Diary of Anne Powell on her voyage from Montreal to Detroit with her brother W.D. [William Dummer ] Powell (later Chief Justice of Upper Canada)

Abstract

Diary of Anne Powell on her voyage from Montreal to Detroit with her brother W.D. [William Dummer ] Powell (later Chief Justice of Upper Canada), 1789. The handwritten journal is 20 pp. in length, plus a separate leaf with a red seal watermarked 1832. It was written on her return to Montreal. During the trip she observed a Six Nations Council, describing the dress and manners of the tribal people. She wrote a lengthy description of her impressions of Mohawk Chief David Hill (Karonghyontye) and, to a lesser extent, Seneca Chief Red Jacket (Sagoyewatha). She also mentions encounters with Peter Hunter (later Lieutenant Governor of Upper Canada); Lord Edward Fitzgerald; and Mohawk Joseph Brant. Thomas Smith (later clerk of the Court of the District of Hesse, a member of the Michigan Militia, killed at the Battle of Fallen Timbers) is also mentioned. The journal has been published in The Magazine of American History (July 1880): 37-47; and William Renwick Riddell’s Old Province Tales: Upper Canada (1920), pp. 64-95. Anne Powell married merchant and fellow Loyalist, Isaac Winslow Clarke (mentioned in the journal). She died in childbirth in Montreal in 1792.