family members who chose sides and suffered often tragic consequences.
Along with a discussion of the violent history of the war in this region, there will be a rich narrative about the people who it impacted, their backgrounds, and what they had built and lost. This included the resident Mohawk community known as Wilden der Hoeck that was forever impacted. Read more and registration…

St. Lawrence Branch 2024 Charter Night Dinner, Sat 14 Sept 6:00pm in Ingleside

At St. Matthew’s Presbyterian Church, 15 Memorial Square, Ingleside ON. Social hour from 5:00.  Chicken Cordon Bleu dinner, cost $30
Tickets in advance only by 30 Aug. from Darlene Fawcett at dmfawcett@ripnet.com
Non-members are welcome
Guest Speaker: Brian Porter will speak on The Royal Trio: Three ships running the rapids of the St. Lawrence prior to the Seaway Project (The Rapids Queen, the Rapids King and the Rapids Prince).
Raffle: Harvest Baskets. Donations for the raffle baskets, Contact Darlene

In the Footsteps of Ethan Allen, Benedict Arnold and John Brown: The Capture of Fort Ticonderoga – September 20, 2024

Friday, September 20, 2024 (8am to 5pm)
Led by: Jim Rowe and Bruce Venter
Departure: Fort Ticonderoga parking lot
Bus Tour Registration: $150.00
Details and Registration…

Glengarry ON History: Lancaster Twp bus tour, Four dates Sept & Oct. Tickets now available

The Glengarry Pioneer Museum, Glengarry County Archives, and the Glengarry, Nor’Westers & Loyalist Museum have partnered for the third installment of the hugely successful historic “Glengarry Rambles” bus tour! LANCASTER TOWNSHIP.
Led by Allan J. MacDonald, County Archivist, registered attendees will get to explore what was once known as the Lake Township and will discover the location of  Elbow Bend and Church Hill. Highlights include one of Ontario’s eleven bicentennial farms; Glengarry’s poultry capital; the North Lancaster Races; the home of a Rhodes Scholar.
Four tour dates September 28, 29, October 5, 6, from North Lancaster, departing at 1:00pm.
Details and Tickets now on sale from Glengarry Pioneer Museum

