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2022 UELAC Conference Invitation
The Planning Committee of the 2022 Dominion Conference would like to invite you to our virtual conference, “From Heartbreak to Hope in the Heart of the Continent“. Visit https://uelmanitoba.ca/conference2022 for more details and registration.

“Magnates, Mavens, and Miracle Workers: Loyalist Descendants in Manitoba”

John Wesley Dafoe

Loyalist Forebears:

  • John Ernst Dafoe of New York Province
  • Daniel Dafoe of Hosseck, Rensalear, New York Province

John W. Dafoe was born March 8th 1866 in Combermere, Thurlow Township, Ontario to Calvin John Dafoe and Mary Ann Elcombe. He attended school in Arnprior and at age fifteen took a teaching position in a one-room rural school.
His career in journalism began in 1883 at age seventeen when he became a cub-reporter at the Montreal Herald. In 1884 the Herald sent him to Ottawa as parliamentary representative. Thus began his life-long interest in politics.
In 1885 Dafoe became founding editor of The Ottawa Evening Journal and in 1886 moved to Winnipeg as editor of The Manitoba Free Press, a position he would hold until 1892, when he returned to Montreal to work for first The Montreal Daily, and then The Montreal Star.
In 1901 Clifford Sifton, Federal Minister of the Interior, bought the Manitoba Free Press. It had long been his major critic and he intended to stifle its criticism. He renamed it The Winnipeg Free Press and enticed Dafoe to return to Winnipeg to serve as editor. Dafoe would hold that position for the rest of his life.
During Dafoe’s tenure The Winnipeg Free Press would become the most outstanding daily newspaper in Western Canada and one of the most influential in the country. Dafoe was the most highly regarded English language journalist in Canada and possibly North America. He was never tempted to enter politics but his influence on the politics of the inter-war years was profound.
Dafoe married Alice Parmalee in 1890. Several of his children and grandchildren would make contributions to Winnipeg. His son Edwin Elcombe Dafoe served as editor of The Winnipeg Free Press and his daughter Elizabeth Dafoe served as Chief Librarian at the University of Manitoba for decades. Grandsons served as editors of The Globe and Mail and Beaver Magazine.
John W. Dafoe had many admirers. A dinner in his honour at the Royal Alexandra Hotel in November 1943 was attended by some 500 people. His speech was broadcast live on the CBC. In that same year Fortune Magazine had called him “The Greatest Canadian”.
Dafoe died in January of 1944 and is buried in Elmwood Cemetery, Winnipeg.
Read more…

Mary Steinhoff, Chair, On behalf of the 2022 Conference Planning Committee of the Manitoba Branch

UELAC Annual General Meeting – For Members
The AGM for current members is scheduled for Saturday, 28 May 2022 at 11:00 a.m. ET.
Registration to attend is required – details to register (separate from the Conference registration) are in the Members’ Section.
The agenda for the meeting, and a package with all the reports etc. have now been posted there as well. Check out the President’s report, branch reports, financials and what each of the many committees accomplished in 2021.

