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2025 UELAC Conference: History questions. Flights
The conference has lots to do — see Conference 2025 details.

New Brunswick was first inhabited by First Nations like the Mi’kmaq and Maliseet. In 1604, Acadia, the first New France colony, was founded with the creation of Port-Royal. For 150 years afterwards, Acadia changed hands multiple times due to numerous conflicts between France and the United Kingdom. From 1755 to 1764, the British deported Acadians en masse, an event known as the Great Upheaval. This, along with the Treaty of Paris, solidified Acadia as British property. In 1784, following the arrival of many loyalists fleeing the American Revolution, the colony of New Brunswick was officially created, separating it from what is now Nova Scotia. In the early 1800s, New Brunswick prospered and the population grew rapidly.

The Saint John area was nurtured by its first inhabitants, the Mi’kmaq and Maliseet, long before its European discovery. On a voyage in 1604, Samuel-de-Champlain named the St. John River in honour of St. Jean the Baptiste. Following the American Revolution, 14,000 American British supporters arrived, and in 1783 settled at the mouth of the St. John River. In 1785 this “Loyalist city” was incorporated by Royal Charter, making it Canada’s first incorporated city.

Editor: Questions I wonder about:

  • What was the population of Western Nova Scotia (now New Brunswick) before the first shipload of Loyalist refugees arrived in 1783.
  • How many of those were indigenous? How many European and other n on-natives?
  • British troops were stationed at Parrtown (now Saint John) and elsewhere in Western Nova Scotia at that time. How many, and are they included in the population figures.
  • Were there supplies in store waiting for the first refugees? How long had the British anticipated the arrival of refugees? If not already there, when did the first supplies arrive? What were the supplies and how were they allocated?

What Loyalist-related questions about New Brunswick and Saint John do you have?

Airlines:
There may be different regional, national and international airlines which serve Saint John.
From Toronto Air Canada flies to Saint John, and
Flair Airlines has recently announced flights between Toronto and Saint John, beginning in April.

