The Journal of Nicholas Cresswell, Part 6

On April 3, 2020April 2, 2020 By Eric SternerIn Battles, Civilian, Personalities, Uncategorized1 Comment

Vale of Edale (Photo by Atomviz, Wikimedia Commons) — Vale of Edale, Cresswell’s Home, the Beginning and End of His Adventures. (Photo by Atomviz, Wikimedia Commons)

Skirmish in New Jersey

Cresswell found cheap lodging in New York and reunited with Joseph Brewer, who had fled Philadelphia himself, leaving his wife behind. “The persecution against the friends of Gorvernment was too violent for a man of his warm temper to stay any longer amongst them with safety either of person or property.”[1] While in New York, he watched the buildup of forces that Howe would later take on the Philadelphia campaign, but his focus remained on securing passage home. It would take months, but Cresswell found ways to kill time, including watching a skirmish with the Americans he had so frequently cursed.

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The Journal of Nicholas Cresswell, Part 5

On March 31, 2020April 2, 2020 By Eric SternerIn Civilian, Personalities, Uncategorized3 Comments

Escape from America

Finally, in the spring of 1777, Cresswell again decided to try returning to England. Thomson Mason, who had already intervened with two Committees of Safety to protect the Englishman, offered to help with Virginia authorities once more, provided that Cresswell swear not to join the British Army. Cresswell did. The best plan was to leave Leesburg, travel overland to Alexandria, then take a schooner down the Potomac and Chesapeake for Williamsburg and Hampton, where it might be possible go aboard a ship bound for British-occupied New York. As he made his preparations, the local Committee of Safety arrived on April 16 to search his possessions for treasonable items. They seized a shot pouch, powder horn, and bearskin he acquired from the Delaware Indians. Cresswell decided not to contest the seizure lest it complicate his departure.

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Beer Drinking in the 18th Century

On March 28, 2020March 28, 2020 By erwguestIn Emerging Revolutionary War, Memory, Personalities, Social History4 Comments

Emerging Revolutionary War welcomes back guest historian Vanessa Smiley

“Beer is living proof that God loves us and wants us to be happy.” – Benjamin Franklin, Poor Richard’s Almanack

Benjamin Franklin was one of many 18^th century beer lovers.
(Benjamin Franklin by Joseph Siffred Duplessis, c. 1785)

During the 18^th century, Colonial society held three common beliefs about beer drinking:

Drinking beer was healthier than drinking water
Beer and its ingredients were a healthy supplement to the entire family’s diet
It was an accepted way to promote social discourse

A little different from today’s society, except for beer connoisseurs (such as the Emerging Revolutionary War folks), these beliefs were formed from the circumstances of the time.

Though a generation away from understanding the connection between boiling water and sanitation, most folks understood that water could make you deathly ill. And yet, ale and beer drinkers did not seem to have that same risk. They did not know it at the time, but the boiling process to make these alternative drinking options neutralized much of any tainted water’s ill effects. Therefore, many substituted beer, ale, and other alternatives such as hard cider over water, making these a major dietary staple in the colonies.

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The Journal of Nicholas Cresswell, Part 4

On March 27, 2020April 2, 2020 By Eric SternerIn Civilian, Personalities, Uncategorized3 Comments

A Loyalist under House Arrest

Having failed to reach the British Army in New York, Cresswell spent a miserable autumn and winter of 1776/1777 in northern Virginia, often arguing with his host, James Kirk, a Patriot and the only man who had ensured the Englishman could keep clothes on his back and a roof over his head. Cresswell’s loyalist proclivities and extensive travels were widely known and on November 28, three men of the Committee of Safety in Alexandria “waited on me and informed me that the committee did not think it prudent to let me go out of the Country at this time and hoped that I would give my word of honour not to depart this Colony for three months. Otherwise they would confine me. I was obliged to do the first as the lesser evil of the two. They were polite enough not to search my chest.”[i] Depressed as ever and suspecting Kirk of arranging the entire affair in order to keep him in Virginia, Cresswell did what he usually did when he was unhappy. He got drunk.

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The Journal of Nicholas Cresswell, Part 3

On March 24, 2020March 26, 2020 By Eric SternerIn Civilian, Personalities, Uncategorized4 Comments

A Loyal Englishman in a Hostile Country

Part 2 click here.

