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Mary Serjeant: A Loyalist Refugee in England, Part One of Three
copyright Stephen Davidson UE
“Tho’ I have lived in this place near ten years yet have made very few acquaintances as the people of England are so different in every respect that you would hardly suppose they were of the same species as the Americans: stiff, starch, imperious, haughty, suspicious, uncharitable wretches, who ridicule & slander their best friends as soon as their back is turned.“
Mary Browne Serjeant did not hold back as she wrote to her sister about her experiences as a Loyalist widow in April of 1789. An Anglican minister’s daughter and then an Anglican minister’s wife, Mary spent the last decades of her life living off of government allowances. She maintained a correspondence with her sister in New Hampshire, and her surviving letters have given posterity a glimpse into the repercussions that the American Revolution had upon the life of a refugee who sought sanctuary in Great Britain.
Mary was born in Providence, Rhode Island sometime around the year 1736. She was the third daughter of the Rev. Arthur and Mary (Cox) Browne, and was the first of their children to be born in the American colonies. Sent to Rhode Island by the Society for the Propagation of the Gospel in Foreign Parts, Arthur and his wife already had a number of children: Thomas, Marmaduke, Arthur Jr., Peter, Lucy, and Jane. Before the American Revolution threw the family into chaos, the Brownes would have Anne and Elizabeth as well.
In the year that Mary was born, her father became the first Anglican minister in Portsmouth, New Hampshire. As a clergyman of the state church, Rev. Browne was part of a social circle that included John Wentworth, the royal governor of New Hampshire and other Anglican missionaries sent to advance the denomination in the American colonies.
One of those Anglican missionaries was the Rev. Winwood Serjeant, a British widower who was the assistant rector of St. Philip’s Church, in Charleston, South Carolina. Serjeant met Mary Browne within seven years of arriving in the southern colonies. The circumstances of their courtship are not known, but the couple were married in 1765. The groom was 40 years old; the bride was 29.
Within a year, the couple had their first child, a son named Marmaduke in honour of Mary’s older brother. He would be referred to as “Duke” in family correspondence. In 1767, the Serjeant family moved to Cambridge, Massachusetts, little knowing that its Christ Church would be Winwood’s last congregation in the colonies.
Mary must have been excited to be living closer to her family in New Hampshire and to be placed in what many perceived as a prestigious church. Although less than two dozen families attended Christ Church, they were generally well off and were supporters of the British crown. According to a letter that Mary’s husband wrote, “six of them [were] possessed of ample fortunes, the rest in very easy circumstances were retired from business.”
But while Winwood and Mary were happy to be in Cambridge, many of their new neighbours resented their presence. Those of other denominations not only feared the growth of the Anglican Church in Massachusetts, but were also leery of the political influence members of Serjeant’s congregation might have on the faculty and students of nearby Harvard College.
Two years after arriving in Cambridge, Mary gave birth to a daughter, the third generation in the Browne female line to be given the name Mary. A sister, Elizabeth, was born in 1774.
Parish life bore no resemblance to Massachusetts’ growing political turmoil in the late 1760s and early 1770s. When a mock battle was held near Mary’s home in October of 1772, her husband wrote, “My House as full of Ladies as it could hold: Cost me a great deal of Tea, bread & butter & wine.“
The following year was one of loss for Mary Serjeant. Both her parents died within months of one another. The Browne family’s enslaved man, Jesse, was sold to planter in the West Indies. So distraught was he at being taken away from all that he had known in New Hampshire, the “poor creature threw himself overboard on the voyage and perished miserably.” The despair and trauma of being uprooted would not be limited to New England’s slaves.
Persecution of Massachusetts’ Loyalists was on the rise, and by the summer of 1774, the Serjeant family and the congregation of Christ Church had to flee Cambridge, seeking sanctuary in Boston, the coastal town of Newburyport, or far off Nova Scotia. Winwood, Mary and their three young children took refuge in Boston.
Excerpts from Winwood’s letters of that time reveal a city in chaos. “”Boston is in a terrible situation, & will be much more so if they do not submit to government before the fall…” [June] “There is no house to be had in Boston for love or money. The troops and the tories that are daily coming in there for refuge crowd the town.” [October] “God only knows what may be the event of this rashness.”
The Serjeant family eventually moved to Kingston, New Hampshire where Mary’s husband hoped to find “a peaceful retirement among rural peasants“. However, the divisive politics of the era compelled Winwood to later seek refuge along the coast in Newburyport, Massachusetts.
Somehow the Serjeants learned of the conditions back in their beloved Cambridge. Patriot sympathizers had ransacked their house. Winwood wrote that they had “lost not less than £300 in household furniture and books destroyed and pillaged.” His church building was being used as a barracks for the militia, and the lead pipes from its organ had been melted down to make bullets for firing on British troops.
The family’s economic and political difficulties were further compounded by Winwood’s drastic decline in health. At the age of 55, he fell prey to a “paralytic disorder” (perhaps a stroke?) that his contemporaries believed was “occasioned by the severities imposed on him in Boston by the Rebels to punish him for his Zeal and steady attachment to the Church and King of Great Britain.“
Mary Serjeant had to make some hard decisions. Should she leave her siblings and all that she knew to seek sanctuary or should she remain in Massachusetts in the hope that Britain would quash the rebellious colonies? In the end, she decided to set sail for England in 1778.
Mary would later write, “”you do not know half the troubles and Fatigues I have gone through, in besieged towns, Shipwrecked, hunger, and Cold.”
At the age of 42, Mary found herself in a country she did now know with an invalid husband, three young children, and no means of financial support. With few friends to support her family, it became her responsibility to find a home as well as an income to sustain them. How she managed to do so will be told in in next week’s Loyalist Trails.
To secure permission to reprint this article contact the author at stephendavids@gmail.com.

