Saint Croix Courier, St. Stephen, NB
July 5, 1894
GLIMPSES OF THE PAST
Contributions to the History of Charlotte County and the Border Towns.
CXXIII – WEST ISLES AND CAMPOBELLO LOYALISTS-Continued.
Apart from the international dispute as to their ownership, the islands of Passamaquoddy bay have furnished abundant material for litigation. Grand Manan was reserved at the request of Lord William Campbell and claimed by his heirs. Indian Island and Moose Island were claimed by the heirs of James Boyd; and Deer Island also was in dispute, as seen by the preceding article of this series. Campobello, or a portion of it, was the subject of the long contested Owen and Wilson suit, and this was not the only one in the history of the island.
It appears, from Ward Chipman’s correspondence,1 that Charles Morris, of Halifax, claimed to have a title to lands at Campobello by virtue of purchase made at sheriff’s sale, about the time of the death of the first Admiral Owen; and that Morris sold these lands to Gillam Butler, who made some improvements and established tenants there.
In January, 1786, Butler executed to Andrew Lloyd a 999 years lease of a lot ‘on Harbor Delute and in a certain town plot formed by the said Gillam Butler and called by him Charlotte Town.’ This lease is on record at St. Andrews.
It further appears by the records that in April of the same year Butler deeded to Thos. Storrow, merchant, 2500 acres on the northern part of the island, (including Head Harbor island and Casco Bay island,) excepting 100 acres previously sold to Storrow, the same area sold to Neil McCurdy, and 25 acres sold to Jonathan Stover. The price paid seems to have been £2500; and it was subsequently deeded back to Butler for £2000.
John Fraser, Gillam Butler and Thomas Storrow were partners in the firm of John Fraser & Co., merchants, doing business at Campobello and St. Andrews.
Thomas Storrow, as we glean from a recently published historical sketch of the island,2 was a young British officer who held the rank of captain. While a prisoner of war, he had fallen in love with Ann Appleton, of Portsmouth, N. H. Their marriage took place in 1777, and Capt. Storrow took his bride to England. At the close of the war they returned to Halifax, remaining there ‘nearly two years,’ and from thence coming to St. Andrews in 1785. After the Campobello purchase, they removed to that place. A further quotation given below will tell the rest of their story.
David Owen, one of the original grantees, ‘Fellow of Trinity College, Cambridge,’ as he styles himself in certain deeds, seems to have claimed Campobello in his own right in 1788, and negotiated for the sale of the whole island to one Thomas Jones, of Montgomeryshire, Great Britain. Either in his own name, or in the name of the Owen heirs, he brought a suit of ejectment against Butler, which was decided in his favor; and on subsequent appeal the supreme court at Fredericton agreed that the sheriff’s deed to Morris was of no validity, as William Owen, against whom the action was brought, was dead at the time judgment was given at Halifax, and his property became vested in his heirs.
In the meantime the Butlers and Storrows were living on the island. What follows is thus told in a sketch of the life of Mrs. Storrow, prepared by her niece:-
There were two houses on the island, one for each family, and here they lived very happily and pleasantly. There was always a garrison at St. Andrews, and a ship of war stationed near Campobello; so Captain Storrow had congenial society, and they had many pleasant lady friends, and, as their hospitality was unbounded, they were seldom without company at one or other of the houses. . . . All was bright and prosperous. But a change came. In 1790 or 1791 the Butlers and Captain Storrow had gone to Halifax on business, and Mrs. Storrow was left alone with her children on the island, when a notice was served to her that she must quit the island immediately, as it had been sold to them under a false title and the real owner had come to take possession. The island had been granted by William Pitt to his former tutor, David Owen, a hard man who would not move from the position he had taken. Mrs. Storrow sent to my father, who was her husband’s lawyer, and he, with some other gentlemen, chartered a sloop and brought the family to St. Andrews, where a house was already prepared for them. Here they remained a year or more. But Captain Storrow’s finances were so crippled by the loss of Campobello that he and his family sailed for Jamaica where he had a small estate.3
That David Owen, in the judgment of his contemporaries, was indeed a ‘hard man,’ might be surmised from one of Chipman’s letters to him in 1790, in which he says:-
I presumed, however injurious or improper you might have considered Mrs. Butler’s conduct, that your resentment would not be discovered by forcibly turning her out of possession of her habitation at so inclement a season of the year. I cannot but acknowledge that the account you give me of the transaction justifies in my opinion what has been done, and I thank you for the information.
The situation of those who hold by purchase from Butler, I agree with you, is very distressing; and I feel a full share of gratitude for your kind intentions respecting them. I have communicated to them my advice, some time ago, to endeavour to effect some settlement with you upon amicable terms, that what they may have expended may not be entirely lost to them; and I am persuaded any lenity you may show them on this occasion will be amply repaid, as well by the opinion of the world respecting it as the satisfaction that will be derived by you from the reflection of your own mind upon it.
I have advised Mr. G. Butler to bring a suit against Morris for the recovery of the sum he has paid in part of the purchase money, and for the delivery of his bond for the rest, to be cancelled.4
A number of leases from David Owen are on record; but the people of Wilson’s Beach, as is well known, always withstood the Owen claims and held their land by possession.
1For notes on the subject we are indebted to Rev. W. O. Raymond, M. A.
2‘Campobello,’ by Mrs. Kate Gannett Wells.
3From ‘Campobello,’ by Mrs. Wells, who acknowledges her indebtedness to Captain Storrow’s grandson, the well known writer, Colonel Thomas Wentworth Higginson.
4Extract kindly supplied by Mr. Raymond.