Loyalist Trails Newsletter 2020-43 (November 1, 2020)

In this issue:

  • New Brunswick Loyalists and their Runaway Slaves, Part 1 of 2 by Stephen Davidson UE
  • Loyalist Samuel Williams (1710-1786) By Phil Eschbach
  • Book: Loyalist Cemeteries & Gravestones: Annapolis & Digby Counties
  • Report: Col. Benedict Arnold to General George Washington
  • Borealia: Teach My Research: Jesuits and Demons in New France
  • JAR: Alexander Hamilton’s Missing Years: New Discoveries and Insights into the Little Lion’s Caribbean Childhood
  • Jamestown: André’s Tree: Even More Hidden History in The Legend of Sleepy Hollow
  • JAR: The Connolly Plot
  • Kelly Arlene Grant: Fuelling the Great Shortgown Debate?
  • Ben Franklin’s World: Elections in Early America: Presidential Elections & the Electoral College
  • Responses to Query: Place in New Brunswick for James Carr
  • Region, Branch and Member Bits and Events
    • Gov. Simcoe Branch Webinar 4 Nov. 7:30pm; “Creating Toronto”; Open to all
  • Additions to the Loyalist Directory
  • Where in the World is Malcolm Newman?
  • From the Twittersphere and Beyond

Connect with us:

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Facebook: http://www.facebook.com/UELAC

