The period 1776 – 1820 was a pivotal period in American history, and the Winslow Papers contribute greatly to a complete understanding of the Eastern Seaboard of North America during that time. The collection consists of two thousand five hundred letters and documents covering the Revolutionary period, but also the years that led up to it and those which followed. The Loyalists’ Odyssey, a crucial aspect of the Revolution, is covered in a uniquely detailed way. Edward Winslow (1747 – 1815), was a Massachusetts patrician descended from a Pilgrim Father.

Throughout the Revolutionary war he played a wide-ranging military role, and in 1783 he and his family went into permanent exile in Nova Scotia, where he led the partition movement that resulted in the creation of New Brunswick, a quintessentially Loyalist province, in 1784.

“No private collection of papers in Canada… can compare with the Winslow collection”. W.0. Raymond (1901).

15 reels
Reference: WIN