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“Happy Summer”: Message from Trish Groom UE, President UELAC
A quick hello to our Loyalist Trails followers. The Board of Directors and I certainly hope all of you are enjoying this summer now that Canada, and the world, is beginning to heal through the massive vaccination push that is available to us. I, for one, am truly grateful.
It dawned on me some months ago that many of you don’t know much about me and my UELAC history. I have enjoyed taking part in the workings of UELAC in a variety of ways. I’ve been a member of the UELAC Board for many years On addition I hold board positions with Toronto Branch and am a founding and current member of UELAC’s first virtual branch, Bridge Annex. Ensuring every Branch succeeds and the people who put so much energy into them are recognized is one of my commitments. In addition, I am the UELAC Promotions Chair, a busy position as our members have been so supportive of our promotional items. We’ve recently expanded what we have to offer to include rings, and family name ribbons and much more — a great way to share your love of Loyalist history. One of the projects we worked on during the pandemic, knowing people were increasingly using technology to shop, was to put the UELAC store online. Sales are brisk!
Personally, my genealogy endeavours go back to before the “web” was even invented. My mid-life crisis (albeit many years ago now!) was my motorcycle license and the purchase of my first of a few “2-Wheel” bikes. I have now moved on to a Spyder — a 3-wheel bike, and my husband and I ride many hundreds of kilometers a year. As an avid swimmer, I live up to my Pisces birthdate!
Be safe; Be kind
Trish Groon UE

