Loyalist Trails UELAC Newsletter, 2018 Archive

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“Loyalist Trails” 2018-01: January 7, 2018

In this issue:
- The Quest for Daniel Herring: Part 1 of 2, by Stephen Davidson
- Please help: Loyalists of Nova Scotia's Kings County
- Battle of Fort Anne (July 8, 1777)
- Atlantic Loyalist Connections:
- JAR: The Battle of Great Bridge
- Ben Franklin's World: The Early History of New Orleans
- Sir Guy Carleton Branch Revamps Web-site; Details Conference 2019
- New Brunswick: Explore the Loyalist Route
- Region and Branch Bits
- From the Twittersphere and Beyond
- Loyalist Certificates Issued in November
- Additions to the Loyalist Directory
- Editor's Note

Articles

The Quest for Daniel Herring: Part 1 of 2

While jigsaw puzzles are challenging, an even greater task is to try to find enough documentary "pieces" to produce a picture of someone who lived long ago. When it comes to the American Revolution, the most challenging "puzzles" are those having to do with the Black Loyalists. The case of Daniel Herring is an excellent example of how scattered resources can give us the outline of one man's experience.

On March 2, 1787, Daniel Herring placed his mark at the end of a petition to George Ludlow, the chief justice of the colony of New Brunswick. Describing himself as "captain of the Second Company of Blacks", Herring asked for an unoccupied lot of land on the "Narrow piece" near the St. John River. Already in possession of a fifty acre grant on which he had built a house, cleared the brush, and planted a crop, the Black Loyalist promised to do his "utmost to raise as much grain and vegetables as lays in my power". Within a month, Ludlow informed Herring that he could take possession of the requested lot.

The petition is so maddeningly brief, but for the determined researcher it has just enough clues to begin a quest to learn more about Daniel Herring. The next step is to move from the Black Loyalist's petition to search the Book of Negroes. Compiled by British officials during 1783, this ledger contains the names of almost every free and enslaved black who left New York City during the loyalist evacuation.

In the list of refugees who sailed out of New York on July 31, we find Herring's name on the manifest for the Clinton, a ship that carried over 250 members of four Black Loyalist companies to the mouth of the St. John River. His age is given as 35, and he is described as having once been the property of a white Virginian named Daniel Herring, Jr.

The African's enslaver was a leader in his community and once served as a county officer at the courthouse in Smithfield, Virginia. Herring, the former slave, may have been all too familiar with the county courthouse for it was regularly used by auctioneers to sell Africans or hire out the services of slaves. The fact that the Black Loyalist carried his white master's name helps to pinpoint the exact spelling of his surname. It would be rendered as "Heron" or "Haren" in later documents.

The Black Loyalist fled Isle of Wight County in 1779. No wife or dependents are listed. Given that he was a free man in 1783, Herring must have been emancipated by the British forces for his service to the crown after his escape.

The next documents that shed light on Daniel Herring's life are the victualing musters maintained by the British army's commissariat at Fort Howe, a garrison that guarded the mouth of the St. John River. Besides simply keeping count of the rations given out to the loyalist refugees who came to the fort's gates between 1783 and 1784, the victualing musters also list the occupation, home, evacuation ship, and families of those who received food. In Herring's case, the ledgers also reveal a lost story of romance.

The victualing ledger described Daniel as being "Haren", a black man who, by May of 1784, had a wife and child under ten. Herring arrived in Saint John in August of 1783. To have fathered a child by the following May, Herring had to have married on the voyage north or very soon after arriving in the refugee settlement.

Perhaps he married one of the single mothers that he met on the Clinton's month-long voyage from New York to Saint John. His new wife's identity is a matter of pure speculation: the Clinton carried 17 single mothers with only one child who would still be been under the age of ten in May of 1784. All that the victualing musters can tell us is that the bachelor Herring who boarded the Clinton in 1783 had fallen in love and married – and had become a father – by May of 1784. The story of how that relationship began and grew is lost forever.

With the Book of Negroes, the victualing musters and Herring's 1787 petition for land close at hand, we now need to look at a petition drawn up on January 6, 1785. Herring's name is not among the 35 Black Loyalists who wrote to New Brunswick's lieutenant governor, but most (if not all) of them were his fellow passengers aboard the Clinton and would have drawn rations at Fort Howe alongside Herring. The spokesman for the Black Loyalists was Richard Corankapone Wheeler, the man referred to as "Captain Wheeler" in Herring's 1787 petition.

In his petition, Wheeler asks Thomas Carleton, the lieutenant governor, to provide grants of "back land" to thirteen Black Loyalist families. Up to this point in time, the free blacks had been living on what Wheeler described as "small lots" in Carleton, the refugee community across the harbour from Parrtown at the mouth of the St. John River. Now that the year of Fort Howe's free ration distribution was over, the blacks discovered that "they, their Wives and Children cannot subsist at Carleton" and were "under apprehensions of suffering this winter, labour and provisions being so very scarce".

Wheeler reminded Thomas Carleton that "the Blacks in general have been thought Loyal and have throughout the Rebellion been generally ready to Obey an Orders from the British Commander". He pointed out that the Blacks wanted to "lead Industrious, honest Lives and instead of Being a Burden, should be an Advantage to the Community."

Next week's Loyalist Trails will feature the conclusion of the quest for Daniel Herring, Black Loyalist.

To secure permission to reprint this article, email Stephen Davidson.

Please help: Loyalists of Nova Scotia's Kings County

Two Nova Scotian historians are attempting to create a list of all of the loyalist refugees who settled in what is now Nova Scotia's Kings County. The list will include:

1. those who settled in Kings County after arriving at Annapolis Royal,

2. those who initially settled in Kings County but moved elsewhere, and

3. those who moved to Kings County after initially settling elsewhere (Shelburne, Halifax, Port Mouton, etc.).

If you know the name of a loyalist and (if married) his/her immediate family members who fit these parameters, please forward the information on to Stephen Davidson (loyalistsed@gmail.com) and Carol Harding (cmharding@bellaliant.net) This list, when completed, will be shared with the United Empire Loyalist Association of Canada.

...Stephen

Battle of Fort Anne (July 8, 1777)

The Battle of Fort Anne, fought on July 8, 1777, was an engagement between Continental Army forces in retreat from Fort Ticonderoga and forward elements of John Burgoyne's much larger British army that had driven them from Ticonderoga, early in the Saratoga campaign of the American Revolutionary War.

Burgoyne, surprised by the American withdrawal from Fort Ticonderoga, hurried as many of his troops as possible forward in pursuit of the retreating Americans. The main body of the American forces had departed Fort Independence down the road to Hubbardton, and a smaller body of troops, accompanying the sick, wounded, and camp followers that had also evacuated the fort, had sailed up Lake Champlain to Skenesboro, moving from there overland to Fort Edward. This group, which included about 600 men under arms, paused at Fort Anne, where a smaller advance company from Burgoyne's army caught up to them. The British, clearly outnumbered, sent for reinforcements. The Americans decided to attack while they had the numerical advantage, and succeeded in nearly surrounding the British position about three quarters of a mile (1 km) north of the fort. The Americans retreated back to the fort when war whoops indicated the arrival of British reinforcements. While this was a ruse (the reinforcements were a single officer), it saved the British force from probable capture. More of Burgoyne's army soon came down the road, forcing the Americans to retreat from Fort Anne to Fort Edward.

It has been claimed that a flag was flown at Fort Anne that may have been the first instance of a flag consisting of stars and stripes; this claim is supposedly false.

Loyalist Trails UELAC Newsletter, 2018 Archive

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