Loyalist Trails 2021-05

Loyalist Trails Newsletter 2021-05 (January 31, 2021)

In this issue:

• The Loyalist Postmaster of Newport, Rhode Island, Part Four of Four by Stephen Davidson UE
• Murray Aikman Locked Down and Searching for his Roots
• JAR Review: To the End of the World: Nathanael Greene, Charles Cornwallis, and the Race to the Dan
• The Inhabitants of the New England Colonies at the Time of the Revolution
• Why Yorktown? Yorktown in Human and Geological Time
• Jamestown Settlement: ‘No Law Respecting an Establishment of Religion’: National Religious Freedom
• Under Cover in the Renaissance; Early Modern Masks
• Query: Were George’s Parents or Grandparents Loyalists?
• NS Branch Resource: Biographical Sketches of Loyalist Ancestors
• Virtual Kickoff to Launch ‘Particularly Important’ Black History Month
• Press: United Empires Loyalist Connection Recognized With Designation
• Events:
  • Meeting by the Gov. Simcoe Branch, Wed. Feb. 3 at 7:30 – 9:00. “How Canada Has Grown, and Provincial Government Houses”
  • Webinars on demand:
    • Georgian Papers Programme: “George III and the Law of Nations”
• Additions to the Loyalist Directory
• From the Twittersphere and Beyond

Connect with us:

