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2025  UELAC Conference:  Johnson Hall
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.

“Developments at Johnson Hall”
By Wade Wells
This presentation will focus on recently completed restoration projects at Johnson Hall, a New York State Historic Site, and discuss new research and programming initiatives along with the importance of Johnson Hall in telling the Loyalist story during the 250th anniversary commemorations.
Wade Wells is the Historic Site Manager of Johnson Hall State Historic Site, the 1763 home of Sir William Johnson and Molly Brant. He has served in several interpretive, operational and managerial positions at Johnson Hall and the Saratoga Region during his thirty-four-year career with New York State Parks.
Hear Wade on Thursday July 10 at at the reception which begins at 6:30.

Read more about Sir William, Sir John and Sir Guy Johnson below in Elbows Up in 1775: An Exodus That Repelled American Invasion by Chris Alexander

Hope to see you at Conference.

Five Loyalist Families of Remsheg: Part Two of Three
copyright Stephen Davidson UE
As one researches loyalist history, it is always best to expect the unexpected. Loyalists not only had ancestors in England, but ones in western Africa, France, and the German states. Refugees of French descent as well as a family of German descent each made new homes along the shores of the Northumberland Strait in Nova Scotia.
With a surname that was also spelled, Forshemy, Fursner, and Fürstner, Andrew Forshner and his wife Anne Foughts left Hesse, Germany to settle in Pennsylvania ten years before the American Revolution. Strangely enough, the German couple had their farm in that colony’s Cumberland County; they would die decades later in the Nova Scotia count of the same name.
By age 26, Andrew had sided with the British government, and became a participant in a plot to blow up an ammunition magazine in Carlisle, Pennsylvania, a village known to be a centre of Patriot support. When the plot failed, Andrew had to flee for his life, joining the British in Newark, Pennsylvania. In addition to serving as an interpreter between loyalist and Hessian units in New York, he was a spy and courier for the royal army.
As early as 1778, Forshner came to the attention of General George Washington, who wrote to George Bryan, the president of the council of Pennsylvania, noting that the Loyalist was a spy and hoping that “means might be devised, perhaps, to apprehend him.”
Only one of Andrew’s 1781 intelligence reports (under the heading of Forshner’s Independent Company) has survived, recounting a reconnaissance mission that took him and two comrades into New Jersey.  The account is replete with stories of being wounded by buckshot, fording icy rivers, hiding in swamps, suffering arrests, witnessing the persecution of Loyalists, and noting potential deserters to the British. The focus of the three men’s mission was to follow the progress of 500 “revolters” who had been discharged from the Continental Army, evaluating – it seems—the morale of the enemy troops.
After having served with the Patriots for three years, the veterans received “One pair of Shoes, one pair of Overalls, one Shirt and a Hat, and put their Arms on Board of a Sloop and had them sent to Philadelphia, and returned to their respective homes.” Not all of the men who wanted to be discharged were, and so they asked for a 60-day furlough. In a foul mood, the “Revolters are more cruel heretofore and begin to knock down and plunder the People“.
Two years after this spy mission, Andrew and Anne boarded the Trepassey with their children and a 17 year-old free-born Black girl named Mary. Among the family’s belongings on the journey north to Nova Scotia, was Andrew’s sword which — family lore believes– may have “shed blood in defence” of the British flag. As of 1972, the sword was still in the possession of one of the Loyalist’s descendants.
Andrew and Anne eventually had seven children: Andrew Jr., Knapp (who may have been named for Moses Knapp, a loyalist captain), John, Elizabeth, Mary, Nancy, and Zillah.
The “paper trail” for Andrew Forshner following his settlement in Remsheg includes his attendance at the loyalist compensation board hearings in Saint John, New Brunswick in the fall of 1786, and his appearance on a poll tax list in 1791 (on which his name is rendered “Fürstner”).
Andrew’s wife Anne died at age 72 in 1822; he would be a widower for the next eight years, dying at the age of 78 in 1830. The family operated an inn, which became a popular place for the stagecoaches between Amherst and Pictou to change horses. By the 1880’s there were at least seven families of the Forshner name living around Remsheg Bay.
Up until 1755, the Remsheg area had been home to Acadians, the descendants of immigrants from Poitou-Charentes in west-central France. Following their deportation, the land that they had farmed was granted to loyalist refugees in 1784. Among the latter were Thomas Huestis and his wife Phoebe Mabee. Phoebe’s ancestors (whose surname was often spelled Mabie or Maybee) had been French Protestants who, after being expelled from their country, settled among the Dutch in New Amsterdam (later New York).
Phoebe was just 19 and living in Tappan, New York at the time of the signing of the Declaration of Independence. Her husband, Thomas, who was 17 at the time, lived 15 miles away in White Plains, New York.
Phoebe’s family operated an inn, which entered the history books as the site where Major John Andre was imprisoned for being a British spy. As Phoebe was just 23 when Andre was hanged on October 2, 1780, she may very well have waited upon the major during his last days. Later that same year, Phoebe became Mrs. Huestis on Christmas Day, 1780. Thomas and Phoebe did not start their family until after they had fled the new United States and settled at Remsheg Harbour.
Thomas was the only member of his large family who took a loyalist stance, going so far as to join the Royal American Fencible Regiment. Rebel troops arrested him, keeping him in prison until the end of the war. One bit of family lore suggests that, like Andre, Thomas was incarcerated at the Mabies’ Inn where he met and fell in love with Phoebe.
After the couple arrived in Cumberland County, family lore says that the effects belonging to the region’s loyalist settlers were carried on rafts that were towed by boats to various points along the Northumberland Strait. The discovery of a spring prompted Thomas to establish his farm near the centre of Remsheg Harbour rather than on the land he had been granted on the north shore.
In the years that followed, the loyalist settlement was “scourged with disease and death“. A Methodist preacher visited the area in 1791, just as a dance was being held at the Huestis family home. The preacher  “asked the privilege of preaching to the assembly” and was given permission to do so. This was followed up by a meeting at another settler’s home, resulting in a number of conversions. The historian D.W. Johnson notes, “This was the beginning of a great change in the community and the establishment of Methodism in all the settlements round about“.  Raised a Methodist in New York, Thomas served as a lay preacher until his theology offended local leaders.
Within a year of their arrival along the shore, Phoebe Huestis gave birth to Catherine, the couples’ first child in 1785. She was followed by Joshua (1788), James (1789), Peter (1791), and Nathaniel (1793). Phoebe died at age 54 on July 10, 1811. Thomas later married a woman named Elizabeth. He died at the age of 91 in 1851, and was remembered by his descendants as “a good farmer, a man of very loving nature, always happy in his family affairs and friendly with everyone“.
This series on five loyalist families who settled at Remsheg concludes in next week’s Loyalist Trails.
To secure permission to reprint this article contact the author at stephendavids@gmail.com.

