THE NEW ENGLAND IMMIGRATION 1755-1770.
The expulsion of 1755 left the population of old Acadia so depleted that the Governor and Council felt that something must be done at once to add to its numbers.The first move in this direction was to offer exceptional advantages to the New England soldiers, who constituted the largest part of the force at the taking of Beausejour, if they would remain in the country.Very few, however, accepted the offer, and as the unsettled state of the country between 1755 and 1760 was most unfavorable to immigration, but little progress was made till the next decade.
During these years wandering bands of Acadians and Indians harrassed (sic) the English, shooting and scalping whenever opportunity offered.
At Bay Verte, in the spring of 1755, nine soldiers belonging to a party under Lieutenant Bowan, were shot and scalped while out getting wood for the fort.Colonel Scott, commandant at Cumberland, immediately sent two hundred of the New England men to Bay Verte with a sergeant and ten men of the regulars.The sergeant replaced the men who were killed, and caused three weeks' supply of wood to be laid in.Shortly after this one of the regulars was killed, and one of the New England men was taken prisoner.These men had strayed in the woods down as far as the Tantramar with these unfortunate results.
In 1759, Governor Lawrence wrote from Halifax to the Board of Trade that "five soldiers had been killed and scalped near Fort Cumberland, and that a provision vessel had been boarded by French and Indians in the Bay of Fundy and carried up the River Petitcodiac." The five men were ambushed and killed in Upper Point de Bute, near a bridge that crossed a ravine on the farm now owned by Amos Trueman.
Up to this time the government of Nova Scotia was vested in a governor and council.This year, 1758, it was decided by the Home Government to allow the Province a Legislative Assembly.The Assembly was to consist of twenty-two members, twelve to be elected by the Province at large, four for the township of Halifax, four for the township of Lunenburg, one for Dartmouth, one for Lawrencetown, one for Annapolis, and one for Cumberland.Fifty qualified electors would constitute a township.The township elections were to continue during two days, and those for the Province four days.
The Assembly met for the first time on October 2nd, 1758.Nineteen members were present.This makes the Legislature of Halifax the oldest in the Dominion of Canada.This year, also, Governor Lawrence issued his first proclamation inviting the New Englanders to come to Nova Scotia and settle on the vacated Acadian farms.
This proclamation created a great deal of interest and inquiry, and finally led to a considerable number of New England farmers settling in different parts of the Province, Chignecto getting a good share of them.The first proclamation had, however, to be supplemented by a second, in which full liberty of conscience and the right to worship as they pleased was secured to Protestants of all denominations.This guarantee was not included in Lawrence's first invitation to the New Englanders, and the descendants of the Puritans had not read in vain the history of the sacrifices made by their forefathers to worship in their own way.
In July, 1759, Edward Mott, representing a committee of agents from Connecticut, arrived at Halifax and was given a schooner to proceed to Chignecto, to examine that part of the Province with a view to settlement.Mr.Mott and his party returned some months later and suggested some changes in the proposed grants, which were conceded by the Government.
It was estimated at this time that two thousand families could be comfortably settled in the districts of Chignecto, Cobequid, Pisquid, Minas and Annapolis.This year (1759) persons in Connecticut and Rhode Island sent Major Dennison, Jonathan Harris, James Otis, James Fuller, and John Hicks, to Halifax to look out for desirable locations for settlement in the Province.Messrs.Hicks and Fuller decided to take up lands at Pisquid or Windsor.
From this time till 1766 the desire shown by residents of New England to settle in Nova Scotia was very marked, and resulted in adding considerably to the population of the Province.
In May, 1761, Captain Dogget was directed to bring twenty families and sixty head of cattle.The cattle were to be brought from the eastern part of New England to Liverpool, N.S., at the expense of the Government.Thirty-five pounds also was granted to transport twenty families with seventy-nine head of cattle to the township of Amherst.
In 1763, a number of families came to Sackville and were given grants of land by the Government.These Sackville emigrants were adherents of the Baptist Church and brought their minister with them.The denomination is still strong in that locality.A number of these emigrants, however, returned at the beginning of the Revolutionary War, and others after the war was over.
The townships of Cumberland, Amherst, and Sackville were established in 1763.The township of Cumberland had an area of 100,800 acres.It included all the territory between the La Planche and Aulac Rivers, and extended east to Bay Verte and southwest to the Cumberland Basin.Old Beausejour, now Fort Cumberland, was within the township of Cumberland.
Amherst township is said to have had a population at this time of thirty families, and Cumberland of thirty-five families.The township of Cumberland of (sic) was given 18,800 acres of marsh, and Sackville had 1,200 cres of marsh and 8,700 acres of woodland.
