The Winslow Papers

Edward Winslow was a direct descendant of the first Edward Winslow who came to the Plymouth Colony on the Mayflower in 1620. He was educated at Harvard College, and following his graduation in 1765, he was appointed to several civic offices in colonial Massachusetts and moved in the governing circle of the Boston elite.With the coming of the American Revolution, he joined the British forces in Boston, and in 1776 left his family to accompany the British troops to Halifax, Nova Scotia. While in Halifax he was appointed Muster Master General of all Provincial (Loyalist) forces in North America with the rank of Lieutenant-Colonel. Later the same year he returned to New York with the troops under the command of General Sir William Howe and continued to hold his rank and position until the end of the war in 1783.For the Winslow family, the war resulted in suffering, deprivation, and the loss of property. They survived until the end of the conflict, like so many thousands of dispossessed Loyalist refugees in New York City, completely dependent upon the British government.In 1783, Winslow settled with his family at Granville, Nova Scotia, but later moved to the St. John River where he was involved in settling the Loyalist regiments. His goal of creating a separate Loyalist province was finally realized when New Brunswick was set off as a separate jurisdiction from Nova Scotia in 1784.

While Winslow struggled to support his family by farming, several appointments, although none of them lucrative, gave him an opportunity to play an important role in the public affairs of the new colony. He was a member of the Executive Council, Surrogate General of the Province, Judge of the Inferior Court of Common Pleas for York County, Muster Master of the King’s New Brunswick Regiment, secretary to the International Boundary Commission of 1796 -1798, and Deputy Surveyor of the King’s Woods. However, it was not until 1807, when he was appointed to the New Brunswick Supreme Court and served as Administrator of the Province in 1808, that he received the recognition he had earned and so richly deserved.

The University Archives and Special Collections at the University of New Brunswick holds much of the original Winslow family material. There has been much work done in attempts to make the Winslow family papers more accessible to historians and members of the community. There is a selection of papers that have been digitized and there is a large collection of papers that were microfilmed.

Unlike the Saunders material, only selections of certain Winslow letters were stolen. It is evident that this archival material were taken for philately purposes as the missing material entirely consists of stampless covers. In a few instances, the last page of a letter is missing because the cover was on the same piece of paper. Also unlike the Saunders material, none of the Winslow material that was stolen has been returned. This database serves as a record of the missing material. Each record includes the manuscript’s title, date, the number of pages, the pages that are missing, and images of the letters taken from the microfilmed images. Additionally, there is a reference number and a reel number which are useful when trying to locate the original microfilm images.

Below is a complete listing of the archival material stolen from the Winslow family papers. To view each record, click on the date below, use the tabs above to navigate, or create a search using the search bar.