In this issue:

Twitterhttp://twitter.com/uelac
Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/groups/2303178326/?ref=share

Happy Canada Day; Happy Independence Day
To all Canadians, but with maybe a little extra oomph for Loyalist descendants, Happy Canada Day.
For our American neighbours and friends, but with maybe a little extra oomph for those with Patriot (or proudly rebel) ancestors and double oomph for those with Loyalist (or both Loyalist and Patriot) ancestors, Happy Independence Day.

Some history notes for Canada Day:

The Foundering Fathers
Did the Fathers of Confederation bungle the creation of Canada? Maybe they were smarter than you think. Read more…

The Mothers of Confederation

Life was a story of unending toil for many women in pioneer Canada. Read more…

Cheering Confederation
The ways Canadians toast their country have changed with the times. Read more…

UELAC Head Office July Holiday
Please be advised that the UELAC Head Office in Cornwall will be closed from Monday July 08 until Monday, July 15 when Office Administrator Rod Appleby will be on vacation.
For Emergencies ONLY, the UELAC Office phone number is operational.
…Carl Stymiest UE, UELAC National President

The Sheaffe Family of Boston: A Loyalist Saga. Part One of Three
copyright Stephen Davidson UE
Just three more years remained in the American Revolution when Susannah Sheaffe, a Loyalist’s widow, successfully sued a client for £400 worth of goods that she supplied him from her grocery store in Boston.  1780 was also the year that Roger Hale Sheaffe, her second youngest son, received a promotion as a lieutenant in the British 5th Regiment. He and his oldest sister, Susannah Molesworth were both in England at the time, but Roger had written his mother to say that he was soon going to be stationed in the West Indies. Plans changed, however, and the 17 year-old completed his first tour of duty in Canada. It would not be his last in that part of the empire.
As far as the documents of the era indicate, most of the Sheaffe family was still based in Boston where the head of the household had once served as a customs officer. Susannah’s grocery store provided enough income to keep a roof over the heads of Margaret (20 years old), Mary (18), Anne (7), Helen (11) and William Jr. (10). Thomas (24), the oldest living son, was a merchant in New York City engaged in transatlantic trade. Correspondence served to link the widow with her children in England.
By 1782, Roger had left Canada and was stationed in Ireland. He was able to send a letter to his mother through his brother Thomas who was visiting at the time. It included the lines, “May you have that satisfaction, in the midst of your afflictions, to bear with fortitude, my dear Mother, your present misfortunes. The time will come when you will experience happier days among your friends.” He then had to break the news to her that his current pay did not allow him to send her any money. His patron, Baron Hugh Percy had also recently forgiven Roger for his financial mismanagement, paying off the 19 year-olds debts “that my own folly had led me into”.
In the following year, Thomas Sheaffe wrote his mother to say that he had left Charleston, South Carolina soon after he heard that the peace treaty ending the revolution had come into effect.  He had intended to take a cargo to the West Indies, and then bring rum to an American port on his return voyage, but with the news of peace, Thomas decided to “return to Charleston to settle some matters and then come home.” Susannah Sheaffe’s merchant son died in Boston almost a decade after the peace.
