Vendues

Though I'm not quite the die-hard my mother and sister are, I do enjoy a fine shopping trip. And do you know what I enjoy more than just a fine shopping trip? I fine shopping trip in which I find bargains!

While researching for my two Colonial or early Federal books, I had fun exploring the shopping world of the late 18th century. Learning about fashion babies and fustion, pin money and Chalmers shillings. But one of my most fun discoveries was vendues.

Have you ever heard of these? I hadn't, until reading Washington's Spies by Alexander Rose. One of the historical figures he talks about (and who also appears in my Ring of Secrets) apprenticed in a store called Templeton & Stewart in the City of New York. T&S had two divisions--an upscale one in the fashionable district of the city, and then a vendue across from the city's red light district, Holy Ground. 

I would have scratched my head upon reading that, had Mr. Rose not gone on to explain what this "vendue" thing was. Apparently it's much like a discount store today. When there was either overstock or damaged goods in a regular store, they would send it to a vendue, where the goods were either auctioned off or marked down.

Apparently there was some grumbling when Templeton & Stewart opened a vendue, from owners of other retailers. But they were soon happy to see that it didn't detract from their clientele--that two different sets of people shopped in these two different kinds of stores.

 

It's no surprise, I suppose, that as long as people have been exchanging hard-earned coin for goods, they've been trying to get the best deals. But it's always fun to learn that discount stores (not unlike my favorite shopping location in my home town) have a long and rich history. And though I didn't find a time to really explain what these stores are in Ring of Secrets, I did slip a mention of them into the final chapters. =)

~*~

Roseanna M. White grew up in the mountains of West Virginia, the beauty of which inspired her to begin writing as soon as she learned to pair subjects with verbs. She spent her middle and high school days penning novels in class, and her love of books took her to a school renowned for them. After graduating from St. John’s College in Annapolis, Maryland, she and her husband moved back to the Maryland side of the same mountains they equate with home.

Roseanna is the author of two biblical novels, A Stray Drop of Blood and Jewel of Persia, both from WhiteFire Publishing (www.WhiteFire-Publishing.com), Love Finds You in Annapolis, Maryland from Summerside Press, and the upcoming Culper Ring Series from Harvest House, beginning in March 2013 with Ring of Secrets.

She is the senior reviewer at the Christian Review of Books, which she and her husband founded, the senior editor at WhiteFire Publishing, and a member of ACFW, Christian Authors Network, HisWriters, and Colonial American Christian Writers. She is a regular blogger at Go Teen Writers, Colonial Quills, and her personal blog.

In Ye Olden Days: Life in Argyll Colony

Between 1707-1775 over 145,000 Scots emigrated to North Carolina. When you think of how far the state's population lagged behind other colonies, this is a staggering number. They chose North Carolina because Gabriel Johnston, a native of Scotland and graduate of St. Andrews University, served as Governor between 1734-1752. He wrote all his friends and invited them to emigrate to North Carolina where they would receive two crops each year, free land grants, and possible exemption from taxation for a period of time.

The temptation must have been compelling when most people had to be born into wealth and nobility in order to own land in Scotland. It was a time when their rents were being raised significantly high, reducing peasants to destitute poverty and starvation. Governor Johnston's offer was better than a pot of gold. Most sailed to the New England states or Virginia and traveled south on the Great Wagon Road. They settled in the Piedmont region, the center of the state. If they were lucky, whole communities traveled under the authority and protection of their Presbyterian pastors. Others were sold or sold themselves as indentured servants for 4 to 7 years.

One exception was the Argyll Colony. In July 1739, at least 350 people sailed The Thisle from Campbeltown of Argyll, Scotland and arrived on the shores of North Carolina, most likely the port of Brunswick, in September. They traveled up the Cape Fear River about 90 miles and settled what is present-day, Fayetteville. Due to the success of Argyll Colony, soon more Scottish families joined them.

The photo above is of Davaar Island, at the mouth of Campbeltown Loch off the eastcoast of Kintyre in Argyll and Bute, Scotland.

The area is filled with pine trees and sand. They farmed corn, rye, peas, sweet potatoes, flax and cotton. They hunted deer, turkey, quail, rabbit, and fished. They raised horses, cattle, sheep and chickens. These Scots set up black smith forges, built tanneries, grist mills on the streams, and saw mills for timber. From the deep pine forests, they produced turpentine, resin, tar (as we're known as the 'Ole Tarheel State), and charcoal.

They spoke and read Gaelic and brought Gaelic Bibles with them. This was the language of choice in the Upper Cape Fear area from the arrival of the Argyll Colony in 1739 until the Civil War in the 1860's. Most families were bilingual, but Gaelic was mostly spoken at home and at church. They had a Gaelic printing press of which many of their publications are now house in the Presbyterian Historical Foundation in Montreat, NC.

Some of this research was used in creating the premise for Highland Crossings, a novella collection by Pamela Griffin, Laurie Alice Eakes, Gina Welborn, and Jennifer Hudson Taylor.

