Nevertheless, as is so often the case, most ordinary people made up their own minds. Many English, particularly those living in the West Country, streamed into Prince Edward Island during the 1830s and 1840s, hoping to benefit from its burgeoning shipbuilding industry.35 Meanwhile, Nova Scotia’s mining industry attracted a growing number of English coal miners during the second half of the nineteenth century and still more arrived later with the province’s growing industrialization.36 The views of people already settled carried far more weight than official advice or outspoken commentators, and this, more than anything, drove the later influx to the Maritimes.
The British government’s land policies, such as they were, promoted everything under the sun except effective colonization. Land speculators were thriving, but ordinary colonists found it extremely difficult to cope with the many obstacles that were placed in their way. They had low priority. Since the late eighteenth century the government had been granting huge quantities of wilderness land as rewards to favoured individuals. Most recipients sold their land on to speculators, who amassed huge holdings but did nothing to further colonization. Settlers had the residue, which was often inferior, and what holdings they could obtain were relatively small and scattered over huge distances. It was a bureaucratic muddle that favoured the rich and privileged while hindering the growth of compact settlements. Conditions were especially bad in Prince Edward Island, where settlers were actually prevented from purchasing land. The land on the island had been divided and sold off by lottery in 1767 to various claimants, irrespective of their willingness to promote settlements.37 They simply waited for their land to increase in value, and, in the meantime, sought people willing to take up leaseholds.
Late eighteenth-century portrait of Walter Patterson, who became Prince Edward Island’s first governor in 1769. His corrupt and incompetent handling of land transactions following the 1767 lottery made him a controversial figure, and, after seventeen years as governor, he was forced to leave office. In 1798, Patterson died in poverty at his lodgings in London.
When Lord Seymour of Ragley took possession of Lot 13 in Prince Edward Island, Charles Morris, the surveyor, selected “1,000 acres of the best land” for him and allocated the remainder to his future tenants. This was all going to be very beneficial to his lordship, since the rents collected from tenants would more than pay for the quit rents — land fees that were payable to the Crown.38 Lord Seymour grabbed most of the economic benefit for himself, denying his settlers the prospect of owning land. This aspect of Old World thinking caused considerable resentment in Prince Edward Island, and many settlers left the province.
The situation in Newfoundland had been even worse. There the West Country merchants had an iron grip on the island’s economy and did what they could to stop colonizers, fearing that they would interfere with the smooth functioning of the fishery. They wanted Newfoundland to be a British off-shore fishery with no other function than to make them wealthy and benefit the West Country economy. However, the young lads and men who took up temporary employment in the fishery had other ideas. Once they appreciated the province’s benefits, some voted with their feet, thus setting in train a small but regular supply of immigrants who contributed greatly to its development.
The city of St. John’s, Newfoundland, in 1892, lithograph by an unknown artist. The cityscape reveals a metropolis focused around a busy harbour. Water Street and the Military Road, running parallel to the waterfront, were the earliest streets; they once linked two forts.
A recurring theme in emigrant letters and official reports is the sheer hard work involved in becoming a pioneer farmer. An advertisement in the Berwick Advertiser in 1843, aimed at “persons desirous of obtaining cleared or uncleared farms” in Prince Edward Island, stated that no one need apply who could not “command £100 upwards to commence cultivations.”39 Settlers with capital could buy already-established farms in settled areas, but they were a fortunate few. Most people were like William Grieve, a shepherd from Whittingham in Northumberland, who planned his transformation to pioneer farming in the Harvey settlement in New Brunswick very carefully. The writer J.F.W. Johnston was clearly awestruck by the man’s resilience and staying power:
He landed at Fredericton in 1837 with a family of ten and only 7 [shillings] and 6 [pence] in his pocket. He did not come out to Harvey along with the other settlers but, having received his grant of land, he hired himself as a farm-servant to Colonel Shore at Fredericton at £30 a year; and such of his children as could do anything he hired out also. Supporting the rest of his family out of his earnings, he saved what he could and whenever he had a pound or two to spare he got an acre or two of his land cleared. In this way, he did good to the other settlers, by bringing some money among them and giving a little employment. At last, four years ago — that was after seven years’ service — he came out and settled on his land himself, building a good house for his family right away — that is without the previous erection of a log house, as is usually the case, and a very good house he appeared to have. He now owns seven hundred acres of land in different lots and had clearings of twenty acres on each of three or four of these farm lots intended for his several sons, who appear to be as industrious as himself.40
There were many William Grieves in this emigration saga. Agricultural workers, farmers, tradesmen, craftsmen, miners, and fishermen came with little spare money, but they had an overwhelming desire to succeed. To do so they had to show enormous courage and resilience. They built their communities on the west side of Nova Scotia, on the east side of Newfoundland, and in many parts of southern New Brunswick and Prince Edward Island. The first large group came from Yorkshire, and following them were people who left from across the length and breadth of England. This is their story.
Laying the Foundations: Yorkshire Emigration
Remember the rock from whence ye was hewn. 1
CHARLES DIXON RECORDED his pioneering experiences for the benefit of his children. “It was for your sakes we crossed the ocean so that you would out-strip us in purity of heart and holiness of life.” 2 This was seemingly an unconventional motive for emigrating, but Dixon was a devout Methodist who wished to escape the social injustice and “troubles … befalling my native country.” A bricklayer’s son from Kirk Leavington in the North Riding of Yorkshire, he was a man of strong convictions and a natural leader. He rose to become one of Nova Scotia’s leading figures, and, following the separation of New Brunswick from Nova Scotia in 1784, served in New Brunswick’s first House of Assembly. Yet he could never have imagined this outcome when he first learned about the advantages of the New World.
Dixon had established a profitable paper factory for himself at Hutton Rudby, and his relocation to Nova Scotia seems unexpected. However, he was dissatisfied and restless and, learning about the favourable accounts of Nova Scotia being circulated by agents of Lieutenant Governor Michael Francklin, he considered emigrating. But, lacking sufficient