Speech on Elective Councils (Senate)

howe-edited

On moving the eleventh resolution, on the 3rd of March (1837), Mr. Howe made a speech that is worth preserving, for various reasons. Those who defended the old system of government assumed, first, that the institutions of the United States had failed to secure liberty and happiness, and that by yielding responsible government, republican institutions would be at once introduced. Mr. Howe combated both these arguments. While he did justice to our neighbours, and ascribed to the practical working of their purely elective institutions the great prosperity and freedom which they enjoyed, he showed that responsible government was not republicanism, but a purely British mode of conducting public affairs, which British Americans might claim without any impeachment of their loyalty:

“In rising to move the last resolution, while I congratulate the House on having got so nearly through the series, I must also thank them for the patient attention with which I have been favoured, and which, as a very young member, I had no right to expect I feel myself relieved from a weight of responsibility by the sanction that has been given, after grave deliberation, to so many of my opinions. Where gentlemen have differed with me I feel they have exercised an undoubted right; and the address, whenever it may be framed, will speak not the language of any individual, but of a large majority of the representatives of the people. In bringing under review the last, but by no means the least important, of these resolutions, I must beg of the members to discharge from their minds all needless horror of innovation, all undue prejudice in favour of the mere framework, rather than the spirit, of established institutions. I trust that gentlemen will be disposed to examine the change which it demands, with reference to its probable utility, not by its inapplicability to the parent state. In pressing it on the attention of the House, I should have felt much less disposed to occupy time, had it not been for the eloquent and ingenious speech delivered on a former day by the learned member from Cumberland, and which was so well calculated to arouse prejudices in many minds against the elective principle. That gentleman drew a vivid contrast between the institutions of America and those of the mother country ; and while he did but justice to the latter, the former were held up to ridicule, as being based upon unsubstantial theory, and incapable of securing life, liberty, and property when reduced to practice. He is opposed to this resolution, because, judging from the elective principle in the United States, he believes that if an elective Council were created here, it would be followed by annual Parliaments, and the election by the people of our judges and governors. That one violent change would be followed by another, produced by an insatiable spirit of excitement and innovation, until this Province was brought to the same deplorable condition to which our neighbours are reduced in the dis- tempered imagination of my honourable and learned friend.

Sir, I trust that those who hear me will be disposed to ask themselves, not what exists in England, under circumstances very different from ours not what exists in republican America, created out of a state of things which is not likely to be forced on us but what is required by the Province of Nova Scotia, under the circumstances in which we are placed; what form should her institutions assume, in order, by preserving the responsibility of all branches of the government to the Commons, to secure her prosperity and advancement. But, sir, when I hear it asserted in this Assembly that there is nothing practical in the institutions of our neighbours that they are based on mere speculation that beneath their shade neither life, liberty, nor property are secure a sense of justice of what is due to the absent would compel me to say something even in an enemy’s defence. Sir, when the learned gentleman thus asperses the institutions of our neighbours, when he tells us that there is nothing practical in republican America, I point to that great nation, stretching from the Gulf of Mexico to the Bay of Fundy, and I ask him, excepting the British Isles, to show me where, upon the wide surface of the globe, within the same extent of territory, an equal amount of freedom, prosperity and happiness are enjoyed? Nothing practical! When I see a people who numbered but three millions and a half at the time of the Revolution who owed then seventy-five million dollars and who, though they purchased Florida with five millions, and Louisiana with fifteen, and owed one hundred and twenty-three million dollars at the close of the last war, are now not only free of debt, but have an over-flowing treasury, the fertilizing streams from which, rolling through every state in that vast Union, give life and energy to every species of internal improvement I ask my learned friend, is there nothing practical in all this ? When I see fifteen millions of people governed by the aid of six thousand troops less by nine thousand than are necessary to keep the peace in Ireland, scarcely one-third more than are stationed in the colonies shall I be told that there is nothing practical in the government under which they live? When I survey their industry, their enterprise, their resources, their commerce whitening every sea, their factories, propelled by a thousand streams, their agriculture, with its cattle on ten thousand hills, their forty noble rivers flowing to the ocean, covered with steamboats crowded with human beings again, I ask, shall it be said that even the republican institutions of America have produced no practical result? When I behold, upon the great lakes scarcely rivaled by the Caspian and the Baltic animated scenes of inland traffic, when I look to her five hundred banks, with their two hundred millions of capital, her extended lines of railroad and canal, her splendid packets, glancing like birds athwart the Atlantic, her noble penitentiaries, her excellent hotels, her fifty colleges, her admirable common schools, I cannot but feel that even if such dreadful evils as these were to come upon us from making our Council elective, we ought not to be deterred from asking for a change. And when I think of her acute diplomacy, her able Presidents, from Washington to Jackson, her orators, from Henry and Quincy to Wirt and Everett and Webster, her philosophers, from Franklin to Fulton, her patriots, from Warren to Clinton, her poets (and sweet ones they are), her Bryants, and Percivals, and Sigourneys, I am bound to assert that the great nation which the learned gentleman maligned presents an aspect of political prosperity and grandeur, of moral sublimity and high intellectual and social cultivation, that ought to have made him ashamed of the unseemly picture which he drew and I tell him boldly, that these are practical results that should challenge his admiration rather than excite his contempt.