Think the Colonial Sea was a Man's Domain??

We've all read history books and heard tales of male pirates, privateers, explorers, and navy men, but rarely have we heard stories of the large numbers of women who went to sea.  Why is that?  One reason is that from earliest times, superstitious sailors insisted that women on board brought nothing but bad luck.

Admiral Cuthbert Collingwood wrote in 1808 "I never knew a woman brought to sea in a ship that some mischief did not befall the vessel."

Another reason, however, is that women on board ships were virtual ghosts. They were not listed on muster roll, nor were their deaths recorded in ships' records, even though in most cases, they performed vital tasks aboard the ship.

Despite that, we now know that hundreds of women boarded ships with their husbands, choosing a difficult life at sea rather then bear living as widows ashore for years at a time.  And a difficult life it was! Especially if you were the wife of a regular seaman in the navy.  These women were not provided rations of food, but were forced to share their husband's daily allowance. They also had to share their husband's hammock located in the cramped quarters allotted to the rest of the crew.  There was no privacy whatsoever!! I wouldn't last a day!  In the morning when the boatswain's mate went around to wake up the sleeping crew, he would shout "show a leg"! and the women would push a limb outside of their blankets so he could see what gender they were and not tip over the hammock to wake a sleeping sailor!

However, if you were the wife of an officer (and especially the Captain), your life on board was far better. You were permitted to share your husband's tiny cabin and perhaps even have the service of a cabin boy who, much like a house servant, polished shoes, ran errands, and did a variety of tasks for you.  As the wife of an officer you were permitted to eat with the officers and enjoy a varied diet of fresh meats, delicacies and wines.  But life on board could be very lonely. While your husband was busy running the ship, you had to find something to pass the long hours. Many women brought sewing and crafts on board, as well as books and scrapbooks.

Here's an account of Susan Hathorn who joined her husband Jode as a new bride and sailed with him for nine months, She spent 75 days sewing, 35 days embroidering, 23 days laundering, 19 days mending, 18 days crocheting, 15 days knitting, 13 days leather working, 10 days housekeeping, 9 days quilting, 4 days scrap-booking, 3 days copying receipts for cooking and 2 days rug-braiding.  Susan was also a prolific reader. Some of her books included Lord Byron, Thomas Moore, and Harriet Beecher Stowe.

Some wives assisted in the running of the ship, from helping out during battle, to repairing sails, to cooking, and to doctoring.  Recalling the 1798 Battle of the Nile, a seaman wrote "The women behaved as well as the men. . .There are some of the women wounded and one woman belonging to Leith died of her wounds." Women assisted the surgeon and his mates in attending the wounded and even aided the gun crews as powder monkeys.

Nineteen year old Mary Ann Patten was on a honeymoon voyage when her husband became ill and was rendered both deaf and blind.  With the first mate in the brig for insubordination and the second mate unskilled in navigation, Mary, now pregnant with her first child, took over command of the ship, safely navigating it around dangerous Cape Horn and bringing them all safely to home port!

So the next time you think that the sea was only a man's domain, think again!

In Ye Olden Days: Deck the Halls

It's Tradition!

In keeping with my hope of writing fiction set in the 18th century for a long while to come, I wanted to research and blog about what an 18th century Christmas might have looked like. I came away with one overriding impression: simplicity.

According to Emma Powers in her Christmas Customs article (Colonial Williamsburg website): "Eighteenth-century [Christmas] customs don't take long to recount: church, dinner, dancing, some evergreens, visiting--and more and better of these very same for those who could afford more."

Here are a few more interesting facts about 18th Century Christmas, quoted from the same article mentioned above, which is well worth a full read:

"Williamsburg shopkeepers of the eighteenth century placed ads noting items appropriate as holiday gifts, but New Year's was as likely a time as December 25 for bestowing gifts."

"No early Virginia sources tell us how, or even if, colonists decorated their homes for the holidays, so we must rely on eighteenth-century English prints.... that show interior Christmas decorations [such as] a large cluster of mistletoe...."

"Then as now, beef, goose, ham, and turkey counted as holiday favorites; some households also insisted on fish, oysters, mincemeat pies, and brandied peaches."


"The twelve days of Christmas lasted until January 6, also called Twelfth Day or Epiphany. Colonial Virginians thought Twelfth Night a good occasion for balls, parties, and weddings."

I'll note that a wedding does take place on Jan 6th in one of my 18th century novels... but I won't say whose!

