Warren Beairsto

First record is in Cumberland Grant with William Beairsto 1759

Difficult to explain Y DNA match to Nayland Suffolk England branch of Warrens. Also where and when is the Beairsto connection made.

Arrived in Halifax from England with first wave of settlers from Yorkshire. There were a large number, but he is not among those listed as passengers, or on the census of Halifax 1754.

Theory #2: Ben Sr. came to Nova Scotia as a soldier either Provincial Militia or British Regular. His association with Beairsto family could have formed in Halifax before William Beairsto moved to Fort Lawrence. No direct evidence. Could have been after 1752 census but before 1766 petition for land in Cumberland, or before Johnson Beairsto reported in Cumberland 1760. Beausejour (1755) or Louisburg (1757) campaigns would fit as there were large numbers of provincial soldiers in both campaigns. I have not found Benjamin in the provincial muster records for either campaign. As yet have not looked at British regulars.

Possibly with Jonathan Eddy or Jotham Gay group of settlers.

After his discharge in 1760, Eddy returned to Norton. Three years later he and his family moved to the Chignecto region. Like thousands of other New Englanders, he had been attracted to Nova Scotia by the offer of cheap and fertile land and by the promise of an abundant future. He emigrated to a land he knew well. Soon after his arrival he became deputy provost marshal of Cumberland County, and from 1770 to 1775 he served as a member of the House of Assembly. Apparently Eddy did not take his Halifax responsibilities too seriously, for on 20 July 1775 his seat was declared vacant for non-attendance. At approximately the same time, Eddy and his friend John Allan were taking the lead in the development of a revolutionary movement in the Chignecto region while they grew increasingly enthusiastic about the patriot cause in New England. Many New Englanders who had settled in Nova Scotia became opposed to provincial authority as events developed in their native country, and Eddy and Allan were greatly encouraged by what they perceived to be a growing anti-British feeling throughout the province. During late 1775 and early 1776 Eddy in particular seemed to be obsessed with precipitating a major insurrection in the colony as quickly as possible, an end he hoped to achieve by encouraging George Washington and the Continental Congress to send an “army of liberation” to Nova Scotia as had been done in Canada [see Richard Montgomery*]. Consequently, in February 1776 Eddy and 14 associates left the Chignecto region to discuss the situation with Washington. On 27 March the American general listened patiently to Eddy’s arguments for invading Nova Scotia but because of “the present uncertain State of things” could not offer any military assistance. A rather disillusioned Eddy next made his way to the Congress at Philadelphia, Pa; there his urgent request also fell upon insensitive ears. In May he returned to Cumberland County, and decided to make a final appeal to the General Court of Massachusetts for an offensive to liberate Nova Scotia.

A daughter of William Beairsto, Capt. She was under sixteen on the Halifax census of 1752.

Perhaps the grant give him the ability to sell his property to a Yorkshire Immigrant. Or the political dissent in Cumberland with the glebe controversy or the preamble to American revolution inspired him to leave. I have not found a record of land being transferred. It is also possible they tired of waiting for the Grant to be approved, It was at least 6 years.

Speculating on Dorothy, she appears in Malpeque in 1787. If married in 1798 she is out of Bens household. She could also be the missing child from 1775 Chappel headcount.

Birth date from census 1798 where he is head of his own household and has one child, and 1775 where he is a child in Ben Sr. household so between 1759 and 1772 seems reasonable

The grant makes reference to several petitions that were received years earlier Eddy the leader of one group and Jotham Gay another. The Warrens could have moved on anytime between the request and the grant. Making the grant irrelevant because they lose it if they don't settle it.

Self and Wife, 4 children: Ben jr, George, Margaret and Dorothy. The Warren property later described in Lot 20 is less than 4 miles from the center of New London

Possibly child of Ben Jr not Ben Sr. DNA match to descendents does not distinguish which, nor do I have records that would.

Possibly child of Ben Jr not Ben Sr. DNA match to descendents does not distinguish which, nor do I have records that would.

Possibly child of Ben Jr not Ben Sr. DNA match to descendents does not distinguish which, nor do I have records that would.

Elizabeth Murchland's father John arrived on one of the Robert Stewart ships in 1771 or 1773 from Scotland to Lot 18 Malpeque

Multiple DNA matches to descendants

DNA matches thru 8 of their 10 children

DNA match with 2 of their descendants.

DNA match to descendant of only child.

Born in Scotland

Elizabeth Murchland's father John arrived on one of the Robert Stewart ships in 1771 or 1773 from Scotland to Lot 18 Malpeque

Married at Malpeque I should look for records or a spinster Elizabeth

Elizabeth Murchland's father John arrived on one of the Robert Stewart ships in 1771 or 1773 from Scotland to Lot 18 Malpeque

Founding of Halifax

Cornwallis built Governor's House (1749). (Province House was later also built on this site and it is furnished still with his Nova Scotia Council table.)
The British Government appointed Cornwallis as Governor of Nova Scotia with the task of establishing a new British settlement to counter France's Fortress Louisbourg. In this period, governors were frequently selected from senior officers. He sailed from England aboard HMS Sphinx on 14 May 1749, followed by a settlement expedition of 15 vessels (including HMS Baltimore and HMS Winchelsea) carrying about 2500 settlers. Cornwallis arrived at Chebucto Harbour on 21 June 1749, followed by the rest of the fleet five days later. The expedition suffered only one death during the passage, due to careful preparations, good ventilation on the ships, and good luck. This was remarkable at a time when the lengthy transatlantic expeditions regularly lost large numbers of persons to infectious disease.[16]

Cornwallis immediately had to decide where to site the town. Settlement organizers in England had recommended Point Pleasant, due to its close access to the ocean and ease of defence. His naval advisers opposed this site because it lacked shelter and had shallows preventing the docking of ocean-going ships. They wanted the town to be located at the head of Bedford Basin, a sheltered location with deep water. Others favoured Dartmouth.

