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The Sheaffe Family of Boston: A Loyalist Saga. Part One of Three
copyright Stephen Davidson UE
Imagine being in a family whose father was required to collect custom duties from the merchants of Massachusetts in the years leading up to the American Revolution. It wasn’t a stress-free job by any means.   But it was only the starting point for a family saga that stretched over two generations. The Sheaffe story not only included loss, elopements, and knighthoods, it also saw family members at the forefront of both the American Revolution and the War of 1812.
William Sheaffe was born in Massachusetts in 1705. By the time he was 26, he had joined the staff of the customs office in Boston. Widowed twice, 47 year-old Sheaffe married Susannah Child in 1752. The daughter of British parents, the new Mrs. Sheaffe was a first generation American. Over the next 17 years the couple would have 12 children, 8 of whom would survive into adulthood.
It was not a good time to be employed by the customs service.  American colonists were irate over the Stamp Act which the British Parliament had made law in 1765. The tax on newspapers, legal documents and other items met with such resistance that the act was eventually repealed.
Still desperate to pay its debts incurred during the Seven Years War, the British government passed the Townsend Act in 1767. The Royal Army was sent to Boston in the following year to see that this act was enforced, compelling colonists to pay taxes on paper, tea, and paint, among other things. The troops also clamped down on the city’s growing number of radicals.
During these troubled years, William Sheaffe served as the head customs collector for three years until a successor was found to his boss.  However, problems with the Sheaffe’s oldest daughter Susannah weighed on William and his wife’s mind more than the political situation.
Among the troops that had arrived in Boston was Captain Ponsonby Molesworth of the 29th Regiment.  Shortly after meeting 15 year-old Susannah, Molesworth asked William for permission to marry his daughter. When William refused, Susannah’s governess came to her aid, and guided the young couple to Rhode Island where they were married in April 1769. By February 1770, the Molesworths had their first child – a grandson for William and Susannah Sheaffe.
Within a month’s time, the political climate of Boston once again disrupted the lives of this loyalist family.  Members of Captain Molesworth’s 29th Regiment were among those who had fired on a crowd of Bostonians, killing five civilians.  It would become known in American history as the Boston Massacre.
As a safety precaution and a means of lessening the fallout from the “massacre”, the 29th Regiment left Boston for Fort William on Castle Island in the city’s harbour. It was then transferred to New Jersey, and finally Florida.  Whether Susanna Molesworth and her infant followed Ponsonby or remained with her family in Boston is unknown.
While one member of the extended Sheaffe clan had been separated from the family, they suffered a more permanent separation in 1771.  William, the family’s sole breadwinner, died of a “fit of the palsy” (paralysis) on November 28th.  Now a widow, Susannah Sheaffe became the sole supporter of Nathaniel (16 years old), Thomas (15), Margaret (11), Mary (9) Roger (8) Anne (7), Helen (2), and William Jr. (1).
The revenue officers who had worked with William Sheaffe over the past 40 years started a collection to help their late co-worker’s family. The historian Lorenzo Sabine noted that Susannah Sheaffe “had a capacity for business” and was “an intelligent, excellent woman, and bore many trials with pious resignation.” Given her talents, the customs officers helped Susannah establish a store on Boston’s Queen Street, where an advertisement of the era says she sold “All kinds of Grocery, by Wholesale and Retail for cash only, upon as good Terms as can be bought in Town.”
In addition to the store, Susannah also operated a boarding house to provide for her family. Her connection to Captain Molesworth or the family’s known loyalist leanings may have led to Baron Hugh Percy, a British major general, becoming one of her tenants. Over time, Percy used the Sheaffe home as his headquarters during the occupation of Boston.
By the time Roger Hale Sheaffe was ten years old, he had become a favourite of Baron Percy. The latter wanted to improve the “prospects” of the widow’s son by having him join the British military.  In 1773, Percy sent Roger to sea, and then on to Locke’s Military Academy in England. The baron’s patronage would forever change young Roger’s life as well as impacting events as far off (and as far away) as the Battle of Queenston Heights during the War of 1812.
1776 was a year of dramatic change for the Sheaffe family. In March, the British troops that had been occupying Boston – as well as over a 1,000 Loyalists—left the city to find refuge in Halifax, Nova Scotia. Almost 40 men attached to the customs house were among the refugees, but Susannah Sheaffe opted to remain in the Massachusetts’ capital.  Despite the fact that her boarding house had been the headquarters for a British officer, she may have been spared persecution at the hands of Patriots due to the era’s generally held belief that women did not have political attachments.
Her oldest son, Nathaniel, however, seems to have found Boston to be less than welcoming. Now 21 years old (and thus considered an adult responsible for his political convictions), he gave up his position as a clerk in the city’s customhouse, and sought his fortune in Jamaica.
Captain Ponsonby Molesworth, Susannah’s son-in-law, sold his commission and retired from the British army. By December, he, his wife and two children would be resettled in Devonshire, England.
Within a month’s time, Susannah Sheaffe would have to endure more than the pain of being separated from her two oldest children. Word reached her that Nathaniel had died on January 25 while sailing for Hispaniola (the island containing today’s Haiti and the Dominican Republic). He was laid to rest in a burial ground on the island’s Morant Bay, put in a grave that would never be visited by any member of his family.
Nothing remains in the records of the era to outline how Susannah Sheaffe fared as a shopkeeper and boarding house manager in the opening years of the American Revolution. Developments within her family are picked up again in a letter written in 1778. Roger, now 15, was “dangerously ill”, so much so that he spent two months in the home of his sister Susannah Molesworth in Devonshire. The good news was that Baron Percy, Roger’s patron, had purchased an ensigncy for the teenager in the 5th Regiment of Foot. It was a rank that might allow Roger to send money back to Boston to help support his mother.
By the following year, Roger’s older brother Thomas – now 23 years old—was also in a position to support their mother. He had set up a trading business in New York City, the headquarters for the British military throughout the American Revolution.
By the final years of the war, the Sheaffe family had lost two members and had two others dispersed to other parts of the British Empire. How this loyalist family fare in the aftermath of the revolution will be recounted in next week’s Loyalist Trails.
To secure permission to reprint this article contact the author at stephendavids@gmail.com.

