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UELAC Conference 2022: From Heartbreak to Hope…
…In the Heart of the Continent (May 25 – 29, 2022) hosted by Manitoba Branch UELAC.
Registration is now closed and details of sessions are being emailed to those who registered for each session.
Thank you to all who have registered for our conference. We are looking forward to welcoming all of you this week. We hope you will enjoy the presentations and the tour of the Canadian Museum for Human Rights.
Mary Steinhoff, Chair of the Conference Committee of the Manitoba Branch

UELAC AGM, for Members
Registration for the AGM closed on Saturday 21 May.
Note that:

  • the agenda was recently revised and posted on 15 May.
  • the 2021 Balance Sheet was added on 17 May.
  • the package with all the reports etc. is unchanged from 15 April
  • the AGM will commence at 10:00 CDT (11:00 EDT)

Barrington Township’s Forgotten Loyal Migrants – Part One of Four
copyright Stephen Davidson UE
Some had been recent immigrants to the thirteen colonies; two had been soldiers at the Battle of Bunker Hill while two younger ones had lost their fathers in the same conflict. One had a plantation in South Carolina that was worked by 18 slaves; another was a five year-old orphan. When widowed in Nova Scotia, one woman supported her family by teaching; another deserted a man-of-war after serving aboard the vessel for three years.
These are just a few of the dozens of loyal migrants who settled the area between Clyde River and Barrington, Nova Scotia following the American Revolution. A combination of British military veterans and Loyalists, these men and women settled in communities that had been populated by New England Planters as early as 1760.
Despite the fact that Barrington was home to fellow Americans, Loyalists did not initially settle there. Instead, thousands of loyal refugees were delivered in fleets of evacuation vessels to a site about 36 km north east of Barrington. Port Roseway, which later was renamed Shelburne, swelled to 17,000 –making it the fourth largest city in all of North America.
The Loyalist settlers of Shelburne had high hopes for their city – the promise of exclusive trade with West Indies, the wealth of the Atlantic fishery, and the prospect of establishing farms along the coast all seemed to guarantee a prosperous future. As one historian noted, “Shops and newspapers were started and social life, reinforced by the men from the ships of war, was gayety itself.” They were more than ready to “begin the world anew” and be the “envy of the American states”.
The New Englanders who had been diligently carving out a living for themselves in the area around Barrington for the better part of two decades had mixed emotions about the newly arrived American refugees. Like the Loyalists, they had suffered violence at the hands of fellow Americans. During the revolution, Patriot privateers raided their shores, carrying off Barrington’s men to prisons in New England and seizing their ships –with holds full of valuable fish—as prizes of war.
But while the original settlers of the Barrington township could sympathize with what the Loyalist founders of Shelburne had endured, their strict Puritan and Quaker heritage looked with disdain on the predominantly Anglican refugees who loved to hold socials and balls in their new settlement. Little wonder, then, that Barrington’s people “stood coldly aloof from the ungodly company and prophesied calamity for the “dancing beggars.”
Calamity did come to Shelburne’s Loyalists, but not because of a love of dancing. The settlement simply could not deliver on all of its promises. The West Indies trade never developed, farmland was poor, and there was no nearby rural population to provide food or to be a customer base for the city’s businesses. The population began to decline just four years after the first Loyalists arrived. By the 1820s, the population had dwindled to about 300 souls.
The majority of Shelburne’s Loyalist settlers struck out for greener passages in other parts of British North America or England; some returned to their homes in the new United States. And about four dozen families moved down the coast to establish themselves Barrington. Writing about these Loyalists, the historian Edwin Crowell noted, “though ill adapted for pioneer work, in general, {they} were mostly capable tradesmen, and this made a valuable contribution to society. Shoemakers, masons, millmen, blacksmiths, coopers, blockmakers, carpenters, bakers, bricklayers, weavers, braziers, tailors and tanners are ready for service at their especial craft and turn with facility to the work of building up their homes.“
