Chignecto Isthmus; First Settlers | Page 9

for the fort. Colonel Scott, commandant at Cumberland, immediately
sent two hundred of the New England men to Bay Verte with a sergeant
and ten men of the regulars. The sergeant replaced the men who were
killed, and caused three weeks' supply of wood to be laid in. Shortly
after this one of the regulars was killed, and one of the New England
men was taken prisoner. These men had strayed in the woods down as
far as the Tantramar with these unfortunate results.
In 1759, Governor Lawrence wrote from Halifax to the Board of Trade
that "five soldiers had been killed and scalped near Fort Cumberland,
and that a provision vessel had been boarded by French and Indians in
the Bay of Fundy and carried up the River Petitcodiac." The five men
were ambushed and killed in Upper Point de Bute, near a bridge that
crossed a ravine on the farm now owned by Amos Trueman.
Up to this time the government of Nova Scotia was vested in a
governor and council. This year, 1758, it was decided by the Home
Government to allow the Province a Legislative Assembly. The
Assembly was to consist of twenty-two members, twelve to be elected
by the Province at large, four for the township of Halifax, four for the
township of Lunenburg, one for Dartmouth, one for Lawrencetown,
one for Annapolis, and one for Cumberland. Fifty qualified electors
would constitute a township. The township elections were to continue
during two days, and those for the Province four days.
The Assembly met for the first time on October 2nd, 1758. Nineteen
members were present. This makes the Legislature of Halifax the oldest
in the Dominion of Canada. This year, also, Governor Lawrence issued

his first proclamation inviting the New Englanders to come to Nova
Scotia and settle on the vacated Acadian farms.
This proclamation created a great deal of interest and inquiry, and
finally led to a considerable number of New England farmers settling in
different parts of the Province, Chignecto getting a good share of them.
The first proclamation had, however, to be supplemented by a second,
in which full liberty of conscience and the right to worship as they
pleased was secured to Protestants of all denominations. This guarantee
was not included in Lawrence's first invitation to the New Englanders,
and the descendants of the Puritans had not read in vain the history of
the sacrifices made by their forefathers to worship in their own way.
In July, 1759, Edward Mott, representing a committee of agents from
Connecticut, arrived at Halifax and was given a schooner to proceed to
Chignecto, to examine that part of the Province with a view to
settlement. Mr. Mott and his party returned some months later and
suggested some changes in the proposed grants, which were conceded
by the Government.
It was estimated at this time that two thousand families could be
comfortably settled in the districts of Chignecto, Cobequid, Pisquid,
Minas and Annapolis. This year (1759) persons in Connecticut and
Rhode Island sent Major Dennison, Jonathan Harris, James Otis, James
Fuller, and John Hicks, to Halifax to look out for desirable locations for
settlement in the Province. Messrs. Hicks and Fuller decided to take up
lands at Pisquid or Windsor.
From this time till 1766 the desire shown by residents of New England
to settle in Nova Scotia was very marked, and resulted in adding
considerably to the population of the Province.
In May, 1761, Captain Dogget was directed to bring twenty families
and sixty head of cattle. The cattle were to be brought from the eastern
part of New England to Liverpool, N.S., at the expense of the
Government. Thirty-five pounds also was granted to transport twenty
families with seventy-nine head of cattle to the township of Amherst. In
1763, a number of families came to Sackville and were given grants of

land by the Government. These Sackville emigrants were adherents of
the Baptist Church and brought their minister with them. The
denomination is still strong in that locality. A number of these
emigrants, however, returned at the beginning of the Revolutionary
War, and others after the war was over.
The townships of Cumberland, Amherst, and Sackville were
established in 1763. The township of Cumberland had an area of
100,800 acres. It included all the territory between the La Planche and
Aulac Rivers, and extended east to Bay Verte and southwest to the
Cumberland Basin. Old Beausejour, now Fort Cumberland, was within
the township of Cumberland.
Amherst township is said to have had a population at this time of thirty
families, and Cumberland of thirty-five families. The township of
Cumberland of (sic) was given 18,800 acres of marsh, and Sackville
had 1,200 cres of marsh and 8,700 acres of woodland.
In 1763, a number of the leading