The Loyalist with the Disfigured Face: Part Two of Two
copyright Stephen Davidson UE
Knowing that he was “wounded in the face” when Joseph Doan arrived in Canada in 1787, one can’t help but ask how he received this distinguishing feature.
The most basic account states that a posse captured Joseph “after a skirmish” and that he had been “shot in the cheek”. A second telling of his arrest says he was “shot through the cheek” when he was overtaken near Skippack Creek in Pennsylvania’s Montgomery County — about 23 miles from Joseph’s family home.
A third account has Joseph running from a house and leaping over a fence. As he turned his head to catch a glimpse of the men who were chasing him, “a rifle was fired at him, the ball of which drew his front teeth”. The next version says, “the bullet went into his jaw and knocked out several teeth. His looks were changed by this.”
Account number five appears in a book by George MacReynolds that was published in 1952. It contains a great deal of dialogue and details that make it read more like a novel and less like a historical retelling. In this version, Joseph Doan evades capture at Robinson’s tavern by making his getaway on a horse. In hot pursuit is a man named Patrick Mechlin. When his horse lost a shoe, Mechlin decided to try to bring Doan down with a single shot from his rifle.
After crying out, Doan kept riding, his hand to his face, and his head bent near his horse’s neck. Mechlin got off his mount and “picked up four of the outlaw’s teeth which had been shot from his mouth, tearing it in such a frightful manner as to leave an ugly mark”. The account goes on to say that Doan’s teeth were exhibited in Upper Dublin’s tavern “where they were kept for some time afterwards as a curiosity”.
The sixth account is a reference to Joseph made when he returned to his Pennsylvania home decades after the revolution. Despite the passing years, the townsfolk recognized him as “long missing Joseph Doan, as the bullet wound in his mouth, caused by Mechlin’s gun, proved beyond a doubt.”
However he was wounded, Joseph was taken into custody and put in prison in Newtown, Pennsylvania. In March of 1784, he was convicted and sentenced to be hanged. Thanks to “the carelessness and want of vigilance of the jailor’s son in neglecting to lock him up” Joseph escaped. He went as far as New Jersey’s Mercer County, took the surname of Grover, and once again became a schoolteacher. Perhaps he was able to explain his disfigured face as being the result of a war injury — without mentioning the fact that he had fought against Patriots.
At some point in time, Joseph was reunited with his wife. He had married his cousin Mary Doan in 1780. Their first child arrived on December 24, 1781 when Joseph was 29 and Mary was just 15. They named him Moses in honour of Joseph’s oldest brother who had led the Plumstead Cowboys.
Moses had been killed following his surrender to a Patriot posse just months before the British forces left the United States. Joseph’s brother Mahlon managed to escape imprisonment and joined other Loyalist refugees headed for England. Brother Levi and cousin Abraham were hanged in 1788 for aiding the British during the revolution. Brother Aaron, who had been sentenced to hang, was banished and chose to head for Canada.
Four years after the end of the revolution, the Pennsylvania government still offered a reward for Joseph Doan’s capture. When “Mr. Grover” heard a man say he would gladly shoot a Doan on sight, Joseph decided that it was best for him to settle his debts, gather up Mary and Moses, and move to Canada.
On his way north, he stopped in Plumstead Township to bid farewell to his family. When a neighbor recognized the last member of the Doan gang, he jumped on Joseph. He might have lost the fight had he not been able to open his penknife and cut his opponent’s throat. Joseph’s Quaker morality must have kicked in at this point for he is remembered as binding up the neighbour’s neck with his handkerchief and taking him to a nearby house. The neck wound permanently damaged the neighbour’s speech.
Joseph and Mary established a farm in Humberstone Township, not far from Fort Erie — about 25 km from Niagara Falls. The township, which was a relatively new Loyalist settlement, was also the new home of Joseph’s younger brother Aaron. The latter eventually had a family of eleven children. Joseph and Mary had seven more children after settling in Canada: Mahlon, Rachel, Joseph, Leah, Mary, Abraham and Esther.
Records indicate that Joseph Doan resumed his teaching career after settling in Humberstone where he “acquired an excellent reputation among his patrons”. At 44 years of age, he was described as a carpenter from Pennsylvania. In 1795 he received a 200-acre grant of land on the basis of being a Loyalist. His neighbours knew him as a man who held a deep hatred for Americans, a people he remembered as those who had “oppressed and persecuted him and his kindred”.
In 1799, Joseph’s parents left Pennsylvania to live with their remaining two sons in Humberstone Township. Joseph Doan Senior died at age 92 in 1818; his wife Hester died 15 years earlier at age 73.
At the outbreak of the War of 1812, Joseph Junior was 60 years old, an age that did not deter him from joining an unidentified son, his brother Aaron, and his nephew Levi Doan in defending Canada against American invaders. Someone among the Americans who raided Joseph’s neighbourhood recognized him “as a man inimical to the American interests”. Both Joseph and his son were taken prisoner, but his son was able to escape.
Joseph was taken to Green Bush, New York where he was imprisoned for a year and a half. Records of the era say, “through exposure and hunger he suffered all but death”. The former outlaw eventually was part of a prisoner of war exchange and returned home.
Following the war, Joseph and Mary moved to Walpole, a township 40 miles from Humberstone. In 1823, Joseph returned to Plumstead, making the 400-mile journey there on foot. Despite the decades of absence, he still felt entitled to receive some sort of compensation for the confiscation of his father’s property. A former neighbor described Joseph as “a portly, good looking, active, intelligent man of 72 years, straight as an Indian, very nearly six feet high.”
In 1830, Joseph made the same journey by wagon in the hopes of collecting $40.00 that was owed him. It was during this visit that old acquaintances were able to recognize him due to the scar of the bullet wound on his face.
Joseph Doan, the Loyalist with the disfigured face, died at the age of 92 on June 4, 1844. His wife Mary survived him by six years, dying at age 84 in 1850. Although she died in a fall, she had ended her days blinded by cancer on her face. Teacher, outlaw, refugee, and settler — these were all aspects of a man who once was hailed as a hero by Loyalists and as a terrorist by Patriots.
To secure permission to reprint this article contact the author at stephendavids@gmail.com.