Looking for more information on early Christmas customs and traditions? Check out these sites:

Christmas Food History: http://www.foodtimeline.org/christmasfood.html

Another Look At Christmas in the Eighteenth Century, by David DeSimone: http://www.history.org/almanack/life/christmas/hist_anotherlook.cfm

Recipes for a Twelfth Night Celebration: http://www.history.org/almanack/life/food/ginger.cfm

Do you have Christmas traditions in your family that date back more than a generation or two? The only one I can recall from my childhood was finding an orange in the foot of our stockings on Christmas morning, which to me always seemed a little strange since there were oranges in the fruit bowl in the kitchen. At some point I came to realize that it harkened back to the days of my grandfather's childhood, when an orange at Christmas was a treat, because they didn't have them or couldn't afford them for the rest of the year.
 

 photos by Flintlocker and fauxto_digit

In Ye Olden Days: Baking on an Open Hearth

Ever wonder why the only breads frontier people ate were cornbread and biscuits? I'm here to answer that question.

It is impossible (to my knowledge) to bake yeast breads on an open hearth. The reasons are simple. An inability to keep the heat even, and no room for the bread to rise as it bakes. I worked for four years as a tour guide at Kent Plantation House in central Louisiana and Kent is one of a small handful of plantation museums with a working open hearth kitchen. I learned a lot about cooking in an open hearth. I also learned cornbread baked in a Dutch oven is the closest thing to tastebud heaven we'll ever know on this earth.

The above picture is an open hearth. All that brick is where most of the cooking and baking is done. Only soups and stews are placed directly over the fire, on the crane. The top door on the left is a bread oven that's been used twice since the hearth in this kitchen was rebuilt in the mid-80's. Beneath is wood. The first time it was fired up it took three days to get it hot enough to bake cookies.

The first step is coals. Lots and lots and lots of coals. Preferably made with oak. Pine has too much pitch in it, makes a lot of smoke, and clogs up the chimney.



The curly thing in this picture is a trivet. Coals are piled underneath, the skillet goes on top, and then the lid goes on. The round thing to the right of the trivet here is a lid with a lip on it. This lip keeps the coals from falling off the lid. Most iron pots and skillets in the 19th century had two lids. A domed one and a lipped one.

Coals on top of the skillet create the rest of the heat to cook the cornbread. Or the biscuits or the cake. Yes, you can bake a cake on an open hearth and it is very good. The coals have to be replaced at least once during baking, on top and bottom. You can also fry things on an open hearth, and my sister makes an amazing peach upside down cake. Just make sure and use liberal amounts of butter to keep the cake from sticking.

Many plantation cooks wore wooden shoes, and their skirts were shorter than everyone else's. While cooking in the kitchen where I took these pictures, my sister once caught her shoe on fire stepping on what looked like a dead coal. More than one cook at Kent has caught her skirt or apron on fire.

Since you obviously can't use potholders or an apron around live coals, what do you use? S hooks. Called S hooks because they look like an S. Every blacksmith made hundreds of them. They come in all sizes from three to four inches long to over a foot. They were also used to adjust the distance between the soup pot on the crane and the coals beneath.

Baking and cooking on an open hearth was very time consuming and very dangerous. Because of the fire danger, on plantations the kitchen was always a separate building. That often was not practical on the colonial frontier. Heat was another reason the kitchen was separate in the South. Even in October here in Louisiana it gets up in the 90's and the temperature in Kent's open hearth kitchen can easily top 100 degrees. Up north heat wasn't as much of a concern, and there often wasn't enough room to build a separate kitchen.

If you ever have the chance to see an open hearth kitchen in action, take it. It's an amazing experience that pictures cannot capture.

The First Official Thanksgiving Proclamation

PROCLAMATION by the United States in Congress assembly: October 31, 1780

Whereas it hath pleased Almighty God, the Father of all mercies, amidst the vicissitudes and calamities of war, to bestow blessings on the people of these states, which call for their devout and thankful acknowledgments, more especially in the late remarkable interposition of his watchful providence, in rescuing the person of our Commander in Chief and the army from imminent dangers, at the moment when treason was ripened for execution; in prospering the labors of the husbandmen, and causing the earth to yield its increase in plentiful harvests; and, above all, in continuing to us the enjoyment of the gospel of peace;

It is therefore recommended to the several states to set apart Thursday, the seventh day of December next, to be observed as a day of public thanksgiving and prayer; that all the people may assemble on that day to celebrate the praises of our Divine Benefactor; to confess our unworthiness of the least of his favors, and to offer our fervent supplications to the God of all grace; that it may please him to pardon our heinous transgressions and incline our hearts for the future to keep all his laws that it may please him still to afford us the blessing of health; to comfort and relieve our brethren who are any wise afflicted or distressed; to smile upon our husbandry and trade and establish the work of our hands; to direct our public councils, and lead our forces, by land and sea, to victory; to take our illustrious ally under his special protection, and favor our joint councils and exertions for the establishment of speedy and permanent peace; to cherish all schools and seminaries of education, build up his churches in their most holy faith and to cause the knowledge of Christianity to spread over all the earth.

Done in Congress, the last day of October, 1780, and in the fifth year of the independence of the United States of America.

