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1776-1785 Revolutionary War Era Loyalist, fled to Halifax Copy Letters Archive

Currency:USD Category:Collectibles Start Price:1,300.00 USD Estimated At:1,800.00 - 2,000.00 USD
1776-1785 Revolutionary War Era Loyalist, fled to Halifax Copy Letters Archive
American Revolution
1776 to 1785 Revolutionary War Era Copy Letters Bound Archive of a British Loyalist who fled to Halifax, Canada
1776 to 1785-Dated Revolutionary War Period, Fair Copy, String-Bound Archive of Transcribed Copy Letters of a British Loyalist who fled to Halifax, Canada from Boston Silvester Gardiner, Choice Very Fine.
A wonderful early Fair Copy String Bound Book of the Letters between 1776 to 1785-Dated Revolutionary War Era period, of Silvester Gardiner, later compiled by Alpheus S. Packard, Sr. (1798-1884) a faculty member of Bowdoin College in Maine for 65 years, who served as acting President of Bowdoin College the year before his death in 1883, his written transcriptions of over 50 pages. The Archive is nicely penned in rich brown ink which is easily readable and clear on clean early wove paper. The original letters by Gardiner were written from various places including Halifax, Nova Scotia, Poole, England and London. Silvester Gardiner was a British Loyalist who fled to Canada when the British Army evacuated Boston. He and the other Loyalists lost their possessions to the American rebels. Here, Gardiner explains in his first letter how he and the other Loyalists left Boston and arrived at Halifax. The Archive begins, in part:

“Halifax May 9, 1776 --- Dear Sir, -- I wrote you in Jany last wherein I mentioned my fear of the Troops leaving the Town of Boston, which they did on the 17th day of March in such a precipitate manner as gave the friends of government only four or five days notice, which put them under the necessity of leaving almost everything they had. As no vessel of Seaman were to be found so suddenly to transport themselves with their effects, which threw them into the utmost distress; indeed the General gave them all the assistance he could by assigning them some places in the Transport, but then there was not room to carry off any of their effects, and but very little of their household furniture. And what they did was chiefly destroyed of stolen by the Soldiers or Sailors. On their arrival at this miserable place, it was with the greatest difficulty, they could get houses to screen themselves from the weather. Housed did I say, they hardly deserve the name. The wretched inhabitants took every advantage of our misfortunes...”

Throughout the Archive of transcribed copy letters, Gardiner also writes of, “the Rebellion”, the military leadership by the Howes; “this poor nation” of England (which has “not only the Americans to contend with but France & Spain”) and much more. Worthy of more research, yet having wonderful historic contemporary content and perspective.
Dr. Silvester Gardiner (June 29, 1708 – August 8, 1786) was a physician, pharmaceutical merchant and land developer of Maine. He was born in South Kingstown, Rhode Island, the son of William Gardiner and Abigail Remington.

After studying medicine in New York, London and Paris, Dr. Gardiner opened a practice in Boston, where he became a lecturer on anatomy. He actively promoted inoculation for small pox, for which he proposed and established a hospital in 1761. But he made his fortune importing drugs for distribution and sale.

He contributed generously to the construction of Boston's King's Chapel, where he was a warden, and also to the compilation and publication of a prayer book. But he is most remembered for his purchase and development of over 100,000 acres (400 km²) of wilderness on the Kennebec River in Maine, where he founded what is today the city of Gardiner.