Twitter: http://twitter.com/uelac
Facebook: http://www.facebook.com/UELAC

The Loyalist Postmaster of Newport, Rhode Island, Part Four of Four
copyright Stephen Davidson UE
By Sunday, September 8, 1776, Thomas Vernon, John Nicoll and Richard Beale had made their way to East Greenwich and found lodging with a man known to be a Loyalist. With his help, they made arrangements to hire a boat to take them to Newport.
However, they were wakened in the night to discover that 12 armed men were at the door. Walking into Vernon’s bedroom, they charged him with breaking the law by leaving Glocester without permission from the authorities. Vernon replied that they were on their way to Newport to deliver themselves into the hands of the sheriff and to be put in the town jail. After Vernon promised on his word of honour to appear before town officials the next day, the 12 men left the house.
The next day, following long arguments about how to interpret the Rhode Island Assembly’s decisions regarding the three Loyalists and the actions of Vernon’s party, the local Patriots sent Major Preserved Pierce off to Providence with a letter from Vernon to Governor Cooke.
On September 10th, the Loyalist prisoners finally received acknowledgement that the governor had received their letter. Although he did not write a reply, Governor Cooke told the Loyalists’ messenger that if the men wanted their case heard by the assembly, they must travel to Providence – rather than Newport– and stay in its jail while the matter was being investigated.
Not one to waste time, Vernon immediately started walking to Providence (the Patriots had refused him permission to go by boat). Leaving East Greenwich at 10:15 Tuesday morning, he arrived in the state capital at 4:00 p.m. that afternoon. He was then committed to the city jail, which he described as a “dismal, disagreeable place. It is full of people, being much overcrowded. It has not the conveniences of bed or bedding. Seven of us were lodged in one small room.”
After enduring miserable conditions interspersed with visits from old friends between Wednesday and Sunday, Vernon finally received news that the local rebel committee planned to send him to Warwick, a town that was a four-hour carriage ride outside of Providence. After packing up his few belongings, Vernon bid goodbye to Richard Beale and John Nicholl, the two Loyalists who had shared his 11 weeks of banishment at the Keach farm.
In the days before the outbreak of the revolution, John Nicoll had served as the Comptroller of Customs at Newport for more than a decade. When the city’s Stamp Act Riot erupted in August of 1765, Nicoll and two other Customs officers fled Newport for sanctuary on board the Cygnet, a British man-of-war anchored in the harbour. From there the terrified Loyalists wrote Governor Ward a letter demanding protection. Ward promised the custom officers that they would be safe, and so they returned to their duties.
The promise of safety evaporated by 1776 when Patriots banished Nicholl from Newport in June of that year. During his exile in Glocester, it was Nicholl who planted and maintained a vegetable garden of his own on the Keach farm. When Nicholl and Thomas Vernon parted at the Providence jail in September, it is the last time that the two men are known to have seen each other.
Nicholas Lechmere, another one of Vernon’s companions at the Keach farm, had also sought refuge on the Cygnet during the Stamp Act Riot. Like Nicholl, he worked for the Crown in the Newport customs office as a “searcher and land waiter”. Vernon nicknamed Lechmere “the Count” in his diary, and mentioned his penchant for snuff. Four years following his banishment to Glocester, Lechmere left Newport with the British troops when they were redeployed to New York City.
By February of 1780, “the Count” had found sanctuary in England. General Benedict Arnold spoke on Lechmere’s behalf when he appeared before the loyalist compensation board in 1784. Lechmere’s reference to the 11-week banishment to the Keach farm is the only record of the incarceration outside of Thomas Vernon’s diary. This Rhode Island Loyalist died in London at the turn of the 19th century.
Richard Beale, Vernon’s third companion in exile, had been a long-time resident of Newport. He and Vernon would have seen each other on numerous occasions before 1765 as they had married two of John Brown’s daughters. Mary Brown became Mrs. Beale and Jane Brown (who would die in 1765) married Vernon. Beale, like his former brother-in-law, ran afoul of Newport’s Patriots when he refused to take the test of loyalty to the rebel cause in 1776, and was therefore “deemed unfriendly to the United Colonies“.
In Vernon’s diary, Beale was noted as preferring milk to tea or coffee for breakfast and was regularly mentioned as his walking companion. Other details of his life before and after his banishment to Glocester cannot be found in the documents of the era.
Upon signing a parole on his word of honour that he would appear in Warwick, Thomas Vernon set off for his next place of exile. After staying with an obliging family for nine days, Vernon finally found lodgings on September 25th in the home of a woman identified as Widow Green. He paid her a dollar and a half each week.
On October 5th, the local rebel committee gave Vernon liberty to go to Newport for eight days to settle his affairs. Three days later, Vernon was able to write in his diary that he was back “at my own house before six. Found my family and friends all well.”
As it turned out, Vernon was home to stay. The Rhode Island House of Assembly issued an order that October that allowed all of its Loyalist exiles to return to their homes. Thomas Vernon’s days as a wandering outcast were over.
However, the American Revolution’s impact on Vernon’s hometown of Newport had only just begun. Recognizing that Newport could be used as a strategic launching point for a Patriot attack on British headquarters in New York, royal forces captured the city in the early days of December 1776. This compelled Thomas Vernon’s Patriot brother William to leave the city. For the next three years, Newport would be a British stronghold, withstanding a joint attack of rebel American and French forces in the summer of 1778.
Wanting to concentrate their forces in New York City, the British withdrew from Newport in October of 1779. In the following summer, ships belonging to the Patriots’ ally, France, sailed into Newport and established it as their base of operations for the rest of the American Revolution.
By war’s end, Newport was a shadow of the bustling port it had been in in the mid-1770s. Once the fifth largest city in the colonies with a population of over 9,000, it had less than 4,000 occupants in 1783. Two hundred buildings were abandoned during the war. Military occupation by both the British and French had severely diminished its prominence as a hub for trade.
How Thomas and Mary Vernon survived during these upheavals in Newport’s history goes unrecorded. As a Loyalist, Vernon may have done very well during the British occupation, but then would have been treated as a traitor when the Patriots and their allies took over the city.
The last time Thomas Vernon’s name occurred within his hometown was when it was carved into his tombstone. The former Loyalist prisoner breathed his last on May 1, 1784. Unashamed of his political convictions during the war, Vernon had this epitaph inscribed:

His wife Mary died in 1787. The couple had no children. Rather than generations of descendants, Thomas Vernon’s greatest gift to posterity was the diary of his wartime experiences spent in confinement on a farm in Glocester, Rhode Island.

