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Scholarship Challenge 2022:A Good News Update
The Scholarship Challenge is called Multiplying UE Scholar opportunities. This 2022 Challenge will run from June 22 – August 22, 2022. All donations since May 15th will be included because of an early announcement at that time.
As we begin a new month and enter the last 22 days of the challenge the Scholarship committee – Tim Compeau, Rebecca Brannon, Stephanie Seal-Walters and myself extend our sincere appreciation for the success of the challenge to date.
Thank you for using the donation form provided on our website. You have options such as DONATE ONCE or DONATE MONTHLY. Also you have options under the dropdown box under FUND. Using this CanadaHelps service saves the UELAC Office manager and our Treasurer a great deal of work at year-end when tax receipts are prepared.

Have you had a look at the latest update?
The donations received by Friday 29 July can be viewed at Scholarship Challenge 2022. To date 44 donors have contributed $7,500. Your contribution will help us meet – and surpass – the objective of $8,088.

Our current and future UELAC Scholarship recipients thank you too.

Kind regards,
Christine E. Manzer UE Scholarship Committee Chair Chair.Scholarship@uelac.org

Emancipation Day in Canada is 1 August
On August 1 1834 the British Commonwealth Emancipation Act abolished slavery in the British Empire. In 2021 Parliament officially designated August 1 as Emancipation Day in Canada. The City of Toronto has also designated August as Emancipation Month, to recognize the struggle for human rights and the rich contributions made by people of African descent.
You can learn more about Emancipation Day by reading this Toronto Public Library post.

