Sheldon’s Horse makes historical ride into town

LAKEVILLE — Michael Kean explained the differences in pay grades in the Second Connecticut Regiment, Continental Light Dragoons on Saturday afternoon, Sept. 17, at Salisbury Central School (SCS).

The private from Coventry, with six years’ service with the outfit popularly known as “Sheldon’s Horse,” said he received two pieces of silver per month.

Corporal Frederick Rivard of Lebanon got two and a half.

“Now a captain, he gets 15 pieces of silver per month,” said Kean with some indignation.

All silver coins were not the same, Kean continued.

Spanish silver coins — the “pieces of eight” of pirate stories — were the highest quality. French silver pieces were the next best.

“English silver was the worst,” Kean said dismissively.

Members of Sheldon’s Horse came to SCS to show off their uniforms and period equipment. The event was sponsored by the Salisbury Association Historical Society.

Someone asked if there was paper money during and immediately after the American revolution. Kean said there is no easy answer to that question.

“By the time the war was over there was no place that had not experienced destruction in some form, from property damage to mass graves,” he said.

The economy was a shambles, and while some localities attempted to introduce paper currency, the only safe bet was “actual silver in hand.”

Kean advanced the view that what ultimately defeated the British was not military tactics, but economic pressure.

“The war bankrupted the English. It got to the point that all they could do was send the occasional ship.”

And they deserved it, Kean added. The British attitude toward the colonials was that the latter “were not even human.”

“That was their mentality, like it or not.”

Rivard said he has been with the dragoons for about five years. His uniform was somewhat spiffier than Kean’s, reflecting the difference in rank.

Rivard’s father, Bob, was on duty as the company surgeon. He had a table filled with unpleasant-looking devices.

Among the curved knives, bone saws and assorted pointy things, there was a stick with a piece of leather wrapped around it.

The leather was unblemished, but after use, it would have bite marks.

“That’s the anesthetic,” he said.

Eileen Kean (wife of the private from Coventry) had a lot to say on the role of women during the Revolution.

Women were responsible for keeping house, making and mending clothing and furniture, meal preparation, primary education of children, farming chores …

The list went on.

She was demonstrating needle embroidery, with wool on canvas, for use as cushions or seat covers.

“Women would have known how to do this,” she said, along with all the other things they were expected to do.

And because resources were scarce, “they managed with whatever came to hand.”

By the age of 16, a woman in Revolutionary-era America would be considering marriage and starting a family.

Careers or jobs for women were uncommon, she said.

“Women were midwives and hookers,” she said.

She added, quickly, that at the time a “hooker” was a woman who made rugs.

And in addition to being unglamorous, women’s tasks were dangerous.

“More women died in household accidents than in childbirth,” she said.