REGULUS HMS 1793 CANADA 2021 BLACK HISTORY

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Canada Post honors two communities settled by Black refugees from the United States on new stamps in its Black History Month series.
The stamps show scenes of Willow Grove, New Brunswick, and Amber Valley, Alberta, respectively. They were issued Jan. 22 in a booklet of 10 (a block of four Willow Grove stamps, a block of four Amber Valley stamps and a se-tenant pair of the two designs).
Both stamps are nondenominated, paying the permanent domestic letter rate (92¢).
In its Details bulletin for collectors, Canada Post said: “Settlers faced immense challenges forging a new life in the rugged Canadian wilderness. But few were as harsh as those endured by many early Black settlers who fled the United States in the early 19th and early 20th centuries to escape the cruelty of enslavement and racial discrimination.
“These stamps — the 13th issue in our Black History Month series — tell the stories of two Black communities nearly one hundred years and thousands of kilometers apart. Both rose from hardship to survive and grow for a time and served as stepping stones for the success of future generations of Black Canadians.”
Willow Grove, located near Saint John, New Brunswick, was founded around 1815 by Black refugees of the War of 1812.
The Discover Saint John website said: “From 1813-1816 the second most important group of Blacks came to the Maritimes. The Black Refugees have escaped slaves, primarily from Virginia and Maryland, who had thrown in their lot with the British during the War of 1812. Approximately 2000 blacks came, with 400-500 settling in New Brunswick and the rest in Nova Scotia. In New Brunswick, they settled in the Willow Grove area near Loch Lomond. The 371 refugees were given licenses of occupation for 50 acres of land (per family) in 1817. In 1825, after ten years of struggle, those who remained on the land were given 99-year leases. In 1836 they were allowed to buy title to the land for 20 shillings.”
The community no longer exists, but the information found inside a replica of the Baptist church and stone markers at the Black Settlement Burial Ground tells the story of Willow Grove.
One stone marker says that “The Black refugees arrived in Saint John on May 25th, 1815 aboard the British warship REGULUS.”
The REGULUS is shown in the center of the Willow Grove stamp with the skyline of Saint John behind it. The design also shows a map of the location of Willow Grove and two of the community members, a man on the left and a woman on the right.
Black settlers began arriving in Amber Valley, located about 100 miles north of Edmonton, around 1910.
Canada Post said: “Nearly a century later, Amber Valley, Alberta, was established by 30 Black families who had journeyed from the American South to flee the escalating violence and segregation laws. They faced many of the same challenges as Willow Grove: bone-chilling winters, inhospitable land and the racial discrimination they had hoped to leave behind.”
According to the online Canadian Encyclopedia, Amber Valley was a thriving community between 1911 and the 1940s with a post office, school, and baseball team.
The story of the settlement also is told in a short documentary, Secret Alberta: The Former Life of Amber Valley, which won the 2018 Canadian Screen Award for excellence in digital storytelling.
Some of Amber Valley’s historical buildings remain, including an early homestead now called Obadiah Place.
Like the Willow Grove stamp, the Amber Valley stamp includes a map showing its location. The design also depicts five community members — two men, a woman, a baby, and a young girl — and another group traveling across the prairie in covered wagons on their way to Amber Valley.
Lara Minja of Lime Design Inc. designed the stamps, using illustrations by Rick Jacobson. The images of the community members shown on the stamps are based on archival photos, according to Canada Post.
The stamps measure 40 millimeters by 32mm. Lowe-Martin printed them by four-color lithography in a quantity of 130,000 booklets of 10.
Canada Post is offering two first-day covers for the stamps.
The Willow Grove FDC is canceled in Saint John, New Brunswick, with a cachet showing the Willow Grove Baptist Church. The Amber Valley FDC pictures a group of residents around the community’s first church. It is canceled in Athabasca, Alberta.
Source: By Denise McCarty. Linn’s Stamp News.

About the HMS REGULUS.
Built as wooden-hulled fifth-rate frigate by Thomas Raymond, Northam for the Royal Navy.
20 October 1780 ordered.
June 1781 keel laid down.
10 February 1785 launched as the HMS REGULUS, one of the Roebuck class.
Tonnage 888.0 ton (bm), dim. 42.70 x 11.56m, length of keel 35.30m, draught 5.00m.
Two decks.
Armament: Upper deck 24 – 18 pdrs, quarter deck 4 – 6 pdrs, fo’c’sle 2 – 6 pdrs.
Crew 300, as troopship 155.
February 1793 commissioned under command of Cmdr. James Hewett for service in the English Channel.
February 1793 fitted out in Portsmouth as a troopship.
In June 1793 under Cmdr. Edward Bowater
April 1794 flagship of Rear-Adm. John Macbride.
1795 Under command Capt. George Oakes.
March 1795 sailed for Jamaica, returned U.K. May 1796, and refitted in Portsmouth from May to August 1796.
May 1796 command taken over by Capt. William Carthew, and after refit completed sailed for Jamaica on 23 October 1796.
02 November 1796 took the 18 guns SAN PIO.
06 April 1797 HMS MAGICIENNE (32 guns), Cptn. William Henry Ricketts, HMS REGULUS, and HMS FORTUNE (14 guns), took a sloop (6 guns) and four schooners and drove off an attacking force at Careasse Bay, Haiti.
07 July 1798 when on patrol on the Jamaica station took the 4 gun privateer La POULINE
August 1798 under command of Capt. George Fowke, REGULUS boats took a small privateer at Rio de la Hache on June 1799.
November 1799 under command of Capt. George Eyre, she returned to England where she was paid off in January 1800.
December 1799 till March 1800 refitted in Woolwich as a troopship.
February 1800 under command of Cmdr. Thomas Pressland and sailed for Egypt in November 1800, returning U.K. in 1802.
December 1803 fitted out again as a troopship in Chatham and commissioned in April 1804 under command of Capt. Charles Boys, for the North Sea and Channel, in 1807 in the Channel Islands, then in Ordinary at Chatham towards the end of the year.
May 1808 provision depot, with upper-deck 18 – 9pdrs, and quarter deck 4 – 6pdrs, guns.
Large repair and fitted out again as a troopship at Deptford in August 1808 till June 1810.
Recommissioned under command of Cmdr. John Hudson., in November 1810 under command of Cmdr. John Tailor, stationed in Lisbon in 1811, 1813 in the Mediterranean.
1813 Under command of Cmdr. Robert Ramsay; then to North America.
April 1815 under command of Cmdr. George Truscott.
After the War of 1812, 371 black refugees, many of who had been slaves, traveled to Saint John on HMS REGULUS. It arrived on 25 May 1815.
HMS REGULUS was broken up in March 1816 in Sheerness.

British Warships in the Age of Sail 1793-1817 by Rif Winfield and Internet.
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