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Call for Nominations for 2024 UELAC Suzanne Morse-Hines Memorial Genealogy-Family History Award

Deadline for Nominations is 28 February (midnight EST)

Recipients of the Suzanne Morse-Hines Memorial Award are UELAC members who have made significant research progress towards family history and genealogy for the purpose of obtaining a UE Certificate. The Award is presented at the UELAC Conference.
Nominations are made at the Branch, Regional, or National level, and are submitted to the UELAC Board of Directors Executive Committee at genealogy-family-history-award@uelac.org Details and a nomination form at available of the members page at uelac.ca/members.
Diane Faris UE, Chair Volunteer Recognition Committee”

Black Loyalist History: A Brief Outline: Part Two of Two
copyright Stephen Davidson UE
The last Black Loyalists arrived in Nova Scotia in the spring of 1784 after a hurricane forced their ship to winter in Bermuda. Aboard the Joseph was Thomas Peters who would become a leader of Black Loyalists in both New Brunswick and Nova Scotia.
After a devastating fire forced both Black and white Loyalists to abandon Port Mouton, they relocated further up the Nova Scotia shoreline to Guysborough County. By 1788, these displaced Black Loyalists received land grants of 40.5 acres along the Tracadie River.
While the Black Loyalist settlers of Port Mouton survived a destructive fire, the free Blacks of Shelburne became objects of white hatred on July 26, 1784. The Loyalist settlement’s disbanded soldiers could not compete with the Blacks who hired themselves out at lower rates of pay. Arming themselves with muskets and ship’s tackle the angry veterans tore down Black Loyalist homes, assaulted their occupants, and chased them to nearby Birchtown. The first race riot in Canadian history lasted for 10 days, and was only finally quelled by the intervention of a regiment based in Halifax.
The Black Loyalists had escape slavery in the United States, but they had not escaped racism in what remained of British North America. The city of Saint John, New Brunswick was incorporated in April of 1785. Its royal charter forbid Blacks to live or work in the new Loyalist city. It was the first example of institutionalized racism the Black Loyalists and their descendants would encounter.
Two chief concerns of Black Loyalists upon arriving in the Maritimes were education and the Christian faith. In response to their requests, the Church of England funded schools in a number of Black communities, paying the salaries of Black teachers. Despite the Anglican Church being the state church of the British Empire, most Black Loyalists joined Methodist or Baptist congregations. The church became a focus of Black communities and a training ground for Black community leaders.
Thomas Peters petitioned the new lieutenant-governor of New Brunswick for farm land for Black Loyalists after failing to win the same benefit in Nova Scotia. He represented those who wanted to receive treatment equal to white Loyalists. His petition was unsuccessful.
In 1787, 34 Black Loyalists were finally granted land on New Brunswick’s Nerepis River. It was the beginning of a number of Black settlements along or near the St. John River valley.
David George, a Baptist minister based in Shelburne, Nova Scotia, arrived in New Brunswick and was given permission to preach in a colony whose official denomination is the Church of England. In this same year –1790— a frustrated Thomas Peters made a trip to England to seek justice for Black Loyalists. His transatlantic journey was made possible by donations from those he represented.
Peters returned in October of the following year to announce that the British government would underwrite all of the expenses to send Black Loyalists to found a colony of free men and women in Sierra Leone. Words spread among Black communities in western Nova Scotia and along the St. John River Valley, but the settlers of Nova Scotia’s Guysborough County were never made aware of the opportunity to settle in western Africa.
On January 15, 1792 a fleet of 15 vessels left Halifax with almost 1,200 Black Loyalists bound for Freetown, Sierra Leone. About 20% of them had initially settled in New Brunswick; the remainder had called Nova Scotia home for the past 9 years.
Despite the passage of two centuries, those in Sierra Leone who have Black Loyalist ancestors have great pride in their heritage. In 1859, the descendants formed the Nova Scotia and Maroon Descendants Association to highlight the history, culture, and important individuals of the Nova Scotian settlers. Today, Black Loyalist history is honoured on both sides of the Atlantic.
Not all of the Maritimes’ Black Loyalists left for Africa. In fact, only a third of all the region’s free Blacks had left for Sierra Leone. Of the two-thirds who remained, many had been prevented by whites who did not want to lose a pool of cheap labour. Others who were indentured servants were not eligible to leave. Some felt that the venture was either too risky or too dangerous. The exodus to Sierra Leone left many Black Loyalist communities in the Maritimes without leaders, teacher or ministers.
Nevertheless, there were those who overcame the challenges African descendants faced at the end of the 18th century. In 1797, Caesar Closs was the first Black to have his will go through the probate courts of New Brunswick; Sylvia Johnson became the first woman to do the same in 1801. There were Black Loyalists who enjoyed enough prosperity that they could will property and possessions to others in their community.
Following the War of 1812, the Black Loyalist settlers of the Maritimes were joined by another set of refugees emancipated from American slavery. Known as the Black Refugees, these were enslaved Africans who had been given their freedom by the British as they waged war on the United States. Approximately 2,000 of them settled in Nova Scotia; 400 found homes in New Brunswick.
Thirty years after their arrival in the Maritimes, Black Loyalists had found work in the larger white settlements or farmed along the colonies’ river valleys. Although Jack Patterson had come to New Brunswick as a teenager indentured to a white innkeeper, by 1814 he had his own farm. In October of that year, he captured the colony’s most wanted criminal — a thief who had escaped the hangman’s noose and had hidden on Patterson’s property. The Black Loyalist’s exploits were recorded in The Mysterious Stranger. Written by a Connecticut Loyalist, the book became a bestseller on both sides of the Atlantic.
Black Loyalists did not enjoy all of the rights of British citizens as their emancipation should have granted them. But they were influential, nonetheless. One historian has asserted that “The role and plight of these fugitives during and after the Revolutionary War would alter the course of many Black lives and help swell sentiment, particularly in Britain, for an end to slavery and the slave trade.”
In 1834 — just over 50 years after the Black Loyalists arrived in Atlantic Canada– slavery was abolished throughout the British Empire. The territory that now comprises Canada became a refuge and sanctuary for those still enslaved in the United States. Between the end of slavery in the British Empire in 1834 and the end of slavery in the United States in 1865, 25,000 to 50,000 African descendants made their way northward to freedom via the Underground Railroad. Among those waiting to welcome them were the descendants of the Black Loyalists, Canada’s first free African citizens.
To secure permission to reprint this article contact the author at stephendavids@gmail.com.