The war years were ones of romance for two of the Sheaffe sisters. Mary married Benjamin Cutler, the high sheriff of Boston. Margaret, the fourth daughter born to the Sheaffes, married John R. Livingston, a Boston merchant.  She was just 25 when she died in 1785. Margaret “was adored by her connections, and beloved by all who knew her…. She was remarkable for beauty; so handsome.
By the end of 1786, Susannah Sheaffe had lost a daughter and a son in the 15 years since her husband William had died. She wrote to her oldest daughter Susannah Molesworth, who by this time was living in Dublin, Ireland, hoping that they would come and visit her in Boston. Neither the Molesworth family nor her son Roger felt that they would be able to leave Ireland, but they strongly encouraged Susannah to cross the Atlantic to join them.
The Molesworths felt that Susannah could make a claim for compensation as a Loyalist, but that could only happen if she was “in this part of the world”.  “By leaving Boston, you do not separate yourself from your whole family. Consult the opinions of your real friends and no others.” But Susannah could not be persuaded to leave Massachusetts, and never made a claim for compensation.
In September of 1786, Susannah witnessed the wedding of her daughter Anne to John Erving, Jr. A Harvard graduate, Erving at first sided with the Patriots, but by 1778 he was condemned as a traitor and banished. Patriots confiscated his property in 1779.  The Ervings would have three children before Anne’s death. Like her sisters Mary and Margaret, she also died very young. Whether it was due to the smallpox epidemic that swept through the colonies or the complications of childbirth, one can only speculate on the reasons for the three Sheaffe sisters’ deaths.
By 1788, five years after the revolution, Susannah Sheaffe and her son Thomas were in Boston, and daughter Susannah was in Ireland. William Jr., the youngest of the Sheaffe children (just 18) crossed the Atlantic and began to work within the British revenue service thanks to his brother-in-law, Ponsonby Molesworth.
Now 25 years old, Roger Sheaffe was serving with the 5th Regiment of Foot in Canada. Susannah had not seen her son since he was ten years old when he had sailed for England fifteen years earlier. Because he often visited with his older sister, she was able to describe him to her mother, “Roger behaves remarkably well; is much liked in the Regiment; he is tall, well made, and reckoned handsome; very lively, yet prudent and steady in matters of consequence.”
Another relative said of Roger, “He was, indeed, the idol of family and friends. His heart was as tender and affectionate as a woman’s, joined to the noblest principles of honour and generosity. His disposition was cheerful, and his manner often playful. He was of middling stature, and his person was well formed. His face was fine, his eyes of the deepest blue, full and prominent; and his teeth were of the purest white, regular and even, and were retained to a late period, if not to the close of his life.”
Because he was based in Detroit (still considered part of Upper Canada) with his regiment, Roger was finally able to be reunited with his mother in 1792. It would be interesting to know how an officer stationed with British troops was received by Susannah Sheaffe’s neighbours. Hostility? Indifference? Perhaps curiosity? Roger was, after all, Boston-born and had last been seen when he was only ten.
Roger and his mother would see each other only two more times when he made visits to Boston in 1803 and 1806.  Five years later, Susannah died. She would never know how her son would become the forgotten hero of the Battle of Queenston Heights – or how King George III would bestow the title of baronet upon him.
The story of Sir Roger Hale Sheaffe and his role in defending Upper Canada will conclude this series in next week’s Loyalist Trails.
To secure permission to reprint this article contact the author at stephendavids@gmail.com.

