The First Robertsons

Ok, so, they're not the first Robertsons ever, but they're the earliest ones I can find.  (see Robertson Pedigree Chart)

Funny thing is, my grandparents' names are Robertson and Spence, and those are the names I know nothing about.  All our other ancestors are traced back to the old country (well, almost all of them).

On the basis of my grandparents' surnames, I have been going around saying I am half Scottish since I was a kid.  Decades of genealogy later, I have yet to find a Scot. 

Anyway, surely the Robertsons are of Scottish descent, because there is a Clan Robertson with a set of official tartans.

  

There are other mysteries.  That very first year, Auntie Grace, my grandfather's sister, told me that their grandmother's name was Elizabeth Ellis, and she came from Scotland at 8 years old on an 6-masted schooner.  You can still see Elizabeth Ellis written in my little-kid handwriting on my first little-kid family tree. This made perfect sense, since there are 3 people in our family named Ellis:  Joseph Ellis Robertson, Ellis Eugene Smith, and Ellis Burton Robertson.  However, the following year, I discovered in church records (when I snuck into the Archives under-age), that Auntie Grace's grandmother, who was her grandfather's wife and the mother of all his 12 children, was named Catharine Madden.  (Turns out that Grandmother Catharine had died 20 years before Auntie Grace was born, so she didn't know her personally).

I have been searching for Jane and William Robertson ever since I was 14.  They were the first ones who answered the question, Are our family Loyalists?  Yes. 

  This is the most amazing part: the same piece of land they got in 1784 is the same piece of land, give or take a few acres, that our family still owns now, 226 years later.  

I have learned more about their lives in the last 40 years, but no answer to the burning question, where were they from and what did they do for King George to get 50 acres of property?  You see, after the American Revolution was over, there were thousands of people who had remained loyal to England and were now in danger, now that they were on the losing side.  King George III, nice guy that he was, offered them land in his other colonies.  General Sir Guy Carleton, even nicer guy, arranged for 50,000 Loyalists, including 10,000 former slaves, living all throughout the new United States, to come to New York City.  Then he arranged 36,000 of them transport to Shelburne, Nova Scotia.  Shelburne was supposed to become the new capital.  It had the best harbor on the east coast, and for a while, it was the 4th most populated city in North America, after Philadelphia, New York, Boston, and Charleston. 

 Never heard of Shelburne, you say?  That gives you an idea of how well the plan went.  The distribution logistics were really messed up.  Most grantees realized the land was infertile and sold up and left, and the others just gave up and left, within just a few years.  Amazingly, our people stayed.  And no matter how many of our ancestors have left for the city, Halifax or Boston, someone has remained with that very same land.

Even more amazing, we didn't even know that.   Until Cousin Fred Smith and I tried to find out where the land grant was, and the lady in the Genealogical Society looked at the current property tax map next to the land grant map.

Insert pix of map

Jane and William were 31 and 26 when they got their grant, so they probably already had children, but any such children haven't been found by me.  After their arrival, they went on to have 7 children:  Agnes, Eleanor, Ann, James B., twins Elizabeth and Margaret, and John R.

William was a shoemaker and was fairly well educated, by which I mean literate.  He was considered a yeoman, a social class distinction that meant a farmer who owned his own land, a middle class status a man could be proud of.  He could sign his name, no easy feat in the days of quill pens, and he had several books, albeit old ones, worth 8 shillings when he died. ( His appraisers, maybe not as educated, weren't interested in naming the book titles.) His son John, on the other hand, was unable to write his name and signed with his mark.  A consequence of living in the country, or bad economic times with no tax money for schools?

I can imagine him plying his trade in Shelburne, which he would have reached by crossing the harbor.   Making shoes at home and carrying them across to sell?   Clearing the land to build and till would require felling trees and removing rocks.  The government provided wheat, blankets, and an ax the first year, and half rations the second.  Maybe they spent their first summer in a tent, and built a cabin for the winter.  There was certainly enough wood, enough rocks for a sturdy foundation and chimney, and enough slope for a cellar.  The land slopes downward to the harbor fairly steeply, not leaving very much flat ground for living or growing.  

Here is a topographic map of the land grant.  Ignore the roads; they weren't there then.  The land grant is a thin rectangle.  It starts at approximately the D in Shore Road and is about the width of the word Road.  It meets the shore at the indent of the water next to the word Shore Road.  Now go all the way diagonally to the bottom left.  You can see it goes from pale purple to turquoise to pale green to green pretty quickly, and then to yellow to orange to red.  That's the elevation.  From sea level to 15 meters (49 feet) to 19 to 23 to 26 quickly.  Then a little bit of 42 meters to a lot of 48 meters to a lot of 53 meters  (174 feet).  It eventually ends at North Churchover Lake, which is at that high elevation.  It has a nice fast-running brook, but other than that, how would you farm on such a slope?  Or build your house?

30 years later,  Jane and William had a dwelling and 4 acres under cultivation.  The 4 acres produced 2 bushels of grain, 3 tons of hay, and 100 bushels of potatoes, clearly the main crop.  What can you do with only 2 bushels of grain (not wheat)?  3 tons of hay would probably feed the 4 horned cattle, 3 swine, and 1 sheep that they had.  Maybe they did a little spinning and weaving with the sheep's wool.  Without a horse, maybe they tilled the earth with oxen (included in the horned cattle?), and certainly traveled by boat.

By 1827, Jane had died, the daughters were married I think, their son James and family lived next door, and William was living in their dwelling with their son John and his family.  John had a wife Catharine, a little girl Eleanor Elizabeth, and a newborn baby William. Also living with them was William's daughter Elizabeth (I am almost certain) and her husband Joseph Ellis (possibly).  Elizabeth was only 36, but she was blind.  

William died 19 December 1836.  By this time he had acquired 150 acres.  He left his son John an estate worth 71 pounds 6 shillings:

• 150 acres Land also House ....worth 50 pounds 
• 4 Cows and a Calf....16 pounds
• 2 Hogs (small)....5 pounds
• 6 chairs....12 shillings
• 2 tables....5 shillings
• 1 chest....10 shillings
• 1 feather Bed and Bedstead....1 pound
• 1 small flax wheel....5 shillings
• Bed Cloathing....10 shillings
• a Lot of Old Books (8)....8 shillings
• a tea kettle and two pots (old)....6 shillings
• a CupBoard....10 shillings

There was one stipulation:  John had to take care of his blind sister Elizabeth, who was currently living with William.  Elizabeth got the cow.   

What about Mystery Woman Elizabeth Ellis, you ask?  The one Auntie Grace thought was her grandmother, who has 3 people named after her?  Well it turns out that Grandfather John Robertson, who inherited the land grant if he took care of his blind sister Elizabeth, took care of her so well that his granddaughter thought that was her grandmother.  But why is she called Ellis?  Because on 18 March 1817, Elizabeth had married Joseph William Ellis.  Was she blind when she got married?  I don't know.  What happened to her husband Joseph Ellis and why couldn't he take care of her?  I don't know, but he must have been a good guy, because my great-grandfather, Joseph Ellis Robertson,  got named for him.

What about the 8-year-old who came from Scotland, or anywhere really, on an 6-masted schooner?  Still no clue.