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Tarred, Feathered, and Tortured
copyright Stephen Davidson UE
Although many common tools of warfare were readily available to both the Patriot and Loyalist sides of the Revolutionary War, there is one tactic that the rebels had which so-called Tories did not – the violence of the mob. While Patriot mobs stormed Loyalist homes and plundered them, carried off fathers and sons, subjected Loyalists to humiliating tortures, physically abused or stole their livestock, and dragged fellow Americans before committees of vigilante justice, Loyalists did not pick up torches and muskets en masse to terrorize rebel civilians.
Mobs were an instrument of terrorism, compelling many Loyalists to make oaths of allegiance to the rebel cause out of fear of violence at the hands of their neighbours. Patriot mobs left psychological scars as well as physical ones. A Connecticut Loyalist woman went “mad from fear” of the mob during the course of the revolution. A decade after rebels attacked her home, Mary Dibblee was still “as bad as ever“; her family had been “obliged to chain her some part of the time“.
Joseph Galloway had once been the speaker in the Pennsylvania house of assembly. In 1775, Galloway received a box with a letter. Its words read “hang yourself or we will do it for you.”
Despite this threat, he remained in his house until December of 1776. “He considered himself in great danger and was in a degree imprisoned in his own house. Two or three mobs came to his house with a view to tar and feather him, but were diverted by his friends. The last mob was thirteen Dutchmen who, getting drunk, quarreled whether they should tar and feather or hang him.”
The mob, it turns out, was hired by none other than Samuel Adams, a rebel who had signed the Declaration of Independence. In the end, Galloway left his home; following his departure, it was destroyed by the mob.
Strangely, the one fact that most people seem to know about the Loyalists of the American Revolution is that their rebel counterparts punished them by coating them in hot tar and goose feathers. Like the lynching of innocent Blacks in the Deep South, this assault on Loyalists was done by mobs. Very few historical accounts pause to have the reader consider the third degree burns that hot tar would have produced on bare flesh or the number of weeks it would take to safely remove the hardened tar and feathers without inflicting more pain or infection. While it may be amusing to some readers of the history of the War of Independence, tarring and feathering was no laughing matter to those who fell into the hands of violent rebel mobs. The transcripts of the loyalist compensation board hearings bear witness to far too many men who were tortured – either with feathers and tar or by other means.
Anthony Warwick was a loyalist merchant based in Nansemond County, Virginia. Because he refused to deliver tea and gunpowder to rebels and took pork to the British army at Boston instead, Patriots seized him when his ship docked at Portsmouth, Virginia. They then “dragged him ten miles at times by the hair of his head“. Warwick was stripped of shirt, tied to whipping post, and then tarred and feathered in the presence of several hundred spectators. Afterwards, he was “obliged to ride home“. After time as a prisoner, he escaped and eventually found refuge in Britain in March 1777.
James Edgar of Savannah, Georgia had been a collector of customs. In February of 1775, Patriots attacked his home in the middle of the night, plundered his goods, and tore off his clothes. The night ended with Edgar being covered in hot tar and goose feathers. Despite this torture, the Georgia Loyalist did not change his allegiance. He was later wounded by a musket ball in the shoulder while rescuing ships from rebels. At the end of the revolution, he received some compensation, but he had hopes of eventually returning to Georgia.
John Cramond of Norfolk, Virginia was “dragged from family at night” and imprisoned for several months. At some point, rebels tarred and feathered him. Later French forces captured Cramond in early 1781 and took him to Brest, France. He managed to escape, and made his way across Europe to London “with only the clothes on his back“.
Cramond returned to New York, but after 1783, he decided to settle in Jamaica. Charles Watt of Savannah, Georgia, like Cramond, did not leave the details of his torture to posterity, but he, too, was tarred and feathered for refusing to sign a rebel oath of allegiance.
Edward Talbot of Ulster County, New York managed to escape being tarred and feathered in 1775. But early in the following year rebels captured him, sent him to Sharon, Connecticut and put him “to hard labour“. He escaped imprisonment after three month. He and his family of six found refuge in Nova Scotia in 1783.
Benjamin Worth of Baskenridge, New Jersey was another Loyalist who settled in Nova Scotia at the end of the American Revolution. Although he was not subjected to a coat of hot tar, after rebels captured and tried him, they branded his hand. It would serve as a lifelong reminder of his wartime experiences.
James Herriot, a cooper in Savannah, Georgia was fortunate enough to leave a Patriot jail due to a prisoner exchange. However, after being reunited with his family, he was “assaulted and bruised by inhabitants“. He was sick for “some time”. Then, in July 1783, rebels seized Herriot and other Loyalists at night and subjected them to the “punishment of pumping”. This was a form of torture that was even worse than being coated in bubbling tar and feathers.
Similar to water boarding, the “punishment of the pump” involved stripping a victim, tying him to a post, and putting his head under a pump that shot out cold water. While not initially painful, the continued flow begins to feel like heavy blows from a rod. Finally, the victim’s senses are overwhelmed. Breathing is more and more difficult; his sight dims, and he is unable to move. Upon losing consciousness, the victim is untied, put in a bed and covered in warm clothes.
In Herriot’s case, he was subjected to the pump until “he was deaf and almost stupid“. After recovering, he was given 48 hours to leave town. He and his large family eventually found sanctuary in Liverpool, England. As he was born in Britain, this may have been Herriot’s hometown.
These are the accounts of just a few Loyalists whose tales of torture can be found in the transcripts of the compensation hearings – transcripts that represent a very small percentage of the Loyalist experience. It is impossible to give a precise number of the men who were so brutally treated by former friends and neighbours.
Rebel accounts of their loyal peers often paint loyal Americans as men who were anything but brave. Patriots perpetuated the myth that “every Tory is a coward; a man under such influence, though he might be cruel, could never be brave.” Clearly, these all too brief stories of Loyalists who were tortured, tarred and feathered demonstrate that it took courage to maintain an allegiance to the British crown when all around them were rising up in arms.
To secure permission to reprint this article contact the author at stephendavids@gmail.com.

