Deacon Frye

Black Power Long Rifle, by Robert Griffing: Courtesy, Lord Nelson's (OK, I'm stretchin' it a bit.)

It never hurts to ask, Mad Mary. Movie swords are often licensed, and the makere doesn't necessarily hold the license. However, Swatton seems to have used the same design for two different movies, so perhaps he does. You might email him and ask. As a maker told me once: "Asking is free".

Thankee, Touring Gentleman. I've been rackin' me brains tryin' to recall where I mislaid that site. I kept thinkin' David Baker. It's interesting that the two Barbossa swords are essentially identical to the Napoleonic sword at the site used in Highlander Endgame. If memory serves me right, it does look a lot like some of the French horseman's swords used during the Napoleonic era. If the guard were heavy and that shell solid, the guard would also look a lot like those of some of the German dragoon swords from earlier in the 18th century. Of course, both would have had longer, slightly broader blades.

I'm looking at Warren Moore's Weapons of the American Revolution...and Accoutrements. It appears that the defining aspect of the true Queen Anne is the fact that the lock mechanism was integral to the breech block--it could not be removed. The stock ended at the breech. The back half of the" lock "plate" would be set into the wood, but the forward half was part of the breech. Not all Queen Annes had turn-off barrels. Moore pictures an example with a ramrod under the barrel: (page 18, specimen P-12)

Claire, I believe this is the preface to Johnson's fictional novel of the same name. He appears to be simply setting up his story with a time-honored literary convention. Has anyone read the book? The idea of mixing John Paul Jones and Treasure Island doesn't appeal to me much.

From: World Wide School John, I haven't seen At Last: A Christmas in The West Indies, but it seems to have been popular and widely known in its time. The shipwreck story does seem to fit better with the "Drink and the Devil did for the rest" line.

I'll eagerly await the next installment.

John, I haven't read it, but I understand that some of the selections are excerpts from novels. For instance, "The China Fleet" is from O'Brian's HMS Surprise and "Nantucket Sleigh Ride" is, as one might suspect, from Moby Dick.

On holiday in Maine, a few years back, I braved the the rather nasty traffic in Bath(?) to locate what was supposed to be their store back when they were Swords 's Stuff. They actually had had a physical presence there, but when I arrived, it was a card/gift shop, and I was told that they had gone out of business.

What I'm thinking, Claire, is that John and his neighbors may have been sent to Boston, and not Halifax. In August '75, Howe and the British were still firmly ensconced in Boston. Boston was the base of their operations in this theater. They wouldn't evacuate to Halifax until the following year. If you look at the two words following "Cap't. Graves", the second appears to me to be "landmen" or "landsmen". The first, while badly disfigured, may well be "being". "Being land(s)men" here would of course refer to John and the other farmers form Medford. A possible scenario: The men of Medford, being in desperate need of food for their families and fodder to keep their livestock alive, charter a sloop in one of the coastal towns to take them eastward to NS. The reason for the significant number coming along is to harvest the hay and crops which would still be standing in the fields in August. They are taken by Commanders Dawson and Graves, who on determining that they are rebels take the sloop as a prize. Always in need of trained seamen they impress them into His Majesty's service. Not being desperate enough to go to the trouble of training landsmen, however, they send the farmers to be held in Boston.

Hmm ... Boston itself was still in British hands under Howe at this point. One thing that occurs to me is that the Royal Navy has kept all ship's logs going back well before this period (except for the ones that went to the bottom or were captured). It might be worth tracking down, though entries tend to be laconic ("captured rebel sloop").

