#william brooks northcutt

[clove-pinks]

I just found a delightful War of 1812 Christmas story! People of the anglosphere in the early 19th century didn't really celebrate Christmas like we do today, so I love finding period references.

This is from the diary of William Brooks Northcutt, a 22-year-old distiller’s apprentice from Bourbon County, Kentucky, who signed up for a yearlong stint with Captain William Garrard’s company of mounted volunteers. The context is the return to Fort Greene Ville after the Battle of Mississinewa in December, 1812:

We left it on the 18th and got to the fort on the 24th of December, it being Christmas Eve. We had a hard time of it getting in for we had to build a Breast work Every night clear until we got to the fort, but when we got to the fort we had a Jubule for there we found a plenty to Eat and drink, and we had a merry Christmas of it.

We Encamped at one Edge of the fort without puting out a regular guard and had a real old fasheoned Christmas frolick.

— Quoted The War of 1812: Writings From America's Second War of Independence, ed. Donald R. Hickey.

It's evident from the next few sentences that Northcutt means a Thomas Rowlandson-style old fashioned Christmas.

(A Christmas scene by Rowlandson published in 1812).