BOOK REVIEW: Seized with the Temper of The Times: Identity and Rebellion in Pre-Revolutionary America
Author: Abby Chandler (Westholme, 2023)
Review by Christian McBurney 11 March 2024 Jpurnal of the American Revolutionar
In the past fifteen years or so, there has been, happily, an explosion of books published on battles and other military aspects of the American Revolutionary War. In the same time frame, far fewer books have been published addressing political developments in the decade prior to 1775 that led to war. As we approach the 250th anniversaries of the Battles of Lexington and Concord and the Declaration of Independence, more of the latter types of books are needed.
Abby Chandler’s excellent Seized with the Temper of The Times: Identity and Rebellion in Pre-Revolutionary America helps to close the gap. It deals with two lightly populated colonies, Rhode Island and North Carolina. But both colonies have a fascinating history in the years from 1764 to 1775.
Chandler’s book is a reminder that while the imperial crisis with Britain was front-and-center, each colony also had its own unique political and economic dynamics and tensions. This was case with North Carolina in particular. The Regulator Rebellion spanning from 1768 to 1771 was one of the outstanding conflicts in the thirteen colonies prior to the Battles of Lexington and Concord. Rhode Island saw internal divisions arise from the Ward-Hopkins political controversy, but unlike in North Carolina, the two sides eventually came together to oppose British policies. Read more…

Hugh Hughes and Washington’s Retreat: American Principles and Practicalities
by Ethan King 14 March 2024 Journal of the American Revolution
The Livingston mansion was a large frame house with a colonnaded front porch and four marble chimneys. The chimneys were Italian imports and illustrated the worldliness and influence of the house’s prosperous merchant owner, Philip Livingston. Livingston, though, was absent and the house was instead serving as the military headquarters for George Washington’s Continental Army on Long Island. In the Livingston house, late in the afternoon of August 29, 1776, Washington convened a council of war with his senior officers. Washington put forth a critical question: should the Continental Army retreat from Long Island?
Washington’s army was in a precarious position. Situated behind a series of forts, redoubts, and abatises at the tip of Long Island, the 9,000-man army was soaked by incessant rains and shocked by the experience of its first battle. At the Battle of Long Island (August 27, 1776), Gen. William Howe’s formidable army of British regulars and German auxiliaries had overwhelmed the Continental Army. Howe had chosen not to follow up his victory and instead employed siege tactics—known as regular approaches—to methodically close the gap on the American fortifications without a frontal assault. The East River, situated in the American rear, remained a potential avenue of retreat for Washington, but this could be cut off at any moment by the positioning of Royal Navy warships in the channel.
Washington’s question initially faced dissent in the council. John Morin Scott, a lawyer from New York, vehemently opposed……The council unanimously concluded that retreat was necessary, listing in the meeting’s minutes an exhaustive eight-point list on why Long Island was untenable. Read more…

