Canada: the Empire of the North: Being the Romantic Story of the New Dominion's Growth from Colony to KingdomLaut, Agnes C.
History
Canada: the Empire of the North: Being the Romantic Story of the New Dominion's Growth from Colony to Kingdom
Laut, Agnes C.
Canada -- History
Europe; they are gently nurtured men and women, representing the
aristocracy and wealth and conservatism of New York. This explains why
one finds among the prominent families of Nova Scotia the same names as
among the most prominent families of Massachusetts and New York. To
the officers and heads of families the English government granted from
two thousand to five thousand acres each, and to sons and daughters of
Loyalists two hundred acres each, besides 3,000,000 pounds in cash, as
necessity for it arose.
On the north side of Fundy Bay hardships were even greater, for the
Loyalists landed from their ships on the homeless shores of the
wildwood wilderness. Rude log cabins of thatch roof and plaster walls
were knocked up, and there began round the log cabin that tiny clearing
which was to expand into the farm. The coming of the Loyalists really
peopled both New Brunswick {314} and Prince Edward Island: the former
becoming a separate province in 1784, named after the ruling house of
England; the latter named after the Duke of Kent, who was in command of
the garrison at Charlottetown.
More strenuous still was the migration of the United Empire Loyalists
from the south. Rich old planters of Virginia and Maryland, who had
had their colored servants by the score, now came with their families
in rude tented wagons, fine chippendales jumbled with heavy mahogany
furnishings, up the old Cumberland army road to the Ohio, and across
from the Ohio to the southern townships of Quebec, to the backwoods of
Niagara and Kingston and Toronto and modern Hamilton, and west as far
as what is now known as London. I have heard descendants of these old
southern Loyalists tell how hopelessly helpless were these planters'
families, used to hundreds of negro servants and now bereft of help in
a backwoods wilderness. It took but a year or so to wear out the fine
laces and pompous ruffles of their aristocratic clothing, and men and
women alike were reduced to the backwoods costume of coon cap, homespun
garments, and Indian moccasins. Often one could witness such anomalies
in their log cabins as gilt mirrors and spindly glass cabinets ranged
in the same apartment as stove and cooking utensils. If the health of
the father failed or the war had left him crippled, there was nothing
for it but for the mother to take the helm; and many a Canadian can
trace lineage back to a United Empire Loyalist woman who planted the
first crop by hand with a hoe and reaped the first crop by hand with a
sickle. Sometimes the jovial habits of the planter life came with the
Loyalists to Canada, and winter witnessed a furbishing up of old
flounces and laces to celebrate all-night dance in log houses where
partitions were carpets and tapestries hung up as walls. Sometimes,
too,--at least I have heard descendants of the eastern township people
tell the story,--the jovial habits kept the father tippling and card
playing at the village inn while the lonely mother kept watch and ward
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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