History of Coveys Island in Mahone Bay, Nova Scotia, Canada There are two islands both named “Covey” or “Coveys” in Lunenburg County, Nova Scotia. One is part of the LaHave Islands (44.2485 N, 64.3659 W1) south of the Town of Lunenburg. Cottages dot the island, where “Covey Island Boatworks” was established in 1979 until 1987. The present boatyard is in Liverpool, while the offices are in Lunenburg. The subject of this article is the second island, now an unoccupied 108-acres of Crown land in Mahone Bay (44.421932 N, 64.30451W2) north of the Town of Lunenburg. It is commonly known as the location of the 1756 murder of 61-year-old French Huguenot merchant Louis Payzant. Coveys Island was formed by the melting of glaciers 12,000 years ago, and the local Mi’kmaq have occupied the Atlantic Provinces for more than 10,000 years.3 In the 17th and 18th centuries, the French and British occupied the region. In 1753 British authorities granted the area to the “Foreign Protestants” who settled in Lunenburg that summer, including Payzant and his family, who had sailed from Jersey, Channel Islands. Historical references to the island are listed chronologically: 1. About 1754 “Islands in Mahone Bay no. 7, 100 acres to Lewis Paysant [sic]” 4 was granted to Louis Payzant, along with nearby Backmans Island. 2. In 1755 the island was identified as “Paysan’s I” [sic]. 5 3. On 8 May 1756 First Nations people (sent by the French in Quebec to attack British territories) raided “Louis Paysants [sic] Island”6 where they killed and scalped Louis, as well as his servant Anne Riovant, her infant son, and a young male from nearby Rous Island, captured as a guide.7 Payzant’s stock of merchandise was seized before his house was torched. 4. On 12 May 1756 Colonel Patrick Sutherland in Lunenburg sent a dispatch by sea to Lieutenant Governor Charles Lawrence in Halifax. He wrote: “Yesterday in the afternoon I received the melancholly [sic] account of Mr. Pizant’s [sic] House being burned (in Mahone Bay) and that himself and other people were killed. I immediately sent an officers party which returned this morning by whom I am informed that on Pizants Island the House is burned, he with another young man kill’d near it and scalp’d. A woman Servant and Child also kill’d and scalp’d near the water side. His wife and four Children missing.”8 They were taken captive eventually to Quebec City, returning to Nova Scotia in 1760. 5. About 1756, “After the members of the Payzant family, whose lives had been spared, were carried off, a man named Covey lived on the island. He was followed in succession by Adam Heckman, Paul Langille, Peter Herman, and Casper Meisner.”9 That “Covey” was likely James Covey 1 Online. 2 Coveys Island, Natural Resources Canada, online. 3 Mi’kmaw Resource Guide, online. 4 Notes of Survey in Halifax Allotment Book in Winthrop Bell’s Register at Nova Scotia Archives, Halifax, MG1, Vol. 122, card index. Also, Lunenburg County Land Grants, Nova Scotia Archives, RG20, “C” Vol. 90A, doc. 22. 5 “A Chart of thee [sic] Coast of Nova Scotia from Port Maltois [sic] to Lawrence Town” (ca. 1755) in Joan Dawson, The Mapmaker’s Eye: Nova Scotia Through Early Maps (Halifax, N.S: Nimbus and the Nova Scotia Museum, 1988), pp. 136-138. 6 D.C. Jessen’s report on Lunenburg Indian attacks, 1756-1758, Nova Scotia Archives, MG100, Vol. 263, no. 1. 7 Linda G. Layton, A Passion for Survival: the True Story of Marie Anne and Louis Payzant in Eighteenth-century Nova Scotia (Halifax: Nimbus Publishing, 2003), p. 52. 8 Nova Scotia Council, minutes of meetings, 1753-1757, Nova Scotia Archives, RG1, Vol. 210. 9 Mather B. DesBrisay, History of the County of Lunenburg (Belleville, Ontario: Mika, 1972, reprint) written 1870, published 1895, p. 501. 2 (1737-after 1792), born in London, England, who immigrated to Halifax on the Canning in April 1749 with his father and brother, both named Charles.10 His 9 children were baptized at Lunenburg’s St. John’s church from 1764 to 1788.11 Covey was listed in Lunenburg Township on the censuses of 176712 and 1770.13 In 1782 he was captain of the schooner Susannah which took a cargo of boards and shingles to Halifax from Lunenburg,14 and in 1792 he paid 1 shilling poll tax for “Islands, Lunenburg.”15 6. In August 1761, “A grant [was made]…confirming unto Mary Paysant [widow of Louis]…an Island in Mahone Bay called Paysants Island containing one hundred acres…” 16 etc. The area totaled 170 acres: Payzant Island, 100 acres + Backmans, 40 acres + Oakland #8 woodlot, 30 acres.17 7. On 18 August 1761, “Mary Peaysant [sic] hath… applied…for licence to dispose of two Island[s] and a thirty Acre Lot granted to her in the Township of Lunenburg thereby to raise a Sum of Money to enable her to improve and Stock certain Lands granted to her in the Township of Falmouth and to assist in maintaining a numerous Family.”18 8. About 1761 Peter Zwicker bought the island.19 This was likely Johann Peter Zwicker (1736-1813), born in the Palatinate,20 southwest Germany, who immigrated to Halifax in 1752. 