- Call Number:
- HIL-MICL FC LFR .O9E3J6
- Category:
- Family
- Creator:
- Oxnard, Edward, 1747-1803.
- Material Description:
- 1 microfilm textual records 35 mm
- Background:
Edward Oxnard was born on 30 July 1747 and graduated from Harvard College in 1767. He lived in Falmouth (now Portland), Maine, before the American Revolution where he was a merchant and a reader of the Episcopal Society. After the burning of Falmouth, he went to England, where in 1776 he became a member of the New England Club. This club was formed by Loyalists who had fled from Massachusetts and who met weekly to dine at the Adelphi on the Strand. In 1778 Edward Oxnard was proscribed and banished for his Loyalist sympathies. At the end of the war he returned to Portland, became an auctioneer and merchant, and died there in 1803.
His brother was Thomas Oxnard who held the office of collector of customs at Falmouth until royal authority ended. He, too, was proscribed and banished in 1778, but at the end of the war returned to Portland to live, and died there in 1799.
- Contents:
The microfilm reel contains eight journals of Edward Oxnard beginning with his arrival off Plymouth, England, on 16 August 1775, thence to London, and continuing until his return voyage to North America when his ship came to anchor in Halifax Harbour on 8 June 1785. The journals describe life in England among the Loyalist refugees who were living there during the American Revolution. The names of Loyalists with whom he associated appear throughout the text and include the following surnames: Sewell, Bliss, Gray, Blowers, Coffin, Oxnard, Willard, Chipman, Curwen, Danforth, Col. Leonard, Col. Murray, and Col. Chandler. Journal # 7 contains a list of British ships on station, 12 June 1777. The list is headed, Exact List of all the British Ships of the Line in Commission with their Force and Stations. Several poems can be found at the end of the last journal. The complete dimensions of the ships Craughton and Betsy are given at the end of the reel.
- Originals:
The original journals are held by the Maine Historical Society.
- Archival Ref. No.:
Maine Historical Society, MS 00237