New Brunswick Loyalists and their Runaway Slaves, Part 1 of 2
copyright Stephen Davidson UE
It didn’t take a serious offense for a Loyalist settler in Maugerville, New Brunswick to whip his enslaved Blacks. The New Brunswick historian, W. O. Raymond notes that the master was “accustomed to tie up his slaves in the barn and vigorously apply the lash.” Dr. W. A. Spray notes that “A number of slave owners’ homes had rooms in the basement equipped with chains, which were used to confine slaves who had attempted to run away.” Slave ownership, cruel usage, and runaway slaves were part and parcel of the era of Loyalist settlement in New Brunswick.
The Loyalist refugees who populated New Brunswick brought hundreds of enslaved Africans with them. And as they had done in the days before the American Revolution, these slaves ran away from their masters whenever there was an opportunity. Between 1784 and 1818, advertisements that promised rewards for the capture of runaway slaves were a regular feature in New Brunswick’s newspapers. Owing to the ravages of time, most of the stories of runaway slaves and their Loyalist masters have been lost, but the ones that have been survived shed a revealing spotlight on a forgotten chapter of Loyalist history.
The ads for runaway slaves provide historians with more insight into individual Blacks than any other primary sources. Generally, slaves only appear in the documents of the Loyalist era in the wills of white settlers when they passed on their human property to their heirs. The slaves’ names and ages are the only details contained in these wills. 139 Africans who were the slaves of New Brunswick-bound Loyalists are listed in the Book of Negroes, a ledger created by the British commander to record all free and enslaved Blacks as they left New York in 1783. This ledger often contains physical descriptions and the colonial origins of the slaves. The enslaved woman who belonged to Thomas Bean is a case in point.
On July 8, 1783, Thomas Bean and his wife boarded the Sovereign, bound for the mouth of the St. John River. With them was their Black slave girl, sixteen year-old Keziah. The Book of Negroes’ description only notes that she was “a likely wench”.
Four years later, Keziah ran away. Thomas Bean owner promptly placed an ad in the Royal Gazette, promising a reward of “two guineas and all reasonable charges” to whoever caught and returned Keziah. Since a photograph or illustration of the young woman was not technologically possible in this era, Bean provided a detailed description of his runaway slave. It not only helps us to visualize the 20 year-old escapee, but it also provides us with an idea of the clothing worn by women of the era.
Keziah was “about 5 feet high, has the marks of a cut and burn, I believe, on her right cheek, near her mouth, took with her two calico gowns, the one a white, the other {with} the flowers running through it in stripes, also a dark purple and white calico skirt and petticoat.”
When Thomas Bean died 36 years after placing this ad, his will makes no reference to his wife, any children or any slaves. Nieces and nephews were his heirs, inheriting land, livestock, and cash. One can only hope that the absence of Keziah’s name in Bean’s will means that she was successful in her 1787 run for freedom. But there is no way to be sure. Slave-owners were quick to post rewards for the capture of their slaves, but they did not notify the general public when their slaves were returned.
It is a sobering thought to remember that in the era of Loyalist settlement there was no version of the Underground Railway to assist runaway slaves find their way to freedom. Slavery was legal throughout the Western Hemisphere. There was no place that granted freedom to enslaved Africans who managed to flee from their masters’ chains. Quakers were the only group of North Americans known to be abolitionists at this time. Seeking out sanctuary in Quaker homes or settlements might have been an option for Loyalists’ slaves, but it seems that the far more common refuge was gaining passage on a ship.
When Thomas Bean composed his ad for the capture of Keziah, he wrote “All masters of vessels and other are hereby forbid carrying off the said Negro slave, as they will answer it at their peril.” Another runaway’s ad placed in a 1784 New Brunswick newspaper noted, “I have reason to suspect that he has been carried off by some vessel or other, I hereby offer the like reward to any person or persons who can give information so as the offender or offenders shall be convicted thereof.”
Escaped slaves could work aboard sailing ships; they might hope to find sanctuary at some port where they would pass themselves off as emancipated Blacks. However, they were just as likely to be betrayed by the ships’ captains and sold back into slavery at ports distant from Saint John. A successful escape from one’s Loyalist master did not necessarily mean a life of freedom.
Despite the incomplete nature of the story of escaped slaves, the details found in ads for runaways are still compelling historical crumbs. The first known ad for an escaping Black was published in the Royal St. John’s Gazette on July 15, 1784. Hector, a man trained as a cooper, had escaped from Frederick Hecht, the commissioner of provisions at Fort Howe.
Hector was described as “a tall, slender fellow” who spoke English like the Blacks of the West Indies. He was purchased in St. Augustine, Florida, came north through New York City, and arrived in what would become Saint John in December 1783. Because his feet had suffered frostbite on the winter voyage, he had “a very lazy gait”. A reward of five guineas was offered to anyone who could capture Hector or who could name the ship’s captain who helped the slave escape. Again, as in the case of Keziah, there is no record of whether Hector was re-captured or not.
However, in the case of Nancy and two of her fellow slaves, the reward that her Loyalist master advertised did result in her return to slavery. In the summer of 1785, Caleb Jones posted an ad that offered a reward for the capture of five of his slaves who had escaped his home in Nashwaaksis (just north of Fredericton). Like Caleb, all of his slaves had been born in Maryland.
The oldest escapee was Ben, a 35 year-old who was wearing “a Kersey jacket lined with Scotch plaid, corduroy breeches, and round hat”. Accompanying him was Isaac. About 30 years old, this fugitive was last seen wearing a round hat and white trousers. Florence, a 27 year-old, could be identified by her smallpox scars, a cotton jacket, and a petticoat. Twenty-four year old Nancy was a single mother. She would most easily be identified by the fact that she had her four year-old son Lidge with her.
As other slave owners did, Jones issued both a warning and a promise of reward. “All persons are hereby forbid to harbour any of the above Negroes, and all masters of vessels are forbid to take any of them on board their vessels, as they shall answer the consequences. A reward of 2 guineas will be paid for any of the men, and 6 dollars for each Negro woman“.
We know that Nancy and her son were recaptured because five years later the enslaved woman appeared before the Supreme Court of New Brunswick to challenge her master’s right to enslave her. The four judges returned a split decision, which meant that Nancy would remain a slave. However, her case began the long process of bringing slavery to an end in New Brunswick. Historian Ian Andrews summarized Nancy’s importance, noting that as “the central figure in the 1800 Slavery Trial, she undoubtedly played a major role in the battle against slavery in the province.”
Further stories of New Brunswick’s Loyalists and their runaway slaves will appear in next week’s Loyalist Trails.
To secure permission to reprint this article contact the author at stephendavids@gmail.com.