But, forsooth, all these are to go for nothing, because there are mobs in America; because the people of Charlestown burnt a convent, and some of the rioters were permitted to escape. Did my learned friend never hear of Lord George Gordon’s mob, that took lawless possession of the very capital of that mighty empire to which he is so proud to belong? Does he not know that an infuriated multitude rioted for days uncontrolled in the city of Bristol? Would he like to have these instances of temporary misrule, of the unbridled sway of human passion, brought forward to prove that there is nothing practical in British institutions ; that there is no security for life and property in England? They would prove as little in the one case as in the other. Mobs will spring up occasionally in towns; but, if they sometimes disgrace those of America, who ever hears of them in her agricultural districts? Yet, in Britain, not only do we hear of combinations to destroy machinery in the cities, but the burning of stacks in the country; and therefore it is, that when I am cautioned against preferring unjust imputations against the body in the other end of the building, who have their defenders here, I advise them to look at home, and not to send abroad unfounded charges against a neighbouring nation, on the presumption that no one will have the manliness to say a word in its defence. I might turn gentlemen’s attention to scenes which have occurred at home, under the shadow of that constitution and those laws which they consider perfect, ten thousand times more disgraceful than any that have occurred in America. I might point to “red Rathcormac,” and the other scenes of tithe butchery in Ireland; and while you sickened at the blood flowing from the wounds inflicted by a brutal soldiery, I might show you the avaricious priests and the besotted Tories those who drink from the pure stream of political wisdom, described on a former day by the learned gentleman from Windsor busily goading them on. But as these would prove nothing against the general working of British institutions, the vast amount of protection and happiness they secure, neither should those of our neighbours be assailed upon equally untenable grounds.

But I am told that slavery exists in the United States. It does; and I will admit that if there is a stain upon their escutcheon, a blot upon their fair fame, it is that slavery has been suffered to exist in any part of the Union so long. But, did not slavery exist in the British dominions until within two or three years? And when I am told of the violent proceedings of the Southern planters to protect their own system, I remind my learned friend of the butcheries, and burnings of chapels, in the West India Islands. Slavery is a great curse; and wherever it exists, it will be marked by great evils, arising out of the fears of the oppressor and the struggles of the oppressed. But let us never forget, that while slavery was forced upon the old colonies by the operation of British laws, nine out of the thirteen States that originally formed the federation have wiped away the stain, have emancipated their bondsmen, have broken the shackles of the slave. If, then, I wished to justify this resolution by the practical effects which the elective institutions of America have produced, I feel that, notwithstanding the eloquence of my learned friend, I should be entitled to your support. Upon the facts to which I have referred, and hundreds of others like them, I might confidently ask for a solemn adjudication.

But, thank God, there is no need to look to republican America for examples. Throughout these discussions I have turned, and I seek again to turn, your minds to that great country from which we have all sprung, to which we owe allegiance, and to whose institutions it is my pride to look for models for 1837 imitation. Though, in replying to my learned friend’s misrepresentations, I have but done an act of justice, I ask you to throw aside every argument that can be drawn from republican America, to cast a veil over her institutions and her prosperity, and, looking across the Atlantic, to gather support to the resolution before you from the example of England. I should not have proposed it, I should not stand here today to press it upon your attention, did I not feel that it could commend itself to your minds by the practical working of her institutions. Were you to tell an Englishman that you, the Commons of the country, had no effectual control over the other branches of your government, that here there exists no check which ensures responsibility to the people, what opinion would he form of the degree of freedom you enjoy? Were you to propose that half the House of Lords should be chosen from two family connections, and the other half should be made up of public officers and directors of the Bank of England, he would laugh you to scorn; he would tell you he would not tolerate such an upper branch for a single hour. Sir, it is because I feel that the institutions we have are not English, that they are such as would never be suffered to exist at home, and ought never to be sanctioned by the descendants of Britons in the colonies, that I desire a change; and, because it proposes a remedy, because it holds out a prospect of reformation, that I ask the House, not rashly to adopt, but gravely and calmly to consider, the resolution before them.

