Old friends helped in a myriad of ways: Thanks to Norman Polmar, Paul Dickson, Penny Daly, Chuck Hyman, Bob Stock, Bob Shogan, Bob Poole, Jim Srodes, Bill Dudley, Ray Longden, Stephanie Cooke, Judy Folkenberg—and Lori Annahein, who kept my computer alive. Rob Cowley, to whom this book is dedicated, came up with the idea of Tories after I had wandered the eighteenth century examining other possible topics. And when I settled on Tories, my agent, Carl Brandt, provided not only encouragement but also ideas from his own knowledge of the subject.
Todd W. Braisted, founder of the On-Line Institute for Advanced Loyalist Studies, answered numerous inquiries, especially those concerning Loyalists who served in military units. Paul J. Bunnell, UE, editor and founder of the Loyalist Quarterly Newsletter, also educated me about contemporary Loyalists—and why they put “UE” after their names. I was luckily directed to http://personal.nbnet.nb.ca/halew/, the marketplace of R. Wallace Hale, who has gathered thousands of pages of Loyalist material on a series of CDs. Susan Swiggum of the Ship List website (http://www.theshiplist.com/) allowed me to tap into her extensive knowledge of Loyalist ships’ names and passenger lists.
Stephen Eric Davidson especially helped me understand the pride of present-day Loyalists. His work on the Loyalist past is a model for genealogists, for he adds human details and family stories to the “begat, begat, begat” of traditional genealogies. My introduction to that invaluable kind of genealogy came from a pro, Sharon Sergeant, adjunct professor at Boston University and an indefatigable tracker of people of the past.
By gleaning information from genealogies, I defied the belief of an historian who, writing in the early twentieth century, said that he eschewed family recollections as sources because they rest on “the lowest rung on the ladder of evidential credibility.” I found that it is on that rung that the understanding of Tories and Rebels begins.
Many people with Loyalist ancestors helped me, including Bill Jarvis, who led me to my first Tory warrior, Stephen Maple Jarvis. Russell Moe’s ancestor, Walter Barrell, produced the definitive list of Boston’s Loyalist evacuees. I learned about the Acadians of Canada from Jerry Bastarache, an Acadian descendant whose ancestors, Pierre and Michel Bastarache, were deported in 1755 from land that Tories would be given three decades later. Others who shared their genealogical research with me included Don Chrysler, Pat Kelderman, Bob Moore, Eric Nellis, and Elsie Pyonen.
Along the way Scottie and I found dozens of archivists, researchers, and volunteers who sent us to gems in their collections. Our greatest treasure hunt was at the Harriet Irving Library at the University of New Brunswick in Fredericton, Canada—the fountainhead of Loyalist information, where we were helped by Kathryn Gilder and Janelle Sweatnam. The Loyalist Research Network, administered by Dr. Bonnie Huskins of the Department of History, operates out of the university. Other Canadian archivists and aides who helped us were Kate Richardson, Ava Griffin Sturgeon, and Eric Al-laby on Grand Manan Island; Sheryl Stanton at the Admiral Digby Museum, at Digby, Nova Scotia; and Finn Bower at the Shelburne County Museum in Shelburne, Nova Scotia. We also visited archives in Saint John, Halifax and learned about the archeological research at Birchtown, Nova Scotia, a black Loyalist settlement. I received answers to my many questions from Robert L. Dallison, a retired lieutenant colonel in the Canadian Army, author of Hope Restored, and former director of Kings Landing Historical Settlement.
We received help and hospitality from Paddy Fitzgerald and Christine Johnston at the Centre for Migration Studies in Omagh, Northern Ireland. Michael Barton and Kim MacDonald initiated us at Britain’s National Archives at Kew. Tom Mann, Dave Kelly, Abby Yochelson, and James Hutson provided insights at the Library of Congress. Lewis Bushnell, associate director of the Cambridge Historical Society, showed us Tory Row, and Lance Kozikowski showed us New-Gate Prison in East Granby, Connecticut. We also wish to thank Katherine A. Ludwig of the David Library of the American
Revolution; Brent Brackett, curator of Tannenbaum Historic Country Park in Greensboro, North Carolina; Christa Dierksheide at Thomas Jefferson’s Monticello; and J. L. Bell, whose Web site (http:// boston1775.blogspot.com/) is full of fascinating and meticulously researched stories about revolutionary Boston. Rachel Dorfman and her brother Isaac also helped me keep track of material.