From the Social Media and Beyond

  • Monument at Port Mouton: “Commemorating the arrival of Tarleton’s Legion and other Loyalists at Port Mouton who settled Guysborough Township in November 1783. Unveiled at Bicentennial Celebrations July 16, 1983.” Brian McConnell UE
  • Deed from Joseph McConnell to Benjamin McConnell dated 6 October 1787 “and in the twenty- seventh year of his Majesty’s Reign, Lord George the Third, King of Great Britain, France, Ireland, Defender of the Faith… “for 100 acres on Saint Marys Bay in the Township of Digby in consideration of thirty pounds. The McConnells both described as of Sissiboo, in the Township of Digby, arrived from New York with other Loyalists in 1784. Brian McConnell UE
  • Townsends, and “anything food”
    • The Working Man’s Oyster
      Oysters were a staple food in early America. The Working Man’s Oyster tells how folks from all walks of life used them and prepared them. Oysters continued to rise in popularity through the 19th century.
    • Celebrate #NationalWatermelonDay with a sweet treat and a slice of history. Experts disagree on where the wild ancestral watermelon first grew, but evidence reveals humans cultivated the plant more than 4,000 years ago in Egypt, spreading to the rest of Africa and India.
      By the 17th century, people throughout Africa, Europe and Asia grew watermelon. European colonization and the transatlantic slave trade brought the crop to the North America where it was grown by all backgrounds and, today, continues to be enjoyed as a summer treat.
    • Seafood has been part of Virginia’s cuisine culture for centuries. On April 26, 1607, Christopher Newport anchored off Cape Henry, the crew going ashore. The next day, George Percy, the crew’s diarist and future governor, encountered Indigenous people roasting oysters.
      “When they perceived our coming, they fled away … and left many of the Oysters in the fire. We ate some … which were very large and delicate in taste.”
      And so began Virginia’s long-term love affair with the Lynnhaven oyster – named for the bay where Percy shucked his first.
      Down the historical road, it’s also noted that Emperor Napoleon Bonaparte relished their flavor, while Queen Victoria called them “fancies” and, during a 1909 visit, President Taft ate more than 100 in one sitting.
  • This week in History 
    • 3 Aug 1774, dissenting British minister Joseph Priestly discovers oxygen at Bowood House in Wiltshire, England.  Priestley shared the political philosophy of many of America’s #AmRev leaders   image
    • 5 Aug 1774 George Washington, Patrick Henry, Peyton Randolph & Richard Henry Lee were elected to Virginia’s 7 delegates to the General Congress in Philadelphia, later known as the 1st Continental Congress. The Virginia delegation would help shape the course of #RevWar image
    • 8 Aug 1775 Cambridge, MA. Daniel Morgan & his Virginia riflemen arrive in hunting shirts & leggings. Morgan’s men initially seemed strange to the militia & fights broke out. The riflemen soon gained a fierce reputation, however, as “Morgan’s Sharpshooters.” image
    • 8 Aug 1775 Oconore, SC Maj Andrew Williamson’s up-country militia defeat Cherokee braves and begin the march to destroy the Cherokee tribal villages. image
    • 4 Aug 1776 American militia under Col Andrew Williamson launches a punitive expedition against British-allied Cherokees and torches settlements near Sugar Town, Socone, & Keowee SC. The beginning of 8 days of destroying six more settlements. image
    • 9 Aug 1776 Staten Island, NY Guy Johnson, British Superintendent of Indian Affairs, returns from England confident the Iroquois will ally with the crown. Most of the 6 Nations side with the British by 1777 due to the efforts of Iroquois Chief Joseph Brant. image
    • 9 Aug 1776 The Continental Congress promoted Nathanael Greene to the rank of major General on this day. He is considered by many the best general Washington had. image
    • 2 Aug 1777 Lt Col Barry St Leger’s force of Loyalists and Iroquois besiege Fort Stanwix in NY’s Mohawk Valley. American commander Peter Gansevoort rejects St Leger’s demand to surrender, noting a lack of artillery. His 500 men of 3rd NY Regt hunker down. image
    • 4 Aug 1777 Fort Dayton, NY. Col Nicholas Herkimer leads a relief column of 800 Tryon Co. militia to relieve Ft Stanwix. His movement is observed by Molly Brant, Loyalist sister of Chief Joseph Brant, who sends a warning to Lt Col Barry St Leger. image
    • 5 Aug 1777 Outside Ft Stanwix, NY. Lt Col Barry St Leger receives Molly Brant’s warning of a relief column & sends Chief Joseph Brant with 200 Loyalists & Iroquois warriors. The defenders at Ft Stanwix note the depletion of the besiegers outside the gates. image
    • 6 Aug 1777 Oriskany NY, A relief force of Patriot militia and Oneida allies marching on Ft Stanwix is ambushed by Loyalist & 6 Nations Iroquois Indian allies. Close to 1/2 of the patriots were killed, and Gen Nicholas Herkimer was mortally wounded. image
    • 7 Aug 1777 Ft Stanwix, NY. Col Peter Gansevoort refuses British Lt Col Barry St Leger’s demand to surrender but agrees to a 3-day truce, intending to dispatch Lt Col Marinus Willet to Ft Dayton for help. image
    • 2 Aug 1778, France formally declares war on Great Britain. The French Foreign Minister, Comte de Vergennes, had been providing secret aid to the rebels in America for two years but waited for events to point towards British defeat before committing openly. image
    • 4 Aug 1778 The Marquis de Lafayette arrives in RI & convinces Gen John Sullivan & French Adm d’Estaing to cancel their feint attack on Aquidneck & commence an immediate attack of combined Franco-American forces. image
    • 6 Aug 1778 British Gen Henry Clinton informed Newport was under attack & ordered Adm Richard Howe to scatter the French fleet. He has 20 ships and 914 guns to the French Adm comte d’Estaing’s force of 15 ships and 834 guns.  image
    • 9 Aug 1778 Gen John Sullivan awaits more reinforcements for his campaign against Newport, RI. His troops quickly filled the void when the British suddenly abandoned the northern defenses. But the maneuver angers French Adm d’Estaing, whose fleet he needs. image
    • 5 Aug 1779 Morrisania (The Bronx). Lieut Col James DeLancey’s New York Loyalists and Patriot William Hull’s Connecticut Brig. fight a civil war in New York. Patriots destroyed buildings & food stores & captured several Loyalists, plus horses & cattle.  image
    • 7 Aug 1779 Penobscot, MA (today ME) With the siege foundering, Gen Solomon Lovell & Commodore Dudley Saltonstall clash at a war council over coordination issues. However, they both agree on requesting more reinforcements from Boston.
    • 3 Aug 1780 Gen Francis Marion & 20 guerrillas join Gen Horatio Gates as his army crosses the Pee Dee River on the way to Camden, SC. Gates distrusts irregular forces & sends them off on scouting missions. image
    • 3 Aug 1780 Headquarters, Peekskill Gen Washington appointed Gen Arnold to take command of the fortifications at West Point, NY. “… proceed to West Point and take the command of the Post…” image
    • 6 Aug 1780 Benedict Arnold wrote to Gen Washington of the conditions at West Point, a command he would soon seek to hand over to the British. He complained of the quality of the troops and their condition, fearing desertion.  image
    • 9 August 1780 Off Portugal. Admiral Luis de Cordova y Cordova’s fleet of 37 Spanish and French ships intercepts a British convoy of over 120 East & West Indiamen escorted by one ship of the line and two frigates. Cordova captures fifty-five ships. Only the three escorts and five merchantmen escape. Although Britannia ruled the waves, the entry of France and Spain with navies that could at least challenge the Royal Navy was a game changer. The British were forced to fight a worldwide war instead of merely subduing rebellious colonies. The threat to other British possessions and the valuable sugar trade from the West Indies contributed to the British shift in strategy and eventually calls at home to end the conflict. image
    • 8 Aug 1782, Canada. Three warships of the French Hudson Bay expedition, led by Jean-François de La Pérouse, capture Fort Prince of Wales. Outnumbered,he fort’s Gov, Samuel Hearne, surrendered without a shot fired. The French partially destroyed the fort. image
    • 7 Aug 1794, President George Washington activates the militia to end the anti-tax Whiskey Rebellion in Pennsylvania. Washington will later ride at the head of 13,000 mobilized troops becoming the only U.S. president to lead an army in the field while in office. image
  • Clothing and Related:

