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| November, 2003 | |
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South Shore Genealogical Society PO Box 901 68 Bluenose Drive Lunenburg NS B0J 2C0 Phone : 1-902-634-4794 Ext. 26 ssgsoc@hotmail.com www.rootsweb.com/~nslssgs Summer Office Hours: Monday through Friday 1:00 to 5:00 PM Zellers - Club Z#: 840345301 |
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THANK YOU
Remarks at Monument Unveiling Saturday, July 12, 2003
Terrance M. Punch, D.Litt CG(C)Fifteen years ago this month a large throng of people, including many now present, stood on this hill with its magnificent views of Lunenburg's two harbours. We were honouring the Montbeliardais people in the party, which founded this historic town. It was also the 400th anniversary of the founding of Frederic-Fontaine by the Duke of Wurttemberg as a haven for Swiss refugees from persecution.
Today an even larger assembly stands gathered. The view is as good as it was in 1988, but this time we are honouring all the founders of Lunenburg, the more than 1400 Foreign Protestants who were about to receive the first installment of their promised lands in Nova Scotia. Some of those German farmers had not planted a crop or reaped a harvest since 1749, and they had done that in a very different place.
The Germany of 1750 was not one country but a loose gathering of kingdoms, duchies, bishoprics, electorates, principalities, counties, lordships and free cities, nominally ruled by the Holy Roman Emperor. Our ancestral homelands, whether extensive like the Palatinate, or as tiny as Wied-Runkel, had been cultivated for centuries. The surface was criss-crossed by roads, while rivers of varying length and depth linked communicaties as well. Here and there a church spire reared its finger towards Heaven, which all - Catholic, Lutheran, Reformed and Anabaptist alike - believed awaited them after a toilsome life. Some castles were inhabited. Others, such as the Schloss at Heidelberg burned by the military of Louis X!V of France in 1689, stood in ruins. The landscape was a scenic blend of natural and manmade features, quite different from Nova Scotia at that time.
A few of our Foreign Protestant ancestors lived in England before 1750 when the British government decided to divert some of the emigration from the Rhineland towards Nova Scotia, but most of them were still on their lands or in villages plying their trades as carpenters or masons, millers or coopers. It is likely that our forefathers might never have been sent to these shores had the original British settlers of Haliax stayed put. As it turned out, desertion and harsh conditions defeated the first serious effort at British settlement in Nova Scotia. The government revived an idea that had been rejected when proposed in the past. They hired a Rotterdam merchant, John Dick, to recruit and send here parties of Germans and Swiss, whose religion and steady habits commended them to the authorities as promising material to form settlements in Nova Scotia
And so it was done. The Foreign Protestants set out in early 1750, 51 and 52. They would be provisioned for a year after reaching Nova Scotia, be supplied with tools and utensils, some building materials and grants of land related to the size of their families. They would have to repay their fares across the Atlantic by working on redemption labour fortifying Halifax and construction roads and palisades.
The people went through the process of selling what they could, obtaining the necessary persmissions and manumissions and written proofs of these, paying taxes, and then setting out for Rotterdam, a port few of them had ever visited. There they boarded a ship such as they had never seen, and set forth on an ocean whose size was beyond their imagination. Emotionally, many of them had just spoken their goodbyes to relatives and friends they would probably not see again in this world. Today, we go to work in Calgary or Arizona, knowing we are hours away by plane from parents, children, siblings and loved one. Our ancestors were saying much more than auf wiedersehen
Many of them reached Halifax safely, though there were deaths during the long weeks at sea. Others succumbed to the severe winter conditions facing them on an island in Halifax harbour or in drafty barracks at Dutch Village, and during the winter of 1752/53 many perished of epidemic disease. It was between nine months and two and a half years after reaching Halifax that over 1400 Foreign Protestants, among them 34 of my own ancestors, were brought to Lunenburg in two flotillas in the late spring of 1753, led by Col. Charles Lawrence. He may not be universally beloved, yet he must be respected as the man who did his best for the founding settlers of Lunenburg. He reined in the worst excesses and provided calm if sometimes slow leadership to the founding enterprise. Let us also not (forget to mention?) with appreciation Dr. Winthrop Pickard Bell, whose tireless labours discovered and taught us so much of our history.