Elbows Up in 1775: An Exodus That Repelled American Invasion
by Chris Alexander 30 May 2025 at TheDieHardOptimist.com
[Editor: I recommend this. Starting in eaely 1775 in the Mohawk Valley and Sir Guy Johnson, it primarily follows events through the defeat of the rebels in Quebec on Dec. 31.]
A quarter millennium ago — on May 31st 1775 — Guy Johnson left his home on the Mohawk river in the province of New York, as he later testified, “at the head of 90 Mohocks and about 120 White men.”
Johnson had been acting superintendent of ‘Northern Indians’ and “His Majesty’s agent to his faithful subjects and allies the Six Nations” since his uncle Sir William Johnson had died on July 11th, 1774 – less than eleven months earlier. Among the Mohawks travelling with him was Thayendanegea, also known as Joseph Brant — a war chief, Indian Department officer and secretary to Johnson whose official position in 1775 was “Interpreter for the Six Nations Language.”
Guy Johnson and Thayendanegea were fleeing to stay one step ahead of a threat of arrest, which had been relayed to them by friends in Albany and Philadelphia, where representatives to the continental and New York congresses justifiably suspected the Indian Department superintendent and his officers of turning First Nations against the rebellion. Following a practice launched by Samuel Adams in 1772, New York province had formed a committee of correspondence in May 1774. Tryon county, where the Johnsons were prominent magistrates and militia officers, had formed its own committee on August 27th, 1774. Since the battles of Lexington and Concord, which took place near Boston on April 19th, 1775, these committees of safety, correspondence and protection had been on a war footing.
In early May they sent a delegation to Sir William’s eldest son Sir John Johnson, Guy’s cousin and brother-in-law, to discourage him from arming his tenants. They issued a caution to Guy Johnson and stripped him of his military ranks.
The Johnsons and their followers remained defiant. On May 11th, the “principal Inhabitants and Freeholders of the Mohawk District in the County of Tryon,” which included many Johnson family associates, drew up an agreement to defend themselves on the grounds that “some of the New Englanders threaten this County, and also to offer Violence to some persons of Consequence & Character therein.” The document noted that these outsiders had already taken twelve British soldiers prisoner at Albany and “calling to mind the Duties incumbent on us both as Subjects and a free People” resolved to defend their persons and property from further disturbances.
For rebel leaders, the loyalists of Tryon county were an irritant, but after Lexington and Concord their military focus turned to Canada, which they saw as the root of loyalist or ‘Tory’ resistance. The first Continental Congress had invited French Canadians and Nova Scotians to send delegates — just one month after its first meeting in 1774. Congress renewed their appeal to French Canada in May 1775. In the meantime, Green Mountain boys under Ethan Allen and Colonel Benedict Arnold — with a commission from the Massachusetts committee of safety — took Fort Ticonderoga on May 10th, captured Crown Point on May 11th and raided Fort St-Jean on the Richelieu river on May 18th before falling back to Ticonderoga to make further military preparations. Several indigenous chiefs and landowners from the Mohawk district had fought to defend St-Jean before returning to Guy Park in late May. Read more…

