In this issue:

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Spring 2025 Loyalist Gazette: Paper copies are in the Mail
The Spring 2025 issue of the Loyalist Gazette has been printed and was delivered to Canada Post on Monday 2 June. [My copy arrived on Thurs. 5 June, in downtown Toronto….doug]. For those members who requested a paper copy, it will hopefully arrive soon. The digital copy is available at uelac.ca where all members can log in and access it.
This issue focuses on the Prairie Provinces.
The main topics in this issue include:

  • A Loyalist Descendant: Manitoba Bound
  • Lawrence and William Herchmer: The Mounted Police Connection
  • The Dafoe Family of Winnipeg
  • The Honourable George Hedley Vicars Bulyea: A Father of Alberta and Saskatchewan
  • Weldon U. Pickel: Teacher, Pastor, Genealogist
  • Jasper Haws: Fur-trader,voyageur & post manager
  • Canadian English and the Loyalists

along with the standard features.
Whether on paper or on screen, you will find great reading. Enjoy!
Bill Russell UE, President, UELAC

2025  UELAC Conference:  Drumhead Church service
The conference has lots to offer: learn from expert speakers, visit Loyalist sites, share your Loyalist story — see Conference 2025 details.  Learn more about our Loyalist history.

Drumhead Church service, Sunday 13 July @10:30
The Drumhead Service is a tradition that dates back to the 1700’s. On the battlefields, there was often no way for soldiers to attend church, to worship and pray. Instead, the Padre or Chaplain would hold a “Drumhead Service” – creating a temporary altar on the field, using military drums draped with the regimental or National flags. Drumhead Services are still held, as a salute to those who fought on battlefields around the world, and made the ultimate sacrifice.  See more…

Hope to see you at Conference.