Henry Clinton’s Plan to End the War
by Gene Procknow 5 March 2024 Journal of the American Revolution
The General Sir Henry Clinton papers at the William C. Clements Library in Ann Arbor, Michigan, contain a curious document, “A proposal to Subdue the Rebellion and a Sketch of the Necessary Rout for that purpose.” The British military plan envisioned a summer campaign attacking north from New York City to capture the Hudson River and Connecticut River valleys with a force of sixteen thousand soldiers, supported by naval ships and landing craft. Clinton’s principal biographer, William Willcox, does not reference the campaign plan in his authoritative monograph. While historians have thoroughly analyzed Gen. John Burgoyne’s 1777 attempt to capture the Lake Champlain and Hudson River Valleys from Quebec, no historian has interpreted Clinton’s previously overlooked plan. The plan’s obscure nature and London’s strategic shift to counter the French entry into the war have left it unaddressed, to the detriment of better understanding Clinton’s generalship.
At the time of the British planning, Clinton served as second in command to Gen. William Howe. Placing Clinton in charge in New York City, Howe led a tactically successful campaign to capture the Rebel capital city of Philadelphia but failed in the strategically important objective of thoroughly defeating Washington’s army. Clinton’s principal orders were to defend New York City. However, when the New York commander learned of Burgoyne’s distress in the Saratoga region, he led an attacking force up the Hudson River to relieve pressure on Burgoyne and potentially link up with his army at Albany. Read more…

Did Charles Lee Disobey George Washington’s Attack Order at Monmouth?
by Gary Ecelbarger 7 March 2024 Journal of the American Revolution
The court martial of Maj. Gen. Charles Lee, who had been George Washington’s second in command during the Monmouth campaign, centered on three charges against him for his conduct during the Battle of Monmouth, fought near Freehold, New Jersey, on June 28, 1778. Lee was found guilty by the court on all three charges. The first two charges have been analyzed with a strong and cogent defense of Lee in two recent book-length treatments of the campaign and Lee’s role in it. Their explanation and analysis of the first charge—”For disobedience of orders, in not attacking the enemy on the 28th of June, agreeable to repeated instructions”—has focused primarily on the troop movements and opening of battle during the morning hours (7:00 A.M. to the forenoon).
Testimonies in the Charles Lee court martial papers allow an updated analysis of that first charge. The following analysis highlights a council held the day before the battle and written instructions that followed half a day later. This detailed exploration of Washington’s instructions to Lee and Lee’s reaction to the orders is limited to his decisions before he left Englishtown for the Monmouth battlefield at 7:00 A.M. on June 28.
By late Saturday morning, June 27, the day before the Battle of Monmouth, Maj. Gen. Charles Lee commanded all the American troops within a six-mile radius of Monmouth Court House. The strength of his advanced corps approached 8,500 Continental and militia officers and men, primarily infantry but also including a few hundred artillerists and dragoons. Lee commanded more than 40 percent of Washington’s Grand Army in the region. Most of Lee’s corps was concentrated near Englishtown, five and a half miles by direct road west of the courthouse. The Englishtown force consisted of 5,000 “rank and file” Continental infantry (6,000 including commissioned and noncommissioned officers), as well as about 200 artillerists manning a dozen guns. Read more…

