Sarah speaks in the voice of my grandmother and her sisters.
In Chapters One thru Three, we met Sarah Rushton walking her land grant in 1827 Westchester, Nova Scotia with her daughter Elizabeth and grandchildren. Sarah, her husband Jeremiah, and his family were exiled from New York City as Loyalists at the close of the Revolutionary War. Promised a land grant by the British as a soldier with the Westchester Refugees, the family boarded a ship for the unknown. While the children were enthralled hearing about the big ship, berries, and brown cow, Elizabeth, fretting over her own husband's plans to move the family to Upper Canada, asked, “What did you know about starting a new life in the wilderness? What did you do first?”
The Story of the Refugee’s Wife....a fictional look
Elizabeth touched Sarah’s arm to let the children run ahead on the meadow brook’s U-shaped path. “But I’ll be leaving for a wilderness, Mama,” she whispered plaintively. “No houses. No roads. No towns.”
“Same as it was here when we came,” Sarah told her as they resumed walking. “Only the road from Amherst to Londonderry was here. We didn’t have a house. Your papa walked thru the woods to find a good spot to put the house. We picked this spot…flat, near a fresh-tasting brook, close to the road.
”Your father and grampa and uncles and Cousin William built each other’s houses by hand. Do you think the house looked like this when we started? The British gave each family an axe. We cut the trees. Cut the trees into rails. Cut notches in the rails to join them. Cut trees into planks. Lashed them together. Made the roof of slabs of bark. The fireplaces were just stones put together, and every night we prayed we hadn’t left a spark burning to set all afire.”
“When did you leave Fanningborough to come here?” Elizabeth asked.
“We liked it so much, we petitioned to stay there. The petition was granted, but then our new lots came thru. It was June, two years exactly, when everybody drew their lots. It worked out perfectly because the men and older boys all went to start cutting down trees and building houses. The rest of us stayed in the cabins in Fanningborough. It was a distaff village! All the men gone, because every family did the same.
“Since our whole family had five lots, we could all work together and it went faster. It took all summer, tho!”
“A village with all women,” Elizabeth mused. “That sounds so nice, Mama.”
“Yes, what a time that was! None of us had any idea what the lots looked like, so there was all kinds of talk. We worried that one of the men might have gotten crushed under a tree, or cut off an arm. Or just run into any manner of trouble. The waiting was so hard, we got to arguing the silliest things. Whose land would be the prettiest? Who would have the best-tasting water? Aunt Catherine said her house would have the most windows. The children all said their house would be biggest, even tho they were all the same size!”
“I wouldn’t have said that,” William returned from the bushes to declare. “I would have known better.”
“Is that so?” Elizabeth arched her eyebrows.
“Not!” Eddie yelled.
“Not!” Lucy repeated.
“Let Grannie talk.”
“Meanwhile,” Sarah continued, “we tended our gardens, mended our clothes, and got ready what we could. We made candles. Used the wood ash from the trees we had cut to make soap. We gathered all our clothes together, and did some of them over to fit the children who had grown. We knew it would be our last time so close, so we tried to be with each other as much as possible. Some of the older girls brought all the children together in one or two cabins so they could play and not be underfoot. One of the women who could read, read the Bible to us every night. We even had a quilting bee!”
“Wasn’t it hot for quilting?” Elizabeth inquired.
“It was, but we knew it would be the last time we would all be together for a long while. So we each stitched our name onto our square. Then we gave it to the oldest lady among us, to remember us by.”
“Never mind quilting,” William interrupted. “When did you come here?”
“Well, once all the men came back,” Sarah continued, “we packed all our things and started our journey. We hired shallops to take us all along the shore to River Philip. We poled upriver…That was hard work!… and the cows walked alongside. We slept two nights on the river. But we were so excited, it seemed like nothing.”
River Philip today, near the farms of Sarah and Jeremiah’s grandchildren
“I told you they came here by boat,” Eddie stuck his chin out at William.