The Quebec Act, 22 June 1774
from Canada History  here
The Quebec Act which was passed by the British Parliament on June 22, 1774 had major implications for the 13 colonies and the future of British North America. The immediate provisions of the act allowed Roman Catholic participation in daily social and civil affaires. A test oath in the act did not include religious issues, religious freedom was guaranteed, the seigneurial system was maintained, French civil law was accepted in the colony of Quebec and the territories of Quebec were vastly expanded.
The new territories of Quebec included the Ile d’Anticosti, Iles de la Madeleine,  Labrador and the Indian territory between the Mississippi and Ohio Rivers to the south of the Great Lakes. This was area was where the inhabitants of the13 colonies were looking to expand into. This led the 13 colonies to include the Quebec Act in their list of “Intolerable Acts” which eventually helped led those colonies to revolution against Britain. Edmund Burke felt that this act would help maintain Quebec as a British colony with increased loyalty to King George rather then continue to look back to the old days of French rule.

A Second Fight for Freedom: The enslaved of Dr. James Craik, Chief Physician
by Michael M. Wood 25 June 2024 Journal of the American Revolution
As Founding Fathers of the United States met in Philadelphia to declare that “all men are created equal,” Thomas Craik Jr. was born into a family of people enslaved by Dr. James Craik on his Maryland plantations. This was not unusual at the time; many of the colonial landed gentry relied upon slave labor to work their tobacco plantations, including George Washington himself. What makes this story unique is a series of records which allow us to document much of the family who were enslaved by Dr. Craik.
Slavery in Maryland
Slavery is a dark chapter in history; the retelling of an enslaved person’s story can never capture the pain and suffering of a life in bondage.
As lucrative as the colonial tobacco crop might have been, growing it was extremely labor-intensive. Maryland Governor Charles Calvert wrote in 1729, “Tobacco, as our staple, is our all, and indeed leaves no room for anything else. It requires the attendance of all our hands, and exacts their utmost labour, the whole year round.” By the mid-eighteenth century, the plantation economy of Maryland relied almost exclusively upon slavery to supply the extensive numbers of field hands the crop required.
By 1755 enslaved Blacks accounted for 33 percent of Maryland’s total population; the concentration was even higher in the tidewater region. In some tidewater counties, as much as half the population originated in Africa; many of the enslaved in Maryland originated in the Windward and Gold Coasts of West Africa, from Sierra Leone to Nigeria. Throughout the south, regular sales offering “fine, healthy Negroes” cx from the windward coast, were common.
At the outbreak of the Revolution, the demographics of Maryland’s enslaved population had changed significantly; some 90 percent of the colony’s enslaved people were native-born Americans. Read more…

The Story of Isaac Bissell—and the Legend of Israel Bissell
by J. L. Bell 27 June 2024 Journal of the American Revolution
In April 1775, Isaac Bissell was a crucial link between the Patriots of Massachusetts and the government of neighboring Connecticut. His actions contributed to alerting many communities along the Atlantic coast about the outbreak of war in Lexington. Nevertheless, through a chain of circumstances, Isaac Bissell’s name has been overwritten in history books.
This story starts in February 1775, when two gentlemen from Connecticut visited the Massachusetts Provincial Congress, then meeting in Cambridge. The Bay Colony’s rebel legislature had convened on and off since the preceding October, defying Parliament’s Massachusetts Government Act and preparing for war against the royal governor if necessary. That congress wanted allies, so its leaders were pleased to hear from William Williams and Nathaniel Wales, Jr.
Williams was the speaker of the Connecticut assembly, a militia colonel, and a son-in-law of his colony’s elected governor, Jonathan Trumbull. Wales was a representative from the town of Windham. Both men lived in eastern Connecticut, closer to Cambridge than many of their colleagues. Back in May 1773, the Connecticut legislature had named Williams and Wales to its “standing Committee of Correspondence and Enquiry” with a mandate to “maintain a correspondence and communication with our sister Colonies” and “obtain all such intelligence” about the political conflict with the Crown.
The official record of the Connecticut assembly says nothing about that body sending Williams and Wales to speak to the Massachusetts Provincial Congress in early 1775. Read more…

Hessian Soldiers Travelling to America: New York A Soldier’s Life June 1780
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

