250 and Counting

Category: Canadian History

  • The Great Carrying Place–October 11, 1775

    Cover art for October 11, 1775: "Carrying the bateaux at Skowhegan Falls", drawn by Sydney Adamson; halftone plate engraved by CW Chadwick, 1903.

    Benedict Arnold and Company are still on the move toward Quebec. Over a three-week period they’ve moved fewer than 90 miles, with only…300 to go. Today they’ve reached The Great Carrying Place, a 13-mile walk alternating between woods and knee-deep mud, all while carrying everything they’ll need to get to Canada.

    Back in the Colonies proper, General Gage is being replaced by General Howe. Gage was largely responsible for the Siege of Boston, especially since they weren’t able to break that siege. And then Bunker Hill came along. Sure, the British won but at great cost—a Pyrrhic victory. Once word got back to Britain about that, Lord Dartmouth appointed Howe within a couple of days. Of course, it took several weeks for the news to get back to America, and on September 26 he learned he was being replaced. By this days’ end, Gage was on his way back to Britain.

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  • October 5, 1775: An Arrest In Canada

    Cover art for October 5, 1775: Oil-on-wood portrait of Thomas Walker

    Thomas Walker was born in England and emigrated to Boston in 1752. In 1763 he moved to Montreal and became a merchant.

    When the war broke out in the Colonies, both Walker and his wife’s sympathies remained with the Americans. So it was that he agreed to assist with the invasion of Montreal. The plan never got to the point where his task came in, but since he was known to be part of it, the word went out for his arrest.

    Walker didn’t give up quickly but he was caught by the British for his crime. A month later he was put on a ship bound for Quebec, but it was captured by the Americans and he was released. He returned to Montreal(!) but when an American delegation showed up in May 1776, he decided to return to America with them, and he re-established himself in Boston. Unfortunately we don’t know a lot about what happened to him after that except that in 1785 he petitioned Congress for reimbursement for lost income because of the war.

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  • October 2, 1775: Whoa…We’re Halfway There!?

    Cover art for October 2, 1775: one of several markers commemorating stops for Benedict Arnold and his soldiers. This one is near Ticonic Falls, which is the modern name for Norridgewock Falls.

    It was not so very long ago that some of us sought directions from Mapquest. Then we printed them out in order to make a trip of some kind.

    It was only a little bit longer ago that we depended on physical maps to get places. In fact, if you’re a fan of the HBO show The Wire, you may recall a plot point that revolved around printed maps. A secret code led to a point on the map.

    Back in the 18th Century, maps were very important resources for the overland traveler. And if a map had a mistake on it, you could be hopelessly lost. It’s not as though you could pull into Ye Olde Gas Station and get directions.

    So the bad news for Benedict Arnold and Company is that the map he used to get to Quebec was terribly inaccurate. The good news is that it was largely incorrect from a distance standpoint. It could have genuinely been much worse.

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  • September 25, 1775: The Capture of Ethan Allen

    Cover art for September 25, 1775: Ethan Allen Before Prescott (cropped), engraving by H.C. Merrill, after creator F.C. Yohn, via the New York Public Library digital collection.

    And this, kiddies, is what happens when you don’t push the “publish” button. You get a late episode. At least the radio folks heard it today.

    BTW: Shout-out to Hillsboro’s News Hound, HBORO.com! Welcome aboard!

    Ethan Allen was part of the Green Mountain Boys and the whole contingent that went north to invade/convince Canada in the effort to get them to join us in the Independence movement. Allen was young and ambitious, and that may have contributed to his downfall here. Because while a plan to move in on Montreal fell apart and resulted in his capture, subsequent research has revealed that Allen may have acted on his own, and that there was in fact no plan.

    Also, for what it’s worth and in case you’re curious: there’s no genuine connection between Ethan Allen the man and Ethan Allen the furniture company other than that the company’s founders was making early-American style furniture at the time.

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    Also worth noting that I keep having to backspace when I write “Ethan Allen” because as someone living in Baltimore I keep typing “Allan”. Thanks, Mister Poe.

