The runaway ads abstracted for this new volume are more diverse than have appeared in previous ones. For instance, multiple ads for slave and Native American runaways appear, and they are identified by race and surname (when available). The Pennsylvania Slave Act, passed on March 19, 1780, which was the first extensive abolition legislation in the western hemisphere, likely encouraged some African Americans to seek their freedom in Pennsylvania. The act stopped the importation of slaves into the state, required all slaves to be registered, and established that all children born in the state were free, regardless of race or parentage. Many of the newspaper ads provide distinctive physical features of the escapees, such as “a slow hobbling gait” or “his feet remarkably deformed,” or “both his arms are marked with the letters W. H.” As he has with previous books, Mr. Boyle has included ads placed by men whose spouses “eloped” from them for one reason or another.

Mr. Boyle’s transcriptions of the runaway ads, taken from twenty-eight different newspapers (including papers from Rhode Island to Virginia, as well as Pennsylvania), provide valuable demographic information, giving name, age, sex, height, place of origin, clothing, occupation, speech, physical imperfections, and sometimes personal vignettes. Individuals whose very existence would have been hidden from us in late 18^th-century newspapers.

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The population was relatively sparse with only a few small burghs mostly lying along the east coast, all of which had medieval origins. The burghs were Dingwall, Tain, Fortrose, Cromarty, Dornoch, Wick, and Inverness, with Scrabster and Thurso by the Pentland Firth, and Kingussie lying within the highlands. The only sizable burgh was Inverness. The people at the time were overwhelmingly Gaelic speakers, with Lowland Scots — who spoke a dialect of English — settled in the burghs. Similarly, placenames were predominantly in Gaelic though a few were based on Norse originals, such as Ullapool, based on Ulapul — Norse for ‘Wolf farm’– or Wick, from Vik the Norse for ‘bay’. Several local surnames superficially in Gaelic include a Norse element, such as McLeod or MacLeoid from the Norse ‘son of Ljotr’, or MacCorquodale based on the Norwegian personal name ‘Thorketill’.  There are also a few placenames indicating a Pictish origin, dating before 1000 AD, such as Petty, or Pitcalnie, or Pitkerrie. The Picts inhabited much of Scotland before the early Middle Ages, while the Norse Vikings settled in the Northern Isles, the Hebrides, and what is now Caithness and Sutherland [Suderland in Norse]. In the Medieval period the inhabitants spoke Norn, a Norse dialect, in such localities. However, by the seventeenth century Gaelic and Scots English were predominant.  The Reformation of the sixteenth century resulted in Scotland becoming officially a Protestant nation; however, in parts of the Highlands there were Roman Catholic enclaves, notably in Inverness-shire and on Barra.

Migration outwards from the Northern Highlands was initially small scale, apart from mercenaries who were recruited to fight for Scandinavia and the Netherlands, many of whom settled there. The Wars of the Three Kingdoms, 1638-1651, led to enforced emigration or the transportation of prisoners of war, most of whom were captured at the Battle of Dunbar in 1650 or the Siege of Worcester in 1651. These men were banished to the English colonies in the Caribbean, notably Barbados, or to Virginia and New England; they can be identified by their distinctive local surnames. Large-scale emigration from the Northern Highlands began in the eighteenth century and especially after the Highland Clearances of the mid-nineteenth century. The main clans or families during the seventeenth century were Sinclairs, Mackays, Sutherlands, McLeods, Rosses, Stewarts, McKenzies, Munros, Urquharts, Frasers, McDonnells, Chisholms, MacPhersons, McGillivrays, Davidsons, Gunns, McKinnons, MacDonalds, McLeans, Camerons, and Roses.

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Each chapter in Victory or Death provides a summary of specific events that were key to the War’s outcome. At the conclusion of every chapter, the author reviews the decisions, for good or ill, that led to the result. For example, he shows that England’s pyrrhic victory at Bunker Hill both raised the morale and preserved the numbers of American combatants, while exposing the danger of British overconfidence.  Making good use of illustrations of the people and places of the American Revolution, Mr. Crowder focuses on these momentous choices made by leaders on both sides:

• Selection of George Washington as America’s Commander-in-Chief
• Britain’s frontal assault on Bunker [Breed’s] Hill
• America’s ill-fated siege of Quebec
• General Howe’s reluctance to finish off the Americans in New York
• Washington’s attack on Trenton
• Britain’s miscues at Saratoga
• Significance of Washington’s Spy Ring
• How decisions about African Americans affected the outcome
• Choices made at Valley Forge to preserve the American army
• The Battle of King’s Mountain
• Appointment of Nathaniel Greene as Commander of America’s Southern army
• Yorktown

Victory or Death concludes with the author’s endnotes, a bibliography, and a detailed index to persons and places. Clearfield Company is pleased to add it to its collection of Revolutionary War titles written by Jack Darrell Crowder.

About the Author: Jack Darrell Crowder is a retired teacher and administrator with forty plus years in the classroom. He holds B.A. and master’s degrees from Texas Christian University and has written twelve books on the American Revolution. He gives talks on the Revolutionary War to school classes, historical societies, and Daughters of the American Revolution chapters.

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Mr. Boyle examined thirty newspapers, from New England to Maryland, including The Vermont Journal, The Boston Evening Post, The Boston Gazette, The Connecticut Courant, The Connecticut Journal, The Essex Gazette, The Massachusetts Spy, The New Hampshire Gazette, The Newport Mercury, Pennsylvania Ledger, The New York Journal, The Norwich Packet, and The Maryland Gazette.

Each ad gives a number of details about the runaway and his/her master, including names and aliases of the runaway, physical description, personality quirks if any, location in New England (including the future states of Vermont and Maine), and where to contact the advertiser. This book contains about 1,200 ads and names over 2,200 persons.