Hessian Soldiers Travelling to America: Newport RI: Winter Quarters Feb 1779
From a Hessian Diary of the American Revolution.
This excerpt from the diary of Johan Conrad Dohla (170 pages).

1779 – Feb: At Newport, Rhode Island – in winter quarters (Continued – page 67)
1 February. The so-called Countrymen during the night made an attack on the rebels in New England and, in the region of Bristol, captured an enemy schooner armed with six cannon of 3- and 6-pounds, as well as some provisions. They also drove 280 sheep and 18 cattle off and, fortunately, brought their booty back without losing a man. These Countrymen are inhabitants who have sworn allegiance to the King of England and receive English pay and provisions, and in this war perform valuable service. What they capture, however, they keep for themselves. Should one of them be captured by the rebels, however, he is hanged without mercy, and they neither give nor take quarter.
3 February. Corporal [Johann Georg] Schultheiss, of the Ansbach Grenadier Company, died in the regimental hospital after previously having had both legs amputated.
5 February. Between six and eight o’clock in the evening a large red area, like blood, was seen in the sky toward the east, and this persisted for an entire hour.
6 February. Our large command returned from Prince Dauneck, having been relieved by the English. This Prince Dauneck is a strong fort lying three English miles from Newport on the west. There are twenty-four cannon of 18- and 12-pounds inside. It is situated on a steep, stony height and with its cannon covers the entrance to the harbor very well.
7 February. During the evening a recruit from Molitor’s Company, by the name of [Johann] Wellh€fer, from F†rth, left his quarters. He acted like a lunatic and ran around, confused in mind and thought. He went as far as the end of the island and was captured not far from Bristol Ferry, near B†nau Redoubt, by the Hessian command on duty, and delivered to the regiment the next day.
9 February. At midnight, in Newport, many young people were seized by the English sailors and immediately taken with force onto a man-of-war.
25 February. An English wood fleet, escorted by three frigates, came into the harbor.

1 March. The month of March began with beautiful, warm weather. The ground turned green and all vegetation burst forth.
An epidemic of scurvy, or the so-called scarlet fever, broke out in our regiment, so that many troops had to go to the hospital. The English doctors and medics prescribed bathing frequently with sea water and keeping the feet warm; also, rinsing the mouth out with sea water or, better yet, with good vinegar, to clean and stimulate the gums. This scurvy attack caused red and blue spots on the legs, and the gums became black, foul, and swollen. The teeth loosened and they could be pulled out easily with the fingers, so that nothing hard could be chewed.
12 March. Today we received four men who had been under arrest by the regiment, namely, two privates, Bechert and Gr‡ssel, of the Colonel’s Company, one private, [Ludwig Friedrich] Machold, of Beust’s Company, and Piper [Johann] Thierauf, of Eyb’s Company. They had committed the theft of a white English linen from a merchant in the city.
13 March. Sentence was carried out on the four arrested individuals mentioned above. Privates Bechert and Gr‡ssel had to run the gauntlet sixteen times each, Piper Thierauf, eight times; all past two hundred men. Private Machold received thirty lashes. Today Private [Johann Egidius] Suffarth, born at Lauenstein, of Colonel Seybothen’s Company, died in the local hospital.
17 March. Admiral Carlston arrived here from England with a fleet of thirty sail, with provisions.
24 March. Being indisposed with scurvy, I had to pay someone to take my watch.
27 March. During the afternoon I went into the English hospital, which was a Quaker meetinghouse. Today Private [Johann Wilhelm Karl] Schwendner, of Molitor’s Company, died of scurvy in the field hospital.
(to be continued)

Advertised on 8 March 1774: “Best Bohea TEA, Such as Fishes never drink!!”
What was advertised in a colonial American newspaper 250 years ago today?

“Best Bohea TEA, Such as Fishes never drink!!”