America’s Loyalists : Where Did They Go After The War? YouTube video
This is the story of the paths taken by American Loyalists after the war – their struggles to find a new home, and the new parts of the empire they found themselves in.
Primary source was Liberty’s Exiles: American Loyalists in the Revolutionary World among other texts.
As a proud American, I’ve always been fascinated by the question of what happened to the third of the country who fought for the British. This video was my attempt to tell their story – with sympathy. Obviously if we were to make a video on the back and forth miseries perpetuated by each side, the video would be far too long – so this video’s scope is simple: tell the Loyalists’ story, and tell it fairly. I hope you enjoy.
Watch here https://youtube.com/watch?v=ONie9gHk46U&si=AhTNZJReu6hLfQdd

The complicated backstory of the birth of Delaware, and our loyalists!
By Joshua Loper UE 30 Jan 2024 Blog at Delaware Military Museum
What colony is it: NY, MD, PA, or something else?
Last year, the museum’s friends, the United Empire Loyalist Association of Canada, Govenor Simcoe Branch, made a donation helping fund our office supplies in 2023. We thank our friends for this. However, I am sure the reader is asking, “What does Canada have to do with Delaware?” That is a very good question.
Originally, the watershed was claimed by the English Crown. In 1497, John Cabot explored the watershed of the Delaware. Before this, or any colonies were established, in what would become the state of Delaware, the Delaware tribe lived in our state. This includes my family….
In 1776, there were three camps of people: those who supported remaining part of England, those who supported leaving England, and those who did not care either way. These groups are now known as Loyalists, Patriots, and Fence Sitters, respectively. However, most people in the Lower Three Counties had enough with being ruled by other colonies….
The last gasps of the Pennsylvania argument were settled in the American Revolution. ,,
Many loyalists resettled in Canada. However, some loyalist families stayed after the revolution, like my wife’s family, fighting for the British Crown in the American Revolution, and then against it in the War of 1812. History, like politics, can be complicated. After the Treaty of Paris in 1783, there were no more claims on what state Delaware really was. Read the article…
NOTE: Joshua is a Director of the Gov. Simcoe Branch. He has twice been the speaker at meetings (recordings available in branch presentations, Members’ Section, uelac.ca). Joshua is primarily the Director of the Delaware Military Heritage and Education Foundation/the Delaware Military Museum.