The Moses Ogden Myth: Misremembering the Battle of Connecticut Farms
by Tim Abbott 18 June 2024 Jpurnal of the American Revolution
General histories of the Battle of Connecticut Farms, New Jersey, that was fought on June 7, 1780 tend to miss their mark with the very first shots. The intrusion of local myth impacts our understanding of the sequence of battle and distorts some of its key elements. In the process, the battalion that suffered nearly half the Continental casualties that day—Spencer’s Additional Regiment—barely rates a mention except in association with a fondly recalled legend that does not hold up to scholarly scrutiny.
Between eleven o’clock and midnight on June 6-7, 1780, Hessian Generalleutnant Wilhelm Reichsfreiherr von Innhausen und Knyphausen started moving the first of five divisions across the narrow saltwater channel between Staten Island and Elizabethtown Point. It was a massive expedition totaling nearly 6,900 British, German and Loyalist units from the New York garrison including Hessian and Ansbach jäger, companies of light infantry and grenadiers, musketeers, dragoons, artillery, pioneers and baggage.[1] The only forces available to oppose them were scattered elements of Gen. William Maxwell’s Jersey Brigade and local militia. Of such odds are heroes made and legends born.
Ensign Ogden’s Mythical Piquet
The British commander leading the first division of General Kyphausen’s expedition was Brig. Gen. Thomas Stirling (1731-1808). He would soon be severely wounded at a crossroads in the dark, giving rise to the story that a young officer serving in Spencer’s Regiment named Ens. Moses Ogden led the piquet that fired that volley. This, in turn, has led historians to mistakenly conclude that Spencer’s entire regiment was on the front lines at the outset of the battle. Read more…

