Loyalist Trails UELAC Newsletter, 2019 Archive

In this issue:
- A Loyalist Gift – For You, Or Someone Else
- The Personal Exodus of a Jewish Loyalist (Part 1), by Stephen Davidson
- Borealia: History and the Climate Emergency (Or: Tradition To The Rescue Of Progress)
- JAR: Thanksgiving: A Week With Martha Bradley, The British Housewife
- Ben Franklin's World: Education in Early America
- Are You a Member? Have You Logged In To The New Website Yet?
- Where in the World?
- Region and Branch Bits
      + Chilliwack Branch Christmas Meeting, Dec. 7
      + Christmas at the Fort Plain Museum, Dec. 7
- From the Twittersphere and Beyond
- Additions to the Loyalist Directory
- Queries
      + Proving Jane Margaret Turner is the Daughter of Rachael Storms

A Loyalist Gift – For You, Or Someone Else

Check out these new or updated items in the Loyalist Catalogue.

• Hat (Baseball style) – $30.00

• Sweatshirts, one with flag, one with logo – $40.00

• Computer bag – $30.00

• Licence Plate Frame – $5.00

• UEL Flag 3x5 – $20.00

• Stickers – 3"x 7" $2.50; 1.5"x 2" $1.00

For S&H information and to order, check the ordering information page.

The Personal Exodus of a Jewish Loyalist (Part 1)

© Stephen Davidson, UE

In May of 2019, two historical societies jointly dedicated a marker in Cahokia, Illinois to honour John Jacob Hays, who was the only known Jewish resident of Illinois when it achieved statehood in 1818. Hays served his community as a county sheriff, a justice of the peace, a federal revenue official and then as an Indian agent. However, Hays' historical marker leaves out some important details of his life.

Rather than leaving New York for Illinois in the 1790s as described in the historical plaque's text, John Jacob Hays fled New York City with his parents in the spring of 1783, finding refuge in Montreal. His father, Barrak Hays, was a Loyalist refugee. In Montreal, the family was reunited with John Jacob Hays' uncle Andrew – a member of the city's resident Loyalist community. The story of Hays' Loyalist father and uncle is a forgotten chapter in both Jewish and Loyalist histories.

Several Hays brothers emigrated from the Netherlands to the colony of New York in the 1720s. Over time – and thanks to their successful mercantile business – Solomon Hays and his wife Gitlah became prominent members of New York City's Jewish community. Their eldest son, Barrak (from the Hebrew "Barukh" for "blessed one") followed in his father's footsteps, establishing a business based in both New York and Newport, Rhode Island. Andrew, a younger son, decided to take advantage of new business opportunities in Montreal when New France became part of an expanded British Empire. He settled there sometime after 1769 and became involved in the city's thriving fur trade. Michael and David, two other Hays brothers who lived in New York's Westchester County, would later side with the Patriots during the American Revolution.

Divisions and disagreements within the Hays family were apparent before the revolution. Although they were involved in common business ventures and were members of New York's Congregation Shearith Israel, the sons of Solomon Hays often aired their differences in public. In 1769, Barrak and Andrew were among six members of the city's synagogue disciplined for "disturbing holy worship" that might lead to "destroying the unity of the synagogue". (The precise nature of the charges was never recorded.)

Two years later, the same Jewish congregation fined Barrak ten pounds for repeatedly insulting the parnas (warden) who assisted in running the synagogue's services. When his niece was receiving her name at one service, Barrak shouted out that her father Michael was "a rascal". This outburst prompted several men to forcibly eject Hays from the synagogue. Angered by this treatment, Barrak Hays went to civil court to sue those who had put him out on the street.

By this point in time, Barrak and his wife Rachel da Costa had their first child, John Jacob Hays. The proud parents had a miniature portrait done of their son, a work of art that survived until well into the 20th century. Young John Jacob spent the first seventeen years of his life in New York City, watching both his extended family and his colony split apart along political lines. The gathering clouds of civil war quickly overshadowed the family's internal squabbles.

Because the colonial Jewish businessmen had a record of providing the British forces with needed provisions during the Seven Years War, they once again became suppliers with the outbreak of the revolution. Some sold military provisions to the British troops and German mercenaries in Canada as early as 1775 while others did the same within the rebellious colonies following the British occupation of New York City in August of 1776. Barrak Hays was one of those businessmen or – as he later described himself – an "auctioneer in the city of New York".

