Before Joshua Winslow was married, when he was but eighteen years of age, he began his soldierly career. He was a Lieutenant in Captain Light's company in the regiment of Colonel Moore at the taking of Louisburg in 1745. He was then appointed Commissary-General of the British forces in Nova Scotia, and an account-book of his daily movements there still exists. Upon his return to New England he went to live at Marshfield, Massachusetts, in the house afterwards occupied by Daniel Webster. But troublous times were now approaching for the faithful servants of the King. Strange notions of liberty filled the heads of many Massachusetts men and women; and soon the Revolution became more than a dream. Joshua Winslow in that crisis, with many of his Marshfield friends and neighbors, sided with his King.
He was in Marshfield certainly in June, 1775, for I have a letter before me written to him there by Mrs. Deming at that date. One clause of this letter is so amusing that I cannot resist quoting it. We must remember that it was written in Connecticut, whence Mrs. Deming had fled in fright and dismay at the siege of Boston; and that she had lost her home and all her possessions. She writes in answer to her brother's urgent invitation to return to Marshfield.
"We have no household stuff. Neither could I live in the terror of constant alarms and the din of war. Besides I know not how to look you in the face, unless I could restore to you your family Expositer, which together with my Henry on the Bible & Harveys Meditations which are your daughter's (the gift of her grandmother) I pack'd in a Trunk that exactly held them, some days before I made my escape, and did my utmost to git to you, but which I am told are still in Boston. It is not, nor ever will be in my power to make you Satisfaction for this Error—I should not have coveted to keep 'em so long—I am heartily sorry now that I had more than one book at a time; in that case I might have thot to have bro't it away with me, tho' I forgot my own Bible & almost every other necessary. But who can tell whether you may not git your Valuable Books. I should feel comparatively easy if you had these your Valuable property."
Her painful solicitude over the loss of a borrowed book is indeed refreshing, as well as her surprising covetousness of the Family Expositor and Harvey's Meditations. And I wish to add to the posthumous rehabilitation of the damaged credit of this conscientious aunt, that Anna's book—Harvey's Meditations—was recovered and restored to the owner, and was lost at sea in 1840 by another Winslow.
Joshua Winslow, when exiled, went to England, and thence to Quebec, where he retained throughout his life his office as Royal Paymaster. He was separated many years from his wife and daughter, and doubtless Anna died while her father was far from her; for in a letter dated Quebec, December 26, 1783, and written to his wife, he says,
"The Visiting Season is come on, a great practice here about Christmas and the New Year; on the return of which I congratulate my Dearest Anna and Friends with you, it being the fifth and I hope the last I shall be obliged to see the return of in a Separation from each other while we may continue upon the same Globe."
She shortly after joined him in Quebec. His letters show careful preparations for her comfort on the voyage. They then were childless; Anna's brothers, George Scott and John Henry, died in early youth. It is interesting to note that Joshua Winslow was the first of the Winslows to give his children more than one baptismal name.
Joshua Winslow was a man of much dignity and of handsome person, if we can trust the Copley portrait and miniature of him which still exist. The portrait is owned by Mr. James F. Trott of Niagara Falls, New York, the miniature by Mrs. J. F. Lindsey of Yorkville, South Carolina, both grandchildren of General John Winslow. His letters display much intelligence. His spelling is unusually correct; his penmanship elegant—as was that of all the Winslows; his forms of expression scholarly and careful. He sometimes could joke a little, as when he began his letters to his wife Anna thus—2. N. A.—though it is possible that the "Obstructions to a free Correspondence, and the Circumspection we are obliged to practice in our Converse with each other" arising from his exiled condition, may have made him thus use a rebus in the address of his letter.
He died in Quebec in 1801. His wife returned to New England and died in Medford in 1810. Her funeral was at General John Winslow's house on Purchase Street, Fort Hill, Boston; she was buried in the Winslow tomb in King's Chapel burial ground.
WE know little of the last years of Anna Green Winslow's life. A journal written by her mother in 1773 during their life in Marshfield is now owned by Miss Sarah Thomas of Marshfield, Mass. It is filled chiefly with pious sermon notes and religious thoughts, and sad and anxious reflections over absent loved ones, one of whom (in the sentimental fashion of the times) she calls "my Myron"—her husband.