“Loyalist Trails” 2014-31: August 3, 2014
In this issue:
– Kidnap Victim and Loyalist’s Wife, by Stephen Davidson
– Benjamin Becraft UEL (Part 3), by Doug Massey
– Re-Consecration Ceremony of the Johnson Family Burial Vault
– Pieces of Propaganda from the American Revolution
– Loyalist Descendants in Beechwood Cemetery, Ottawa, Sept. 14
– Royal Styles and Titles, by Bill Smy
– Where in the World?
– War of 1812: Militia Report No. 14
– From the Twittersphere and Beyond
– Last Post: Vesta Catherine Lund, UE
Articles
Kidnap Victim and Loyalist’s Wife, by Stephen Davidson
Today Hartland, New Brunswick is famous as being the site of the world’s longest covered bridge. But if you were to visit Hartland’s town hall and tour its Orser Room, you would be justified in thinking that perhaps the town’s most interesting feature was one of its early settlers, a loyalist’s wife who became known as the Mother of Hartland.
Mary Blake had six children by her first husband, a loyalist named James Craig. Following his death, she married a widower (also a loyalist) named William Orser; their blended family now had twelve dependents. The Orsers then had six more children of their own. Little wonder, then, that she was famous for her many offspring. But Mary Orser was also noted for her maternal instincts. She had a special affinity for New Brunswick’s Natives, the Wolastoqiyik, helping their women and children in times of illness. Did she ever tell those in her care that the Wolastoqiyik had held her captive for seven years? As we shall see, being the Mother of Hartland was only one small part of Mary’s amazing story.
Mary Blake-Craig-Orser’s 1856 obituary described her as being born when New Brunswick was “then in a wilderness state”. Some records place her May 6, 1772 birth in Massachusetts or Ossining, New York. The Blake family either arrived at the mouth of the St. John River after Mary’s arrival or as early as 1765. However uncertain the place and date of Mary’s birth, what is certain is that her father, Christopher Blake, was part of a settlement of New Englanders, people that later historians would call the Planters. The fact that he had red hair is the only physical description we have of Mary’s father.
When Mary was eight years old, the Wolastoqiyik made raids on a number of white settlements along the lower portion of the St. John River. Warned of the danger, the Planters took shelter in a fort on the western side of the river. When a day had passed with no attacks, Blake was anxious to tend to his cattle. He took his canoe back to the eastern shore, but did not return. The next morning, a search party found blood and wisps of red hair in the Blake cabin. It was assumed that Wolastoqiyik warriors had killed Christopher. Little Mary was also missing. Had she wandered off into the woods? Had the Wolastoqiyik kidnapped her?
The Blakes’ double tragedy became just one of many such stories of death and loss during the remainder of American Revolution; New England patriots attacked the Planter settlers time and again. Three years after Mary Blake’s mysterious disappearance, thousands of loyalists flooded into the river that had been home to Natives, Acadians and Planters. What had been the French settlement of St. Anne’s became Fredericton, the capital of the new colony of New Brunswick.
Britain had also made peace with the Wolastoqiyik, and the Natives now were eager to trade with the loyalist refugees. St. Mary’s Ferry, just below Fredericton, was the site of a trading post popular with the Natives.
One spring day, a Wolastoqiyik chief was just wrapping up his bartering, when he asked the trader what he could get for an Anglican Book of Prayer. Curious, the trader looked inside the book and there found the name “Blake”.
As soon as he made an exchange for the prayer book, the trader took it to Fredericton. Someone remembered the story of the attack on Christopher Blake and the disappearance of his daughter. There had been rumours among the settlers that a white girl lived in a Native settlement further up the river. Was the prayer book simply part of the plundered goods taken in 1780 or had Mary Blake taken it with her when she was kidnapped?
Captain Stewart of the Queen’s Rangers told the trader to delay the Wolastoqiyik party’s departure from the trading post for a few days, allowing the Rangers time to go up river to investigate the matter further. The soldiers paddled to the mouth of the Tobique River where the town of Perth-Andover is situated today. As Stewart’s men started up the Wapske River, a young man ran to warn of the soldiers’ imminent arrival.