    • Bright as golden sunshine on a summer day. Brocaded silk, London-made Georgian buckle shoes c1760 from the Barrell family at Old York Historical Society
  • Miscellaneous

Last Post: LEVEE, Noel – historian and reenactor
Noel Levee, left suddenly on July 31, 2024 to be the historian of the great beyond.
He was a talented artist, a former rodeo bull rider, a Datsun 240Z enthusiast, but most of all a soul born in the wrong century. In the 1980s he joined the 3rd Tryon County Militia, beginning a decades long passion for reenacting. He went on to form his own regiment, the 1st Canadian Regiment, and was a founding member of the Burning of Valleys Military Association.
He proudly served as the City of Johnstown Historian since 1995, and more recently also served as the Town of Johnstown Historian. He was past President of the Johnstown Historical Society and continued to serve for decades as a board member. Read more…
Also, from the Leader-Herald:
His death comes four months after the death of beloved Gloversville Historian Jim Morrison at the age of 69 years old. The two were close friends.
Levee spearheaded a memorial tribute for Morrison in May, featuring historians, reenactors and friends from across the region at Fort Klock in St. Johnsville. Read more…
As noted by Gavin Watt:
Noel Levee, another famous Mohawk Valley historian, has just died. He served in the 3rd Tryon County Militia with Jim Morrison and Lew Decker. The King’s Royal Yorkers ‘played’ with that unit frequently; they were a wonderful enemy. This article was forwarded to me by Jon Wannamaker, UE.

Published by the UELAC
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