They Made the House: Many generations ago, five Haudenosaunee nations united under the Great Law of Peace
by Kelly Boutsalis, posted 28 May 2025  at Canada’s History
When lacrosse teams take the field at the 2028 Summer Olympics in Los Angeles, the players for the Haudenosaunee Confederacy hope to make history. If the International Olympic Committee allows them to compete, they’ll be part of the first-ever Olympic team representing an Indigenous nation… After all, lacrosse was invented by the Haudenosaunee — and, like lacrosse, the Haudenosaunee Confederacy is many hundreds of years old.
“We are all one house, we five Iroquois Nations; we keep one fire, and we have always lived under one roof,” a Haudenosaunee chief told the Jesuit Father François le Mercier in 1654. Le Mercier, who called the Haudenosaunee by the French name “Iroquois,” went on to note in the Jesuit Relations: “Truly, these five Iroquois Nations have forever called themselves in their own language … ‘Hotinnonchiendi,’ which means ‘the complete house,’ as though they were but one family.”
The Haudenosaunee Confederacy brought together five founding nations — the Mohawk, Cayuga, Seneca, Oneida, and Onondaga — along with the Tuscarora, who joined later, under an overarching Grand Council to decide important matters of common concern. The founding date of the Confederacy remains a matter of debate among scholars, who have sought to pin it down by cross-referencing archaeological evidence and astronomical data with events recounted in oral history, notably a period of internecine warfare and a solar eclipse that immediately preceded the decision of the Seneca to join the league.
For the Haudenosaunee, however, there is a fluidity to the Confederacy’s origin, and the exact dates are less important than the story, which has been passed down orally for hundreds of years. Although there are many variations and interpretations of the origin story, they all begin with the Peacemaker.  Read more, through the American Revolution to today…

Book Review: Under Alien Skies: Environment, Suffering, and the Defeat of the British Military in Revolutionary America
Author: Vaughn Scribner (Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 2024)
Review by John Gilbert McCurdy 16 June 2025 Journal of the American Revolutionary
Historians’ interest in the environment has remade our understanding of the past in recent years. We are now more inclined to appreciate the role that the natural world played in shaping historical events, including the American Revolution. For example, in Washington’s Crossing, David Hackett Fischer argues that the stormy winter of 1776 had more to do with the Continental Army’s success at the Battle of Trenton than a drunken Hessian Christmas party.
Vaughn Scribner continues these efforts to place nature at the center of the American War for Independence in Under Alien Skies. Drawing on the diaries and correspondence of British and German soldiers and their families, Scribner explores the effects that the North American environment had on the mental abilities of those sent to defeat the colonial rebellion. Doing so, he asserts, corrects a glaring omission in the historiography. “By overlooking foreign soldiers’ myriad tribulations in the American environment,” Scribner writes, “scholars of the Revolutionary War have . . . removed from the proverbial ‘muck’ of that especially devastating human creation: large-scale warfare”.
Under Alien Skies is less an account of the American environment than a history of how the troops imagined it. To wit, the book begins with the opinions of troops before they even left Europe. “British and Hessian soldiers entered the Revolutionary War with a complicated collection of (mostly negative) perceptions surrounding North America’s environment,” Scribner observes; “thus, their war began at home”. This low opinion was quickly made worse by the Atlantic crossing. “Heaven help us!” lamented Hessian corporal Carl Philip Steuernagel before he sailed. “Country, parents, family, all our friends, yes, even the world seemed to have deserted us and delivered us up to the unknown ocean and its waves”. Nor were such fears entirely unwarranted. Scurvy, fevers, and nausea, as well as volcanos, icebergs, and sea creatures, tormented the approximately 50,000 soldiers who sailed to America as well as their families, leading to a mortality rate of almost ten percent before the troops even made it across the ocean. Read more…

