THE YORKSHIRE IMMIGRATION.
Yorkshire is grouped as one of the six northern counties of England.
Jackson Wray calls it "one of the bonniest of English shires." It has
an area of 6,076 square miles, making it the largest county in England.
Its present population is a trifle over three millions. A coast-line of
one hundred miles gives its people a fine chance to look out on the
North Sea. The old town of Hull is the largest shipping port. Scarboro,
on the coast, is the great watering-place for the north of England.
Leeds, Sheffield, Hull and Bradford are the largest towns. It is the
principal seat of the woollen manufacture in Great Britain. The people
are self-reliant and progressive. In Yorkshire to-day are to be found
the oldest co-operative corn-mills and the oldest co-operative stores
in England. The practice of dividing profits among purchasers in
proportion to their trade at the store was first adopted by a Yorkshire
society. This is just what might be expected from the people who, in
1793, passed the following resolution: "Resolved, that monopolies are
inconsistent with the true principles of commerce, because they
restrain at once the spirit of enterprise and the freedom of
competition, and are injurious to the country where they exist, because
the monopolist, by fixing the rate of both sale and purchase, can
oppress the public at discretion."
Another resolution passed by the same corporation, but earlier in the
century, shows our ancestors in a somewhat different light. A day of
thanksgiving was appointed for the success of the British forces. The
corporation attended divine service in the parish church, after which
it was agreed to meet at Mrs. Owen's, "at five of the clock, to drink
to His Majesty's health and further good success," the expense of the
evening to be at the corporation's charge.
The old Yorkshire men liked a good, honest horse-race, and fox-hunting
was a favorite sport with them. It is told of a Mr. Kirkton that he
followed the hounds on horseback until he was eighty, and from that
period to one hundred he regularly attended the unkennelling of the fox
in his single chair. Scott's "Dandy Dinmont" could scarcely overtop
that. No one can read the "Annals of Yorkshire" without being struck
with the number of persons who at their death left bequests to the
poor, widows getting a large share of this bounty.
John Wesley, very soon after he began his life-work, found his way to
Yorkshire, and nowhere had he more sincere or devoted followers, many
of whom were among the first emigrants to Nova Scotia. To the England
of the eighteenth century America must have presented great attraction,
especially to the tenant-farmer and the day-laborer. The farmer in that
country could never hope to own his farm, and the wages of the
agricultural laborer were so small that it was only by the strictest
economy and the best of health that he could hope to escape the
workhouse in his old age. In America land could be had for the asking.
The continent was simply waiting for the hands of willing workers to
make it the happy home of millions. The reaction in trade after the
Seven Years' War made the prospect just starting in life gloomier than
ever, and many a father and mother who expected to end their days in
the Old Land, decided, for the sake of their children, to face the
dangers of the western ocean and the trials of pioneer life.
Charles Dixon, one of the first of the Yorkshire emigrants, writes of
England before he left: "I saw the troubles that were befalling my
native country. Oppressions of every kind abounded, and it was very
difficult to earn bread and keep a conscience void of offence." Under
these circumstances, Mr. Dixon and a number of others decided to
emigrate. It is not surprising then, that when Governor Franklin, at
the invitation of the Duke of Rutland, went down to Yorkshire in 1771,
to seek emigrants for Nova Scotia, he found a goodly number of persons
ready to try their fortunes in the new land.
Governor Franklin did not stay long in the northern district, but left
agents who, judging by the number that came to Nova Scotia during the
few ensuing years, must have done their work well.
Among the first of the Yorkshire emigrants to sail for Nova Scotia was
a party that left Liverpool in the good ship "DUKE OF YORK," on the
16th of March, 1772. The voyage lasted forty-six days, and at the end
of that time the sixty-two passengers were all landed safely at
Halifax. From that port they went by schooner to Chignecto, landing at
Fort Cumberland on the 21st of May.
Charles Dixon, with his wife and four children, were passengers on the
"DUKE OF YORK." Mr. Dixon's is the only record I have seen of this
voyage, and it is very concise indeed. He writes: "We had a rough
passage. None of us having been to sea before, much sea-sickness
prevailed. At Halifax we were received with much joy by the gentlemen
in general, but were much discouraged by others, and the account given
us of Cumberland was enough to make the stoutest give way."
Mr. Dixon does not seem to have allowed these discouraging reports to
influence him greatly, for by the 8th of June he had made a purchase of
2,500 acres of land in Sackville, and moved his family there.
Other vessels followed the "DUKE OF YORK" during 1773 and the two
following years, the largest number coming in 1774. By May of that
year, two brigantines moored at Halifax with 280 passengers, and three
more vessels were expected. By the last of June nine passenger vessels
had arrived. The ship ADAMANT at this time was the regular packet
between Halifax and Great Britain.
As one of the passenger vessels was from Aberdeen, it is not likely
that all the immigrants this year were from Yorkshire. At Halifax, the
women and children going to Cumberland were put on board a schooner
bound for Chignecto, and the younger man started to make the journey on
foot. The latter took the usual road to Fort Edward; from there they
went by boat to Parrsboro', and then followed the high ridge of land
called the "Boar's Back," to River Hebert. At Minudie they found boats
to carry them to Fort Cumberland, where they were given a right royal
Yorkshire welcome by their wives and children, who had reached the fort
before them. From Fort Cumberland the immigrants quickly began to look
around the country for suitable locations.