Some historians claim that Hays initially sided with the Patriots and served as member of a local militia (giving him the rank of lieutenant). They are clearly unaware that Hays had taken a strong Loyalist stance by October (and again in November) of 1776 when he and 500 other New Yorkers signed their names to a petition to the British for "restoring peace in His Majesty's colonies". Hays and other leading members of the Jewish community said that they opposed the "unprovoked rebellion" even though it was at "the risk of our lives and fortunes".

Hays not only sided with his monarch in the opening months of the American Revolution, he also came to the aid of his synagogue when he learned that the British had plans to turn it into a military hospital. The historian N. Taylor Phillips notes that Hays was one of three men who "prevailed on the British not do with the synagogue as they had with most of the other churches in the city. They had turned them into hospitals, riding academies, barracks and things of that kind."

However, the synagogue did not escape vandalism. British soldiers broke into it, destroyed some of the furnishings, and damaged the Torah and other holy writings. This incident prompted Barrak Hays to place an ad in Rivington's Royal Gazette in which he offered a reward of five guineas for the "return of two sets of Hebrew parchment rolls taken out of the synagogue" on September 10, 1782.

To its credit, the British army publicly whipped the vandals who desecrated the synagogue. Centuries later, the holy books that had been damaged by the soldiers still bear the "marks of desecration".

In addition to his business connections with the British army, Hays was employed as an "officer of guides", receiving five shillings a day for his services. This position may have drawn on Hays' knowledge of trade routes and business contacts within the rebelling colonies, a resource that would be invaluable to British officers in their pursuit of rebel forces in unfamiliar terrain. Hays fulfilled this role up until June of 1783.

(A strange footnote in the story of Barrak Hays is that he may be best known to posterity for the "ex libris" labels that he had designed to place in his books. They are among the earliest examples of bookplates in America. Hays' labels, which bear a coat of arms, are considered collectors' items by more than 50 societies of American bookplate enthusiasts. Undoubtedly, very few of today's collectors would be aware of Hays' Jewish heritage and Loyalist stance.)

Ever astute, Hays seems to have sensed the inevitable victory of the Patriots. In August of 1782, he posted an ad in New York's loyalist newspaper saying that he planned to sail for Europe and wanted to "settle accounts and dispose of his wares". Perhaps he was concerned for the safety of his family. His wife Rachel had died, and at some point in the years of the revolution, Hays married a woman named Prudence. His second wife would eventually bear three half-siblings for John Jacob Hays.

Next week's Loyalist Trails will conclude the story of Barrak Hays, a forgotten Jewish Loyalist.

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

Borealia: History and the Climate Emergency (Or: Tradition To The Rescue Of Progress)

By Olivier Guimond 27 November 2019

Participating in panels on history and heritage in recent weeks has given me pause to reflect on the relevance of the historical discipline to the climate emergency and climate change. The two events on which these reflections are based were seemingly quite different. The first was a panel on "L'historien.ne, le temps et l'urgence climatique" that took place during the last assembly of the Institut d'histoire de l'Amérique française (IHAF) in Ottawa. The second event, a workshop entitled "Au-delà des pierres: le patrimoine immatériel de la meunerie artisanale", was held at the conference "Histoire et patrimoine seigneurial" at the Seigneurie des Aulnaies.

I must first acknowledge the initiative of Professor Thomas Wien (University of Montreal) who, under the chairmanship of Michèle Dagenais (University of Montreal), gathered Ottawa historians Daniel Poitras (IHAF) and Fabien Locher (CNRS, Paris) to reflect on climate change from a historical perspective. The quality panel began with a fervent message from Wien, who at first gave a statistical reminder of the current climate crisis and the wall that humanity is about to hit, all in relative inaction: rising concentration of CO2 in the atmosphere, melting ice caps, rising sea levels, climate disasters, humanitarian crises, loss of biodiversity, and the exponential nature of climate change. The scene was set for the questions underscoring the rest of the session: How did we get here? What does the relative inaction in the face of this crisis tell us about the relationship bewteen today's humans (at least Westerners) and time?

Read more.

JAR: Thanksgiving: A Week With Martha Bradley, The British Housewife

By Don N. Hagist during the week of 25 Nov. 2019

Autumn is when many North Americans celebrate Thanksgiving, a tradition that dates back to the Reformation in England in the sixteenth century. Journal of the American Revolution has a tradition of presenting articles about food during the week of Thanksgiving in the United States.

In 1756, Martha Bradley published a weekly series of pamphlets titled The British Housewife: or, the Cook, Housekeeper's, and Gardiner's Companion. Printed in London, the series was soon made available in book form. Bradley took a seasonal approach to her topic, a useful construct for an age when food preparation was as much about preservation as it was about cooking. This week, we'll present excerpts from her writings about the month of November, showcasing some the things an English cook considered in finding and fixing fare for a family.