The Loyalist They Chained to the Floor – Part One of Two
copyright Stephen Davidson UE
In December of 1779, General George Washington wrote to British commander Sir Henry Clinton to complain about how two recently freed Patriot militia men had been treated during their stay in a New York City prison in 1779. He felt that John Leshler and Captain Nathaniel Fitz Randolph had suffered “a confinement of peculiar severity without a sufficient cause for so injurious a discrimination.” Reports had reached the general that the two prisoners had been confined in handcuffs, pinned to the floor, and suffered from insufficient food and clothing.
But before Washington wrote his letter, a party of 15 rebels did more than complain — they retaliated. On November 6, 1779, they went to the home of Col. Christopher Billopp, a prominent Loyalist from Staten Island. New York City’s loyalist newspaper, Rivington’s Gazette, reported that the rebels ” abused him and his family, and most inhumanly attempted to bayonet his wife and children. Not satisfied with adding these insults to their distress, tho’ Mr. Billopp was unarmed and made not the least resistance, they kicked him before them to the boat, and wounded him with their bayonets, behaving in every respect like a parcel of inhuman savages.”
The rebels carried Billopp off to Mount Holly, New Jersey, a town that was 50 km east of Philadelphia. There, after taking him to the Burlington County prison, his captors put Billopp in irons on both his hands and feet. The jail keeper was ordered to “to chain him down to the floor in a close room, in the said jail; and there so detain him, giving him bread and water only for his food.”
Billopp’s only hope of release was to write to the British commander in New York City ” to procure the relaxation of the sufferings of John Leshler and Capt. Nathaniel Randolph.”
Meanwhile, another prisoner in the same jail was writing General Washington in a similar effort to secure his release. Like Billopp, John Graves Simcoe was being held in retaliation for the treatment of the two imprisoned rebels. In his letter to the commander of the Continental Army, Simcoe noted that he was also a “confined close prisoner” with Billopp who was “in irons and chained to the floor”.
As a British officer, Simcoe was highly valued as someone who could be exchanged for Patriot officers who were prisoners of war. Billopp, on the other hand, could face execution, given that Patriots considered Loyalists to be traitors to the new republic. In the previous year, New Jersey rebels hanged two Loyalists — James Iliff and John Mee — because their recruitment of local men for the British was considered treason.
As his imprisonment stretched into 8 weeks of confinement, the 42 year-old Billopp had plenty of opportunity to review his life and the decisions that had led him to his current predicament.
Born in 1737, Billopp grew up in a prosperous family whose roots in America went back to the 1670s. His grandfather acquired land that was known as Bentley Manor — an estate of 1,078 acres in southern Staten Island that included woodland, cultivated fields, and four tenant families. (In 1869, the area was renamed Tottenville.)
Christopher Billopp married Frances Willett on November 2, 1762; the couple had five children: Sarah (born 1765), Thomas (1767), John (1769), and Elisabeth. Their daughter Katharine died as an infant. The family lived in Billopp House, located on the southernmost point of New York State.
Francis died sometime in the early 1770s. At age 36, Christopher then married 29 year-old Jane Seaman on February 11, 1773. She was the daughter of a fellow Staten Island Loyalist named Benjamin Seaman. Their daughter Katherine was born in 1775.
The family historian, Charles Farmar Billopp, later wrote of Christopher Billopp: “From the very first he was a pronounced Loyalist, and did all in his power to prevent an open rupture between the Colonies and Great Britain.”
By 1775, Billopp had become a member for the New York House of Assembly, representing Staten Island’s Richmond County. The 38 year-old was one of the members who persuaded the assembly not to send delegates to the Continental Congress. He used his influence to maintain Staten Island’s loyalty to the crown.
Due to his prominence in society, Billopp’s appearance and character were remembered and recorded by the historian Ira K. Morris.
“He was a very tall, rather slender, soldierly looking man when in his prime. He was exceedingly proud, and his pride at times led him to the verge of hauteur, yet he was kind-hearted, not only to those whom he considered his equals, but to his slaves as well as to the poor people of the Island. No one went from his door at the old Manor hungry.
It was his custom to gather the people of the Island once a year on the lawn in front of his house and hold a harvest-home. He delighted to talk to them and give advice for their welfare. He was very popular.
He was fond of dress and scrupulously neat in his attire. He kept his coach and liveried driver and foot-man. Passionately fond of horses, his stable was filled with the finest bred animals in the land. He was a magnificent rider and was very fond of the saddle. He was an expert shot with the pistol, which once saved his life when attacked by robbers.”
In addition to his interest in lands and politics, Billopp also served as a colonel in the local militia and as the superintendent of Staten Island’s police. These connections did not prevent the German troops hired by King George III from damaging his estate when they arrived in 1776. This same year saw two other significant events that Billopp would long remember.
First, his younger brother Thomas Farmar decided to join the rebel cause. The historian William Whitehead notes that Thomas “turned out in the militia with his musket as a private, but it is not known that he was in active service.”
Second, Billopp played host to a conference of high-ranking British and American officials that convened at his house in the hope of ending the revolution through negotiations. The patriots John Adams, Benjamin Franklin, and Edward Rutledge met with British admiral Richard Lord Howe on September 11, 1776. However, after three hours of discussion, no agreement could be reached. Rather than avoiding war, the only thing to come out of this gathering was the eventual designation of Billopp’s House as a historic landmark in 1966, and its re-christening as Conference House.
Being such a prominent Loyalist meant that Billopp was a much–wanted man. In the summer of 1778, a New York City newspaper reported that he had been “carried off by the enemy”. Captain Nathaniel Fitz Randolph and a rebel raiding party captured Billopp and other members of the Staten Island militia on June 5th. Billopp was “returned to the city” by late August following a prisoner exchange.
In December of 1779, Christopher Billopp was nearing the 8th week of his painful incarceration. Having survived an earlier imprisonment of two months and having been returned to his family through a prisoner exchange, Billopp hoped for the best. However, his execution could also have propaganda value for the Patriot cause.
The fate of Christopher Billopp, the Loyalist who was chained to the floor, will be revealed in next week’s Loyalist Trails.
To secure permission to reprint this article contact the author at stephendavids@gmail.com.