In Ye Olden Days - Fashion Babies

Ever wonder how people kept up on fashion back in the day? I mean, in the 18th century fashion was EVERYTHING. Even here in the colonies--in fact, a London man described our balls and gowns as far more fashion-forward than anything to be seen in London. (Not his exact words, but that's the gist, LOL.) But it wasn't exactly the age of full-color magazines . . . nor of Fashion Weeks. They didn't have Style or E! and certainly couldn't browse Ideeli daily for awesome bargains on designers.

So they looked at dolls. Yep, that's right. Marie Antoinette was more than a leader of France in the late 18th century, she was the unanimously agreed upon leader of fashion the world over. And whenever Marie Antoinette appeared in a new style, her peeps would make miniature versions of it for dolls and send those dolls to every major port.

It may have taken two months, but those "fashion babies" arrived on our doorsteps and brought detailed examples from the Queen of Fashion into our lives. And so, though it moved at a snail's pace compared to our changes from season to season now, styles changed far more quickly than they had in centuries prior.

 

All thanks to prettily made up baby dolls. =)

In Ye Olden Days: Hold Your Nose, Put on Your Patience, and Have a Seat in the Colonial Kitchen

This summer I had the joy of visiting Old Bedford Village, a colonial site relatively near my home. They have an entire village set up there, and different reenactors there throughout the week. My favorite was the lady in the Biddle House, who demonstrated spinning and how one would work in a colonial kitchen.

We watched her spin some wool onto a walking wheel (also called a great wheel and a wool wheel). This baby's so big that you have to walk back and forth about six feet as you're spinning--hence the name. The wool ends up on a spool, then you detach it from the big wheel and start spinning it onto the weasel, which puts it into skeins. It takes 150 rotations to equal one skein--and because the ingenius creators of this device knew well no one was going to sit there counting to 150 all day, the weasel pops after 150 revolutions. Sound familiar? Altogether now: "Here we go round the mulberry bush, the monkey chased the weasel . . ." =)

She then enlightened us on dying fabric in a colonial home. The dyes themselves I was well aware of--for instance, to achieve a rich brownish-yellow, you use the black walnut. For a lovely pale blue, indigo is a dream. What I didn't realize was that the dye doesn't just set in the fabric on its own. You have to add something high in ammonia. And what would Colonials have on hand for that?

Yep. The chamber pot. Apparently the urine of young boys was the best for this--they would collect the, er, sample from the chamber pot, cover it, and set the lovely brew in the corner of the fireplace until it was "ripe"--read, very strong-smelling. Then the dye and wool would join it.

After horrifying some of the moderns in my tour group with this, the reenactor moved over into her kitchen to show us how one crafted a meal in the day.

The Biddle House had a unique feature for a house of the time--a huge fire place taking up almost the entire wall of this house, divided into two sections that meet in a very wide V. The right side is a traditional fireplace, complete with a crane to swing a pot back and forth over the flame. But the left side has a stove top supported on the stone--a very thick piece of iron perfectly fitted to this side of the fireplace. On it you could put your pots, or cook food directly on the surface. Managing the fire underneath for the desired temperature, of course.

They had small, moveable ovens to show us too (bottom corner of the picture of the stove). A larger one for cooking meat, which you put onto a spit so you could rotate it within the metal box. The box was then set up against the fire. Not only would the heat cook the meat facing it, it circulated through the box to cook it all around. The lady showed us a smaller version of the same with a shelf inside it--on here they would bake biscuits and cookies. Three at a time, which means that a traditional recipe for about 2.5 dozen cookies took four hours to make.

And here I am, trying my best to avoid meals that take longer than 30 minutes to make!

by Roseanna White

In Ye Olden Days: Smoked Hams

Smoke house, Wheatlands Plantation

By Lori Benton

Salted smoke-cured ham. Ham biscuits. Country ham gravy. Those are tastes from my childhood I miss. My maternal forbears raised hogs and smoked their hams since, I suppose, the first of them left England and came to the Virginia/North Carolina border area in the early 1600s. My grandfather moved his family north to Maryland in the 1950s, built the house where we were raised, and never went back to farm life, aside from turning every available plot of ground around our house (and a few he hacked from the nearby woods) into a productive garden. But every so often he and my grandmother would travel south to visit family in southern Virginia and come home with a country ham, which would hang in our shed, all crusty brown and promising. How wonderful those rare dinners when all the cousins gathered and that ham was featured as the main course.

As a child I had no idea why that ham from Virginia tasted different--and so much better to my way of thinking--than the sweet hams we bought at the local grocery. Researching my first eighteenth century-set novel, Kindred, was like exploring bits of my childhood I'd taken for granted, those faint echoes of eighteenth century lifeways that had lingered into the 1970s, the era of my childhood. My characters live on a small tobacco farm in the piedmont, as did my ancestors, and grew corn and raised hogs as well as tobacco to feed their family. All my forebears older than my parents passed on before I began my novel research, but my mother has childhood memories of plucking alarmingly ugly worms off the tobacco leaves and making her own "stick" of leaves to hang in the curing barn. She and I both will never forget those smoked hams.