I have a good feeling about Lieutenant Dawson, Claire. After all, how many Dawsons could they have had commanding sloops of war in these waters? There's a more in-depth account of the battle with the Independence here: http://kingstonobserver.com/history-septem...mber-2002.shtml I'm afraid I haven't done so well with Commander Graves so far. The thing about the drought has me a bit stymied. If there was in fact a drought it should be verifiable. And if there was a drought, the story could be accepted at face value--it would have been worth the risk to obtain food and fodder. They would have no trouble trading in Nova Scotia--several settlements were of folks who had migrated from the lower colonies and were sympathetic to the American cause. The thing is, I have no recollection of a drought in Massachussetts at this time, and a cursory search turns up nothing. By contrast, drought and its effect on the western Massachussets farmers is often cited as a major contributing factor to Shay's Rebellion of 1785-6. Of course, this doesn't mean there wasn't a drought, just that I can't find it. I think its most likely that there was a drought, but there was so much going on at the time that perhaps it went unnoticed in most historical accounts. On the other hand, if further research were to turn up no drought, one might suspect that this is a code of sorts, as it wouldn't make a very convincing cover story. It strikes me that the stated crew of the sloop is rather small for privateering. On the other hand it is larger than the normal crew of a merchant vessel that size. It's possible they may have been doing some espionage work or perhaps intended to drum up support for the rebellion in Nova Scotia. Wild guesses, perhaps, but see this chapter from The History of Nova Scotia: The Awakening Interestingly enough, our HMS Hope, trailing her prize and in the company of some other vessels makes an appearance in a footnote to this chapter: A couple of thoughts on the text of your letter: Where you have "went in a sloop east", I believe it reads: "went in a sloop eastward". This may seem nitpicky, but I believe the folks in that area and time used "the eastward" to refer to the Gulf of Maine, much as we say Down East to refer to the Maine coast. Also, where you have "Cap. Graves ( ) ( ) ( ) of ( ) & ( ) send ( ) to (Dawson?)", the word in the original looks like "Boston" to me rather than "Dawson". I can't make out the words in between either, or why some are crossed out.

Sailing Off to Serve

Claire, I did some poking about and came up with a few links. I'm sure you're aware of this already, but Sarah seems to have been a remarkable woman, and I get the impression she wore the pants in the family: http://www.medford.org/History/book/fulton.htm http://www.szumski.org/gendb/d0000/g0000045.html http://www.moondance.org/2001/summer01/col...mns/column3.htm http://netsquirrel.com/hunt/contest/junvol...l01/v01n05a.htm http://userpages.aug.com/captbarb/spies.html http://www.nps.gov/fopo/exhibits/women/women2.htm There were many more. It's possible the third husband in your letter, David, may be a member of the Goudy (Goudie, other spelling variants) family that Capt. Weaver mentions on the Prison Ships thread.

Mad Mary, I was down there a few years back, and spoke to one of the captains. It was my impression that they did take them out for the occasional sail. They're fully Coast-Guard compliant, with diesel engines, etc. Here's some info on volunteering which states that volunteers help maintain and sail the ships: http://www.historyisfun.org/supportus/support.cfm

I guess that explains why it was a bit rough on our noses!

Is that hand-woven and dyed wool, Tales? Hehe just kidding don't shoot me with that QA!

Falconer's Dictionary, (1780) defines the Sloop of War: And further in discussion of the rating system (the sloop of war was unrated):

A couple of snuff history sites: A Brief History of Snuff Snuff History It's also called smokeless tobacco these days: U.S. Smokeless Tobacco Co.

Here's an English 19th-century example from Butterfields:

That pistol appears to have a swiveling retaining device at the muzzle for the ramrod, though it's hard to day for sure with the small pic. These are found on some nineteenth-century pistols, but I don't recall ever seeing them earlier than that.

Angus, I am very glad that you have disabled this feature. I haven't visited the forums in a while, and those pop-ups were the reason. I'm not the member you mention, but on two separate occasions, McAffee caught one of those pop-ups downloading what it identified as two virus files onto the computer that I use at, ahem, a different location. Without going into details, it was quite problematic. Here at home, I was bringing a new pc online, and delayed visiting here until I made sure I had my antiviral, anti-pop-up and firewall act together. I would strongly recommend to the members here that you scan your computers after getting the most recent updates for your AV software. I would also recommend getting it scanned by an anti-syware/adware program. (I supect this is what the pop-up was installing). I believe these can be had free on the web. AV software won't necessarily pick up these nasty little implants. I'm a Googler, and Google has a very convenient toolbar available for free. The latest version has an option to disable pop-ups, which has worked well for me. It should be noted that any add-on browser software can bring it's own vulnerabilities, but I think in this case the advantages outweigh any risk. So, don't let yourself be pirated. Nothing more embarrassing than a pirated pirate. BTW, since it has been awhile, I don't recall the Synth ad. What was particularly obnoxious about it?

This came up elsewhere. I love seafarin' and swashbucklin' as much as the next pirate, and I'm hoping to see a good movie with both before I enter my dotage. Perhaps M&C/FSOTW will fill the bill--we'll see. Having said that, in spite of the fact that it contains nothing of either "on-stage", I think Howard Pyle's story Blueskin the Pirate would make a real gem of a "pirate" movie if done properly.

I fell asleep just as it started. Will try to catch it this weekend.

The term was also used to denote a school or pod of whales.