Thanks to a history book that Crowell authored in the 1920s, the names of the Loyalist settlers of Barrington Township have not been lost to posterity. His book records many names found in no other historical source. While one could wish that he had been able to relate more of the details of the lives of these Loyalists, nevertheless his record of these forgotten settlers provides invaluable links to the past for both historians and genealogists.
Jacob Glance had immigrated to the New World from the Netherlands, and served the crown by enlisting in a Loyalist regiment. At the end of the revolution, he was granted land in Shelburne where he married a widow named Martha Oxenden and eventually had three daughters. Through circumstances not explained in the records of the day, the Glance family left Shelburne for Barrington River with a 15 year-old named Archibald Brannen as well as Martha’s daughter Catherine by her first husband. Brannen became a fisherman with the Hopkins family and –in 1802– married Mary Atkinson.
Jacob Glance found work at Barrington’s first gristmill, a building erected by John Sargent in 1792. Sargent was a Loyalist from Salem, Massachusetts who fought during the siege of Boston, joined a Loyalist regiment, and ended the revolution serving as a commissary in the West Indies. Unlike other Loyalists who eventually settled in Barrington, Sargent’s story has been well researched, including the fact that the stone house he built next to the grist mill survives to this day.**
Jacob Glance’s three daughters all married local men. Elizabeth wed Obed Christie, Mary became Mrs. William Watt, and Margaret married Andrew Nickerson. Glance’s stepdaughter, Catherine Oxenden, married a widower named Michael Madden.
Madden had also called Shelburne home before moving to Barrington. This Irishman had served with the British army during the American Revolution, and when his regiment was disbanded, he joined with the Loyalists bound for Nova Scotia. In the wake of Shelburne’s collapse, Madden and his first wife settled at Michael’s Point near the community of Cape Negro, 8 km to the east of Barrington. While crossing the harbor to attend a meeting in the village of Indian Brook, Madden’s wife, a Mrs. Thurston, and two children drowned.
Madden and his second wife Catherine had six children, including Benjamin and Michael Jr.. Madden died when he fell from a large rock where he had been perched to watch his sons fishing for eels. Catherine Madden later married Timothy Mahaney, an Irish shoemaker.
Another Loyalist to settle at Cape Negro was John McKillop. Originally from New York, McKillop came to Shelburne as the commander of a transport ship. His wife Letetia and their daughters received a town lot. By 1789, the family moved west to Cape Negro, which had become the new home of a number of Loyalists. There McKillop kept a heard of 40 cattle.
Born in Wales, John Thomas had settled in South Carolina before the American Revolution. He became a planter, using the labour of 18 enslaved Africans to tend his crops and 300 hogs. With the outbreak of war, Thomas joined a Loyalist militia, took part in a number of battles, and eventually lost his plantation.
In 1783, Thomas, his family, and one slave set sail for Shelburne. They moved further down the coast to Clyde River, just north of Cape Negro, where he was given a timber grant. Thomas hoped to grow rice along the river, but was thwarted by flooding. Thomas’ sons, Elam, Enoch, John Jr., and David, all remained in the area.
Following the death of his wife, Thomas married Susanna who is remembered as being of Portuguese descent. It was a short marriage as Thomas died at age 50 in 1787, and Susanna died three years later. The document that granted the Thomas family their land and “many valuable relics” were later destroyed when Elam Thomas’ house at Cape Negro was destroyed by a lightning strike.
More forgotten Loyalists will be recalled in next week’s Loyalist Trails.