Sarah hurried on before William could argue. “At the road, there was a ford for oxen. We didn’t have any oxen, but we got the boats unloaded onto sledges and hand-barrows. What a sight we were! Twenty-some-odd people on that old rutted road, dragging the stoneboats with the heavy pots, rolling the barrels of seed, pairs of men holding hand-barrows for the candles and bedding, carrying chests, the children leading the cows.
“When we got to William’s place, that was the first we came to, the children all started running! We dropped everything by the side of the road. Just went all over the house, oohhing and ahhing, all around the outside, stumps everywhere. The men had left the tents in a pile; they set them up. Everyone slept crowded in the new house, but the young ones thought it fun to sleep in the tents.
“We just ate what we’d eaten every night, milk and bread and cheese, but we were all so happy, we sang songs and played cards till way late. I don’t know what poor William’s wife thought of us. Next morning we waved them good-bye, just the two of them standing in the door of their house. We still had everything to carry, because William didn’t have much.
“It took us all day to get to Grannie and Grampa’s house.”
“Your house?” Eddie pointed at his grandmother.
“No. Your mama’s grannie and grampa. It was the nicest built for certain. Your mama’s papa and uncles did themselves proud. They had even made them a bed and some chairs. There was a ladder up into the loft. They brought a pot in, set the fireplace tools up, and we got to cooking. We brought in all their chests and barrels and everything else and tied up their cow. Then what we had left to carry looked so small!
“Next day, we left Grannie and Grampa there, but the aunts and uncles still came along to help. Grannie and Grampa stood in their door and waved, just like they were new married.”
“That’s a nice picture, Mama,” Elizabeth smiled. “Now I can see it in my mind too.”
“It took us all day to get to our house. I thought it was so beautiful! The floor still had some roots and twigs in it, but I didn’t care. I couldn’t wait for everyone to leave so I could just run my fingers along the walls. I looked out the window every time I stood up! I knew every stone of that fireplace by the end of the first week.
“We all left next morning for Uncle Peter’s, and then we all made our way back to our own homes. Carrying nothing!”
Sarah, spying a rock, lurched to it and sat down heavily. “I’m tired out now, just telling you all that.”
She and Elizabeth sat in restful silence for quite a while, soaking up the birdsong, trickling brook, and children’s chatter.
“So after you moved in, and the journey was over, no more wondering what would become of you, everything was all right?” Elizabeth probed. “You all lived happily ever after?”
“Well……” Sarah drew out the syllable.
“You didn’t?” Elizabeth demanded. “What happened?”
“We almost lost the land before we ever really had it. We found out it wasn’t really ours.”
“What?” Elizabeth gasped. “What do you mean?”
“There was a date we had to put the claim in by. We didn't know about it, and we missed the date.”
“Why didn’t anyone tell you?”
“It wasn’t just us. It was all the Westchester Refugees. The announcement was made in New York after we had left. And we had to make our claim in London.”
“What! How ridiculous!” Elizabeth exclaimed. “But you got the land…” She gestured at two deer watching from the treeline. “What happened?”
“Our leaders pressed our case, and the British saw reason. We got a new date to file our claim by, and they said we could do it in Amherst.”
“Thank Goodness!”
“All the men went up to Fort Cumberland to testify. It took two months to hear all the claims. Your father made a claim for what he had lost with Colonel DeLancey, two horses and his clothing. He said he received no pay for all the time he fought. We didn’t expect to get anything, since we knew those were the terms when he signed up.”
“He wasn’t paid for fighting? Risking his life?”
“No, he wasn’t in a regular regiment. We knew that. But we hoped the British might be generous, later on. They weren’t. His claim was denied. Oh well, no harm in trying. We got the land grant, and that was the important part.
A Chronicle of a Refugee’s Wife....a factual account
Even tho the Fanningborough petition was granted, on the 2nd of October, 1784, Governor Parr instructed Charles Morris to survey the land that would be the Cobequid Grant. He did so in the winter and early spring of 1785.