JAR: Phraseology and the “Fourteenth Colony”
by George Kotlik 4 August 2021
The phrase “fourteenth colony” describes a province in British North America that did not revolt alongside the original thirteen colonies. Such a province usually had one or more connections to the American Revolution. The phrase is misleading and has been thrown around freely in literature on the Revolutionary era. There have been at least eight provinces in British America labeled the fourteenth colony. They cannot all claim the same title.
The term typically describes an imagined or recognized territory/jurisdiction that, while it was not part of the original thirteen colonies, still engaged in and/or was affected by the American Revolution. The term points to a noteworthy revelation. Upon the adoption of the Declaration of Independence, the American colonies were no longer colonies at all; they became states. Going forward, this article will refer to each of the states as states only when appropriate. After all, some of the provinces listed in this article remained in British hands and were, in fact, still colonies by the end of the war.
Nova Scotia
By 1776, New England emigrants made up a significant part of Nova Scotia’s population. Most Nova Scotians were sympathetic to the American rebels during the Imperial Crisis. By the early 1770s, Committees of Correspondence and Safety appeared around Nova Scotia. Insurrection rocked the province. Read more about Nova Scotia and more…

JAR: Morale Manipulation as the Central Strategic Imperative in the American Revolutionary War
by Woody Holton 3 August 2021
Most people think of wartime propaganda as atrocity stories about the enemy. But commanders also disseminate false and true information in hopes of boosting their own soldiers’ morale and sapping the enemy’s. Even more persuasive than words are actions, and manipulating morale often dictates how commanders deploy their troops. Witness the American War of Independence.
Generals’ concerns about both sides’ morale often led them to scrap retrograde movements that made sense tactically. Only a week after arriving in Cambridge, Massachusetts, to take command of the Continental troops bottling up the British in Boston, George Washington acknowledged the tactical wisdom of disengaging from the enemy and shifting his entire army several miles to the west. But that would “dispirit our own People, and Incourage the Enemy,” so he stayed put. In August 1780, as Continental troops approached Camden, South Carolina, their commander, Horatio Gates, discovered the strength of the British force occupying the town and considered moving off to avoid a confrontation. But as a subordinate later reported, Gates worried that “to have fallen back . . . would have discouraged the good men of the Country, & have given confidence to the opposite party.” So he and his soldiers forged ahead—to the disastrous Battle of Camden.
British commanders were just as averse to showing the enemy their backs. On July 5, 1777, Gen. John Burgoyne’s redcoats and German auxiliaries drove the Americans out of Fort Ticonderoga and pursued them southward. Read more…

Picturing Washington’s Army: Eyewitness Images from 1782
By the Museum of the American Revolution
In 2017, the curators at the Museum of the American Revolution discovered the only known wartime, eyewitness image of General George Washington’s tent from the Revolutionary War (above).
The image of Washington’s tent is a detail from a panoramic watercolor scene showing the Continental Army’s encampment at Verplanck’s Point, New York, on the Hudson River in 1782. Army engineer Pierre Charles L’Enfant, who later created the initial designs for what would become Washington, D.C., painted the scene. It is related to another panoramic watercolor painting from 1782 by L’Enfant showing the Continental Army’s encampment at nearby West Point. Together, the two rare paintings visualize Washington’s army, from the perspective of an eyewitness, at the height of its professionalism following the 1781 Siege of Yorktown. While the end of the war and American independence still hung in the balance, Washington prepared his troops for the next potential campaign against the British and hoped for continued French support.
Explore the two paintings…

Search for artifacts may confirm new theory of Ridgefield battle
When General William Tryon and his troops marched through Ridgefield in 1777, there were probably not three discrete engagements as has been commonly thought, but more of a running battle.
Heritage Consultants LLC, hired by the Ridgefield Historical Society under a National Park Service American Battlefield Protection Program grant, is finding documentary evidence to support this new conclusion. The Historical Society has created a short fact sheet about the Battle of Ridgefield Study as well as a landowner permission form to allow archaeological research. Read more…
Submitted by Ken McCallum who notes: “I spoke to the lead researcher last week and gave him material regarding my research about New York state militia who were at the Battle — information that they did not have. Odd that my 5x-greatgrandfater Jacob Van Wart — a Loyalist to NB — six months after the Battle became a Lt. in a NY militia company which had had 18 men at the Battle.”