Nearly three months after the destruction of tea now known as the Boston Tea Party, William Beadle of Wethersfield, Connecticut, published an advertisement that alluded to the event. “Best Bohea TEA, Such as Fishes never drink!!” he proclaimed in a notice in the March 8, 1774, edition of the Connecticut Courant. Two manicules, one at each end, directed readers to the phrase “Such as Fishes never drink!!” The double exclamation points gave the comment even more exuberance, especially considering that exclamation points rarely appeared in eighteenth-century newspaper notices. Beadle’s advertisement certainly differed from those placed by merchants and shopkeepers who assured prospective customers and the public that they did not stock tea and, by extension, opposed Parliament’s attempts to impose duties on the colonies. Read more…

Women Healers in Early America – podcast
By Susan H. Brandt 4 March 2024 in Ben Franklin’s World
Susan H. Brandt is a historian and former nurse practitioner. She’s a Lecturer at the University of Colorado, Colorado Springs. Her research focuses on women and gender and the history of medicine and health in early America, and she’s the author of Women Healers: Gender, Authority, and Medicine in Early Philadelphia.
During our investigation of women healers, Susan reveals information about the roles women performed as healers during the early modern period; How women created and passed down medical knowledge from one culture and one generation to the next; And, why and how women’s roles as healers and medical practitioners became obscured and erased form our collective historical memory. Listen in…

Loyalist Certificates Issued to end of January 2024
The publicly available list of certificates issued since 2012 is now updated to end of January 31, 2024.
When a certificate is added there, it is also recorded in the record for the Loyalist Ancestor in the Loyalist Directory.

‘Not voting at all’: the election of an imprisoned [UK] MP in 1769
The History of [UK] Parliament 7 March 2024
2024 represents the 250th anniversary of John Wilkes’s re-election for Middlesex and election as Lord Mayor of London. It was by any measure a remarkable achievement for a man who had been expelled from Parliament and imprisoned; but what of those who were so determined to cast their votes for someone Parliament deemed incapable of being elected? Dr Robin Eagles looks again at the Wilkes affair, 250 years on.
On 20 October 1774 John Wilkes was returned to Parliament at the general election as one of the two MPs for the county of Middlesex. The election was uncontested and rounded off a successful year for Wilkes who had also just been elected Lord Mayor of London. This all might have been unremarkable enough were it not for the fact that he had previously been expelled the House on multiple occasions and posed a serious challenge to both the government and parliamentary authorities when many in the country had been on the lookout for just such an anti-hero.
Wilkes had long been a controversial figure. He had come to prominence as the proprietor and one of the main authors of the anti-government newspaper, The North Briton, for which he had ended up being arrested. Although the courts released him on the grounds of his privilege as MP for Aylesbury, Parliament later concluded that privilege did not extend to cases of seditious libel, leaving him free to be convicted and expelled. Read more…

Book: In Dependence: Women and the Patriarchal State in Revolutionary America
By Jacqueline Beatty
Examines the role of the American Revolution in the everyday lives of women.
Patriarchal forces of law, finance, and social custom restricted women’s rights and agency in revolutionary America. Yet women in this period exploited these confines, transforming constraints into vehicles of female empowerment. Through a close reading of thousands of legislative, judicial, and institutional pleas across seventy years of history in three urban centers, Jacqueline Beatty illustrates the ways in which women in the revolutionary era asserted their status as dependents, demanding the protections owed to them as the assumed subordinates of men. In so doing, they claimed various forms of aid and assistance, won divorce suits, and defended themselves and their female friends in the face of patriarchal assumptions about their powerlessness. Ultimately, women in the revolutionary era were able to advocate for themselves and express a relative degree of power not in spite of their dependent status, but because of it.
Their varying degrees of success in using these methods, however, was contingent on their race, class, and socio-economic status, and the degree to which their language and behavior conformed to assumptions of Anglo-American femininity. In Dependence thus exposes the central paradoxes inherent in American women’s social, legal, and economic positions of dependence in the Revolutionary era, complicating binary understandings of power and weakness, of agency and impotence, and of independence and dependence. Significantly, the American Revolution provided some women with the language and opportunities in which to claim old rights―the rights of dependents―in new ways. Most importantly, In Dependence shows how women’s coming to consciousness as rights-bearing individuals laid the groundwork for the activism and collective petitioning efforts of later generations of American feminists.
Publisher ‏ : ‎ NYU Press (April 25, 2023)
ISBN-10 ‏ : ‎ 1479812129; ISBN-13 ‏ : ‎ 978-1479812127

Loyalist Certificates: A Berry Triple Double
Dorothy, Donald and Shawn, three generations of the Berry Family celebrated the approval of their Loyalist Certificates, to not one but two Loyalists – a Triple Double.
See photo – Center: Dorothy Berry, UE (93), Left: Donald Berry, UE (73) and Right: Shawn Berry, UE (47).