Loyalist Physicians: The Famous, The Infamous and The Obscure – Part Three
copyright Stephen Davidson UE
John Ferdinand Dalziel Smyth Stuart desperately wanted to be a celebrity.  Born in 1745, Stuart maintained that he had noble blood, claiming to be the grandson of the Duke of Monmouth, the illegitimate son of Charles II. He also claimed to have studied medicine at the University of Edinburgh in his native Scotland before immigrating to the New World in 1763.
Despite his supposed educational background, Stuart made a living as a storekeeper as a well as a tutor in Maryland and North Carolina, before settling in Williamsburg, Virginia.  With the outbreak of the American Revolution, Stuart remained loyal to the crown – but almost every other known fact about the man is a matter of conjecture, as he was known to be a “notorious liar“.
Much of his life story was debunked by witness who spoke at Stuart’s hearing before the loyalist compensation board. One acquaintance said that he thought Stuart had come to the colonies as an indentured servant to a storekeeper in Halifax, North Carolina. It was only after Stuart had served as a tutor to a physician’s children for a year that he began to practise as a doctor.
The witness said that Stuart’s medical career was seen as “a joke amongst the neighbours“. Another testified that Stuart “practised medicine, but was asked to leave as a troublesome fellow“. It would seem that whatever “training” he had as a doctor was based on imitating what he had witnessed while working in a doctor’s home.
On June 21, 1784, the loyalist compensation board deemed that Stuart’s claims to have lost valuable property during the revolution were fraudulent. One of the commissioners said that he was a Loyalist “which is all the good we can say of him“.  And what was Stuart’s career as a Loyalist? The historian Anthony Camp has pieced together what seems to be the most accurate account of a very tangled biography.
At the outbreak of the revolution, Stuart was living in Williamsburg, Virginia (or perhaps Charles County, Maryland). He would later testify that he was “the only loyalist in the neighbourhood” and was “compelled to abandon his home” on October 15, 1775. Before the year was out, Lord Dunmore, Virginia’s last royal governor, commissioned Stuart as a physician.
Patriots captured Stuart while he served in a regiment as it was recruiting more loyalists. He escaped, but was captured once again ten days later, and “dragged 700 miles in triumph bound, hand and foot, subsisting only on bread and water” back to his original prison.
In December of 1776, rebels sent Stuart to Baltimore, Maryland, “in irons for 150 miles at bayonet point until his boots were filled with blood“. Within a month he had escaped, claiming to have joined others in a canoe that was rowed to a British vessel eighteen miles out in the Atlantic. (One begins to wonder about the validity of Stuart’s accounts. Every story is full of superlatives.)
After being taken to British headquarters in New York City, Stuart was made a captain in the Queen’s American Rangers and saw action at the Battle of Germantown. His creative imagination was put to good use in writing ballads and songs for the loyalist cause.
While stationed at Hempstead, Long Island, Stuart was housed and quartered with his regiment in the home of Leffert Haugewout, a farmer of Dutch descent. There he met Abigail, marrying the farmer’s daughter against Haugewout’s wishes on October 23, 1778.
In the following May, Stuart brought Lieutenant Colonel John Graves Simcoe before a court martial. The two men did not get along. Simcoe charged that Stuart “avoided military service whenever possible” and that the men he commanded considered him a bully. The charges against Simcoe were dismissed as “malicious, frivolous, vexatious, and groundless“, and resulted in Stuart being dismissed from the army.
When he went to England in early 1780, Stuart left his pregnant wife behind in New York. He missed the birth of his daughter Elizabeth on May 4, 1780, and would only meet her for the first time sixteen years later.
Claiming that he had lost “3,300 acres, 30 slaves, 59 horses, 2 schooners, 5 boats, etc., altogether worth £31,582” in the American South, Stuart appeared before the loyalist compensation board in 1784. He claimed that he had, “raised more chosen men than any other officer in his Majesty’s dominions and at my own expense, after I was a Captain, and without any emolument, advantage, or even a step in rank — and I also served in the most active line of duty more than 4 years, being scarcely a week without being engaged in some action, or skirmish, until my health was totally destroyed, which obliged me to return to England for the preservation of life.”  He asked to be given Long Island in the Bahamas as partial compensation for all that had been taken from him. (!)
The commissioners of the compensation board considered Stuart’s case to be a “very singular one“. Although he had been “an active and zealous loyalist upon principle“, when it came to his property claims, they believed that he was “an imposter“. Even though he was guilty of ‘gross & wilful perjury‘, the commissioners gave Smyth a temporary allowance of £90 a year and put him on half pay as a reduced Captain of the Queen’s Rangers.
Stuart’s claims of being of royal descent, of being a war hero, and of being an owner of vast estates did nothing to save him from a slow descent into poverty. In 1795, he became a barrack-master in the West Indies, but only stayed there for two years. By 1801, he was in debtors’ prison in England. Two years later he married Eunice Gray, a woman 30 years his junior by whom he had already had four children.
During his time as the barrack master at Billericay in Essex, the local militia gave him a beating because the barracks were in such a sad condition.  By early 1813, the Loyalist doctor was once again in debtors’ prison.  Thanks to the fundraising efforts of a poet who felt sorry for Stuart, he was released. Tired of life as a barrack master, the ill-fated Loyalist resigned his position in Suffolk in 1814, and made plans to practice medicine in London.
But Stuart never returned to his career as a doctor. While walking in Bloomsbury Square, he was hit by a carriage and trampled by its horses. His injuries proved to be fatal; he died within two weeks’ time on December 28, 1814 at age 67.
When friends wrote up his obituary, they described the Loyalist as a major and a doctor of medicine. His widow, two sons and a daughter were left in poverty. Eunice died at age 42 four years after “Dr. Stuart”.
Meanwhile, back in New York, Stuart’s first wife, Abigail lived until 1828. Her daughter Elizabeth married Gideon Nichols, and the couple was blessed with children. Should the descendants of the Nichols’ children ever trace their family tree, they would discover that one of their ancestors was “an active and zealous loyalist upon principle“, but a man who was “shown to be untrustworthy and to have a virulent and malignant temper” – a man who styled himself as Dr. John Ferdinand Dalziel Smyth Stuart.
To secure permission to reprint this article contact the author at stephendavids@gmail.com.

Admiral Digby’s Vultures
By Brian McConnell UE
In the Kingsbridge area of the Bronx, New York is an impressive historic home which houses the
Van Cortlandt House Museum. Visiting there on May 16, 2025 I was surprised to see inside the
front door two large wooden birds which I was told by one of the volunteers were a gift from
Admiral Robert Digby when in New York during the American Revolution. Read more… (short)