Washington’s Quill: French Officers’ First Impressions of Washington and the Continental Soldiers
by Benjamin Huggins 6 August 2021
On July 6, 1781, the French army under the command of Lt. Gen. Jean-Baptiste-Donatien de Vimeur, comte de Rochambeau, after having marched from Providence, R.I., to Westchester County, N.Y., joined the Continental army commanded by Gen. George Washington at White Plains, New York. The rendezvous marked the first time the armies had operated together since the French had arrived at Newport, R.I., a year earlier. The rendezvous gave several young French officers in Rochambeau’s army their first look at the soldiers in Washington’s army and, for some, their first look at Washington.
Several of these French officers wrote very valuable (for the military historian) journals recording the events of their time in America during the Revolutionary War
Having been sent ahead to White Plains on July 4 to report to Washington the approach of the French army, Closen was the first of these officers to see the Continental soldiers. “I had a chance to see the American army, man for man,” Closen wrote. “It was really painful to see these brave men, almost naked, with only some trousers and little linen jackets, most of them without stockings, but, would you believe it? very cheerful and healthy in appearance. A quarter of them were negroes, merry, confident, and sturdy.” Read more…

Colonial Williamsbrug: New Hunting Shirts for the Junior Fifes and Drums Corps
Of the tens of thousands of hunting shirts produced during the 18th century for civilians and soldiers, only 4 survive to date. Those 4 have influenced small updates to the junior Fife & Drum uniforms.
For many, the sight and sound of the Fifes and Drums marching down the Duke of Gloucester Street is iconic to Colonial Williamsburg. Sadly, this has not happened in over a year due to the COVID-19 pandemic. While the senior and junior corps are not marching, behind the scenes our curators and historians have been working to develop a more accurate uniform for the junior corps.
For over a decade, I have had a passion — some would call it an obsession — with the garment known as a hunting shirt. Developed sometime during the mid-18th century in the southern back country of the American colonies and worn often by hunters, the garment can be argued as one of the first true American fashions. Hunting shirts were simplistically made from squares and rectangles, just like their body shirt counterparts, but with the addition of a cape around the neck, being completely split open down the front, and trimmed with fringe on all of its edges.
At the outbreak of the American Revolution, colonies needed to immediately start clothing their troops. George Washington, who took command of the Continental Army in July of 1775, quickly understood the situation and adopted the hunting shirt as the uniform for the army. As New Englanders did not know what a hunting shirt looked like, Washington sent patterns to several governors in hopes of quick manufacture and stated, “It is designed as a Species of Uniform—both cheap & convenient.” Washington would later write, “No Dress can be had cheaper, nor more convenient, as the Wearer may be cool in warm weather, and warm in cool weather by putting on under-Cloaths which will not change the outward dress, Winter or Summer—Besides which it is a dress justly supposed to carry no small terror to the enemy, who think every such person a complete marksman.” Read more…

Ben Franklin’s World: Slavery & Freedom in French Louisiana
Jessica Marie Johnson, Assistant Professor of History at Johns Hopkins University and author of the award-winning book Wicked Flesh: Black Women, Intimacy, and Freedom in the Atlantic World, joins us to investigate how black women in colonial Louisiana navigated French and Spanish slave codes to achieve a sense of control and freedom in the highly restricted world they lived in.
During our investigation, Jessica reveals details about French entry into colonization and the diplomacy they conducted to establish a trade with Africa; The place of colonial New Orleans and Louisiana within the larger worlds of Atlantic trade and colonization; And, information about the French Code Noir of 1685 and how African women and women of African descent navigated this code to create opportunities for freedom and control. Listen in…