Tyson McCarter Place. Smoke house at left, corn crib right.

Hog butchering was typically done after the first cold snap to help preserve the meat, often not until November or even December. The hams and other cuts of meat were first rubbed with a salt mixture (sometimes mixed with molasses and pepper or other spices) and allowed to cure for a few weeks. Then the meat was hung inside the smokehouse on hooks or suspended by rope from the rafters. Fires were built directly on the ground if it was a dirt floor, and had to be carefully maintained for the entire smoking process. Woods like hickory or apple flavored the meat, and the end result  produced a crust that kept away insect pests. Some families built their smokehouses with plenty of ventilation, while others built them tight, to trap the smoke.

One of the best set of books I can recommend for writers researching aspects rural or mountain life like hog butchering are the Foxfire series. With titles like Ghost stories, spring wild plant foods, spinning and weaving, midwifing, burial customs, corn shuckin's, wagon making and more affairs of plain living, and Animal care, banjos and dulcimers, hide tanning, summer and fall wild plant foods, butter churns, ginseng, and still more affairs of plain living, how could anyone interested in mountain life, or eastern rural life in past centuries, not feel like they've found a gold mine in these books?

~smoke house photos by Brian Stansbury, courtesy Wikimedia Commons

In Ye Olden Days: Road Trip!

I've always enjoyed a road trip, especially in the fall. Something about cooling temperatures, coloring trees, and air washed free of summer haze and humidity makes distances beckon and stirs a thirst for discovery. Satisfying that thirst is a matter of gassing up the car, packing a bag, stopping by MapQuest for directions, calling ahead to book a night at a hotel along the way. Our 18th century ancestors, when hit by autumn wanderlust, didn’t have it so easy. Traveling overland meant walking or riding a horse, possibly driving a wagon or riding in a carriage. Depending on how far one meant to travel, better plan to be on the road for a good chunk of time. Days. Maybe weeks.

But how far can a horse travel in a day? How were rivers crossed in times and places where no bridges had been built? What roads existed in the 18th century, and what sort of shape were they in?


The Great Philadelphia Wagon Road

The Great Wagon Road stretched from Philadelphia to Georgia, and was a major thoroughfare for 18th century travelers, particularly settlers headed south into the Carolina back country, or across the Cumberland Gap into Kentucky. Not all roads beyond town limits were well maintained year round, and travelers traversed them at their own risk. Wagons sunk axle-deep in thick red mud on a rain-mired track were likely as common a sight in the 18th century as cars broken down on our modern highways.

Rivers To Cross

Before there were bridges there were fords, shallow spots in rivers where a rider simply waded or swam his horse across. Or not so simply, if the river was running high. If a traveler was fortunate there would be a ferryman to help him cross the river, for a fee. Some early ferries were as basic as two canoes connected by a level surface for the traveler and his horse to occupy, while the ferryman poled him to the opposite shore. Over time this double canoe ferry was replaced by larger, flat-bottomed craft that used a system of pulleys and ropes, along with a pole man, to make the tedious crossing.

The map to the left shows the site of the Trading Ford, the old Yadkin River ferry crossing on the Trading Path that ran from Hillsborough, NC, to Salisbury, NC, a Piedmont town that grew at the meeting of the Trading Path and the Great Philadelphia Wagon Road. It must have looked much different in the 18th century when one of my characters crossed it, than when I did in the 21st.

Inns and villages often grew up around a ferry crossing. A great resource for descriptions and illustrations of the evolution of a ferry from its 17th century beginnings to its replacement by a covered bridge in the 19th century, is Edwin Tunis's book The Tavern At The Ferry.

So just how far can a horse travel in a day? That depends on the horse, the rider, the terrain, the weather, and how much the horse is carrying. Under normal circumstances and over passable roads, and with proper care (food, water, and rest) a well-conditioned horse could be expected to travel 20 miles a day over an extended period, which is a good way of calculating how long an 18th century road trip was likely to take.

For historical writers, have your characters taken road trips? How did they travel? How long did it take?  What were some of the perils along the way?

For readers, is there a journey taken by a character/s in a historical novel that stands out as a favorite for you? Tell us about it! I'll be along to share one or two of mine.

~ autumn foliage photo by Brian Stansbury, courtesy of Wikimedia Commons.

In Ye Olden Days: A Men's Fashion Primer

Dressing women is fun. All those beautiful dresses and accessories and shoes and hair and hats. Alas, our novels are not populated only by women. Men show up too. While not as diverse as women's fashion in the 18th century, the men still got their gaudy on.

We all know men wore breeches in the 18th century. Those funny pants that come to the knee, and from the knee down is either a white stocking or a leather boot. You're probably wondering why there's a picture of Captain Hook over there. The reason is simple: Everyone knows Captain Hook.