** Editor’s note: see Sargent’s entry in the Dictionary of Canadian Biography at http://www.biographi.ca/en/bio/sargent_john_6E.html
To secure permission to reprint this article contact the author at stephendavids@gmail.com.

UELAC Scholarship Endowment Fund Challenge 2022
Branches and individual members across Canada are asking if there is a UELAC 2022 Scholarship Endowment Fund Challenge this year as we begin to get things back to pre-pandemic ways. The Challenge continues because donations to the fund are always needed and appreciated.
Donate Now in support of the UELAC Loyalist Scholarship Endowment Fund.

The year 2025 will mark the 250th anniversary of the American War for Independence and the first of many chapters of our Loyalist story. Our current and past Scholarship winners are joining others now writing new research that challenges the mythology of the American Revolution. Some of us truly understand that the plight of the loyalists has been misrepresented or ignored in some popular teaching and film making.
As individuals we are not spending money to come in person to the 2022 conference, so please consider giving a portion of that “savings” to the Scholarship Endowment Fund if you are able to. The Challenge continues!
As Acting Chairperson of the Scholarship Committee I thank you.
Christine E. Manzer UE

‘The Loyalist Dream’ – “The Arrival and the Aftermath!”
The Envy of the American States! The province of New Brunswick is the direct product of this upheaval of so many people. It was established in 1784 as a refuge for the Loyalist exiles. The original governing class was composed almost exclusively of senior Loyalist leaders who had defended the empire in the political debates prior to the Revolution and led the Loyalist regiments into battle in the war. These Loyalists reflected their beliefs in empire and liberty in forming the basic institutions of New Brunswick executive, legislative, judiciary, churches, schools and college as well as fashioning its commercial relations and social rituals. The Loyalist rejection of the revolutionary faith was complete. New Brunswick would be the proving ground. It and the other remaining provinces in British North America would combine the benefits of empire with local self-government. Liberty and prosperity would flourish. They would be ‘model colonies’. They would be the envy of the American states!

Editorial: 225 years ago, on May 18th 1783, Major Studholme, Miss Baxter (my fictional reporter) , the traders; James White, James Simonds, William Hazen, and a few settlers witnessed this epic event! Hollywood could never re-enact such a story! Wouldn’t it have been great though if someone could have filmed it for us! The Arrival yes, but maybe not the Aftermath!
Read the filed report…
Barbara Pearson UE

JAR: The Brothers Bliss: A Soldier’s Account Behind the New York Lines
by Dayne Rugh 17 May 2022
The Bliss Family roots run deep in Connecticut. Born in England around 1618, Thomas Bliss became a founder of Hartford and Norwich, Connecticut before passing away in 1688 in Norwich. His name is marked along with several others on a lone stone obelisk in the original Norwich Founders Cemetery, erected in the nineteenth century. Thomas Bliss married Elizabeth Birchard (1621-1699) in New London in 1644 and established their home lot along Norwich’s present-day Washington Street. …
For several generations, the Bliss family lived and thrived on their family plot. Thomas Bliss’s son Samuel was a local merchant and conducted coastal and international trade for many years. … Samuel’s son, also named Samuel, inherited the homestead from his father before leaving it to his son John, who left it to his son, also named John. John Bliss II (1749-1815) had three younger brothers, Elias (1750-1833), Zephaniah (1753-1827), and William (1766-1844).
Upon the outbreak of the American Revolution, numerous militia units comprised of young men from Norwich mustered to serve in the Continental Army; the Bliss family was no exception. Read more…

JAR: Rhode Island Acts to Prevent an Enslaved Family from Being Transported to the South
by Christian McBurney 19 May 2022
The American Revolution spurred the world’s first significant movement to abolish slavery and the African slave trade. Before then, there was virtually no antislavery activity in any of the thirteen colonies of North America, or for that matter, anywhere else in the world. There was some limited antislavery dialogue in England, but its abolitionist movement would not get serious until 1787. Meanwhile, in the first three quarters of the eighteenth century, Great Britain, supported by Parliament, was the world’s leading African slave trading country.
By contrast, in the thirteen North American colonies, from about 1764 to 1775, Patriots loudly proclaiming infringements on their liberties by the British Crown could not help but see enslaved people who lived in their midst as possessing almost no rights. Along with the rising desire to free themselves from British rule, some white people in the Northern colonies, and even a few in the Southern colonies, began to feel the first stirrings of antislavery thought.
…Winning the war was also the surest way for the enslaved in the North to achieve freedom.
For example, in response to a petition by some enslaved men in Massachusetts, in June 1777, the Massachusetts legislature drafted a bill for “preventing the practice of holding persons in Slavery.” Concerned about how such a law might alienate the slave states in the South, a committee was appointed to prepare a letter asking the Continental Congress whether the state enacting the bill would harm the war effort. Even before the letter was sent, the legislature shut down efforts to pass the bill. Read more…

Common Place: Family, Liberty, and Vermont: The Allegiance of Ethan Allen in the Revolutionary Era
To the Allen clan, familial survival transcended everything else. This was particularly true of Ethan, whose experience in the Age of Revolution was shaped by the importance that he attached to his family’s self-preservation. He held multiple allegiances during the Revolution, all of which were connected or stemmed from the importance he placed on familial self-preservation.
Born in Litchfield, Connecticut, on January 21, 1737, to Joseph Allen and Mary Baker Allen, Ethan belonged to an extensive New England family that arrived aboard the Mary and John as part of the 1630 Puritan Great Migration. The earliest Allens were staunch Puritans who stressed the importance of family because it formed the core of Puritan society. Decades passed, however, and the New Englanders’ religious stress on family was increasingly replaced by a more secular one that revolved around economic and social ideas. Rather than maintaining mankind’s relationship with God, family was now about ensuring the next generation survived and carried on the family’s traditions and values.
Those early Allens discovered that successful land speculation was the key to their family’s self-preservation. Read more…