Hessian Soldiers Travelling to America: POW: In Camp – A Soldier’s Life. November 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 131

In the Month of December 1782

December 1782

2 December.  The  six  men  of  Quesnoy’s  Company  returned  from  jail.  Quartermaster Sergeant Knoll was responsible for their release.
10 December. Private Raithel, of Quesnoy’s Company, came back again from Virginia. He had been gone from here since 2 July.
21 December. Three hundred English prisoners of Cornwallis’s troops arrived  here. They were escorted by two hundred American light dragoons and riflemen, who were quartered in the  city. The English,  however,  were  put  in  the  poorhouse  under  guard.  With  this  transport also came a newly raised  free corps of  three  hundred  men that was organized  as  the French are,  and  Colonel  [Charles]  Armand  [Tuffin,  Marquis  de  la  Rouerie],  a  Frenchman,  was  in command. Among these  are  forty  men  from  our two regiments who had  stayed  in  Virginia. Three men of Quesnoy’s Company are included, B‡r, B€hret, and Burckart.*
23 December.  Grenadier  [Joseph]  Kollepetzky  and  Private  [Johann  Michael]  Eckert,  of Eyb’s  Company  of  our  regiment,  two  Ansbachers,  and  one  Hessian,  enlisted  in  Armand’s Free Corps.
25 December.  Today  all  of  the  English  prisoners  here  were  escorted  away  to  Little Yorktown and Lancaster, in Pennsylvania. Armand’s Free Corps departed with them.
One read about Gibralter in the Philadelphia Gazette (newspaper):

Gibralter, which had  been under close siege by the  French  and  Spaniards  with  large  land and naval forces, was relieved by the English Admiral Lord Howe, and the siege was lifted. The French and Spaniards stood before it with an army of forty-two thousand men, troops that were commanded, on the Spanish side, by [Louis des Balbes de Berton], Duke of Crillon, and on the French side, by Princes Asturien and Bourbon.
On  the  sea  the  United  Fleet  consisted  of  about  sixty  sail  and  was  commanded  by  the Spanish Admiral Don Cordova.
The commandant in Gibralter was Lieutenant General [Sir George Augustus] Earl Eliot.
Admiral  Lord  Howe’s  fleet  consisted  of  fifty-seven  ships.  

    The  past  month  of  December was always raw and cold, but there was still no snow.
Now, once  again,  a  year  is  past  and  gone  by,  under God’s gracious  hand,  in  a  miserable captivity. How many favors the dear Lord has given to all of us and also to me. May there be eternal praise, honor, and thanks for that.
Our New Year’s  wish  is  this:  Almighty  God,  bring  peace  soon  and  send  us  all  an  early
release and freedom from this captivity.

*  The Maryland Council had refused Armand permission to recruit Marylanders for his command, but on 31 October 1782 granted him specific permission to recruit among the German prisoners of war within the state. A comparison  of  names  of  deserters  listed  by  St‡dtler  and  a  list  of  Armand’s  Corps,  dated  5  November  1783, indicates  the  following  Ansbach-Bayreuth  soldiers  joined  the  Light  Horse:  Henry  Baumgartner,  John  Brown, William Brown,  Conrad  Buding,  Martin  Giesensieder,  John  Geyer,  Henry  Lockner,  Michael  Mierheffer,  John Odorfer,  John  Pope,  William  Pope,  Friedrich  Schaffer,  Gotfried  Scholls
(to be continued)

Slavery Advertisements Published June 20, 1775
The Slavery Adverts 250 Project chronicles the role of newspaper advertising in perpetuating slavery in the era of the American Revolution. The project seeks to reveal the ubiquity of slavery in eighteenth-century life from New England to Georgia by republishing advertisements about enslaved people – for sale as individuals or in groups, wanted to purchase or for hire for short periods, runaways who liberated themselves, and those who were subsequently captured and confined in jails and workhouses
The project aims to provide modern audiences with a sense of just how often colonizers encountered these advertisements in their daily lives. Enslaved men, women, and children appeared in print somewhere in the colonies almost every single day. Those advertisements served as a constant backdrop for social, cultural, economic, and political life in colonial and revolutionary America. Colonizers who did not purport to own enslaved people were still confronted with slavery as well as invited to maintain the system by purchasing enslaved men, women, and children or assisting in the capture of so-called “runaways” who sought to free themselves from bondage. The frequency of these newspaper advertisements suggests just how embedded slavery was in colonial and revolutionary American culture in everyday interactions beyond the printed page. Read more…

Advertised on 19 June 1775: ‘a new American Manufactory’

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

“A NEW AMERICAN MANUFACTORY.”