Cornwallis decided to land the settlers and build the town at the site of present-day Downtown Halifax; it was halfway up the harbour with deep water, and protected by a natural, defensible hill (later known as Citadel Hill). By 24 July, the plans of the town had been drawn up. In August lots were drawn to award settlers their town plots in a settlement that was to be named "Halifax" after Lord Halifax, the President of the Board of Trade and Plantations. Lord Halifax (likely his staff) had drawn up the expedition plans for the British Government.[1]

Appear before the Council were four agents from Connecticut, Edward Mott, Benjamin Kimball, Bliss Willoughby, and Major Samuel Starr. Some of their prospective settlers had served with Colonel Robert Monckton at Beausejour in 1755, and so knew of the isthmus of Chignecto. Knowing the success of Denison and associates, they requested free transportation to the proposed site of settlement.29 The Governor complied with their wishes.

Then in the early spring of 1759 Eddy received another captain’s commission to recruit men from the Norton region to serve at Fort Beauséjour, now renamed Fort Cumberland. Eddy remained there from 5 May 1759 until 30 Sept. 1760.

“Launching a generously funded emigration scheme, the government recruited eight thousand New Englanders who mainly originated from Massachusetts, Connecticut, and Rhode Island — areas where good agricultural land was in short supply. Arriving between 1759 and 1762, they came in large family groups and sometimes as entire communities, with farmers settling mainly on the former Acadian lands in the Annapolis Valley, and fishermen along the southwestern coastline.23 The province’s fertile acreages also attracted the attention of highranking officials and politicians. After all, they had the easiest access to the choicest land. John Perceval (second Earl of Egmont), first Lord of the Admiralty and a prominent politician, helped himself to several thousand acres in Nova Scotia and East Florida. He hoped to establish a mansion house, park, and castle on his twenty-two-thousand-acre estate at Egmont Harbour, just east of Halifax, but his silly notions of creating a fiefdom in Nova Scotia bore little relevance to the needs of the province or its prospective settlers.24”

Excerpt From: Campey, Lucille H. “Planters, Paupers, and Pioneers.” Apple Books.

Several families were settled on eastern shore of Richmond Bay. Patterson writes that about 120 families arrived in the summer of 1770 part sent by Montgomery of Scotland and the rest by Stewart.

•These emigrants came out in the barque Annabella from CampbelHon, Scotland, in 1770* The emigrants, it seems, thought they were to go to North Carolina, where they had friends and whither the trend of Scotch emigration was then directed. The Annabella was cast away on the sandhills at the entrance of the harbour in October, in a snow storm, and the emigrants lost all their provisions and much of their clothing. Some French fishermen had houses on the Malpeque Point, where some of the castaways found shelter. The wrecked emigrants nearly starved that winter. Robert Stewart, one of the proprietors, came out in the Annabella. Among the emigrants was John Ramsay with sW sons and two nephews who came out with him. They were the forefathers of the Ramsays of Prinde County, so prominent in the life of that county. One of the sons was Malcolm, who became agent for Governor Patterson. He was a member of the House of Assembly and was called "Moccasin" Ramsay, because he wore moccasins when he came to Charlottetown to attend the Sessions. Other emigrants were McGougan, McKenzie, Mcintosh, McArthur, English, McDougall, Sinclair, Murphy, McKay. Part of these settlers later left Malpeque and settled at Low Point, Lot 13, where there had been a French settlement. There is a tradition that some three or four years after the coming of the settlers in 1770, another ship, on which a family named Montgomery, were passengers, called at Malpeque on her voyage to Quebec. Mrs. Montgomery had been very ill on board and wished to land. On getting on shore, she positively refused to again go on board the vessel. Her husband and family had also to land. They settled there and founded a family, which became very prominent in the public affairs of the colony. Hon. Donald Montgomery, a descendant (commonly called "Big Donald" because of his commanding stature), was one of the first four Prince Edward Islanders appointed to the Dominion Senate when the Island became a Province of Canada in 1873. Although he has been unable to positively verify this tradition, the writer yet believes it to be well founded. Louise Maud Montgomery, the well known authoress, is also a descendant.

Leading up to the Revolution and the Eddy rebellion there was growing polarization between the New Englanders and the British in Cumberland. So many left that from 1767 when entirely american the population at the end of the war was almost entirely of direct British descent. Largely Yorkshire emmigrants of 72-74

We learn, from a letter of Chief Justice Duport to Lord Hillsborough, dated 15th October, 1771, that "since my last letter, dated the third ult., nine families are arrived here, sent by LieutenantGovernor DesBrisay, to settle on his Lot near Charlottetown. About seventy persons are also arrived at Malpeque, who are come on their own account to seek a settlement on this Island, and I hope they will be accommodated to their satisfaction as it will be an encouragement to others to follow them on the same lay

In December 1774, the Earl of Warwick, recommending Mr. Peter Stewart, as successor to Chief Justice Duport, wrote that "Mr. Stewart was bred to the law and upwards of twenty years in the practice of it; is a large proprietor and has sent near two hundred people thither, who have been settled upwards of two years.1' If this is correct, these settlers were a second lot sent out by Stewart and arrived the same year (1772) in which Captain John MacDonald brought out his immigrants in the Alexander to Tracadie. The writer thinks that the settlers mentioned by the Earl were really part of the hundred and twenty families brought out by Mr. Stewart and Sir James Montgomery in 1770. If so, they were two years earlier than those brought out by MacDonald in the Alexander