Hope to see you there…

Norfolk No More: Part Two of Three
copyright Stephen Davidson UE
The Book of Negroes lists 328 men, women and children who had once been enslaved in Virginia’s Princess Anne and Norfolk counties – Black Loyalists who found freedom and sanctuary in various parts of the British Empire. Within 20 years, they had established themselves in Nova Scotia, New Brunswick, the West Indies, the United Kingdom, Belgium, and Sierra Leone.
Most of the entries in the Book of Negroes are extremely brief, providing only the Black Loyalist’s age, physical condition, former enslaver, loyalist escort, geographical location of his/her enslavement, and his/her certification of freedom. Data for a man named Cato Ramsey is typical of what is usually found: “Cato Ramsey, 45, slim fellow, (Stephen Shakespeare). Formerly slave to Dr. John Ramsey, Norfolk, Virginia; left him 7 years past. General Birch’s Certificate.”
However, the stories of some of those once enslaved in eastern Virginia can be fleshed out, revealing—in some cases– what these men and women endured, overcame, and accomplished.
In the spring of 1783, the men who had once enslaved over 300 escaped Black Loyalists petitioned Sir Guy Carleton, the British commander in chief, for the return of what they perceived to be their property. Former enslavers were known to be in the city that had been British headquarters throughout the revolution, “seizing upon their slaves in the streets of New York, or even dragging them out of their beds.”
One group of Black Loyalists that was especially fearful of being enslaved again were the mothers of children born after they had escaped from their Virginian masters. In those days, the children of a female slave automatically became the property of the woman’s master – the infants were born into slavery. If a Black Loyalist woman were to be captured by her master as she waited for an evacuation vessel to take her to a safe sanctuary, the children born to her would not be recognized as being born free.
Abby Brown, a 30 year-old woman who had once been enslaved by John Willoughby, had escaped from his plantation in 1776. With her was William Patrick who had been five when Abby escaped. He would have known what it was like to be a child slave, but Abby’s 3 year-old daughter Dinah, was born “within the British lines” and thus was bon free.
Hannah Ford escaped Virginia in 1777 and gave birth to Keziah in 1781. No doubt her former master, Joseph Jolly, would be glad to recapture Hannah and her 2 year-old – a girl that he could eventually put to work on his Norfolk County estate.
Twenty year-old Barbara Hancock had been a free woman for the past 7 years. Within a year of escaping her master with her husband Stephen, she gave birth to Robert Bray Hancock. A six year-old in 1783, he risked being made a slave for the first time in his life.
Jane Halladay was accompanied by her 18 month-old son Peter when she received her General Birch certificate that recognized her status as a free woman. Would her master find her five years after her escape?
In the seven years since she fled from John Hirst’s plantation, Jane Nelis had given birth to a son named Jonathan and a daughter named Sally – both “born within the British lines” years after her escape. Fanny Brown, a 40 year-old woman, had served with the Black Pioneers, a corps of free Africans, since her 1776 escape. Her re-enslavement would have included that of her 6 year-old daughter Patty.
Peggy, employed with the Black Brigade, a corps that guarded New York City, had fled Virginia when she was just 23. In 1781 she gave birth to Peter, a toddler who could have been taken back to Norfolk County if Peggy could not avoid being captured.
Sam and Kate Godfrey had served in the Royal Artillery Department since their 1779 escape from slavery along with their son Port and their daughter Lucy. While in New York, the couple had Salley who was just a year and a half old when Virginian slave owners began to seize their “property”.
The fears these parents had for the freedom of their children were allayed by Sir Guy Carleton, who devised a certificate signed by General Samuel Birch, the British commandant of New York. The certificates –remembered by one Black Loyalist– “dispelled all our fears, and filled us with joy and gratitude.” Known as Birch certificates, they gave their bearers the right to go to “Nova Scotia, or wherever else he may think proper”.
The children born following their parents’ escape from Princess Anne and Norfolk Counties were recognized as free just like their fathers and mothers. None of them were seized by their former masters. Each of them sailed from New York, finding new homes in Port Roseway, Annapolis Royal, Saint John, and Port Mouton.
However, there was one instance where runaway slaves who had sought refuge in New York City were recaptured by their masters. In September of 1783, the evacuation vessel Mars was boarded to seize Mingo, his wife Diana and their year-and-a-half old daughter Phebe. The couple had been enslaved near Flushing, New York, and had boarded the ship without having a Birch certificate.
Aboard the Mars was a 20 year-old man named John Fortune who had one been enslaved by Captain Connor of Norfolk, Virginia. Fortune had joined the British troops four years previously and –after arriving in New York—had been issued a Birch certificate to verify his status as a free man. Nevertheless, the experience of seeing fellow passengers being returned to their masters must have been a sobering one. Two weeks later, Fortune disembarked in the settlement that was to become Saint John, New Brunswick.
The last chapter in this series on the Black Loyalists of Virginia’s Princess Anne and Norfolk Counties will be feature in next week’s Loyalist Trails.
 To secure permission to reprint this article contact the author at stephendavids@gmail.com.

Podcast: Divided Families of Marblehead and Halifax with G. Patrick O’Brien
Recorded on 25 Feb 2025 at Revolution 250
“Place is of very little consequence,” Mary Sewall of Marblehead wrote to her sister in Nova Scotia in 1799,” except as it brings you near to those whom by nature you are most nearly allied.” The Sewall sisters had been separated by war, yet family ties endured and complicated their relationships in the post-Revolutionary world.
Patrick O’Brien of the University of Tampa, writing about the divided families of Marblehead, joins us to talk about the ties sundered by the Revolution and those that remained. Listen in…

What [really] happened at the Boston Massacre?
Jamestown Yorktown Foundation Museum
The [Paul Revere] image is probably the most famous image of the Boston Massacre [5 March 1770]. It was engraved by Paul Revere about two weeks after the Boston Massacre occurred. At first glance, what do you think took place at the Boston Massacre?
If you said, “A British soldier urged his men to fire into a crowd of peaceful Bostonians (and a dog!),” that would be a great summary of the image!
Before we dive into the historical details of the Boston Massacre, let’s think about why the soldiers were in Boston in the first place and what led up to this specific moment.
How did the Boston Massacre unfold?
First, it was unusual for British soldiers to be in Boston in the first place—so, what were they doing there? Bostonians had violently rioted after the Stamp Act was passed in 1765. So when the Townshend Acts were passed in 1767, British officials decided to send troops to Boston to enforce tax collection. Starting in about 1768, 1,000 British soldiers lived in the town of Boston alongside residents to act as a type of police force. Another 1,000 troops were stationed nearby on an island in Boston Harbor. Soldiers sometimes got along with Bostonians, but there was plenty of tension between the two groups as well. The tension built for about a year and a half before the occasional altercations led to all-out brawls, and eventually the Boston Massacre. Read more…

Hessian Soldiers Travelling to America: POW: on the March – A Soldier’s Life November 1781
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 1781: to Chesapeake Bay (Yorktown)
  • October 1781: to Williamsburg