The Westchester men then drew lots for their Cobequid grants, tremendously larger than the 3 acres in Fanningborough. In June 1785, each man eligible for a grant drew a slip of paper in a lottery system. Upon each slip, a lot number was written. Jeremiah drew Lot 5 on the south side of the Cobequid Road; his father John drew Lot 12 on the north side of the road. Brother Peter drew Lot 3, and kinsman William Coon drew Lot 24. Each of these lots was 500 acres. Jeremiah’s brother John Rushton Junior drew Lot 36, a lot in the Remsheg grant of only 200 acres.
The Cobequid Road that the lots fronted had been built in the 1600s to move troops between Halifax and Fort Cumberland. Parts of it are still used today; it can be seen as Highway 104. Beginning at Londonderry, the grant stretched fourteen miles to the west along both sides of the road. The individual lots were long and narrow, each one running back from the road into the forest, so that every family had a little of everything: road, cleared land, and wilderness behind.
Several requirements had to be met within five years in order for the grantees to keep their land. The one to be addressed immediately was a dwelling house of not less than 16 feet by 20 feet. As settler communities generally worked together, it makes sense that the extended Rushton family, with seven or eight men and teenage boys, would cooperatively raise one house, then move on to the next, so that everyone had shelter before winter. With multiple men felling trees, cutting planks for walls, fashioning slabs of bark into a roof, and raising a fireplace, a house may have been finished in a week or two. From a practical aspect, a house needed fresh water nearby and easy road access. Jeremiah and Sarah’s lot had a brook close to the road, so I surmise that is where they likely placed their house.
Migrating families thru-out time have followed a pattern in which adult workers pioneered their new land and care-takers followed with dependents once a home was begun. The Cobequid families surely followed this pattern. It would have made sense for the women and children to remain in the established cabins in Fanningborough until their land grants offered shelter, a way to cook, and safety for children to play.
In examining the Crown land grant map, it seems to me that the best way for the Rushtons and others to have reached their Cobequid Road lot from Fanningborough was to sail along the shore from Wallace Bay to the mouth of River Philip, pole or row upriver until the river crosses the Cobequid Road at Oxford, and go the rest of the way on foot on an actual road.
Traveling by water was the easiest mode of transportation in a wilderness without roads. The best way to transport heavy items like iron pots and barrels of seed was to float them. By 1785, only the Cobequid Road and a road along the shore of the Northumberland Strait existed. Furthermore, a ford crossed by oxen existed where River Philip met the Cobequid Road; it later became a town, naturally christened Oxford. A ford located there meant that the river was shallow and the riverbed solid enough to hold weight.
The mouth of River Philip today, https://www.fishnovascotia.ca/places/river-philip
Shallops, small fast sailboats useful for carrying cargo, were commonly used in eastern North America from the 1600s to the 1800s and may have been what the Rushtons used. They were perfect for landing along bays and rivers because their masts and sails were reversible, making coming and going equally easy. No particular training was needed to sail these simple boats, suiting them perfectly for settlers. Even if a windless day necessitated rowing, a shallop would have reached the mouth of River Philip from Fanningborough in less than a day.
The best choice for transporting cargo far upriver was a keelboat, common at that time on Nova Scotia rivers. So-called because of their keel, a four-inch square timber that extended along the bottom of the vessel from bow to stern, keelboats were a popular choice because the keel stabilized a heavy boat. Easily maneuverable, they were propelled by poling or rowing, altho some had sails.
Keelboats were commonly used on the Mississippi and Ohio Rivers. Experienced boatmen there poled 15 miles on a good day. Since poling required pushing off from the riverbed, a shallow river such as River Philip would be even easier to navigate for settlers who had never done it before. The Rushtons may have been able to travel the 19 miles from the mouth of River Philip to arrive at the ford at Cobequid Road sometime on the second day.
