I’m wondering whether anyone has made progress in the past nine decades in
identifying a "French Traveler" diarist who visited the Virginia and other
colonies in 1765. Details below.
Jon Kukla
Historians have long been familiar with the “Journal of a French Traveller
in the Colonies, 1765,” published in the American Historical Review (26
[July 1921]: 726-747 and 27 [October 1921]: 70-89) from a manuscript in the
Archives Nationales. The author was unknown – more on that below – but the
diarist’s notes about Patrick Henry’s “Caesar-Brutus” Stamp-Act speech were
brought to wider audiences by Samuel Eliot Morison and Edmund S. Morgan and
have frequently been republished.
The extant diary begins in Jamaica on December 4, 1764, and ends in
Philadelphia on September 7, 1765. The diarist apparently left the colonies
late in October 1765.
The AHR Editor identifies the diarist as “a Catholic, and apparently a
Frenchman, indeed apparently an agent of the French government,” otherwise
unidentified except that from other evidence in the French archives “he was
not M. de Pontleroy, whom Choiseul sent over to inspect the colonies in
1764.” From the details of the situations and people mentioned, it is pretty
clear that the diarist was male (something the AHR editors also presumed)
and obvious that he enjoyed entré to officialdom and well-connected
introductions to gentry society in his travels.
Focusing especially on the persons and places mentioned in the diary, I have
looked through the extant issues of the Virginia and Maryland Gazettes (but
not PA, NJ or NY papers); many contemporary Virginia and some Maryland
published sources such as Jack Greene’s Landon Carter’s diary, Ron Hoffman
et al’s Charles Carroll of Carrollton papers, etc. And I’ve tried a slew of
full-text searches in JSTOR for persons mentioned in the May-October portion
of the diary (recognizing that although JSTOR now includes VMHB and PMHB
articles it does not yet access Maryland or New Jersey historical journals.)
In short, I’ve done my homework in the primary sources within my reach.
So, in the hope that someone may have already identified the diarist or
stumbled upon some clue to “his” identity in other letters, newspapers,
diaries or whatever, I’ve compiled a succinct chronology/itinerary from mid
April 1765 through early September 1765. This covers the diarist’s travels
from the North Carolina/Virginia line northward to New York and
Philadelphia. I’ve mentioned only a few of the most prominent people
mentioned in the text. The full text of the diary has many more – especially
during his stays in Annapolis and Philadelphia, and is available in the June
and September 1921 numbers of the AHR.
CHRONOLOGICAL ITINERARY
After traveling in North Carolina the diarist entered Virginia in mid April
1765:
April 16: Suffolk VA
April 17-19: Portsmouth VA
April 20-24: Norfolk VA
April 24: Hampton and York[town] VA
April 25-May 14: Williamsburg VA
April 28: Visits Jamestown VA
May 14-15: Travels from Williamsburg to Norfolk VA
May 16-29: Norfolk VA
May 19: Visits Portsmouth VA
May 29: Norfolk to Hampton to York[town] VA
May 30-June 5: Williamsburg VA
June 5: Chiswell’s Ordinary and New Kent County VA
June 6-27: New Castle in Hanover County VA
June 7: Todd’s Bridge (now Aylett) VA
June 8: Port Royal VA
June 9-11: Port Tobacco MD
June 11: Melwood Plantation near Piscataway MD
June 12: Upper Marlborough MD
June 13-18: Annapolis MD
June 19-20: Tulip Hill plantation (Galloway family) MD
June 21: Annapolis MD
June 22: White Hall plantation (Lt. Gov. Horatio Sharpe) MD
June 23-25: Baltimore MD
June 25: Annapolis MD
June 26: Visits [Upper] Marlborough Court MD
June 27-July 1: Tulip Hill MD
July 1-16: Annapolis MD
July 20-23: White Hall plantation (Lt. Gov. Horatio Sharpe) MD
July 23-26: Annapolis MD
July 26: Church Hill MD
July 27: Frederick[town] and Georgetown MD
July 28: New Castle MD
July 29: Chester MD and Philadelphia PA
July 29-August 20: Philadelphia PA
August 5: Visits Germantown PA
August 7: Visits falls of the Schuylkill
August 10: Dines with Lt. Gov. John Penn
August 12: Visits Rev. Robert Harding SJ at Catholic Mission
August 20: Departs Philadelphia for New York
August 21: [Perth] Amboy NJ
August 22-26: Staten Island and New York NY
August 26: Long Island NY
August 27-Sept 3: Returns to New York NY
August 27: Dines with Gen. Thomas Gage and Mrs. Gage
September 3: Sleeps at Woodbridge NJ en route to Philadelphia
September 4: Brunswick, Princeton, and Trenton NJ
September 5-October: Back in Philadelphia PA
September 6: Dines with Lt. Gov. John Penn
September 7: Final dated entry.
September 7: Dines with PA Attorney General Andrew Allen
Late October 1765: Diarist returns to Europe.
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Jon Kukla
www.JonKukla.com
Online interview : http://www.virginiavoice.org/celebrity.html
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