A Loyalist Rogues Gallery: Part Five
copyright Stephen Davidson UE
This series has told the stories of less than half of the Loyalist “rogues” cited in Lorenzo Sabine’s 1864 landmark collection of Loyalist biographies. To spotlight each of the men he identified as “robbers and marauders” would take a second series, if not a third. Instead of drawing on Sabine to conclude this initial series, the final examination of a Loyalist rogue will be drawn from the history of a New York Quaker family.
Published in 1890, Thomas Cornell’s book, Adam and Anne Mott: Their Ancestors and Their Descendants features the story of an encounter between a Loyalist named Fade Merritt and a thirteen year- old girl named Anne Mott. Had Cornell not written down this incident from his ancestor’s past, history would never know that Fade Merritt had ever existed.
Even Merritt’s true name is uncertain. “Fade” was a nickname for either Ferdinand or Frederick. However, his character and circumstances in the year 1782 were better known. Cornell wrote that “he was a gentleman well known in the neighborhood; a royalist from the start, and grown embittered as the contest progressed.”
That bitterness may have been due in part to the injuries Merritt had suffered during the American Revolution. “His left hand had been taken off at the wrist, but it was little hindrance to his active and determined spirit. The bridle-rein thrown over the arm, he controlled his horse by some adroit movement of the stump. He could rest his gun on the crippled member and shoot with accuracy.”
Over time, Merritt had become the leader of a band of Loyalists who were referred to as “tories”, “refugees” and “marauding cowboys”. Their opposite number on the side of Long Island’s Patriots were known as “whaleboatmen” due to the fact that they did their best to disrupt trade in Long Island Sound by attacking sloops in their whaleboats. The local leader of the whaleboatmen was Pete Davis. Both Loyalists and Patriots were suspicious of James Mott, a Quaker who remained neutral during the revolution.
However, on one particular day, the Motts allowed about a dozen whaleboatmen to rest in their barn after a successful raid on a sloop loaded with foodstuffs. Learning of the rebels’ whereabouts, Fade Merritt and his men approached the Motts’ barn in the middle of the afternoon. Thanks to a warning from Jess, the Motts’ slave boy, the rebels armed themselves and found shelter in the Motts’ corn mill.
With his rifle aimed at the Loyalist, Davis warned Merritt that if he came any nearer, he would save the hangman the effort of executing him. In the end, the whaleboatman relented and ordered the marauder to leave for the sake of Merritt’s wife. (Davis and Merritt had married sisters, so the two were actually brothers-in-law.) The “cowboys” turned and left, leaving Merritt’s horse behind after it got stuck in the muddy salt meadow near the mill. Once they had left, the whaleboatmen set sail across the Sound for Connecticut.
The only people in the Mott home were 13 year-old Anne, her two younger brothers, her grandmother and two enslaved Blacks. James Mott and his oldest son were attending a Quaker meeting 12 miles away. Anne’s mother Lucretia had died five years earlier, making the girl the female head of the household.
When word reached Merritt that Davis and his men had left the Mott property, the Loyalist gang returned. Cornell provided their motivation: “The object was two-fold, revenge and plunder. Revenge on the defenceless household for harboring (as they charged) their old enemies.”
As they approached the Motts’ mill, they found the slave Jess grinding corn. Merritt expected to find sacks of coffee in the mill and threatened Jess with hanging if he did not reveal the coffee’s location. Learning nothing, the marauder decided to direct his questions to Anne.
When she entered the second floor of the mill, Anne saw bloodstains from the rough treatment that Jess had received. She also saw a hangman’s noose suspended from a beam. Merritt asked about the sacks of coffee and the money that was paid for it, but Anne knew no more than Jess.
Frustrated, Merritt then placed the noose around the teenager’s neck, and threatened to hang her if she did not tell the truth. But Anne calmly stood her ground.
Seeing that his threats had no effect on the girl, Merritt ordered his men to take her back to the house. Cornell wrote: “Here the gang speedily followed. Their first search was for provisions. All eatables were soon disposed of. The old-fashioned brick oven was emptied of a fresh baking… Closet doors were broken by blows from gunstocks … Beds and pillows were pierced by these bayonet thrusts to ascertain if money was hidden within. It was a scene of wanton destructiveness. The cellar was examined for signs of recent digging where treasure might have been buried, but none was found, nor the slightest trace.”
When Anne protested the vandalism of her home, Merritt said it was what the Quaker family deserved for sheltering the whaleboatmen, to which Anne replied that her father had no power to keep “the other side away” and that both Patriots and Loyalists were “unwelcome”.
The Loyalist robbers loaded the Motts’ valuables into a cart, retrieved Merritt’s horse, and then left a message for Anne’s father that said that this was what happened to those who harboured rebels and robbers. The next time that Merritt caught Davis and his whaleboatmen at the Motts’, “he would horse-whip the whole family and burn the mill.”
When James Mott returned to his home two days later, he rode off to British headquarters to speak to Sir Guy Carleton, the British commander in chief. When he heard the story, Carleton “was indignant, especially as the freebooters had assumed to be friends of the crown.” Rather than having British soldiers go through the Motts’ neighbourhood to reclaim the Quaker’s stolen property, Mott persuaded Carleton to give him a letter that ordered the restitution of his goods.
Writing decades after these events, Cornell felt that Carleton’s prompt actions on behalf of the Quaker family discouraged Merritt and his men from causing the Motts any further trouble. But this did not stop the Loyalist marauders from attacking Patriots on either side of Long Island Sound.
“The refugee leader, Merritt, continued his freebooting, partisan sort of warfare {carrying} on with increased recklessness, sometimes raiding into Connecticut. ”
When the Merritt’s “cowboys” robbed a store in Connecticut, they tied the owner to his counter and horsewhipped him, leaving him incapacitated for several weeks. Having his business ruined, the shopkeeper became a leader of a gang of whaleboatmen.
The day finally came when the Connecticut shopkeeper could exact his revenge. He and his fellow whaleboatmen encountered Merritt’s gang in Greenwich, not far from Stamford, Connecticut. In circumstances not explained, Merritt became separated from his men. When he stopped at a tavern, rebels captured him before he could make his getaway.
Cornell tells what was passed down by a relative who lived in the area: “Hearing the commotion, in the early morning, he hurried out, and amid a cluster of men he saw the handsome form of Merritt, over whose neck a rope was fastened, and in a few minutes his dead body was swinging from the limb of a tree.”
To those Patriots who lived along the shores of Long Island Sound, it was no doubt good news that they would no longer be prey to Fade Merritt and his marauding cowboys. Had he not attacked the Mott family in 1782, history would not be aware that Merritt ever existed. Anne Mott, the heroine of that episode, died at the age of 84 in Rochester, New York.
To secure permission to reprint this article contact the author at stephendavids@gmail.com.