Washington’s “Life Guards”
On March 11, 1776, from his headquarters in Cambridge, Massachusetts, overseeing the siege of Boston, General George Washington issued a General Order to Colonels or Commanding Officers of regiments of the Continental Army. Washington’s order directed these officers to select four men from each regiment who would form his personal guard.
General Washington had a clear idea of the type of men he was seeking and the qualifications were laid out in the General Order. Washington wrote, “His Excellency depends upon the Colonels for good Men, such as they can recommend for their sobriety, honesty and good behavior; he wishes them to be from five feet eight Inches high, to five feet ten Inches; handsomely and well made, and as there is nothing in his eyes more desirable than Cleanliness in a Soldier, he desires that particular attention be made in the choice of such men as are clean and spruce.” Read more…
Also a blog post “The Life Guard“.

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

1779 – April: At Newport, Rhode Island – Sickness strikes (Continued – page 69)

22 April. A grenadier by the name of H‡ussinger, of Colonel von Voit’s Regiment, ran a gauntlet of three hundred men twelve times for disrespect. God be praised! Starting today I was again better and began to eat, after lying dangerously ill for fourteen days, and having had an astonishing diarrhea, the likes of which I had never had in my life, and I was so weak I could not get out of bed.
26 April. A fleet, which was loaded with wood and provisions, arrived here from Long Island. All our new uniforms and equipment arrived with it. It had been on the ocean for six months on its voyage from England and had been battered three times by storms.
28 April. Our regiment assumed the main watch. During this month all the trees were in bloom.

5 May. The Countrymen from Conanicut made an attack on New England. They seized fifty cattle and more than five hundred sheep, and succeeded in bringing them back to Newport.
28 May. A fire broke out aboard a three-masted transport ship in the harbor during the night. This ship, called Christiana, went up in smoke immediately, so that the seamen could hardly save themselves. A sailor is said to have started the fire through careless smoking of tobacco.

4 June. It was once again the birthday of the King of England, which was celebrated in a most festive manner.
14 June. At noon today I left the English hospital, after having lain there eleven weeks and two days, and returned to the company. Thank God, Who helped me and restored my health. Here in the hospital we had the wife of an English soldier as a sick attendant, who was by birth a Spanish Jewess. She married in her fourteenth year, has been married fourteen years, and is already pregnant with her fifteenth child.
15 June. We turned in the English blankets, bedding, and iron kettles from our quarters, packed up, and must hold ourselves ready to take the field.
16 June. We again provided the main watch in the city. At noon we moved out of our winter quarters and into camp. We set this up a good hour’s distance to the east of the city, between Tominy Hill and Lathons, on a small hill near the river, or creek. Tominy Hill is a very important fort and elevated defense on the river, on a rocky height, with twenty-four cannon.
25 June. At noon, between eleven and twelve o’clock, there was an eclipse of the sun that lasted nearly one-half hour. This morning the fleet departed, as well as the wood ships, fifty sail strong, on which three regiments were embarked. When they arrived at the lighthouse at Sandy Hook, they received a heavy fire from a rebel battery there, which damaged the transport ship Helena, necessitating its return into the harbor.
29 June. Again, a private of the Ansbach Regiment deserted, with a female from the city of Newport.
30 June. I went into the city on watch. The duty is for a continuous twenty-four hours. During these two months, May and June, we received English small, or broust, beer. Each man received daily one quart, or a small German measure. It is cooked from wood herbs and syrup, tastes quite sweet, is, however, healthy and good to drink, and compares with our type of wood tea and breast beverage.
(to be continued)

Advertised on 10 March 1774: “We had no share in the tea on said vessel”
What was advertised in a colonial American newspaper 250 years ago today?

