New Haven Museum lecture to look at Benedict Arnold’s trek to Quebec

NEW HAVEN — Author and historian Stephen Darley will discuss New Haven Revolutionary War leader Benedict Arnold’s trek from Massachusetts to Quebec, “an attempt to create a 14th colony and deprive the British of their North American base of operations,” in a New Haven Museum presentation next month, according to a release.

The lecture, “New Haven Men on the March to Quebec,” will be held at 6 p.m. Oct. 14 via Zoom, and will be based on Darley’s book, “Voices Waiting to be Heard: Nineteen Eyewitness Accounts of Arnold’s 1775 March to Quebec,” the release said.

In the book “are compiled 13 unknown journals and 6 pension applications written amidst the untamed wilderness of Maine and Canada, their New Year’s Eve assault on Quebec, and subsequent imprisonment.,” it said.

According to the museum, “just five years before Benedict Arnold would be denounced as a traitor, the Revolutionary War leader from New Haven was renowned for his ‘bravery, determination and patriotic fever.’”

Darley’s presentation will include three New Haven men who marched to Quebec: Samuel Barney, who was born in New Haven and buried in Grove Street Cemetery; Eleazer Oswald, Arnold’s secretary and assistant on the expedition, who was born in England and came to New Haven in the early 1770s; and Arnold, who lived in New Haven for approximately 10 years prior to the Revolutionary War.

Darley’s “40-year interest in the history of the American Revolution and Benedict Arnold led to his extensive research on Arnold, and his role as moderator of the Benedict Arnold e-group from 2000 to 2008,” according the release. “He has also written articles on the Revolutionary War and Benedict Arnold for historical and genealogical magazines and articles on the history of the far west.”

For information, visit www.newhavenmuseum.org or call 203-5624183.