Editor’s Note: Stephen’s contributions to Loyalist Trails – the research, writing, editing, answering readers’ questions etc – is quite monumental. Think of the effort to do that for a single article if you were to undertake one about say your own family, or some other aspect of your Loyalist ancestor’s life.
I wish to offer my own appreciation to Stephen, and that of many of you. I know I have learned so much while I have assembled Loyalist Trails each week, and some good portion of that is derived from Stephen’s contributions.
So on this Sunday, 1 Nov 2020, thanks Stephen. Today is especially noteworthy as, since his first article on 24 September 2006 My Calamitous Situation: The Life of Polly Jarvis Dibblee, today’s is number 700!

Loyalist Samuel Williams (1710-1786)
By Phil Eschbach
Loyalist Samuel Williams and at least two of his sons fought and were wounded in the Battle of Moore’s Creek Bridge in the cold dawn hours of February 27, 1776. Yet he and his sons escaped, retreating to the house of his son, Henry, This was a turning point for the family who decided to pull up stakes in North Carolina and head for Florida.
In the mid-1700s, the Williams family, probably originally from Virginia, had settled on the Pee Dee River in Anson and Moore County, North Carolina, bordering South Carolina. Today’s Moore County was then Cumberland County, a neighboring County to Anson. Samuel Williams owned acreage in both counties, only several miles apart. He acquired 300 acres on November 17, 1760, in Moore County on Deep River where he started a general store. Then on December 5, 1760, he obtained a land grant of 100 acres in Anson County on the Pee Dee River. He started a grist mill in Moore County on Drowning Creek and a sawmill on Deep River. The Williams’ Deep River property deed description reads, “On Deep River. Beginning at a gum tree on the north side of the river, running thence South 30 West, crossing the river to a stake mentioned in the patent, thence North 60 West, 219 poles to a red cedar in the upper end on Barton’s Island: thence down the river to the beginning.” Such were the methods of surveying in those days!
Samuel established a mill on Drowning Creek, just above today’s Currie Bridge, where a mill site remains today. Samuel first appears in the tax records in 1763. In 1764, a road was built from Williams’ mill to the Yadkin Road by Samuel Williams and several neighbors, including Nat Ashley, husband of Williams’ daughter, Jane, and Richard Burton, brother of Margaret Burton, wife of Williams’ son, Henry.
In 1769, Samuel was given a land grant by British Governor Josiah Martin for 254 acres on Cheeks Creek. In 1772, Samuel acquired permission to build another water grist mill on the Pee Dee River at Blewett Falls. Blewett Falls was named after William Blewett, a pioneer resident whose daughter, Hannah, married Williams’ son, Abner.
In 1774, Samuel sold 200 acres to his son, Henry, for £100. This land abutted that of William Blewett’s on the north side of the Pee Dee River and William actually witnessed the deed transaction.
Samuel, the patriarch of the family, was a pillar of the community, serving in many capacities and operating a successful general store, saw mill, and grist mill. He raised a family of at least six sons and two daughters. But when the troubles began, with the agitation leading to the American Revolution, he sided with the British, as did his sons and sons-in-law. They had received grants for land in the back country and were quite satisfied living under British rule. His sons and daughters grew up at their father’s mills in Anson County and started families of their own. When the animosity between the rebels (Whigs) and the loyalists (Tories) began to heat up in the mid-1770s, the Williams family, as well as other loyalists, were continually harassed by the rebels, urging them to join their cause. When they refused, some were arrested, tarred and feathered, imprisoned, and even lynched, if they did not take an oath in support of the rebel cause.
