I quite recently donated the Tryon-Baggallay Papers to the Lewiston Public Library.  After careful consideration and some input by a librarian at the NYPL during a conversation regarding my collection, I weighed the various reasons and decided that the tremendous help I had received from their Adult Services Librarian, Local Historian Michelle Ann Kratts and the eagerness of the Genealogical division to help unravel the mysteries presented by the Papers coming to light, it was a match and there they be!  I have digitized the collection and retain copies of everything; if you are researching the family and wish to consult the collection, I urge you to reach out the Ms. Kratts and the Lewiston Public Library at 305 South 8th Street, Lewiston, New York 14092, or via the link I provided above.  You may also reach out to me and I will help in any way that I can.  But now I can rest assured that these papers have been put into proper preservation and will survive for generations to come.

After a great deal of issues this site is back up and ready to go!

Since my last real post to this, I had purchased the Tryon-Baggallay Papers from their family in the UK, adding a Moses Tryon letter to my collection/shrine but thereby winding up with a mound of papers relating to a line of the family through a nephew of Moses.  Together with Michael Tryon (Tryon Genealogist), Michelle Ann Kratts (Adult Service Librarian/Local Historian), and a handful of others, a pretty solid genealogy was assembled for the papers early years that had been earlier merely a fog of misinformation and supposition and sloppy transcription!  I will keep the Moses letter which was a hand-me-down within the family, written to the (adopted?) father of the wife of Moses’ nephew (can you follow that?)… But the entirety of the remaining Tryon-Baggallay papers will be settled in an appropriate repository for safe-keeping and availability for future researchers.  I have digitized the entire collection and will be available to genealogists upon request.

While this was wrapping up, I was contacted by Ipper Collens who had purchased a letter from Moses Jr TO his father!  She sent me a good digital copy but then decided to donate it to my archive on Moses!  Very generous and finally brought home!

Meanwhile some new leads were brought to my attention regarding letters and information surrounding Moses Tryon that had not appeared in my earlier searches… Either recently deposited in said collection or very recently come to light.  Yesterday was an excursion to the New York Public Library, manuscripts division, which yielded a letter written by Capt. Moses Tryon hours before the CONNECTICUT set sail on her mission… Data for both the Moses bio and the USS CONNECTICUT story!

How I wish and pray for a portrait of Moses Tryon to come to light!!  And if anyone should be traveling to Cuba anytime soon, despite King Baby’s new prohibitions, please do let me know… I have a photo request for a cemetery holding the remains/headstone of Moses Tryon Jr.

My web-blog seems to be having some issues.  It is being looked in to but in the meantime you can certainly reach out to me at my email – [email protected]

Thank you for your interest!

My never-ending research project!  Part of it is the distractions of life; running my own shop, evenings as a performer of historical and maritime music… But part of it is following up various leads that often not only bear fruit but provide further leads.  I, therefore, have amassed quite a collection and fat files on the ship and many of the crew members.  Some of you have reached out to me but I have never heard from again – Please feel encouraged to renew our contact!  Others have been in touch and we have made meaningful headway together – thank you! 

In following Madame Legras – the business associate of Moses Tryon in Saint Domingue – I have gotten rather an education on that period of Haitian history and the travels of the exiles.  Also access to church/civic records leading up to the 1791 uprising.  In the biography for Moses Tryon that I have been writing I will provide something of a biography and genealogy for her and her descendants through life in New Orleans, Louisiana. I have been trying to get in touch with a local historian in Haiti but thus far have come up empty.  But in France I have several contacts who have been most helpful!

As for Moses; but for a few loose ends I had suspected that – short of finally finding his portrait – I had reached the end of useful new data and the outline had been written and mostly filled in.  And yet just recently an old request I had sent to a repository was replied to (some four plus years later!) with the information that new documents had been deposited in their collections!  And they told me of another repository that I would never have thought of holding even more personal information/documents!  Road trips in the planning stages.

As for several requests for what the USS Connecticut had looked like, I have amassed enough data to be almost certain of her appearance… But thus far I am unaware of any contemporary images or plans having survived to this day.  The images of vessels I have in the header are NOT of the USS Connecticut but rather are more recently drawn images of vessels during this war, borrowed off the internet as public domain.  There are some images used not long afterwards cited AS the USS Connecticut but these are in fact generic transfers used for pottery, tableware, and printed matter commissioned by people here from makers in England… To prove the point, the very same images were used for myriad vessels with the name being the only variation.  And keep in mind that these vessels DID look different from each other at this stage of the US Navy.

More to come…

Begun a new file for Russell Belden – Capt’s Clerk.  Prompted by information that just came across my desk when I really had nothing for him all this time. If YOU have anything on him, do contact me!

With a heavy heart I have only recently learned of the passing of Rick Gildersleeve – descendant of Philip Gildersleeve (foreman for the building of the CONNECTICUT).  Rick and I corresponded on numerous occasions and we would constantly try to make plans to meet up again for lunch but life kept interrupting.  I was honoured to attend his lecture on the Gildersleeve shipbuilding era which he gave for the Portland Hist. Soc. but held in the town library – see the relevant post below.  Here is the link to his obituary.  So is cut short another link to our common past…

Updated data on midshipman George Tryon… Thank you Cheryl W!

Centuries Later, African-American Mainer Who Fought in Forgotten War Gets Recognition – Quasi-War Vet

This is one of my favourite blog sources… In case you’d like to peek into a bit of my world.

British Tars, 1740-1790

Having made unexpected contact with a descendant of the business associate and friend of Moses Tryon – MaDame Le Gras – I have exchanged my data for hers and discovered something quite unexpected… Long story to explain but in a short window, she was to have died on the opening hours of the slave insurrection in St-Domingue (Haiti) of the night of 22 Aug 1791… But it turns out that she survived and removed with masses of refugees to New Orleans, there to live out her life.  As I digest the new documents as well as even more data on Moses himself, it has greatly broadened the vista of the Tryon story for me.  In my 2d draft I have yanked out a chapter, divided it into two, and have already been rewriting it joyfully!  The search goes on for a (possible) surviving portrait of Moses, and I am still waiting to hear from some descendants regarding the digitizing of family documents that may make the overall scene clearer… This has been an exciting project and while I have indeed been taking forever to complete this, I am glad for it as I would not have had this new data in hand… So, draft #2 is becoming draft #3 rapidly.

I still encourage those of you who are descendants or have information regarding Moses Tryon of Wethersfield or people closely associated with him to contact me and open a dialogue!  Some of you have and this has been wonderful!  A couple of people have sent me an opening message, never to be heard from again, alas!