As summer arrived in 1775, Ryves and Fletcher took to the pages of Dunlap’s Pennsylvania Packet to inform the public that they established a “NEW AMERICAN MANUFACTORY” where they made and sold “all kinds of PAPER HANGINGS” (better known as wallpaper today).  The eighth article of the Continental Association, the nonimportation pact devised by the First Continental Congress in the fall of 1774, called for “promot[ing] Agriculture, Arts, and the Manufactures of this Country” as alternatives to imported goods.  That charge had even greater urgency following once colonizers heard about the battles at Lexington and Concord and the ensuing siege of Boston.  When Ryves and Fletcher ran their advertisement two days after the Battle of Bunker Hill, word of that engagement had not yet arrived in Philadelphia.  When it appeared again in July, readers had even more information about momentous events in Massachusetts that likely shaped how they reacted to Ryes and Fletcher marketing paper hangings made in America.
The “PAPER STAINERS,” as Ryves and Fletcher described themselves, asserted that they “are the first who have attempted that manufacture on this continent.”  Perhaps they were not aware..  Read more…

The Pope’s French-Canadian Cousins
by Christopher C. Child, 17 June 2025, at Vita Brevis
The New York Times Magazine recently published a story on the ancestry of the new Pope. The article was by Henry Louis Gates Jr. in collaboration with American Ancestors and the Cuban Genealogy Club of Miami. I was one of the researchers tasked with working on some of the Pope’s ancestors, particularly those in colonial New France (Quebec, Canada)…
….The way to French Canada is through the pope’s great-great-great-grandmother, Celeste Olympe de Granpdre (1781-1833). She was baptized in New Orleans on August 7, 1781, the daughter of “Maria Juana, Mulata libre.” Celeste’s 1798 marriage contract at Opelousas Post to Louis Lemelle notes that she is a “carteronne libre,” a native of Pointe Coupeé, 17 years old, the natural daughter of Charles Grandpres and Jeanette Clapion [Glapion], free mulatresse.
“Charles Grandpres” was Charles Louis Boucher de Grand Pré (1745-1809), also known as Carlos de Grand Pré. As a subject of Spanish West Florida, Carlos was commander of the military post at Pointe Coupeé along the Mississippi River in Louisiana during the American Revolutionary War until July 1781 when he was transferred to Natchez…
Charles/Carlos’s father Louis Boucher de Grandpre (1695-1763) was born in Trois-Rivières, Quebec and was in New Orleans by 1734 when he married Thérèse Gallard de Chamilly, with whom he had three children (Charles/Carlos being the only son)
Louis was the grandson of Pierre Boucher de Boucherville (1622-1717), who had emigrated from France to Quebec with his family in 1634.
The pope is related to numerous Canadian-derived distant cousin, including Pierre and Justin Trudeau, Angelina Jole, Hillary Clinton, Justin Bieber, Jack Kerouac, and Madonna.” Read more…

The Record Scratch: Uncovering Documents Relating to William Ansah Sessarakoo
By Jayne Ptolemy, June 2025 at Common Place
[An interesting article about the slave trade in mid-18th century and the English involvement.]
Because as it turns out, as much as this clutch of papers is about a specific story of Atlantic slavery it still absolutely relates to British finance and national politics.
I want to be clear, I know full well how fortunate I am to have the job that I do. As a part of the curatorial staff at the William L. Clements Library at the University of Michigan, I have the great privilege of spending my days organizing, describing, reveling in, and teaching with incredible, one-of-a-kind historical materials relating to early America. But that doesn’t mean there aren’t some tasks that are just dead boring.
I had been delaying one such chore for years after trying and failing to muster the time, energy, and perseverance to complete it. The Clements holds the papers of Charles Townshend (1725-1767), who served as Secretary of War during the Seven Years’ War and the Chancellor of the Exchequer in the decades leading up to the American Revolution. These days, he is mostly known as the straw man for incendiary British taxation policies due to his role in sponsoring the infamous Townshend Acts…
…There are always joys while going through manuscripts—an unexpected doodle, a funny quote, beautiful papers—but most of what I was encountering was financial document after financial document–Until one stopped me right in my tracks. It referred to expenses “for the two African Gentlemen at Barbadoes.” Written in 1747, the use of “Gentlemen” to describe African peoples was eye-catching enough, but glancing down at the accounts, the entries for making waistcoats, providing pocket money, buying ruffled shirts, and more signaled something extraordinary.
Turns out this was a clutch of some twenty documents relating to the financial transactions of a man named David Crichton in 1747 and 1748 while he was in Barbados—receipts for goods purchased, lodging expenses, bills of sale for enslaved people, and associated legal fees. The lawyers’ bills were made out to Crichton, “on Account of the African Company of England,” indicating he was operating in at least a semi-formal capacity with one of the largest slaving enterprises of the day. So paying a tailor to make a bespoke suit out of scarlet fabrics for African men seemed . . .  out of character.  Read more…