Although the Natives tried to stop the Rangers from rescuing Mary Blake, their strongest warriors were still far south at the trading post. Stewart’s men found Mary and quickly headed back down the Tobique River. Fearful that the Wolastoqiyik would hurl rocks or arrows down from the rocky cliffs at the river’s narrows, Stewart had Mary lay flat in the rangers’ boat and covered her in blankets. When they met Natives at the narrows, the Rangers pretended to still be looking for Mary. The ploy worked, and the men escaped, delivering Mary to the authorities in Fredericton.
Before she was twenty years old, Mary had met and married James Craig, a loyalist carpenter from Worcester, Massachusetts. In his mid-30s, the groom was not the only loyalist in his family. His sister, Mary Craig had married William Orser, a New York loyalist. The Orsers arrived in New Brunswick on the Apollo in September of 1783 and eventually settled above Fredericton in the Prince William Settlement (now the site of Kings Landing Historical Settlement).
Sometime after Mrs Mary Craig and Mrs Mary Orser each produced six children for their loyalist husbands, James Craig and Mrs Orser died. Around 1790, William Orser married his wife’s sister-in-law, Mary Blake Craig. After all, widower and widow had between them twelve mouths to feed.
By 1802, the Orsers loaded their children and furniture in canoes, and went up the St. John River to the mouth of the Becaguimic River, founding the settlement that would become the town of Hartland.
The Wolastoqiyik who lived there objected to the arrival of the Orsers. Besides the encroachment on their land, the Natives were also dealing with the fact that their children were sick with the measles. Just when the discussions between William Orser and the Wolastoqiyik looked as if they were breaking down, Mary Orser came to the aid of the sick children. No doubt the mothers were surprised to discover that this white woman could speak their language as if it were her own. When Mary’s assistance saved the children, the Wolastoqiyik elders received the Orsers as friends, and the two “tribes” became good neighbours.
Mary Blake Craig Orser died at the age of 84. Today her portrait hangs in the Hartland town hall, surrounded by paintings of her many prominent sons and grandsons. But it is her accomplishments as a captive, a loyalist’s widow and a settler’s wife that make her a woman of note in the story of New Brunswick.
To secure permission to reprint this article, email Stephen Davidson.
Benjamin Becraft UEL (Part 3), by Doug Massey
When the loyalist uprising of August 1777 fizzled in the Schoharie Valley, men such as Benjamin came to see Joseph Brant’s presence at Oquaga and Unadilla on the Susquehanna River as their deliverance. They gave up resistance at home and fled to join the young war chief’s growing followers. It is highly likely that Becraft joined Brant’s Volunteers in late 1777, or sometime before the summer of 1778. So too would Ben’s future father-in-law Anthony Westbrook and his son Alexander, who joined Brant early and remained with him throughout the war. Outwardly, Brant’s force was Mohawk. But in the early going, eighty percent of his volunteers were either white, like Benjamin, or freed black slaves. Only twenty percent were indigenous. Although a war chief of the Mohawks, Joseph Brant was young and relatively inexperienced at the beginning of the war. And having no great influence or strong alliances among the Haudenosaunee (Six Nations), he could not attract a large number of indigenous followers(6). Brant was considered an upstart freelancer, and a man not to be trusted.
But to whites in London, George III included, and loyalists on the New York frontier, Thayendanegea impressed. As the revolution progressed Brant proved to be a great war-chief, brave, innovative and charismatic. He knew what he was about. That appealed to loyalist settlers early in the fight. These men trusted him, were sincerely attached to him, and were willing to go through great hardships with him in order to strike the enemy hard. But it took the British military longer to come up with monetary support. To begin with, Brant received nothing from the government, actually using his own resources and the spoils of battle to keep his corps in the field. Loyalists in Brant’s Volunteers were ‘associators’: They received “issues and rations” from the British authorities, but unlike other loyalist units, were not paid. And in spite of widespread wooing by many loyalist outfits, such as Butler’s Rangers, Brant’s one hundred, non-indigenous volunteers, Becraft included, absolutely refused other service. This may have been because the men Brant attracted were “wild and undisciplined, unwilling to accept a strict regimen of military discipline”(7). The award winning American Historian, Alan Taylor supports this view, suggesting, “They preferred Brant’s… spontaneous style over the hierarchy, discipline and steady pay of a standard regiment, even if it meant no pay(8).