I have already said, and I repeat again, that the excellence of the British Constitution is to be found, not in the mere structure of the various branches of the Government, but in that all-pervading responsibility to the people which gives life and vigour to the whole. That Constitution is not a thing held sacred from change, not susceptible of improvement, but a form of government subject to continual revision and renovation, whenever it is found that the great principle of responsibility is in danger. To preserve this principle the prerogatives of the Crown were curtailed ; to preserve this principle the House of Commons was reformed; and even now, a struggle is going on to reduce the power of the Lords. Shall we, then, be blamed for seeking to preserve it, by remodelling our provincial institutions? When gentlemen raise the cry of innovation, I ask if the repeal of the Test and Corporation Acts was not an innovation if the destruction of the rotten boroughs was not a great constitutional change? And while the Government at home is subjected to constant modifications, required by the increasing intelligence of the people, is it to be said that ours should remain unimproved that the reforming ministers of England will deny to the colonists the right to imitate their own examples f Sir, I have often felt, and now in my heart believe, that if the people of England really understood the questions which often agitate the colonies, if the Government was accurately informed, instead of being, as it constantly is, misled by interested parties on this side the Atlantic, we should rarely have any very irreconcilable differences of opinion. What earthly interest has John Bull in denying his brethren justice?

The argument urged about the denial of an elective Council was partially answered on a former day ; but gentlemen may not be aware that the last motion made by Mr. Roebuck on the subject was withdrawn, under an implied pledge that Government would fairly consider the question. Let gentlemen review the ‘present system of creating the second branch. Can anything be more intolerable? I referred, on a former day, to the old Council of Maine, composed of a single family. The same evil has prevailed to a great extent in every one of which we have any knowledge; they have either been com- posed of such connections, or have been ruled by little combinations, always distasteful and often injurious to the people. How can it be otherwise, while the whole branch is created on the recommendation of one or two individuals in the colonies, more intent on preserving their own influence than fairly distributing the royal favour.” It is a fatal error,” says Sir James Mackintosh, “in the rulers of a country to despise the people; its safety, honour, and strength are best preserved by consulting their wishes and feelings. The Government of Quebec, despising these considerations, has been long engaged in a scuffle with the people, and has thought hard words and hard blows not inconsistent with its dignity. I observe that twenty-one bills were passed by the Lower House of Assembly in 1827, most of them reformatory. Of those twenty-one bills, not one was approved of by the Upper House. Is the Governor responsible for this? I answer he is. The Council is nothing better than the tool of Government. It is not a fair and constitutional check between the popular Assembly and the Governor.” I did not think it necessary to accumulate evidence on this point, or I might have had abundance: indeed I feel that it is painful to intrude even what has been said upon the House, after the long discussions in which we have been engaged. It has been said that elective Councils are a new invention ; but let it be remembered that they existed in some of the old colonies until their charters were withdrawn, and were found to work well. And if the Government would but take an enlarged view of the subject, it would, notwithstanding the national and religious divisions which certainly do present some difficulties, grant an elective Council to Lower Canada, for these plain reasons; a vast majority of the people, and nearly the whole of their representatives, require it. To refuse, is to perpetuate agitation; to grant it, is to try a great experiment for the restoration of peace; and if it be necessary to resort to force, to reconquer the country again, it can be done as well after as before the upper branch is rendered elective.