Capt. William Browne’s War
By J. L. Bell in Boston 1775 on 13 April 2022
William Browne received his commission as a captain in the British army on 24 June 1771. He must have enlisted at a lower rank a few years earlier, but because his name was so common and because officers moved from one regiment to another for promotions, I’m not sure when his military career began.
While the 52nd Regiment was in Boston, Capt. Browne commanded its light infantry company. That means he led those men out to Concord on 18–19 Apr 1775.
`Browne had been to Concord before. On 20 March, he and Ens. Henry DeBerniere visited the town in civilian guise to confirm a local informant’s reports to Gen. Thomas Gage that militia colonel James Barrett was amassing arms there, including four cannon spirited out of Boston armories. Read more…

Atlantic Loyalist Connections: New Brunswick’s Loyalist Experiment: Examining the Lives of William Burtis, Robert Campbell, and Thomas Mullins
By Harrison Dressler 13 April 2022
In a 1975 edition of Acadiensis, scholar Murray Barkley described the “Loyalist experiment” in the provinces of New Brunswick and Nova Scotia as a gradual process of ‘mythmaking,’ an “attempt to establish an exclusive Elysium in the North […] based on a hierarchical social structure […] large land-holdings, and a corporate, self-sufficient community of loyal, well-disposed subjects.”
The colony of New Brunswick, Barkley might argue, was therefore essentially carved with the blade of a knife, structured to favour the topmost elements of society — white, landed elites — at the expense of the mass of toilers propping it up with their blood, bones, and muscle. The benefits of these social relations trickled down from the top of the structure, filling the pockets of the middle and upper middle classes, presuming, of course, that they were white and sufficiently fulfilled the image of the “gentile” New Brunswick citizen.
Just some examples of these beneficiaries include William Burtis, Robert Campbell, and Thomas Mullins, three subjects of The Loyalist Collection’s broader “New Brunswick Loyalist Journeys” project. In temperament and personality, Burtis, Campbell, and Mullins strove for their self-interest above all else. They were the perfect sort of men to thrive in colonial New Brunswick. Read more…

Cairn at St. Margarets Bay, Nova Scotia
Earlier this week I visited beautiful St. Margarets Bay, Nova Scotia on the border of Halifax County with Lunenburg County to see a Cairn to early settlers including Loyalists. The Cairn is located on the south side of Highway # 3.
The Plaque on the Cairn reads:

1785 – 1985
THIS CAIRN IS DEDICATED TO
THE EARLY SETTLERS OF ST. MARGARETS BAY
WHO WERE PURSUADED BY GOVERNOR JOHN PARR
TO SETTLE HERE IN THE 1780s

A Poll Tax List from St. Margarets Bay in 1792 – 3 identified William Adams, Hugh Kelly, Henry Lewis, Hugh McDonald, and William Woodin as Loyalists. John Klein was named as a Hessian Veteran and others were listed as Foreign Protestants, Irish and Scottish.
See photo of the Cairn.