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Curiously, several ads seem to have been intended to let the runaways know how little the master thought of them as very low rewards were posted. In 1774, Jesse Kimball advertised for his apprentice, Nathan Estry, but offered only “One Shilling reward, but No Charges.” The next year David Robinson offered “three Spanish Potatoes Reward” for William Jenneis, a runaway boy. Hezekiah Stevens offered only “ONE PENNY Lawful Money REWARD” for his apprentice John Campbell. The printers of The Boston Evening Post offered but “ONE PENNY” for apprentice James Hogan, who had developed great proficiency in “Profaneness, Lying, and some ancient and modern Vices.”

This compilation lists all individuals mentioned in the ads. If an individual is listed with more than one name, all the names appear in the index. While many of the Negroes and some Indians are listed as slaves, many are not, so they may have been paid servants. In compiling the present work, Mr. Boyle examined over a score of newspapers from New England to Maryland, including The Boston News-Letter, The Boston Post-Boy, The Boston Gazette, The Connecticut Courant, The Connecticut Gazette, The Massachusetts Spy, The New Hampshire Gazette, The Pennsylvania Gazette, The New York Gazette, and The Maryland Gazette.

Each ad in this collection conveys a number of details about the runaway and his/her master, including names and aliases of the runaway, physical description, personality quirks if any, location in New England (including the future states of Vermont and Maine), and where to contact the advertiser. In all, this book contains about 1,200 ads and names over 2,200 persons with connections to colonial New England.

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Some were well described, some not at all. Indented servant John Folsom “had a remarkable homely Countenance.” Sarah Kelly, in describing the woman who ran away with her “loving husband,” referred to that woman’s “short flat Nose, like the Nose of a Skunk, with a scalded Head, has the Itch, and is lousey, very much given to lying and whoring.”

This compilation lists all individuals mentioned. If an individual is listed with more than one name, all the names appear in the index. Mr. Boyle examined 28 newspapers from New England to Maryland, including The Boston News-Letter, The Boston Post-Boy, The Boston Gazette, The Connecticut Courant, The Connecticut Gazette, The Massaxhusetts Spy, The New Hampshire Gazette, The Pennsylvania Gazette, The New York Gazette, and The Maryland Gazette.

Each ad conveys a number of details about the runaway and his/her master, including names and aliases of the runaway, physical description, personality quirks if any, location in New England (including the future states of Vermont and Maine), and where to contact the advertiser. In all, this book contains about 1,200 ads and names over 2,200 persons with connections to colonial New England.

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Some, though not all, of Mr. Boyle’s runaways are well described. For example, Deserter Benjamin Furrow was missing the thumb of his left hand; John Nicholas “has a large scar on the forehead between him eyes, which he says was made with a cutlass”; and John Rimner was “marked and scarred very much with the King’s Evil under his Chin and on his Neck.”

In compiling the present work, Mr. Boyle examined 25 newspapers from New England to Maryland. Each ad conveys a number of details about the runaway and his/her master, including names and aliases of the runaway, physical description, personality quirks if any, location in New England (including the future states of Vermont and Maine), and where to contact the advertiser. In all, this book contains about 1,500 runaway ads and names over 3,000 persons with connections to colonial New England.

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The advertisers discovered that tracking an individual by name often led to a dead end, particularly since multiple names were common and middle names were not often used at this time. For example, one listing says that Jonathan Lawrence was the victim of a theft by a man who “calls himself by several Names, viz. John St. Ambrose, or John Ambrose, but changes his Name as suits him best.” Runaway ladies used multiple names, such as “a Woman who goes by the Name of Elizabeth Richardson, but her true Name is suppos’d to be Mary Rogers, and is a noted Thief, and was committed for several Thefts.” Researchers should also be prepared for phonetic spellings of people they are interested in, for example Wamscom/Wombscom, Bargary/Bargery and Jonson/Johnston/Johnson. This work also includes individuals with New England connections who did not run away from those colonies (e.g., Newal Coomes was advertised in New York as “an New-England man” who “pretends to be a Doctor.”).

This compilation lists all individuals mentioned in the advertisements. If an individual is listed with more than one name, all the names appear in the index. In compiling the work, Mr. Boyle examined 23 newspapers from New England to Maryland. Each ad conveys a number of details about the runaway and his/her master, including names and aliases of the runaway, physical description, personality quirks (if any), location in New England (including the future states of Vermont and Maine), and where to contact the advertiser. In all, this book contains about 1,500 runaway ads and names over 3,000 persons with connections to colonial New England.

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Simultaneously, Cleverley has written a treatise on how to produce a family history, showing by example how family stories can be discovered, often more easily than thought, and what genealogy researchers may be able to find in today’s rich cyber world of family history.

The scope of Family Stories . . . and How I Found Mine spreads out over a millennium. The story begins with Matilda, wife of William the Conqueror, before jumping to the Greene family serving in the court of Plantagenet kings from 1300 to 1500. Next come chapters devoted to Cleverley’s Puritan New England ancestors of the 1600s, their subsequent settlement in Rhode Island by the 1700s, and service at the Battle of Concord in 1775. From the 1830s to 1860s, we follow Cleverley descendants to Missouri and Kansas, where they served in the western Indian Wars, and later to Utah and Idaho. The story concludes with a stirring account of Seija Cleverley (the author’s wife) and her family’s hardships during Finland’s struggles with Soviet Russia and during the Second World War. Each chapter, including the methodological commentary, is self-contained. The reader can pick up the book at any point for a complete experience of a specific era and family members under discussion or can read the volume straight through in its entirety. Either way, this is a volume that entertains as it enlightens, and teaches as it chronicles a family history.

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