Saint Croix Courier, St. Stephen, NB
May 25, 1893
GLIMPSES OF THE PAST
Contributions to the History of Charlotte County and the Border Towns.
LXVIII – THE UNITED EMPIRE LOYALISTS.
[Rev. W. O. Raymond, M. A.]
15.-The Soldiers’ Grants.
It has already been shown that the selection of the valley of the river St. John as the place of settlement of so many of the disbanded Loyal regiments arose not merely from the fact that the most accessible and promising lands were there to be found, but was in accordance with a plan conceived by the governors of Canada and Nova Scotia for the establishing of a route of communication between Halifax and Quebec, and also to provide for the protection of the frontier. The details of the plan of settlement were embodied in the royal instructions issued to Governor Carleton, August 18, 1784. Section 55 of this important document reads:
And whereas we are desirous of testifying our entire approbation of the loyalty, sufferings and services of the commissioned officers of our Provincial forces who have been reduced: It is therefore our will and pleasure that upon application of such of the said commissioned officers who shall be willing immediately to settle and improve lands in our said province, you do direct that warrants of survey and grants for the same be made out and given in the following proportions, that is to say for every Field Officer 1,000 acres, to every Captain 700 acres, to every Subaltern, Staff and Warrant officer 500 acres, exclusive of the number to which members of their families are entitled.
In the case of non-commissioned officers, as before stated, the grant was to be 200 acres; and in that of privates, 100 acres, exclusive of the number of acres to which the members of their families might be entitled. The section just quoted further provides:-
And in order to strengthen the proposed settlements in our said province, and that they may be in a state of security and defence, it is our will and pleasure that the allotments to be made to the non-commissioned officers and private men under our said instructions shall be, where the same is practicable, by Corps and as contiguous as may be to each other, and that the allotments made to the several commissioned officers under this our instruction shall be interspersed therein, that the same may be thereby united and in case of attack be defended by those who have been accustomed to bear arms and serve together.
An examination of the grants and plans in the Crown Land office at Fredericton proves that the settlement of the disbanded corps was, as far as possible, conducted in accordance with the King’s instructions.
Col. Benjamin Thompson’s regiment, the King’s American Dragoons, commanded by Major Daniel Murray, was disbanded at Prince William on the 10th of October, 1783. The township of Prince William received its name from the royal patron of the corps, afterwards King William IV, of England. It comprises a tract of land six miles square adjoining the north boundary of the old township of Sudbury on the west bank of the St. John. Capt. John Munro, of the King’s Royal Regiment, who made a tour of the St. John river during the summer and autumn of 1783, speaking of the township of Prince William, says, ‘This settlement goes on fast; it is exceeding good lands.’
Notwithstanding Capt. Munro’s admiration of the settlement, many of the soldiers speedily abandoned it, as they did other settlements subsequently established on the river. As an instance (of which several similar ones are to be found in the records of the old county of Sunbury) Private Samuel Sullivan of the King’s American Dragoons, four days after the formal disbanding of his regiment, sold his claim to lot No. 204 in the Township of Prince William, containing about 100 acres, his legal right by draft, to Reuben Chase for the sum of £2, and acknowledged himself satified.
After the stirring scenes of the tented field, the monotony of life in the back woods with its accompanying hardships and privation had little attraction for many of the men of the disbanded corps. Others were so broken down in health by wounds and exposure during the war as to be unfitted for the task of clearing land and cultivating the soil.
One great practical hindrance to the settlement of the country was needlessly created through the folly of laying out the soldiers’ lots along the St. John and other rivers with a frontage of only sixteen rods and a depth of over three miles. Those who became actual settlers, in process of time sold the rear half of their lands, as too remote to be worked with advantage, and increased the breadth of their farms by purchase from their neighbors.
In an account of a missionary tour in New Brunswick in the year 1805, Dr. James McGregor, a Presbyterian minister of Pictou, N. S., quaintly describes the evil consequences of surveying the soldiers’ lots in the customary fashion. After ascending the Nashwaak river some fifteen miles, he arrived at Highland Settlement, the people of which were ‘the remains of the 42d Regiment which the British Government had settled there at the conclusion of the revolutionary war in America.’ ‘I found,’ says Dr. McGregor, ‘that they had been miserably abused in their settlement. The officers got large lots of the best land; the men got lots all length and no breadth! The consequence was that one half of the men had to leave their lands and go and shift for themselves somewhere else. Their dispersion disabled them from obtaining a minister of the gospel, and left them as stray sheep in the wilderness. A few of them had turned Baptists and Methodists, but the best and worst of them continued Presbyterians.’
The King’s Orange Rangers were stationed in Nova Scotia at the time of the peace. They were assigned lands at Quaco Head on the Bay of Fundy, as we have already noted.
The companies of the Royal Fencible Americans at Fort Howe received their grant at Passamaquoddy.
To the remainder of the loyal regiments was assigned a tract of land ‘extending from the townships of Maugerville and Burton on both sides of the St. John river on the route to Canada as far as to accommodate the whole.’
In accordance with this general plan the New Jersey Volunteers had their grant of land at Scoodowabscook (near Burgoyne’s ferry) in the parish of Kingsclear.
The Maryland Loyalists had a grant on the east side of the St. John, opposite Fredericton extending from Heron’s (or Killarney) lake to the Nashwaak, and another grant at the Penniac (or Pennyhock) stream, a short distance above the present town of Marysville.
A portion of the Prince of Wales’ American regiment was settled on the east side of the St. John below the mouth of the Keswick.
Farther up the valley of the Keswick lay the grant to the New York Volunteers.
The Royal Guides and Pioneers had a grant east of the main river between the Keswick and the Coac.
The Queen’s Rangers had extensive grants in the parish of Queensbury, which derived its name from that famous loyal corps. One of the grants was above Bear Island (23 miles from Fredericton) on the east side of the St. John; another above the Maductic Falls, in the parish of Southampton; and still another on the opposite side of the St. John, extending from the Maductic Falls to Eel river. The 1st and 2d DeLancey battalions received a grant on the west bank of the St. John, beginning at a point a short distance above the Meductic, or Eel river, and including in its limits the present parish of Woodstock.
These were the principal grants to the Loyalist corps, but there were also many smaller ones, and it must also be borne in mind that numbers of the officers and men of the Provincial regiments secured grants on the lower portion of the river St. John and in other parts of the province. Lt. Col. Richard Hewlett1 and others of DeLancey’s 3d Battallion, for example, obtained grants of land in Queens and Sunbury counties.
1Col. Hewlett was a native of Hampstead, Queen’s county, Long Island, N. Y.; and the officers and men of his battalion were almost without exception natives of the same county. On their arrival in New Brunswick they perpetrated the familiar names of Hampstead, Long Island and Queen’s county in the land of their adoption.
Correction: Article LXX contains the following correction to this one: "In the sixth line of the footnote, for ‘perpetrated’ read ‘perpetuated.’"