“We neither jointly nor separately had any share, interest or property, directly or indirectly in any part of the Tea that came from London in said vessel.“

Thomas Walley, Peter Boyer, and William Thompson needed to do some damage control and salvage their reputations in the wake the second Boston Tea Party. That trio owned the Fortune, a brig that recently arrived from London. Among its cargo, the ship carried twenty-eight chests of tea “destined for some independent merchants,” according to the Massachusetts Historical Society’s overview of events. The brig arrived in port on March 6, 1774. J.L. Bell explains that Walley, Boyer, and Thompson worked with those merchants to request that the tea be returned, but customs officers refused. Bostonians did not spend weeks debating what to do like they had a few months earlier. Read more…

Advertised on 14 March 1774: “ANNIVERSARY of the REPEAL of the STAMP-ACT … will be celebrated”
What was advertised in a colonial American newspaper 250 years ago today?

“ANNIVERSARY of the REPEAL of the STAMP-ACT … will be celebrated“

Many colonizers commemorated events associated with the American Revolution even before the Revolutionary War. During the years of the imperial crisis, residents of Boston staged annual commemorations honoring those killed in the Boston Massacre and residents of New York held annual dinners to mark the anniversary of the repeal of the Stamp Act. To mark the eighth anniversary of the latter, colonizers in New York had choices about which celebration to attend in 1774. Advertisements for two of those events appeared in the March 14 edition of the New-York Gazette and Weekly Mercury.
For one, “18th of MARCH” served as the headline. Many readers certainly recognized that date without having to peruse the rest of the advertisement. Read more…

Fire has been an Important Tool
Note, to read with photos, go to JYF Museums and scroll down this page.
Since the dawn of time, fire has been an important tool for mankind. We cook with it, heat and light our homes with it, shape metal, make pottery, and any number of other things. But how do we make fire itself? This #MuseumMakersMonday let’s take a look at one historic method
Everybody knows that “you start a fire with flint and steel,” but this isn’t Minecraft- it takes more than hitting a piece of wood with a flint and steel to make fire. You need tinder to catch the sparks and hold them long enough to ignite your kindling. Tinder like charcloth.
In 1541, Copland wrote “of softe tendre, as of seare olde lynen cloth.” It doesn’t have to be linen, but your cloth must be 100% natural fibre- cotton or linen are best. Avoid silk and wool, which smell awful. Cut the cloth into small pieces of an inch or two square.
Place the pieces into a can with a tight fitting, nearly airtight lid- a metal mint box is good – and place this on a heat source- like a bed of coals from a campfire or grill. We’ll heat this up and exclude the oxygen to create a reducing atmosphere, which creates pyrolysis as the cloth heats, volatile compounds come out as smoke and flammable gas. You can see the burning gas shooting out of any opening in the can. As the oxygen is released, combustion becomes pyrolysis and cloth becomes a purer form of carbon with a lower ignition temperature.
The finished tinder is a fragile thing which ignites easily and burns slowly as a hot ember, which can be used for starting fires as seen in the video “Starting Fire with Flint and Steel,” seen on the JYFMuseums YouTube channel.