Ebenezer Jones UEL, born in 1723 in Dutchess NY Province was a recruiter for the King’s Orange Rangers. After the war he settled in the Home District; 1780s Saltfleet Township. See more in the Loyalist Directory.

Jacob Smith (Schmidt) UEL was born 9 Sep 1739, Amwell Twp, NJ and served in the New Jersey Volunteers. Married to Elizabeth Lewis, they had several children. They resettled in Glanford Township, Wentworth County, Lot 4, Concession 1, Home District (Ontario) Aug 1788. Jacob and his wife along with other family members are buried on the family farm (Conc 1, Lot 4, Glanford Twp) in the Smith family cemetery at Ryckman’s corner. More details

Sir Guy Carleton Branch Request: Missing Newsletter
The Sir Guy Carleton Branch is trying to complete it’s collection of ‘The Ottawa Loyalist‘, our Branch newsletter. Does anyone have a copy of Volume 10, number 1 (1992, #2 was published in June).
If you do, could you please scan and send to us at carletonuel@hotmail.com
Rosemarie Pleasant UE, President, Sir Guy Carleton Branch

General interest: The otter, the urchin and the Haida
By Brad Badelt 1 March 2024 Canadian Geographic
In a strange twist of fate, it was nuclear testing in Alaska that brought back the insatiable, beautiful, long-missed, never forgotten sea otter to the waters of British Columbia. In the mid 1960s, at the peak of Cold War tensions, the U.S. Atomic Energy Commission was conducting nuclear trials in the Aleutian Islands, off the western tip of Alaska. Public concern over the testing was rising, and a rag-tag group of 12 activists set sail from Vancouver in an old fishing boat. On the journey over, the group settled on a name: Greenpeace.
When Atomic Energy Commission staff discovered a population of cuddly sea otters at their next test site, they feared a public-relations disaster. To avoid an outcry, they captured and relocated hundreds of otters — airlifting them in aquarium-like tanks to sites in southeast Alaska, Oregon, Washington and the west coast of Vancouver Island. The 89 sea otters relocated to Vancouver Island were the first British Columbia had seen in 40 years.
Made up of some 150 islands off the coast of northern B.C., Haida Gwaii is the ancestral territory of the Haida people (roughly half of the islands’ population today is Indigenous). Sea otters — known as Ku or Kuu in the Haida language, depending on the clan — are an iconic creature for the Haida, appearing in dozens of oral histories and depicted on countless totem poles. In one Haida history, a hunter kills a sea otter without giving thanks for its life. When he gifts the pelt to his wife, the sea otter springs back to life and swims away. His wife gives chase but is captured by a pod of SGaan, or killer whales, leading to an adventurous rescue.
For nearly a century and a half, the archipelago remained otter-free. But in the last decade or so, rumours began swirling that the charismatic creature had returned. Like reports of Bigfoot, there were intermittent sightings: usually of lone male sea otters, floating on their backs and munching on spiny urchins. The nearest population to Haida Gwaii was some 130 kilometres east, across KandaliiGwii (Hecate Strait) — a gruelling swim, even for a hungry otter. But in 2019, news broke that staff with the Gwaii Haanas National Park Reserve, National Marine Conservation Area and Haida Heritage Site, in southern Haida Gwaii, had spotted a female with pups: proof that sea otters had finally come home.
The sea otters’ return is often seen as a heartwarming conservation story, but it also brings its challenges. Sea otters are voracious shellfish eaters. Read more…

In the News

Are you descended from a United Empire Loyalist (UEL)?
By Mike Woodcock, U.E. 7 March 2024 in CARP – Vancouver Island
United Empire Loyalists (UEL) were members of the thirteen colonies who remained loyal to the Crown during the American Revolution and when the conflict was over, were the first political refugees to come to the northern colonies (Present day Quebec, Ontario, Nova Scotia, New Brunswick, and Prince Edward Island) that eventually became Canada. Their loyalty to the great principle of unity of the Empire was recognized by Lord Dorchester’s Proclamation of 1789 stating these Loyalist and all their children and their descendants by either sex, are to be distinguished by U.E. being affixed to their names. Read more…

