The Victoria branch of the United Empire Loyalists’ Association of Canada have invited me to speak at their monthly meeting on February 8, 2020 to talk about my book The Loyalist and about my ancestor Michael Eisan. I consider this a great honour. Many Canadians, and I believe those who are members of UEL are just the tip of the iceberg, are descended from the thousands of refugees who fled after the American Revolution, or as I prefer to call it, the first American Civil War

In 2012, my husband David and I went to South Carolina to see where Michael Greissen Frein and the Palatines ended up. They were sent from Charlestown to the interior and received land along the tributaries of the Savannah River. The British settlers along the coast wanted them as a buffer against the native population. The Palatines established the town of Londonborough, which they named for the town that had saved them. This town no longer exists so we visited the closest t

In the book The Loyalists at Kings Mountain, it is written that Michael Isham “evacuated Fort Ninety Six with Lt. Col. John H. Cruger.” This places him at another important battle of the American Revolution in the south: the Siege of Ninety Six. In 2012, we visited this battle site near Edgefield, South Carolina. My husband David beside a revolutionary soldier. Some enactors at Ninety Six Ninety Six was originally a trading post that was fortified by the British during the Re

The Loyalist is my great-great-great-great-grandfather who came to be known as Michael Eisan, though he had many names over the course of the century in which he lived. Born in about 1730 in the Palatine region of Germany, his name was Michael Greissen Frein. On the passenger list of the ship that took him to South Carolina, and in the record of his land grant there, his name is spelled in various ways, such as Greisen Frier. In South Carolina, he shortened his name and in th

Ninety Six was the name of a trading post and then a town, fort and Revolutionary battle site in the back country of South Carolina. Nobody seems to know why it is called by that name. The best guess is that it was 96 miles to a nearby Indian village. All I know is that my ancestor Michael Eisan served in the Loyalist militia there during the American revolution. He was probably at the siege of the fort that took place in 1781. Here are some enactors in front of the gift shop

The Battle of King’s Mountain was a pivotal battle of the American Revolution. All of those who fought were American militiamen with the one exception of Colonel Patrick Ferguson, a Scot, who led the Loyalists. This is his monument: I visited the historic site on a sunny day in October, and the play of shadow on the marker makes it almost impossible to read the inscription. Suffice to say, he was despised by his enemy and loved by his men, a good epitaph for a soldier. He had