What everyone does not know is he's wearing the typical clothing of an early 18th century man. With the exception of the massive feather and cartoon shoes, obviously. We see something very similar in the opening scenes of Pirates of the Caribbean: Dead Man's Chest. Except Will is wearing boots. Elizabeth's father, Governor Swann, also wears knee length coats in the first three films. I'm particularly fond of the one he's wearing in At World's End. You know, when he's dead.

Men's clothing is always simpler than women's, in regards to getting dressed. In the 18th century it consisted of breeches, shirts, waistcoats (what we call vests), and coats. The coats is where you find the most variety.

For the first half of the century coats like the one pictured here on the right, and the one Captain Hook is wearing, were the norm. This style of coat is called a justaucorps.

That lace at the throat is called a cravat. Cravats continued in fashion through the Civil War. They could be as elaborate as the lace one pictured here, or as simple as a solid colored piece of cloth to match the waistcoat.

Most men didn't wear royal blue and bright red. This red one, oddly reminiscent of Captain Hook's, is from France circa 1750. You can see how the front of the coat is cut different from the blue one above, and different still from the one Captain Hook wears that buttons all the way down. Though in cartoon land you can't see the buttons.

The working man didn't have money to spend on lace ruffles and fancy embroidery and expensive dyes. His wardrobe stayed in the earth tones category. Blacks, browns, fawn, tan. Everything we associate with the farmers during the Revolution.

Of course, no 18th century man is complete without a tricorne hat. Other types of hats existed, such as the ever popular slouch hat. But who thinks of slouch hats when they hear 1700's? Not me.There's a good reason for that. The slouch hat was a farmer's hat. The tricorne hat is what anybody who was anybody wore. It's not hard to imagine a young man from the country pinching pennies away to buy himself a tricorne hat.

You didn't really think I'd talk about Pirates of the Caribbean and not include a picture, did you? This one from Dead Man's Chest--with Governor Swann front and center--shows some excellent examples of tricorne hats, wigs, and wouldn't you know it! One of those outlandish prints that were so popular in the 18th century. They didn't just show up on women.

Now, if your character is in the Navy or the Army, I'm afraid I'm of no help. Military uniforms throughout history are well documented and easy to research. If you're researching uniforms, don't forget the buttons!

The Female Paul Revere

Listen, my children and you shall hear of the midnight ride of . . .Sybil Ludington?

Yup. That’s right. Sybil Ludington, the daughter of Col. Henry Ludington, a New York militia officer and later an aide to General George Washington, became a heroine of the American Revolution in her own right—and a model for the heroine of my American Patriot Series, Elizabeth Howard. On April 26, 1777, exactly 2 years and 8 days after Paul Revere rode “to spread the alarm through every Middlesex village and farm” about British troops on the march to Concord, Sybil did essentially the same thing. Except that she was 16, a girl, and she rode more than twice the distance Revere did. Not to mention that her route was a whole lot more daunting. And much of the way it rained. Hard.

Anyone care to join me in a rousing chorus of “Anything you can do, I can do better”?

On the night of April 26, a messenger reached the Ludington home at Fredericksburgh, NY, to report that Governor William Tryon’s troops were attacking Danbury, Connecticut, 15 miles to the southeast, to carry off the munitions and stores of the region’s militia. Sound familiar? Shades of Lexington and Concord.

Naturally Colonel Ludington immediately began to mobilize the local militia. The messenger and his horse were too worn out to go any farther, though, so our intrepid Sybil volunteered to rouse the countryside.

Sybil hit the saddle at 9:00 p.m. and dismounted back at home around dawn. All told, she galloped flat out 40 miles along unfamiliar, rugged, lonely roads at night in the rain, knocking on doors with the same stick she used to prod her horse so she wouldn’t have to dismount, and guiding the steed with nothing more than a hemp halter. Along the way, she had to use her father’s musket for defense against one of the roving ruffians often abroad at night in the region. Her feat is especially remarkable considering that modern-day riders using lightweight saddles have a hard time riding the same distance in daylight with good weather over a well-marked course free of highwaymen.

Now I know the statue shows her as riding side saddle, but I ask you, would that really have been possible, considering the speed at which she must have traveled over rough terrain in the dark? It was not rare for women and girls of the time to travel in men’s dress for comfort and modesty, and I tend to believe that, just like my most practical heroine, Elizabeth, she doffed her petticoats, pulled on a pair of her father’s breeches and boots, and sprang into the saddle to ride astride. In fact, an account of the event describes her as “clinging to a man’s saddle.” Case closed.
By the time she returned to her home, thoroughly soaked and exhausted, nearly the whole regiment of 400 soldiers had mustered because of her, and within a couple of hours they were on the march. Although the detachment arrived too late to stop the sack of Danbury, at the Battle of Ridgefield they drove the forces of General William Tryon, then governor of New York, back to Long Island Sound.