There are many hair-raising accounts of depredations to loyalists inflicted by the American rebels. In one instance, a group called the “Liberty Boys” surrounded Colonel Thomas Brown’s house in Georgia and demanded that he swear allegiance to the American cause. When he refused, asking to remain neutral, they pronounced that he was either with them or else considered an enemy. He demurred, and a fight ensued. He was captured, his house ransacked. He was beaten, tied to a tree, semiconscious, with a fractured skull. A fire was lit under his feet that burned off two toes. His hair was cut off, he was scalped in several places, and was tarred and feathered. Lucky to survive, Brown later raised over 300 men, including Samuel Williams and several of his sons in a campaign to seize Augusta for the King. In the northern colonies, attacks were also common. In Connecticut “James Nichols…endured tarring and feathering, being tossed into a brook and having shots fired at him”. There were also reprisals from the loyalists against the rebels. Loyalist David Fanning, for example, was notorious for his violence, at best abusing captured rebels, at worst, murdering them.
In July 1775, Samuel and his sons sided with the King amid a rebel uprising in Anson County and was targeted as a loyalist. Samuel was on his way to consult with British Governor Josiah Martin about how best to deal with the violence when he got word that his home had been broken into by the rebels, looking for him. While he and his son Wilson were visiting a neighbor, thirty armed men surrounded the home, intent on capturing them. Samuel narrowly escaped; however, his son Wilson was captured. Wilson was forced to swear allegiance to the American cause but subsequently fought for the loyalists anyway. In August, Samuel once again set out, this time with his son Jacob, to seek help from Governor Martin. The rebels found out about it and ambushed them in Bladen County on their return. Samuel and Jacob were tried, but fortunately acquitted on August 28, 1775.
When Colonel MacLeod came to North Carolina to raise troops for the British in 1775, Samuel raised a horse company of sixty men and became their captain. They fought in various skirmishes leading up to the battle at Moore’s Creek Bridge. This defeat, however, was the final blow for Samuel. Consequently, he decided to head south to the relative safety of Florida. Reverend E.W. Caruthers wrote, “Then my father and some others, twelve in all, being conducted by Capt. Samuel Williams, made their way through the States of South Carolina and Georgia, until they got to the British at St. Augustine, in Florida”.
Samuel was married to a woman named Mary (her maiden name is unknown) and their children were Jane, Henry, Jacob, William, Wilson, Abner and Susan. There probably was another daughter, perhaps by a first wife, and supposedly there was a sixth son, perhaps named Samuel Jr. or Edward, who might have been killed in one of the skirmishes that history has left unknown. Samuel headed straight for Florida, and the children, all being over the age of twenty, made their own way over the next few years to various points south where there was moderate safety.
East Florida had become a British colony in 1763 and was firmly a loyalist bastion when the Williams and other loyalists arrived during the American Revolution.
Note: This is the first of a series about this Loyalist family.
Phil Eschbach, a retired commercial photographer in Florida, took up his mother’s genealogical research from the 60’s. He discovered his loyalist ancestors, through his father’s father’s line. His father’s mother’s line were rebels – perhaps the ancestors met on a battlefield?
Endnotes
Holcomb, Brent H., comp. Anson County, North Carolina, Deed Abstracts, 1749-1766. Baltimore: Genealogical Pub. Co., 1979.
Wicker, Rassie E., comp. Miscellaneous Ancient Records of Moore County, N.C. Moore County Historical Association, 1971.
McBee, May Wilson, comp. Anson County, North Carolina Abstracts of Early Records. Baltimore: Genealogical Pub., 1978.
McCrady, Edward. The History of South Carolina in the Revolution. New York: MacMillan Company, 1901.
Cashin, Edward J. The King’s Ranger, Thomas Brown and the American Revolution on the Southern Frontier. Athens & London: The University of Georgia Press, 1989.
DeMond, Robert O. The Loyalists in North Carolina During the Revolution. Durham, North Carolina: Duke University Press, 1979.
Caruthers, Rev. E.W. Revolutionary Incidents: Sketches of Character, Chiefly in the “Old North State.” Philadelphia: Hayes & Zell, 1854.