Jefferson and Madison Letters: Should a Constitution Last Forever?
by Jett Conner 19 June 2025 Journal of the American Revolution
One day in the late winter of 1788 in Paris, the Marquis de Lafayette and two other champions of republicanism, Thomas Jefferson and Thomas Paine, held a little “convention of our own,” according to Lafayette. They were discussing the latest news from America about the debates taking place over ratifying the Constitution of 1787.[1] Jefferson missed the Constitutional Convention because at the time he was serving as U.S. Minister to France.
Although all three favored the Constitution’s adoption, reservations emerged. Jefferson and Paine objected to the abandonment of the principle of rotation in office embodied in the Articles of Confederation; under the Articles, delegates to the Congress were appointed annually by the legislatures of each state and could serve only for three years in any given six-year term. Paine, especially, objected to the long duration of the Senate’s terms under the new Constitution. But unlike Jefferson, Paine also expressed a distaste for a single executive. He later wrote, “Such a man will always be chief of a party. A plurality is far better. It combines the mass of a nation together. And besides this, it is necessary to the manly mind of a republic that it loses the debasing idea of obeying an individual.”
But lingering in Jefferson’s mind was a larger question, one he decided had not been addressed. The following year, on September 6, 1789, he penned a now well-known letter to James Madison with a question about the new Constitution. How long should it last?
On February 4, 1790, Madison replied. Read more…

Beer Bottle: The first French-Canadian beer maker: “Brewery of the People.”
by Mathieu Drouin, 9 Feb 2023 at Canada’s History
Beer was a French-Canadian staple from the earliest days of New France — especially among working-class people. Between the founding of Quebec in 1608 and the English conquest in 1760, a dozen professional brewers supplied the colony, and many inhabitants produced their own beverages as well. Beer was a substitute for wine and strong liquor, which were not widely available.
After the conquest, the situation remained largely unchanged, apart from the increased importation of British beers. Read more… (short read)

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.

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 “Events in June to Celebrate the Loyalists”
 
American Revolution Institute: Author’s Talk—The Fate of the Day: The War for America, Fort Ticonderoga to Charleston, 1777-1780 Wed 25 June 6:30

Two years into the war, George III was determined to bring his rebellious colonies to heel, though his task was far too complicated. Not only was he fighting a determined enemy on the other side of the Atlantic in a conflict that was becoming ruinously expensive, but spies were telling him that the French and Spanish were threatening to join forces with the Americans. More…

Old Holy Trinity Church, in Middleton, N.S.open on Canada Day 1 July 1-4

Old Holy Trinity Church, in Middleton, N.S. , a Provincial Heritage Site, built in 1789 will be open July 1st, Canada Day, from 1 – 4 p.m. Stop in for a tour.   Brian McConnell UE
Read more about the church.

American Revolution Institute: The Comte de Rochambeau’s 300th Birthday Celebration 1 July 5:00 – 7:30

The comte de Rochambeau, the commander in chief of France’s 1780 expeditionary force sent to aid the Continental Army, played a pivotal role in helping to secure American independence. To commemorate the 300th birthday of this important figure of the American Revolutionary War, join us and the Washington-Rochambeau Revolutionary Route National Historic Trail for a special evening honoring the French commander.   Details… (Note: in-person only)



From the Social Media and Beyond

  • The Scots and Gaelic languages gain official status in Scotland 17 June 2025. The Scottish Languages Bill gives both languages official status in Scotland. Its new measures include:
    • introducing educational standards for Gaelic and Scots
    • establishing Gaelic and Scots as official languages
    • supporting the creation of areas of linguistic significance in Gaelic communities. Read more…
  • Gravestones of Loyalists in cemetery beside Old St. Edwards Loyalist Church in Clementsport, NS include members of the Ditmars family.  For more on the Loyalist Ditmars, Read more…
  • Food and Related : Townsends