Our ancestors were hardy, indeed some studies suggest that we come of stock that tends towards longevity. Those settlers had survived walking to Rotterdam carrying what they could, crossing a strange ocean in crowded ships, and eating poor food. They had survived storm and disease, and endured a long wait at Halifax while the authorities arranged for their location on their town and garden plots. There were no roads and church steeples at Merliguish when the settlers arrived that May and June. There was not much by way of cleared land, other than a patch inhabited by the Metis family named Labrador. It was then a rocky shore, well wooded almost to the waterline, and while they were at Halifax those settlers would have learned that the Mi'kmaq were unfriendly, and the Acadians cool. French power was not so far away, at Louisbourg and in Quebec. It took toughness and courage, as well as faith, to start this place. The founding fathers and mothers of Lunenburg were equal to the task. Before we imagine that our ancestors were all saints or heroes, let's not forget that there were those who endagered the enterprise by grabbing other people's share of lumber and nails. Let's not ignore the fact that among the settlers were runaway apprentices; people who had left by night and fog, as the German records put it. One or two may have left an awkward spouse behind, or have been covering their trail from an embarrassing past by giving a false name and place of origin. This proves simply that human nature then is human nature now, and we ought not to judge the many by the worse few. There would be the rebellion of December 1753 to show what can happen when credulous and unlettered people are manipulated by a clever rogue, but the affair was quickly over and the perpetrator, after serving jail time, left the province forever.
The town grew. The people multiplied and filled their 30-acre farms and their 300-acre wood lots. One church, then two, then three, graced the early town. Some schooling was available from an early date, and Lunenburgers took seats in the Assembly from its beginning in 1758. Thanks to hard work, seaweed and good husbandry, fields grew up where rocks and trees had stood, and people were fed. In time, many turned to the sea and made this the most famous Bluenose port, even before the famed schooner showed the world's best its stern.
But this place is more than a schooner or sauerkraut, more than scenery or a dialect, more than even all those good things. It is our Heimat, a German word that speaks volumes. It is the place of heart and hearth, home and roots. Here is where we belong. We can look anybody in the eye and say: our people planted our roots here 250 years ago, and here we are in witness. God grant another 250 years and I'll bet our descendants will gather to give thanks, and praise our founders. Perhaps this monument will stand here to show that we, in our day, remembered. I say be proud, be happy and be thankful. This is a moment to celebrate and remember.
Thank you.
Deaf Mute Speaks
Doctors Puzzled
Medical Men Wonder a Lunenburg Case: Breaks Silence on Death BedA "Miracle of speech" has provided another problem for medical authorities.
Strange Case
Declared deaf and mute from birth, Miss Sevilla Knox of Dayspring, startled Mrs. Emaline Conrad by asking for her brother, after previously declaring she was not feeling "very good."
Miss Knox, 56, a short time ago contracted influenza and for her the disease proved fatal after only a brief illness. Despite her infirmity, Miss Knox was a popular inmate of the home and a general favorite with the others.
Breaks Silence
On the day before her illness took its final seizure Miss Knox broke the silence, which had gripped her since birth. Her room mate, Mrs. Emaline Conrad, was with her, close to her bed. Although aware of the infirmity of the ill woman, Mrs. Conrad spoke to her, more in a cheering manner of giving aloud expression to her anxiety for her room mate.
"How do you feel, dear?" she spoke to Miss Knox never expecting an answer. She was amazed at what followed.
"Not very good," The words were uttered slowly by the woman without speech or hearing since birth. Although amazed, Mrs. Conrad bent closer to the sick woman, uttering words of cheer. Close companions for some time, the amazing result of her words had startled Mrs. Conrad. Then the "mute" spoke again. This time she asked about her brother Arthur Knox, who resides at Upper Branch. But the words were few: "Where is my brother, Arthur?" Mrs. Conrad told her where her brother was and the sick woman seemed to be easier. "These were all the words she uttered" Mrs. Conrad said afterwards. She immediately went and told the matron, Mrs. Alton Wagner. When Mrs. Wagner entered the room Miss Knox smiled at her and appeared brighter than for some time. But she spoke no more. Later her condition grew worse and she passed away. Two members of her family who predeceased her were deaf and without speech.
Miss Knox was born at Upper Branch, the daughter of the late Mr. and Mrs. Norman Knox. She is survived by two sisters, Mrs. Avery Hirtle of Wentzell's Lake, Mrs. Nathaniel Wentzell of Wentzell's Lake; and two brothers, Kenneth Knox of Watford and Arthur of Upper Branch.
Want Detaiils
The Majority of doctors were frankly dubious a born deaf mute could possibly speak intelligble words even if the power of speech was restored.
Principal George Bateman of the Halifax School for the Deaf declared he would want to know more about the case before he accepted the fact as positive.
Possibility of the case being a neurotic one was advanced by one physician, who stated he knew of cases where similar remarkable cures had taken place but on investigation proved to have been cases where the affliction was a neurotic one. All doctors were unanimous in stating they preferred to await fuller details before passing judgement.
Taken from the Bridgewater Bulletin, June 5, 1935
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