Finally I profoundly thank my original editor, Elisabeth Kallick Dyssegaard, for her faith and patience.
Also by Thomas B. Allen
GEORGE WASHINGTON, SPYMASTER REMEMBER VALLEY FORGE THE BLUE AND THE GRAY POSSESSED: THE TRUE STORY OF AN EXORCISM WAR GAMES
MR. LINCOLN’S HIGH-TECH WAR
(with Roger MacBride Allen)
THE BONUS ARMY (with Paul Dickson)
RICKOVER: CONTROVERSY AND GENIUS
(with Norman Polmar)
CODE-NAME DOWNFALL
(with Norman Polmar)
WORLD WAR II: AMERICANS AT WAR, 1941–1945
(with Norman Polmar)
HUGH MCDONALD OF NORTH CAROLINA, A FIFTEEN-YEAR-OLD SOLDIER OF THE CONTINENTIAL ARMY, WAS ON THE ROAD NEAR RICHMOND, VIRGINIA, IN THE SPRING OF 1777. ONE DAY, HE JOINED OTHER SOLDIERS IN AN ACT OF CASUAL CRUELTY UPON A STUBBORN TORY. HOW MANY OTHER TORIES WERE TAUNTED, TORTURED, OR LYNCHED WILL NEVER BE KNOWN.
While passing through the town, a shoemaker stood in his door and cried, ‘Hurrah for King George,’ of which no one took any notice; but after halting in a wood, a little distance beyond … the shoemaker came to us and began again to hurrah for King George. When the General [Francis Nash] and his aids mounted and started, he still followed them, hurrahing for King George. Upon which the General ordered him to be taken back to the river and ducked. We brought a long rope, which we tied … round his middle and sesawed him backwards and forwards until we had him nearly drowned, but every time he got his head above water he would cry for King George. The General having then ordered him to be tarred and feathered, a feather bed was taken from his own house, where were his wife and four little daughters crying and beseeching their father to hold his tongue, but still he would not. We tore the bed open and knocked the top out of a tar barrel, into which we plunged him headlong. He was then drawn out by the heels and rolled in the feathers until he was a sight but still he would hurrah for King George. The General now ordered him to be drummed out of the West end of town, and told him expressly that if he plagued him any more in that way he would have him shot. So we saw no more of the shoemaker.
—McDonald, who was illiterate, dictated his recollections, which became “Revolutionary Journal of Hugh McDonald” in the Colonial and State Records of North Carolina, vol. 11, p. 835.
Copyright
TORIES. Copyright © 2010 by Thomas B. Allen.
All rights reserved under International and Pan-American Copyright Conventions. By payment of the required fees, you have been granted the non-exclusive, non-transferable right to access and read the text of this e-book on-screen. No part of this text may be reproduced, transmitted, down-loaded, decompiled, reverse engineered, or stored in or introduced into any information storage and retrieval system, in any form or by any means, whether electronic or mechanical, now known or hereinafter invented, without the express written permission of HarperCollins e-books.
EPub Edition © OCTOBER 2010 ISBN: 978-0-062-01080-3
FIRST EDITION
The painting reproduced on the title page is courtesy of the Yale Center for British Art, Paul Mellon Collection, USA/The Bridgeman Art Library.
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data has been applied for.
ISBN: 978-0-062-01080-3
10 11 12 13 14 OV/RRD 10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1
About the Publisher
Australia
HarperCollins Publishers (Australia) Pty. Ltd.
25 Ryde Road (PO Box 321)
Pymble, NSW 2073, Australia
http://www.harpercollinsebooks.com.au
Canada
HarperCollins Canada
2 Bloor Street East - 20th Floor
Toronto, O
N, M4W 1A8, Canada
http://www.harpercollinsebooks.ca
New Zealand
HarperCollinsPublishers (New Zealand) Limited
P.O. Box 1
Auckland, New Zealand
http://www.harpercollinsebooks.co.nz
United Kingdom
HarperCollins Publishers Ltd.
77-85 Fulham Palace Road
London, W6 8JB, UK
http://www.harpercollinsebooks.co.uk
United States
HarperCollins Publishers Inc.
10 East 53rd Street
New York, NY 10022
http://www.harpercollinsebooks.com
Tories Page 56