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A HISTORY OF BARRINGTON TOWNSHIP and VICINITY SHELBURNE COUNTY, NOVA SCOTIA 1604 1870 BIOGRAPHICAL and GENEALOGICAL APPENDIX BY EDWIN CROWELL, M. A., D. D. YARMOUTH, NOVA SCOTIA TABLE OF CONTENTS Preface. CHAPTER I The Old Inhabitants 7 II. Old Documents, etc 28 III. Province and Colony 47 IV. The Township Settlements 62 V. The Township of Barrington 76 VI. Antecedents of Grantees, 1767 88 VII. Early Settlers and the Government 98 VIII. Crossing the Flood 104 IX. Founders and Foundations 113 X Growth and Organization 136 XI. The Township Grant 149 XII. The Period of the First Division 158 XIII. Barrington and the Revolution 182 XIV. Peace and Readjustment 202 XV. Military Affairs , 227 XVI. Religion 241 XVII. Legislation re the Township 283 XVIII. Social Service 305 XIX. Maritime Interests 334 XX. Distribution of Population and Local Industry 361 XXI. Boundaries, Topography,Geology, Forests and Climate 394 Appendix (See Index) 405 Biography and Genealogy 430-601 Addenda 603 Index. PREFACE. The book here offered to the public is the product of a half century of preparation. It was first conceived and made possible by Professor Arnold Doane who employed his vacations in ferreting out the life-stories and relationships of the early settlers of Barrington. This work he continued until his death in 1911. Afterwards the subscriber, who had long felt the importance of preserving the history of his native township, acquired the memoranda left by Prof. Doane and has put them with many changes and extensive additions into their present shape. The Archives at Ottawa, Halifax, Liverpool and Yarmouth, as well as of Shelburne ard Barrington have been searched and the answers to many questions of general and local historical interest are here made known. Our story begins with the night when Champlain's shallop lay at anchor in Sable Bay, 1604. A few years later there was a trading post near Cape Sable, one of the four marked by Champlain in his map of the coasts of Western Nova Scotia in 1612. Since then there has been a continuous occupation here by people of European stock. About Cape Sable for 150 years French adventurers and their descendants carried on trade with the Indians or engaged in fishing. This Cape was the starting point in the bounds of the grant of King James to Sir William Alexander in 1621. And when the deportation of the Acadians had been effected, it was close by that Alexander McNutt intended to build his New Jerusalem. Here actually came the New Englanders whose descendants form the bulk of the present inhabitants. With the settlers from New England there was a contingent of Quakers whose fortunes are a part of our story. The Revolutionary war had few more harrowing experiences in the United States than were endured at Barrington. When it was over a period of political change, loyalist immigration, expansion of trade and prosperity followed, the last named somewhat broken however by the war of 1812-14. Narrowed down in industrial opportunity mainly to seafaring, fishing and lumbering the youth of Barrington have responded more freely to the call of the neighboring centres of population and of the ocean; but to the most of them the old township is still the centre of the world. Many of the township genealogies link our people with distinguished antecedents both in America and Britain; the history will doubtless show unsuspected relationships among those now living, and the part played by a worthy and godly ancestry in the development of township and province and the commerce of the Empire. Historians of Nova Scotia have generally, through ignorance or lack of perspective, ignored the earlier and more substantial preloyalist settlement and its importance to the Province, while invariably featuring the refugee loyalists and their miseries. In Shelburne County in particular the older township was for the time completely ershadowed by the new one. We have attempted to present these factors of township and provincial foundations in their true and proper proportions in this work. The author has with much labor and expense prepared genealogies of the early inhabitants, and with them biographical sketches of individuals of note. John Morley has said that "a few sentences in a biography many a time mean long chapters in a life, and what looked like an incident turns out to be an epoch." The enhanced cost of publication now compels us to greatly abridge these records of descent by limiting them to about the third generation from the first proprietors. The chapter on the Indians and Acadians by Professor Doane, onsiderably altered, begins the book. He exemplified the motto which we quote from Freeman's . "History of Cape Cod". In treasuring up the memorials of the fathers we best manifest our regard for posterity." It deepened the interest of the subscriber to learn that no less