Events Upcoming

Victoria BC Genealogical Society: Loyalists Come West! – United Empire Loyalists in Early Victoria
Thurs 14 Mar 7:00 PM PT

After an explanation on the emergence of the Loyalists, Mike Woodcock will focus on some fascinating early UEL descendants who made their way to Victoria. He will then trace the early Victoria UELAC branch (1927) development and the early member’s efforts to develop UEL presence and legacy in Victoria.
Mike is the Past President and Executive Member of the Victoria Branch UELAC) and is also a Director with the Victoria Genealogical Society (VGS). To raise the profile of United Empire Loyalists on Vancouver Island, Mike has developed an online Loyal-List with profiles of over 800 UELAC descendants found here between 1860-1950. Please visit the site and find a Loyalist ancestor. Mike continues to refine this genealogical resource and welcomes additional information and edits through the site.
https://uelvictoria.ca/
Details and registration – a small registration fee applies.

From the Social Media and Beyond

  • Happy International Women’s Day! Did you know that women played a number of important roles in the American Revolution, including acting as spies? In this clip, author K.M. Waldvogel shares the story of Molly Rinker — the Patriots’ knitting spy! (4 min). Watch…
  • Townsends
  • This week in History
    • 4 March 1745, Warsaw, Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth. Famed horseman Casimir Pulaski is born. When just fifteen, Casimir, his father, and other Polish nobles in resisting the Russian and Prussian meddling in Polish affairs. In the spring of 1777, he met Benjamin Franklin in Paris. Franklin asked him to serve in the Continental Army, where he became the father of the American cavalry. Pułaski landed in America in June 1777. Pulaski fought at Brandywine, at Germantown, and in the winter campaign of 1777–78. Congress promoted him to general and named him chief of the cavalry arm of the Continental Army. He organized a mixed corps of cavalry and infantry in 1778 called The Pułaski Legion. In May 1779, Pulaski’s Legion defended Charleston. Grapeshot cut him down at Savannah on October 9, 1779, while leading a charge against the British defense works. The father of the American cavalry died aboard the Wasp on 11 October and was buried at sea, although some say he was later interred on land. The people of Savannah, Georgia, honored him with the Pulaski Monument in Monterey Square. Arkansas’s Pulaski County is named in honor of him. The Chicago area celebrates Casimir Pulaski Day. United States Senate granted Pulaski, “The Father of the American Cavalry,” honorary U.S. citizenship. image
    • 4 Mar 1766. British House of Commons voted to repeal the Stamp Act. The resolution was then introduced to the House of Lords on the 17th and passed the same day. image
    • 5 March 1770 Boston, Massachusetts. When a mob harasses and threatens British soldiers under Captain Thomas Preston, the redcoats open fire, killing five colonials and wounding eight. The so-called “Boston Massacre” sparked outrage and protests and became a rallying point against “oppression” in pamphlets, posters, etc. The crowd eventually broke up when Acting Governor Thomas Hutchinson assured them of an inquiry into the tragedy. The incident was heavily publicized as “a massacre” by leading Patriots such as Paul Revere and Samuel Adams. British troops had been stationed in Massachusetts since 1768 to support crown-appointed officials and enforce unpopular Parliamentary legislation. image
    • 6 Mar 1770 Boston, MA. 5K angry citizens led by Samuel Adams gathered the day after the “Massacre” & resolved “nothing could be expected to restore peace & prevent carnage, but an immediate removal of troops.” The troops were removed before sunset. image
    • 7 Mar 1774 London. King George III charges colonists in Boston with attempting to injure British commerce, paving the way for the closing of the port to punish colonists for the Boston Tea Party. image
    • March 8, 1774, Bostonians woke up to discover there had been a second destruction of tea, with 28 chests emptied off the ship “Fortune” into Boston harbor.
      Of course, some Bostonians already knew that.
    • March 9, 1774, a brief tornado touched down in Nantucket harbor at about 8pm and “totally destroyed the Light-House on that Island, besides several Shops, Houses, &c.” No injuries were reported in Boston newspapers.
    • 8 Mar 8 1775 Thomas Paine’s African Slavery in America was published. The first prominent article in the United States called for the emancipation of slaves and the abolition of slavery. https://twitter.com/SWOConnell/status/1766051987819237759 image
    • 2 March 1776 Cambridge, Massachusetts. General George Washington ordered batteries at Lechmere Point to bombard British defenses in occupied Boston as a decoy. At the same time, Brigadier General John Thomas sneaked 2,000 men with more cannons into position at Dorchester Heights just south of Boston. The fire from these gun emplacements overlooking the city sealed the fate of the British garrison—the final stages of the siege of Boston now commence. image
    • The house shakes…with the roar of the cannon. No sleep for me tonight.” – Abigail Adams, writing during the colonists’ bombardment of British-held Boston, March 2, 1776
    • 2 March 1776 Patriot militia units attempt to prevent the capture of supply ships in and around the Savannah River by a small fleet of the Royal Navy in the Battle of the Rice Boat. image
    • 3 March 1776 Nassau, Bahamas 1st Amphibious Landing by Continental (not US until after 2 Jul) Marines Attack on forts at New Providence were to recover arms & gunpowder Virginia Royal Gov Lord Dunmore removed from the provincial arsenal in Williamsburg. image
    • 3 Mar 1776 Silas Deane, a Conn. delegate to the Continental Congress, left for France on a secret mission to meet with French Foreign Minister Vergennes to stress the need for military stores as colonies were moving toward “total separation” from Britain. image
