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Showing 131–140 of 1044 results for Virtual Tour of Washington's Field Headquarters

Finding Freedom: London - Birch Pass

In the terms of the surrender to the Americans, the British were to return all captured property—including human property. The British did not adhere to this stipulation, and instead evacuated thousands of free and formerly enslaved men and women to Canada. Birch Passes, named for British Brigadier General Samuel Birch, were given to those who could prove they sought the protection of the British forces during the war. The passes, such as this example, guaranteed a place on a departing ship. London may have received one. Cato Rammsay, an enslaved man who escaped from Norfolk, Virginia, received this Birch Pass that allowed him to go to Nova Scotia as a free person.

Passport for Cato Ramsay to emigrate to Nova Scotia, 21 April 1783; NSA, Gideon White fonds, MG 1 vol. 948 no. 196

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Virtual Exhibit

When Women Lost the Vote: A Revolutionary Story: Eleanor Boylan

Eleanor Boylan voted when she was about 51 years old and a widow. She lived until 1846 when she died at about the age of 97.

Virtual Exhibit

When Women Lost the Vote: A Revolutionary Story: Miriam Venable

Miriam Venable voted along with her mother, brother, uncles, and grandfather in 1807. She is buried in the churchyard of Trinity Episcopal Church in Moorestown, New Jersey.

Virtual Exhibit

When Women Lost the Vote: A Revolutionary Story: Women of the Holton Family

Two women named Christianna Holton (mother and daughter) voted in Upper Penns Neck Township elections between 1800 and 1806. They were both members of the Oldman’s Creek Moravian Church.

Virtual Exhibit

Finding Freedom: Andrew - Revolutionary War Pension Pay Certificate

Andrew Ferguson received veteran’s pension payments from the United States Government totaling $20 each year. Like many of his fellow veterans, Ferguson struggled with poverty as an elderly man. His pension payments helped him pay for food, clothing, and a place to live. Andrew passed away in 1855 in Indiana at about the age of 90.

National Archives and Records Administration, Washington, DC

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Virtual Exhibit

When Women Lost the Vote: A Revolutionary Story: Christiana Kitts

A woman of Swedish descent, Christiana Kitts was born in the 1740s. She voted in December 1800 and died the following year, leaving her estate to her children and grandchildren.

Virtual Exhibit

Finding Freedom: Andrew - United States Census, 1850

Andrew Ferguson moved to Indiana (which became a state in 1816) after the Revolutionary War. The 1850 United States Census, shown here, documents Ferguson’s residence in Monroe County. Ferguson and his wife Jane (also known as Jenny; married in 1844) are listed near the bottom of the page. “B” in the column to the right of their age and gender stands for Black, their race. Andrew Ferguson is listed as being 95 years old (or born in about 1755), but he had previously claimed that he was born in about 1765.

National Archives and Records Administration, Washington, DC/Ancestry.com

Virtual Exhibit

Finding Freedom: Andrew - Gravestone

Andrew Ferguson is buried in Rose Hill Cemetery in Bloomington, Indiana. This stone, dedicated by the Daughters of the American Revolution in 1984, marks his grave.

Photo by Rich Janzaruk, “Bloomington Herald-Times”

Virtual Exhibit

When Women Lost the Vote: A Revolutionary Story: How Did the Vote Expand?: New Jersey’s Revolutionary Decade

New Jersey became the first and only state to legally enfranchise women in 1790, when state legislatures reformed the New Jersey State Constitution’s election law to include the words “he or she.” It proclaimed what the New Jersey Constitution of 1776 had only implied: that propertied women could vote. This statute was neither accidental nor insignificant, and it changed the voting landscape in the state. Women voting was just one part of a growing national and international movement among some women to increase women’s rights, a movement inspired by Revolutionary-era ideology in both America and Europe. And while New Jersey blazed the trail in the new nation, it expressed a tide rising in other states as well, like Massachusetts, where Abigail Adams endorsed women voting in New Jersey.

Virtual Exhibit

The Davenport Letters: February 15, 1783

The winter of 1782 dragged on as James Davenport was encamped with the Continental Army at New Windsor, New York. This particular letter hints at the religious education that Davenport must have received as a child in Dorchester. Like many young Americans, he would have learned to read and write with the Bible as a primary learning and teaching tool. Two of his references – to a coming “jubilee” in which the soldiers would become free and to making bricks without straw under strict taskmasters – would have been familiar to most people as both common idioms and ideas rooted in Christian tradition. And both references helped Davenport convey the increasing resentment he felt at his situation, stuck in an army waiting for peace. “We hope to get free from our Slaveng soon,” he wrote.

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