Brant’s non-indigenous volunteers all wore the same token in their hats – a piece of yellow lace. But they had no military uniforms. They went into battle dressed and painted as “Indians”. This had significant implications. First, since such attire was a disguise, it lowered volunteer inhibitions with respect to fighting former patriot neighbours, allowing them to be brutal. Second, because they dressed as “Indians” and fought with Brant, a Mohawk, their patriot neighbours saw them as “race traitors”, says Taylor. Men such as Benjamin Becraft were doubly traitors – against the revolution and their race. If captured, they would be hanged on the spot without a trial. So they were determined to avoid capture. That meant fighting with “desperate effectiveness”. And so they ghosted into a settlement, hit quickly and cruelly, and disappeared as suddenly as they came. Patriot settlers considered them blood- thirsty savages, even more so than Brant’s Mohawks. Indeed it is alleged that loyalist brutality made the warriors more brutal, not the other way round.
Yet patriot actions could be even more brutal. Alan Taylor says, “Indeed Brant’s Volunteers behaved better than did the Continental Soldiers who ravaged Iroquois villages”(9). When soldiers and militia from Cherry Valley destroyed Oquaga and Unadilla, Oct. 8-10, 1778, they torched all the houses, butchered the cattle, chopped down the apple trees and destroyed the growing corn crops. But then they killed some native children hidden in the cornfields(10). And there was more. Brant and his warriors were off campaigning in Ulster County at the time, leaving Oquaga and Unadilla undefended. Helen Caister Robinson alleges that the patriot soldiers and the militiamen who levelled the towns, sexually assaulted their women prisoners. According to the warrior code, abusing women was the ultimate taboo. It was savage, and strictly off the table. Robinson maintains that knowledge of these rapes fuelled the atrocities of the Cherry Valley Massacre on Nov. 11, 1778(11).
NOTES:
6. Thayendanega was Brant’s “Indian” name. In Canajoharie where he grew up, he came to be called Brant’s Joseph by his white friends who found that name easier to pronounce. Brant was Joseph’s stepfather. Eventually Thayendanega came to be called Joseph Brant’s, then Joseph Brant and finally just Brant. Joseph’s stepfather was a shaman and wealthy. But to the Haudenosaunee that meant nothing for Joseph. Your status as a male depended not on what your father was but who your mother was. Joseph Brant’s mother had no great status. She was not a clan matron and had no power to appoint a hereditary chief. So Thayendanega was a nobody. Joseph did get some status from his sister Molly who had married Sir William Johnston but it wouldn’t be until he married his third wife, Catharine Croghan that Brant really came up in the world – Catharine had inherited the right to appoint the Tekarihoga, principal Mohawk shaman of the Turtle Clan. Whites usually had no idea of this. Re. Brant, they automatically followed their own prejudices and saw not an upstart who was not to be trusted, but a charismatic and innovative leader to be followed.
7. Isabel Thompson Kelsay, Joseph Brant, 1743-1807, Man of Two Worlds, pg. 192
8. lan Taylor, The Divided Ground, Indians, Settlers, and the Northern Borderlands of the American Revolution, pg. 84–93.
9. Ibid. pg. 93
10. Ibid. pg. 94
11. Helen Caister Robinson, Joseph Brant, A Man For His People, no paging. This is an interesting source. It sits on a shelf in the McMaster Univ. Library in Hamilton Ontario. As I researched for this paper, it struck me that no “white” sources, primary or secondary, ever mention rape in connection with the fighting on the New York Frontier during the American Revolution. I was motivated to leave this alleged rape out of the narrative. But then I came upon the words of Taeqwanda, spoken in 1782, quoted in the text of this article, and found in Watt’s work immediately below [note 12, next week].