Jean Marie Cardinal: Revolutionary War Hero?
by Steven M. Baule 20 June 2024 Journal of the American Revolution
As the American Bicentennial approached, the Smithsonian Magazine in April 1973 ran a story by Richard W. O’Donnell about Paul Revere not being the only messenger who rode to warn Massachusetts colonists on the night of April 18, 1775, as Henry Wadsworth Longfellow’s “Paul Revere’s Ride” outlined. Revere did not complete his ride and when detained by British officers, he explained to them that he was riding to warn colonists of the march of the King’s regulars to Lexington and Concord. In a subsequent issue, Smithsonian indicated that O’Donnell’s article left “an awkward gap in the diadem of American Revolutionary heroes.”     Smithsonian’s editorial staff suggested that many others deserved credit similar to Revere. The one example provided was Jean Marie Cardinal, a French lead miner from what is now Dubuque, Iowa, sometimes called the “Paul Revere of the West.”
Smithsonian wrote that, before he was “too elaborately celebrated, it should be noted that he had a fairly murky past.” Cardinal appeared to have been fugitive from justice. This did not stop the Des Moines, Iowa, chapter of the Daughters of the American Revolution from naming its chapter the Jean Marie Cardinell [sic] Chapter. On May 14, 2022, the National Society of the Sons of the American Revolution dedicated a plaque to Cardinal, “Iowa’s Hero of the American Revolution” along the Mississippi Riverwalk in Dubuque, Iowa.
Cardinal’s story as presented at the time of the Bicentennial was fairly straightforward. British troops and their allies came down river from Prairie du Chein (now Wisconsin) and attacked miners at the lead mines at what is now Dubuque, Iowa. Cardinal, and potentially others, escaped. Dubuque Folklore editorialized on Cardinal’s decision to then travel to St. Louis: “Paul Revere’s horse ride pales at the distance of Cardinal’s legendary canoe trip down the Mississippi to warn Saint Louis of impending British attack.” Properly warned by Cardinal, the Spanish and French at St. Louis were able to repulse the attack by British and Indians. Cardinal was captured by Indians and killed trying to escape. This made him the first Iowan to die in the war. The story remains similar on the 2022 plaque erected along the river at Dubuque. However, there are fundamental flaws in the story as presented.
Jean Marie Cardinal was a trapper, trader, and lead miner according to several sources. Most likely he originally worked out of the American Bottom area of modern Southern Illinois near present-day St. Louis. The Cardinal family appears to have been present in the American Bottom area of the Illinois Country by 1691. He appears to have traded up the Missouri River with the Pawnee and Little Osage. Cardinal’s wife, Marie Anne, was a Pawnee, and it is probable that he met her on an early trip to trade up the Missouri.  Read more…

Hessian Soldiers Travelling to America: New York – A Soldier’s Life May 1780 (Charleston SC)
From a Hessian Diary of the American Revolution.
This excerpt from the diary of Johan Conrad Dohla (170 pages).

Major Moves during Johan’s deployment:

  • March 1777:   Depart Germany
  • 3 June 1777:   Arrive New York, then Amboy NJ
  • November 1777:  To Philadelphia
  • June 1778: to Long Island
  • July 1778: To Newport RI
  • October 1779: to New York

May 1780: At New York (page 80) but describes Charleston SC

Continuation of Occurences in North America During the Fourth Year, 1780

May [1780]
Charleston SC  page 81
(Note1: D€hola, who is still in New York, gives no hint about the source of his information on Charleston and the southern campaign. It is possible that it came from conversations with Ansbach Jaegers who participated in the fighting in the southern colonies.
Note2: This is the second half of the description of Charleston SC)

The  forest  surrounding  Charleston  consists  of  oaks,  palms,  chestnuts,  and  other  leaf-bearing trees, and there are also some pine forests. In the gardens there are also many orange, lemon,  mulberry,  and  olive  trees.  Fruit  trees  are  pear,  apple,  peach,  plum,  and  cherry.  The apples and peaches are already ripe in June. Most of these fruits bloom twice a  year, but the second  fruit  seldom  ripens.  From  the  fig  trees,  fruit  is  obtained  three  or  four  times  a  year. Wheat is sown  in September and  cut  in  June. However, the  corn,  Indian  corn,  is  planted  in April  and  harvested  in  August.  Also,  many  carob,  mastic,  and  almond  trees,  saffron,  and licorice, as well as honey, silk, and cotton, are frequently found.
Also,  there  are  many  grapevines  found  in  the  forests,  which,  however,  are  not  tended. Although the inhabitants of America have a strong desire to enjoy wine, they are  not willing to spend  the  effort to  produce  it.  All  the European grapevines which are  in  the  gardens and about the city yield very well and produce many and good grapes, from which it can be seen that America can become a wine-producing  land. The reasons why growing grapes  for wine still  is  not  undertaken  by  the  farmers  are  the  great  amount of  work  required  to  care  for  the vines and the  time  lag  before  it becomes profitable. The  American  farmer  prefers  to  get  his profit from his wheat, Indian corn, and his livestock.
The Dutch seamen yearly bring a great amount of baked brick for building from the island of Saint Eustatius in the West Indies, several hundred miles from here, and sell them for great profit. All the necessary materials for making brick are available close to Charleston, but up to the  present time,  no  one  has  wished  to turn to  this  production.  Between  Charleston  and  the ocean lie various islands which the bay and harbor create, such as Long, Sullivan, and James Island, the last of which is of considerable circumference, and on which Fort Johnson, which covers  the  port,  is  situated.  The  defenses  of  this  fort  were  destroyed  by  the  Americans themselves when they vacated it.
The  inhabitants  of  Charleston  do  not  willingly  allow  any  pleasure  of  this  life  to  go unenjoyed;  therefore,  few  succeed  in  attaining  an  old  age.  Contagious  diseases  are  rare. A plague  or  similar  illness  is  completely  unknown  in  America.  They  themselves  say,  „We Americans are all healthy because our houses stand alone and all are surrounded with trees.” The men in this climate are exposed to more, and more dangerous, diseases than the women. Men  frequently  die  in  their  prime  and  leave  behind  young  widows  for  others.  Most  hasten their death by misusing alcoholic beverages, in which they seek relief and strength against the enervating effects of the hot climate. Other than that, Carolina is a favored land for the tippler. One learns here that in the warm months he must think and work very little, but drink heavily. Most of their drinks consist of rum,  but among the  others  are  wine,  tea,  chocolate,  and  also coffee, strong beer, and cider. The usual drink, sangria, is made with wine, sugar, and water, with some nutmeg. This is used to cool off with on hot days and in great heat. From wine and sugar and milk, fresh from the cow, one makes the beloved sallabul, which is very delicate.
Charleston swarms with Negroes, mulattoes, mestizos. Their number far surpasses that of the white population; however, they are kept under sharp discipline and order, and the police keep  a  watchful  eye  on  them.  Nowhere  are  more  than  seven  male  Negro  slaves  allowed together at one time. Their dances and other social activities must break up by ten o’clock in the  evening.  No one  may  sell  them  beer  or  wine  or  cognac  without  the  permission  of  their masters. Sundays in Charleston are strictly observed. No shop is permitted to be open; no play of  any  kind,  or  music,  is  allowed;  and  while  church  services  are  being  held,  watchmen  go about who stop anyone who is not engaged in the most urgent business, and they must go into some church or pay two shillings and four pence. No work can be required of slaves on this day.