I took a short video of the Cairn and location which can be viewed at: https://youtu.be/rEjt8CGJBDs

So many bits of history, wherever you look
Brian McConnell, UE, President, NS Branch UELAC

JAR: George Washington’s 1775 Leadership Advice to William Woodford: Did He Listen?
by Patrick H. Hannum and Frederick R. Kienle 12 April 2022
Gen. George Washington’s well-crafted November 10, 1775 letter to Col. William Woodford contains some timeless pearls of military wisdom, guidance, and advice. Washington’s instructive response to an earlier letter from Woodford reveals a set of basic leadership principles that remain in official United States Army doctrine to this day. This enduring leadership lesson leads one to an examination of Woodford’s actions to reveal if he heeded Washington’s recommendations and council. Assessment of Woodford’s leadership actions during the first months of the Virginia Campaign of 1775-76 suggest he did, and he apparently benefitted because of it. Read more…

JAR: Mismatch off Charleston: The Privateer Congress vs. HMS Savage
by William W. Reynolds 11 April 2022
“One of the most creditable actions of this war in which an American privateer was engaged took place on September 6, 1781.”—Edgar Stanton Maclay, A History of American Privateers
Comdr. Charles Stirling intently inspected the distant ship headed toward his command, HMS Savage, a sixteen-gun sloop of war cruising thirty-five miles off Charleston, South Carolina. It was early in the morning of September 6, 1781, and the other vessel was approaching from the east, so was not easily identified. Stirling estimated it was about four miles away when it turned into the wind as though pausing while it studied his own vessel, allowing him to identify it as American and probably a privateer. He saw that it was armed with twenty guns that he assumed were nine-pounders; Savage was armed with six-pounders so was outgunned by the privateer but Stirling commanded a Royal Navy vessel with a disciplined crew, partially offsetting his ordnance disadvantage. He decided to chase the vessel to bring her to action or drive her away since a convoy from England was expected at Charleston. The commander soon noticed that the privateer was not fleeing as he expected but was using its windward advantage to edge down on Savage, with the apparent intent to engage. Read more…

The Lackie Family of Salt Springs, Kings County, N.B.
By Barb Pearson UE
Lloyd Lackie (married in 1941, passed away 2006) treasured the portrait of his relatives from Salt Springs that was taken on July 12th 1895 at Hallet’s Studio in Sussex. The photo opens the article – see below.
Lloyd Lackie’s mother, Ida Ruth Allaby, was descended from Loyalists,

  • Isaac and Sarah (Lestin) Allaby who came from New York to Burton, Sunbury Co., N.B. in October of 1783. (Ida’s GtGtGrandparents)
  • Isaac Jr., and his wife Sophia Frances (Wood) Allaby, – (Ida’s GtGrandparents) – arrived in Salt Springs to take up a land grant in 1815 and farm. In 1825 Isaac Allaby Jr. and Charles Smith petitioned for Land Grants in Salt Springs, Kings Co., NB. Isaac was granted 200 acres and Charles Smith 100 acres. The Salt Springs Church and Cemetery are situated on the Allaby Land Grant in Salt Springs. Descendants of Isaac Allaby Jr. And Sophia (Wood) Allaby rest in Salt Springs Cemetery.
  • Ida Ruth’s grandparents, James A. and Hannah Rebecca (Herrett) Allaby lived in Salt Springs and raised a family of twelve.
  • Ida Ruth’s parents were Edwin Ruthven Allaby and Alice Alberta Keith who lived in Salt Springs and had a family of eight.
  • Ida Ruth and her husband Robert H. Lackie rest in Salt Springs Cemetery.
  • Their son, Lloyd and his wife, Dorothy (Pickel) Allaby also rest there.