…Doug Massey UE, Hamilton Branch
Re-Consecration Ceremony of the Johnson Family Burial Vault
The members of Societe de Restauration du Patrimoine Johnson, Societe d’histoire du Haut-Richelieu, and Sir John Johnson Centennial Branch of The United Empire Loyalists’ Association of Canada have organized the Re-Consecration Ceremony of the Johnson Family Burial Vault that will be held on Saturday, 23rd of August 2014, 11:00 a.m. on the site of the burial vault 16 chemin du Sous-Bois Municipalité de Mont-Saint-Grégoire, Quebec.
During the ceremony, the remains of Sir John Johnson, Second Baronet of New York, and of members of his family will be returned to their resting place.
The ceremony will be followed at 1:30 p.m. by a cold buffet which will be served at the nearby Vergers & Cidrerie Denis Charbonneau at an all-inclusive cost of $20 per guest. Those interested in participating are requested to RSVP and make payment to Mrs. Adelaide Lanktree before August 10, 2014, at (450) 293-6342 or adelaidel@sympatico.ca or at 140 Principale Ouest, Farnham, QC, J2N 1K6.
While the official proceedings will begin at 11:00 a.m., we recommend you arrive at the CIME site on or before 10:30 a.m. to allow yourself sufficient time to make your way conveniently to the vault for the open-air ceremony.
See the invitation and more details.
…Adelaide Lanktree, UE, Sir John Johnson Centennial Branch
Pieces of Propaganda from the American Revolution
The Journal of the American Revolution recently posted commentary from about twenty people who described their favourite piece of propaganda from the American Revolution. Here is one from that collection:
“My favorite propaganda item is more in the category of misinformation than propaganda: Washington’s June 1780 proclamation to the Canadians. Planning for a combined Franco-American attack on New York City, Washington and Lafayette intended the proclamation only to deceive Sir Henry Clinton, the British commander in chief, as to the allies’ true objective. Washington sent a draft of the proclamation, which hinted that an allied invasion of Canada was imminent, to Maj. Gen. Benedict Arnold in Philadelphia to have it printed in secret. Though Washington was unaware that Arnold was then negotiating with Clinton for the price of his defection, the American commander did not inform Arnold of the proclamation’s true purpose. Arnold, believing he now knew of a secret allied plan to invade Canada, immediately passed the information to his British confidants in New York. Thus, the soon-to-be traitor actually helped Washington in his misinformation campaign.”
The use of media continues today, much more quickly and even more emphatically. You can read the other examples which were offered at Favorite Piece of Propaganda?
Loyalist Descendants in Beechwood Cemetery, Ottawa, Sept. 14
In celebration of the 100th Anniversary of the United Empire Loyalists’ Association of Canada the Sir Guy Carleton Branch will conduct a tour of Beechwood Cemetery featuring the lives of some Loyalists and their descendants who are buried there.
Date: Sunday, 14 September 2014, 1:00pm – 3:00pm.
Location: Beechwood Cemetery, 280 Beechwood Avenue, Ottawa. Meet in front of the Main Office by 12:50pm.
Light refreshments will be served after the tour. All are welcome.
To book your place on the tour, please contact carletonuel@hotmail.com by Sept. 4, 2014.
Beechwood Cemetery was established in 1873, and is recognized as one of the most beautiful and historic cemeteries in Canada. It is the final resting place for over 75,000 Canadians, including our Canadian Forces Veterans, War Dead, RCMP members, Governors-General and Prime Ministers and our everyday Canadian heroes, our families and our loved ones. Beechwood is the home of the National Military Cemetery and the RCMP National Memorial Cemetery, and is a National Historic Site. In 2009, it was designated the National Cemetery of Canada by an Act of Parliament.
Royal Styles and Titles, by Bill Smy
When Her Majesty was proclaimed Queen on 8 February 1952 (two days after her succession), her titles were listed in the style of her father on his death:
“Elizabeth the Second, By the Grace of God of Great Britain, Ireland and the British Dominions beyond the Seas, Queen, Defender of the Faith.”
