Whether this English immigration did for Nova Scotia what is claimed for it or not, their success in the new country as farmers and settlers forever removed from the English mind the belief that Nova Scotia was a cold, barren and inhospitable country, "fit only as a home for convicts and Indians." And thus it opened the way for future settlers.It is not claiming too much to say these northern Englishmen were a superior class of men.Industrious, hardy, resourceful and God-fearing, they were made of the right material to form the groundwork of prosperous communities, and wherever this element predominated it was a guarantee that justice and order would be maintained.They were not all saints--perhaps none of them were--but there was a homely honesty and a fixedness of principle about the majority of them that "made for righteousness" wherever they were found.
The most considerable addition to the population of Nova Scotia after the Yorkshire immigration was in 1783 and 1784, when the United Empire Loyalists came to the Province.They left New England as the French left Acadia, without the choice of remaining.The story of their removal and bitter experiences has been told by more than one historian.They were the right stamp of men, and have left their impress on the provinces by the sea.Among the names of those who settled at the old Chignecto were: Fowler, Knapp, Palmer, Purdy, Pugsley.After the Loyalists there was no marked emigration to the Maritime Provinces till after the battle of Waterloo.The hard times in England following the war turned the attention of the people of Great Britain again to America, and from 1815 to 1830 there was a steady stream of emigrants, particularly from Scotland to the Provinces.
Northern New Brunswick received a large share of these Scotch settlers.
The Mains, Grahams, Girvins, McElmons, and the Braits of Galloway and Richibucto, in Kent County, and the Scotts, Murrays, Grants, and Blacklocks of Botsford, Westmoreland County, came at this time.
An account of the wreck of a ship in 1826, in the Gulf of St.Lawrence, is yet told by the descendants of some of those who were coming as settlers to Richibucto.
In the spring of 1826 a lumber vessel bound for Richibucto, N.B., carried a number of passengers for that part.When off the Magdalen Islands the vessel was stove in with the ice, and the crew and passengers had to take to the boats.There was no time to secure any provisions, and a little package of potato starch that a lady passenger had been using at the time of the accident, and carried with her, was the only thing eatable in the boats.Among the passengers was James Johnstone, of Dumfries, Scotland, and his daughter Jean, sixteen years old.For three days and nights the boats drifted.Mr.Johnstone, who was an old man, died from the cold and exposure, and at the time of his death his daughter was lying apparently unconscious in the bottom of one of the boats.On the morning of the fourth day a vessel bound for Miramichi discovered them and took all on board.After landing safely at Miramichi they took passage for Richibucto.Miss Johnstone married John Main of Richibucto, and was the mother of a large family.Mrs.
Main was never able to overcome her dread of the sea after this dreadful experience.
The last immigrants who came to the vicinity of the Isthmus were from Ireland.They arrived in the decade between 1830 and 1840, and settled in a district now called Melrose.Until recently their settlement was known as the Emigrant Road.Some of the names of this immigration were:
Lane, Carroll, Sweeney, Barry, Noonen, Mahoney and Hennessy.They proved good settlers, industrious and saving, and many of the second generation are filling prominent positions in the country.Ex-Warden Mahoney, of Melrose, and lawyers Sweeney and Riley, of Moncton, and Dr.
Hennessy, of Bangor, Maine, are descended from this stock.