“Immigration to the province had reduced to a trickle during the mid1760s but increased dramatically between 1772 and 1775, when around nine hundred people from Yorkshire and nearby parts of northern England took up residence on both sides of the isthmus connecting Nova Scotia with New Brunswick. A combination of high rent increases in Yorkshire and the desire to benefit from Nova Scotia’s agricultural potential were the main driving forces, although many were Methodists seeking a safe haven in which to practise their faith. Having been enticed to the Chignecto Isthmus by the availability of rich marshland, they joined New Englanders who had already established themselves at Amherst, Cumberland, and Sackville51 (see Map 7). The Yorkshire settlers effectively doubled the population of the isthmus and, by bringing their advanced farming techniques with them, greatly enhanced the economic development of the area.52”

Excerpt From: Campey, Lucille H. “Planters, Paupers, and Pioneers.” Apple Books.

In 1771 Lt. Governor Michael Franklin of Nova Scotia travelled to northern England to seek immigrants. He was looking for skilled farmers who could take up lands formerly cultivated by the displaced Acadian minority, and who could counterbalance growing republican sentiment within both Nova Scotia and the Colonies to the south. For five years, until the British Government began to grow alarmed at the scale of emigration to North America, agents actively recruited settlers in Yorkshire .

The first of these Yorkshire emigrants arrived in 1772 aboard the Duke of York. This vessel departed Liverpool on March 16, 1772 with sixty-two passengers, and reached Fort Cumberland on May 21, 1772. On board were Charles Dixon, Thomas Anderson, George Bulmer, John Trenholm and others. During the period 1773-1775 additional vessels left for Nova Scotia, the largest number arriving during the spring of 1774, when nine ships carried settlers from England to Halifax.

In all, more than one thousand people emigrated from Yorkshire and Northumberland to Nova Scotia (including parts of what later became New Brunswick) between 1771 and 1776. As a group, they comprise 'The Yorkshire Emigration', a significant event in the history of the Maritime provinces. The settlers shared a common language and dialect, a pioneering spirit and — as the years passed — strong bonds created by intermarriage. Many were Methodists, and instrumental in the establishment of the Methodist Church in Canada. Almost all remained loyal to Britain during the Eddy Rebellion, thus helping to determine the future of both Nova Scotia and the future nation of Canada.

https://www.libris.ca/yrkfam/yrkemi.htm

CLARK, ROBERT, merchant and colonizer; b. in London, England, son of Wotherton and Mary Clark; m. c. 1750 Elizabeth – ; m. secondly 6 July 1775 Ann Berry in London; d. July or August 1794, probably in St John’s (Prince Edward) Island.

Details of Robert Clark’s early life are unknown. He became a Quaker some time before 1753 and was active in the Society of Friends; in 1767 he was stated to have been a minister, or leader, for some years. He and his wife lived in Reading from 1753 to 1758 and in Faringdon from 1761 to 1764, when they moved to London. After 1773 legal documents list his occupation as salesman or merchant. He purchased Lot 21 on St John’s Island in March 1773 and later added other lots, or townships, to his holdings. The next year he brought over 100 settlers, many of them indentured servants, to the north shore of the island and founded the settlement of New London. There is some indication that he was motivated by religious enthusiasm. Governor Walter Patterson stated that Clark “really thought himself a second Penn” and added that he “hoped to make New London a place for the recovering of sinners.” Few of Clark’s settlers shared his religious affiliation, however, and New London was to provide instead the roots of Methodism on the Island.

Clark returned to England in 1774, leaving his colonists without proper shelter or provisions. He had painted an attractive picture of the new world for prospective emigrants, but the diary of one settler, Benjamin Chappell*, details the near starvation which prevailed the first winter. By 1775 there were 16 houses and a sawmill at New London, but the settlement did not meet the expectations of the London investors, who had hoped for quick returns of timber, and colonization efforts do not appear to have been repeated. In 1779 Clark offered land at £100 for 500 acres, but there were no land sales before 1787 and few after. Many people left New London to settle nearby. Patterson wrote in 1784 that the settlers had been supplemented by “all the Vagabonds of the Island.” He also felt that Clark was ruining himself by allowing his settlers “Wages, Victuals and Drink at Will” and by letting them do “as they pleased.”

Patterson’s account of New London may have been coloured by his conflict with Clark over land sales. In 1781 Patterson had seized several lots, including some of Clark’s, for non-payment of quitrents and had resold them to himself and his friends. Clark, one of the loudest in protesting this action, petitioned the Privy Council in 1785. His efforts, together with those of Captain John MacDonald*, another proprietor, led to the successful prosecution of Patterson and several members of his council in 1789.

Clark returned to St John’s Island in 1786, possibly only for a visit. By 1792 he was identified as a resident of the colony. The last years of his life were difficult. The lack of any financial return from the New London settlement, along with a heavy debt, involved him in several law suits. One of these, with his New London agent John Cambridge*, whom he had appointed in 1784, had to be appealed to the governor in council and eventually to the king in council. The suits did not end with his death in 1794 and his widow remained in the colony for several years attempting to regain his property. By 1800 the estate had been sold and the houses of New London torn down or moved; the dream of a Quaker colony on St John’s Island was at an end.