Slavery in Jamaica Plain, a Suburb of Boston
At Jamaica Plain Historical Socety
Slavery in New England
Introduction
Many Americans were taught in school that slavery in the United States was an exclusively Southern institution. But in colonial times, the system of slavery was also the primary economic driver in the Northern colonies including New England. Because colonists chose to grow their economy using enslaved labor, it was the standard practice of many New Englanders to enslave other human beings – both Indigenous and African people.
New Englanders ran the Triangle Trade, enslaving, buying, and selling people. Slavery was also integral to most of the region’s commerce as New Englanders sold food and supplies to the one-crop sugar economies of the Caribbean. New England’s slave economy was connected not only to the wealthy but also to farmers, craftsmen, ministers, and widows as well as to industries such as shipbuilding, distilling, and leather tanning.
Were people enslaved in Jamaica Plain? Yes. Initial research by Hidden Jamaica Plain, a group of volunteer researchers, revealed the names of 27 people who were enslaved in the 1700s in Jamaica Plain, and further research will likely reveal more. While very little is known about most of those enslaved people, the list of their enslavers and indenturers is a virtual “who’s who” of those linked to key Jamaica Plain institutions such as the Loring Greenough House and the First Church in Jamaica Plain as well as the Arnold Arboretum and Roxbury Latin School.
Enslavement of Indigenous People Came First
For millennia, Indigenous people lived in reciprocity with the land now called New England. They lived, not in a wilderness, but in a sustaining, thriving place of villages and larger kinship and trade networks. They organized themselves into larger subgroups led by chosen leaders. They shared communal use and reciprocity with the land within established territorial boundaries. They all spoke regional dialects of the Algonquin language. They had no concept of private ownership of land or people as commodities to be bought and sold.
In Jamaica Plain, the Massachusett people were a primary presence, and Boston Archaeology has found evidence of a major trading center near Monument Square. Their trading network reached to Western Massachusetts and beyond.
Europeans coming to the Americas relied upon the Doctrine of Discovery which established a religious, political, and legal justification for colonization and seizure of land not inhabited by Christians as well as enslavement of non-Christian people. Foundational elements of the Doctrine of Discovery came from a series of papal decrees beginning in the 1100s.
By the early 1600s, English explorers and traders had kidnapped and enslaved coastal Indigenous people from New England to extract their labor, sometimes selling them in Europe, even before the Plymouth and Massachusetts Bay Colonies were formed.
Indigenous communities and infrastructure were also disrupted by plagues and diseases introduced by the English that they had not previously been exposed to. By the time the Puritans arrived in Boston in 1630, many of the thriving Indigenous settlements had already been decimated. It is estimated that between 50-90% of the Massachusett people died in the years following the 1614 mapping expedition of English sea captain and colonial leader John Smith who coined the term “New England.”
The English seized areas currently or previously inhabited by Indigenous people and began to enslave Indigenous people for additional labor to build the settlement named Massachusetts Bay Colony after the people from the Massachusett nation (Massachusett in Algonquin means “near the Great Hill(s),” possibly referring to the Blue Hills south of Boston Habor). As more English arrived and wanted to expand colonial territory and settlements, the colonists began buying people from Africa and the Caribbean. Read more…
Key Points

  • For millennia, Indigenous people lived in reciprocity with the land now called New England.
  • New England colonists adopted slavery as the primary economic driver to build their colonies
  • Slavery in New England started with enslaving Indigenous people in the 1500s and expanded to enslaving Africans in the 1600s and 1700s
  • Massachusetts was the first colony to legalize slavery in 1641
  • Chattel slavery existed in Massachusetts during the American Revolution
  • Revolutionary War patriots enslaved and indentured others in Massachusetts
  • Enslaved people filed petitions and court cases which resulted in changing Massachusetts law in 1783 but did not result in immediate emancipation for all
  • Jamaica Plain was part of all of this history and at least 27 people were enslaved here.

Charles Turner: One Soldier, Three Armies
by Todd W. Braisted 1 Feb 2024 Journal of the American Revolution
On the muster roll of a Continental Army regiment stationed at West Point in 1779, is a note that a soldier, Charles Turner, had deserted on June 5 of that year. In and of itself, it’s a routine entry, a common occurrence with every army of the period. The war saw thousands of such desertions from both sides, men who took matters into their own hands to unilaterally, not to mention illegally, end their military obligations. Seeing so many deserters, one can lose sight that each one of these men had a personal story to tell, experiences often unique to themselves. So it was for Charles Turner, starting with the fact that his name was not quite Turner.
When the war started for Charles Turner, he was better known by his comrades as Carl Tournier (or Tornier), a private soldier in the Prince Ludwig Regiment of Brunswick Dragoons, one of the contingent of troops from the German principality of Brunswick hired by the British to supplement their forces attempting to subdue the rebellion in America. The Brunswick troops arrived in Canada in 1776 and formed a large part of Lt. Gen. John Burgoyne’s invasion of northern New York the following year. Although a cavalry unit, the Prince Ludwig Regiment arrived without horses and fought as infantry during the campaign. Tournier, with many of his comrades, was captured at the Battle of Bennington on August 16, 1777. Marched as a prisoner to Massachusetts, he spent months as a captive, finally deciding to enlist with his captors in May 1778. Tournier became Turner to his new officers, serving in Capt. Elisha Brewer’s company of light infantry in Col. Samuel Brewer’s battalion. With his battalion he was sent to the Hudson Highlands, garrisoning the lynchpin of the Hudson River defenses at West Point. In early June 1779, Tournier was part of a scout sent out under a lieutenant from West Point, taking the opportunity to slip away and desert when within three miles of the British garrison of Stony Point, at which post he arrived the next day. Read more…