Lemuel Haynes: An Abolitionist Voice in the Revolution
by David Price 3 June 2025 Jpurnal of the American Revolution
The Paradox as Context
The literature of the Revolution is replete with references to the Founding Fathers’ recognition of the anguishing contradiction between the ideals they ostensibly endorsed in the Declaration of Independence—specifically Thomas Jefferson’s rhetoric about human equality and inalienable rights—and the commitment many of them made to sustaining the institution of human bondage as practitioners thereof. While engaged in the cause of America’s self-determination against what was regarded as oppressive British policy, they were caught up in the incongruity that applied to many of the more prominent members of America’s founding generation. Theirs was a struggle to achieve liberty for some juxtaposed with a commitment to, or at least acquiescence in, servitude for others—especially among the slave owners who constituted at least a third of those signing the Declaration of Independence, among them Jefferson with his two hundred enslaved people at Monticello. The latter were a fragment of the half-million people of African descent who then comprised 20 percent of the population in colonial America, 90 percent of whom lived in slavery…
…As Washington put it in August 1774, “the crisis has arrived when we must assert our rights, or submit to every imposition that can be heaped upon us until custom and use will make us as tame and abject slaves as the Blacks we rule over with such arbitrary sway.”
There was no dearth of British observers who opined about the hypocrisy of American rebels advocating for greater autonomy while owning slaves, perhaps most famously in the question posed by the renowned English essayist Samuel Johnson in March 1775: “How is it that we hear the loudest yelps for liberty among the drivers of Negroes?”…
…In Philadelphia, Thomas Paine—soon to indelibly embrace the Patriot enterprise in his bestselling pamphlet Common Sense—asked newspaper readers in March 1775 to consider, “With what consistency or decency [the colonists] complain so loudly of attempts to enslave them, while they hold so many hundred thousand in slavery; and annually enslave many thousands more, without any pretense of authority or claim upon them?”  Read more…

A Curious Agreement Among Friends: Pennsylvania’s York County Militia, 1775
by Dennis Ness 5 June 2025 Journal of the American Revolution
In the year 1775, two days after the spring equinox, a meeting was held in Pennsylvania’s York County of over one hundred freemen and an agreement was written to bind them into an Association.
The agreement, now in the Rare Book Room of the York County History Center in York, Pennsylvania, read as follows:  [5 items]
…This document, signed by 109 individuals, describes the creation of the first company in Pennsylvania formed “to make ourselves perfect in the Art military.” In 1775, Pennsylvania had no state militia by law. This military unit was the first Pennsylvania Company organized before hostilities broke out at Lexington and Concord in Massachusetts. Read more…

The Erie Canal is turning 200
by The Washington Post 26 May 2025
The waterway, one of the continent’s most significant, has a history full of abolitionism, commerce and cultural connection.
In 1995, Tammee Poinan Grimes’s parents purchased a 60-foot-long tour boat to use for sightseeing cruises along the Erie Canal…. “You can get anywhere in the world via the Erie Canal,” says Poinan Grimes, now the captain of the same patriotically painted boat, the Colonial Belle.
Long before Poinan Grimes’s family’s journey, other dreamers and doers brought one of North America’s most significant man-made waterways to life in 1825.
While the canal’s builders understood the potential economic impact of the 363-mile channel connecting Buffalo in the west to capital city Albany in the east, they may not have anticipated its lasting reverberations on American culture.
“I’m constantly learning and meeting people who have all kinds of great stories,” Poinan Grimes said. “I don’t think I’ll ever stop learning about the canal, because there’s just so much [to know].”
The marquee bicentennial event is the re-creation of the journey of the Seneca Chief, the packet boat on which New York Gov. DeWitt Clinton opened the canal in 1825.
Backed by the New York state legislature, construction on the Erie Canal began in 1817. An army of subcontractors dug, blasted and dredged their way through the forests, mountains and swamps of the upstate landscape to create the 40-foot-wide, 4-foot-deep waterway, one of the country’s first major public-works projects, according to Brad L. Utter, author of “Enterprising Waters: The History and Art of New York’s Erie Canal.”
Mackay, director of the waterway’s heritage corridor, said the canal helped give the U.S. “its American identity.”
“It proved that a young nation, made up mostly of immigrants, could do this big thing,” she said. “Bold vision, progress, power, the spirit of hard work and determination: These qualities became embedded in how we define ourselves as Americans.” Read more…

Note:
Loyalist and British forces during the American Revolution did follow a path similar to the later Erie Canal route, particularly between Fort Niagara and the Mohawk Valley. This route was strategically important, and its path was largely determined by waterways, which were key for movement and supplies.
Following the war, many Loyalists who had supported the British moved to British North America, often following the same routes to settle in areas like Ontario, according to The Canadian Encyclopedia (see next article.)
Question by Editor: I seem to recall that some of the Loyalists who later migrated from New Brunswick and perhaps Nova Scotia to Upper Canada (now Ontario), especially the area in the Niagara Peninsula and to the west along the north shore of Lake Erie did did so through New York. Did they follow a route similar to the route of the Erie Canal?  Do you have an ancestor who followed that route? Would you share the story…  …doug