Textile Manufacturing in Great Britain
– a Case Study from 1700 to 1850
by Viveka Hansen 25 March 2018 at ikfoundation.org
The pre-industrialisation in urban, rural and domestic areas may be seen from perspectives of textile manufacturers as well as the many spinners, weavers and connected occupations in workplaces at home and in factories. The rising consumptions and standard of living for “the middling sort” in the 18th century – were two of several factors that appears to have contributed to the increasing speed of the Industrial Revolution. This essay will foremost give a glimpse into the interdependence between dangers and long hours for the factory workers, child labour and young women in the workforce, philanthropic and social aims, small-scale manufactures, power-driven looms and the long-established woollen cloth trade.
Textile industries that steadily increased their production and brought their owners large profits could never have been so successful without the help of low-paid workers working unreasonably long hours, in addition to ample access to raw material. So long as spinning and weaving were mostly done in the home, men and women usually kept to a strict division of labour. Men did the weaving, but it was usually women, children and the elderly who attended to the preliminary work from raw material to spun yarn. With the introduction of larger manufactures and industrial development this tradition was relaxed, and it became possible for women too to look after some of the looms. The male workforce was now joined by mainly young and unmarried women, together with children and married women. Work opportunities tripled in number between 1750 and 1800, and by about 1820 more than 50% of the textile workers were women. This line of occupation was seen as a viable way of making a living despite low pay, a working day of 12 to 14 hours and many unhealthy or even outright dangerous places of work. Read more…

Astronomer Caroline Herschel, born 16 March 1750
Woman of the Day astronomer Caroline Herschel born OTD in 1750 in Hanover, the first woman to discover a comet, the first woman to receive a salary as a scientist and the first woman in England to hold a government position.
One of eight children, much of the household drudgery fell to her when her older sister married. Did it matter that Caroline was only five years old? Well, she was the only other daughter, you know. You can’t expect sons to do housework. Her education was cursory; she was taught to read and write but little more.
Caroline was stricken with typhus when she was ten. She stopped growing when she reached 4’3″ and lost the vision in her left eye. Her mother (who sounds a real treat) regarded her as unmarriageable and decided she’d be better off trained as a servant. Her father had wanted her to be educated. Sometimes when his wife was out, he tutored his daughter or included her in her brother’s lessons, but to stop her from becoming a governess and earning her independence, she was forbidden to learn French or any advanced skills, and she was held back by her long hours of domestic chores. Read more…

18th-century shell collection, saved from a skip
In The Conversation, 15 March 2024
This 18th-century shell collection, saved from a skip, tells a story of empire, explorers and women’s equality
In the 1980s, a shell collection that included specimens from Captain Cook’s final voyage was accidentally thrown into a skip and believed lost forever. But much to the joy of scientists, last week it was rediscovered safe and sound and donated to English Heritage.
Her name might not have made the headlines, but the woman who originally collected the shells, Bridget Atkinson (1732-1814), made a significant contribution to natural history in the 18th century.
Atkinson was one of many women interested in shells at this time. It was a pursuit that drew in both aristocratic and middle class enthusiasts. Among them were famous collectors, such as the philosopher and poet Margaret Cavendish and cousins Jane and Mary Parminter, the elite owners of the shell-encrusted house A la Ronde, in Exmouth. Read more…

The Commonwealth Celebrates Seventy-fifth Anniversary, 11 March 2024
The Commonwealth of Nations, often simply referred to as the Commonwealth, is an international association of 56 member states, the vast majority of which are former territories of the British Empire from which it developed. The chief institutions of the organisation are the Commonwealth Secretariat, which focuses on intergovernmental aspects, and the Commonwealth Foundation, which focuses on non-governmental relations among member states. Numerous organisations are associated with and operate within the Commonwealth. See The Commonwealth.

Message from King Charles III
The seventy-fifth anniversary of The Commonwealth is a moment to reflect on the remarkable journey that our unique family of free and independent nations has made since 1949.
Last year, The Bahamas celebrated its fiftieth anniversary of Independence, as Grenada has this year, and Papua New Guinea will next year. Each of these milestones – and many others like them – represent the fulfilment of countless aspirations and the achievement of such remarkable potential. And the Commonwealth’s growth, with new members continuing to join our family of nations, demonstrates clearly that whilst we may not all have a shared history, we have common ambitions for a better future – working together to build resilience and respond to global challenges. Read more or watch the recording… (5 min)