Washington’s Quill: Revolutionary War Series: Introduction
by Sarah Combs, 29 July 2022
The Revolutionary War series opens with George Washington’s Address to the Continental Congress on 16 June in which he declares, “I do not think my self equal to the Command I (am) honored with.” Throughout the documents that cover the three months between 16 June and 15 Sept., the new commanding general grapples with uncertainty. He doubts his own abilities as well as the competence of the forces he now leads.
The creation of the Continental army presented many challenges. Perhaps most pressingly, officer vacancies needed to be filled. Artemas Ward, Charles Lee, Israel Putnam and Philip Schuyler were swiftly commissioned as major-generals. GW requested help from Congress to fill lower positions. He received 284 commissions in return, which still fell short of the necessary number. In response to the want of officers, GW proposed to fill the remaining positions with soldiers who proved their merit at the Battle of Bunker Hill on 17 June. The need for officers grew as the the army continued to swell…
…Unknowns and confusion marked the tempestuous beginning of what would become the War for American Independence. Despite the tumult, GW established a clear goal. Read more…

Emergence of the French Alliance: The Beginning and Final Phases
by Marvin L. Simner 26 Juky 2022
It is widely acknowledged that the military alliance between the United States and France, established in 1778, was responsible not only for a number of American victories over the British, but also for the end of the Revolutionary War. While much has been written about this topic as well as the events that occurred between 1777 and 1778, which led to the alliance, far less is known about the factors that took place in 1775 and 1776 that contributed to the initial need for the alliance, as well as the factors that culminated in the eventual signing of the alliance.
Background
Between June 5, 1775, when George Washington became commanding general of the Continental Army and the end of that year, the British and Americans had engaged in seventeen important battles, skirmishes, and naval confrontations, of which twelve were won by the Americans.[1] Although from a military perspective the Continental Army was a reasonably effective fighting force, the colonies not only had hoped to free themselves from England’s dominance either by winning the war or through negotiations, but also had hoped to become an effective trading partner with many European nations. With these dual objectives in mind, in the latter part of 1775, they began to court France, an acknowledged world power, for additional military support as well as for the political acceptance they needed to gain the trust required by these other nations. Read more…

Ghost Dance: A Native American Ceremony
By Geri Walton 18 July 2022
The Ghost Dance was a nineteenth century religious movement and belief system embraced by numerous Native American tribes that happened at a time when the U.S. government threatened to erase their culture. Native Americans believed that the practice of the dance would end westward expansion and that the dead spirits of the Native American would reunite with the living and fight on their behalf. In addition, they thought the dance would bring peace, prosperity, and unity to their people and rid them of the white man, who was making their lives difficult.
An article from Wisconsin’s Kenosha News in 1897 explained the idea of the Ghost Dance further:

“The great underlying principles of the ghost dance doctrine is that the time will come when the whole Indian race, living or dead, will be reunited upon a regenerated earth, to live a life of aboriginal happiness, forever free from death, disease and misery. On this each tribute has built a structure from its own mythology. All of this is to be brought about, not through war, but by an overruling spiritual power.”