Those by the name of Black, Freeze, Robinson, Lusby, Oxley and Forster
bought farms at Amherst and Amherst Point. Keilor, Siddall, Wells,
Lowerson, Trueman, Chapman, Donkin, Read, Carter, King, Trenholm,
Dobson and Smith were the names of those who settled at Westmoreland
Point, Point de Bute and Fort Lawrence. The names of the Sackville
contingent were Dixon, Bowser, Atkinson, Anderson, Bulmer, Harper,
Patterson, Fawcett, Richardson, Humphrey, Cornforth and Wry. Brown,
Lodge, Ripley, Shepley, Pipes, Coates, Harrison, Fenwick and others
settled at Nappan, Maccan and River Hebert.
Hants and King's County, in Nova Scotia, got a part of this
immigration. Those who came to Cumberland were too late to secure any
of the vacated Acadian farms before others had got possession, these
lands having been pre-empted by the New Englanders and the traders who
followed the army. Those who had the means, however, seem to have found
no difficulty in purchasing from the owners, and very quickly set to
work to adjust themselves to the new conditions. So effectually did
they do this, that almost every man of them succeeded in making a
comfortable home for his family.
The local historians of those times claim that these English settlers,
arriving as they did just before the Revolutionary war, saved Nova
Scotia to the British Crown. If that is the correct opinion, and we are
more disposed to believe it is true than to question its accuracy, then
the British Empire is more indebted to these loyal Yorkshire immigrants
than history has ever given them credit for. The Eddy Rebellion proved
that the New Englanders, who constituted a large part of the
inhabitants of Chignecto previous to the arrival of the English,
sympathized very generally with the revolutionists, and were ready to
help their cause to the extent of taking up arms, if necessary, on its
behalf. These English immigrants were not soldiers; most of them were
farmers and mechanics who had taken little part in the discussions of
public questions, but they were loyal subjects of the King of Great
Britain. They always had been, and they always expected to be, loyal.
The headquarters of the rebellion was in Cumberland, and it was in
Cumberland that the largest number of these Englishmen settled.
In 1776, Mr. Arbuthnot writes, "There is an absolute necessity for
troops to be sent to Fort Cumberland, Annapolis Royal, and a few to
Fort Edward and Windsor for protection, with the help of His Majesty's
loyal subjects who consist of English farmers. A sober, religious
people, though ignorant of the use of arms, will afford every
assistance." He says the others are from New England and will join in
any rebellion. Murdock thinks that Arburthnot did not judge the New
England men fairly; that many of them were loyal subjects of Great
Britain, and did not want to be mixed up in the trouble and discussion
between Great Britain and her older colonies.
Whether this English immigration did for Nova Scotia what is claimed
for it or not, their success in the new country as farmers and settlers
forever removed from the English mind the belief that Nova Scotia was a
cold, barren and inhospitable country, "fit only as a home for convicts
and Indians." And thus it opened the way for future settlers. It is not
claiming too much to say these northern Englishmen were a superior
class of men. Industrious, hardy, resourceful and God-fearing, they
were made of the right material to form the groundwork of prosperous
communities, and wherever this element predominated it was a guarantee
that justice and order would be maintained. They were not all saints--
perhaps none of them were--but there was a homely honesty and a
fixedness of principle about the majority of them that "made for
righteousness" wherever they were found.
The most considerable addition to the population of Nova Scotia after
the Yorkshire immigration was in 1783 and 1784, when the United Empire
Loyalists came to the Province. They left New England as the French
left Acadia, without the choice of remaining. The story of their
removal and bitter experiences has been told by more than one
historian. They were the right stamp of men, and have left their
impress on the provinces by the sea. Among the names of those who
settled at the old Chignecto were: Fowler, Knapp, Palmer, Purdy,
Pugsley. After the Loyalists there was no marked emigration to the
Maritime Provinces till after the battle of Waterloo. The hard times in
England following the war turned the attention of the people of Great
Britain again to America, and from 1815 to 1830 there was a steady
stream of emigrants, particularly from Scotland to the Provinces.
Northern New Brunswick received a large share of these Scotch settlers.
The Mains, Grahams, Girvins, McElmons, and the Braits of Galloway and
Richibucto, in Kent County, and the Scotts, Murrays, Grants, and
Blacklocks of Botsford, Westmoreland County, came at this time.
An account of the wreck of a ship in 1826, in the Gulf of St. Lawrence,
is yet told by the descendants of some of those who were coming as
settlers to Richibucto.
In the spring of 1826 a lumber vessel bound for Richibucto, N.B.,
carried a number of passengers for that part. When off the Magdalen
Islands the vessel was stove in with the ice, and the crew and
passengers had to take to the boats. There was no time to secure any
provisions, and a little package of potato starch that a lady passenger
had been using at the time of the accident, and carried with her, was
the only thing eatable in the boats. Among the passengers was James
Johnstone, of Dumfries, Scotland, and his daughter Jean, sixteen years
old. For three days and nights the boats drifted. Mr. Johnstone, who
was an old man, died from the cold and exposure, and at the time of his
death his daughter was lying apparently unconscious in the bottom of
one of the boats. On the morning of the fourth day a vessel bound for
Miramichi discovered them and took all on board. After landing safely
at Miramichi they took passage for Richibucto. Miss Johnstone married
John Main of Richibucto, and was the mother of a large family. Mrs.
Main was never able to overcome her dread of the sea after this
dreadful experience.
The last immigrants who came to the vicinity of the Isthmus were from
Ireland. They arrived in the decade between 1830 and 1840, and settled
in a district now called Melrose. Until recently their settlement was
known as the Emigrant Road. Some of the names of this immigration were:
Lane, Carroll, Sweeney, Barry, Noonen, Mahoney and Hennessy. They
proved good settlers, industrious and saving, and many of the second
generation are filling prominent positions in the country. Ex-Warden
Mahoney, of Melrose, and lawyers Sweeney and Riley, of Moncton, and Dr.
Hennessy, of Bangor, Maine, are descended from this stock.