H. T. Holman

P.E.I., Supreme Court, Estates Division, will of Robert Clark (unregistered) (mfm. at Public Archives of P.E.I.). PRO, CO 226/8, pp.165–67; 226/10, pp.94–126, 135–43, 234–41, 253–94; CO 388/62, p.1207. Public Archives of P.E.I. (Charlottetown), Benjamin Chappell, diary; RG 3, House of Assembly, Journals, 1775–89; RG 6, Courts, Supreme Court case papers, 1784–1800; RG 16, Registry Office, Land registry records, conveyance registers, liber 1234, ff.4, 5, 6, 8, 9. Thomas Curtis, “Voyage of Thos. Curtis,” Journeys to the Island of St. John or Prince Edward Island, 1775–1832, ed. D. C. Harvey (Toronto, 1955), 9–69. [John MacDonald?], Remarks on the conduct of the governor and Council of the Island of St. John’s, in passing an act of assembly in April 1786 to confirm the sales of the lands in 1781 . . . (n.p., [1789?]). A short description of the Island of St. John, in the Gulph of St. Lawrence, North America (n.p., 1779). “Dictionary of Quaker biography” (typescript), available only at Haverford College Library (Haverford, Pa.) and Library of Religious Soc. of Friends (London). D. C. Harvey, “Early settlement and social conditions in Prince Edward Island,” Dal. Rev., XI (1931–32), 448–61. [R. W. Kelsey], “Quakerism on Prince Edward Island in 1774,” Friends’ Hist. Soc. of Philadelphia, Bull., XIII (1923), 75–77.

Census includes 2 Warren families I figure Benjamin Sr and William of Tryon later.

In November, 1775, shortly after the raid by Broughton and Selman, "a ship valuably loaded from London, with a number of settlers on board, suffered shipwreck on the north shore of the Island; the people were saved, but their effects and the cargo were almost totally lost." Chief Justice Stewart who, with his ten children were passengers in this vessel, lost nearly everything they possessed.

"In the year 1783, a number of the proprietors signed a paper declaring their intention to give up a fourth part of their property in this country for the benefit of Loyalist emigrants and disbanded soldiers.

A number of loyal emigrants repaired hither in the confident expectation of obtaining lands of a superior quality; while several officers and a number of soldiers, who were disbanded on this Island, were induced to remain on it by the same flattering prospects. It appears by the Council books that several of these persons were put in possession of the lands laid out and allotted to them, and that they also made considerable improvements thereon; notwithstanding which, and that several years had elapsed since the
aforesaid proprietors covenanted and agreed with government to make conveyance of the lands so allotted and laid out to the individuals respectively settled thereon, no disposition was evinced by the said proprietors (with one or two exceptions) to fulfil their engagements— in consequence of which a great proportion of the emigrants left the Island. Of those who remained, some accepted of grants clogged and loaded with such impracticable conditions and covenants as to make the tenure of them, in effect, to be merely at the will and pleasure of the grantors, the same being altogether contrary from the grants from the Crown to the original proprietors; and the minds of those who had no grants or deeds of any kind were kept in a state of constant disquietude by reason of the uncertainty of the tenure by which they held their lands. In consequence thereof, an Act was passed by the Colonial Legislature, in the year 1790, intituled 'An Act to empower the Lieutenant-Governor to give grants of lands under the Great Seal of this Island to such Loyalists and disbanded troops as are in the occupation thereof, by virtue of locations formerly made by the Governor and Council.' The same Act provides 'That from and after the publication hereof it shall and may be lawful to and for the Governor, Lieutenant-Governor, or other Commander-in-Chief for the time being, to give grants, under the Great Seal of this Island, of such proportions of the aforementioned resigned lands as are now in possession of such Loyalists and reduced officers and soldiers, by virtue of, and under the authority of the Governor and Council of this Island, as have not received deeds or grants from the said proprietors."

“The governor’s military career had begun auspiciously in King George’s War when he promoted a New England expedition against the fortress of Louisbourg, on Cape Breton Island. Under the leadership of a merchant-turned-general, William Pepperell, four thousand New England volunteers succeeded in capturing “the Gibraltar of the New World” on 17 June 1745. The siege lasted only six weeks, and the New Englanders were supported in it only by a British naval squadron and by—everyone agreed— the hand of God. Although the reduction of Louisbourg was virtually the only American victory of King George’s War and the fortress was promptly handed back to the French at the conclusion of hostilities, the exploit had two abiding consequences. First, it inflated the military reputation of the New Englanders, particularly among themselves. Second, the home government reimbursed Massachusetts for the entire cost of the expedition, £183,649 sterling—the largest reimbursement in the history of the province.”

Excerpt From: Fred Anderson. “A People's Army.” iBooks. https://books.apple.com/us/book/a-peoples-army/id1245959921

Father Le Loutre's War (1749–1755), also known as the Indian War, the Micmac War and the Anglo-Micmac War, took place between King George's War and the French and Indian War in Acadia and Nova Scotia.[c] On one side of the conflict, the British and New England colonists were led by British Officer Charles Lawrence and New England Ranger John Gorham. On the other side, Father Jean-Louis Le Loutre led the Mi'kmaq and the Acadia militia in guerrilla warfare against settlers and British forces.[10] (At the outbreak of the war there were an estimated 2500 Mi'kmaq and 12,000 Acadians in the region.)[11]

While the British captured Port Royal in 1710, the Mi'kmaq and Acadians continued to contain the British in settlements at Port Royal and Canso. The rest of the colony was in the control of the Catholic Mi'kmaq and Acadians. About forty years later, the British made a concerted effort to settle Protestants in the region and to establish military control over all of Nova Scotia and present-day New Brunswick, igniting armed response from Acadians in Father Le Loutre's War. The British settled 3,229 people in Halifax during the first years. This exceeded the number of Mi'kmaq in the entire region and was seen as a threat to the traditional occupiers of the land.[d] The Mi'kmaq and some Acadians resisted the arrival of these Protestant settlers.

