As the most prosperous part of the whole Acadian country in French times, and as the scene of conspicuous events at the tragical period of the Acadian expulsion, King's County, Nova Scotia, will always have a wider interest for the world than is possible with most rural localities. That part of the county which borders the Basin of Minas is the scene of the early part of Longfellow's Evangeline, and all through the two original townships of Horton and Cornwallis, which compose the eastern part of the county, were scattered the clustered hamlets and individual homes of those thrifty French people who in 1755 were forcibly taken from their fertile farms and rich dyke-lands into suffering exile in unfriendly colonies, and placed as wretched paupers among people who had no sympathy with their traditions or habits of mind, who were unfamiliar with their faces, and who profoundly hated their speech. When the Acadians had been deported the red tide-floods of the Bay of Fundy bore to Minas Basin's shores a new population, representing families that had long been conspicuous for energy and worth in various parts of New England, and with these began a fresh civilization in King's County, that continued and conserved much that had been best from the beginning in New England's own life. From such favoured towns as New London, Norwich, Saybrook, Colchester, Lebanon, and Lyme, and from similarly interesting places in Rhode Island, these King's County successors of the Aeadians were largely drawn, and it is with them and their institutions and their deeds that the volume here introduced will be found chiefly to deal.
That the descendants of these New England planters in the favourable conditions in which they found themselves in the fruitful Acadian country in not a few cases have carved out for themselves brilliant careers will not seem strange when one remembers the fine qualities of the stock from which most of tkem sprang. In King's
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County the first New England owners of the land with untiring industry replanted the long tilled but now vacant upland soil, rebuilt and enlarged the great marsh spaces reclaimed from the sea by their predecessors, set out new orchards, sowed flourishing fields of flax and corn, built churches, established schools, and by their intelligence and piety laid the foundations for a college, where, in one of the loveliest regions in eastern America, for seventy years now,sound learning has been constantly fostered and solid principles have been taught. At the close of the Revolutionary War between thirty and thirty-five thousand Loyalists, from New England, New York, New Jersey, and colonies farther south, poured into Nova Scotia, and in King's County a certain number of these refugees also established their homes. To these later important settlers a certain amount of attention has naturally been given in this book.
In the history of any colony the origins and interrelations of families have an important place, but in a general History complete Genealogies are, of course, impossible. In the laborious task of writing this History the last three years have almost entirely been spent, and not by any means the least difficult part of the task has been the compilation of the many family sketches the book contains. To make these sketches complete family histories, several lifetimes would have been demanded and many volumes required to be filled, but if the sketches here given, brief as some of them necessarily are, shall give the families themselves chiefly concerned an impulse for more thorough genealogical research on their own part, the author's purpose in making them shall have been fully served. That some families are not represented in the book at all is due to the fact that the author's request in the newspapers for further genealogical information, except in two or three cases has received no response. On such omitted families, and on any families whose Genealogies are nowhere yet fully in print, the author urges the necessity for the careful preservation and collation of records. For many decades until recently Nova Scotia has had no public registration of vital statistics and this fact makes more imperative the
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careful preservation of private records of births, marriages, and deaths.
To several persons, in and out of the county, for material aid in the writing of this book, the author desires here strongly to express his thanks. Major Robert William Starr, of Wolfville, has the widest knowledge of any person living in the county of the general details of the county's history, and from first to last the author has had Major Starr's cordial and most important help. To Mr. John Burgess Calkin, LL.D., of Truro, Mr. John Elihu Woodworth of Berwick, Hon. Judge Savary, the accomplished editor and part author of the valuable Calnek-Savary History of Annapolis; to Harry Piers, Esq., of Halifax, Miss Donohue, Acting Librarian of the Nova Scotia Historical Society, the Rev. Edward Manning Saunders, D.D., of Halifax, Mr. Gustavus E. Bishop, of Greenwich, Mr. John E. Chapman, of Boston, and in connection with the chapter on authors and literature the Rev. Arthur John Lockhart, of Winterport, Maine, the author owes deep debts of gratitude. For continual inspiration and suggestion he owes much also to his cousin, Dr. Benjamin Rand, of Harvard University, one of the best friends Nova Scotiaeand indeed Canada at large, has in the United States. By his cousins, Ralph Samuel Eaton and Mrs. Wilford Henry Chipman, of Kentville, the author has also been helped in important ways.
In the preparation of family sketches the well known newspaper articles, now in scrap books, of the late William Pitt Brechin, M.D., of Boston, have been of great assistance. Dr. Brechin was an indefatigable genealogist of Cornwallis families, and although his work has been available for this History only as furnishing a basis for sketches, in the cases of several families such basis it has formed. Owing, however, to the loyal labour in summer vacations of Dr. Benjamin Rand in copying completely the vital records in the Cornwallis Town Book the author has been able to make direct appeal to the original source from which a very considerable part of Dr. Brechin's material was drawn. In the fifty-fourth volume of the New England Historical and Genealogical Register a slight sketch of Dr. Brechin and his work by the author of this book will
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be found. Among the many sons of King's County who in other parts of the continent have kept loyal to their native traditions and have reflected honour on the country of their birth, Dr. Brechin's name deserves an important place.
