According to Major General Eyre Massey, the commanding general in Halifax, some did return in 1776, and were helped to do so with government funds. They “seemed heartily sick of their jaunt,” having received “no encouragement in America.” Giving “some their passage to England,” he hoped that they would serve as a lesson to deter “the Old Country from losing so many of her subjects,”77 although the many hundreds who remained would prove him wrong.
The Yorkshire settlers scattered far and wide, choosing their locations according to land and job availability.78 In this respect they were very different from the Scottish Highlanders who came to the region at this time and relocated themselves as entire communities on land granted by the government. Highlanders sought to preserve their culture and traditions and so progressed in groups rather than singly. However, as Governor Legge explained to Lord Dartmouth, the Yorkshire immigrants “do not come with the expectation of lands [being] granted to them.” They did not wish to settle as one community, but as individuals. “Some come to purchase [land], others perhaps to become tenants and some to labour.”79 Having rented substantial farms in Yorkshire that had been handed down from father to son, they were accustomed to renting, and took their time before making the transition from renter to owner. And when they bought farms from their New England predecessors they became widely dispersed in the Chignecto Isthmus, including the area to the west, along the Petitcodiac and Memramcook rivers, off the Shepody Bay, and the region to the south along the River Philip. Several families went even farther afield, settling in Annapolis and nearby townships in the southwest of the province.80
Yorkshire settlers had to cope with the privations, drudgery, and isolation of pioneer life, and endured testing conditions that seem almost incomprehensible today. Yorkshire men had to turn wildernesses into cleared farms, while the women would have had to become completely self-sufficient in meeting the domestic needs of their families. To do so they would have had to remember old skills and learn new ones. They clearly rose to the challenge. As John Robertson and Thomas Rispin observed:
[T]he women are very industrious house-wives and spin the flax, the growth of their own farms, and weave both their linen and woollen cloth; they also bleach their linen and dye the yarn themselves. Though they will not descend to work out of doors, either in time of hay or harvest yet, they are exceedingly diligent in every domestic employment. The candles … soap and starch which are used in their families are of their own manufacturing.81
Methodism played its part in helping settlers like Charles Dixon find a moral dimension to their new life. They had wanted to escape from what they saw as England’s corruption and over-worldliness, and sought a refuge for themselves and their families in a British-held wilderness. Their Methodist religion provided a vital support mechanism by drawing people together regularly for worship, and it was also an important link with their English past. Methodist fervour was sustained by a great many of the immigrants, but by far the most outstanding example was William Black, who arrived in the Jenny in 1775 as a boy of fourteen with the rest of his family. Thirteen years later he had become the spiritual leader of the entire Nova Scotia Methodist community and thereafter became one of the most important Methodist leaders in North America.82
Having completed his tour, John Robinson concluded that he would have a far better life in Nova Scotia than in England, and so returned to Yorkshire to bring back his family: “A large sum of money would not induce me to stay any longer[in England].”83 A new world with no masters and servants had opened up, and soon the paucity of a population, which had held back the province’s development, would find a solution. Oddly enough, the outcome of the American War of Independence, which began in 1775 and ended in 1783, worked to its advantage. Having lost the war, the British government relocated large numbers of Loyalists, many of whom were English or of English descent, from the United States to Nova Scotia, thus beginning a new chapter in the province’s development.
Plaques at Pointe de Bute Cemetery, New Brunswick, commemorating the Reverend William Black, pioneer Methodist preacher, and the introduction by him of Methodism in Canada.
You will expect to hear how it fared with me and the rest of the English in the time of the siege. 1
NATHANIEL SMITH AND the other Yorkshire people living near Fort Cumberland were suffering more than most during the American War of Independence (1775–83), having been subjected to regular attacks by American privateers (legalized pirates) and to an actual siege by a small group of rebels. Understandably, as their houses and barns came under attack, many left the area, including the families of Nathaniel and John Smith who moved to Cornwallis (Kings County) and Newport (near Windsor) respectively, and Christopher Harper and family who relocated just a short distance to Sackville.2
Faced with marauding privateers and a population dominated by New Englanders, whose loyalty to Britain was questionable, Governor Legge tried to take preventive action. Although the risk of an all-out invasion by an American army seemed slight, Legge felt that the Atlantic region required a localized defence capability. So, shortly after the outbreak of the American Revolution in 1775, he called for a provincial militia and a tax to support it, but such was the outcry from local inhabitants that the legislation had to be dropped. Two hundred and forty-six people in Cumberland County, a group that included fifty-five Yorkshiremen, signed a petition stating that they did not wish to enlist for military service. Having just arrived a year or so earlier, the Yorkshire settlers said they needed to establish their farms. They stated that the raising of a militia would deplete the area of its men and compound an already serious labour shortage, thus jeopardizing their livelihoods. When a regiment of British soldiers arrived at Halifax, the need for a homegrown militia subsided, but the continuing discontent of American sympathizers ensured that turmoil would persist.
In the summer of the following year, a small band of rebels formed under Jonathan Eddy, a long-term resident of the Chignecto Isthmus. Having failed to persuade George Washington, the American commanderin-chief, to mount an invasion of Nova Scotia, he recruited a private army himself, finding his men chiefly from Machias (now in Maine) and Maugerville (now in New Brunswick).3 In all, Eddy gathered around 180 men, only a minority of whom were residents of the Cumberland area. His group made their way toward the British outpost at Fort Cumberland in November, where, joined by a few local residents, they mounted an attack. But the siege was quickly suppressed by British reinforcements who had rushed to the fort. Two hundred marines and Royal Fencible Americans swiftly overcame Eddy’s men and then scoured the countryside in search of rebels, torching the houses and barns of anyone whose loyalties were felt to be suspect.4 Some rebels escaped behind American lines, leaving behind wives and families to be abused and sworn at until they could be exchanged for Loyalist prisoners three years later.5
Hit-and-run attacks by American privateers were widespread in the Atlantic region from 1776 to 1782. Defenceless coastal communities were plundered and vessels at sea had their provisions and valuables looted. Guerrilla raids brought commerce to a halt and caused severe food shortages, especially in Newfoundland and the Island of St. John (Prince Edward Island). Back in England, the Poole merchant Benjamin Lester learned through his Newfoundland agent that cargoes of seal skins and seal oil were ready to be loaded in his vessels anchored at Trinity Bay but that privateers were lurking. They had