Message from Governor General of Canada, Mary Simon
The Commonwealth represents a wealth of cultures, languages, experiences and backgrounds. Today, we celebrate what ties us all together: a shared commitment to improving our communities, protecting our planet and climate, and addressing the challenges and opportunities presented by an interconnected world. In doing so, we are creating a bright future for generations to come, and ensuring the social, environmental and economic well-being of all peoples.
Across continents and oceans, we have built bridges of understanding, friendship and collaboration. Canada joins with its fellow Commonwealth members in facing the future—our common future— with open eyes and with resilience. We believe that we can best address global challenges and build stronger communities by using the power of dialogue, with respect, understanding, diversity and equality at the root of everything we do.
This Commonwealth Day, let us remember that we can work together to create a more inclusive world. May our shared values and collective efforts continue to strengthen the bonds of friendship and co-operation that unite us.
Mary Simon

UELAC Loyalist Directory: New Contributions

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

  • to Lynton “Bill” Stewart who contributed information about Sgt. Ebenezer Shelton of Stratford, Fairfield County, Connecticut who served as a Sergeant in the British American Regiment from 1776 to October, 1783, when the unit was disbanded in Nova Scotia. In 1784 received a 200 acre Loyalist Land Grant in Preston Twp, Halifax County, Nova Scotia.
  • to Linda Corupe who submitted information on behalf of Gary Groat and son Douglas about:
    • Jacob Marsh of the New Hampshire Grants who served with General Burgoyne’s regiment, but dies in 1777 at Saratoga, New York Province.
    • Private Henry Groat of Washington Co., New York Province who served with Jessup’s Loyal Rangers, Sherwood’s Company. He settled in Sutton Twp., Brome Co., Lower Canada, and Whitby Twp., Ontario Co., Upper Canada
    • Simon Huntington from Fort Edward, Albany/Charlotte Co., New York Province who served with an Unicorporated group. He settled in Sutton Twp., Brome Co., Lower Canada, and Whitby Twp., Ontario Co., Upper Canada.
  • to Nolan Waterhouse who contributed information about:
    • Philip Cook Sr. from Canajoharie, New York who settled in Sorel, then Township No. 4 in 1784. He died before 1817 about age 82 in Lower Canada.
    • Philip Cook Jr. from Canajoharie, New York who served in the First Battalion of the King’s Royal Regiment of New York and settled afterwards at Sorel, then Township No. 4 in 1784. He died about 1803 at about age 43 in Alburgh, Franklin, Vermont, United States

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

Events Upcoming

Hamilton Branch: Canada’s King: Charles III and reconciliation, Thurs Mar 21 at 7:30

Nathan Tidridge, Waterdown historian and teacher, will be speaking on the topic, “Canada’s King: Charles III and reconciliation”. In view of the community project of checking wording on local monuments for inclusion of the indigenous, Nathan will also address when the relationship began to deteriorate, around the 1820s and 1830s.
All are welcome at the church, 126 Plains Rd. E., Burlington or on Zoom. Contact Pat Blackburn, uepat624@gmail.com, for a link to Zoom.

Toronto Branch: A Near Death Experience by Stephen Davidson Wed 27 Mar 7:30 ET

“A Near Death Experience: The Fateful Voyage of the Evacuation Ship Esther.”
In September of 1783, more than 2 dozen evacuation vessels carrying Loyalist refugees left New York City for the mouth of the St. John River. Two ships became lost in the fog off of Yarmouth, Nova Scotia. One was shipwrecked on rocky shoals. Only 57 of its 181 passengers survived the disaster. The second ship — the Esther– was guided to safety and eventually made its way to what is now New Brunswick. It’s nearly 300 passengers — the majority of whom settled in the Fredericton area– became the founders of the new colony. Loyalist historian Stephen Davidson will recount the story of the Esther’s “near death experience” and trace the impact of its passengers on the history of both New Brunswick and Ontario. Contact Toronto Branch UEL <torontouel@gmail.com> to register.