Major Peter Charles L’Enfant: Artist and Engineer of the Revolution
by Douglas R. Dorney, Jr. 30 Jan 2024 Journal of the American Revolution
Major Peter L’Enfant is most well-known for his 1791 “wholly new” plan for the Federal City that would become Washington, DC. Fewer are aware of his previous experience during the Revolutionary War where he served as an aide-de-camp, engineer, and sometimes as an artist and light infantry officer. This military service, coupled with his fine arts education and post-war career as an architect were the near-perfect prerequisites for his most famous role as the author of the most important civic design project in American history.
Pierre Charles L’Enfant was born in Paris on August 2, 1754, and descended from a long line of artists. His father, also named Pierre, was a “Painter in Ordinary” to King Louis XV.[1] Before his son’s birth, he was appointed an academician to the Academie Royale de Peinture et de Sculpture.[2] By 1771, the younger Pierre was at the academy receiving a fine arts education which also included the study of architecture, landscape architecture, science, and mathematics.[3] In contrast to many French officers who would serve in America as engineers or in the artillery service, there is no record that L’Enfant ever received any pre-war education or training as a soldier or engineer.
L’Enfant’s entrée into the American war was a social connection with the playwright (and covert agent) Pierre-Augustin Caron de Beaumarchais. By mid-June 1776, Beaumarchais had received funding for the Roderigue Hortalez & Cie, a front organization whose sole purpose was secretly procuring and delivering French and Spanish arms and war materiel to American rebels.[4] By August, L’Enfant’s name was on a list of several dozen men to serve in America with the promise of commission in the Continental Army. Read more…

Privateer in action: the Ellen 1780
by Antoine Vanner 25 Jan 2024 in the blog at Dawlish Chronicles
Privateers receive little attention in accounts of naval warfare right up to the time when the practice was banned by international Paris Declaration of 1856, which only the United States, among major nations, omitted to sign. Such privately-owned ships were authorised by a “letter of marque” to prey on enemy shipping. Usually small, and lightly armed enough to intimidate and capture merchant shipping, but not to fight warships, they tended to be small fast vessels. In an era before radio and radar, their victims were unable to raise the alarm as to their plight, so preventing them warning other ships in the vicinity of the danger. In the course of the Great Age of Fighting Sail, roughly 1700 to 1815, they were responsible for the capture of thousands, if not tens of thousands, of merchant ships, many of them small coastal traders. These actions that are almost universally forgotten today. In possession of a fast and suitably armed vessel, crewed by experienced seamen, the owner, or sometimes syndicate of owners, of a privateer was well placed to make a handsome profit in wartime. One such ship, the Ellen, captained by a James Borrowdale, was to demonstrate in 1780 just how effective such a ship could be.
Described as “an armed merchantman”, the Ellen, of Bristol, seems to have engaged in trading as well as holding a letter of marque – her privateering was likely to have been on an opportunistic basis as an adjunct to her other business. Armed with eighteen six-pounders, and with a crew of sixty-four, half of them boys and landsmen on their first voyage, she set out in March 1780 for the West Indies. The American War of Independence was underway, with French and Spanish forces allied to the Americans. Read more…

Book: The Windows of St. Alban’s
By Jane Lovell & Diane Berlet Photos by David Clendenning
Available from stalbanscentre.ca
Twenty-one memorial stained glass windows now grace the walls of St. Alban’s, a Gothic Revival limestone Church in Adolphustown, Ontario. Built in 1884 to mark the centennial of the arrival of the United Empire Loyalists at Adolphustown, the church was intended to be fitted with windows honouring the Loyalist settlers of the region. With only five memorial windows in place when the church opened, the remaining windows were added one by one over the course of nearly twelve decades.
Illustrated with over 90 brilliantly coloured photographs, this book examines the windows of St. Alban’s from a number of perspectives, including the techniques and stained glass studios employed in their creation and the symbolism embodied in the images portrayed. The stories behind the people memorialized in the windows and those who commissioned the work serve to chronicle the lives of the Loyalist and other pioneer families who were instrumental in developing the region, many of whom still reside in the community.
All proceeds from book sales to support the preservation of the architectural, artistic, and cultural heritage of St. Alban the Martyr United Empire Loyalist Memorial Church.

Hessian Soldiers Travelling to America: Evacuating Philadelphia, to Long Island Apr 1778
From a Hessian Diary of the American Revolution.
This excerpt from the diary of Johan Conrad Dohla (170 pages).