Beginnings of the Ghost Dance happened around 1869 when Hawthorne Wodziwob, a Paiute healer, experienced several visions while on a mountain top. He then organized a series of community dances to announce his vision to the people. He claimed he had taken a journey to the land of the dead and that he had received promises from souls of the recently departed that they would return to their loved ones within a period of three to four years. Read more…

National Trust for Canada: Historic Places
Today we launch Historic Places Days 2022! From July 8-31, we are so excited to be working with communities to celebrate the dynamic and diverse stories of Canada, from coast to coast to coast. Historic Places Days is a 3 week festival (in person/online) that features over 500 historic places, 250 #Visitlists, and over 170 special events.
We know that historic places create a sense of belonging, and these places resonate when their stories are told by passionate people who create special experiences and connections for their visitors. Stories of resilience, stories of commemoration, stories of reconciliation.

Call for Submissions for “Canada: Brave New World”
Canadian author Elaine Cougler (www.elainecougler.com) is seeking contributions for an anthology to be published in 2023 in time for the July 1 Canada Day celebrations.
The book length publication of Canada: Brave New World will feature unique and true stories of people who escaped their homeland and settled in Canada as a result of a war or revolution in their home countries. The publication will show that our country is made up of amazingly strong people who escaped something bad and created something good.
The submissions may be written by the participant or by relatives/descendants or friends of the participants. This is a chance to shine the light on true family stories which may not ever have been told in a formal way.
Submissions should be fully edited short stories, essays, book chapters, short novellas or poems written by the person submitting about people who ended up in Canada.
See the submission criteria and guidelines – Final due date is 1 November 2022. Target publication date is 31 May 2023.
For more information contact Elaine Cougler at elaine@elainecougler.com. or 519 532 4870.

Book Review: Liberty’s Chain: Slavery, Abolition, and the Jay Family of New York
Review by Jeff Broadwater 25 July 2022
Author: David N. Gellman (Ithaca, N.Y.: Cornell University Press, 2022)
America’s Founders are routinely criticized for creating a republic that tolerated, and often defended, African slavery, but at least one of the Founders, New York’s John Jay, inaugurated a family tradition of anti-slavery activism. In Liberty’s Chain, David Gellman, a professor of history at DePauw University, traces the evolution of the Jays’ relationship with slavery and their commitment to racial justice from Jay’s support for gradual emancipation through the more radical abolitionism of his son William to the post-Civil War era of William’s son John Jay II.
A lawyer and grandson of a French Huguenot who immigrated to America after the revocation of the Edict of Nantes in 1685, John Jay served at different times as president of the Continental Congress, as the first chief justice of the United States Supreme Court and as governor of New York. A champion of the ratification of the Constitution and a leader of the emerging Federalist Party, Jay also held a variety of foreign policy posts, both at home and abroad. His record on the question of slavery was, to be sure, ambiguous. Jay owned enslaved people, but never on a large-scale. Read more…

All Things Georgian: Globes were all the rage
By Sarah Murden 24 January 2017
Today we’re so used to using the internet to plot routes for us wherever we’re travelling, or if you have no internet available, then there’s always the ‘old-fashioned’ paper maps – perish the thought! In the 18th century, there were pocket-sized maps, but globes were so ‘in vogue’ that many affluent homes would own a pair – one terrestrial and one celestial.
The Georgians, as well as their love of all things pleasurable, were also fascinated by new developments in the field of science.
To depict their interest in science, many of the paintings of the day would include a globe. Read more…

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

  • From Maralynn Wilkinson Victoria Branch comes information about
    • Sgt. John Smith a farmer in New York who served in the 1st Battalion of the King’s Royal Regiment of New York who settled in the Eastern District (now Cornwall area of Ontario)
  • Lynton “Bill” Stewart has contributed information about
    • Maj. Thomas Barclay served in the Loyal American Regiment, married Susan Delancey (sister of Col. James Delancey) and settled in Wilmot Township, Annapolis County, Nova Scotia.
  • Thanks to Vancouver Branch (Linda Nygard) for data about:
    • Alexander MacDonald Sr. born in Islay Scotland, served in the 76th Regiment of Foot and the MacDonald’s Highlanders and settled first in Shelburne, Nova Scotia, then Miramichi, New Brunswick