October, 1781: POW: On the March. (page 117)

Continuation of Occurences in North America During the Fifth Year, 1781

IN THE MONTH OF NOVEMBER [1781]
page 117

8 November. We began to improve our barracks a bit. We made cabins and cots therein, for which we had permission from the Americans to get wood from the nearby forests. We closed the roofs and filled all the holes in the walls with wood and clay to protect ourselves from the cold. The worst evil in the huts was the constant smoke from the fireplaces, which often was such that it was impossible to see one another. We also collected bullrushes in the forest and cut grass, which served as mattress filler. Many of our people, with the permission of the American commanding officer, went, with or without passes, into the surrounding region to work for the residents threshing, spinning, cutting wood, or whatever the people had to do, in order to lessen the hunger and to earn a shirt to put on their backs. We were also allowed by the local watch commander and Colonel Cannada, as the commander of the barracks and the captive troops, to go into the city of Winchester and outside the barracks, five or six miles, without being stopped. This permission was undoubtedly the best part of our captivity. However, the rations were therefore that much worse, and they were meted out to us very sparingly and of poor quality. We received absolutely no bread except for an occasional uncooked Indian bread from the escort, which was even worse than pumpernickel. And instead of bread, which was to have been furnished according to the surrender agreement, we received a little raw and half-cooked oatmeal, from which we occasionally baked bread pancakes, for which the ever-present stewpots served us.
The best was that we still had money, and the residents brought us bread, cheese, butter, eggs, and all sorts of foodstuffs such as beets, potatoes, cabbage, cognac, punch, cider, rum, and beer, in abundance. Also to be found here each day were sutlers who built huts, where everything was obtainable, for a good price. The local inhabitants were pleased with our good hard cash, because in Virginia the paper money, or the paper issued by Congress, is plentiful. The residents who came to the markets did not understanding anything about our money, whether Spanish or English; therefore, the English prisoners passed out tin, lead, and other metals. After a time, all foodstuffs became more expensive.
With time, even our money ran out, and many had nothing more and began to trade clothing and small uniform items with the Virginians for victuals. These items were accepted by the residents at a minimum price. Many English sold and traded their complete uniform, from head to foot, to get rum, brandy, and whiskey, and thereafter covered themselves only with their blankets and coats from the same, which they wrapped around their bodies or used as an overcoat.
11 November. The first snow fell here, but remained less than twenty-four hours.
20 November. A transport of those who had been left behind at Gloucester due to wounds and illness arrived here escorted by American cavalry. Six men from Quesnoy’s Company were included, namely, Privates [Johann] Witzger, [Wilhelm] Petzold, [Johann] Kaiser, [Andreas] Rettenbacher, [Jobst] Steinmetz, and [Johann] Guth, with the news that at the end of October, Privates Braun and [Friedrich] H€fling, of Quesnoy’s Company, had died in the hospital at Gloucester, and that Privates Weiss and [Gottlieb] G€rschky, of this company, had joined the French as wagon drivers.
22 November. Private Schmidt, of Quesnoy’s Company, deserted from the local barracks. A day previously he had stolen an English guinea from a comrade, [Johann] Raithel, and had been discovered. He had a wife and two children in New York.
23 November. Corporal Frank, of Quesnoy’s Company, got into a fight with the servant and provost [Joseph] Lechner.
30 November. It was Saint Andrew’s Day. During the evening the soldiers from Ireland conducted their so-called Irish procession to honor Saint Andrew, the patron saint of Ireland, here in the barracks court, with beautiful music and jubilant shouts, „God save the King!“ In the past month of November it was mostly dry and cool. There was some snow and, at the end, miserable weather.
(to be continued)

George Washington and Thomas Paine: Friendship in a Revolutionary Age
by Jett Conner 6 March 2025 Journal of the American Revolutionary
George Washington was famously taciturn, often a man of few words in public gatherings. And though his published works are sparse in comparison to many of his fellow founders, he nevertheless left a voluminous written record of correspondence and diary entries that is still being parsed today.
It was while commanding the Continental Army that Washington met a man of many words who supported his leadership throughout the Revolutionary War. The writer was anything but shy when it came to publishing his thoughts in support of the American Cause. John Adams acknowledged as much when he reportedly said, “Without the pen of the author of Common Sense, the sword of Washington would have been raised in vain.”
That author of course was Thomas Paine, a recent English immigrant who arrived on America’s shores in December 1774 (just barely, as Typhoid fever almost took his life during the voyage). His Common Sense is generally acknowledged to be the most popular pamphlet of persuasive writing published during the American Revolutionary period. Initially penned anonymously in January 1776, the timing of its appearance was perfect to bring to a boil the simmering resentment developing in colonial America of British rule and its rising use of force. Read more…