When he arrived in Alexandria, Virginia in October 1775, Nicholas Cresswell, an Englishman visiting the colonies in search opportunity, found himself in dire straits. The war had cut off his father’s money, while his loyalist principles strained his acquaintances and put him in an awkward position. He summed it up: “if I enter into any sort of business I must be obliged to enter into the service of these rascals and fight against my Friends and Country if called upon. On the other hand, I am not permitted to depart the Continent and have nothing if I am fortunate enough to escape the jail. I will live as cheap as I can and hope for better times.”[i]

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The 245th Anniversary of "Give Me Liberty or Give Me Death"

On March 23, 2020March 22, 2020 By Phill GreenwaltIn Battlefields & Historic Places, Continental Leadership, Emerging Revolutionary War, Memory, Personalities, Politics, Revolutionary WarLeave a comment

On this date, in 1775, Virginian Patrick Henry, a delegate to the Second Virginia Convention from Hanover County, Virginia sat in on the ongoing debate at St. John’s Episcopal Church in Richmond, Virginia.

The 28-year old then stood to give his defense of his proposed amendments to the petition then being debated. Below is the last few lines of his now famous statement, with the last sentence being the one most remembered;

“If we were base enough to desire it, it is now too late to retire from the contest. There is no retreat but in submission and slavery! Our chains are forged! Their clanking may be heard on the plains of Boston! The war is inevitable and let it come! I repeat it, sir, let it come.

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The Journal of Nicholas Cresswell, Part 2

On March 20, 2020March 26, 2020 By Eric SternerIn Civilian, Personalities, Uncategorized, Western Frontier5 Comments

An Englishman on the Frontier

Part 1 click here.

Nicholas Cresswell left Alexandria for the Illinois Country on March 16, 1775, his correspondence as yet unknown to the local Committee of Safety. The Ohio River served as a highway to the west, so he headed for its origin at Pittsburgh. Along the way, he stopped to visit the battlefield where French and Indian forces defeated Major General Edward Braddock in July, 1755. Cresswell and his traveling companions found “great numbers of bones, both men and horses. The trees are injured, I suppose by the Artillery…the greatest slaughter seems to have been made within 400 yards of the River…We could not find one whole skull, all of them broke to pieces in the upper part, some of them had holes broken in them about an inch diameter, suppose it to be done with a Pipe Tomahawk.”[i]

Monongaela Battle (Library of Congress) — Initial Dispositions of the Battle of the Monongahela. Cresswell walked the battlefield on his way to Pittsburgh in 1775. (Library of Congress)

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The Journal of Nicholas Cresswell, Part 1

On March 17, 2020April 2, 2020 By Eric SternerIn Civilian, Memory, Personalities, Uncategorized6 Comments

1BF5561D-F286-4DDD-BCEC-272C39979E49_1_201_a — Nicholas Cresswell from the Frontispiece of his Memoir (Library of Congress)

For some Englishman, the political conflict between the United Kingdom and its American colonies was an afterthought that should not interfere with their plans to build a future based on American wealth. Nicholas Cresswell was one such person. He traveled to the colonies on the eve of the American Revolution and returned home in 1777, having kept an extensive diary of his travels, experiences, thoughts, and conditions in America during the war’s first years. Along the way, he met some of the most colorful and interesting people who played prominent roles in the war: George Rogers Clark, Delaware Indian leaders White Eyes and Killbuck, Thomas Jefferson, Patrick Henry, William Howe, Robert Rogers, and Charles Lee to name a few. Since its publication, Cresswell’s journal has become a touchstone for historians looking for insight into those people, how a loyal Englishman like Cresswell saw the world and the Americans around him interpreted events. In particular, he recounts the feelings and treatment of loyalists trapped in America during the war. With that in mind, reviewing Cresswell’s diary might help spread the word about a worthwhile primary resource.

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Historians from the Past: Lyman Draper

On January 8, 2020January 5, 2020 By Eric SternerIn Memory, Personalities, UncategorizedLeave a comment

Lyman Copeland Draper (Wikimedia Commons) — Lyman Copeland Draper from the Fronts-pieceof his book, *King’s Mountain and its Heroes,* 1881 (Wikimedia Commons)

For the last century, everyone studying the frontier in the American Revolution has owed a debt to Lyman C. Draper. Not many people are familiar with him, but he compiled one of the deepest and most extensive collections of original material related to the Trans-Appalachian Frontier, particularly during the American Revolution. His hard work and extensive efforts represent a life dedicated to history that enabled his successors to continue his remarkable work .

Born in western New York in 1815, Draper’s grandfathers were both veterans of war with the British, either during the American Revolution or the War of 1812. Given the number of veterans moving west to start farms after the war, a young and impressionable Draper heard their stories. Draper’s family eventually settled in Lockport, NY on the Erie Canal and that is where he attended Continue reading “Historians from the Past: Lyman Draper” →

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