(Concludes Charleston. to be continued with June 1780 military duties)

Comment Resulting from Book Review about Abigail Adams
I enjoyed the book review of Abigail Adams.  My husband who has no interest in Loyalists is 1st cousin 7 times removed with President John Adams, her husband.  My husband’s great uncle 7 generations, the famous artist Gilbert Stuart from Rhode Island painted her.  Gilbert’s Father Gilbert Stuart, my husband’s GG was a Loyalist, ended up in Halifax, and as time permits i am working on that application. It’s interesting how they were all in the same circles until the American Revolution happened. Gilbert Stuart, artist , sounded like he didn’t pick loyalties, he was loyal to earning money, and later painted George Washington a few times.
If you have an American One Dollar Bill today the picture of George Washington is painted by Gilbert  C Stuart 1755-1828 !
I recently learned he also painted Elizabeth Chipman , Ward Chipman‘s wife and that portrait is in the New Brunswick Museum .
His Father Gilbert Stuart 1724-1793 emigrated from Scotland to Rhode Island, and at the start of the American Revolution went to Halifax NS as stated in Lorenzo Sabine‘s book Biographical Sketches of Loyalists of the American Revolution. He is buried in the Loyalist Burial Ground on Halifax.
Angela Donovan, New Brunswick Branch

Book Review: William Trent: Factor of Ambition
Author: Jason A. Cherry. Sunberry Press, 2024.
Review by: Timothy Symington 17 June 2024 Journal of the American Revolution
Independent historian Jason A. Cherry has turned an interest in the activities of an unfamiliar western merchant during the antebellum colonial period into a fascinating and interesting book. His biography William Trent: Factor of Ambition details the rise and fall of one of the most influential merchants and negotiators on the western frontier of the eighteenth century. Dr. Marcia Balisciano, the Director of London’s Benjamin Franklin House, states in the Foreword that Cherry’s efforts are well worth it: “We, his readers, are the beneficiaries of his commitment and scholarship in presenting a rich portrait of the ‘real’ Trent and the tumultuous times in which he lived.”
The story of William Trent begins in the book with the description of a scandal in 1715 Philadelphia that involved Mary Coddington, who would eventually become Trent’s mother. Her relationship with Trent’s father, Judge William Trent, Sr., is explained along with the circumstances that led to Trent’s birth. Cherry offers a clear view of the maneuverings involved with both politics and real estate in colonial Philadelphia. Trent grew up learning about the mercantile business and the quest to attain land.
By the 1740s, England was involved with a war with France that is known simply as King George’s War. The fighting spilled into the colonies, with French attacks on English colonial settlements in the western regions of Pennsylvania and the Ohio River Valley. William Trent entered a long business partnership with his friend, George Croghan, and they would try their hands at the mercantile business and land acquisition in the west. Trent ended up making himself valuable as a record keeper for many negotiations with delegates of the Six Nations (he had superior penmanship). He was called upon several times to record and serve as a witness to many councils between the English and the Indian nations. He became a strong supporter of treaties that treated the Six Nations fairly, and he was involved with the Burnt Cabins Expedition of 1750 (the government set fire to the homes of white settlers who were squatting on designated Indian lands). Read more…