Dispatches Podcast: Andrew Lawler on Lord Dunmore’s Ethiopian Regiment
5 Mar 2025 Journal of the American Revolution
Host Brady Crytzer interviews author and JAR contributor Andrew Lawler about Virginia Royal Governor John Murray, Lord Dunmore’s decision to begin arming enslaved men in service to the Crown. Murray’s actions sent shockwaves across the colony. Listen in…

Advertised on 7 March 1775: “…writing Conveyances of all Kinds.”
What was advertised in a colonial American newspaper 250 years ago this week?

“He proposes … to apply himself to writing Conveyances of all Kinds.”

On the eve of the American Revolution, Peter Bounetheau left his job at the custom house in Charleston and established his own business for “writing Conveyances of all Kinds” and negotiating “all Sort of Contracts, such as the purchasing or disposing of Lands, Tenements, or Negroes [and] the borrowing or lending of Money.” He claimed that he had done so on the advice of “several Gentlemen of the first Rank, Influence, and Property, who have been pleased to entertain a favourable Opinion of his Abilities.” In addition to that endorsement, he emphasized “his long Experience in Business of various Kinds, particularly in many Public Writings of the greatest Importance, together with his Expedition and Exactness in adjusting Accounts.”
By the time his advertisement ran in the March 7, 1775, edition of the South-Carolina Gazette and Country Journal, Bounetheau had been in business for several months. He had established himself well enough to attract clients that accounted for twelve other advertisements of various lengths on the same page. A couple concerned real estate and a couple hawked commodities like mustard and olives, yet most of them offered enslaved people for sale…
…Bounetheau’s enterprise meant good business for Charles Crouch, the printer of the South-Carolina Gazette and Country Journal. Week after week, the broker placed multiple advertisements, representing significant revenues for the printing office. Read more…

Settlement discovery rewrites Canadian First Nations history
Andrew Mathieson – 13 Feb 2025 in National Indigenous Times
A form of carbon dating has revealed an Indigenous settlement in Canada lived around the cusp of the last ice age on one of the oldest archaeological sites found, dismissing the notion that early First Nations people were nomadic.
The settlement appears to place human activity at an uncovered village of Âsowanânihk – meaning “a place to cross” in the Cree First Nations language – for the Sturgeon Lake First Nation tribe around 10,700 years ago in a central part of modern-day Saskatchewan province.
The discovery is set to reshape history and question a number of long-held beliefs about the earliest of Indigenous civilisations on the continent.
The Sturgeon Lake First Nation Âsowanânihk Council has always maintained a claim to the land without recognition.
Researcher and avocational anthropologist, Dave Rondeau, first identified the settlement of the traditional home of the Plains Cree territory landholders back in 2023 and notified archaeology authorities.
While surveying the area close to his home in Prince Albert, Rondeau noticed “significant” erosion along the riverbank exposing never-seen-before artefacts. Read more…

Book Review: Making the Presidency: John Adams and the Precedents That Forged the Republic
Author: Lindsay M. Chervinsky (New York: Oxford University Press, 2024)
Review by Geoff Smock 3 March 2025 Journal of the American Revolution
Dr. Chervinsky is the champion that Adams deserves and has long gone without.
Dr. Chervinsky not only discusses the appalling challenge Adams faced in succeeding Washington, but throughout the book masterfully documents the personal price Adams had to be willing to pay—and is in many ways is still paying—to be the man that did so. As she writes, “The office required a president willing to sacrifice his reputation and popularity on behalf of the nation.”(page 2) That being the case, Adams was every bit the indispensable man for the United States at the end of century that Washington had been at so many moments before.
Adams proved that someone else could be president. He never enjoyed Washington’s vaunted reputation, be he did his best to instill the office with prestige and respectability. Washington established countless executive precedents, but until they were repeated, they were little more than historic anomalies. Adams forged the parameters of the presidency for everyone that followed.
As Dr. Chervinsky documents in exquisite depth and detail throughout, Adams managed to do this over the unanimous opposition of his own administration. Vice President Thomas Jefferson not only declined Adams’ offer to work together, but was actively undermining his policies throughout the most dangerous days of the “Quasi-War” with France, writing to French officials and advising them on how to best resist Adams’ initiatives.
Jefferson’s interference came remarkably close to treason. The United States had not declared war on France—yet—but vessels from both nations were engaging in open hostilities on the high seas. As vice president, Jefferson actively undermined the administration’s foreign policy and encouraged its enemy to forestall peace.
The more treacherous snake in the grass, though, was Alexander Hamilton: former secretary of the treasury, but active puppet master of the secretaries within Adams’ cabinet and many, if not most, of the Federalist officials in Congress. Read more…