Editor’s note: Interested in reading Thomas Vernon’s diary for yourself? Read it here.

To secure permission to reprint this article contact the author at stephendavids@gmail.com.

Murray Aikman Locked Down and Searching for his Roots
By Mark McNeil 25 Jan. 2021 in the Hamilton Spectator
The 72-year-old retired teacher and local historian has been hunkering down on a task he has been wanting to do for a long time.
He’s going through a dozen boxes of genealogy documents and pictures, left to him from his parents, to try to better understand the story of his family.
On his father’s side it involves soldiers who fought with militias on the side of the British in the War of 1812 as well surviving the War of Independence in the U.S. There’s a physician, a minister, a wheelwright, farmers and lots of teachers. His mother’s family — the Cummers — also have United Empire Loyalist roots and the family, among other things, owned Cummer and Son Soda Co., a long time Hamilton company that used to produce soft drinks in fascinating bottles that frequently show up at antique shows today.
For more than 230 years, Aikman’s family has dovetailed with Hamilton-area history tracing back to a log cabin homestead on Mineral Springs Road in Ancaster in the late 1780s. Read more…

JAR Review: To the End of the World: Nathanael Greene, Charles Cornwallis, and the Race to the Dan
Review by Gabriel Neville 25 January 2021
Author: Andrew Waters (Yardley, PA: Westholme Publishing, 2020)
“In a place like Salisbury,” writes Andrew Waters of the North Carolina town that witnessed the 1781 Race to the Dan, “you can live among its ghosts and still not know it’s there.” Enthusiasts know that this is true of many Revolutionary War sites, including some of real importance. Mr. Waters complains in his book To the End of the World: Nathanael Greene, Charles Cornwallis, and the Race to the Dan of the simplified understanding most Americans have of the Revolutionary War. “For most of us, the story of the American Revolution is of George Washington and the minutemen, Valley Forge and Yorktown.” In our Cliffs Notes version of history, many places, heroes, and even whole campaigns are left out.
Like most of the war in the south, the Race to the Dan is overshadowed by Yorktown. The mere fact that George Washington was not a participant relegates the story to a second-tier status. The Race, however, holds unique challenges for the historian and the storyteller. It occurred over more than two hundred miles, depending on how you count it, rather than at one identifiable spot. Nathanael Greene’s genius is to be found in his mastery of logistics and strategy, which are subjects that make many people’s eyes glaze over. Though heroic and difficult, it was still a retreat and retreats don’t lend themselves to celebration. Its significance is not so much in what it achieved but rather in what it made possible, which requires detailed explanation.
Consequently, the Race to the Dan has been given short shrift for more than two centuries. It is mentioned in the war’s histories, but almost never in detail. In writing this book, Mr. Waters was determined to correct that and he has succeeded. One can’t resist noting the appropriateness his name: the waterways of the Carolinas play a central role in the story. He makes plain from the beginning that the story is personal to him. He is a conservationist and doctoral candidate in South Carolina who has made a career of conserving the Palmetto State’s watersheds. “Rivers are my business,” he says at the very beginning of the book. He also plainly declares, “We all need heroes, and . . . Greene has become one of mine.” Read more…