  • September 19, 1775: Up the River

    Cover art for September 19, 1775: Color Mezzotint of Benedict Arnold, 1776 by Thomas Hart. From the Anne S. K. Brown Collection at Brown University. URL at time of upload: http://dl.lib.brown.edu/repository2/repoman.php?verb=render&id=1194635475812500&view=showmods # Call Number: UMP1776mf-1 (ASK Brown Call No.)

    We think of “Benedict Arnold” and the word “Traitor” comes immediately to mind. The two are essentially synonymous. Say one, and you’ve said the other.

    But Benedict Arnold was quite loyal to the Independence cause in the early days of the war. In fact, he was often eager to show what he could do. And why he switched sides is quite complicated and can’t really be answered quickly.

    There were times when he felt that injustices were suffered upon him by other generals and by the Continental Congress. Some of them were real but others, imagined.

    He had two painful battlefield wounds in a leg that was already plagued with gout. Was it a psychological issue?

    Was it a midlife crisis, during which his politics shifted? Given that he married a very young, very pretty and very Loyalist woman named Peggy Shippen, maybe he just did it for the nookie.

    Peggy Shippen is actually the most common explanation.

    At any rate, in 1775 Arnold was still on our side and embarked on an expedition to Canada that turned out to be far more complicated than anyone suspected it would be.

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  • September 11, 1775: One Siege Begins, Another Continues

    Cover art for September 11, 1775: "Siege of Boston" wood engraving (detail), created 1879, artist not cited. via the New York Public Library digital collection.

    As the winter of 1775 approached, George Washington had to think about the state of the siege of Boston. In short, housing and clothing thousands of men in a New England winter is a very different proposition than doing it in the summer.

    So Washington convened his War Council to discuss the possibility of breaking the siege by attacking the city from a different direction.

    Meanwhile up in Canada, General Philip Schuyler takes another run at Fort St. Jean.

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  • September 9, 1775: Landfall in Newfoundland

    Cover art for September 9, 1775: Hurricane Igor makes landfall in Newfoundland in 2010. By NOAA - http://www.nnvl.noaa.gov/MediaDetail.php?MediaID=532&MediaTypeID=1, Public Domain, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=11560153

    The Independence Hurricane from September 2 is still going strong, and on this day it made landfall again, this time in Newfoundland, Canada.

    The devastation was immense, and perhaps would have been worse had it happened in modern times (we get it, there are satellites and stuff now). It remains Canada’s worst natural disaster and it’s still in the Top Ten chart for North Atlantic hurricanes.

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  • September 6, 1775: Washington Appeals Directly to Canadians

    Cover art for September 6, 2025: the first page of Washington's letter to the Canadians. from Library of Congress.

    The Second Continental Congress tried appealing to the Canadian leadership in order to get support for the Independence cause, but they apparently weren’t biting.

    So George Washington tried a different tack: write to the Canadian people themselves. He reasoned that the folks in charge were mostly wealthy landowners who were doing all right financially under British rule. Maybe, he thought, the ordinary Canadian folks weren’t quite so happy with the King.

    He was not, unfortunately, correct in that assessment and nobody was swayed by his argument.

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  • September 5, 1775: Setback in Canada

    Cover art for September 5, 1775: Painting of the Schooner Hannah by John F. Leavitt, date unknown

    American forces began to move on Fort St. Jean in Canada. Unfortunately they ran into a couple of unexpected obstacles on the way, so they had to adjust their approach. This led to a six-week siege of the fort.

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  • September 4, 1775: The Offensive in Canada Grows

    An invasion of Canada seems a little absurd on its face, but when you think about it in the context of the Revolution, it actually starts to make sense.

    After all, Canada was also a few British colonies in the North American continent, but they were a little more obedient to the whims of Parliament and they had Loyalist leanings. So the Patriots had a choice between bringing them over ideologically toward Independence, or ignoring them. Neither of these were likely to work, so they set about on the next best thing.

    Invade and then occupy Canada.

    But as we’ll learn in upcoming episodes, it’s not as easy as you’d think.

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