The war caused unprecedented upheaval in the area. Atlantic Canada witnessed more population movements, more fortification construction, and more troop allocations than ever before.[12] Twenty-four conflicts were recorded during the war (battles, raids, skirmishes), 13 of which were Mi'kmaq and Acadian raids on the capital region Halifax/Dartmouth. As typical of frontier warfare, many additional conflicts were unrecorded.

During Father Le Loutre's War, the British attempted to establish firm control of the major Acadian settlements in peninsular Nova Scotia and to extend their control to the disputed territory of present-day New Brunswick. The British also wanted to establish Protestant communities in Nova Scotia. During the war, the Acadians and Mi'kmaq left Nova Scotia for the French colonies of Ile St. Jean (Prince Edward Island) and Ile Royale (Cape Breton Island). The French also tried to maintain control of the disputed territory of present-day New Brunswick. (Father Le Loutre tried to prevent the New Englanders from moving into present-day New Brunswick just as a generation earlier, during Father Rale's War, Rale had tried to prevent New Englanders from taking over present-day Maine.) Throughout the war, the Mi’kmaq and Acadians attacked the British forts in Nova Scotia and the newly established Protestant settlements. They wanted to retard British settlement and buy time for France to implement its Acadian resettlement scheme.[13]

The war began with the British the British establishing Halifax, settling more British settlers within six months than there were Mi'kmaq. In response, the Acadians and Mi'kmaq orchestrated attacks at Chignecto, Grand Pré, Dartmouth, Canso, Halifax and Country Harbour. The French erected forts at present-day Fort Menagoueche, Fort Beauséjour and Fort Gaspareaux. The British responded by attacking the Mi'kmaq and Acadians at Mirligueche (later known as Lunenburg), Chignecto and St. Croix. The British unilaterally established communities in Lunenburg and Lawrencetown. Finally, the British erected forts in Acadian communities located at Windsor, Grand Pre and Chignecto. The war ended after six years with the defeat of the Mi'kmaq, Acadians and French in the Battle of Fort Beausejour.

EDDY, JONATHAN, army officer and office holder; b. 1726/27 in Norton, Mass., son of Eleazar Eddy and Elizabeth Cobb; m. 4 May 1749 Mary Ware, and they had four sons; d. August 1804 in Eddy Township (Maine).

Jonathan Eddy’s military career began in 1755, when he enlisted in the New England force under John Winslow* which was to participate in an expedition against the French Fort Beauséjour on the Chignecto Isthmus of Nova Scotia [see Robert Monckton; Louis Du Pont Duchambon de Vergor]. Three years later he received a Massachusetts captain’s commission to raise a company for “the Reduction of Canada,” but the expedition was aborted after James Abercromby*’s bloody failure before Fort Carillon (near Ticonderoga, N.Y.). Then in the early spring of 1759 Eddy received another captain’s commission to recruit men from the Norton region to serve at Fort Beauséjour, now renamed Fort Cumberland. Eddy remained there from 5 May 1759 until 30 Sept. 1760.

Lawrence became a company commander in the 40th regiment in Nova Scotia in December 1749. The following April Governor Edward Cornwallis* sent him with a small force to establish British authority in the isthmus of Chignecto. On the north bank of the Missaguash River Lawrence found French forces under Louis de La Corne, who had orders to prevent British penetration beyond that point and who had had the village of Beaubassin, near the south bank of the river, burned. Rather than fight the French, with whom the British were not at war, or admit to any territorial limitation, Lawrence withdrew.

The settlers found cleared land, but most of the work remained to be done. Soured by months or years of waiting in squalid huts in Halifax, they were impatient to stake their claims and to start cultivation. Lawrence had seen the effects of Indian raids in different parts of the province and had to persuade the settlers to build defences before anything else. It was human to ignore a danger which few of them had experienced and it required artifice on Lawrence’s part to make them do communal work. “Decent people,” he noted, had to be cajoled into sleeping in communal shelters for protection and sharing them with those who were “dirty [and] full of Vermin.” Building supplies were pilfered and fights over favoured sites were frequent. But little by little this “inconceivably turbulent” crew was brought to see that they must either “proceed in another manner, or have [their] throats cut.” By a mixture of bribery, bullying, and verbal persuasion, Lawrence gained their affection – “not only their hats but their hearts,” as he described it – and retained it, to his political advantage, after his return to Halifax in August 1753. By then Hopson was preparing to return to England and had summoned Lawrence back as president of the council.

In 1754 Governor William Shirley of Massachusetts approached Lawrence with a plan to drive the French troops out of their Chignecto forts. Both men were sure of Lord Halifax’s support and took advantage of an ill-advised letter from Thomas Robinson, the new secretary of state, ordering them to cooperate to throw the French out of Acadia. Robinson later repudiated the letter, but Shirley used it as authority to plan an operation. Late in the fall of 1754 he and Lawrence raised two battalions in Massachusetts, giving the command to Lieutenant-Colonel Robert Monckton, assisted by the New Englander John Winslow. This force was to attack Fort Beauséjour (near Sackville, N.B.), which the French had built on the north shore of the Missaguash River, opposite Fort Lawrence. Without authority, Lawrence paid for the force with the annual parliamentary grant for Nova Scotia. Early in 1755 General Edward Braddock, commander-in-chief in North America, sailed for America with flexible orders for the removal of French “encroachments” given him by the Duke of Cumberland, commander-in-chief of the army. Braddock was permitted to undertake several operations against the French simultaneously if he had sufficient troops. He authorized Monckton’s expedition and it sailed from Boston on 19 May 1755. Fort Beauséjour fell to Monckton on 16 June.