The Retreat of Popular Sovereignty
by David Otersen 4 March 2025 Journal of the American Revolution
On September 15, 1787, as the Constitutional Convention drew to a close, James Madison noted that George Mason, a fellow delegate from Virginia and the principal author of the Virginia Declaration of Rights, had a specific objection to the intended manner in which the Constitution would be amended.
Mason, had astutely recognized that under the proposed Constitution, not only were the people almost entirely dispossessed of their invaluable right to alter or abolish their systems of government, but, in a larger sense, he had also revealed a conspicuous structural antagonism and manifest contradiction between the Constitution’s ratifying authority and its amending power…
…Despite sage advice, the Framers ultimately reduced popular sovereignty to a constitutional nullity so that the once grandiose expression “We the People” no longer has a practical application. Read more…

The Fate of Mary Nicholson
3 Mar. 2025 at Strange Company – a Walk on the Weird Side of Histyory
Mary Nicholson was an orphan. Strike One. She was penniless. Strike Two. She was of limited intelligence, being described as “of very weak intellect.” In eighteenth century England, all of this generally amounted to “Strike Three, and you’re out!”
Mary, however, at first seemed an exception to this grim rule. She was given a position as a servant in the household of John Atkinson, a farmer in the village of Little Stainton [in northeast England]. The family was a prosperous and respectable one, and Mary proved to be a gentle-natured, industrious, and honest worker. To any outside observer, all would appear to be very well.
The Atkinson household, unfortunately, harbored a very dark secret. It later emerged that the head of the house had taken advantage of Mary’s powerlessness by taking “great liberties” and behaving “very cruelly to her.” (It does not take much imagination to guess what these “liberties” might have been.)
Mary had no choice but to submit to Atkinson’s abuse, and both of them knew it…
…In April 1798, Mary went to Darlington to buy supplies for the household. Unbeknownst to everyone in the Atkinson household, she also bought something not on her shopping list: a quantity of arsenic powder. Read more…

UELAC Loyalist Directory: New Contributions

Entries which have been added, or revised, this week, with thanks to Kevin Wisener UE, President, Abegweit Branch

  • John Barrow who lived in New York during the war, A Baker he operated a bakery at 16 King St., NYC. He was also part of a syndicate of bakers in NYC who reported to the Superintendant of Bakers, Joseph Orchard, and supplied bread to the Army. First in Shelburne NS, He arrived in PEI with his wife in 1784 and settled at Pinette River – Lot 58, Queens County, PEI. Unable to get title tpo the land, he returned to Nova Scotia seeking land on Sable Island.
  • Pvt. John Strickland a Loyalist Refugee of Quaker extraction from Philadelphia, Pennsylvania servced in Capt. David Ogilvy’s Troop, British Legion Cavalry. Married he arrived from New York with four children and three servants via Shelburne NS where he petitioned for a land grant at Pictou or Merigomish, Nova Scotia. He received a land grant at Pennfield, New Brunswick, and later another 500 acres on Grand River, Lot 16, Prince County, PEI, where he stays until at least 1793. By 1796 he is a vessel captain residing in Ferryland, Newfoundland.
  • Joseph English was a merchant from Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. He was Foreman of Carpenters at the Engineering Department New York City, N.Y. He arrived in Shelburne, N.S. in 1784 with his family of 10 and six servants. In 1785, having been enticed to PEI by Gov. Patterson, he received a 500 acre land grant on Grand River, Lot 16, Prince County, Prince Edward Island. However, the family did not stay in Prince Edward Island, returning to Nova Scotia (and may have eventually left there as well).
  • Lieut. George Scott was in Newport, Rhode Island before the war and evacuated to New York and came to Shelburne, Nova Scotia at the Peace. He served in the Royal Artillery (Source #1); 2nd Battalion and was Shipmaster of the Bulldog carrying family and personal effects. Having been enticed to PEI by Gov. Patterson, he received a 500 acre land grant in 1785 on Grand River, Lot 16, Prince County, Prince Edward Island, but He eventually settled in Nova Scotia: in 1787 George and John Scott (possibly a relative) petitioned at Halifax, N.S. for a land grant on the Musquodoboit River which was approved.