The Inhabitants of the New England Colonies at the Time of the Revolution
From The Loyalists of Massachusetts And the Other Side of the American Revolution starting at page 122
By James H. Stark
Publisher: W. B. Clarke Co., Boston in 1907
Available through the Project Gutenberg
The first and second chapters of this work treated of the settlement of Massachusetts and the framing and establishing of that social system and form of government which through successive generations, the settlers and their descendants took part, which culminated in the Revolution. The founders of Massachusetts and of all New England, were almost entirely Englishmen. Their emigration to New England began in 1620, it was inconsiderable till 1630, at the end of ten years more it almost ceased. A people consisting at that time of not many more than twenty thousand persons, thenceforward multiplied on its own soil, in remarkable seclusion from other communities, for nearly two centuries. Such exceptions to this statement are of small account. In 1651 after the battle of Dunbar, Cromwell sent some four or five hundred of his Scotch prisoners to Boston, but very little trace of this accession is left. After the revocation of the Edict of Nantes in 1685, about one hundred and fifty families of French Huguenots came to Massachusetts; their names and a considerable number of their posterity are yet to be found. A hundred and twenty Scotch-Irish families, came over in 1719 and settled in Boston, and New Hampshire. Some slight emigrations from it took place at an early date, but they soon discontinued, and it was not till after the Revolution that those swarms began to depart, which have since occupied so large a portion of the territory of the United States. During that long period their identity was unimpaired. No race has ever been more homogeneous than this, at the outbreak of the Revolution, and for many years later. Thus the people of New England was a singularly unmixed race. There was probably not a county in England occupied by a population of purer English blood than theirs. Down to the eve of the war in 1775, New England had little knowledge of the communities which took part in that conflict with her. Till the time of the Boston Port Bill, Massachusetts and Virginia, the two principal English settlements, had with each other scarcely more relations of acquaintance, business, mutual influence, or common action, than either of them had with Bermuda or Barbados.
That the foregoing statement concerning the purity of the race at the time of the Revolution is a correct one, is shown in the following biographies of the Loyalists of Massachusetts, for in nearly every case their ancestry date back to that of the first settlers, through several generations.
The Addressers.
The importance of the following addressers is out of all proportion to their apparent significance. They are an indispensable genesis to the history of the Loyalists. For the next seven years the Addressers were held up to their countrymen as traitors and enemies to their country. In the arraignments, which soon began, the Loyalists were convicted not out of their mouths, but out of their addresses. The ink was hardly dry upon the parchment before the persecution began against all those who would not recant, and throughout the long years of the war, the crime of an addresser grew in its enormity, and they were exposed to the perils of tarring and feathering, the horrors of Simbury mines, a gaol or a gallows. Read more…
Loyalist Biographies and Confiscations
These begin on page 145 with each biography followed by the related confiscations. For a list of Loyalists who are included, see the table of contents at the beginning of the book.
Thanks to Coralee Testar UE

Why Yorktown? Yorktown in Human and Geological Time
by Patrick H. Hannum 28 January 2021
Written human history only dates back a few thousand years while geologic time is often measured in tens or hundreds of millions of years. While social sciences often consider the physical geography of the environment where people live, geology often plays an equally important role. Understanding the geology of Yorktown, Virginia, and the surrounding area provides context for historians to better understand the physical geography and the military events of 1781 and beyond. Yorktown was the site of two sieges, the 1781 Revolutionary War siege, the primary focus of the Colonial Historic Park interpretative activities there, and the 1862 siege during the American Civil War. Both occurred because of the unique terrain and geologic conditions in and around Yorktown that continue to influence the human behavior involving economic and military development of the region. Using modern military terminology, Yorktown, Virginia, and the surrounding area including the York River, James River, Hampton Roads, and the Chesapeake Bay, were “key terrain” and potential “decisive points” in two very important military campaigns. The conditions there also facilitated military operations during World War I and continue to hold military significance well into the twenty-first century.
But why did Yorktown offer a suitable anchorage surrounded by relatively high, dry, and defendable ground when most of the topography in the lower portions of the Chesapeake Bay offers little or no high ground and few naturally occurring, suitable and defensible deep-water anchorages? Why did Yorktown and the York-James Peninsula contain these physical attributes? What made Yorktown attractive was the unique geology and hydrography of the location. Read more…