Read more about the Lackie family and the Allaby family connection.

Comment on Borealia: Collecting the World in Newfoundland
Misha Ewen’s article referenced in Loyalist Trails is very interesting as I lived in Corner Brook, Newfoundland from 1969 to1972. I taught Gr. 7 at Presentation High School in that time.
My late husband was Manager of the Canada Manpower Centre during those years. (Then on to Ottawa).
The School Board needed a teacher and I forget whom now, but someone gave my name. I was the only Protestant in a Catholic school, with lay teachers and Nuns.
I took courses offered by Memorial University and which were given by teachers who taught with us at the School. The History of Newfoundland was not an offered course.
I knew some about the early fisheries and the countries involved but nothing about the politics concerning the slave trade and the involvement of the women back in the 1600’s.
A very interesting article and the events of this era I would probably never have learned. Thanks to Misha for her article!
Barb Pearson

PS: My late husband, Crailey Hadden Gillies, UE, was sent to NFL in a first attempt to shut down the Fishery back in the 80’s . Having lived in Nfld and connected to and knew those in the government, he was chosen to do that most unwelcome task. He knew Premier John Crosbie personally. Pierre Trudeau was PM of Canada at the time. We were in Corner Brook in 1971 when Pierre and Margaret arrived to visit on their honeymoon – there was a reception in Bowater Park. The Fishery was shut down finally on July 2, 1992 to repopulate the cod industry.

Response to Query. Route from New Brunswick to Upper Canada
In the April 10 issue of Loyalist Trails, Kathy McIlwaine asked about the route Loyalists took from New Brunswick to Upper Canada. (NOTE: there were several responses; more will be included in subsequent issues)

Here is a description of the trip taken by my ancestors, Anthony McAllister and his wife, Susanna Dickie (daughter of Hector Dickie UE who served as lieutenant then captain in Colonel John Cotton’s Regiment, Steven’s Creek Militia, Ninety Six Brigade, South Carolina. The Hector who kept the diary is Hector Jr., his son. Hector Sr. died, according to family legend, in his 100th year while preparing to make the journey, from infection caused by a needle left in a stocking his wife had darned. His family made the trip in 1837.
Alex Lawrence