June 1780: At New York (page 82)
Continuation of Occurences in North America During the Fourth Year, 1780
IN THE MONTH OF JUNE [1780]
4 June. The King’s birthday was celebrated here.
5 June. I had orderly duty with the Voit Regiment. Today Private [Joseph] Glatz, of Eyb’s Company, deserted from the barracks.
6 June.  Lieutenant  General  von Knyphausen  left New York with  a  corps of  six  or  seven  thousand  men,  including the Ansbach Regiment, and  had  his  troops  carried  in  sloops  across the Hudson River to Staten Island to undertake an expedition into the province of New Jersey.
7 June.  The  duty  period  is  now  twenty-four  hours  long,  because  there  are  only  three regiments  here,  namely,  ours,  a  regiment  of  English  provincials,  and  a  regiment  of  Green Scots.
Today General Knyphausen departed from Staten Island with his troops, crossed the Kills River, and entered into the Jerseys. He then marched toward Elizabethtown and Springfield, drove the enemy, with many losses, out of some defensive positions, and eight or nine  miles farther  back. Beyond Elizabethtown  his  force  destroyed  and  burned down  many  houses and buildings,  but  in  the  evening,  because  the  enemy  received  large  reinforcements,  it  was necessary to withdraw back across the Kills River. According to deserters’ statements, on this day  the  rebels  lost  one  thousand  men,  dead  and  wounded.  On  our  side  more  than  three hundred dead and wounded were counted. The English General Stern [Stirling] was fatally wounded. Major Seitz of the Ansbach Regiment was grazed by a shot. Lieutenant [Friedrich] Ebenauer, of the Jaeger Corps, was killed by a cannon shot and lies buried not far from Springfield. This brave man was greatly mourned by his jaegers.
When  General  Washington,  who  later  camped  in  the  area,  was  shown  the  grave  of Lieutenant Ebenauer, he  is said to have wept and had the grave opened  in  order to  see  him, because he had heard much of his all-encompassing courage. He then had him properly buried and  is supposed to  have  said  to those of  his  officers  present:  “Here  is  an example  for  us  to follow. He was a good officer who did his duty and set an example that even his enemies can respect.”
9 June. I went on watch at the North Church as lance corporal.
10 June.  A  deserter  from  the  Light  Horse,  by  the  name  of  Abt,  entered  General Knyphausen’s  camp  with  horse,  saddle,  and  bridle  and  told  the  general  that  he  had  been a soldier  in  the  Bayreuth Regiment. On 1  October 1779 he  had  gone  to  buy  victuals  with  his captain’s servant, on Conanicut at Rhode Island, and was captured by a party of Americans. Shortly  thereafter  he  resolved  to  take  duty  with  the  rebels  and  was  at  once  enrolled  by Washington’s newly  formed  Light  Horse.  As  he  was  ordered  on  reconnaissance  today  with some  others,  he  was  able  to  escape  from  them  without  being  noticed.  He  was  sent immediately  to  rejoin  his  regiment  in  New  York,  on  Knyphausen’s  orders,  and  was  again accepted into the Eyb Company.
12 June. I went on the North George watch as lance corporal. At noon an English ship, named Wat, eighteen guns, entered the harbor. It had been attacked nine  miles  from Hudson Bay by two American frigates, each of which had twenty-eight cannon. The ships exchanged fire for more than six hours. The English ship lost its mast, and all sails were shot up. It was about to surrender and to strike the flag when it suddenly received a good wind and fled from the Americans. This ship had taken 239 hits, had no masts, sails, or rigging intact, and was in a pitiful condition. Only five men from this crew were not wounded. The captain, still a young man, had won undying fame for himself. He had been wounded three times and  had twenty- three dead and ninety-six wounded  lying  in  blood  on  his  ship,  most of whom had  arms and legs either broken or shot off. No one here in New York Harbor had ever seen a ship enter in such condition. I myself saw it.
16 June. At eleven o’clock at night, our regiment also received orders to march to General Knyphausen’s corps in the Jerseys. The heavy baggage was to be left behind with a command and the women.
17 June.  At  seven  o’clock  in  the  morning  our  Bayreuth  Regiment  marched  out  of  the barracks on the North River. We marched into the city to the West Wharf, where, embarked on  small  ships,  we  were  carried  across  the  Hudson  Bay  and  debarked  at  Deckers  Ferry  on Staten Island. From there we went to the Kills River, over which a floating  bridge  had been constructed, to Knyphausen’s army, where we were placed on the  right  wing and  joined  the brigade of General [John] Leland. We were in the second line of battle and camped under the open  skies  in  a  region  that  was  planted  with  brushwood  and  shrubbery,  two  English  miles from Elizabethtown.  In the  evening  I  went  on  fire  watch  as  lance  corporal. Our pickets and outposts clashed with those of the enemy throughout the night and they fired at one another.
19 June. General Clinton arrived. We moved out and he inspected all three regiments.
21 June.  During  the  night  a  rebel  picket  of  one  officer  and  thirty  men  went  over  to  the English troops.
22 June. At nine o’clock at night the order came to go forward and to attack the enemy.
(to be continued)

Advertised on 24 June 1774: “Old Books he can metamorphose into new
What was advertised in a colonial American newspaper 250 years ago today?
June 24, 2024

“Old Books he can metamorphose into new.”