9. By 1774 the name of the island was changed to “William Henry Isle” (no doubt after the son of King George III). Swiss-born Huguenot surveyor Joseph F.W. DesBarres (1729-1824), employed by the British Admiralty in 1763, prepared charts of the coastline and offshore waters of Nova Scotia. The islands appear to have been renamed in honour of King George III (1738-1820) and his family. Mahone Harbour became “Prince Harbour”; Backmans Island was “Princess Royal Island” (for Charlotte, Princess Royal, 1766-1828); Loye Island was “Louisa Island”, and Rous Island was “Osnaburg Isle.”21 The new names did not last. 10. In February 1804 Rev. John Payzant (Louis’s son in Liverpool, Nova Scotia) sold half of “my right title claim or interest unto [sic] my father Lewis Payzant one half of the Island in Mahone Bay that part on which the Builden [buildings] are in the County of Lunenburg” to Adam Heckman22 10 Immigrant Ships Transcribers Guild, online. Also, U.S. and Canada, Passenger and Immigration Lists Index, 1500s-1900s, on Ancestry.com. 11 Lunenburg County, NSGenWeb – Church Records – Rootsweb, online. 12 Census Returns, Assessment and Poll Tax Records 1767-1838, Nova Scotia Archives, on Ancestry.com. 13 Nova Scotia, Canada, Census, Assessment and Poll Tax Records, 1770, on Ancestry.com. His household included 1 man, 3 boys, 1 woman and 1 girl (one was English, four were “American” i.e. born in North America, and one was “German and other foreigners”). He owned 2 cows, 2 swine and 1 vessel, schooner or sloop. 14 “The Privateers of Nova Scotia, 1756-1783, by George Mullane, of Halifax, Read before the N.S. Hist. Soc., 9 March, 1909,” in Collections of the Nova Scotia Historical Society, Vol. XX (Halifax: McNab, 1921) pp. 29-30, online. 15 Nova Scotia, Canada, Census, Assessment and Poll Tax Records, 1792, on Ancestry.com. 16 Crown Land Grants, Nova Scotia Archives, MFM 13034, old book 4, page 114. 17 There is a discrepancy as to which woodlot, #4 or #8. In 1753 #4 was granted to ‘Luis Paysant’ (see footnote 4) but in 1761 it was #8 that belonged to his widow (see footnote 16). 18 Licence to dispose of lands, Nova Scotia Archives, RG1, Vol. 165, #175. 19 Elmer G. Harlow, Jr., Harlow Happenings (Raynham, Mass.: 1983), Robert G. Harlow, ed., p. 7. 20 Winthrop Pickard Bell, The “Foreign Protestants” and the Settlement of Nova Scotia (Sackville, N.B., Centre for Canadian Studies, 1990), originally published 1961, p. 287. 21 Joseph F.W. DesBarres, surveyor, The Atlantic Neptune, (England, 1777), a four-volume atlas. Also: Stephen J. Hornsby, Hope Sterge, Surveyors of Empire: Samuel Holland, J.F.W. DesBarres and the Making of the Atlantic Neptune (Montreal: McGill-Queen’s University Press, 2011), p. 137, online. 22 Lunenburg County Deeds, Nova Scotia Archives, reel #18366, Vol. 10, p. 33. 3 (likely Johann Adam Heckman, 1775-1818, whose father emigrated from the Palatinate23 or Baden-Württemberg,24 Germany). This was probably Coveys Island. 11. In February 1812 Eliza Langille (1812-1872) was born on Coveys Island, the first child for Paulus Leopold Langille (1785-1858) and Anna Judith Hannah Dauphinée (1789-1884). Eliza’s grandfathers immigrated to Halifax from Montbelaird, France, in 1752.25 Eliza’s 12 younger siblings were all born in New Cornwall, Nova Scotia.26 12. In March 1840 Capt. Peter Herman (1798-after 1881), a farmer on nearby Herman’s Island, leased “Coveys Island” for eight months to Paulus Leopold Langille (1785-1858), also all the land lying southwest of a “small pond lying to the SW of the dwelling house” for one year and eight months. Herman (whose grandfather emigrated from the Palatinate in 1752)27 was responsible for cutting the “grass of the swamp lying to the North east of the dwelling House and all the grass to the North east of the said swamp for the ensuing year.” Paulus’s son Caleb Langille (1817-1887) lived with his father. In 1841 they moved to New Germany, Nova Scotia.28 13. By the mid-nineteenth century the story of the “Bloody Handprint” rock was known, though there were various theories. “In 1850 father [George Payzant, 1813-1885, a prominent Liverpool merchant and owner of many brigantines29] visited the Payzant Island and the stone was pointed out to him (or rock) as the one where the little child's brains were dashed out.
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