Another debt of gratitude owed by the author, which lae can never adequately repay, is here gladly acknowledged. The History of King's County has been written entirely iia the Library of the New England Historic Genealogical Society in Boston, and to the kindly encouragement and unvarying courtesy of the able Librarian of the Society, Mr. William Prescott Greenlaw, as also to the friendly interest of the accomplished Assistant Librarian, Miss Mary Ella Stickney, is due the fact that the book has come into being at all. Much of the material for the History has been gradually collected during the author's twenty years residence in New York City, but the writing of the book could hardly have been done elsewhere than in Boston, and in Boston it could have been done nowhere so pleasantly or so thoroughly as under the genial auspices mentioned above. The most liberal subscriber to the book before publication has been Mr. Arthur Watson Eaton, of Pittsfield, Mass., whose intelligent appreciation of the necessity for such a work as the present has greatly strengthened the author's courage in carrying to completion his laborious and difficult task.
Boston,
July, 1910.
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IMPORTANT EVENTS
De Monts, Champlain, and Poutrincourt visit Minas 1604
Champlain again visits Minas 1606
Poutrincourt and Biengourt visit Minas 1607
First Settlement at Minas shortly before 1680
Col. Benjamin Church visits Minas and cuts the dykes 1704
Acadia finally conquered by England 1710
Unconditional Path of Allegiance refused 1755
Expulsion of the French 1755
Representative Assembly created in Nova Scotia 1757
Proclamation for Settling French Lands adopted 1758
Townships of Horton, Cornwallis, and Falmouth erected 1759
Coming of New England Planters 1760-61
Anglican Mission established 1762
Congregationalist Church founded about 1765
Rev. James Murdoch comes to Horton 1766
Henry Alline begins to preach 1776
New Light Congregationalist Church of Cornwallis founded 1778
Hants County formed 1781
Migration to New Brunswick about 1783
Loyalists settle at Aylesford and Parrsborough 1783
The Congregationalist Church of Cornwallis becomes
Presbyterian 1785
Aylesford Township erected about 1786
The Baptist Church of Cornwallis founded 1807
The Shire Town named 1826
Horton Academy founded 1829
Parrsborough separated from King's 1840
Acadia College chartered 1840
King's County changed to a municipality 1879
Kentville incorporated 1886
Wolfville incorporated 1893
CORRECTIONS
In the printing of this volume certain slight errors have crept into the text, these the author urges the owner of the book kindly to correct with his pen.
Page 45, line 6, omit in his place.
59, line 10, for affected read effected.
158, line 32, for spent read spend.
163, line 31, for Coltman read Cottnam.
173, line 11, for Coronors read Coroners.
240, line 25, for Lunenberg, read Lunenburg.
240, line 27, for Louisberg read Louisburg.
256, line 13, for have ministered read may have ministered.
268, line 20, for have lost read have been lost.
269, line 32, for Earl Gray read Earl Grey.
273, line 10, for was he had sold read was that he had sold.
288, line 20, for shut not read shut out.
303, line 11, omit other.
304, line 32, for a chaplain read as chaplain.
352, line 22, for Hon. S. P. Robie read Hon. S. B.
603, line 17, for Tarnar (Troop) Starr read Tamar (Troop) Starr.
603, line 30, for as physician read as a physician.
611, line 28. The proper date of John Cogswell's birth is Sept. 26, 1781.
624, De Blois family sketch, line 11, omit George.
643, 8th line from the bottom, for Volumtown read Voluntown.
651, line 5, for George, born April, 1790, read April 6, 1790.
716, at the end of line 19 insert his.
731, lines 1, 2, 3, should read: You are on a summit of a hill overlooking the valley. Before you lies its whole length of about 10 miles (?) and a mile of breadth. Through its centre flows the narrow Gaspereau stream, etc.
747, line 8, omit influence.
843, Thorpe family sketch, line 4, for gives as much light read gives us much light.
859, line 7, after b. Dec. 17, 1837, insert m. (married).
NOTE
It was originally intended to add to this History a list of the chief sources from which the materials for it have been drawn. Among these would have been mentioned two manuscript historical sketches of King's County, written many years ago for the Aikin Prize, and since then preserved in the library of King's College, Windsor. The writers of these interesting manuscripts were Charles S. Hamilton, Esq., Counsellor at Law, of New Haven, Conn., a native of Horton, winner of the Aikin Prize, and Lieut.-Col. Wentworth Eaton Roscoe, K.C., Barrister, of Kentville, a native of Cornwallis. To both these manuscripts the author is indebted for valuable suggestions.