    • 4 Mar 1776 Boston MA. Gen John Thomas leads a force of 2K in a night move to seize Dorchester Heights and dig entrenchments under the cover of night and artillery fire. By morning, continental infantry & riflemen are entrenched along with the heavy guns. image
    • 6 Mar 1776 NY Provincial Congress instructs Maj William Malcolm to dismantle Sandy Hook at the approach to NY harbor to prevent the lighthouse from helping the British reach NYC. He removed the lamps, but the British entered the harbor. image
    • 8 March 1777 Amboy, New Jersey. The Battle of Amboy or Punk Hill. General William “Scotch Wille” Maxwell’s militia and Continentals surprised and attacked a British foraging party, suffering three wounded. The Engagement spread from Punk Hill at Amboy to Bonhamtown and Metuchen. The Americans had the upper hand, but there was too little cover to pursue the foragers. Later, it was discovered that the Commander of the British forces, General William Howe, was at Bonhamtown during the engagement. With a bit of luck, the war might have gone in a different direction. However, the forage war in New Jersey cost the British more casualties and more deaths than in all the pitched battles (Long Island, Harlem, White Plains) of the previous year. Image Image 2
    • 2 Mar 1778 Philadelphia PA. Congressional delegation to Valley Forge recommends numerous improvements in military procedures. image
    • 7 Mar 1778, London. The Minister for the Colonies, Lord George Germain, appointed Gen Henry Clinton to replace Gen William Howe as commander in chief of British forces in North America. Clinton had long been Howe’s number 2. image
    • 7 Mar 1778 Barbados, West Indies. Capt Nicholas Biddle’s 32-gun frigate, USS Randolph explodes killing him & 311 crew during nighttime engagement with 64-gun HMS Yarmouth commanded by Capt Nicholas Vincent. image
    • 8 Mar 1778 In response to the Franco-American alliance, Lord North directs Adm Richard Howe’s fleet to raid the New England coast. He directs Gen Henry Clinton to initiate the “Southern strategy” with a planned attack on Charleston, SC. image
    • 3 Mar 1779 Brier Creek GA. American forces under Col. John Ashe & Samuel Elbert are surprised& defeated by Lt. Col. James Mark Prevost’s brigade from Florida. Slipping 72nd Highlander behind the rebels, Georgia is lost to the rebels. image
    • 3 Mar 1780 Charleston SC. A brigade of NC Continental Line arrives to reinforce Gen Benjamin Lincoln’s garrison. But militia begins to leave the city. image
    • 8 Mar 1780 Charleston SC. British Adm Marriot Arbuthnot runs several frigates & transports past Fort Moultrie, securing the harbor and further threatening the port city. image
    • 5 Mar 1780 Charleston SC. In preparation for a British attack on the port city, Gov John Rutledge employs 600 slaves to construct earthworks and a stonework dubbed, “The Citadel.” It would be the site of a future military academy of the same name. image
    • 2 Mar 1781 Clapp’s Mill, NC. Patriot forces under Col Henry Lee, local militia & Catawba Braves surprise Loyalist cavalry under Lt Col Banastre Tarleton. The ambush failed, but the attack would indirectly lead to Guilford Courthouse. image
    • 6 Mar 1781 Wibowo Swamp, SC. Col Francis Marion’s partisans fend off a detachment of British & Loyalists led by Lt Col John Watson. Marion’s partisans suffered 18 killed & wounded. image
    • 6 March 1781 Wetzell’s Mill, North Carolina. General Charles Cornwallis attempts to cut off Colonel Otho William’s division before it can join General Nathanael Greene’s main body north of Reedy Fork Creek. Cornwallis sends a British force of about 1,000 infantry under the command of Colonel James Webster, supported by cavalry led by Lieutenant Colonel Banastre Tarleton’s cavalry on an early morning fog, masking their advance. But the British were discovered before Webster could cut off Williams’s force. With Light Horse Harry Lee’s cavalry covering the rear, Williams’s men hurried north and sloshed across the ford at Wetzell’s Mill on Reedy Fork Creek, where Williams decided to make a stand. After some initial stubborn fighting, Webster got part of his command across the creek, forcing the rebels into a hasty retreat. Both sides had around fifty casualties. The British drove the Americans from the field, but the delaying action helped foil the real objective: disrupting Greene’s supply line. Cornwallis soon ordered his forces back. image
    • 6 Mar 1781 Newport, RI. Gen Washington arrives to confer with Gen Jean-Baptiste, comte de Rochambeau, to confer on strategy against the British. They would eventually agree on a bold plan to move Franco-American forces south. image
    • 4 Mar 1782 Lt Col William Hull leads a raid against Morrisania, NY, taking over 50 prisoners while incurring 25 casualties. The Bronx was often a no man’s land in the struggle between patriots and the Loyalists, British & Hessians. image
    • 4 March 1791, Vermont joined the Union—the first state admitted after the 13 original colonies. The Green Mountain State is home to lush mountain ranges, world-famous maple syrup, vibrant fall foliage, & rich cultural heritage.
  • Clothing and Related:
  • Miscellaneous
    • Pristine sweater in parcel posted in 1807. Thursday 29 February 2024 UK National Archives.
      A 200-year-old sweater in a traditional Faroese knit has been found in a stash of 19th-century letters at The National Archives in our Prize Papers collection. The jumper, handknitted in vibrantly coloured fine wool, was intended for a woman in Denmark, but never reached its destination because the vessel on which it was shipped was seized by the British Navy during the Second Battle of Copenhagen.
      The same shipment contained a sample of fine women’s knee length woollen stockings and fabric samples. The export of men’s stockings was a key part of the Faroese economy at this time when ‘wool was gold’ for these island communities. Read more, photo…
    • Over almost 4 years as a licensed Thames mudlark, I have assembled a large collection of buttons – from Victorian fly buttons stamped with the tailor’s name and address to medieval lead alloy decorated buttons. Which is your favourite? [Note: be sure to scroll down.] See photos…