  • This week in History
    • Bunker Hill in Four Objects: Revolutionary Spaces’ collection boasts a compelling and diverse set of objects related to the Battle of Bunker Hill. Eerily calm prints of a forested Bunker Hill give us the view from above, and cannonballs and powder horns let us zoom in on specific stories. While most of us are more used to reading a book—or, for those primary source lovers, first-hand accounts of the battle—a whole new perspective opens up for us when we let the objects lead the way.
      Which four objects did they choose? Read more…
    • 16 Jun 1738, Patriot Printer, Publisher and Postmistress, Mary Katherine Goddard, is born in New London, CT. She went on to publish the first version of the Declaration of Independence, which included all the congressional signatures. image
    • 17 Jun 1774 Boston, MA. British Gen Thomas Gage suspended the Massachusetts General Court after it convened & chose delegates to the 1st Continental Congress. image
    • 14 June 1775: The Continental #Army is founded by the Second Continental Congress. It is considered to be the birth of the United States Army. Two days later, George #Washington is appointed commander-in-chief of the Continental Army. image
    • 15 Jun 1775 Philadelphia, PA Based on John Adams’s recommendation, Continental Congress unanimously appoints Colonel George Washington of Virginia as Commander in Chief of the Continental Army. image
    • 15 Jun 1775 Cambridge, MA The Cambridge Committee of Safety receives word from spies that Gov Gage plans to occupy the heights around Boston. & orders Gen Artemus Ward to occupy Dorchester Heights & Bunker Hill.  image
    • 15 Jun 1775, Providence, RI, Capt. Abraham Whipple’s RI naval squadron captures a British vessel on the Providence River.  image
    • 16 June 1775: After colonial Militia leaders learned of the British plan to fortify the unoccupied hills surrounding Boston, Colonel William Prescott led 1,200 militiamen to dig fortifications on Breed’s Hill and Bunker Hill on the Charlestown peninsula. image
    • 16 Jun 1775 Philadelphia, PA Continental Congress appoints Charles Lee, Artemus Ward, Israel Putnam & Philip Schuyler Major Generals in the Continental Army.  image
    • 17 June 1775, Charleston, Massachusetts. The British confront a series of defensive positions on Bunker/Breed’s Hill. Gen. Thomas Gage dispatched over two thousand regulars under Gen. William Howe in a direct assault. The long red lines crumble under relentless volleys. A second attempt by General Howe proves similarly fruitless. Reinforced, Howe commands a third advance. Low on ammunition, the rebels are unable to halt the advance and retreat from their defensive positions. Nevertheless, they inflicted over 1,050 casualties, a staggering 48% of those engaged. The Americans suffered 450 casualties. In the aftermath, one of the British generals, Henry Clinton, noted in his diary, “A few more such victories would have shortly put an end to British dominion in America.” The American cause found strength in the heavy losses inflicted on the British. In London, hardliners grew firmer in their resolve, and these losses expedited the decision to hire German troops to supplement the British regulars.  image
    • 19 Jun 1775. Former British officer and Virginia planter Charles Lee was notified of his appointment as second Major General, making him third in command of the Continental Congress. He proved capable but highly controversial.   image
    • 20 Jun 1775 Philadelphia. Continental Congress orders George Washington to ride north to take command of the new Continental Army outside Boston. Meanwhile, Thomas Jefferson arrives to take a seat in Congress, replacing Peyton Randolph of Virginia. image
    • 21 Jun 1775 Nathanael Greene is appointed Brigadier General of Rhode Island’s forces.  He would go on to be one of the best American generals of the #RevWar  image
    • 16 Jun 1776 Charleston, SC Gen Henry Clinton occupies Long Island with 2,000 British regulars & 500 sailors, where they attempt to wade the channel to assault Sullivan’s Island. But the deep shoals frustrate the maneuver. image  
    • 17 June 1776, Montreal, Canada. British forces under Governor-General Guy Carleton’s command occupy the city, where he begins to prepare for an invasion of New York. image
    • 21 June 1776, New Jersey’s Provincial Congress deposes and arrests Royal Governor William Franklin, son of Benjamin Franklin. image
    • 14 Jun 1777 Philadelphia. Continental Congress adopted a resolution stating that “the flag of the United States be thirteen alternate stripes red and white” and that “the Union be thirteen stars, white in a blue field, representing a new Constellation.” image
    • 14 Jun 1777 Capt John Paul Jones is given command of the 18-gun sloop Ranger with the mission of raiding the coast of England. image
    • 19 June 1777 Gen. Wm. Howe recalls his columns under Gen. Leopold von Heister from Middlebrook, NJ, while Gen. George Washington deploys a detachment under Gen. Wm. Maxwell between New Brunswick and Amboy to detect British movements against their flank. image