May 19, 1780 – New England’s Dark Day
On May 19, 1780, known New England’s Dark Day and also referred to as Black Friday, the skies over New England and New Jersey were as black as the boots of the British soldiers.
Many agitated colonists sought solace and salvation in taverns or churches. The newspapers of the day commented upon it and many diarists recorded it in their journals.
It did not come about as a result of a battle, a skirmish or hardships of the war. In fact, it did not have any connection at all to the war. It resulted from a forest fire in Quebec (now Ontario), Canada. Read more…

Kelly Arlene Grant: Dressing One’s Character
17 May 2022
Solid historical interpretation is far more than putting on funny clothes and talking about the famous events that happened in famous people’s lives. History is made by everyday people going about their everyday lives. The public wants to connect with people they can relate to…so you will get questions like ‘Who are you?’ ‘What is the job you are doing?’ ‘Why are you here?’ I would like you to consider, if Samuel Champlain was putting his team together, think of it as a Zombie Apocalypse Team, what would your roll on it be? Think about your own character and the role you would play on that team. Now, build your character and your interpretation around that person. Read more…

All Things Georgian: 18th century marriage customs
By Sarah Murden 16 May 2022
When people marry today, they can choose where they marry, be it a religious building, registry office or even by taking their vows whilst sky diving and anywhere in between, as long as an officiating officer is present.
In the Georgian period marriages had to take place in a religious venue, presided over by a religious official, unless you chose to elope over the border to Gretna Green, Scotland.
Forthcoming marriages were usually announced by banns read out in church. If the couple wanted more privacy, then they would apply for a Marriage Licence, which, if you could afford it, could be purchased for a whole variety of reasons such as – they were in a hurry as the bride being pregnant or that the couple were of different social standings, so perhaps a master marrying his servant, or there was a large age gap. Read more…

Who are the People In The Picture? Dressed Up!
Go to Who’s In The Picture (WitP). May 19, 2022. This photo (Ref. Code 2-15-3) was taken by Gerald Rogers. The caption only identifies Harry Ross – likely at left. The man on the right might be Charles Rawls of Toronto Branch. Confirmation is requested.

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

List of Loyalist Certificates Updated with those issued in 2022 until Apr. 9
The list of UE Certificates issued since late in 2012 — showing the Loyalist ancestor, name of descendant (when permission is granted), branch and date — has been updated with the certificates issued in 2022 between 17 February and 9 April.
The list can be seen at Loyalist Certificates Issued
These have also been added to the appropriate Loyalist in the Loyalist Directory.

Loyalist Gazette in the Mail
I live in the heart of downtown Toronto. The Spring Gazette arrived in the mail on Wednesday 18 May. Usually I am one of the earliest to receive, although the previous issue took almost a week after the first recipients received their copy.
I checked with some others also in southern Ontario, and they too had received mid to late in the week.
If your account by 1 May indicated you wished a Mailed copy of the Gazette (rather than the digital copy which is available to all members in the Member’s Section) then your copy is in the mail.
Enjoy!

For Members: UELAC Branch Presentations Recorded.
A number of branches have organized virtual branch meetings, some of which have been recorded. Several recordings have been submitted for posting in the Members’ Section of uelac.ca. Members are free to enjoy. A description accompanies each presentation:

  • “Settling the Grand: Six Nation’s Tillers and Scottish Millers, 1784-1861” by Robert Flewelling to Hamilton Branch
  • “The Bachelorette New France (Les Filles a Marier and Les Filles du Roi): Stories of Bigamy, Incest, Witchcraft and Murder” by Dawn Kelly & Carol Ufford to Gov. Simcoe Branch
  • “Birchtown: Its People and their Stories” by Stephen Davidson to Nova Scotia Branch
  • “My Notorious Ancestors: The Doan Gang” by Janet Hodgkins presentation to Col. John Butler and Gov. Simcoe Branch
  • “Lives of Loyalist Women” Jo-Ann Leake to Gov. Simcoe Branch

Branches should contact Doug Grant loyalist.trails@uelac.org to have a recording stored here.