When Nathaniel Patten, “BOOKBINDER and STATIONER, from BOSTON,” set up shop in Norwich, he placed an advertisement in the Connecticut Gazette, published in New London, but curiously not in the Norwich Packet.  Perhaps he suspected that advertising in the Connecticut Gazette was the better investment since it had been in circulation for more than a decade while the Norwich Packet commenced publication only nine months earlier.  Until that time, the Connecticut Gazette had been the local newspaper for Norwich, though the Connecticut Courant (published in Hartford), the Providence Gazette, and newspapers from Boston and other cities in New England made their way to Norwich, some more consistently than others depending on arrangements that subscribers made with post riders.  In New England and beyond, newspapers served colonies and regions rather than just the towns where they were published.  The full title of the Norwich Packet and Connecticut, Massachusetts, New-Hampshire, and Rhode Island Weekly Advertiser revealed its aspirations to do so as it built up its circulation.  For the moment, however, Patten may have believed that advertising in the Connecticut Gazette would yield more customers.
The bookbinder and stationer made several appeals in hopes of drawing readers to his shop or convincing them to send orders.  Like many others in his trade, he also sold books, giving over more than half the space in his advertisement to a list of books and pamphlets he stocked.   Read more… 

The Acadian Deportation, Women, and Refugee Resettlement in the British and French Atlantic (1755-1793)
By Adeline Vasquez-Parra June 2024 Common PLace
In a sense, within an imperial context, humanitarian assistance inadvertently provided some Acadian women refugees with a platform unlike they had ever had before.
The influence of the deportation on Acadian women refugees went beyond the 1847 poem “Evangeline.” This historical event, connecting people and places across cultures, also provides a unique perspective on gender, displacement, and settler colonialism. What was it like to be a displaced woman settler in the late modern Atlantic world?
1786. In the cobblestone streets of Morlaix, nestled along the rugged coast of Brittany, the footsteps of three young Acadian sisters—Marguerite Rosalie, Anne Suzanne, and Marie Esther Richard—echoed amidst the industrious rhythm of daily life. Two of them, who were deported as children first to England and then to France, had settled as tailors in the small Breton city, where the Acadian refugee community had relocated. In a report drafted in 1786, Morlaix’s subdelegate stewardship chronicled the sisters’ plea for an exemption from the tailors’ guild, a plea borne not out of a desire for monetary gain but rather a fervent hope to safeguard their livelihood. “Since they are quite busy, they are not asking for payment. But worried they will be bothered by the tailors’ guild, they ask to be granted an exemption to practice their trade,” the stewardship remarked. The Richard sisters’ efforts to attain economic independence demonstrate how refugee women respond and recover from crises. Without the economic support of a male figure, these women encounter challenges in securing assistance for themselves, as well as for their children and parents. Paradoxically, despite being refugees, the Richard sisters managed to empower themselves, breaking away from traditional roles to assert their own agency. What factors facilitated this transformation, and how did humanitarian aid either uphold or challenge gender norms within the settler-refugee community of Acadians? Additionally, how did imperial policies intersect to advance the expansionist agendas of empires?
The scarcity of archival sources presents challenges in constructing a complete narrative of the Acadian women’s experience of the 1755 deportation. Sporadic references to these women appear in French colonial archives, state archives in the United States, and provincial archives in Canada. However, these archives do not contain testimonies or comprehensive accounts of the deportation. Read more…

Fine Dining: Etiquette at the Georgian Table
Elaine Thornton 24 June 2024 All Things Georgian
For the lucky few at the top end of Georgian society, dining and entertaining lavishly was an everyday affair. Dinner was the main meal of the day, although the timing changed as the century progressed, moving from mid-afternoon to early evening. Few people ate a formal lunch. Most either missed the meal out altogether or had a small snack in the middle of the day, often consisting of cold meat and fruit.
There was a good deal of ceremony surrounding a Georgian dinner party. Seating was ordered by status: women took precedence over men of the same rank, while married women ranked above unmarried ones. Conduct books warned that ‘nothing is considered as a greater mark of ill-breeding, than for a person to interrupt this order, or seat himself higher than he ought’. Indeed, the seating etiquette was so rigid that the son of a French duke visiting England in 1784 remarked that ‘for the first few days I was tempted to think it was done for a joke’.
Once the guests had seated themselves in the correct places, the dishes were brought in by servants and placed down the centre of the table. Diners then carved and helped themselves from the dishes nearest to them. Servants were expected to efface themselves in the presence of their betters, ‘to tread lightly across the room, and never to speak, but [only] in reply to a question asked, and then in a modest under voice’. A badly behaved or ignorant servant was ‘a reflection on the good conduct of the mistress or master’.
Dinner would consist of at least two courses, heavily dominated by meat and fish dishes. Read more… 