Book: Loyalist Cemeteries & Gravestones: Annapolis & Digby Counties
By Brian McConnell UE
This book identifies Loyalist Cemeteries and Gravestones in Annapolis and Digby Counties which are the two Counties with the largest number in the Province. The 129-page softcover book includes close to 100 colour photographs along with descriptions.
Mr. McConnell said, the book also contains “fascinating stories related to the gravestones.”
The book is available from Amazon in Canada and in US.

Report: Col. Benedict Arnold to General George Washington
Oct 30, 1775, Col. Benedict Arnold and the vanguard of his invasion force reached French settlements in Québec. A subsequent report:

From Colonel Benedict Arnold
Point Levi [Quebec]
8th November 1775
May it please your Excellency
My last Letter was of the 27th ultimo, from Chaudiere Pond, adviseing your Excellency that as the Detachment were short of Provissions, by Reason of loossing many of our Batteaus, I had ordered Colo. Enos to send back the Sick & feeble, and those of his Divission who could not be supplied with fifteen Days Provissions, and that I intended proceeding the next Day with 15 Men to Sartigan to send back Provissions to the Detachment. I accordingly set out the 28th early in the Morning & descended the River,1 amazingly rapid & rocky for about twenty Miles where we had the Misfortune to stave three of our Batteaus, and loose their Provissions &c. but happily no Lives–I then divided the little Provissions left & proceeded on with the two remaining Batteaus & six Men, and very fortunately reached the French Inhabitants the 30th at night, who received us in the most hospitable Manner. Read more…

Borealia: Teach My Research: Jesuits and Demons in New France
By Mairi Cowan 26 October 2020
I wrote the article “Jesuit Missionaries and the Accommodationist Demons in New France” for the book of collected essays Knowing Demons, Knowing Spirits in the Early Modern Period, part of the Palgrave Historical Studies in Witchcraft and Magic series. It began with my attempts to understand how missionaries interpreted the malevolent spirits they were hearing about from both Indigenous people and European settlers in North America. As I read through Jesuit writings in search of the Jesuit perspective on demons, I noted several things that I had not expected to find. First, the individual Jesuits working in New France were more distinct one from another than most historians’ accounts would suggest when speaking of “the Jesuits” as a group. Second, the Jesuits did share a belief that demons would be flexible in their attempts to influence human minds–resembling how the missionaries themselves were flexible in their attempts to convert Indigenous peoples. I found this conception of demons as missionaries to be kind of charming, in a somewhat dark way. And third, I was struck by how Indigenous responses to the Jesuits sometimes turned the missionaries’ attempts at conversion against them, and even amounted to charges that the Jesuits were actually demonic forces bringing discord, sickness, and death.
My article examines what Jesuits in New France thought about demons. More specifically, it considers how missionaries in the 1630s and 1640s tried to make sense of Indigenous reports of spiritual power in a colonial context of religious universalism. It starts with an explanation for why the Jesuits from Europe expected to find demons in North America and an analysis of what characteristics they presumed these demons to share with demons in other parts of the world. Next, it traces how individual Jesuit missionaries reacted differently to stories of supernatural power in Indigenous societies. Finally, it considers why the Jesuits were sometimes accused of being very much like the demons they thought they were fighting. Read more…