Book: The Battles of Fort Watson and Fort Motte, 1781
By Steven D. Smith Westholme Publishing (May 24, 2024) Fort Plain Museum
On May 9, 1781, American general Nathanael Greene and his Continental army were outside of British-held Camden, South Carolina. Greene was despondent and contemplating resigning his commission, believing he could not force the British out of the fortified village. His compatriot Francis Marion, standing before Fort Motte forty miles to the south, was also in the same mood, informing Greene that he was frustrated by the militia, and he was going to resign after the fort’s capture. The next day, Lord Francis Rawdon, commander of the Camden garrison and all British field forces in South Carolina, abandoned that backcountry village. Marion would capture Fort Motte two days later. In The Battles of Fort Watson and Fort Motte, 1781, historian and archaeologist Steven D. Smith relates the history of four critical weeks from April 12 until May 12, 1781, in which the tide of the Southern Campaign of the Revolutionary War turned in favor of the Americans.
The book focuses on General Francis Marion’s and Colonel Henry Lee’s capture of two key British forts, Fort Watson and Fort Motte, coordinating with Nathanael Greene in retaking the South Carolina backcountry. These posts defended the supply line between Charleston and the British-occupied villages of Camden and Ninety Six. Although there would be much more fighting to do, once the two forts were lost, the British had to abandon the backcountry or starve. The British would never again be on the strategic offensive and were confined to the Charleston environs until they abandoned the city in December 1782. The story of the capture of the forts is enhanced and enlightened by the findings of archaeological investigation at each site—and even mythology, such as Mrs. Motte providing the fire arrows used to burn her fortified house—which are seamlessly integrated into the account, providing a unique perspective on these important events during the Southern Campaign.
The Small Battles Series: Military History as Local History – Mark Edward Lender and James Kirby Martin, Series Editors – Small Battles offers a fresh and important new perspective on the story of America’s early conflicts. It was the small battles, not the clash of major armies, that truly defined the fighting during the colonial wars, the American Revolution, the War of 1812, and the hostilities on the frontiers. This is dramatic military history as seen through the prism of local history—history with a depth of detail, a feeling for place, people, and the impact of battle and its consequences that the story of major battles often cannot convey. The Small Battles Series focuses on America’s military conflicts at their most intimate and revealing level.
Steven D. Smith, PhD, is a Research Professor and archaeologist at the South Carolina Institute of Archaeology and Anthropology, University of South Carolina. He is the author of Francis Marion and the Snow’s Island Community: Myth, History, and Archaeology, and co-author, with Kevin Dougherty, of Leading Like the Swamp Fox: The Leadership Lessons of Francis Marion. He lives in Columbia, South Carolina.

Advertised on 20 June 1774: “Polite and Useful ART of FENCING”
What was advertised in a colonial American newspaper 250 years ago today?
June 20, 2024

“The polite and useful ART of FENCING.”

Two fencing masters dueled for pupils in the pages of the Massachusetts Gazette and Boston Post-Boy in June 1774. Each of them addressed prospective students with a flourish.  Donald McAlpine called on “all Lovers of the noble Science of DEFENCE,” while Monsieur Regnier, “MASTER of the polite and useful ART of FENCING,” was even more elaborate in addressing “the Braves and invincible Companions of MARS.”  Those headlines set their advertisements apart from others that read “TO BE SOLD” or “SPRING GOODS” or “THOMAS YOUNG.”
McAlpine specialized in teaching “the Art commonly called the BACKSWORD,” a “Science” that he would impart to the “entire Satisfaction” of “GENTLEMEN who choose to be instructed” by him.  He offered lessons on King Street from the early morning, commencing at sunrise, through the early evening, concluding with sunset, with a few hours set aside for meals and conducting other business.  He also visited gentlemen at their lodgings to give private lessons.  McAlpine indicated that he previously instructed “Gentlemen who have encouraged him” in his endeavor, while suggesting that he might not remain in Boston if other pupils did not engage his services.  He claimed that he “is strongly urged to go to another place” to teach the gentlemen there, yet it “would be most agreeable to him” to remain in Boston.  That would only happen, however, if he “Meets with such further Encouragement and Approbation” to convince him to stay.  If any gentlemen who considered themselves “Lovers of the noble Science of DEFENCE” had hesitated in seeking out McAlpine’s services, they needed to remedy that soon or risk him moving to another city. Read more…