1778 – July: Long Island to Rhode Island (Continued – page 54)
9 July. [1778] This morning before daylight we received the order to embark as quickly as possible. Already at reveille all the tents and other equipment were aboard ship. At four o’clock in the afternoon both regiments embarked. I again went aboard the ship Houston. We assumed our voyage would be to Rhode Island with the intent of strengthening, against arench attack, the garrison there, which consisted of five thousand men commanded by General [Robert] Pigot, because war had been declared with France and Spain and a large water and land force had already sailed to fight against England in America and to support the rebels.
12 July. The captain and four sailors of the English transport ship Lord Howe, who had gone on land in order to obtain fresh supplies, were captured by a party of Americans.
Today also, the French ambassador to the Congress of the United States of North America, Count [Conrad Alexandre] Gerard [de Reyneval] arrived at Philadelphia.
13 July. We sailed past the province of New England, which lay on our left, with our fleet, which consisted of seventeen ships (loaded with two English regiments and one company of British artillerymen, as well as our two regiments). To our right we had the region of Long Island. This evening a ship of our fleet, named Charlotte, which had our Grenadiers on board, sailed a bit too far from the fleet and was attacked by two enemy sloops. They fired more than two hundred shots from small cannon at the Charlotte, which had not a single cannon on board with which to defend itself, but as the Ansbach staff ship and a frigate hurried to its aid and fired some cannon and grape at them, they quickly turned and took flight.
15 July. We arrived at the lighthouse at Newport, and during the afternoon we entered the harbor and dropped anchor. From New York to Newport on Rhode Island the distance is figured at thirty English miles.

NEWPORT
This Newport is a rich port and trade city with a large circumference, and the number of houses is about two thousand. It has a beautiful and very long main street, called Southend, and lies on a small height from which one can look over all the roofs and clearly see ships passing on the ocean. This place is a main passage to America, because it is possible to travel from there on the ocean as well as to all regions. In former times many pirates were based at Newport and Rhode Island, who sailed out and captured many West Indian cargo ships, from which they obtained great riches. It is said that an inestimable treasure of gold and silver lies buried on this island.
The island of Rhode Island on which Newport lies is not large, being about five German hours, or fifteen English miles, long and three English miles wide. There is little forest on Rhode Island because the soldiers have chopped down a great deal, but the shortage is made up from Long Island. There are also many fruit trees on this island, which bear much fruit. The soil is very fertile, and the inhabitants of the island are very rich people.
Before the war there were two fortifications, namely, the „Stone Battery,” which the French, who owned this island for a long time, built and made with thick walls of stone; and then a fortification called „Goat Island,” but it is of no importance. During the war, however, many defensive works have been constructed on the land side. In Newport there are two Reformed, one German Evangelical, and one Catholic church, as well as the Quakers’ two meetinghouses, the Herrnhuters’ meetinghouse, and the Pietists have a prayerhouse. Also, the Jews have a temple and school and enjoy all the rights of citizens in trade and commerce, and are not recognizable by their beards and dress as they are at home. It is claimed that the most beautiful women in all North America are in Newport and on Rhode Island.
16 July. During the afternoon we debarked and marched through the city of Newport with flags flying and music playing. About one English mile beyond the city we set up our camp. Before us the English and Hessian troops had their camp. Rhode Island and the city of Newport were occupied on 13 December 1776 by Admiral Sir Peter Parker and General Clinton, and the Americans were driven out.
20 July. We received orders. We, both regiments, broke camp in the morning and were shipped across the river to Conanicut and set up camp.
This Conanicut is a small island directly opposite Newport, and there are no more than twelve households thereon. It belongs to Rhode Island. Here on Conanicut we had many duties and had to put up with only issued provisions, because no foodstuffs were obtainable, although we caught fish with hooks in the river. Every day numerous rebels from New England were to be seen. During the afternoon I went on watch in the fortifications.
29 July. At noon we received the most urgent order from the commanding general, Pigot, to break camp. At noon, completely unexpectedly, a fleet of sixteen warships and frigates, in the grandest array, appeared without our knowing if it were friend or foe. Because it was an exceptionally beautiful and clear day, it could be seen at a great distance. An English war sloop was immediately sent out from Newport to make a reconnaissance. It fired a cannon shot as the customary greeting, but received no answer. The second shot, as well as the third, also went unanswered. Nevertheless, the uncertainty remained, because the fleet was still at such a great distance and had not raised a flag. In this moment, however, the fleet lowered the sails, raised a white flag with three lilies, which is the French flag, and dropped anchor. Admiral [Jean Baptiste Charles Henri Hector] Comte d’Estaing commands this fleet. As it is now recognized as an enemy fleet, our two regiments were immediately transferred from Conanicut to Rhode Island, except for fifty men who continued to occupy the fortifications on the water there. We marched through the city and set up our camp by a windmill close to the city. In the evening I went on fire watch.
(to be continued)