California and Slavery
by Jean Pfaelzer, 25 June 2024 Ben Franklin’s World
Jean Pfaelzer is a Professor Emerita of English, Asian Studies, and Women and Gender Studies at the University of Delaware.
Using details from her book California, A Slave State, Pfaelzer reveals, The great diversity of California’s Indigenous populations prior to Spanish colonization; Details about how and why the Spanish, Russians, Americans, and Chinese brought different forms of slavery to California; And, the truth about the myth that California entered the United States union as a “free state” in 1850.  Listen in… 

Women in Transportation
By Nancy Payne 1 March 2019 Canada’s History
Throughout history, many Canadian women have helped shape how we think about and use transportation. From designing airplanes to flying them, this list features female innovators in Canadian transportation history.
But this list is not exhaustive. There are countless other notable women in transportation that we could have featured.
Check out Merna Forster’s books 100 Canadian Heroines and 100 More Canadian Heroines to discover stories of other women and their achievements.
In search of adventure
Transportation starts with knowing where you’re going, and knowing where you’re going starts with a map. Charlotte Small travelled thousands of kilometres of wilderness in the early 1800s with her husband David Thompson, who gets most of the credit for creating many important maps of what is now Canada. Mina Hubbard drew excellent maps of northern Labrador in 1905. Phyllis James Munday mapped and photographed the mountains near her B.C. home, and in 1924, became the first woman to climb Mount Robson. Read more…

UELAC Loyalist Directory: New Contributions

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

  • to Kevin Wisener UE who contributed information about
    • Pvt. Francis Reilly possibly from New York who served in the Kings Rangers and Received a 100 acre land grant at Lot 47, Kings County, Prince Edward Island
    • Pvt. William Reilly served in the Royal Nova Scotia Volunteer Regiment and Received a 100 acre land grant at Wheatley River, Lot 24, Queens County, Prince Edward Island

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

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…

America’s History LLC Bus Trip –  Forts, Raids, Battles and Mayhem: The Schoharie Valley, 1776 to 1780 – September 7, 2024, day bus trip

Many contributing factors made living on the western edge of Albany County, near the frontier, a very dangerous place during the war. Events here are indelibly linked to the people and events of the Mohawk Valley, as well as New York State and beyond. What happened in the Schoharie Valley region was part of a particularly brutal civil war that erupted on New York’s frontier.
Many of the opposing participants knew each other, as German, Dutch, and Mohawk friends, neighbors, and family members who chose sides and suffered often tragic consequences.
Along with a discussion of the violent history of the war in this region, there will be a rich narrative about the people who it impacted, their backgrounds, and what they had built and lost. This included the resident Mohawk community known as Wilden der Hoeck that was forever impacted. Read more and registration…

From the Social Media and Beyond

  • (Brian McConnell UE) stopped for visit at Clermont this morning, former residence of Bishop Charles Inglis. The well with plaque can be viewed in East Kingston, Kings County at 41 Clairmont Road, a short distance east of the Clairmont Provincial Park. image
    The plaque on well reads:

    CLERMONT
    This is the site of Clermont
    The Estate of
    CHARLES INGLIS
    who was consecrated the First Anglican Bishop
    of Nova Scotia in 1787.
    He purchased this land in 1790 and had this well dug in 1792.
    He died here on Feb. 24th  1816.