Loyalists in Canada – Canadian Encyclopedia
By Bruce G Wilson 2 April 2009, updated The Canadian Encyclopedia
Loyalists were American colonists, of different ethnic backgrounds, who supported the British cause during the American Revolutionary War (1775–83). Tens of thousands of Loyalists migrated to British North America during and after the war. This boosted the population, led to the creation of Upper Canada and New Brunswick, and heavily influenced the politics and culture of what would become Canada. Read more…

Hessian Soldiers Travelling to America: POW: In Camp – A Soldier’s Life. October 1782
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
  • January 1782: to Frederick MD (about 40 km west of Baltimore)

1782: Continuation of the Noteworthy Occurences in Our North American Campaign, and Especially the Captivity in the Sixth Year. Or the Year of our Lord 1782.  Page 130

In the Month of October 1782
2 October. Private [Christian] Reyher, of Eyb’s Company, died in the field hospital.
6 October.  Confession  and communion were  held  for  the  Bayreuth  Regiment,  and  I  also took communion. News arrived concerning the Indians. They have committed many inhuman atrocities  against  the  inhabitants,  and  everywhere  fright  and  fear  have  set  in.  In  the  back country of Virginia a very  large number of Indians supposedly  have  crossed  the Ohio River and greatly disturbed the beautiful county of Cumberland. The inhabitants  flee with all  their goods and move from the countryside into the cities. Many also have fled into Forts Pitt and Freeland. Many  inhabitants  of  Pennsylvania,  Maryland,  and  North  and  South  Carolina  have had to gather together against these barbarians.
14 October. An inhabitant of Shipperstown,  Maryland,  brought news that  Kiefhaber  I, of Quesnoy’s Company, had died at his house. He buried him properly and nicely.
It was also learned that at Winchester two men, [Johann] B€reth and [Michael] Burckardt, both of Quesnoy’s Company, had enlisted in the American Light Horse. There are French and American recruiters in Winchester. One also hears that Private B‡r, of Quesnoy’s Company, and  Drummer  Meyer,  of  Eyb’s  Company,  took  service  with  the  Virginia  militia.  Drummer Schindelbauer, of Quesnoy’s Company, is in Philadelphia on a privateer, serving as a sailor; however, his brother, of the Colonel’s Company, sits in the prison in Philadelphia, because he deserted from the Americans with whom he had taken service but was captured again. Private Schmidt,  of  Quesnoy’s  Company,  who  also  was  there  in  the  jail,  was  purchased  out  by  an inhabitant, for whom he now works. His wife has also come to him at Philadelphia, from New York.
At  Hagerstown  and  Tunckerstown,  two  small  cities  that  belong  to  Washington  County, there  are  also  American  recruiters  who  have  engaged  many  of  us  already.  At  the  Warm Springs sixty miles from here, supposedly some Ansbachers already have married.
21 October.  Three  wives  of  grenadiers  from  our  regiment,  namely,  K‡mpf,  Pusch,  and Schneider,  arrived  here  from  New  York.  At  night  Grenadier  [Adam]  Riess,  of  Molitor’s Company, enlisted.
26 October. Cannoneer [Christian Friedrich] Tauber, of our Artillery, enlisted.
28 October. My countryman [Wolff] Hofmann II from Sparneck, of the Major’s Company, allowed  his freedom to be bought by a combmaker in Frederick. He will  marry  the  sister of this combmaker and is learning the trade; therefore, he must serve two years.
The month of October was generally dry until the end, when rainy fall weather set in.
(to be continued)

Advertised on 24 June 1775: ‘A Constitutional POST-OFFICE, Is now kept…’

What was advertised in a colonial American newspaper 250 years ago this week?

“A Constitutional POST-OFFICE, Is now kept, at J. Holt’s Printing-Office, in … New-York.”