Part 1: The Month of November: Of Marketing. A look at the various foods ie meats, fish, vegetables and what is especially good this month.

Part 2: Rather than presenting separate recipes for each bird, her November section on "Cookery" offered this one: To roast Fowls in the Italian Way.

Part 3: She did not neglect side dishes of vegetables, one of which was the Savoy cabbage; another Sausages and Apples; and a dish called Kickshaws.

Part 4: The desert table, if based strictly on the 1756 The British Housewife: or, the Cook, Housekeeper's, and Gardiner's Companion, might feature instead purple jelly – but not made from grapes.

Part 5: Martha Bradley lived in an age when a prosperous household often brewed its own beer, culturing and storing it in large wooden vessels in basements. Much could go wrong, so the section titled "Of Liquors" in the November chapter of her 1756 publication The British Housewife: or, the Cook, Housekeeper's, and Gardiner's Companion consisted entirely of methods to improve the brewing process and to recover beer that had gone bad. "To forward the working of Beer," "To Improve the Strength of Yeast," "To keep Drink from growing sour," and so forth. If the brew went bad, there were ways to reclaim it.

Beer not being to everyone's taste, she added a section on distillery, with instructions for using a still to create aromatic beverages from the fruits and spices available in a city. Walnut water, lemon water, peony water, carminative water with orange peel, and this interesting concoction that Bradley presented with a little intrigue to finish it off: Mignonette.

Read more.

Ben Franklin's World: Education in Early America

Johann Neem, a Professor of History at Western Washington University and author of Democracy's Schools: The Rise of Public Education in America, joins us to further explore how early Americans educated their children and how early American children learned the trades they would practice later in life.

During our conversation, Johann reveals information about the apprenticeship system and how it worked; The indenture system and the ways the American Revolution impacted it; And details about the rise of formal public education in the early United States.

Listen to the podcast.

Are You a Member? Have You Logged In To The New Website Yet?

The new UELAC.ca website will be a work-in-progress for some time.

Right now it houses the new online membership system, and the two 2019 issues of the Loyalist Gazette.

If you are a current member of a branch, and thereby of the UELAC, you can log in and see the Gazette, and review or update your membership record.

If you have not yet renewed your membership for 2020, you can renew it there as well.

If you have yet to visit, navigate to the homepage at https://uelac.ca/, scroll down the page to see "HELP for those logging in for the first time" and follow those instructions carefully. This will create your password which you can then use to log in now, and in the future. In your "My Account" page is a link to change your password, should you wish to do so.

NOTE: Most members have been entered into the membership system. However, the email addresses for some have not been. The "Help" instructions have guidance about what to do if your email address is not in place correctly. We can add your email address, if the system indicates that you are a current member. If not, we will have to sort that out with your branch membership person.

...

Where in the World?

Where is ?

To participate, submit a photo of yourself in UELAC promotional gear at a place of some note and tell us where it is (if you are a member of a branch, please indicate that as well). Send your submission to the editor at loyalist.trails@uelac.org.

Region and Branch Bits

From the UELAC branches, news and events of interest to others.

Chilliwack Branch Christmas Meeting, Dec. 7

LOCATION: Carman United Church Hall, 7258 Vedder Road, Chilliwack, BC

TIME: 11:45 am for Parade of Flags, blessing and then luncheon at Noon.

Please bring a contribution to the food table: finger sandwiches, veggie tray, cheese and crackers, pickles etc. The Branch will be providing desserts including Christmas bread Pudding with Carmel Sauce. Tea, Coffee and juice will be available.

Our program includes: Guest speaker: Carl Stymiest UE "My Childhood Christmas Memories in Atlantic Canada"

Christmas at the Fort Plain Museum, Dec. 7

Saturday, December 7, 10am - 4pm, the Fort Plain Museum will be holding its annual Christmas at the Fort holiday event which includes a local Author Book Fair. The Museum is located at 389 Canal Street, Fort Plain, NY 13339 and times are 10 AM to 4 PM. This is a free event. Details.