    • 20 Jun 1777 Ft Ticonderoga, NY. Gen. Philip Schuyler holds a council of war, where it is resolved that Gen. Arthur St. Clair will hold the fort as long as possible before escaping with his army to Mount Independence. image
    • 18 Jun 1778. The British Army began evacuating Philadelphia after almost nine months of occupation. 15,000 British troops under Gen Sir Henry Clinton began to depart. Some sailed north, but a large column would lumber across the sultry fields of NJ. image
    • 18 June 1778: King George III gives royal assent to the payment of £ 27,457 12s 1/2d to be paid to Arnold Nesbitt, Adam Drummond, and Moses Franks, contractors for victualing the forces in North America. image
    • 16 Jun 1779 London The Spanish ambassador reacts to the British rejection of mediation by announcing Spain would seek justice by any means necessary – Lord North considers this a declaration of war. image
    • 17 Jun 1779 London Lord John Cavendish appeals to Parliament for a full mobilization of military forces against France & Spain, even if America has to be abandoned. Parliament rejects the proposal. image
    • 20 Jun 1779 at Stono Ferry, SC. Gen. Benjamin Lincoln leads 1,400 men across the Ashley River and attacks the British rear guard of 900 under Lt. Col. John Maitland. The British drive back the rebels with over 300 casualties vs some 125 British. image
    • 20 June 1780, Ramsour’s Mill, North Carolina.
      After the fall of Charleston, General Charles Cornwallis prepared his army to advance into North Carolina. However, two ambitious North Carolina Tory leaders, Lt. Colonel John Moore and Major Nicholas Welch, wanted to be the first to attack their home state. On 13 June 1780, they gathered men at Jacob Ramsour’s Mill in Lincoln County. General Griffith Rutherford, commanding American forces in western North Carolina, learned of the gathering Loyalist forces and directed Colonel Francis Locke and Major Robert Wilson to stop the Loyalists before they could strike. Four hundred militia from Burke, Iredell, Mecklenburg, and Rowan Counties assembled and marched off to face the Loyalists.  Their objective: Ramsour’s Mill, where about 1,300 Loyalists had gathered. The patriots moved swiftly but stealthily. At dawn on the 20th, a scout led the Americans through the early morning mist in a surprise attack that caught the Loyalists off guard. Close-quarters and hand-to-hand fighting lasted for two hours before the Loyalists broke. The fierce melee resulted in seventy killed and 200 wounded on both sides. This defeat weakened Loyalist resolve in North Carolina and threatened Cornwallis’s campaign before it even started. image
    • 15 Jun 1781  Confederation Congress modifies  1779 peace instructions &  authorizes conditions for independence & sovereignty. However, Benjamin Franklin refuses to trade away navigation rights on the Mississippi in exchange for help from France and Spain. image
    • 18 Jun 1781: An American force under Col. Charles Middleton shadows Lt. Col. Francis Rawdon’s relief force as it marches to Ninety-Six, SC. Rawdon suddenly turns his forces and routs them. image
    • 19 Jun 1781 Fort Ninety-Six, SC. Gen Nathanael Greene abandons his siege when he learns of the approach of a relief column under Lt Col Lord Francis Rawdon. The 28-day siege cost Greene 125 casualties to the Loyalists’ 85. image
  • Clothing and Related:
    • A new form of hat vied for ladies’ favour around the turn of the 19th century: the capote.
      The soft, cap-like hat was first created around the late 1790ies. By 1804, the capote was quite commonly worn by women and girls.
      It enjoyed popularity until about 1815.
      Read more…
  • Miscellaneous 
    • ‘The Rival Favourites‘, hand-coloured engraving by Robert Sayer (London, 1788) with Grosvenor Prints, London   

Last Post: SWANBY UE, Shirley Dorothy Gloria d. 10 June 2025
Born near Ottawa, ON, to Donald and Dorothy Campsall, the family then moved to Billings Bridge, ON, where Shirley grew up, always next to a river. She attended Glebe High School and trained at Ottawa General Hospital as a laboratory technician, working with the Federal Department of Health in Ottawa.
She met her husband and lifelong travelling partner, Thomas Swanby, at a Protestant Girls Tea Dance in early 1956. They became engaged in April and married in December. The couple moved to Calgary, AB, continued to travel, and raised two children.
Shirley continued to work and had many hobbies, extensive travel with Tom. She attained a degree from U of Calgary. She was a proud United Empire Loyalist.
She is survived by her husband Tom; her children, Erik and Nancy; her grandchildren and great-grandchildren.
A family celebration will be held at a later date.  Full obit.

Shirley  in Oct 2022 proved her Loyalist ancestor James Jackson from Chester County, New York. He was part of Jessups’ Loyal Rangers and settled in Ernest Town, Augusta and Mountain, Upper Canada.
Suzanne Davidson UE, President, Calgary Branch

 

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