Jamestown Settlement: ‘No Law Respecting an Establishment of Religion’: National Religious Freedom
By Nancy D. Egloff, Historian, Jamestown-Yorktown Foundation 29 January 2021
Learn about the history of Virginia’s established Church before the January 1786 adoption of Thomas Jefferson’s Statute for Religious Freedom, which would become the basis for First Amendment clause of the 1791 U.S. Constitution
Public incidents in this past month provided reminders of the freedoms instituted in America’s founding documents such as freedom of the press, freedom to assemble or speak openly about one’s convictions. National Religious Freedom Day on January 16 commemorated another. On that day in 1786, the Virginia General Assembly adopted Thomas Jefferson’s Statute for Religious Freedom, which states, “No man shall be compelled to frequent or support any religious worship, place, or ministry whatsoever, . . . [or] shall otherwise suffer, on account of his religious opinions or belief; but that all men shall be free to profess . . . their opinions in matters of religion.” This document became the basis for the First Amendment clause of the 1791 U.S. Constitution, ensuring that all Americans have the right to worship freely and follow their conscience.
Settlers in England’s earliest North American colony could not claim that right. The English government granted a charter to the Virginia Company, an English merchant trade business whose officers controlled the administration, laws and religious worship in Virginia. Charter documents implied that leaders would follow practices in accordance with the Church of England, and required all new settlers to take oaths of allegiance and supremacy to the King as head of the Church of England. The Company’s instructions stipulated that “the true word, and service of God and Christian faith be preached, planted, and used . . . according to the doctrine, rights, and religion now professed and established within our realme of England.”
…In 1777, Jefferson drafted a bill that would establish religious freedom in Virginia as a “natural right.” When the Virginia General Assembly first considered the bill in 1779 the Episcopal Church, newly independent from the Church of England, was the state-sponsored or established Church in the colony. Tax monies supported the Church and colonial laws compelled mandatory attendance. Read more…

Under Cover in the Renaissance; Early Modern Masks
By Donna Seger
I am taking a break to show you some early modern masks, just because they are so wonderful…. Cleanliness was increasingly important for health reasons as well: sixteenth-and seventeenth-century people were living through constant pandemics of plague and various poxes and fevers, and while they knew nothing about germ theory, they had associated disease and squalidness. When they went outside, into the pestilential air, they covered up for protection if they could afford to: with hats, hoods, gloves and fans and yes, even masks…
Everyone is now familiar with the beaked plague masks of the later seventeenth century, but this was just one, rather dramatic, form of early modern masks, which were also worn for “disguising,” for protection against the weather, for festivity, and for fashion. The most elaborate of fashionable early modern masks for women, the vizard or visard, which covered the entire face except for the eyes, seems to have had Italian origins. Read more…

Query: Were George’s Parents or Grandparents Loyalists?
George Barnard was born in 1816 or within a few years based on numerous US Census records and other sources. His place of birth is not known exactly because it was reported differently based on the record. Some records state that he was born on a ship in the Atlantic Ocean, others state New York, and one source even states Pennsylvania.
Through DNA testing, I recently found that he had a sister named Caroline Elizabeth Barnard. She was born in 1819 and all sources I have of her state that she was born in New York. I also recently found out that she was an orphan. I am assuming that George Barnard was as well.
There are a few reasons that I think George Barnard may have been a descendant of loyalists.

• I have done extensive analysis of my DNA with the help of a genealogist. There is a cluster of many of my matches that had ancestors from Canada, especially Ontario and some in Quebec. I know my family tree very well and do not have any other lines that come from this area. One of my DNA matches has the last name of Barnhart. He does not have a good family tree. Possibly George’s last name was Barnhart?
• I also did a Y-DNA test. The closest relative I have through the test has a last name of Merkel. His wife sent me an email that included these words, “His Markel side have been in Canada for generations in the Muskoka area of Ontario. Several are United Empire Loyalists.” Interestingly, there are no Barnard matches in my Y-DNA test. The most common last name that I matched with by far is “Elliott”.
• The info that George reported on the US Census is not consistent. Different places and years of birth. Either he was trying to hide something or did not know this info.
• George’s sister Caroline was married in an Episcopal Church.