With the approach of Queen Elizabeth’s coronation on 2 June 1953, it was recognized that significant changes in The Queen’s titles had to be made to reflect the changes which had overtaken the sovereign’s status in the various countries in which she was recognized as head of state. The royal titles adopted in each of the fifteen realms of which she was equally Queen would require the assent of the Parliaments of each.
From the earliest times of the monarchy in Britain, it has been the custom of the sovereign to adopt titles which reflect power, authority and dominion over geography and people. Offa, King of Mercians had claimed to be “Rex totius Anglorum patriae” (King of all England); Egbert, King of Wessex claimed to be “Bretwalda” (Ruler of Britain); Domnall was titled King of Ulster, and Fergus asserted he was King of Scots of Dalriada. After the Roman conquest, it was common to list the titles in Latin, and to formalize the listing in a consistent style.
Before Edward I, in keeping with the precedence of William I, the English kings began to reign only after their coronation, being titled and styled Duke of Normandy until that time.
William I (the Conqueror) was King of England, and his son introduced the title, “Dei Gratia” (by the Grace of God) into the list of titles, styled in Latin as “Dei Gratia Rex Anglorum”. That appendage was dropped by his nephew, King Stephen in 1135.
Mary I (Bloody Mary) reintroduced it when she married Philip II, King of Spain in 1554 in what must be one of the longest listing of titles of any British sovereign, “Philip and Mary, by the Grace of God, King and Queen of England, France, Naples, Jerusalem and Ireland, Defender of the Faith, Princes of Spain and Sicily, Archdukes of Austria, Dukes of Milan, Burgundy and Brabant”. But the title “Dei Gratia” did not survive her death in 1588. Some three hundred years later, George III reintroduced it on 1 June 1801 when he proclaimed his new style and titles following the Union of Great Britain and Ireland. The title has been included in the style of every sovereign since.
The claim to have been King (or Queen) of France dates to 1340, when Edward III styled himself “Rex Angliae et Franciae”. It continued in some form or other until George III accepted reality and dropped it in 1801.
The title King (or Queen) of Scots, in some form or other, was used as early as the fifth century. The “Scots” were Irishmen from Antrim who had crossed the Irish Channel and settled in Argyll. The title was used by Fergus Mor ma Erc, King of Dalriada in 501. When James VI, King of Scots became a British king in 1603, he was styled “King of England, Scotland, France and Ireland, Defender of the Faith”. Those titles were used by succeeding sovereigns until the Act of Union in 1707 when the words “England” and “Scotland” were replaced in Queen Anne’s titles by “Great Britain”.
Ancient Ireland had over ninety kingdoms, but it was not until 862 that the title of King of all Ireland was used in the style of Mael Sechnaill, King of Tara. The title, “Dominus Hiberniae” (Lord of Ireland) was adopted by King John in 1199 and appeared in the listing of titles by the next thirteen kings (343 years) until King Henry VIII proclaimed himself King of Ireland in 1542. That claim of sovereignty remained in the listing of titles for the next 411 years (22 sovereigns) until Elizabeth II dropped it in 1953.
When the Act of Union joined the Parliaments of England and Scotland on 6 March 1707, Queen Anne adopted the style and titles, “Anne, Queen of Great Britain, France and Ireland”. When Ireland joined the kingdom on 1 January 1801, some ninety years later, the title changed to “…of the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland” which remained in use until 1953.
The tile “Defender of the Faith” has been part of the titles of every sovereign since Henry VIII. Before the Reformation, Henry had been a staunch ally of four successive Popes, and in 1520 he wrote a treatise (Assetio Septem Sacramentorum) attacking the teachings of Martin Luther, for which, in September of that year, Pope Leo X conferred upon Henry the title “Fidei Defensor”. That title was settled on the King and his successors in perpetuity by Act of Parliament in 1543.
One title, claimed by only five sovereigns (71 years), which will never be part of the Royal titles again is that of Emperor (Empress) of India. Victoria assumed the title on 1 January 1877 and George VI relinquished it on 22 June 1948.
Which brings us to today. The British Royal Titles Act, 1953, established Queen Elizabeth II’s styles and titles in the United Kingdom. Its aim was “to reflect more clearly the existing constitutional relations of the members of the Commonwealth to one another and their recognition of the Crown as the symbol of their free association and the Sovereign as the Head of the Commonwealth.”