From the Twittersphere and Beyond

• Precious Papers to Peruse – Last Chance to Glimpse Pages of Virginia History. Until 5 Jan. 2020. For many years, Virginia history enthusiasts have resorted to using transcripts, facsimiles and published versions of key documents that shed light on important events in early Virginia. In the red-letter year of 2019, marking the 400th anniversary of several Virginia firsts, British repositories have lent several original documents for public display at Jamestown Settlement, for the first time since they were written! Shortly these precious documents will head back to England, where, the lending institutions tell us, they will not be available for public exhibition for many years. The story and legacy of the meeting of the first General Assembly would not have been complete without the loan of John Pory's "Proceedings of the General Assembly, July 30, 1619". Jamestown Settlement also has proudly hosted two pages from The National Archives, U.K., documenting the presence of one of the first recorded Africans in Virginia. 56 tenacious women recruited and shipped to Virginia as wives for settlers in 1621.  Read more...
• Gravestone of Daniel Dakin, Esq.  (1780 - 1849) who arrived with his father Thomas Dakin and other Loyalists in Digby, Nova Scotia in 1783. It is in St. Paul's Cemetery in Marshalltown, Digby County
• Lt. Col. Joseph Louis Cook was the highest-ranking Native American officer in the Continental Army during the Revolutionary War. These reproduction objects help us teach about Cook and include a wool coat, brass gorget, pipe tomahawk, and woven sash.  Colonel Louis was also the highest-ranking Continental officer of African descent. His whole life was a journey across cultural borders.
• The Continental Congress proclaimed Thanksgiving celebrations in all thirteen states every year from 1777 to 1784. After the Articles of Confederation took effect in 1781, those holidays were National Days of Thanksgiving in the U.S. of A.
• Interesting post card showing Old Fort Cumberland mailed from Amherst, Nova Scotia to New York in 1906
• This Week in History
  • 27 Nov 1769, The Boston Gazette calls out three men for refusing to follow non-importation agreements: John Bernard (Governor's son), John Mein (book store owner), and James McMasters (a Scottish born merchant).
  • 29 Nov 1773, the town [Boston] held the first "Body of the People" meeting. Restrictions on age and property were dropped and the people turned out in kind, forcing them to move the meeting from Faneuil Hall to the roomier Old South Meeting Hall.
  • 25 Nov 1774, "How cou'd London, Bristol, or any mercantile City there endure the Fife and Drum of 11 Regiments in it's Streets at several Times each Day?" – James Lovell from army-occupied Boston
  • 24 Nov 1775, Benjamin Marston set out in an open boat from Marblehead for British-occupied Boston. A Loyalist, he told Gen. William Howe that the Continental "Army was almost Broak up on account of the Soldier not being paid."
  • 24 Nov 1775, Pennsylvania Assembly brands as public enemies all who refuse to accept provincial bills of credit.
  • 28 Nov 1775, Capt.-Lt. Nathan Hale "Promis'd the men if they would tarry another month they should have my wages for that time." He heard Putnam's regiment was "mostly concluded to tarry another month," but added "(This a lie)" in his diary.
  • 29 Nov 1775, Congress establishes a Committee of Secret Correspondence to seek assistance from European nations.
  • 29 Nov 1775, Edmund Randolph reached home in Virginia after serving as one of Gen. George Washington's aides in Cambridge. He had to leave because of a death in the family. Randolph was later the first US Attorney General.
  • 25 Nov 1777, Marquis de Lafayette defeats larger Hessian force at Gloucester NJ in his first battlefield command.
  • 27 Nov 1777, Congress suggests to states that Loyalists' estates be confiscated; "forfeited the right to protection."
  • 28 Nov 1777, John Adams replaces Silas Dean as commissioner to France.
  • 25 Nov 1783, British depart New York City, defiantly leaving one last flag on a greased pole.
  • 26 Nov 1783, Final text of Treaty of Paris first published in America.
  • 26 Nov 1786, Prince Hall wrote to Gov. James Bowdoin offering the support of "the members of the African Lodge" against the unrest in rural Massachusetts that became known as Shays' Rebellion.
• Townsends:
  • Frontier Comfort Food In The Cabin – 18th Century Welsh Rabbit. The is the first official cooking episode in the cabin! It's so exciting to finally be able to use this new location. Hope you enjoy this delicious comfort food. Perfect for the cold weather.
• Clothing and Related:
  • Sewing an 18th Century Gown – Recreating the Isabella MacTavish Fraser Wedding Gown Documentary. Last summer, Abby and Lauren went off to Scotland to lend our skills on a project led by Rebecca Olds of Timesmith Dressmaking at the National Museum of Scotland in Edinburgh. Recreating the Isabella MacTavish Fraser wedding gown was no easy feat (despite how simple the gown might appear...). 18th-century dressmaking is a fickle beast and a challenge for even those of us who are quite familiar with the mantua-making trades. This "simple tartan gown" demanded all of our skills, expertise, and patience to come back to life as a recreation, and luckily, we were able to document the process, from start to finish. Watch video...
  • 18th Century rear detail of a court mantua of embroidered silk with coloured silk & metal threads, England, 1740-45
  • 18th Century Purple silk brocade dress with lace cuffs. Worn by Sophia Maskelyne (nee Rose), wife of fifth Astronomer Royal, Nevil Maskelyne. Possibly worn on her wedding day on 21 August 1784
  • 18th Century dress, An open robe and petticoat of pale yellow silk brocade featuring bunches of flowers in shades of white, purple, blue, pink, red, with green leaves floating over a grid of fine violet and brown check. c.1770, English
  • 18th Century set of stays, shaped with sewn in whalebone and rear-lacing, damask silk undergarment of 1740-1760
  • I adore the patches of delicate colour interspersed with the silver on this 18th Century man's sleeved waistcoat, England, 1740's
  • 18th Century men's suit and accessories, 1760's (including a tricorn hat)
  • 18th Century men's waistcoat, featuring the busts of Voltaire & Rousseau. In 1794 Rousseau's ashes were brought from Ermenonville, where he died, and installed with great pomp & ceremony in the Pantheon, opposite Voltaire's tomb. 1790-1795
• Miscellaneous:
  • a funeral procession of elderly women with cats in their arms, following the coffin of a dead cat, 1789.
  • It's always a delight to discover a pattern on a clay pipe bowl when you rinse the mud off [while mudlarking]. Take a look at the design on this one.
  • George III farthing love token, found this morning on a chilly Rotherhithe foreshore. It's bent to hold love in its curves and 'holed' so that it's previous owner could keep it close, perhaps around their neck or on a watch chain
  • Handsome mourning ring for George Washington