On June 18, 1827, Anthony was married by an Anglican clergyman to the widow Susanna Ramsey. They lived on a rented 100 acre farm in the parish of Norton, King’s County. Susanna, daughter of Hector and Sarah Dickie, was born in Norton, N.B. in 1801, and the youngest of a family of 13 children. Her parents were United Empire Loyalists who fled from their cotton plantation in South Carolina at the time of the American Revolution.
Hector and his sons worked their 500 acre land grant and were prominent in municipal affairs in Norton. The land was very poor, which no doubt prompted their move to Upper Canada.
The Erie Canal Inland Passage, opened in 1825, was the route usually taken by those came to Southwestern Ontario. This was the route taken by the McAllister and Dickie families when they left Norton. The first group settled around Burford in 1833 and sent word back telling of the fertile soil and good water they found.
In July 1837 Susanna’s brother Hector Jr., his wife and three sons, their widowed mother Sarah, and Susanna and Anthony McAllister prepared to leave N.B. The McAllister’s four children ranged in age from 9 to 2 years, and Susanna’s 15 and 13 year old sons by her first marriage completed the group.
Hector kept a diary of the trip from N.B. to Ontario. It appears they first went by sailing boat to New York and then on the tow boats pulled by horses from Albany to Buffalo, New York. The following excerpt is from the diary:
“The wind was sometimes light and sometimes a middling good breeze until Tuesday the 7th at 12 o’c., it sprang up the same course, a pretty fare sailing breeze. On having cleared Nantucket shoals we ran all night, at six in the morning of the 8 July we saw land to the leeward which proved to be Long Island.
On July 10 we took a tow boat from New York to Albany, arriving the next afternoon. The same day we boarded a canal boat from Rochester and Buffalo; the fare was four dollars. There were many locks. I find myself much at a loss for language to even set the beauty of this country forth in its true light. The country appears to be better the farther we go, the fields of wheat very stout and heavy on the ground, large orchards, very fine cutting hay very much of it lodged. I saw large fields of peas and barley as stout as it could stand. I am told by many gentlemen that the country is even better back from the canal. Utica was a most delightful little town of much business. It exceeds all that I have ever seen. The country around it is very delightful.
Farther on we passed by several salt works, one said to be 100 acres in mining.
We reached Rochester on the 16th, a large town of very fine buildings. I did not think of seeing such a large town and such a stir of trade so far back in the woods. We find everything for sale that a man could wish.”
After 9 days they reached Buffalo on July 18th, a journey of about 900 miles, and continued by sailing ship across Lake Erie to Port Dover where they were met by relatives.
The McAllister’s settled on the north half of lot 4, concession 3 of Brantford Township. Since concession roads had not yet been built, a trail was in use along the high ground of a range of hills that ran from Bishopsgate to Paris crossing concession 3 through lots 4 and 5.

Husband-Wives and the Gay Life in Georgian England
By Geri Walton | December 12, 2014 | 0
Husband-wives or females husbands were described as “two women who lived together by mutual consent as man and wife.”[1] Husband-wives also described bridegrooms that were the same sex as the brides. That was because the lesbian or female homosexual was not in use in the Georgian Era. The idea of lesbians (a word that first appeared in the 20th century) or female homosexuals (a word that was first printed in 1869) was something consider unusual and improper at the time as noted by the The Newgate Calendar:
“Polygamy, or a man marrying two or more wives, and vice versa, a woman marrying two or more husbands, is a crime frequently committed; but a woman … marrying a woman is something strange and unnatural.”
Despite the negativity associated with such relationship, there were several such same-sex marriages performed in Georgian England. Often wives reported they had no idea their husband was female and claimed to be as surprised as everyone else when the husband’s true sexual identity was uncovered. Read more…

Who are the People In The Picture? Planting Tree
Go to Who’s In The Picture (WitP). Apr. 14, 2022. This photo (Ref. Code 2-14-19) was taken on May 21, 1989, at Bishop’s University by Gerry Rogers, with the caption “Planting Tree Bishop’s University, Dr. Hugh Scott, Principal.” Dr. Scott is to the left of HRH Prince Philip (seen in profile), but the other two men are unidentified.

Can you help resolve the questions?
If so, please send an email to Carl Stymiest, Leader of the Library and Archives Committee at communications@uelac.org — please note the date and reference number of the photo. Any additional relevant comments are welcome, and appreciated.
Carl Stymiest

UELAC Loyalist Directory: New Entries
Entries which have been added, or revised, this week, with thanks:

  • Additional information from Kathy McIlwaine for
    • Cpl Josiah Gilbert settled first in the Home District and then moved to the London District,in Upper Canada
  • Updates thanks to Marilyn Hardsand to:
  • Thanks Andrew Payzant for
    • Henry King who settled first in Guysborough NS, then to Plaster Cove and finally Ship Harbour
    • Ausberry King to Nova Scotia and later the Gut of Canso in Cape Breton. He is a son of George King
  • Thanks to Lynton “Bill” Stewart for

Would you like to add some information to a directory entry, revise some or even add a new entry? Send a note to me at loyalist.trails@uelac.org – please include the name of the Loyalist about whom you would like to contribute information. If that person is in the Loyalist Directory already, please send the ID number too. …doug