Research: Flax and the Diary of Matthew Patten, Bedford, New Hampshire
By Beth Gallucci, History and Museum Studies MA Program
Born in 1719 in Ulster, Ireland, Matthew Patten emigrated to America with his family in 1728. The Patten’s were among the many Scotch-Irish Presbyterian families who came to America to escape religious persecution in Northern Ireland. Matthew and his brother Samuel moved to Souhegan-East in 1738 which is now known as Bedford, New Hampshire. Patten was a jack-of-all-trades like many New Hampshire settlers of the 18th century. He worked as a carpenter, joiner, farmer, surveyor, justice of the peace, and a probate judge in the town of Bedford. His diary was recorded from 1754 to 1788, written on individual, unbound pages, in the form of a daily account, documenting life in the second half of the 18thcentury. Though Patten’s narrative may not appear to be a colorful one, he certainly provides the reader a glimpse into the life of a farmer on the colonial frontier and enables historians like us to engage with his world of planting flax.
Read more and note that his son John was injured at Bunker Hill, and died while stationed in Canada with the Continental Army.

Advertised on 31 January 1774: “Blue kersey”
What was advertised in a colonial American newspaper 250 years ago today?

“Blue kersey”

This advertisement offered a shipment from London of “beaver coatings,” fabrics, and blankets. John Bours sold all of these items at a shop that had a golden eagle on the sign. One of the specific items that Bours advertised was kersey, multiple colors of it even. After some research, I found that kersey was a fabric often used in making clothing for enslaved people. Talya Housman, a Ph.D. candidate at Brown University, places kersey with other fabrics in the category of “negro cloth” or “slave cloth.” Not only were these fabrics used to clothe enslaved people, but they were also used as a way “to mark people as enslaved.”
I also learned about slavery in New England. According to EnCompass: A Digital Sourcebook of Rhode Island History, “Rhode Island did not have the largest absolute number of enslaved people in New England,” but “it had the largest percentage of Africans, nearly all of them enslaved, among its residents.” In addition, about one half of all the ships in the triangular slave trade came through Rhode Island, making the colony one of the anchors on the American side of transatlantic trade. Rhode Island and other colonies in New England had more connections to slavery during the era of the American Revolution than I realized before my research. Read the added commentary…

Scholarship Application Deadline is the End of this Month Feb 2024
The value of financial support for graduate students cannot be overstated. The difficulty in alerting qualified graduate student to apply for that financial aid is made somewhat easier with today’s social media options such as X (fka Twitter) and Facebook.
Regular publications such as Loyalist Trails, Loyalist Gazette and branch newsletters also help to get the word out. However, readers…. you can also help.
The UELAC Loyalist Scholarship is available to Masters and PhD students who are undertaking a program in relevant research. This topic should further Canada’s understanding of the Loyalists and our appreciation of their, or their immediate descendants, influence on Canada.
If you have a contact in an academic institution on either side of the border please think about forwarding the UELAC web address that contains the scholarship details. https://uelac.ca/scholarship/ Please help spread the word.
The deadline for scholarship applications for 2024 is February 29. Sincere thanks to committee volunteers and to the UELAC members and financial supporters of the Loyalist Scholarship program who make it possible for our organization to provide this financial assistance.
The scholarship committee is under the care and guidance of the following who are all UELAC members: Tim Compeau, Heather Smith, Jayne Leake and Christine Manzer.

UELAC Loyalist Directory: New Contributions

Entries which have been added, or revised, this week, with thanks:

  • to Carol Harding UE who informed us that Oldham Gates who had been previously recognized as a Loyalist in fact was a Planter who came to the County of Annapolis in Nova Scotia well before the revolution.
  • to Lynton “Bill” Stewart who contributed information about Sergeant William Hudgin Sr. from Queensbury Parish, Gloucester Co., Virginia, served with the Queens Rangers and settled in Fredericksburgh, Douglas Parish, York, New Brunswick, then South Bay, Prince Edward, Upper Canada. Married Esther Nelson Brown (1765 – 1810) circa 1785 in New Brunswick and they had 13 children.

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

Loyalist Certificates Issued
The publicly available list of certificates issued since 2012 is now updated to end of December 31, 2023.
When a certificate is added there, it is also recorded in the record for the Loyalist Ancestor in the Loyalist Directory.