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

Events Upcoming

American Revolution Institute: The Cutting Off Way: Indigenous Warfare in the American Revolution Thurs 13 Mar 6:30 ET
 Historian Wayne E. Lee of the University of North Carolina Chapel Hill discusses Indigenous warfare before and during the American Revolution. Throughout the Revolution, Indigenous warriors sought to surprise their targets, and the size of the target varied with the size of the attacking force. A small war party might “cut off” individuals getting water or wood or out hunting, while a larger party might attempt to attack a whole town. Once revealed by its attack, the invading war party would flee before the defenders’ reinforcements from nearby towns could organize. Sieges or battles were rare and fought mainly to save face or reputation. After discussing his “cutting-off way of war” paradigm, Dr. Lee explores Native logistics and their associated strategic flexibility to recast Indigenous warfare in a framework of the lived realities of Native people rather than regarding European military strategies and practices. Registration…

New Brunswick Branch: “The Castine Loyalists of New Brunswick” by Barry Murray Wed 19 Mar @2:00AT

Historian Barry Murray will speak on “The Castine Loyalists of New Brunswick” who settled in St Andrews NB. Hear about the loyal group who did the unthinkable: disassembled their houses, and loaded them on ships along with their livestock and worldly possessions, and set sail for more friendly shores.
Plus Annual General Meeting
Register with nbloyalistassoc@gmail.com – a zoom link will be returned before the meeting