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

  • From Janet Hodgkins UE for many of her Loyalist ancestors:
    • Zachariah Hainer from Rhinebeck NY married Sophia Brown (Braun) DUE and settled in Wainfleet Township, then moved to Thorold/St. Catharines
    • Robert Cook from Mamakating, Ulster County, New York settled in Stamford Township, Upper Canada. He and Martha Sinner had ten children.
    • Aaron Doan married Married Rhoda Cook, daughter of Robert Cook UEL. They settled in Humberstone Township, Welland County and are buried in the Doan Cemetery, Port Colborne which is on part of his original land grant.
    • Joseph Doan Sr. from Plumstead, Buck’s Co., Penn. and father of members of the Doan Gang settled in Humberstone Township, Welland County.
    • Jacob Ott from Springhill, Fayetteville, Pennsylvania and Barbara Zavitz settled in Digby NS and moved to in Wainfleet Township, Welland County in Ontario and had nine children.
    • Casper Ramey born in Catawissa, Columbia County, Pennsylvania married Jemima Van Blaricum, settled in Winfleet Township but moved to Humberstone Township, and had ten children.
    • Johannes Braun aka John Brown from Schoharie, Albany, New York married Magdalena Zeh (1749-1816) in Schoharie, New York. He was with Captain Lewis Genevay’s Company of Corps of Rangers (Butler’s Rangers). They lived in Niagara.
  • Thanks to Kevin Wisener UE for a new entry
    • Joseph Beers who received a land grant at Pownal Bay, Lot 50, Prince Edward Island. He had served in the First Battalion, New Jersey Volunteers. He was from Sussex County, New Jersey. He married twice, to Mary Barton and Margaret Hayden, and he fathered ten children.
  • With information from Frank Leaman UE, more information about
    • Capt. Joseph Crowel has been added. He landed at Parrtown, now Saint John NB and settled in Carleton (now a community in West Saint John) NB, before moving to settle at Porters Lake in Nova Scotia. He served in the New Jersey Volunteers, 1st Battalion

If you are willing to submit some information, send a note to loyalist.trails@uelac.org
All help is appreciated. …doug

In The News:

Federal government helping to fund Queen’s Platinum Jubilee

Heritage Minister Pablo Rodriguez announced $2.14 million in funding for celebrations and community projects marking the Queen’s 70 years on the throne. The funding will support 360 community events and three major national projects. Read more…

Upcoming Events:

History Making History – #Cornwall1784. May 20-22

“Where Ontario Began”, is more than a slogan and on the May Long Weekend in Cornwall’s Lamoureux Park the Stormont, Dundas and Glengarry Historical Society through the Cornwall Community Museum will be hosting a historic celebration of friendship that has been more than 230 years in the making. History will be shared in the three languages of the Mohawks, English and French. Many partners are helping to make this a rich and diverse event. What a great weekend of events – if you are in the area you might still catch the last parts of the weekend. Read about what you may have already seen, or missed out on….

Toronto Branch: “38 Hours To Montreal” Thurs. May 26 @7:30

Dan Buchanan “The History Guy of Brighton” will speak about “38 Hours To Montreal: William Weller and the Governor General’s Race of 1840” – the story of an amazing sleigh ride in February 1840. Those not members of Toronto Branch can contact torontouel@gmail.com to register. More details.

Gov. Simcoe Branch: Rebels in the River, Wed. 1 June @7:30 ET

“Rebels on the River: The American Revolution and New Brunswick” — Presentation by Major (Ret’d) Gary Campbell, PhD
More details and Register here
The presentation will be about the American Revolution and Sunbury County, Nova Scotia (present day New Brunswick). This is the only area that rebelled against British rule and where the rebellion was successfully suppressed.
Gary Campbell is a retired CAF officer who is interested in the military history of New Brunswick.

Fort Plain: American Revolution Conference, June 10-12, Johnstown, NY

The American Revolution Conference in the Mohawk Valley is expanded to include 13 Speakers and Starts 1:00 pm on Friday, June 10th, Continues all day Saturday, June 11th and Ends about 12:30 pm on Sunday June 12th. Location: Johnstown, NY. For details, registration etc.

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