In the News

Remembering John Baker, believed to be among the last people in Canada born into slavery

By Nicole Williams 3 Feb 2024 CBC News (includes 2 min video)
Baker was born a slave in the 1780s but died a free man in 1871
The story of Ontario, previously called Upper Canada, is one you might be familiar with.
It often describes how European settlers, made up mostly of United Empire Loyalists, left the United States after the chaos of the American Revolution to form settlements along the St. Lawrence River in the late 1790s.
But there’s a lesser known group that some are now trying to highlight: the enslaved people the white settlers brought with them.
“Part of our history is really hidden,” said Natasha Henry-Dixon, an assistant professor of African Canadian history at York University.
Through her research, Henry-Dixon has discovered there were more than 600 Black people who were enslaved in Upper Canada during that time period. One of them was John Baker. Read more…

Events Upcoming

Gov. Simcoe Branch: “Scandal, Slavery and Survival” Wed 7 Feb 7:30 ET

Carol Ufford and Dawn Kelly return with more fascinating stories from New France — unusual deaths, illegitimate children, and of course a little witchcraft and murder. As they tell the stories, Carol and Dawn will show some of the resources they used to trace their family histories. In 2021 Carol and Dawn won the Members’ Choice Award from the Toronto Branch of Ontario Ancestors for their presentations on New France.
More details. Registration on Zoom.

The American Revolution Institute: Mental Maps of the Founders 7 Feb 6:30 ET

By Michael Barone, a senior political analyst for the Washington Examiner and resident fellow emeritus at the American Enterprise Institute.
The American founders were men of high intellect, steely integrity, and enormous ambition—but they were not all of one mind. Without reliable maps of even nearby terrain, they contributed in different, and sometimes conflicting, ways to the expansion of a young republic on the seaboard edge of a continent of whose vast expanses they were largely ignorant. Michael shows how how geographic imagination guided America’s revolutionary leaders. More and registration.

Hamilton Branch: Black Loyalists by Brian McConnell UE Thurs 15 Feb @7:30

Hamilton Branch will hold its annual meeting on Thursday, February 15th at 7:30 in person at St. Matthew on-the-Plain, 126 Plains Rd. E., Burlington or by ZOOM.
Speaker (by Zoom) will be Brian McConnell UE, President, Nova Scotia Branch talking on the oldest Loyalist church in Canada, Old Holy Trinity. We are using this topic to acknowledge Black History month and the Black Loyalists who worshiped at the church and are buried in the adjoining cemetery.
Contact Pat Blackburn UE <uepat624@gmail.com> to register for zoom.

Toronto Branch: Genealogy and Family History at LAC, Nicole Watier 15 Feb @8:30

On Thursday, February 15th at 8:30 pm, Nicole Watier, Genealogy Consultant, Library and Archives Canada / Government of Canada will speak on Genealogy and Family History at Library and Archives Canada. Link is in this email.
Learn what resources are available at Library and Archives Canada to help you trace your Loyalist ancestors. She’ll provide an overview of our website, then dive deeper into frequently consulted topics that concern Loyalists, including military records and land records. Other sources will also be examined, which may be especially useful, especially if you can’t find your ancestors where they are supposed to be!
Nicole Watier is a Genealogy Consultant at Library and Archives Canada with several years of experience in Genealogy and Reference Services. In addition to assisting clients to uncover their family histories, she has presented at conferences and seminars both nationally and internationally.
For access to the virtual meeting, contact Sally Gustin torontouel@gmail.com

Kawartha Branch: Jane Simmons about Giraud/Gerow Family Sun. 18 Feb @2:00

Jane, a Member of the Bay of Quinte Branch UELAC, will speak about her latest book, Shades of Allegiance: Hidden Loyalties of the Giraud/Gerow Family in the American Revolution.
This family saga opens as Daniel Giraud, a Huguenot, escapes the French king’s clutches in the 1690’s, in the southwest of France. Fleeing to New York City; he, his wife, and small child seek safety and religious freedom. The family joins other Huguenots on Long Island Sound.
Now grown, his son persuades him to move north in Westchester County to become a tenant-farmer of the land-owning Van Cortlandt family. Hard work is rewarded by prosperity. Years later, the grandson and inheritor, Daniel Gerow, serves in the Westchester militia in both the French and Indian War, and in the American Revolution.
Life for Daniel and his family becomes one of chance and fate as Cortlandt Manor becomes a nucleus for both Revolutionaries and the British Army. Gerow family members perish or are exiled in the conflict. More details at Kawartha Branch events.
Join Zoom Meeting after 1:30 for 2:00 start https://us06web.zoom.us/j/83426479996?pwd=MXTCozPObMUI23QHAWc0n8uBnatq7Z.1 Meeting ID: 834 2647 9996 Passcode: 078318