Bay of Quinte Branch’s UELCP Receives a Huge Book Donation
At the start of our season, our library at the UEL Heritage Centre & Park in Adolphustown received a generous donation of 400 military related books from David Putnam. David is a long-time re-enactor and researcher into the early military history of the American Revolution and other early wars, and is moving and downsizing. Many of you may know his son Mike Putnam, who organizes the Loyalist Fife and Drums and is at many of our events.
The collection deals primarily with three main periods: The Seven Years’ War, American Revolution and the Loyalists, and War of 1812. In addition to general books and pamphlets on each of these wars, there are books on military uniforms, many of the specific battles, forts and fortresses such as Louisbourg, major individuals such as Washington, Major Andre and Benedict Arnold, and booklets on the historic sites related to all of these wars.
Our staff at the museum, Charlotte Kennedy and Eric Flood, have been busy cataloguing the collection, and rearranging our entire library shelves to place these books into our current resources. We now boast one of the finest collections of research materials on these three time periods outside of university collections. Along with our other collections of family files and local records related to the Loyalists and the Bay of Quinte, we are becoming a “Must-See” spot for any researcher. The library is open Wednesdays through Sundays in August, then weekends only in September by appointment only due to Covid restrictions. Visit www.uel.ca for contact information.
A special thanks goes out to David Putnam for his donation which shares this important resource with our branch and any other visitor to our library.
NOTE. UELCP is UEL Heritage Centre & Park
Brian Tackaberry

New Brunswick prepares to celebrate inaugural Emancipation Day
Mia Urquhart Jul 31, 2021 CBC News
A number of Black-led organizations will gather in Fredericton on Sunday to commemorate Canada’s first official Emancipation Day.
Husoni Raymond, an organizer with Black Lives Matter Fredericton, says “it’s about time” the day was marked in Canada.
It’s been commemorated for years in many countries around the world, including his native Jamaica, where it’s an annual holiday.
In March, MPs in the House of Commons voted unanimously to designate Aug. 1 as Emancipation Day across Canada.
The date marks the anniversary of when Britain’s Parliament abolished slavery in the British Empire in 1834. The Slavery Abolition Act freed about 800,000 enslaved people in most British colonies, including Canada. Read more…

(Belated) congratulations on the QCT’s 250th from the diaspora
Submitted by Dennis Apedaile. published 3 August 2021
On a wall in my house in the Alberta foothills is a framed copy of the first edition of The Quebec Gazette. It is an unusual framing because there is also glass on the rear so one can read the other two pages of the original edition.
My family connections with the Quebec Chronicle-Telegraph go back to a few years after the newspaper’s beginnings in 1764, when my Petry antecedents arrived as United Empire Loyalist immigrants from Massachusetts and others arrived as Huguenots from France. They lived and worked in various parts of the Old City, and in the mid-1800s, my great-great-grandfather was a partner in the timber firm Wood, Petry and Poitras and lived on the Esplanade.
By 1910, my great- grandparents lived on Rue Saint-Denis, just below the Citadel walls, and my grandfather, William Petry, on Avenue Sainte-GenevieÌ€ve, just below them. Read more…
NOTE: QCT is North America’s Oldest Newspaper

All Things Georgian: Regency Swimwear
We have previously written about the very popular invention of the Georgian bathing machines, so it’s time to take a look at what people wore to take a dip in the sea. It was in the Regency era that swimwear became really popular and very much a fashion item with the newspapers of the day advising potential bathers of what they ought to be wearing to be à la mode.
Clearly there was an issue with women sharing bathing wear and so a Mrs Bell of 26, Charlotte Street, Bloomsbury came up with new invention in 1814 by creating what she called the ‘Ladies Bathing Preserver’. Its aim was: Read more…