From the Social Media and Beyond

  • Food and Related
    • Townsends: Bread Marathon! – Early American Baking (3 hr, 11 min)
      Note: Watch a segment you are interested in. Beneath “number of view” and beside “Retail Website” click on “…more”.
      A table of contents indicates 20 segments with start and stop time for each
    • Pancake Day in the early 1800s
      By Sarah Murden 28 Feb 2022 in All Things Georgian
      Today we’re going to take a quick look at Pancake day, also known as Shrove Tuesday. The word ‘shrive’ means, to give absolution after hearing a confession, so people would historically attend confession in order to prepare themselves for Lent which begins on Ash Wednesday.
      The earliest English recipe for pancakes is believed to date back to about the 15th century, but I thought it would be interesting to take a quick look at what the newspapers of the early 1800s had to say about Pancake day.
      To begin, I came across this variation on the origins of Pancake day in the Cumberland Pacquet 12 March 1821 – read more…
  • Event/Resource/Quote of the Day – Revolution 250
    • 8 March 1775, a Billerica farmer named Thomas Ditson, Jr., went into Boston to buy a musket. He bargained for a gun with Sgt. John Clancy of the 47th Regiment. When Ditson went to the sergeant’s barracks, soldiers detained him overnight.
  • This week in History
    • 4 March 1745, Warsaw, Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth. The famed horseman Casimir Pulaski was born. At just fifteen, Casimir, his father, and other Polish nobles resisted Russian and Prussian interference in Polish affairs. In the spring of 1777, he met Benjamin Franklin in Paris. Franklin invited him to serve in the Continental Army, where he became known as the father of the American cavalry. Pulaski arrived in America in June 1777. He fought at Brandywine, at Germantown, and during the winter campaign of 1777–78. Congress promoted him to general and appointed him chief of the cavalry branch of the Continental Army. He organized a combined corps of cavalry and infantry in 1778 called the Pulaski Legion. In May 1779, Pulaski’s Legion defended Charleston. He was struck down by grapeshot at Savannah on October 9, 1779, while leading a charge against British defenses. The father of the American cavalry died aboard the Wasp on October 11 and was buried at sea, though some say he was later buried on land. The people of Savannah, Georgia, honored him with the Pulaski Monument in Monterey Square. Arkansas’s Pulaski County is named in his honor. The Chicago area celebrates Casimir Pulaski Day. The United States Senate granted Pulaski posthumous honorary U.S. citizenship. image
    • 7 Mar 1774 London. King George III charges colonists in Boston with attempting to injure British commerce, paving the way for the closing of the port to punish colonists for the Boston Tea Party. image
    • 5 Mar 1770, in Boston, Massachusetts. Violence erupts on the slick cobblestones on a snowy night, with tensions thicker than a nor’easter fog. A rowdy crowd of colonists gathers, eager for a scrap with the Redcoats.
      Those Lobsterbacks—how some referred to the British regulars—had been stomping around town, enforcing the King’s laws, and locals were getting fed up. A sentry, Private Hugh White, found himself cornered by a group of jeering Sons of Liberty outside the Custom House. Soon, sticks, snowballs, and insults flew like musket balls.
      Captain Thomas Preston showed up with a squad of reinforcements. Rather than calming the situation, this display of force only fueled the crowd, which swelled to maybe 300 strong, shouting “Fire, you bloody backs!” and daring the soldiers to pull the triggers. A club swung, a musket discharged (accident or not?), and in an instant, the night erupted in a volley that left some of the mob collapsing onto the street, resulting in five dead or dying. Crispus Attucks, a mixed-race sailor, was among the first to fall. Blood stained the snow as the mob scattered while church bells tolled.
      This chaos was gold for Sam Adams’s propaganda machine. Soon, etchings of “massacred” innocents flooded the colonies, stoking the flames of revolt. Preston and his men faced trial, defended by none other than John Adams, who managed to get most of them acquitted by claiming self-defense. But that night lit a fuse—we’d find ourselves at Lexington and Concord five years later. image
    • 6 Mar 1770 Boston, MA. 5K angry citizens led by Samuel Adams gathered the day after the “Massacre” & resolved “nothing could be expected to restore peace & prevent carnage, but an immediate removal of troops.” The troops were removed before sunset. image
    • 5 Mar 1772 Dr. Joseph Warren appears dressed theatrically in Roman robes to deliver the 2nd annual Boston Massacre Oration. It is possible that this makes him the first American historical interpreter. image
    • 8 Mar 1775, Thomas Paine’s African Slavery in America was published. The first prominent article in the United States called for the emancipation of slaves and the abolition of slavery. image
    • 2 March 1776 Cambridge, Massachusetts. General George Washington ordered batteries at Lechmere Point to bombard British defenses in occupied Boston as a decoy. At the same time, Brigadier General John Thomas sneaked 2,000 men with more cannons into position at Dorchester Heights just south of Boston. The fire from these gun emplacements overlooking the city sealed the fate of the British garrison—the final stages of the siege of Boston commenced. image
    • 3 Mar 1776, Silas Deane left for France. The Committee for Secret Correspondence instructed him to meet with French Foreign Minister Count de Vergennes to solicit aid & assure him the colonies were moving toward “total separation” from Britain. image
    • 3 March 1776 Nassau, Bahamas 1st Amphibious Landing by Continental Marines Attack on forts at New Providence were to recover arms & gunpowder Virginia Royal Gov Lord Dunmore removed from the provincial arsenal in Williamsburg. image
    • 4 Mar 1776 Boston MA. Gen John Thomas leads a force of 2K in a night move to seize Dorchester Heights and dig entrenchments under the cover of night and artillery fire. By morning, the British garrison in Boston is surrounded by muskets & cannons. image
    • 6 Mar 1776 NY Provincial Congress instructs Maj William Malcolm to dismantle Sandy Hook at the approach to NY harbor to prevent the lighthouse from helping the British reach NYC. He removed the lamps, but the British entered the harbor. image