William Goddard’s Pennsylvania Chronicle had a reputation for supporting the Patriot cause, so much so that the Crown Post drove it out of business by refusing to deliver it.  That prompted Goddard to establish the Constitutional Post, independent of British authority, as an alternative.  That service began with a route that connected Baltimore and Philadelphia in the summer of 1773.  The network expanded, yet the First Continental Congress decided to table Goddard’s plan rather than endorse it when he submitted it for consideration in the fall of 1774.  The Second Continental Congress took it up again following the battles at Lexington and Concord, adopting the plan on July 16, 1775.  To Goddard’s disappointment, the delegates named Benjamin Franklin as the first Postmaster General; he settled for serving as Riding Surveyor.
By the time that the Second Continental Congress acted on the measure, Goddard and others had already made progress putting an infrastructure in place.  For instance, newspaper advertisements confirm that “CONSTITUTIONAL Post-Riders” operated in Connecticut in the summer of 1774 and Massachusetts in the spring of 1775.  In June 1775, John Holt, the printer of the New-York Journal, advertised that a “Constitutional POST-OFFICE, Is now kept” at his printing office in New York. Read more…

Book: John Hancock: First to Sign, First to Invest in America’s Independence
Author: Willard Sterne Randall (Dutton, 2025)
Review by Kyler Burd 2 June 2025 Journal of the American Revolution
The early twentieth century saw the rise of an economic interpretation of the American Revolution popularized by Charles Beard; caught up in that generalized dismissal of the elite leaders of the Revolutionary movement was Hancock. Randall points out instances such as a scathing piece in the Harper’s Monthly Magazine in 1930 that excoriated the Boston merchant, reducing him to his wealth and his well-known gout, a secondary indication of his social status as one of the colonies’ richest men. Hancock has long been notable as one of the most understudied figures among the founding fathers, something that has only been partially remedied in the past few decades with works such as Harlow Unger’s John Hancock: Merchant King (2000) and most recently Brooke Barbier’s King Hancock (2023). Still, despite receiving more attention than in previous decades of scholarship, the prevailing view of Hancock remained that of a foppish dandy rather than a foundational figure of the Revolution.
One reason for this lack of representation is the relative lack of documentation for Hancock’s early and more personal life, particularly when compared to the wealth of sources available for the top tier of founding figures such as John Adams or George Washington. Randall also points out that previous biographers had overly relied on the writings of the wealthy Bostonian’s political enemies. Read more…

The Franklin Stove
in Ben Franklin’s World. June 2025
The winter of 1740-1741 was exceptionally cold in North America. And as Benjamin Franklin looked around his house and neighborhood, he saw a problem in need of fixing: energy going to waste as people consumed wood to keep their homes warm.
How did Franklin’s stove save energy? What does it reveal about wood, trees, and attempts to control the climate? And how can that help us understand how humans relate to their environment?
Joyce Chaplin, a historian of early America and the environment, and an expert on Benjamin Franklin, joins us to discuss how Franklin’s stoves help us understand climate change with details from her new book, The Franklin Stove. Listen in…

The Franklin stove is a metal-lined fireplace – in Wikipedia
It was named after Benjamin Franklin, who invented it in 1742. It had a hollow baffle near the rear (to transfer more heat from the fire to a room’s air) and relied on an “inverted siphon” to draw the fire’s hot fumes around the baffle. It was intended to produce more heat and less smoke than an ordinary open fireplace, but it achieved few sales until it was improved by David Rittenhouse. It is also known as a “circulating stove” or the “Pennsylvania fireplace”. Read more…

Newsletters by Branches – Archived for Members
A number of branches publish newsletters, periodically. These are submitted for a newsletter archives and are available to members, member login required – From the Members’ Section, look for “Newsletters:”
Newsletter added this week:

  • The June issue of the Chilliwack Branch “Link Up” newsletter by Marlene Dance UE has been added to the Branch Newsletters page.

Events in June to Celebrate the Loyalists
Several provinces have noted our Loyalist Heritage with designated days or events. Here are sone planned events, most organized by UELAC Branches.

Thurs. 12 June at Noon  Kingston and District Branch. The UE Loyalist Flag will fly at Confederation Park for the day, after proclamation by the City Council (as annually required) declaring June 12 to be “Loyalist Day” in Kingston. Watch for more…  (below meetings, in events)

Sat. 14 June 9:30.  Niagara-on-the-Lake declared United Empire Loyalist Week, June 14-21 2025. The week begins with special events – see the announcement by Colonel John Butler (Niagara) Branch

Fri 13 June –  Sun 15 June: Bay of Quinte Branch at UEL Heritage Centre and Park “Thunder on the Reach”
Re-enactment encampment in the park, with various activities over the weekend and UEL Flag raising on Sunday in the UEL Cemetery.  Come out to see how our ancestors lived over 200 years ago when they arrived here!
Landing re-enactment at 11:00 a.m. Sunday
Flag Raising and unveiling of the marker plaques for the donated trees on Sunday at 1:00 pm and just next door…