Events Upcoming

The American Revolution Institute: “A Perilous Voyage for our Company” 11 July 2024 6:30

“A Perilous Voyage for our Company”: The Misadventures of James Selkirk on the Chesapeake Bay
Historian and documentary editor Robb Haberman examines the perilous voyage of Sgt. James Selkirk and the Second New York Regiment on their way to Yorktown in September 1781, when their transport schooner was separated and ran aground while sailing from Baltimore to Williamsburg. Using Selkirk’s unpublished papers, this talk examines his harrowing experience and the endurance of the Continental forces during the Yorktown campaign. Details and registration…

From the Social Media and Beyond

  • Townsends, or “anything food”
  • This week in History 
    • 15 June 1215: The #MagnaCarta is sealed by King John of England. It guarantees feudal rights and privileges, upheld the freedom of the church, and maintain the nation’s laws. It was annulled by Pope Innocent III, leading to the First Barons’ War. image
    • 22 May 1775 1st New Hampshire Regiment was formed. Col John Stark was the first commander. The unit fought at Chelsea Creek and Bunker Hill in 1775. On 1 January 1776, while engaged in the Siege of Boston, the unit was renamed the 5th Continental Regiment. image
    • 15 Jun 1775 Cambridge, MA The Cambridge Committee of Safety receives word from spies that Gov Gage plans to occupy heights around Boston & orders Gen Artemus Ward to occupy Dorchester Heights & Bunker Hill.  image
    • 15 Jun 1775 Philadelphia, PA Based on John Adams’s recommendation, the Continental Congress unanimously appointed Colonel George Washington of Virginia as Commander in Chief of the Continental Army. It would prove the most fateful decision of the war.  image
    • 16 Jun 1775 After colonial Militia leaders learned the British plan to fortify the unoccupied hills surrounding Boston, Colonel William Prescott took 1,200 militiamen to dig fortifications on Breeds Hill and Bunker Hill on the Charlestown peninsula. image
    • 17 Jun 1775 Charlestown, MA. The British face a series of defense works on Bunker/Breed’s Hill. Gen Thomas Gage sends 2.2K regulars under Gen Wm Howe in a head-on assault. The long red lines melt before blistering volleys. image
    • A 2nd attempt by Gen Howe is equally fruitless. Reinforced, Howe leads a third advance. Short on powder, the rebels cannot stop the advance & retreat but inflict over 1,000 casualties, a staggering 48% of those engaged. image
    • 6 Jun 1776 Chambly, Quebec Gen Benedict Arnold commands the rear guard of the defeated American army as it continues its retreat from Canada. image
    • 17 Jun 1777 St Johns, Quebec Gen John Burgoyne’s army of 7K men begins moving south into American territory with Gen Simon Fraser’s advance guard seizing Crown Point, NY. image
    • 27 May 1780 Lt Col Banastre Tarleton’s British troops under Col Charles Campbell burn the plantation home of retired Col Thomas Sumter along the High Hills of the Santee R. This prompts Sumter to break parole & rejoin the patriot cause. image
  • Clothing and Related: 
    • Clothing was a powerful tool used by enslaved people seeking their freedom and an expression of individuality in a society that didn’t recognize their humanity. Those who fled their enslavers sometimes brought clothing with them to help them “pass” as a free person of color. This could be especially useful for enslaved people who labored on plantations where mass-produced garments in coarse, inexpensive fabrics were the norm.
      Included in our Fashioned in History section of our special “Ruth E. Carter: Afrofuturism in Costume Design” exhibit at Jamestown Settlement, learn more about this garment and six others on our website.
  • Miscellaneous

Editor’s Note:
We have been busy this weekend with a number of my University graduation classmates celebrating our 55th anniversary – how time has flown by.  On this same weekend my alma mater Ontario Agricultural College (OAC) – part the University of Guelph – is  celebrating 150 years on Alumni weekend, so it is a double celebration.
As a result some of the sources from which I normally pull content did not get their normal attention; hence a little lighter issue.  I have probably a few items sent to me by email; I will try to include those next week.
…doug

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