JAR: Alexander Hamilton’s Missing Years: New Discoveries and Insights into the Little Lion’s Caribbean Childhood
by Ruud Stelten and Alexandre Hinton 27 October 2020
Alexander Hamilton’s life has been documented extensively and his exploits as an adult are well known. His early childhood, however, has long been a subject of debate and, until recently, was largely shrouded in obscurity. Evidence published by historian Michael Newton in 2019 has provided new insights into Alexander Hamilton’s formative years. Despite this new information coming to light, a large gap still exists in our knowledge of the life of one of America’s most brilliant Founding Fathers. Recent research in the Dutch National Archives in The Hague by the authors has uncovered another piece of the puzzle, thereby filling a large gap in Alexander Hamilton’s “missing” years in the early 1760s.
Until recently, Alexander’s own claims and a lack of evidence to the contrary led historians to believe that he was born and raised on the island of Nevis. Newton’s research demonstrated that the story is more complicated and that Alexander did not spend all this time, if any, on Nevis. Alexander’s parents, Rachel Faucett and James Hamilton, met on St. Kitts in the early 1750s. About two years later, Alexander’s older brother James Jr. was born, likely on that same island. Records indicate the family left for St. Eustatius in 1753 “on account of debt.” This has been the last documentation of the Hamiltons’ place of residence until 1765, when the family moved to St. Croix. Various witness accounts and church records place the Hamilton family on St. Eustatius and St. Kitts between 1753 and 1759, but evidence of where they resided during this period has not yet been discovered. Sometime in the mid-1750s, Alexander Hamilton was born. While his date of birth has been a matter of much debate, Newton provides compelling evidence for Alexander’s birth date between February 23 and August 5, 1754. His birthplace, however, is still in question, as lack of records has allowed multiple islands to be considered as possibilities. Read more…

Jamestown: André’s Tree: Even More Hidden History in The Legend of Sleepy Hollow
Washington Irving’s classic tale The Legend of Sleepy Hollow, which celebrates its 200th anniversary this year, is replete with symbolism and analogy–but it’s the short story’s hidden history of the American Revolution which makes it a perfect treat for anyone seeking out a little history, but also in the mood for a fright. André’s Tree delivers on both.
After an evening spent with the townsfolk recounting the many “fearful sights which he had seen in his nightly walks about Sleepy Hollow,” Ichabod Crane mounted “old Gunpowder,” and started for home. Thus began Ichabod’s fateful–and perhaps final–journey through the hills and streams of Sleepy Hollow, directly on a path towards the Headless Horseman. But before his encounter with the Horseman, Ichabod is struck by the ghostly energy surrounding not the headless Hessian, but a tree. The enormous, imposing, and ominous tree looming before him “was connected with the tragical story of the unfortunate André, who had been taken prisoner hard by; and was universally known by the name of Major André’s tree.”
For literary critics, John André and his tree symbolize loneliness, betrayal, and death while also lending a mysterious air to Sleepy Hollow’s landscape. Historically speaking, well, things are bit more complicated. Read more…

JAR: The Connolly Plot
by Eric Sterner 28 October 2020
During the Revolutionary War, Pittsburgh was a place of constant political and economic intrigue, double-dealing, subversion, back-stabbing, disloyalty, and treachery. One of the earliest and most jaw-droppingly ambitious plans to secure the city for the British came from the mind of Dr. John Connolly. Word of his “plot” spread widely across the colonies in 1775 and came to symbolize the lengths to which Loyalists were willing to go to foil the American Revolution.
The doctor was born in Pennsylvania and had an eye for adventure, but his parents insisted on a medical education. Still, he managed to join the army on campaigns in the Caribbean and frontier. In Connolly’s telling, the experience “taught me to endure hardships, and gave me agility of body, and an aptitude to enterprize, very proper to form a partisan officer.” Armed with an inheritance after his mother died, the title doctor, and experience on the frontier, Connolly settled in Pittsburgh.
The road to wealth, status, and power lay through land acquisition and the Virginians were the most aggressive about it in the Ohio River valley. Predictably, Connolly’s ambition brought him into frequent contact with many of Virginia’s leaders, including George Washington and the governor, Lord Dunmore. He became one of the governor’s agents in asserting Virginia’s sovereignty claims in the west. In the dispute between Virginia and Pennsylvania that followed, the two colonies took turns arresting one another’s officials. Arthur St. Clair, future Continental major general, arrested Connolly. Paroled, the doctor organized local Virginians into a de facto armed militia that took control of the town. It earned Connolly the animus of Pennsylvanians. At the close of Dunmore’s War between Virginia and the Shawnee and Mingo Indian polities, Connolly received command of seventy-five men at Fort Dunmore (Fort Pitt) and charge of the Indian leaders held hostage pending the return of white captives. Read more…

