We apologize for the delay. Sometimes we fall a little behind, what with both of us working full time, trying to get new material on-line, and other personal commitments.

There are not too many additions to report in this section this month, but you will find a new old song in the Music & Poetry area entitled "The Volunteers of Augusta" which appeared in the Royal Georgia Gazette in 1781.

The Volunteers of Augusta were a cavalry unit raised by order of the Georgia Assembly, in the hopes of providing a body of horse to patrol the frontier. We continue to search for an on-line version of "The Lilies of the Field," the tune to which this song was sung.

We have one interesting addition to the Battles & Campaigns area. In early July, 1781, a detachment of French and Rebel troops crossed over to Long Island to attack the Loyalist bastion at Lloyd's Neck, near Huntington.

After a day of mild skirmishing and inaction, the combined forces returned across Long Island Sound without having attacked the fort. The garrison of Lloyd's Neck at that time mostly consisted of the Associated Loyalists, the majority of Provincials stationed there having been ordered westward the previous month.

Military Section:

We have ventured to the little studied Deep South in the Regimental History area to add some new documents here.

West Florida Royal Foresters. First we added a new section on this cavalry corps of three troops raised by Captain Adam Chrystie. This unit suffered some nasty losses in such engagements as Mobile and Pensacola, fighting alongside such groups as the Maryland and Pennsylvania Loyalists against their European foe, the Spanish.

Indian Department. While many folks are familiar with the Indian Nations in the North and the role they played with such groups as Butler's Rangers, few recognize that thousands of Natives played a part in the southern fighting as well. Taking part in such engagements as Mobile, Pensacola, and Augusta, they were led and supervised by Loyalist officers serving in the Indian Department.

We have erred… In our rush to compile the list of New Jersey Volunteers officers, we inadvertently gave James Brittain's date of commission as ensign and lieutenant as the same date and year. Now that's an overachiever!

Our friend Walter Dornfest called us on it, and indeed we had made the mistake. He was commissioned on the same day and month, but three years later! The mistake has been corrected. Thank you Walter!

We have erred….again! This month's corrections provide a case study in why you should always, always, always check original documents in your research! In our transcription of the muster roll for Capt. Gildarts's Troop of Light Dragoons belonging to the British Legion from the 24th of October 1781 to the 24th of December following, we had listed a John Bowers.

Mary McDonald, a descendant of John Borders of the same company, wrote to suggest that we had an error. Upon checking the microfilm, we agreed… The name should indeed have been transcribed as Borders and not Bowers. Our thanks go to Mary for pointing this out.

Our Southern theme continues in the Muster Rolls area to a degree with some new muster rolls we have put on-line. The rolls themselves are extremely time-consuming in putting into a cyber environment, so we appreciate your patience as we get more of these public. They are naturally a great source for finding some military service for one's ancestor, although the amount of genealogical information gleaned is often limited.

The new rolls we have added are:

North Carolina Independent Company. The small group was commanded by Captain Eli Branson, formerly an officer in the North Carolina Provincials of 1776 under Governor Martin. This Company was raised in 1781 during Lord Cornwallis' march through North Carolina on his way to Virginia. The officers and men were captured at Yorktown, and but few survivors eventually exchanged to sit out the rest of the war in New York City. There are no rolls prior to their capture at Yorktown.

North Carolina Volunteers. This was not a Provincial regiment, but rather a volunteer embodied militia corps, commanded by Colonel Samuel Bryan. Raised in 1780, they fought in several battles in South Carolina, most notably Hanging Rock and Camden. A part of the unit accompanied Lord Cornwallis on his 1781 Virginia Campaign and was taken prisoner at Yorktown. There are no rolls of the unit as a whole, and the roll we have here represents some (or all) of those prisoners.

An interesting and somewhat misnamed corps was the Georgia Light Dragoons. There were actually two groups by this name, one a Provincial unit, and another raised by order of the Georgia Legislature, and thereby a militia or local corps. It is the former we are concerned with here. Raised immediately after the taking of Savannah in 1778, this unit was composed primarily of soldiers from the 71st Highlanders, the New York Volunteers and DeLancey's Brigade. Only a handful of the men were actually Georgians. The corps existed as two troops through 1779 and perhaps into 1780. By early 1781 it was reduced to one troop and apparently ceased to exist by the summer of that year.