…Sun, 15 June 2:00 St Alban’s Centre. A Film “The Mary Ruttan Story”, Evensong United Empire Loyalist Commemorative Service and a Social Tea. See St. Alban’s Centre

Thurs. 19 June 9:00 Toronto Branch at Mississauga City Hall Community Flag Pole in conjunction with the King’s Royal Regiment (Recreated) to raise the flag. More details…  RSVP to  Jimmy Birtwel jimmy7657@live.com

Thurs. 19 June 10:00 Sir Guy Carleton Branch and the City of Ottawa at the flagpoles on Marion Dewar Plaza facing Laurier Avenue West, north side of Ottawa City Hall at 110 Laurier Avenue West. Social in the cafeteria afterwards.

Thurs. June 19 Kawartha Branch at 10:00 raising the Queen Ann flag at Peterborough City hall. We have invited the mayor, county mayor, MPP, MP, chief of police, a singing group (to lead us in God Save the King) along with other folks. Refreshments following.

Thurs. 19 June 11:00.  Toronto and Gov Simcoe Branches a Loyalist flag raising and program at Guest Flag Pole, light refreshments and tour at Queen’s Park, Toronto. Get security badges after 11:00 at West Entrance (ID required), flag raising at 11:30, then light refreshments and program indoors followed by a tour. RSVP to torontouel.office@gmail.com

Thurs. 19 June 11:00.   Hamilton Branch celebrating Loyalists’ Day at the ROCK, Dundurn Castle, York Blvd., Hamilton, at the service entrance off the parking lot.  Neil Switzer and Lee-Ann Hines-Green will discuss the Loyalist Monument at Main and John Streets, and the connection to the MILLS Family.  Wreaths-placin for members recently passed. A light lunch for those who RSVP to Glenna Marriage, gmarriage@rogers.com, and branch members, in the picnic pavilion.

Thurs. 19 June 11:30 Saskatchewan Branch in Regina: Luncheon at 11:30, Vist Loyalist Cairn and ceremony at 2:00  and then coffee and dessert. More details on website.

Thurs. 19 June 7:30 Gov Simcoe Branch virtual meeting “The History of the King’s Royal Regiment of New York” by Stuart Lyall Manson UE. The KRRNY was the largest Loyalist regiment that served out of Canada. It was created on June 19, 1776.  Stuart will provide an overview of the history, interesting specifics, and useful reading and research tips. More details and registration…

Sat. 21 June 11:30. Grand River Branch at Backus Heritage Centre, 1267-2nd Concession Rd., Port Rowan. Raising the flag at noon, then a guided tour of the mill and visit to the Pioneer Cemetery. More…

Sun. 22 June London and Western Ontario Branch is holding a Celebratory Potluck Picnic at Fanshawe Pioneer Village. A flyer will be posted on our Facebook page.  More details, ask carolmchilds@yahoo.ca

Sun 22 June St Lawrence Branch picnic lunch at 12:30 at Sir John Johnson Manor House in Williamstown. Tour to follow. RSVP Carol Goddard  junethel17@gmail.com  More details…

More special events are welcome – send to editor.

Events Upcoming
     See above.

From the Social Media and Beyond

  • In Dayton, Yarmouth County, NS,  outside former home of Jacob Tedford, a NS Provincial Heritage Property, built between 1792 & 1795. He was a Loyalist from New York who first came to Shelburne with widowed mother & four brothers & sisters. By occupation was a shoemaker & tanner. Brian McConnell UE
  • Food and Related : Townsends