American Revolution Institute: The Marquis de Lafayette and his Farewell Tour. March 27 @ 6:30

In 1824-1825, the marquis de Lafayette embarked on a tour of the United States, returning for a final time to the country he helped establish and whose democratic experiment he saw as a model for the rest of the world. Throughout his thirteen-month tour, he visited all twenty-four states of the union, where he was celebrated in each city and town. By Alan Hoffman, president of the American Friends of Lafayette. Details and registration.

The Revolutionary War Conference 250 in the Mohawk Valley – June 14-16, 2024

Johnstown, NY
Bus Tour – 1774: The Rising Tide Friday 14 June.
In 1774, the politics of the Revolution had arrived in the Mohawk Valley with a vengeance. At the eastern end of the Mohawk another violent Liberty Pole riot was having a detrimental effect on the local citizens of Schenectady. Meanwhile further west along the Mohawk River, in Johnstown, events took a turn when Sir William Johnson passed away in July, thus starting a new chapter in political unrest.
The Bus Tour will include several stops in both Schenectady and Johnstown, such as the Schenectady Stockade, Johnson Hall and more. Details and Registration.

From the Social Media and Beyond

  • How’s this for precociousness – painted by the self-taught Thomas Lawrence at the age of 20, of Queen Charlotte, for public display at the Royal Academy. Few more naturally gifted painters!
  • Townsends
  • This week in History
    • 10 Mar 1769 Philadelphia, PA. The city’s merchants agreed to support the nonimportation movement until the Townshend Act duties were revoked. They also supported a ban on all British imports until after 1 Apr. Image
    • 12 Mar 1770 The Committee of 9 (Sam Adams, John Hancock, Joseph Warren, W. Molinex, Joshua Henshaw, Wm Phillips, Jos. Warren & Samuel Pemberton) present a “Short Narrative of the Horrid Massacre in Boston… in the Evening of the Fifth Day of March 1770… Image
    • 14 Mar 1771 Thomas Hutchinson was appointed 12th Governor of the Province of Massachusetts Bay. He would be the last civilian governor of the disorderly Bay Colony. Gen Thomas Gage would replace him in May 1774. Image
    • 10 Mar 1776 Gen Washington orders guns bombarding Boston to cease fire as the British load ships for evacuation. British dumped guns & munitions they could not carry into the harbor. Loyalist gangs ransacked shops & homes & evacuated with their loot. Image
    • 12 Mar 1776 Baltimore A public notice in local papers recognizing the sacrifice of women to the cause of the revolution. The notice urged others to recognize women’s contributions on the battlefield, in camps, on the march, and in cities, towns & farms. Image
    • 12 Mar 1776 British expedition led by Gen Henry Clinton arrives off the coast of Cape Fear, NC. It awaits the arrival of a squadron from Britain under Commodore Peter Parker, but with the Loyalist defeat at Moores Creek Bridge, his plans turn towards SC. Image
    • 14 Mar 1776, Irish-born John Barry receives a captain’s commission in the fledgling Continental Navy. He would later rise to the rank of Commodore for his outstanding leadership & exploits. Barry is considered the father of the U.S. Navy. Image
    • 12 Mar 1777 Continental Congress reconvenes at Philadelphia from exile in Baltimore. Washington’s successes against the British in NJ made them feel it was safe to return but they would be on the run again by Fall & Philadelphia would be captured. Image
    • 14 Mar 1777 Morristown, NJ. Continental Army suffers from desertions & expiring enlistments that reduce its ranks to some 3K men. To feed the dwindling ranks, Gen Washington begins requisitioning food from local farmers. Image
    • 10 Mar 1778 Capt James Tucker’s frigate Boston, which is transporting John Adams to serve as American commissioner in Paris, captures the 14-gun privateer, Martha. Image
    • 11 Mar 1778. Gen Philip Schuyler sends a letter to the New York County of Tyron, rebuking it for using Indians to harass Tories to seize their property, creating “anarchy and confusion.” Both sides used (literally) the native tribes during the conflict in North America. Image