Upcoming Events:

Sir Guy Carleton Branch. Stephen Davidson April 23, 2022. 2:00 ET

Stephen ‘s topic: The Great and Complicated Business: Sir Guy Carleton’s 1783
Register with carletonuel@hotmail.com
The Zoom link will be sent out in advance.
Sir Guy Carleton’s AGM will follow the presentation
Rose Pleasant, President

Nelles Manor Museum: Mother’s Day Tea 2022 Sunday 7 May

Enjoy Mother’s Day afternoon tea in a 1798 heritage house — Nelles Manor. The afternoon will include a fashion show by Jackie O’s Boutique.
There are tables for 2 — 6 guests. Each table is named for mothers and daughters of the Nelles family.

Tickets are $40.00 per person. Information and ticketing
Nelles Manor Museum <info@nellesmanor.ca>
Kate Pyatt, Museum Manager

From the Twittersphere and Beyond

  • 16 Apr 1738, Newfoundland. Henry Clinton, future CIC of British forces in North America, is born. His father, George, was the royal gov of Newfoundland. Henry spent 8 years there before moving to England & taking a commission in the Coldstream Guards
  • This week in History
    • 12 Apr 1770 Townshend Acts, except for tax on tea, repealed by Parliament; Americans continue to revolt anyway.
    • 14 Apr 1775 Boston, MA Royal Gov Gen Thomas Gage receives instructions from Secretary for the Colonies, William Legge, Lord Dartmouth, allowing the use of whatever force necessary to subdue the insurrectionists & enforce the Coercive Acts.
    • April 16, 1775, Thomas Goldthwait reported from Maine that the Royal Navy & Royal Artillery had taken the sixteen cannon at Fort Pownall. This was part of Gen. Thomas Gage’s attempt to keep artillery pieces away from the rebels. Next stop: Concord
    • 9 Apr 1776 The General Assembly of SC creates a Court of Admiralty to dispose of any captured British ships.
    • 13 Apr 1776 George Washington arrives in New York with General Gates.
    • 14 Apr 1777 Congress establishes magazine in Springfield, MA, eventually becomes known as the Springfield Arsenal.
    • 10 Apr 1778 John Paul Jones departs Brest, France, commanding USS Ranger, to attack British shipping & shorelines.
    • 14 Apr 1780 Lt. Col. Banastre Tarleton smashes an American cavalry unit in pre-dawn attack at Monck’s Corner, SC.
    • 14 Apr 1780 Staten Island Expedition against the British begins, succeeding only in capturing 17 before retreating.
    • 11 Apr 1781 American Col. Harden captures 2 British officers & 7 enlisted men at tavern in Pocotaligo, SC.
    • 15 April 1781 #OnThisDay the siege of Fort Watson begins in South Carolina. American forces led by Henry “Light Horse Harry” Lee and Francis Marion besieged a fortified British outpost that was a link in the British communication & supply chain.
    • 15 Apr 1783 Congress ratifies peace treaty with Britain, formally ending hostilities.
  • Clothing and Related:
  • Townsends:
  • Miscellaneous
    • A needlepoint sampler by Sarah Feke, age 13, daughter of artist Robert Feke. Silk thread on linen, it includes alphabet & number sequences & two verses, dated to 1762. Decorated with birds & flowers, it’s the perfect welcome to spring. At Redwood Library & Athenæum, America’s oldest lending liibrary
    • An early American wallpaper, probably 18th century. Note extra-wide selvedge. Crude. This pattern in the collection of the Philadelphia NPS is also seen in Nylander’s WINE (Wallpaper in New England) and in Oliver Ellsworth’s home in Connecticut.
    • Balloon flights were all the rage in the 18th century, and the Illustrated London News, 7 October 1944, depicts two ‘early ascensions’ from 1783. Both occurred in Paris, and both flights carried passengers

 

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