Fashion History: 1790-1799
The French Revolution was the defining event of this decade—politically, socially, and culturally. At the meeting of the Estates General in May 1789, dress became a point of contention and between the fall of the Bastille on July 14 to the end of the Reign of Terror in July 1794, men and women’s clothing was the subject of scrutiny, surveillance, and controversy.
Historian Lynn Hunt argues that “during the Revolution, even the most ordinary objects and customs became political emblems and potential sources of political and social conflict” and clothing was one of the many such “‘signs of rallying’ to one side or another”. As she further notes, these symbols were not just expressions of a citizen’s political position—“they were the means by which people became aware of their positions”. Revolutionaries challenged the longstanding eighteenth-century notion that dress should convey socio-economic status and, instead, insisted that it should communicate political sympathies (preferably republican).
Although the Revolution did not introduce new forms of fashionable dress, it strongly influenced attitudes towards clothing and reinforced the trend that emerged in the previous two decades favoring informality and simplicity. In Britain and on the Continent, wools and cottons became more firmly established for men’s daywear and the tailcoat, cut straight across at the waist, replaced the earlier habit and the frock with curved fronts. Women’s dress changed more drastically than men’s during the 1790s. Both white and printed cottons increasingly dominated women’s wardrobes and, by the end of the decade, the columnar white chemise was de rigueur for any woman with pretentions to fashion. In France, the embroidered silks and velvets associated with the Bourbon court would not return until the establishment of the First Empire under Napoleon I in 1804. Read more about womenswear, menawear and children’s wear…

We need to welcome our Afghan comrades-in-arms
Tadashi Mitsui 4 August 2021 in the
It is time for Canada to invoke the name of St. Jude: the patron saint of the lost causes.
In a recent issue, The British weekly Economist diagnosed that the coalition lost the war in Afghanistan and the Taliban will soon retake control of the country. Foreign troops are already moving out after 20 years of involvement. Canada moved out several years ago. 165 Canadians men and women gave their lives. Lives of Afghan friends and families who risked their lives to help Canadian troops are in danger as Talibans are gaining grounds rapidly. Read more...

Events:

Old Hay Bay Church Hosts Annual Pilgrimage Service, Sunday 22 August

Elaine Farley, Board of Trustees
On Sunday, August 22nd Old Hay Bay Church will host its annual pilgrimage service at 3:00 pm.
This year the service will be similar to a traditional ‘Camp Meeting’, being held outside so that large numbers can be accommodated. The congregation is asked to bring their own chairs or blankets to rest upon during the service. The church is located at 2365 South Shore Road, Napanee.
The guest speaker for the service will be Rev. Dr. Orville James.
The church will be open for viewing, and there will be books, prints and various other souvenirs for sale inside as well, payment by cash or cheque. A collection will be taken during the service to support the church. Envelopes will be provided so that tax receipts can be issued. More details about the Pilgrimage Service Day; about the Church

St Alban’s Centre. A fish fry Sat 21 August

On Saturday August 21st, we will be hosting our first major event of the summer, a fish fry catered by Kingston’s Mike Mundell, between 4:30 p.m. and 7 p.m. Tickets can be purchased in advance for $15 (adults) and $10 (children under 10) at the Hallowed Grounds Café, by emailing us at info@stalbanscentre.ca, or by phoning Sharon at (613) 373-2167 or Joan at (613) 373-2134. Please note that COVID-19 regulations limit us to 100 attendees. Seating will be socially distant, and in the event of rain we will seat people at tables inside the church and under a tent on the lawn.
Updates on events and news at StAlbansCentre.ca, as well as in our bi-weekly posts on our Facebook page, which has been renamed “St Alban’s Centre”.

From the Twittersphere and Beyond

  • Miscellaneous
    • King George III recognised the importance of creating a positive image for the Royal Family. He encouraged painters to record his public appearances with the queen & children. This fan depicts the King & Royal Family attending the @royalacademy Exhibition. c.1790
    • Goodmorning. THREAD today about historic perfume. In the Georgian era, perfume was valuable & bottles were relatively plain. They often came in a case for carrying … scents were mostly floral and all natural – made from botanicals. Violet, for example was very expensive (read down thew thread for comments etc.)
    • I found this fragment of jug on our ploughed field, it dates to King William III who was king 1689-1702. Absolutely amazing to think of the history behind this piece of pottery, it makes you wonder what else is hiding beneath the soil!
    • Waves touching Clouds! – from Nature is Amazing

 

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