  • This week in History
    •  2 June 1731, New Kent County, Virginia. Martha Dandridge was born at Chestnut Grove plantation, the eldest child of eight. In 1750, young Martha married Daniel Parke Custis, with whom she had four children. Daniel died in 1757, leaving her one of the largest estates in the colony of Virginia. The 28-year-old widow married George Washington in 1759, moving to his plantation, Mount Vernon. She went on to be his partner in peace and war. Her support was indispensable to the beleaguered commander-in-chief during eight years of war. Post-war, Martha distinguished herself as America’s first First Lady.  image
    • 4 Jun 1744, Patrick Ferguson, a Scottish army officer & inventor (Ferguson flintlock rifle), was born in Pitfours, Scotland. He would lead British and Loyalist forces against the American rebels before falling at the Battle of King’s Mountain in Oct 1780. image
    • 4 Jun 1754 22-year-old LTC in the VA militia named George Washington began construction of Fort Necessity to defend his forces from French soldiers enraged by the murder of Ensign Joseph Coulon de Jumonville while in Washington’s custody. image
    • 6 June 1755, Coventry, Conn. Nathan Hale, American #RevWar patriot, was born. The original Yankee Doodle Spy attended Yale & became a teacher before joining the Connecticut Line Regt, serving at Boston & then NYC, where he’d volunteer to spy behind British lines. image
    • 6 June 1756 Lebanon, Connecticut.  American painter and military officer John Trumbull was born. Trumbull served as an aide to General Washington and then to Horatio Gates before resigning his commission and traveling to England to study painting. Trumbull is best known for his historical paintings of the American Revolutionary War, many of which are now iconic. He has been called the “Painter of the Revolution.” Trumbull was in England when Major John Andre was hanged and thrown into Tothill Fields Prison for seven months for treason. He returned to America on his release and supported the cause by helping supply patriot forces around Fishkill, New York. image
    • 2 June 1763 Pontiac’s Rebellion: At what is now Mackinaw City, Michigan, Chippewas capture Fort Michilimackinac by diverting the garrison’s attention with a game of lacrosse, then chasing a ball into the fort. image
    • 6 June 1765, Boston, MA – James Otis prompts the General Court of Massachusetts to send a circular letter across the colonies suggesting that they form a congress of colonies to resist the Stamp Act. image
    • 1 June 1774, the Boston Port Bill (In response to the Boston Tea Party) became effective, and Britain closed the port of Boston.  image
    • 5 June 1774, Boston, MA. Dr Joseph Warren publishes the “Solemn League and Covenant,” an agreement by merchants to continue to support non-importation of British goods. (no image)
    • 31 May 1775. The Mecklenburg Resolves were adopted in NC. The resolutions fell short of a declaration of independence. Although published in 1775, the text of the Mecklenburg Resolves was lost after the #RevWar and not rediscovered until 1838. image
    • 1 June 1775 the Continental Congress resolved “That no expedition or incursion ought to be undertaken or made by any Colony or body of Colonists against or into Canada.”  (That policy would last about a month.)
    • 2 June 1775, the Massachusetts Provincial Congress requests that the Continental Congress take responsibility for the New England Army besieging Boston, as it is now fighting for the rights of all Americans.  image
    • 4 Jun 1775 “We suffer at present…from a want of a sufficient quantity of powder; without this every attempt to defend ourselves or annoy our enemies, must prove abortive.” —Massachusetts leaders to the Continental Congress (no image)
    • 5 June 1775, the printer Benjamin Edes relaunched the Boston Gazette from the John Cooke House in Watertown. Edes’s partner John Gill was still in Boston. Other refugees living in the Cooke House included Paul & Rachel Revere and Henry & Lucy Knox. (no image)
    • 5 Jun 1775 A mob ransacks the state arsenal in Williamsburg, VA, and makes off with 400 muskets. image
    • 1 June 1776, St John’s, Quebec, Gen John Sullivan takes command of American forces in Canada from Gen John Thomas. Sullivan brings 3,000 troops as reinforcements, plus a Pennsylvania brigade, and now considers another go at Quebec. image
    • 4 Jun 1776 Charleston, SC. Gen Charles Lee assumes command of the garrison from Col William Moultrie. But Moultrie remains in command of the 2nd SC regiment & Ft Sullivan. That fort’s construction with palmetto logs would prove a powerful bastion. image
    • 7 June 1776 Charleston, SC Denied safe harbor at Wilmington, NC. A fleet under Commodore Peter Parker & Gen Henry Clinton enters the Palmetto State’s harbor & lands British troops on Long Island.  image
    • 7 Jun 1776 Philadelphia. Outraged at the use of Hessians to suppress the Americans, Virginian Richard Henry Lee proposes a resolution for independence to the Continental Congress. image
    • 6 June 1778, Philadelphia. The Carlisle Commission arrives from Britain to negotiate an end to hostilities between the colonies & Britain. Their offer is autonomy under the British Crown but not independence. Rebels reject it as an offer too late. image