Proving Jane Margaret Turner is the Daughter of Rachael Storms

I have greater than 65 DNA connections 4th cousins or closer to common ancestors Jeremiah Storms and Cornelius Turner, but lack documentation that proves Jeremiah Storms granddaughter Jane Margaret Turner is the daughter of Rachael Storms. Rachael Storms is the daughter of Jeremiah Storms, my loyalist ancestor. I am trying to find evidence that Jane Margaret Turner 1829-1864 is the daughter of Rachael Storms 1805-1885. I am hopeful that someone reading this will share any information they have with me.

Jeremiah Storms (my Great-Great-Great-Great-Grandfather paternal side) 1755-1815 married Mary Crane (Lloyd) (my Great-Great-Great-Great-Grandmother paternal side) 1770-1819 they had 11 children in North Marysburg, Prince Edward County, Upper Canada. He and his children received land grants as Loyalists.

Elisha Storms 1791
Henry Storms 1792
William Storms 1795
Gilbert Storms 1798
Jeremiah Storms 1799
Mary Storms 1803
Rachel Storms 1805
Jemima Storms 1806
Eliza Storms 1807
Lucinda Storms 1807
Eleanor Storms 1811

Rachel Storms (my Great-Great-Great-Grandmother) married John William Turner son of Cornelius Turner of South Marysburg. They appeared to move to Sullivan Township, Grey County, Upper Canada soon after marriage. They had 14 children.

Jeremiah Turner 1827
Jane Margaret Turner 1829
John Turner 1830
James Turner 1830
Elisha Turner 1832
William Turner 1834
Mary Jane Turner 1836
Jemima Turner 1840
Jonas Turner 1844
Eliza Turner 1847
Cornelius Turner 1849
Hester Turner 1851
Carolina Turner 1853
Martial Turner 1855

Jane Margaret Turner (my Great-Great-Grandmother) married Henry Lawrence (1821-1897) in North Marysburg, Prince Edward County in 1844. Neither parents are listed on the record. They had 7 children. Jane Turner is buried at Grace Anglican Cemetery, Grey Bruce Line, Grey County, Ontario, Canada. Jane's headstone reads 'erected by Henry Larence in memory of his beloved wife Jane Turner who died May 8th 1864 aged 35 years' , unknown cause of death.

David Lawrence 1847
Mary Ann Lawrence 1849
Andrew Lawrence 1851
William Lawrence 1855
Gilbert Lawrence 1859
Elizabeth Lawrence 1860
Jacob Lawrence 1863

Mary Ann Lawrence (my Great-Grandmother) married William Henry Berry in Sullivan Township, Grey County, Ontario, Canada on 10 Jun 1868. They had and had 8 children.

Walter Berry 1866
John Berry 1869
William Henry Berry 1872
Isabella Berry 1875
Annie Berry 1899
David Berry 1880 (my Grandfather)
James Berry 1884

I would greatly appreciate any information that might help, or even sharing information about the early families. Thanks in advance.

...Brenda Heartwell