The West Florida Royal Foresters was, as described previously, a cavalry unit raised in 1780 to help defend the British colonies in the deep South against the Spanish. Spain of course occupied Louisiana and Havana (Cuba) as well as most of Central America, greatly threatening the British Floridas. What remained of the original three troops of Foresters was captured at the fall of Pensacola in May of 1781. This roll represents a muster of the troop after their arrival at New York City.

The Bucks County Light Dragoons was raised at Philadelphia in early 1778, but for reasons unknown we have no roll of them before early the next year. One will only find 1779 rolls for this one troop corps, as they were made a permanent part of the British Legion in 1780.

The Volunteers of New England was an unsuccessful attempt to raise a new regiment in 1781. Consisting of but one incomplete company, this unit was drafted mostly into the King's American Dragoons the following year.

In the Claims & Memorials area, we have added a series of documents related to Benjamin Eastman of Vermont, which we will readily admit was a shameless ploy to grab the attention of the on-line genealogy columnist, Dick Eastman! Mr. Eastman was kind enough to review our site in the March 15th issue of his newsletter.

Genealogy Section:

We are incredibly excited about the additions to the Post-War Settlement area this month!

Our thanks to Patricia Gangl for the donation of two very interesting documents related to her ancestor, George Woodley. George Woodley was a private in the New Jersey Volunteers. We have added his discharge paper from Saint John, New Brunswick in 1783.

Sometime afterwards, Governor Simcoe visited New Brunswick and persuaded some of the Loyalists settled there to relocate to Upper Canada (now Ontario). Woodley was among them, and when he arrived in Newark (now Niagara-on-the-Lake) he petitioned for land. We are also pleased to be able to add his land petition.

We are indebted, also, to our good friend, John Leefe, and the Queens County Museum in Liverpool, Nova Scotia for the donation of three absolutely fascinating scans of original land chits. These particular chits were drawn to assign lots of land in Guysborough Township (now Port Mouton) to three members of the British Legion.

John also coordinated the contribution, through the generosity of the Campbell family of Nova Scotia, of the discharge paper of Neil Campbell who, at the close of the war, was a Sergeant in the British Legion and was granted land in Guysborough Township (Port Mouton).

One of the houses that Campbell built still stands in Port Mouton and today it is a restaurant run by Ron Campbell, a direct descendant, and his wife. We have two photos of the house, as well: one accompanying a 1954 newspaper article and one of the restaurant as it looks today.

In addition, we have added a memorial of the settlers resident in Shelburne and Carleton Townships as of 1784 that provides a very nice list of names with places of former residence and professions, as well as a list of men of the King's Orange Rangers settled at Passamaquoddy, New Brunswick in 1784.

We are beginning to fill out the Female Ancestors area. This month, we have added a very touching series of letters from Catharine Van Cortland to her husband, Phillip, an officer in the New Jersey Volunteers. If you are interested in the effect of the war on our female ancestors, this is a not to be missed series.

A slightly different perspective on the female experience is provided by the young Nan Robinson, cocooned in the safety and gaiety of upper class life in British held New York, in a letter to her brother, Beverly, Jr.

Nan and Beverly were the children of Beverly Robinson, Sr. who in 1777 raised the Loyal American Regiment. The elder Robinson assumed command of the assault on Forts Clinton and Montgomery upon the wounding of the ranking British officer, leading the Crown forces to a hard fought victory.

In addition, we have begun to link in various petitions and other documents related to females that are scattered about the site.

Reenacting Section:

We owe thanks once again to John Leefe for providing us with another great series of photographs of the King's Orange Rangers for the Photo Gallery, including some dandy scenes of Nova Scotia in winter (brrrrr!!)

