Grandma's Granny's Family Album

  My grandmother would have never discussed this as Sarah does. In Chapters One thru Four, we met Sarah Rushton walking her land grant in 1827 Westchester, Nova Scotia with her daughter Elizabeth and grandchildren. Sarah, husband Jeremiah, and family were exiled from New York as Loyalists after the Revolution. Promised a land grant by the British as a soldier, they boarded a ship for the unknown. After waiting two years, the Rushtons boated upriver and walked for days hauling their belongings by hand: iron pots, bedding, cows. The children were enthralled with the big ship and brown cow. They nearly lost their land for missing a deadline. Elizabeth raged that her father received no compensation for risking his life; Sarah pointed out their new life was better regardless of what could have been. The Story of the Pioneer’s Wife….a fictional look The little ones ran up to Elizabeth, Lucy burying her head in her mother’s skirts, Eddie loudly protesting. “William! Stop teasing your brot...

  As I wrote this, I heard the voices of my grandmother and her sisters telling me about their lives. In Chapters One and Two, we met Sarah Rushton walking her land grant in Westchester, Nova Scotia with her daughter Elizabeth and grandchildren. Sarah, her husband Jeremiah, and his family had run a successful cordwaining business in New York City during the Revolutionary War, but were exiled as Loyalists at the peace. Promised a land grant in Nova Scotia as a soldier with the Westchester Refugees, the family boarded a ship for the unknown.  Elizabeth, fretting over her own husband's plans to move the family to Upper Canada, asked, “How do you know when to go? What do you bring to a new life in the wilderness?” The Story of the Evacuee’s Wife...a fictional look “Then what happened, Grannie?” Eddie wanted to know as the family continued walking along the land grant’s path. “Did the big ship bring you right here?” He looked around them at the narrow fast-flowing brook. “No, silly...

  Sarah speaks in the voice of my grandmother and her sisters. In Chapters One thru Three, we met Sarah Rushton walking her land grant in 1827 Westchester, Nova Scotia with her daughter Elizabeth and grandchildren. Sarah, her husband Jeremiah, and his family were exiled from New York City as Loyalists at the close of the Revolutionary War. Promised a land grant by the British as a soldier with the Westchester Refugees, the family boarded a ship for the unknown. While the children were enthralled hearing about the big ship, berries, and brown cow, Elizabeth, fretting over her own husband's plans to move the family to Upper Canada, asked, “What did you know about starting a new life in the wilderness? What did you do first?” The Story of the Refugee’s Wife....a fictional look Elizabeth touched Sarah’s arm to let the children run ahead on the meadow brook’s U-shaped path. “But I’ll be leaving for a wilderness, Mama,” she whispered plaintively. “No houses. No roads. No towns.” ...

    The Black Loyalists suffer a double whammy in American history…they supported the losing side in our origin story, and they don’t fit our founding myth that the Declaration of Independence declared all men are created equal and deserve life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness. Or that we’re the good guys. The Virginia Proclamation is not in the Virginia public school curriculum. Patrick Henry’s speech advocating independence from England, given at St. John’s Church in Richmond, is. 1 "Is life so dear, or peace so sweet, as to be purchased at the price of chains and slavery? Forbid it, Almighty God! I know not what course others may take; but as for me, give me liberty or give me death!" 2 It is obvious to everyone who hears it that Patrick Henry, a slaveholder, held some cognitive dissonance he probably didn’t even notice.