The capture of Beauséjour was the only British success that year, but Lawrence had no orders for exploiting it. Braddock was killed near Fort Duquesne (Pittsburgh, Pa.) early in July [see Daniel-Hyacinthe-Marie Liénard de Beaujeu], while Shirley, his second in command, was proceeding towards Fort Oswego (Chouaguen) for operations against the French. In June, off Louisbourg, Vice-Admiral Boscawen let most of the French fleet escape with reinforcements for Louisbourg, Quebec, and Montreal. In an atmosphere of doubt about his superiors’ activities and intentions and of apprehension about the enemy’s, the defence of what he had gained became Lawrence’s main concern.

John Winslow was the linchpin of the plan to obtain New England settlers. But owing to Lawrence’s uncertainty about how to exploit his victory, Winslow was not permitted enough time to survey the land around Chignecto after the fall of Beauséjour. Inactivity caused the discipline of Winslow’s troops to collapse and he quarrelled with Monckton, who had been ordered to recruit New Englanders for the regular battalions. Shirley also raided their ranks for his own use on the American continent. Winslow became embittered and lost interest in settlement. Short of troops and under the impression that the French were going to counter-attack, Lawrence turned his attention to securing his communications with Chignecto and was thus forced to deal with the issue of the loyalty of the Acadians of the peninsula. The scene was set for the tragedy.

In July 1756 Lawrence became governor of Nova Scotia. He saw as his most important task the settlement of the Acadian lands. But by 1757 merchants who were opposed to his personal rule, such as Joshua Mauger* and Ephraim Cook, had convinced the Board of Trade that settlers would not come unless they had an elected assembly. They also tried to show that Lawrence had favoured his friends with contracts and offices and would not call an assembly for fear of exposure.

In October 1754 the Board of Trade had instructed Jonathan Belcher, on his arrival as chief justice, to inquire into the legality of enactments made without an assembly. He reported that the governor’s instructions did not make an assembly mandatory and pointed out that only one township would qualify for representation at that time. In fact, he added, an assembly would be a hindrance to the administration of the province. Both the attorney-general and solicitor-general of Great Britain, however, advised that without an assembly Lawrence’s acts as governor could be illegal. The board then instructed Lawrence to prepare a scheme for setting up an assembly, although it was aware that undue representation might be given to “dram-sellers” and contraband runners in Halifax, and that the Lunenburg settlers, who were not yet naturalized, could not be represented until 1757. The board also knew that an assembly might be a forum for the struggle which had broken out in Hopson’s time between the New England and British elements in the population. The correspondence about various schemes dragged on through 1755 and 1756.

Lawrence, with the temporary rank of “brigadier in America,” commanded a brigade under General Jeffery Amherst* in the successful expedition against Louisbourg. He returned to Halifax in September to help prepare the British forces for operations against Quebec in 1759. Stores were scarce but he improvised. Thousands of pairs of shoes were made, arms repaired, and light infantry units formed and trained. Lawrence paid special attention to feeding the troops and thanks to fresh meat, milk, spruce beer, and “our climate in spite of the opinions of the C.O.s,” the sick recovered. When James Wolfe, the commander of the Quebec expedition, returned in the spring, that critical young man had nothing but praise for Lawrence and his subordinates. Lawrence had hoped to command a brigade at Quebec; in the end the commands went to Monckton, James Murray, and George Townshend, that of the latter through political influence. It was a “mortifying situation” to be left behind, but Lawrence threw off his disappointment and turned to the problems of settlement and politics in Nova Scotia, which were less glamorous, but in the long run more important, than commanding a brigade on the Plains of Abraham.

The first meeting of the new assembly had taken place on 2 Oct. 1758, with 20 assemblymen present, and its business was conducted with surprisingly little trouble. Lawrence’s support on the council grew in August 1759 with the appointment of Richard Bulkeley, Thomas Saul, and Joseph Gerrish, to the seats left vacant by the absence of William Cotterell, Robert Grant, and Montagu Wilmot. In December the first Lunenburg representatives entered the assembly, and Lawrence received an address of praise from that body for his achievements in the province.

Settlers were reluctant to break new forest land while the marsh land of Chignecto and the cleared areas of the Annapolis valley were vacant. To resolve this difficulty, Lawrence preferred to combine old land with new in each grant and thus offered favourable conditions usually permitted only to those breaking in new lands. He had been instructed to submit proposals for settling the old lands to the Board of Trade, but he disregarded this directive and informed the board of his policies after the fact, as was his custom. The board was angry, but by the time it had explained that the good lands were intended as rewards for the army and navy, Morris had surveyed lots with representatives of “some hundreds of associated substantial families” from New England and had promised them advantageous conditions. The board could not cancel the arrangements and had to be satisfied with Lawrence’s assurances that new land taken by Monckton’s expedition up the Saint John River in the fall of 1758 and land on the Miramichi River would be kept for the military. Lawrence wrote privately to Lord Halifax, however, to point out that servicemen were bad settlers. Their “drunken, dissolute and abandoned” habits, “particularly that most unhappy one,” idleness, made them quite unsuitable. Lord Halifax’s influence ensured that when the commissioners for Trade and Plantations received copies of the grants in 13 townships at the end of 1759 under conditions which they had earlier condemned, they wrote that it was a great satisfaction “to us . . . to express to you our approbation.” From the Board of Trade, which seldom had anything good to say about its governors, that was praise indeed.