    • 13 Mar 1778 London. French ambassador informs Secretary of State Thomas Thynne of the Treaty of Commerce & Amity between France & US nearly arranged. PM Lord North recalls the British ambassador from Paris & informs Gen Henry Clinton. Image
    • 13 Mar 1778 Continental Congress cancels plans for a new Canadian invasion and directs Gen Marquis de Lafayette & Gen Johann de Kalb to return to their previous posts. The seriousness of the planned invasion is very doubtful. Image
    • 13 Mar 1778 Ft Barrington, GA Lt Col Thomas Brown leads Loyalist rangers in a surprise attack on the garrison, capturing it with a loss of 5 casualties. Americans lose 6 casualties & surrender 23. Image
    • 11 Mar 1779 Congress establishes the Army Corps of Engineers to plan, design, & prepare defense works for the Continental Army. Composed of civilians, Continental Army officers & men, plus French officers, the engineers were pivotal in several critical Image
    • 13 Mar 1780 Mobile, AL. Spanish Gen Bernardo Galvez launches 1.4K men in an attack on Ft Charlotte, capital of British West FL. American sloop West Florida under Capt William Pickles assists the Spanish onslaught. Image
    • 15 Mar 1780 Mobile, AL. Spanish After a three-day siege of Fortt Charlotte, the capital of British West Florida, Lt Gov Elias Dunford’s garrison of 300 surrendered to a force of 1,400 Spanish under the command of General Bernardo Galvez. Image
    • 14 Mar 1781 Guilford Court House, NC. American Gen Nathanael Greene positioned his army of 4.4K men in 3 lines of militia, plus Virginia & Maryland Continental Line & cavalry commanded by Col Henry Lee and Col William Washington. Image
    • 15 Mar 1781 Guilford Courthouse, NC. Nathanael Greene’s army clashes with Gen Charles Cornwallis’s redcoats in one of the blockbuster battles in the South. Greene cedes the field, but British suffer a pyrrhic victory. that led Cornwallis to march to VA. Image
    • 10 Mar 1783 Capt John Barry’s 36-gun frigate Alliance & French frigate Duc de Lauzun (carrying ½ million in gold) attacked by British ships off FL coast. Barry rakes the British 28-gun Sybil, then escorts Duc de Lauzun to port. Last American naval action of #RevWar
    • 15 March 1783: Newburgh, New York. General George Washington joined an assembly of frustrated Continental Army officers to calm their growing distrust toward Congress, which was behind in its payments and reneging on promised pensions. The officers were debating a march on Congress to force a redress. Washington urged the officers to maintain their loyalty to the government and not take rash actions that could undermine the principles of the revolution.
      At the end of his speech, Washington pulled a letter from a member of the Continental Congress out of his pocket. As he looked down at the letter, he momentarily hesitated while fumbling to retrieve a pair of spectacles from his jacket. He apologized for the awkward delay by saying, “Gentlemen, you will permit me to put on my spectacles, for I have grown not only gray but almost blind in the service of my country.”
      The content of the letter was now irrelevant. Most of the assembled officers cried as they realized Washington had sacrificed as much or more in service to the country as they had. Within minutes, the officers voted unanimously to express confidence in Congress and their country. Washington diffused the situation, averting a threat to the new republic. Image 1; Image 2
  • Clothing and Related:
    • Silk jacket, British, 1770s. Same jacket, more images.
    • The V&A Museum on IG posted pictures about chatelaines, which are belt hooks with a set of chains used for carrying useful household tools, such as a watch, scissors, notebook etc. Initially a symbol of wealth, it shifted to the role of the wearer to manager of the household.
    • This week’s Wedding Wednesday is the dress Mary Chaloner wore in 1763 when she married Colonel John Hale in Guiseborough, England. It is a robe a la francaise made of a lovely hand-painted Chinese silk. Such an exquisite fabric was a status symbol for the wearer as well as…
    • I love this photograph of a rich brocade 1760s caraco jacket. Full of shadows and intrigue it seems to hint at whispered conversations in candle flickering corners, of illicit notes exchanged and sidelong glances. Or is that just me?!
  • Miscellaneous

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