Following the war, in 1784, then twenty-three year-old Sybil married Edmund Ogden, a farmer and innkeeper. They had six children—an admirable feat in itself—and in 1792 the family settled in Catskill, NY, where they lived until Sybil’s death on February 26, 1839, at the age of 77. She is buried near her father in the Patterson Presbyterian Cemetery in Patterson, NY.

In 1935 New York State erected markers along the route she followed that night. The statue shown here was sculpted by Anna Hyatt Huntington in 1961 and resides near Carmel, NY. Smaller originals can be found on the grounds of the Daughters of the American Revolution Headquarters in Washington, DC; on the grounds of Danbury, Connecticut’s public library, and in the Elliot and Rosemary Offner Museum at Brookgreen Gardens, Murrells Inlet, South Carolina. In 1975 Sybil Ludington was honored with a postage stamp in the Contributors to the Cause United States Bicentennial series. Worthy honors for an amazing woman!

I hope you'll share a favorite story about a lady from colonial days you particularly admire, or perhaps one that was the source for a character in one of your own stories!

In Ye Olden Days: The Underground Railroad

By Lori Benton

Harriet Tubman. John Brown. Frederick Douglas. Sojourner Truth. These are names readily associated with the Underground Railroad, a network of secret routes and safe houses used by nineteenth century slaves in the southern United States, and those who aided them, to escape to the northern states or Canada, and freedom.

While researching the first novel I wrote set in the late 18th century, a story dealing largely with issues of slavery, I began to wonder just when the Underground Railroad had its genesis. Who was that man or woman who first harbored an escaped slave from a neighboring plantation, or gave him food, or warned him of a house nearby where the dogs (or the people) were mean, or told him of a safer path to take? Who was the first farmer or tradesman to step out of their safety and comfort to actually accompany or "conduct" a slave northward in her flight? The Underground Railroad didn't spring into being one day in the early 19th century, fully realized and operational. There had to be a person, sometime, somewhere who, lacking support from neighbor or like-minded friend, decided to help an escaping slave along his daunting road to freedom.

Since a huge element of the success of such endeavors is secrecy, there can be no knowing exactly who they were. No doubt many an early abolitionist carried his or her secrets to the grave.

Levi Coffin 1798-1877

When author Laura Frantz posted on her blog sometime back about her historical heroes, I pondered the question for myself and realized pretty quickly that these unknown 18th century folk who laid the first tracks for the future Underground Railroad were some of mine.

One who stands in place for them all, for me, is a man named Levi Coffin. He was a Quaker, a North Carolinian with Nantucket roots. He and his cousin, Vestal Coffin, became "the founders of the earliest known scheme to transport fugitives across hundreds of miles of unfriendly territory to safety in the free states."*  The year was 1819.

That's the earliest known scheme. But what about the woman, years prior, who opened her farmhouse door to a tentative knocking one evening after sunset, looked into the frightened eyes of a runaway and felt compelled to give her supper, or a place to sleep in the cow shed, or directions to a friend's home just across the county line to the north? My storyteller's mind wouldn't let go of the likelihood that someone else, somewhere, years before the Coffins, had gotten the idea in their head that it was a good thing, the right thing, to help escaping slaves to freedom, in defiance of law and social pressure. Then I found what might have been the impetus for the taking of such risky action.

The year 1789 saw the publishing of the first influential slave narrative, by Olaudah Equiano--as portrayed by Youssou N'Dour in the film Amazing Grace (at left is N'Dour as Equiano in a scene on the streets of London at what may well be the very first book signing... ever). Equiano, having become a Methodist due to the influence of the evangelical teachings of George Whitefield, bought his freedom from his master after many years of slavery. His unflinching portrayal of the horrors of slavery as practiced in the southern United States drew many on both sides of the Atlantic into the cause of abolition.

In the spring of 2004, armed with a copy of Equiano's narrative and a lot of burning questions, I set out on my own long journey back into the late 18th century, when the then 14 United States were still wobbling on foal's legs. Four years later I'd given myself a crash course in the era, and written a historical novel. Working titled Kindred, the story is set in 1793, a few years after Equiano's narrative was published, and some twenty-five years before Levi and Vestal Coffin founded their slave-freeing scheme. Between my knowledge of Equiano's narrative and my surmises on the grassroots beginnings of the Underground Railroad were born one of Kindred's secondary characters, Thomas Ross, a free black man in Boston who has never known slavery, who is shaken by the things he's read in Equiano's book, shaken out of complacency and onto a path that will forever change his and many others destiny.

For more information about Levi Coffin and the early years of the Underground Railroad, visit my fellow Colonial Quills contributor, author Carla Gade's geneaology blog. Small world that it is, turns out Levi Coffin is mentioned in Carla's family tree. Also check out the wonderful book by Fergus M. Bordewich, Bound for Canaan.

*Bound for Canaan, The Underground Railroad and the War for the Soul of America, by Fergus M. Bordewich.