Last Post: Colleen Dennis (Moore) Rennie
Monday, January 7th, 1946 – Monday, March 4th, 2024
Colleen first saw the light of day on 26th January, 1946, and finally closed her eyes on 4th March, 2024. Those brown eyes fairly sparkled in reflecting her many splendored world across her 78 years.
Colleen was an only child of missionary and united empire loyalist heritage. From childhood she exhibited a deep understanding and love for all creatures great and small. She excelled as an equestrian and was rarely without a beloved horse and well-indulged dog. She embraced the role of a single mother with grace and resilience, and worked as a graphic artist before joining the staff of the Brampton Salvation Army as a Family Violence Counselor at their Emergency Shelter. Her professional journey was marked by compassion and dedication, touching the lives of many individuals in need.
In the early 1900s, Colleen’s grandmother purchased 400 acres of Kinmount’s cedar and pine forest. It was this Dutch Line property and the broader Kinmount community which rooted Colleen’s upbringing and established her love of the outdoors and of the water. Here, after retirement, she and Desmond designed, built, and gloried in their log home. Despite facing challenges along the way, including a diagnosis of early-onset Alzheimer’s disease, Colleen approached life with courage, humour, strength and a loud, joyous whinny.
More at Gordon A. Monk Funeral Home, Minden ON

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