Wheeled vehicles are useless without roads. The vehicles of transportation were powered by human muscle. A hand barrow was basically a stretcher. A stoneboat, planks fastened together to create a flat bottom to carry weight and a curved front to blaze thru obstacles, was not a boat made to glide over water, but to sail over stones. It was dragged by men, as the Refugees likely had no draft animals at this point.
A group of about 25 people, on a dirt road wide and straight but pockmarked with ruts and holes, moving uphill and down, men carrying or dragging heavy loads, women similarly burdened, children and cows walking among them, probably averaged a walking speed of 2 miles per hour. With four lots fairly evenly spaced, I think they would have traveled most of each day and happily spent the night at each grant.
They probably had the rest of the summer and into the fall to settle in. Because no sooner had they gotten used to their grant then they received word they might lose it.
Parliament had established a commission to hear Loyalist claims of losses stemming from their support of the Crown during the Revolution. Unfortunately, that act was passed on the 15th of July 1783, after the Cobequid settlers had left New York. It set a deadline to file of 25 March 1784. Apparently Parliament expected all the Loyalists to be in England. Word didn’t reach Loyalists who had settled in Canada in enough time to comply.
But the British still tried to work with their subjects. Another act in 1785 renewed the powers of the Commissioners of Claims, established a new deadline, and appointed Jeremy Pemberton, Esquire and Colonel Thomas Dundas to hold evaluations at various sites in Canada.
Luckily for the Westchester Refugees, one of the sites was Fort Cumberland, where they had first set foot in their new country. In March and April of 1786, the Cobequid group gathered there to press their claims. First they had to swear that they didn’t know about the Act for Appointing Commissioners and could not therefore have filed a claim. They submitted a statement of their loyalty and a list of their losses.
Jeremiah was the only Rushton to submit a memorial, as the statements were called. It seems likely, then, that his father and brothers did not own land or leave businesses with capital, possibly because cordwaining involved small items that were easily transported. In any case, Jeremiah swore to his service with the Westchester Refugees without pay and filed his claim for two horses and clothing. It was rejected. The British government, expending huge sums of money for loyalty after losing a war, took a dim view of minor nuisance claims.
The Westchester Refugees was organized without uniforms or pay. Jeremiah would have been aware of this when he signed up. But King George rewarded Sarah and Jeremiah for their sacrifice with 500 acres. It was far more land than they could ever have expected to own in New York.
Footnotes:
Vincent, G. R. 46 Acres, 5 Hoggs, and a Family…North Cumberland Historical Society, Pugwash, NS, 1986
Vincent
Jeremiah Rushton, Nova Scotia Land Petitions (1765-1800); Halifax, Nova Scotia, Canada: Nova Scotia Archives, Ancestry.com
Vincent
John Rushton was 58 in 1785. His four sons ranged in age from Samuel at 14 to Peter at 36. Peter had at least one son, William, who was likely about 15. William Coon’s age is unknown, but he must have been an adult since he drew a grant.
https://web.archive.org/web/20110826092303/http://www.town.oxford.ns.ca/history/index.htm
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shallop
The Halifax Naval Yard and Mast Contractors, 1775-1815 Julian Gwyn https://www.cnrs-scrn.org/northern_mariner/vol11/nm_11_4_1to25.pdf
https://www.archpark.org/visit/points-of-interest/museum-at-the-gateway-arch/jeffersons-vision/keelboat
https://www.archpark.org/visit/points-of-interest/museum-at-the-gateway-arch/jeffersons-vision/keelboat
https://frontierpartisans.com/the-king-of-frontier-river-transport/
Vincent
https://sites.google.com/site/longpointsettlers/revolutionary-war?authuser=0
Vincent
Gilroy, Marion, compiled by, Loyalists and Land Settlement in Nova Scotia, Cumberland County Grants, Public Archives of Nova Scotia.
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