than five of the grantees of this township were his great-great-grandfathers. And their wives, all of different family names, being added, made for him, ten different ancestral connections with the New England of 1760. Their part in the life of Harrington constitutes their memorial. Some of our ntemporaries are still richer in this respect. Grateful acknowledgments are made to those who have assisted in bringing to light these memorials, many of whom have passed on to a better country. Space fails to name them, "the oldest inhabitants," the keepers of traditions and documents, the lovers of ancestral virtue, the students and public librarians, and all whose letters and sympathy and interest have helped to recall the past times and give our history a permanent form. A paper by Mr. B. H. Doane on "Traditions of Old Cape Sable," and a summary of major events after 1870 are added in appendixes. And now, to the sacred memory of the grantees and their wives, herein named, and of their descendants and successors associated with them in the settlement and building up of Barrington, who through arduous toil and self-sacrifice have embroidered these shores with delightful homes and left us the legacy of an honorable and God-fearing ancestry, we dedicate this little history. Edwin Crowell. PROF. ARNOLD DOANE. 1833 1911, Senior Author of this History. The Roman gathered in a stately urn The dust he honored while the sacred fire, Nourished by vestal hands, was made to burn From age to age. If fitly you'd aspire, Honor the Dead; and let the sounding lyre Recount their virtues in your festal hours; Gather their ashes higher still, and higher Nourish the patriot flame that History dowers, And, o'er the old men's graves, go strew your choicest flowers. From Hon. Joseph Howe's poem, "Our Fathers." PROF. ARNOLD DOANE. 1833 1911, Senior Author of this History. CHAPTER I. THE OLD INHABITANTS. The Indians The one race of people who have inhabited the peninsula of Nova Scotia from immemorial times is the Micmac Indian. In 1753 they were estimated by Governor Hopson at about three hundred families. Though later Acadian historians generally regard them as a branch of the Algonquin group of Indians, Gesner described their language as a dialect of the Iroquois. The most of the provincial histories give ample and reliable accounts of their customs and beliefs, and all agree with Dr. Hannay in saying that "although savages in their mode of life, they were savages of the highest type, veritable Romans in spirit, eloquent, brave and honorable, with some of the highest qualities of civilization." Membertou was their great chief when the first European settlers came. In 1607 he was at war with the Armouchiquois. In a battle at Saco, Maine, Pennoniac, a Micmac chief was killed, and his body was brought back and laid in a new grave near Cape Sable along with many pipes, knives, axes, otter skins and pots. This would imply that Pennoniac's hunting grounds were in the Cape Sable district. After the capture of Louisburg and Quebec, the Indians, duly impressed by the victories of the English and the military display at Halifax and elsewhere, came under treaty, tribe by tribe, with the government. This extract from the speech of a chief, Atuash, 1761, sums up the situation from their point of view. "Our not doubting your sincerity has been chiefly owing to your charitable, merciful and bountiful behaviour to the poor French wandering up and down the seacoasts and woods without any of the necessaries of life. Certain it is that they as well as we must have wretchedly perished unless relieved by your humanity, for we were reduced to extremities more intolerable than death itself. You are now master here, such has been the will of God. Etc., etc." By these treaties the chiefs were made to assume the responsibility for the good behaviour of their people. Under the new conditions in which fighting for selfdefence against hostile tribes was no longer necessary and a share in their own government was lost, they fell in their own estimation, and with other marks of deterioration, often succumbed to the influence of the pale- face's rum. Down to fifty years ago canoes with red men and their families were to be seen on our harbors, but now they have ceased to appear in their native costume and modes of travel. Unfortunately, Indian names of places, as frequently preserved in other parts of the Province, and always of considerable value in historical researches, have not been retained by us. The Indians themselves have preserved but few of these names within the bounds of our Township. Still in these, so far as known, I am disposed, whether fancifully or otherwise, to trace indications of points formerly of great importance to these people as portages, or as camping grounds in their regular itinerating movements backward and forward along our shores and over our lakes and streams.