In the United Kingdom, she has adopted the style and titles:
“Elizabeth the Second, by the Grace of God of the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland, and Her other Realms and Territories, Queen, Head of the Commonwealth, Defender of the Faith.”
Those titles reflected the reality of 1953. The British realm in Ireland had shrunk in the 1920s with the independence of Eire, and the “British Dominions” were about to exercise their own right of consent to the title to be used within their jurisdiction. The title “Head of the Commonwealth” appeared for the first time to conform to the Royal Titles Act, and in accordance with the Act of Parliament in 1543, the title “Defender of the Faith” was continued.
Canada has adopted a slightly different set of titles, recognizing that Elizabeth is in law Queen of Canada:
“Elizabeth the Second, by the Grace of God of the United Kingdom, Canada, and Her other Realms and Territories, Queen, Head of the Commonwealth, Defender of the Faith.”
New Zealand and Canada are the only two Dominions which recognize The Queen as “Defender of the Faith”. To what extent this was purposeful and its legal complications are not clear. The titles in New Zealand are listed in a slightly different style:
“Elizabeth the Second, by the Grace of God, Queen of New Zealand, and Her other Realms and Territories, Head of the Commonwealth, Defender of the Faith.”
Some of the colonies and independent countries which recognize The Queen as head of state, have dropped the reference to the United Kingdom, perhaps including the old mother country in the term “other realms.”
In Antigua and Barbuda, Australia, Barbados, Belize, the Commonwealth of the Bahamas, Mauritius, the Solomon Islands, St Christopher and Nevis, St Lucia, and St Vincent and the Grenadines, Her Majesty’s titles read:
“Elizabeth the Second, by the Grace of God, Queen of [ —- ] and Her other Realms and Territories, Head of the Commonwealth.”
Jamaica has adopted the style and titles:
“Elizabeth the Second, by the Grace of God of Jamaica and Her other Realms and Territories, Queen, Head of the Commonwealth.”
In Grenada, the titles are slightly different:
“Elizabeth the Second, by the Grace of God, Queen of the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland and of Grenada, and Her other Realms and Territories, Head of the Commonwealth.”
The sovereign’s titles appear on the Great Seals of the realm, deputed seals, currencies, and medals. In Canada, though, there seems to be no accepted uniform style. The wording (or abbreviations) appears in Latin, French or English, and in many cases what appears on the seal, coin or medal is vastly different than that of the official style and titles.
The Great Seal of Canada, authorized by The Queen in 1955 has a vastly different legend than her official title:
REINE•DU•CANADA•ELIZABETH•II•QUEEN•OF•CANADA
Similarly, the legends on Canadian military medals and coins appear in different forms. On the Canadian Forces Decoration, the legend reads:
ELIZABETH•II•DEI•GRATIA•REGINA•CANADA
From 1953 to 1964 the legend on Canadian coins was:
ELIZABETH•II•DEI•GRATIA•REGINA
But in 1965 it changed to:
ELIZABETH•II•D•G•REGINA
It is unlikely that the style and titles of The Queen will change. Charles, however, has at least one personal choice, and that is the name by which he will be known as king. He might choose another given name, for on succession sovereigns choose the name under which they will rule. James I was christened Charles James, but chose James. Victoria chose her second name, not Alexandria; her son, Albert Edward ruled as Edward VII; and Albert Frederick Arthur George chose George VI. Upon Elizabeth’s accession to the throne, she was asked by her Private Secretary what her regnal name would be, to which the Queen responded, “My own, of course—what else?” Charles Philip Arthur George may do the same.
The countries which now recognize The Queen as head of state may choose to change their constitutions on The Queen’s death, and become republics. That, of course, will eliminate any assumption of titles in those countries, as in the republics of the Commonwealth The Queen holds no official titles.
In any event, the titles of a sovereign prove to be an interesting journey through history.
…Lieutenant Colonel William A. Smy, OMM, CD, UE
Where are Brian Tackaberry and Bonnie Schepers?