We also added some oldie but goodie photos from the Siege of Yorktown, 1981, the largest Rev War reenactment ever held. Yorktown was a five-day event held in October of 1981. It was attended by Presidents Reagan and Mitterand, had 4,000 participants, and was viewed by a million spectators over that period.

&c &c &c Section:

We have once again divided the Guestbook for faster loading. You can now read older entries in Parts 1 through 4 or post a new message in Part 5.

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We are pleased to announce that our site was given a very nice full page write-up in the March 2000 issue of Fidelity, the newsletter of the Toronto Branch of the United Empire Loyalists' Association of Canada.

Look for an article in the soon to be published Spring 2000 issue of the Loyalist Gazette as well. Our thanks go to Susan Ellsworth U.E. and Michael Johnson U.E. of the UELAC for this nice publicity.

Dick Eastman, featured on-line columnist at Ancestry.com and a host in CompuServe's Genealogy Forum, provided a review of our site in the March 15th issue of his on-line newsletter. You can read the archived copy of Dick's column at http://www.ancestry.com/library/view/columns/eastman/634.asp.

On Saturday, May 6, Todd will be one of the featured speakers at the third annual King's Mountain Forum at King's Mountain National Military Park in Blacksburg, South Carolina. The Forum, which will run from 9 a.m. to 5 p.m. and is open to the public, will feature a day of guest speakers, academic papers, music and a public roundtable discussion intended to promote the history of this famous site.

Todd's lecture will be entitled Ferguson's Regulars: The American Volunteers at Kings Mountain. Todd will be discussing the American Volunteers from their inception, focusing primarily on their composition, the regiments that furnished the men along with a history of each, the membership, and the post King's Mountain careers and fate of the survivors.

Other speakers will include Dr. Lawrence Babits, author of A Devil of a Whipping: The Battle of Cowpens and Dr. Bobby Moss, author of numerous books on the war in the South. For more information, please visit the King's Mountain National Military Park website at http://www.nps.gov/kimo/ or call (864) 936-7921.

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Among the tasks on which we are running a little behind schedule this month is the creation of a series of pages tying into some of the folks mentioned on Wallace Hale's Fort Havoc website (http://personal.nbnet.nb.ca/halew/) on the genealogy and history of New Brunswick in general and Carleton County in particular.

Some of you may know Wallace as the author of the book Early New Brunswick Probate Records, 1785-1835. In addition to this valuable work, Wallace has amassed a large collection of information on the Carleton County area and presents a sampling online, including transcriptions of a Return of Men, Women & Children Arrived at Annapolis from New York, 19 October, 1782, the Massachusetts Banishment Act of 1778 and a Muster roll of the men, women and children of the disbanded 74th Regiment of Foot (the Argyll Highlanders) at St. Andrews, N.B.

We encourage you to take a look at his interesting and informative site!

Another fascinating project that we have learned of this month is a study by Holly Hendricks on the history of the Federal Street Church (now the Arlington Street Church) in Boston.

The Federal Street Church in Boston was founded 1729 under Rev. John Moorhead by Scottish Presbyterians who were not made welcome in Puritan Boston. (It was called Church of the Presbyterian Strangers and Long Lane Church). Moorhead kept the church together through pre-revolutionary times, and died in 1773 after a long ministry.

The church then split between patriots and loyalists, and between those who wanted the congregational form of government, and those who wished to remain Presbyterian. There was undoubtedly much overlap in the two groups for obvious reasons.

It is believed that many Loyalist members of this church left when the British evacuated Boston, and took with them the church records when they left for the Maritimes and the U.K. Only a few vital records from this period remain at Harvard Divinity School. The church was closed for most of the war.

As Holly uncovers the records and names of the early Loyalist members of the Federal Street Church, we will be posting them on the site in the Church Records area and linking them to whatever other information we can provide about them.

The location of the vital records for this early period of the church's history is at present unknown, although it is not outside the realm of possibility that they survive today. It is Holly's hope, and ours, that by piecing together and publicizing the names of some of the early Loyalist members of the congregation, it might be possible to determine what became of the missing early records.

Until next month.....Happy Hunting!

Your Most Humble & Obedient Servants,
Todd & Nan

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