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

In the News:

BEECHEY: Where did your family come from?
Laurel Beechey 25 July West Elfgin Chronicle
Some people might trace their family to the early 1600s when France and Britain came. Many came north as United Empire Loyalists after the American Revolution. Since then, I believe we would be hard pressed to find a country in the world from which immigrants have not come. Many were fleeing hardships in their own countries, like droughts or political hardships, including wars.
My own family history includes immigrants as late as 1918 – a First World War war bride and as early as Loyalists fleeing the United States. One branch, the Burtch Family, settled on the Grand River at Burtch’s Landing (now Newport) and eventually built the first home in Woodstock.
My Burtch family followed almost the identical footsteps of local Oxford County born author Elaine Cougler’s Loyalist family, including the horrendous hardships of loyalties, wars, and carving a homestead out of the wilderness. Having researched my own family, I was amazed and thrilled with Elaine’s research and insight to their Canadian beginnings in her four-book Loyalist series. Read more…

Historical society hopes to restore cemetery in former Black community in Guysborough County NS
By Suzanne Rent 28 July 2022 in Halifax Examiner
The name Birchtown is often associated with the community just outside of Shelburne that was was the largest settlement of Black Loyalists in North America. But another community named Birchtown, this one in Guysborough County, has a historical society there looking up stories of its past and with a goal of restoring its now grown over cemetery.
Chris Cook is the president of the Guysborough Historical Society, which runs the Old Court House Museum and visitor information in Guysborough. With the work of Steve Wright, and current society members Jennifer Desmond and Shane Sceles, the society is researching the history of the former community that was once located in a remote part of Guysborough County. Read more…

Adolphustown settlers brought Bibles and hearts brimming with faith
By Susanna McLeod 29 Jul 2022 The Kingston Whig Standard
Launching beautiful schooners and war-ready gun ships, the Royal Navy Dockyard at Kingston thrummed with noise and activity from the late 1700s to mid-1800s. Military and naval installations protected the vital waterways of St. Lawrence River, Lake Ontario and the Rideau Canal. Kingston held a position of strategic importance, but it was not the centre of Upper Canada. That honour went to the Loyalist settlement of Adolphustown.
Led by Capt. Peter VanAlstine, a crowd of British Loyalists left New York on Sept. 8, 1783, bound for new lives in Canada,. Seven ships arrived at Quebec exactly one month later. Several travellers were soldiers, the rest were refugees fleeing from violence and hostilities of the American Revolution. Some considered remaining in Lower Canada, and land grants were offered in Upper Canada at the Bay of Quinte.
Deputy Surveyor-General J. Collins, surveyors Capt. Sherwood and Lt. Kotte and their teams measured and recorded land plots from Kingston to the fourth township in November 1783. (When surveyed, townships were initially recognized by number rather than name.)
On May 21, 1784, VanAlstine and about 260 people of all ages boarded “a brigade of batteaux, and reached the fourth township on the 16th of June.” Read more…

Upcoming Events:

America’s History LLC: Sullivan’s Campaign Bus Sept. 7-10, 2022

Sullivan’s Campaign Against the Iroquois in 1779: Retribution or Genocide?
September 7-10, 2022
The Sullivan-Clinton campaign against the Iroquois in 1779 has been described as implementing a “scorched earth” policy for no useful purpose other than eradicating Indians, or a failed attempt to capture Fort Niagara. No campaign of the American War for Independence has been more inaccurately described or remains more controversial than the Continental Army’s invasion of the Iroquois Confederacy in 1779.
This tour is designed to follow the main effort of that offensive as conducted by troops commanded by Major General John Sullivan. Sullivan’s troops took the war to the very heart of the territory controlled by the Six Nations of Haudenosaunee who had allied themselves with the British Crown. At the tour’s end you’ll decide if the campaign was a success or a well-executed failure; justifiable retribution for the raids and Cherry Valley massacre in 1778 or unvarnished genocide. More details..