From the Social Media and Beyond

  • Newspapers published during the era of the American Revolution contributed to the perpetuation of slavery. Advertised 250 years ago today: “Run away from William Stinson of Dunbarton, in New-Hampshire, a Negro Man, named Jack… TEN DOLLARS Reward.” (Essex Gazette 2/1/1774)
  • An excellent video showing, piece-by-piece, the uniform and some of the accoutrements for soldiers of the 84th Foot (Royal Highland Emigrants) as they would have appeared stationed at Michilimackinac in 1780. Watch video (23 min)
  • January 31, 1774, the British government dismissed Benjamin Franklin as a deputy postmaster in North America after 20 years. Read more…
  • Townsends
  • This week in History
    • 29 Jan 1774, Lord Wedderburn accused Benjamin Franklin of leaking letters to provoke colonials against the Crown. Franklin was berated before the Privy Council. This event turned Loyalist Franklin to the rebel cause.
    • 2 Feb 1774, the sloop “Adventure,” commanded by Robert Champlin and owned by his brothers in Newport, arrived at Cape Coast Castle in what is now Ghana. Champlin traded New England rum for 60 enslaved people and carried most of them to Grenada.
    • 31 Jan 1776 Cambridge, MA New England Indians talk with Gen Washington about supporting Americans in protecting New England. Speeches were made by Sachems, chiefs & warriors of the Caughnawaga, St. Johns & Passamaquoddy tribes of Canada.
    • 28 Jan 1777 Gen John Burgoyne submits an ill-fated plan to the king to isolate New England colonies. His plan revolved around a 3 pronged invasion: one from Quebec via Lake Champlain, another from the Mohawk Valley & a 3rd from NYC.
    • 29 Jan 1777 Kings Bridge (Bronx) NY Facing a British counterassault in bitter cold & a snowstorm approaching, Gen William Heath and his army of 6K abandoned the 11-day siege of Fort Independence.
    • 31 Jan 1777, Washington wrote to Congress about the dire need for money to continue recruitment. This was a recurring problem in running the war.
    • 1 Feb 1777 Gen Philip Schuyler writes Washington that a missionary named Mr. Kirkland arrived from Oneida & Ft Schuyler with intelligence indicating a British attack on Ft Ticonderoga across a frozen Lake Champlain was imminent & pleas for reinforcements.
    • 2 Fen 1777 Lt Col Lewis Fuser ‘s Loyalists invest Fort McIntosh, a small fortified post in Georgia near the border with Florida.
    • 27 Jan 1778 Nassau Bahamas American sloop Providence under Capt John Rathbun captures the city of Providence & raises stars & stripes, a 1st over a foreign city. He also drives off 16-gun privateer Gayton, seizes 5 vessels & releases 20 American prisoners.
    • 28 Jan 1778 The Marquis de Lafayette expresses his contempt for Gen Thomas Conway to Continental Congress President Henry Lauren & refuses to serve with him.
    • 29 Jan 1779 Lt. Col. Archibald Campbell advances up Savannah R. toward Augusta, GA, but is ambushed by Gen Samuel Elbert & Col. John Twiggs. British fight through & seize the abandoned city & gain control of all GA. Loyalists rally & rebels suppressed.
    • 3 Feb 1779 Joseph Reed, president of Pennsylvania’s General Council, brings charges of abuse & mismanagement against Gen Benedict Arnold. An angry Arnold demands an investigation to clear his name. This becomes a core grievance of the disgruntled general.
    • 27 Jan 1780 Morristown NJ To alleviate the suffering of the Army during a harsh winter, Gen Washington overhauls the supply system, dividing NJ into 11 supply districts with food quotas for each. Food supplies increase & the health of the troops improves.
    • 1 Feb 1780 Savannah, GA. A British amphibious force of 14K men under Adm Marriot Arbuthnot & Gen Henry Clinton landed at Tybee Island to rest and refit in preparation for a landing and campaign.
    • 30 Jan 1781 Gen Nathanael Greene and Daniel Morgan join forces along the Catawba River with the army of Gen Charles Cornwallis in hot pursuit.
    • 1 Feb 1781 Wilmington, NC Critical port city is occupied by some 450 British regulars under Maj James Craig, and Loyalists begin rallying to him.
    • 2 Feb 1781 Salisbury NC At Steele’s Tavern, Gen Nathanael Greene is overheard to be despondent about his lack of resources. The owner, Mrs. Elizabeth Maxwell Steele, gives him 2 bags of coins (years’ worth of her earnings), saying he’ll need them more.
  • Clothing and Related:
  • Miscellaneous
    • A spectacular googly-eyed octopus does battle with a lobster in this 2,000 year-old Roman mosaic from Pompeii.
      Fantastic fishy onlookers too!
      From the House of the Geometric Mosaics. Now at the Museo Archeologico Nazionale, Naples.

 

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