To participate, submit a photo of yourself in UELAC promotional gear at a place of some note and tell us where it is. If you are a member of a branch, please indicate that as well – send to Jennifer Childs.
War of 1812: Militia Report No. 14
Received a report from the militia on the New York border. They discovered a copy of the British plans that include pushing the American forces back through Plattsburgh with an ultimate goal of New England and taking over eastern cities to include Boston. Have given orders to raise the population to support the American forces in defense. Please notify all New Englanders of the need for their participation.
Militia Report No. 15
Their route appears to begin in Champlain, then on to Chazy, Beekmantown, Culver Hill, Halsey’s Corners, and Plattsburgh. Americans are beginning to reinforce the Defense Force enroute. The public needs to realize the British forces are not fooling around this time, especially within the Sir John Johnson Centennial Chapter, United Empire Loyalists, across the border to our north. Vermont beginning to raise forces. An experienced Loyalist Major is leading the forces.
…William Glidden, Major – New York Defense Force – 2014
From the Twittersphere and Beyond
- UK unveils a £5 Gold Coin on the 300th anniversary of the death of Queen Anne
- Recreating an 18th-century ‘carrot pudding’. This two-volume recipe book is dated 1730 (vol. 1) and 1744 (vol. 2) and belonged to Judeth Bedingfield, though it contains the handwriting of multiple persons. The carrot pudding recipe comes from the first volume, which includes not only other recipes for cooking – pickled pigeon, for instance, “quaking pudding,” quince cream, and many more.
- 250 Years Ago on July 31 in 1764 the Niagara Treaty. Sir William Johnson, Superintendent of Indian Affairs meets in a great council on the shores of the Niagara River with nearly 2000 chiefs representing 24 Nations from as far away as the Abanaki Confederacy (Nova Scotia), Hudson’s Bay and the Mississippi River (8th item on the page). Earlier this weekend, First Nation leaders, Elders and citizens from across the region gathered along the Niagara River for two days to commemorate, celebrate and discuss the 250th Anniversary of the Treaty of Niagara.
- A book, then a movie, now an outdoor production of “Drums Along the Mohawk” in Mohawk, NY, first two weekends in August
- 22 Jul 1779 British-allied Mohawk Chief Brant defeats forces responding to his attack in Neversink Valley, New-York
- Canada’s most valuable portrait? 18th-century painting of legendary Mohawk chief Joseph Brant sells for $7.5 million
- War of 1812: Video of the installation of the Lundy’s Lane commemorative arch, courtesy of Jennifer DeBruin UE. From another source, a photo of the action figures in silhouette against the evening sun.
- Three Myths About the Burning of Washington, D.C. Debunked by Ralph Eshelman, a War of 1812 historian
- First World War: How do we remember it meaningfully, a century later? by Sarah Hampson in the Globe and Mail adds some perspective to our search for our Loyalist and War of 1812 ancestors.
- WWI – 12 Stunning Photos of the Ceramic Poppies at the Tower of London honoring the 886,000 killed.
Last Post: Vesta Catherine Lund, UE
Passed away peacefully at Spring Valley Care on July 11, 2014, at the age of 85 – born 28 Dec 1928 – with all of her family around her. Cathy is survived by her daughter, Lorna; granddaughters, Jamie and Tracy; great grandchildren, Zoe Anne, Xander Noah and Kai and her two puppies, Max and Cleo.
Cathy was born on Dec. 28, 1928 in Kinley, SK to Albert and Katherina [Ashdown] Brown. She grew up in Vancouver area, BC. She married Donald Lund in 1963 and lived in Vernon for over 40 years. She always wondered about her UEL ancestors and was so happy to get her certificate in 2003. Her ancestor was George Adam Docksteader Sr. She was only a member for 10 years, but was so pleased to be part of the UEL family!
At her request, no formal services will be held. Instead, a private Celebration of Life will be held on August 9, 2014. In lieu of flowers donations to the S.P.C.A., 3785 Casorso Rd, Kelowna, BC V1W 4M7. Arrangements in care of Everden Rust Funeral Services.
…Pat Kelderman, Thompson-Okanagan Branch