Ontario Black History Society Monday 1 Aug.

The Ontario Black History Society is hosting a free celebration at Fort York on August 1 from 12:30 to 2:30 pm. The outdoor event will include speakers, performers and more! To register click here:

From the Twittersphere and Beyond

  • Headstone for Lieut. Commander George F. Smith, R.N., born in Saint John, NB in 1851 & died at Middleton, NS in 1915. He was maternal great grandson of United Empire Loyalist Major Samuel Vetch Bayard & moved to Nova Scotia to farm on his ancestor’s lands.
  • Headstone of Rev. John Moore Campbell, missionary under Society for Propagation of Gospel for 30 years in Granville Township & Bridgetown, NS, son of Lt. Col. Colin Campbell, born in Virginia, served in 74th Highland Regiment in American Revolution, a United Empire Loyalist.
    The headstone in St. James Anglican Cemetery at Bridgetown, NS is inscribed:
    In Memory of
    John Moore Campbell
    Rector of Granville, who labored
    zealously in the cause of his
    Divine Master over 30 years
    and entered into his rest on
    the 9th February 1862
  • Recently I learned my earliest known ancestor to arrive in North America was Henrich Ullerich, a refugee from the Palatine who boarded a ship in Rotterdam and took passage to Philadelphia arriving on September 3, 1739. The name of the ship was “Friendship“. Henrich’s grand-daughter Lucinda married Samuel Humphrey, son of my United Empire Loyalist ancestor James Humphrey, who served with the Loyal Rangers during American Revolution and afterwards settled near present day Prescott, Ontario.
  • This week in History
  • Clothing and Related:
  • Townsends:
  • Miscellaneous
    • The field bush can spend a hundred years tossing its life in the hot desert sands. When it reaches water, it comes back to life. That’s why it’s called the resurrection plant.
    • Mudlarking. This pewter find dating to around 1450-1550, would have been attached to the end of a belt or strap to stop it fraying and add some bling. I plucked it from the thick, black mud of the Thames foreshore
    • When I first found this piece of lead near Woolwich on a very low tide it was rolled up. When I unfolded it, it revealed a name in retrograde on one side. On researching the name an intriguing story also unfolded!
      The name on this lead tag is thought to be W. Gailey (William Clarke – alias Gailey) who was a prisoner on the Justitia prison hulk moored on the Thames at Woolwich in the 1800s. The tag has been recorded on the Portable Antiquities Scheme by the Museum of London.
      W. Gailey was incarcerated on the Justitia prison hulk at the age of 30 on 12 May 1848 for, according to records, “luck stealing” (or duck stealing?). Life on the hulks was miserable to say the least.The floating prison hulks were finally abolished circa 1857

Last Post: MCKENZIE, Marilyn Rose Agnes
Marilyn Rose Agnes (nee Downey) McKenzie (May 7, 1937 – July 24, 2022) passed peacefully at home with her devoted husband Jim McKenzie UE at her side. She leaves two children in Hampton, Diane (Brian) Cosman and David McKenzie, and two children in Jasper, Alberta, Scott (Sylvie) McKenzie and Ellen (Mike) Merilovich.
Marilyn was best known for her infectious, reverberating laugh that came directly from her heart. She was able to meet any situation with grace and a touch of light humour and she always focussed on the best in everyone.
She created a home that was relaxed and informal and that often smelled like homemade bread or brownie pudding. It was the preferred gathering spot for the friends of all her children.
In recent years Marilyn spent her days waving to neighbours, watching the birds, and playing cards from her perch by the front window. She was always delighted with unannounced pop-in visitors. And she loved to sing!
More details at Reid’s Funeral Home, Hampton, NB. Funeral Service Sunday, August 7, 2022, at 2:00 PM from Hampton United Church.

 

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