Lawrence’s death on 19 Oct. 1760 took everyone by surprise. “I should have taken an annuity on his life as soon as anyone I knew,” wrote Amherst to General James Murray.

Jeffrey Amherst led

Captain William Beairsto is on this grant.

A majority of the original grantees did not settle and forfeited the land. No Beairsto or Warrens are named in these transactions.

Must find this document. It is locked up at Family Search.org and at the Nova Scotia Archives.
The first letter in the series was written by Captain Martin Gay to his brother Jotham Gay, seven years his
elder. Jotham Gay had been an officer of the Provincial forces in the Old French War and in 1755 had taken part
in the expedition against Nova Scotia under General John Winslow. He had afterward settled in the Province which
he had helped to conquer from the French, and at the date of this letter he had been for more than ten years a
resident of Cumberland, Nova Scotia. The letter, though inscribed "a copy" is in the undoubted handwriting of
the author, and is signed in two places with his usual signature. It is probably the first draft of the letter
actually sent. It is chiefly noteworthy as containing a mention, - it is hardly more - of the Battle of Bunker Hill
by an eye-witness. Written just three weeks after the event, it adds nothing to our knowledge and only repeats
the rumors that were circulating before any authentic account was published. The writer's loyalty to his "King
and Country" is very apparent, as well as his detestation of all Rebels and especially of the "famous Doct'r
Warren," whose name he curiously though phonetically mispells "Worrin". The "son Martin" mentioned in the letter
was a youth of fifteen years, who, three years later, was accidentally shot by a friend while gunning near Windsor,
Nova Scotia.

Samuel Gay was an older son, who graduated at Harvard in this same year, 1775. Why he was not at this time taking
his degree at Cambridge, at the College commencement, which in those days was always held in July, is explained
by the fact that, owing to the disturbed state of the times and the quartering of American troops in the College
buildings, no public Commencement took place that year. Samuel Gay became a permanent resident of New Brunswick,
and, according to the History of Hingham, above cited, was for several years, a member of the Provincial House
of Assembly for Westmoreland County and Chief Justice of the Court of Common Pleas. He died January 21, 1847,
in his 93d year.

Lord William Campbell (11 July 1730 – 4 September 1778) was from a Scottish family loyal to the British Crown. His father was John Campbell, 4th Duke of Argyll.

From 1752 to 1760, he served in the Royal Navy in India. In 1762, because of the Seven Years' War, he was scheduled to serve in America. He met and married a lady named Sarah Izard from South Carolina in 1763. His brother-in-law was a future American rebel and member of the Second Continental Congress, Ralph Izard. In 1764, they returned to Britain where he became a member of Parliament, representing the family seat in Argyllshire. In 1766 he was appointed Governor of Nova Scotia, a position he held until 1773.

68 English persons on entire PEI. Michael Molineaux at Princetown with 45 Acadians apparently all fisherman

Francis Legge (c.1719-1783), was a British military officer and colonial official in Nova Scotia during the 18th century. He served as Governor of Nova Scotia from 1772–1776.[1] During the American Revolution, Legge raised the Royal Nova Scotia Volunteer Regiment.

Legge had served in the territory during the Seven Years' War "without distinction or promotion". However, Legge happened to be a relative of the Earl of Dartmouth.[1][2]

Major Legge was appointed vice-roy of Nova Scotia by Colonial Secretary William Legge, 2nd Earl of Dartmouth in 1773. He arrived in Halifax on the Adamant on 6 October 1773 with order to determine what were the financial difficulties in Nova Scotia and cure them. He proceeded to cut unnecessary expenses while trying to keep the province loyal to Britain. According to one account:

"[He] began to expose every scandalous detail of the spoils system which permeated Halifax and extended across the province. Even granting that he was an officer and a gentleman dealing with civilians whom he deemed socially his inferiors, he showed an alarming lack of imagination about how men behave when they are cornered and revealed almost none of the art of making himself agreeable to those whom he sought to influence or to work with. He had no gifts for the compromises with human frailty which alone can grease the wheels of politics."[3]

Governor Legge's residence (built 1749). (Located on the site of Province House, which still is furnished with his Nova Scotia Council table)
Legge's actions, particularly an attempt to audit the province's accounts, earned him a growing number of opponents among the local merchant oligarchy and turned both the legislative council and legislative assembly against him and open rebellion broke out against Legge in the south of the province.[2]

Legge was recalled to London in 1776 due to the complaints against him. The Board of Trade in London founding him "wanting" in "that Gracious and Conciliating Deportment which the delicacy of the times and the Tempers of Men under agitation & alarm more particularly demanded".[4] The new Colonial Secretary, Lord George Germain, was concerned that "the Province will be lost, utterly lost" due to Legge's actions in alienating Nova Scotians and possibly losing the province to the rebellious colonies during the American Revolution. A decision was made to replace him with a more conciliatory administrator, Mariot Arbuthnot.[1] Legge was not permitted to return to Nova Scotia but remained governor in name only until 1782.[2]

In 1775, Legge was granted permission to form the Royal Nova Scotia Volunteer Regiment, of which he became the colonel. Due to his unpopularity very few men were willing to be recruited, and the unit languished until the later years of the war. He remained colonel in absentia until 1782.

"That on Friday, the 17th November, two privateers arrived at Charlottetown, the capital of the Island; and immediately after, Captains Broughton and Selman, who commanded said vessels, landed with two parties under their command.