    • 1 June 1779, Stony Point, New York. British General Henry Clinton led approximately 6,000 troops in an assault on a fortified position dubbed “the Gibraltar of America” due to its strategic importance. Simultaneously, British ships across the North (Hudson) River bombarded Fort Lafayette at Verplanck’s Point. These coordinated attacks aimed to seize control of key fortifications, threatening the American stronghold at West Point and disrupting their dominance over the upper Hudson River. The river was a vital artery for communication and supply lines during the Revolutionary War, making these positions critical. Stony Point’s formidable defenses and elevated terrain posed a significant challenge, while Fort Lafayette’s location made it a prime target for naval bombardment. The British sought to weaken American control in the region, and the outcome of these engagements would influence the broader struggle for the Hudson Valley, a pivotal theater in the American War for Independence. image
    • 1 June 1779, Thomas Jefferson was elected the second Governor of Virginia. He served two terms, and during his administration, the capital was moved to Richmond. image
    • 2 June, 1779, Philadelphia, PA, Benedict Arnold’s court-martial was scheduled to start but is “deferred till further orders; the exigency of the public service not permitting it to sit at this time.” Orders General Washington.  image
    • 3 June 1779, Verplank’s Point, NY. The American garrison surrenders to Gen Henry Clinton’s forces, giving the British control of the strategic point on the Hudson (North) River. image
    • 5 June 1779 In a series of town meetings, New Hampshire rejects a proposed state constitution. image
    • 3 Jun 1780, Reviled former royal governor of Massachusetts, Thomas Hutchinson, dies in Brompton, England. Ironically, Hutchinson was the great-great-grandson of the religious leader Anne Hutchinson, who was expelled from the colony.  image
    • 1 June 1781 In a heated exchange of correspondence, the British commander in North America, Sir Henry Clinton, directs Gen Charles Cornwallis to march to the Delaware Region or withdraw by sea to NYC. Cornwallis ignores his command & aims for Virginia. image
    • 3 June 1781 Lt Col Banastre Tarleton leads 180 troopers from his British Legion along with 70 infantrymen from the Royal Welch Fusiliers on a raid to capture Virginia Gov Thomas Jefferson & the state legislature meeting in Charlottesville, VA. image
    • 3 June 1781, Virginian Jack Jouett spots a column of dragoons under Col Banastre Tarleton heading for Charlottesville & the VA Assembly. He makes a night ride over 40 miles of mountainous trails to warn Gov Thomas Jefferson and the Virginia Assembly. image
    • 4 Jun 1781 Charlottesville, VA. Capt Jack Jouette warns Gov Jefferson & the VA Assembly just before Lt Col Banastre Tarleton’s column rides into town. A few Assemblymen are captured (incl Daniel Boone), but Jefferson & most escape. image
    • 5 Jun 1781 Lt Col John Graves Simcoe directs a raid of 400 men against Point of Fork along Rivanna R in VA, and causes Gen von Steuben to retreat. Simcoe then circles back and takes critical supplies & captures 30 men.  image
    • 5 Jun 1781 Augusta, Georgia. This Loyalist outpost is captured and held by American forces under General Andrew Pickens and Light Horse Harry Lee after a two-week siege.  Taking this piece of British-held Georgia gave American peace negotiators in Paris leverage in asserting that Georgia was still a part of the United States and not a British prize.   This was a blow against the British Southern strategy, which called for Britain to hold the South even if the northern colonies broke away.  image
    • 6 June 1782, Wyandot Indians surround Col William Crawford’s army near the Ohio River. They capture his force and kill most, scalping Crawford and burning him at the stake as payback for the Gnadenhutten massacre of innocent Indians. image
  • Clothing and Related:
    • A beautiful rendition of womens wear echoing the style of their fashionable male counterparts here in 1790s style. The tailoring of silk stripes with embroidered waistcoat beneath but following the contours of the cinched waist
    • The term robe à la polonaise is often applied to any late-eighteenth-century dress with back drapery, but it should be reserved for a dress with a fitted anglaise back and a skirt that can be drawn up on interior tapes into swags. These light, informal dresses enjoyed great popularity for daywear in the late 1770s and 1780s. “Polish” fashion had appeared earlier in honor of Queen Maria Leczinska, who was a Polish princess before she married Louis XV. The “Polish” styles consisted mainly of gowns trimmed with fur or a brocaded fur pattern. Camisoles, caracos, bonnets, and even men’s frock coats were also called à la polonaise at the height of the fashion in 1780.
    • “The Bum Shop,” a caricature from 1785, satirizing women’s fashion.
    • It is not easy to make stripes look so effortless. Here they run vertically, pieced together perfectly but then the fabric is arranged horizontally in the round of the sleeve. 1780s robe a la francaise
    • These late 18th- century embroidered pictures are incredibly delicate, having been rendered using a single strand of black thread. This type of embroidery, often called printwork, involved a singular strand of black thread and was meant to be reminiscent of engraving

 

 

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