This is the information I have uncovered. I know this is a shot in the dark, but I feel strongly that George had some kind of ties to Canada, probably Ontario. I have been trying to find his parents for several years and have had the help of many genealogists.
All help or direction would be appreciated
Jake Barnard <jbarnard@atsu.edu>

NS Branch Resource: Biographical Sketches of Loyalist Ancestors
To celebrate the bicentenary of the arrival in Nova Scotia of Loyalists, a project was undertaken by the Halifax-Dartmouth branch of the UELAC. The branch in Nova Scotia is now called the Nova Scotia Branch to better reflect its scope.
For this project, members undertook to compile information about their Loyalist ancestors. The results were gathered together and in 1983 the branch prepared a booklet called Our Loyalist Ancestors – Biographical Sketches of Loyalist Ancestors of the Membership.
It includes 22 Loyalists: Samuel Andrews, Robert Bayard, John and Letitia Bell, Chambers Blakely, David Bleakney, David Burlock, Colin Campbell, Edward Crawford, Peter Earle, Joseph Embree, Jacob Fenton, James Hatfield, Stephen Humbert, Elisha Jones, Oliver Lyman, Donald MacAlpine, Samuel Perry, Gabriel Purdy, John Rushton, John George Webber, and Edward Winslow.
The book, 103 pages in length, is available at the link above.
Editor’s Note: A transcription of the book would be great to have. Volunteers to transcribe all or parts of it, please contact doug at loyalist.trails@uelac.org

Virtual Kickoff to Launch ‘Particularly Important’ Black History Month
By Mary Caton 27 Jan 2021 The Windsor Star
The COVID-19 pandemic has reshaped local efforts to share the Windsor-Essex region’s rich Black history during the month of February.
Despite the challenges of not being able to travel to and gather for different events during Black History Month, more than 15 virtual celebrations have be pulled together through a collaboration with the Essex County Black Historical Research Society, the Windsor West Indian Association and the Amherstburg Freedom Museum. Read more…

Press: United Empires Loyalist Connection Recognized With Designation
Woodstock and area was a small piece of Loyalist history. Nicholas Michael Parsons was announced as one of the youngest members in the United Empire Loyalists Association of Canada. Read more…

Events:

Meeting by the Gov. Simcoe Branch, Wed. Feb. 3 at 7:30 – 9:00
“How Canada Has Grown, and Provincial Government Houses”
By Garry Toffoli
While it may be assumed that each Canadian province came into Confederation in the same manner, that was not in fact the case. This illustrated presentation describes the geographical growth of Canada and explains the various criteria and procedures followed in the addition of provinces as a result.
It concludes with a look at the vice regal residences and offices in each province and describes the new procedure for any future provinces.
Registration is required to obtain a link to join. Register here. The link will be returned by an email from Insurance-Canada.ca

Toronto Branch – Wednesday, February 10 at 7:30 pm,
The Wreck of the HMS Speedy
The author known as “The History Guy of Brighton”, Dan Buchanan, will speak via Zoom about his latest book, The Wreck of the HMS Speedy: The Tragedy That Shook Upper Canada. The HMS Speedy was a British gunboat that disappeared in a terrible storm off Presqu’ile Point in 1804. Dan will speak about the ship’s disappearance, the devastating effect on the community and the search for the remains of the ship. For more information about HMS Speedy contact www.danbuchananhistoryguy.com (Will see if it is possible to join the webinar by next week)

Webinars on demand

Georgian Papers Programme (GPP). On 16 December 2020, GPP hosted the annual Sons of the American Revolution GPP Lecture. Our speaker was Professor David Armitage (Harvard), who spoke on the topic ‘George III and the Law of Nations’. The session was introduced and chaired by Professor Karin Wulf, academic co-director for GPP. Watch now…

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

• George Wright was a Quarter Master in the Calvary of the Queen’s Rangers who ultimately settled in York (Toronto); submitted from branch records by Jo Ann Tuskin