  • Townsends, or “anything food”
  • This week in History 
    •  27 Jun 1775,  Continental Congress resolves that Gen Philip Schuyler travel to Forts Ticonderoga (Carillon) & Crown Point to inspect the troops, supplies & ability to navigate Lake Champlain & Lake George, & obtain intelligence on the Canadians & Indians. image
    • 25 June 1776 British Gen William Howe arrived off Staten Island with a fleet and an army prepared to capture New York and subdue the rebellion there and in New Jersey. The alarm goes throughout NYC – the Continental Army waits for the expected invasion.  image
    • 28 Jun 1776 Charleston SC Commodore Peter Parker runs up against stiff resistance at Sullivan’s Island by the stout defense of Col. William Moultrie. Spongy palmetto logs absorb blow after blow & rebel gunners inflict heavy casualties & British withdraw. image
    • 28 June 1776 NYC Thomas Hickey, Continental Army sergeant & bodyguard to Gen Washington, is hanged for mutiny & sedition. Although the only one hanged, Hickey was part of a much larger British plot by Gov Tryon & Loyalists to assassinate Washington. image
    • 26 June 1777, after succeeding in drawing Washington out of Middlebrook, NJ, by luring him toward New Brunswick, Gen William Howe marched out of Perth Amboy & attempted to cut the Americans off from their defensive stronghold. image
    • 27 Jun 1777 Captain Lambert Wickes’ squadron’s raid in the English Channel concludes when he arrives at Nantes, France. His 3 ships took 18 prize ships along the way and avoided capture or sinking by the Royal Navy’s 74-gun HMS Burford. image
    • 26 Jun 1778 Col George Rogers Clark and a force of 175 soldiers shoot the rapids of the Ohio River in flatboats and then sail west for the Illinois territory. image
    • 26 Jun 1778, Gen Washington increases the advance to 5K to strike at the British rear guard as they depart Monmouth, CH. His 2nd in command, Gen Chas Lee, now insists on command over Lafayette. image
    • 27 Jun 1778 Gen Charles Lee commands the 5K-strong American advance guard to attack the British rearguard. Gen. Washington knew his troops were well-trained and in top form, but Lee, always disparaging the American troops, had no faith in the men. image
    • 28 Jun 1778, Mary Ludwig Hayes, “Molly Pitcher,” aids American patriots. Molly Pitcher was a nickname given to a woman who was said to have fought in the American Battle of Monmouth, who is generally believed to have been Mary Ludwig Hays McCauley. image
    • 28 June 1778 Monmouth Courthouse, New Jersey. The Continental Army had spent the months at Valley Forge training to European standards by General Steuben and were now pursuing a British column that had abandoned Philadelphia and was marching toward New York. General Washington ordered an attack on the British Army’s rear guard as it began leaving Monmouth Courthouse. Poor leadership by the American commander, General Charles Lee, resulted in confused movement and poor disposition of his forces.  Recognizing this,  British General Henry Clinton attempted to turn the Continentals back. Lee’s forces began retreating under pressure from a British force intent on restoring its honor. But General Washington rode forward, took control, and rallied the troops. The British added more men to the engagement. Still, the now highly-trained Continentals held their ground and fought the regulars to a standstill in a day of bloody exchanges of volley fire mixed with artillery barrages. A significant achievement and a turning point showing the Continentals had become an effective fighting force. image
  • Clothing and Related:

    • a gown of c.1794. Narrow silk sleeves have now extended down the arms to the wrists. They are also curved to accommodate the elbow; a style seen in men’s coats of the era. image
    • Delighted by the late 18th-century trend of covering objects made of glass beads (called sablé) with hot air balloons following the first untethered manned hot air balloon flight in Paris in 1783. Here’s a c. 1783-1800 hand screen, bag, shoes, and chatelaine all in the @mfaboston image
    •  a lovely block-printed linen open robe dated c.1777 – 1780. The sleeves are plain in style and shaped around the elbow. Small gussets have been inserted to help with shaping and for the comfort of the wearer. image
  • Miscellaneous

Editor’s Note:
June has been a crazy month for me, with UELAC Conference, University Graduating year gathering and two days later,  departure for a 2 1/2 week vacation. We are now in the North Sea, on a ship, heading from London to the top pf Norway, then back to Oslo with numerous stops along the way. I do also look forward to a return to a more normal hectic life.
…doug

Published by the UELAC
If you do not now receive this free newsletter directly but would like to, you can:

  • subscribe here.
  • To unsubscribe, follow the ‘manage your subscription’ link in the footing below.
  • To change your email address, follow ‘manage  your subscription’, then click on ‘edit profile’, make the change and be sure to click ‘update’.

Published by the UELAC
If you do not now receive this free newsletter directly but would like to, you can subscribe here.