About this time some of our neighbours in Cumberland, Nova Scotia, who were disaffected, on the arrival among them of two whale-boats from Machias, Massachusetts, rebelled and laid siege to Fort Cumberland, then garrisoned by a newly raised provincial corps under Colonel Goreham. They planned a second raid on Charlottetown, but not having any craft to carry off a number of dismounted cannon at Fort Amherst, which was one of their objects, they first visited Pictou, where, joined by several of the inhabitants, they seized a valuable armed vessel then loading for Scotland. Not knowing the Island's state of defence, they went to Bay Verte to procure reinforcements from those besieging Fort Cumberland. Just then the Hunter arrived on her way to Charlottetown, having retaken a sloop which was one of their prizes captured at Pictou. She was fitted out by Captain Boyle and sent, under command of Lieutenant Kippie, after the ship. The sloop came up with her the next day and found that, in consequence of the defeat of the rebels at Fort Cumberland by the arrival of re-inforcements from Halifax, she had been given up to the mate, the rebels escaping on shore. She was brought into Charlottetown and given up to her commander, who, thinking it unsafe to return to Pictou, wintered in the Island.*
In November, 1775, shortly after the raid by Broug

Mr. Benjamin Chappel entered in his diary a note of privateers appearing off New London and Malpeque. Under date of 6th June, 1778, he notes that two privateers appeared off the Bar (New London) plundering Malpeque. On 7th June the privateers were in Malpeque. On the 8th they "chase a vessel and seem to stand for us. In the afternoon the privateers disappear at the west, a vessel stands for us." The attitude of the people, was "watching and warding."

Cumberland Township is split, the town itself falls in Westmorland, New Brunswick. The rest including Amherst falls in Cumberland, Nova Scotia.
I really don't know where the Beairsto or Warren grants fall.

"I have had the honour of receiving your despatch of the fifth September, whereby you desire that I will express to you my judgment on the whole subject of escheat in the Island of Prince Edward. After perusing the voluminous documents with Your Lordship's despatch, I do not feel that it is in my power to add anything to the very full information on the subject which these documents comprise. The information before me is now so ample that upon no matter of fact can I entertain a doubt. Nearly all the Island was alienated in one day by the Crown in very large grants, chiefly to absentees, and upon conditions of settlement which have been wholly disregarded. The extreme improvidence — I might say the reckless improvidence—which dictated these grants is obvious; the total neglect of the Government as to
enforcing the conditions of the grants is not less so. The great bulk of the Island is still held by absentees, who hold it as a sort of reversionary interest which requires no present attention, but may become valuable some day or other through the growing want of the inhabitants. But, in the meantime, the inhabitants of the Island are subjected to the greatest inconvenience,— nay, the most serious injury — from the state of the property in land. The absent proprietors neither improve the land themselves nor will let others improve it. They retain the land and keep it in a state of wilderness. Your Lordship can scarcely conceive the degree of injury inflicted on a new settlement hemmed in by \ ilderness land, which has been placed out of control of government, and is entirely neglected by its absent proprietors. This evil prevades British North America and has been for many years past a subject of universal and bitter complaints.

"The same evil was felt in many of the States of the American Union, where, however, it has been remedied by taxation of a penal character,— taxation, I mean, in the nature of a fine for the abatement of a nuisance. In Prince Edward Island this evil has attained its maximum. It has been long and loudly complained of, but without any effect. The people, their representative Assembly, the Legislative Council, and the Governor have cordially concurred in devising a remedy for it. All their efforts have proved in vain. Some influence — it cannot be that of equity or reason — has steadily counteracted the measures of the Colonial legislature. I cannot imagine it is any other influence than that of the absentee proprietors resident in England; and in saying so I do but express the universal opinion of the colony. The only question, therefore, as it appears to me, is whether that influence shall prevail against the deliberate Acts of the Colonial Legislature and the universal complaints of the suffering colonists. I can have no doubt on the subject. My decided opinion is, that the royal assent should no longer be withheld from the Act of the Colonial Legislature.
"At the same time, I doubt whether this Act will prove a sufficient remedy for the evil in question. It was but natural that the Colonial Legislature — who have found it impossible as yet to obtain any remedy whatever — should hesitate to propose a sufficient one. Undeterred by any such consideration — relying on the cordial co-operation of the government and Parliament in
the work of improving the state of the colonies,— I had intended, before the receipt of Your Lordship's despatch, and still intend, to suggest a measure, which, while it provides a sufficient remedy for the evil suffered by the colonists, shall also prove advantageous to the absent proprietors by rendering their property more valuable. Whether the inhabitants of Prince Edward Island prefer waiting for the now uncertain results of a suggestion of mine, or that the Act which they have passed should be at once confirmed, I cannot tell, but I beg earnestly to recommend that Her Majesty's Government should be guided by their wishes on the subject; and in order to ascertain these, I propose to transmit a copy of the present despatch to Sir Charles Fitzroy, with a request that he will, after consulting with the leading men of the colony, address Your Lordship on the subject.
"With respect to the terms proposed by the proprietors, I am clearly of opinion that any such arrangement would be wholly inadequate to the end in view.

Some proprietors refused to sell land at all and settlers found that they had no more security of tenure than they formerly had as tenants in England or Scotland. Further, the costs of the administration of the Island were to be borne by a tax paid by the proprietors on the land they held. This was often impossible to collect, and efforts made by the local government to enforce the terms of the grants were usually overruled by the British government under the influence of the landowners, most of whom never set foot in the colony.

The land question was the dominating political concern from 1767 until Confederation. Confrontation between the agents of the proprietors and the tenants frequently led to violence, and attempts to change the system were blocked in England. During the 1840s the government was able to buy out some of the landowners and make the land available for purchase by the tenants, but funds available for this purpose were quickly exhausted.