NOTE: Our Loyalist Directory is now “locked down”. No, it is not because Covid got to it, but rather we are doing a rebuild of the directory. A student team from Fleming College in Peterborough is upgrading the technology and adding a few new features. They have taken a copy of the existing data and are starting to load it into the new system. As a result we don’t want to make any changes to the old data as it would have to be reapplied to the new system when it is available. The student team wraps up in late April, so we are expecting (hoping) that all will be in order and we can get restarted making updates that month.
Sorry for any inconvenience; thank you for your patience.. ….doug

From the Twittersphere and Beyond

• Home of Phineas Oakes, Loyalist from Long Island, New York, at Paradise, NS built 1803. His nephew, Edwin Randolph Oakes, was elected Member of Parliament for Digby in 1874. Read more…
• 26 January 2013 – Daurene E. Lewis, CM, died. (b. 1943) – nurse & educator, first black mayor in Canada and in Nova Scotia – Annapolis Royal in 1984. The first black woman in Nova Scotia to run in a provincial election. A descendant of freed Loyalist African Americans.
• This Week in History
  • 23 Jan 1775 Merchants in London ask Parliament assist with financial losses from interruption of American trade.
  • 29 January 1775 “I must leave off journalizing, as its the season of the year in which I am employ’d in settling my accounts, as well as that the sleding brings us some up country business.” —merchant John Andrews
  • 25 Jan 1776 Congress orders creation of memorial to General Montgomery, killed in attempt to take Quebec City.
  • 28 Jan 1777 British plan to split New England from other Colonies via Lake Champlain & Hudson is submitted.
  • 29 Jan 1777 Patriots abandon attack on Fort Independence in Bronx County, NY, ultimately defeated by weather.
  • 24 Jan 1781 Lee & Marion’s combined forces raid Georgetown, SC, capturing commander of British garrison there.
  • 27 Jan 1781 Pompton Mutiny is put down by General Robert Howe, leaders executed by firing squad on the spot.
  • 26 Jan 1782 In Battle of Frigate Bay, Royal Navy repulses larger French force, cannot stop surrender of St. Kitt’s.
  • 29 Jan 1820 King George III dies, blind, deaf, and insane, having ruled for longer than any British monarch before.
• Clothing and Related:
  • Crewel embroidery is seeing me through weekends this lockdown. The wool & texture it creates are comforting, making me think of linen crewel bed drapes that shut the world out in times past. 18thc eg on the left @metmuseum. On the right my effort in similar shades of blue/green
  • I just wanted to share my 18th century stays! This sewing project has kept me sane during this horrible third lockdown and it’s the first foundational garment/corset I’ve ever attempted to make, so I’m very proud
  • This circa 1765 robe a la francaise made of brocaded silk from the 2015 Cora Ginsburg catalogue is the stuff of dreams and I would give up my pandemic wardrobe of sweatpants to wear it
  • Detail, embroidered apron (of the decorative rather than work-a-day variety) silk threads on silk ground, which as you can see in the upper left, is badly split. Silk is thin as parchment. Mid-18thc, country & provenance unknown.
  • Rear view, bodice detail of an 18th Century dress, Robe à l’anglaise retrousée made of mauve silk, late 1770′s
  • I often think 18th century bodices resemble silken armour, a structured garment that supports the body within presenting the world with a glittering shell. This pink bodice is softened with ruffles of self-decoration
  • 18th Century men’s formal coat, embroidered with a floral border, 1770’s
  • 18th Century men’s waistcoat, 1780’s The influence of Neo-classical design is evident in the decoration. Medallions of twill silk minutely & skillfully painted in black with mythological classical figures have been applied to the front & collar
• Townsends
  • Laying Our Handmade Bricks, Finally!
• Miscellaneous
  • Happy Robert (Rabbie) Burns Day from Nova Scotia where his statue stands prominently in Halifax today. It was fun to do this interview on my book “Canada’s Ulster – Scots”. With HowWeGotHere2 – Listen in… Brian McConnell UE

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