Kelly Arlene Grant: Fuelling the Great Shortgown Debate?
Back when rocks were soft and the famous bodice reigned supreme, your blogger was a newly fashioned historic costumer and re-enactor. I can’t even think of myself as a living historian back then, I was as generic as they come. But in an era when women were turning out in a shift, petticoat, and their sneakers, I was a bit of an anomaly. I had graduated Costume Studies and theoretically knew how to dress people properly for history things.
I was asked to turn out at events to possibly persuade the ladies to dress a bit better. My first living history event I had a shift, stays, two petticoats, bum rolls, and a cap…oh, and a jacket my friend Sarah whizzed up on machine the two days before the event. Apart from the jacket, everything was made as part of our Costume Studies program.
But a lot of it was wrong…
…read more about Kelly’s progress from all the things that weren’t even close to being right to much better.

Ben Franklin’s World: Elections in Early America: Presidential Elections & the Electoral College
Alexander Keyssar, the Matthew W. Sterling Professor at Harvard’s Kennedy School of Government, and Frank Cogliano, Professor of History at the University of Edinburgh, explore the origins and development of the Electoral College as the method for electing the President and Vice President.
Through our conversations, Alex and Frank reveal how the delegates to the Constitutional Convention settled on the electoral college as a solution to the question of how to elect the President; How the development of political parties complicated presidential elections after the retirement of George Washington; And why reformers were able to ratify the Twelfth Amendment and not other reform proposals. Listen in…

Responses to Query: Place in New Brunswick for James Carr
The responses last week to the query about where James Carr settled is supplemented with these two maps. See the entry for James Carr in the Loyalist Directory.
Les Gillies does a lot of genealogical research and has collected quite a few Land Grant maps of New Brunswick. He has marked the “Carr” land grants on this larger map which shows Lincoln Parish and a number of surrounding parishes, while this smaller map is a closeup showing the same “Carr” grants and the location of the village of Rusagonis.

Region, Branch and Member Bits and Events

Gov. Simcoe Branch Webinar 4 Nov. 7:30pm; “Creating Toronto”; Open to all
Where did the name Toronto come from? This presentation will take us back in time over thousands of years to learn about the First People to migrate to Southern Ontario. We’ll take a look at how these early people developed into separate nations, with their own culture, traditions and importantly, their own languages. We’ll learn about the great Haudenosaunee (Iroquois) Empire, and the displacement of the Wendat (Huron) people from Southern Ontario. We’ll investigate the Carrying Place trail and the first mentions of the name “Toronto”. What did the name really mean? This in-depth exploration of about 45 minutes will cover a lot of information on how the name Toronto came to represent Canada’s largest city.
Speaker: Richard Fiennes-Clinton is a Toronto-based historian, speaker, author.
Registration required at registration here. Once registered you will receive an email with your link to use when joining the webinar on Nov 4 – everyone’s link is unique.

Additions to the Loyalist Directory
As time permits, we add information to the Loyalist Directory. The latest additions and updates are as follows:

  • James Carr – contributed by Les Gillies and John Noble
  • Aaron DeVal – contributed by Kevin Wisener (new one from PEI)
  • James Dingwall – contributed from Branch records by Jo Ann Tuskin
  • David Dinsmore – contributed by William Lindsey
  • John Adam Pabst (Papst) – contributed by Richard Poaps (revised biography)
  • Frederick Shelp – contributed by Arden Wade (added children)

Please help us build the directory by contributing more information for it. Contact loyalist.trails@uelac.org for instructions and guidance.

Where in the World is Malcolm Newman?

“Soap and (Canal) Water” … Where in the world is Malcolm Newman of New Brunswick Branch)?

The cupboard is once more bare. There is no pic for next week.

Please submit a photo of a person or two (or more), preferably with a loyalist connection such as clothing (UELAC promotional gear or heritage attire) at a place or event with some loyalist or related historical aspect and tell us about it. If you are a member of a branch, please indicate that as well – send to the editor loyalist.trails@uelac.org

From the Twittersphere and Beyond

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