    • 3 Mar 1777 London. Lord Germain approved Gen Burgoyne’s northern strategy but also gave Lord Howe approval to attack Philadelphia. This “split decision” weakens both plans in the long run & sets up a chain of events that would cost Britain an army. image
    • 8 March 1777, Amboy, New Jersey. The Battle of Amboy, or Punk Hill, General William “Scotch Wille” Maxwell’s militia and Continentals surprised and attacked a British foraging party, resulting in three wounded. The engagement spread from Punk Hill at Amboy to Bonhamtown and Metuchen. While the Americans held the upper hand, there was too little cover to pursue the foragers effectively. It was later revealed that the commander of the British forces, General William Howe, was in Bonhamtown during the engagement. With some luck, the war might have taken a different course. However, the forage war in New Jersey inflicted more casualties and deaths on the British than all the pitched battles (Long Island, Harlem, White Plains) from the previous year. image
    • 7 March 1778, Barbados, West Indies. American Captain Nicholas Biddle’s 32-gun frigate, USS Randolph, engages in a nighttime confrontation with the 64-gun ship of the line, HMS Yarmouth, commanded by Captain Nicholas Vincent. Instead of retreating from the larger, better-armed ship, Randolph closed in to protect an American merchant convoy. Under Biddle’s command, Randolph exchanged fire fiercely, delivering almost five broadsides for every one fired by the Yarmouth. About twenty minutes into the battle, Biddle was wounded, and Randolph suddenly exploded, claiming the lives of all but four of the 305 sailors and officers aboard, including Biddle.
      The loss of Randolph was a severe blow to the small Continental Navy. The loss of Biddle was even more significant, as he was an exceptionally successful naval captain who would have ranked among the best. His body was lost at sea and was never recovered.
      The Randolph explosion, likely caused by a spark or flame in the gunpowder magazine, represented the most momentous loss of American naval personnel on a ship until the sinking of the USS Arizona in 1941. image
    • 3 March 1779 Sylvania, Georgia. American militia forces from Georgia and the Carolinas, led by Colonel John Ashe and Samuel Elbert, were stationed at the confluence of Brier Creek and the Savannah River. British Lieutenant Colonel James Mark Prevost’s brigade of 900 men from Florida launched a surprise attack on them. Positioning the 72nd Highlanders and James Baird’s light infantry behind the rebels, Prevost’s assault routed the 1,200 defenders, who suffered 150 dead and more than twice that number captured. The British experienced just sixteen casualties. This was a decisive victory—Georgia was lost to the rebels and would serve as the launch point for the British “Southern Strategy.” More ships and troops would head south to Savannah to prepare for an invasion of the Carolinas. image
    • 1 Mar 1780 Peter Salem, a free black man of Massachusetts, was discharged from the army after serving since 1775 at Bunker Hill and the Siege of Boston, the Battle of Saratoga, the Battle of Stony Point, and other skirmishes in the New York area. image
    • 5 Mar 1780 Charleston SC. In preparation for a British attack on the port city, Gov John Rutledge employed 600 slaves to construct earthworks and a stonework dubbed “The Citadel.” It would be the site of a future military academy of the same name. image
    • 6 March 1781 Wetzell’s Mill, North Carolina. General Charles Cornwallis attempted to cut off Colonel Otho Williams’s division before it could join General Nathanael Greene’s main body north of Reedy Fork Creek. Cornwallis sent a British force of about 1,000 infantry, commanded by Colonel James Webster, supported by Lieutenant Colonel Banastre Tarleton’s cavalry, advancing under the cover of early morning fog. However, the British were discovered before Webster could intercept Williams’s force. With Light Horse Harry Lee’s cavalry covering the rear, Williams’s men hurried north and crossed the ford at Wetzell’s Mill on Reedy Fork Creek, where Williams decided to make a stand. After some initial stubborn fighting, Webster got part of his command across the creek, forcing the rebels into a hasty retreat. Both sides suffered around fifty casualties. The British drove the Americans from the field, but the delaying action successfully thwarted the real objective: disrupting Greene’s supply line. Cornwallis soon ordered his forces to withdraw. image
    • 4 Mar 1782 Lt Col William Hull leads a raid against Morrisania, NY, taking over 50 prisoners while incurring 25 casualties. The area (today’s Bronx) was a no man’s land in the struggle between patriots and the Loyalists, British & Hessians. image
    • 5 Mar 1782 London The House of Lords reluctantly empowered King George III to negotiate peace with its former colonies. image
  • Clothing and Related:
    • Body by Design: Fashionable Silhouettes from the Ideal to the Real. Historic Deerfield, Deerfield, Massachusetts, 3 May 2025 — 22 February 2026. This exhibition explores the enduring interest in clothing our bodies to achieve fashionable shapes. It will feature twenty-five ensembles from the 18th to 21st centuries drawn predominantly from Historic Deerfield’s renowned clothing collection. Gown or robe à la française, made in France or Amsterdam, ca. 1765; blue and white brocade weave silk (paduasoy?, bleached plain weave linen lining, and silk knotted fringe (Historic Deerfield, F.355).
    • A pair of shoes from the end of the 1790s for Footwear Friday. Kid slippers were appropriate for most outfits and times of day – these might have been worn for morning dress, walking, at the opera, or to a ball. (Or possibly a wedding! That would help to explain why such plain shoes survived.)
    • I’ve been obsessed with these stays for years, as I’m pretty sure they’re significantly earlier than the date – the silk is the 1700s-30s and the shape has so many early 18thc hallmarks. They also have an associated pair of sleeves.
    • The mechanics of a stomacher more easily discernible in this 1730s survival of cotton embroidered with polychrome silk & silver gilt yarn. The tabs for pinning & linen ties illustrate how it was anchored to the torso, part of an open robe of equal splendour.

 

 

Published by the UELAC
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