The Doctor, the Lawyer, and the National Anthem

By C. J. Chase


With no territory gained or lost, America's War of 1812 would be all but forgotten but for one major consequence — “The Star Spangled Banner.” Enter the unlikely catalyst for America’s future national anthem.

Dr. William Beanes was born January 24, 1749 on a large estate in Prince Georges County, Maryland. He learned medicine by apprenticing with a local doctor and used those skills in the General Hospital at Philadelphia during the American Revolution. By the summer of 1814, the 65-year-old physician owned a gristmill, extensive property, and the largest house in Upper Marlboro, the Prince Georges county seat, where he served as an elected official.

On August 16, 1814, 22 British vessels invaded the Chesapeake Bay, the large body of water between the U.S. mainland and the eastern portions of Virginia and Maryland. Fear that the British would attack Maryland’s capital Annapolis prompted state government officials to move records inland from the city to Beane’s Upper Marlboro home, about eight miles east of Washington, DC. But the British bypassed Annapolis, instead targeting the nation's capital.

With the British army marching through his town, Beanes invited Major General Robert Ross to use his home. What better way to protect the state archives (and Beanes’ home) from a British bonfire than to have the general staying on the premises!

After routing the American forces at Bladensburg on the afternoon of August 24, the combined British army and naval forces entered Washington, DC, unopposed. Captain Thomas Tingey, the American in charge of the Washington Navy Yard, torched the supplies stored there lest they fall into enemy hands. The British soon copied his example, burning public buildings including the Capitol, the President’s House, and the Treasury building. A summer breeze carried the flames to nearby residences, sending homes up in flames. From forty miles away, Baltimore residents watched the fires light the night sky.

Capitol after the fire

Unable to hold the city and fearing an American counteract, Ross ordered his army to fall back to the Chesapeake Bay, once again passing through Upper Marlboro. But not all of them returned. Over 100 men vanished, many of them deserters who decided to remain in America rather than sail back to Britain. With some of these deserters now pillaging local farms, residents decided to act. Former Maryland governor Robert Bowie, Dr. Beanes, and several other men set about capturing the stragglers. They had imprisoned six of them in the county jail when one escaped and returned to General Ross.

An angry Ross sent a detachment to Upper Marlboro where the soldiers arrested Beanes, Bowie, and two others. A swap followed, with the British getting their deserters back in exchange for three of the Maryland men — all of them except Dr. Beanes. No one knows why Ross refused to release Beanes. Historians speculate Beanes may have offered Ross some sort of pledge during their earlier meeting. Whatever the reason, Ross had the old man detained in the brig of the HMS Tonnant.

Beanes' influential friends began to pressure the American government into negotiating for his release. But American General John Mason feared that exchanging the old doctor for captured British soldiers would encourage the British to take civilian hostages. With official channels moving too slowly for Beanes’ friends, his neighbor Richard West decided to try a new tactic. He asked the assistance of his wife’s brother-in-law — a Washington lawyer named Francis Scott Key.

Key and John Skinner, the American prisoner of war exchange agent, received President James Madison’s permission to negotiate for Beane’s release. General Mason organized their transportation and also compassionately arranged for them to deliver letters from wounded British prisoners. Sailing on the Royal Oak under a flag of truce, Key and Skinner reached the British fleet on September 7 and joined Ross on the Tonnant where they presented him with the letters from his soldiers and their petition for Beanes’ release.

Despite the Ross’s lingering anger with Beanes, he agreed to free the old doctor, in large measure to express his appreciation for the letters. However, the Tonnant was already enroute to the planned British assault on Baltimore. With the three Americans now aware of the impending attack, the British were understandably reluctant to release them until after the battle. And thus, on the night of September 13, 1814, Francis Scott Key, along with Skinner and Beanes, watched the bombardment of Fort McHenry from the midst of the British fleet.

Major George Armistead, commanding officer of Fort McHenry, had commissioned an extra-large flag – 30 feet by 42 feet – to fly above the garrison. From eight miles away, the three Americans waited for news. Would the British take Baltimore like they had taken Washington? On the morning of September 14, Skinner, Key, and Beanes saw that star-spangled banner by the dawn’s early light. Inspired that the flag was still waving, Key wrote the poem that became the American national anthem.

News of the American victory reached Europe during the peace negotiations in the autumn of 1814 and ended Britain's hope of gaining territorial concessions. Three months after the failed assault on Baltimore, the two countries finalized the Treaty of Ghent, which returned their relationship to status quo ante bellum.

After leaving the corporate world to stay home with her children, C.J. Chase quickly learned she did not possess the housekeeping gene. She decided writing might provide the perfect excuse for letting the dust bunnies accumulate under the furniture. Her procrastination, er, hard work paid off in 2010 when she won the Golden Heart for Best Inspirational Manuscript and sold the novel to Love Inspired Historicals. Redeeming the Rogue is an August, 2011 release. You can visit C.J.'s cyber-home (where the floors are always clean) at cjchasebooks.com