Atlantic Loyalist Connections

How do you go about locating where a person lived 240 years ago in a place you’ve never been? This was my situation when I started researching New Brunswick loyalist, Gasper Maybee, who was originally from Bergen County, New Jersey. Through using a series of modern and historical maps, first-hand accounts, and some very helpful local expertise, I was able to pinpoint the area where he grew up and inherited land.

First brought to Nova Scotia as a young shoot in 1786, the “Bishop Pear Tree” still stands—gnarled but solid—near the edge of the Ken-Wo Golf Club in New Minas, Nova Scotia. The young tree was carried from Connecticut by Peter Bishop Jr. returning with his new wife to Nova Scotia, two hundred and thirty-four years ago.

Many forgotten and often trivial incidents of daily life can be found by just a quick glance at historical newspapers, including the loss of Basil Rorison’s sorrel mare. Rorison was a member of the provincial loyalist regiment, the King’s Orange Rangers, and misplaced his horse while at Harlem, New York during the American Revolution. We are lucky today that most modes of transportation do not tend to wander off on their own—with our possessions attached!

Clergy were few and far between in the first years of loyalist settlement in New Brunswick, however, records from travelling Anglican ministers based in Gagetown, Queens County provide an early record of baptisms, marriages and deaths prior to the establishment of most churches. Many New Brunswick loyalists and their descendants may be found in these records.

On December 25, 1807, New Brunswick Loyalist Edward Winslow, Jr. wrote in his diary: “Very dull Christmas.”

Continued from the previous post, Two Kings Orange Rangers, Part 1.

Land Dispute in Quaco (St. Martins)

The provincial loyalist regiment known as the King’s Orange Rangers travelled through the American Revolution, moving from New York to Nova Scotia, then scattering to many parts of the Atlantic World. Only a few individuals chose to go to the land that had been assigned to the regiment in New Brunswick at the end of the war. Two of those King’s Orange Rangers were John Howard and William Carnell and they would become embroiled in a post-war dispute which can readily be traced through land petition documents.

Loyalists who tried to return home at the end of the American Revolutionary War often faced the threat of violence. Daniel Babbit was one of those Loyalists. He was left so frightened by his experience, he chose to leave the country rather than risk his personal safety by remaining.

This is the story of an industrious tanner and shoemaker from Redding, Connecticut, and how he found himself on the losing end of the Revolutionary War and on a ship sailing north for the mouth of the St. John River. It will illustrate the risks of choosing sides in a conflict too early and the rewards for sticking with that conviction.

Jamaica was the most famous and wealthy sugar island in the British Empire, but with this wealth came big risks that shaped the experience of plantership. The climate, though, that gave also took away - routine threats of devastation were very real from the impact of powerful hurricanes, as reflected today in the images of hurricane Dorian.

18^th century New Brunswick and Nova Scotia was home to a slew of great and respected doctors and physicians, including but not limited to Drs. William Paine, Samuel Moore, John Gamble, Charles Earle, Thomas Emerson, Azor Betts, David Brown, Nathan and William Howe Smith, and Peter Huggeford, an English surgeon and subject of the last blog entry. However, respected doctors like Huggeford and Paine were not alone in the Maritimes.

Blood-curdling shrieks filled Peter Huggeford’s operating room. Trails of blood pooled onto his oaken table, seeping into its crevices and staining the wood a dark burgundy colour. The sickly smell of gangrene and death filled the air. With a newly sharpened bone saw in hand, Dr. Huggeford went to work.

1776 was a year full of victory and bloodshed for Loyalists and Patriots alike. From prominent American and British officers like George Washington and Richard Howe, to everyday individuals like the Irish-born Charles Cooke, the fate of the American Revolution was a matter of life or death.

(Follow link for Part 1 of Loyalist History On the Ground in Kings County, New Brunswick)

On April 15, 2019, archaeologists from The LAMAR Institute began a month-long search for three significant American Revolutionary War battlefields on Long Island, New York. The project, entitled, “The Struggle for Long Island: Expanding Revolutionary War Studies in New York” examines military sites occupied by Loyalists including the stronghold of Fort Slongo; Setauket, which was a fortified church; and the fort and Loyalist headquarters known as Fort Franklin/Lloyd’s Neck.

In 1753, English linguist Anthony Casteel, along with his crew, were taken hostage by Mi’kmaq warriors in Jeddore, Nova Scotia between the months of May and June. Casteel left Halifax, presumably from the town fort, to negotiate with neighbouring Mi’kmaq leaders.

An eyewitness to the Siege of Quebec in 1759, Edward Coats accompanied the British on their journey up the St. Lawrence River to Quebec and eventually Montreal. Though his official position or title is not known, the fact that he was able to read and write and do so at a time of war, shows that he was not a common soldier, more likely a naval officer under the Command of Vice Admiral Saunders.

The arts, literature, and religion provided a plethora of source material for the naming of ships. Characters from history, literature, Greek and Roman mythology, saints, and other religious derivations were very common inspirations in the late eighteenth and early nineteenth century Atlantic World. The classicist movement was influential during this period, and classically inspired names were extremely prevalent among many types of ships.

Ship names may be commemorative or symbolic, hold a social significance, indicate political change, or offer a perceived protection in the dangerous world of the sea. What thinking can be detected behind these naming choices? Often we do not have a record of who named the ships, but we might understand the motivations behind the name or the vision that the namer wanted to project. Ship names were important for the practical purposes of nautical law and business records.