But, it is said, the Councils would in that case be filled with persons of low estate; with farmers, and mechanics, who know nothing of legislation. Let me upon this point quote the answer which an intelligent American gives to Captain Hall. He says: “From Canada, Captain Hall passes into New York. Delighted with a Governor robbing the public chest (and pleading an otherwise unavoidable subversion of the government as an excuse), and with a Council, composed of the ‘Governor’s creatures,’ negativing every bill from the other House, Captain Hall is of course disgusted with the Legislature of New York, as composed of men ‘who had come to the Legislature straight from the plough, from behind the counter, from chopping down trees, or from the bar,’ wholly unacquainted with public business or the duty of the legislator. But we dislike this eternal drawing of inferences, instead of citing facts. We wish Captain Hall would point out the great practical evils perpetrated by this Legislature, or that he would name a deliberative body in the world that can show more work, better done, than may be shown by this very Legislature of New York. Look at the institutions of that State; her various endowed charities; her penitentiaries, which our traveller describes with great but not exaggerated praise; the rapid colonization of her own wide domain, with a population greater than that which Parliament, at a profuse expense of public money, has been able to rear up in all the British North American dominions; her munificent endowment of her colleges; her princely school fund; her more than imperial works of internal communication. These are the doings of Captain Hall’s wood-choppers and plough-joggers, but not all of them. If there be a government, popular or arbitrary, which, in nearly the same space of time, and with the same command of means, has done more for the advancement of civilization, the arts, and the public welfare and prosperity, we have yet to learn in what part of the world it is to be found.” I give the same kind of answer to my learned friends on the other side. Suppose that a new Council is to be created tomorrow; how is it to be done? Two or three persons furnish lists to the Governor, who sends them to England. Now, this is the power that I would not entrust to any two or three men, however wise or patriotic they may be; yet, if they are the reverse, how incalculable is the mischief produced. But, suppose a member of Council is required for Cape Breton, and by the aid of the elective principle the five gentlemen who now represent the Island are returned; if the Governor is compelled to select one of these, though he may not take the best, he must, at all events, choose one whom the people themselves have pressed upon his notice; one in whom they have confidence, and one who is more likely to be of service than a person whom they never saw. Perhaps he may now find one among them that would be selected; but I know that there are other counties whose representatives would go a begging for a seat in the Council before it was obtained. In nine cases out of ten it will be found that the men most loved and trusted by the people are the last to obtain the confidence of the local government Why should this be? In England, the King himself cannot exclude from his Cabinet commanding talent, backed by the support and confidence of the nation. How often have we seen the British monarchs compelled by the country to place the reins of government in the hands of those from whom they would gladly have been withheld. Can such an instance be quoted in colonial history? No, sir; and therefore it is that I seek for change; that I desire a more responsible system. I acquit the maternal Government; I acquit the people of England of any wish to deny to us the advantage of principles of which they have proved the value. There is something too fair and noble in the structure of the Briton’s mind, to permit him to deny to others the blessings and the forms of freedom: and particularly to those who speak his language, and have sprung directly from his loins. Why should Britons on this side of the Atlantic be denied those checks and guards which are considered so essential at home? There they have indeed a Constitution practically useful. I can participate in the glowing picture which the learned member from Cumberland drew; I can survey with delight the spectacle which England presents to the world. That great country is free; but here, the blessings she enjoys do not exist. I trust, therefore, that this proposition for an elective Council will not be considered so rash and heedless a one as some gentlemen are disposed to imagine. The measure is one that I believe will be satisfactory to the people; and can there be any danger in its adoption? Shall we be more closely united to the mother country if these twelve men are selected by the Colonial Secretary, or somebody for him, than if they are chosen by ourselves?

If it be said that this is too important a change to adopt on the recommendation of an individual, I will read to you the deliberate opinions of the present Master of the Rolls, whose sentiments on this subject, from his talents and high standing, are entitled to respect. In a debate which arose in a former Assembly, Mr. Fairbanks observed, “That on all hands the composition of the Council was acknowledged to be defective; rejecting the principle of election, it would, perhaps, be easy to make additions, but would it be easy to make such as would please the people? A new Governor would, perhaps, come here, and before he has had time to acquaint himself with the situation and the leading men of the country, two or three persons who chanced to get into his confidence would make all the new appointments; was it to be supposed the people would not make better selections themselves? If they could trace the secret history of all the appointments that had been made for years, they would not hesitate to change the mode. The learned Solicitor-General went on to explain how he thought, if the principle of election was not introduced, some advantage might be gained by having a member of the Council to act as member of each county, whether chosen from it or not. If so designated, and if it were understood that they were expected to watch over the interests of particular districts, as members of the Assembly now do, there would be a bond of union between them and the people they were chosen to represent, and much of the narrow and metropolitan character of the present Council would be removed. He differed entirely from the learned member from Cumberland about the propriety of allowing either the Chief-Justice or the Master of the Rolls to remain in either Council. His studies had taught him that the exercise either of legislative or executive powers was incompatible with the due administration of justice. The energies and the intellect of this country had grown beyond the feelings and interests and prejudices of the present Council. He was afraid, however, that merely asking for an addition of six, to be chosen as they were at present, would be nothing at all. He wished that, while they were about it, they should really effect a reform, and not merely an unimportant alteration; and on a subsequent day he remarked, “That to tell him the principle of election was at variance with the Constitution was to tell him what reading and reflection and experience disproved. The Constitution was founded upon this grand principle, that everything must conduce to the good of the people.” These are the opinions of a man who held a Crown office at the time.

In conclusion, I beg you, gentlemen, to look around all the colonies, and ask yourselves, have these selected Councils conduced to the public good? Turn to the resolutions you have passed to-day for proof of their operation here. I regret that upon this question I shall have to encounter the opposition of some that I would fain have carried with me in this measure. As we have stood together on other questions, I shall be sorry if we part on this. They will bear in mind that I am not contending for an ultra and uncontrolled exercise of the elective principle; I seek only such a fair infusion of it as will preserve a constitutional balance of power. Insinuations have been thrown out about a delegation to England. As I said on a former day, I say again, that this is an extreme step which I do not contemplate one only to be taken as a last resort. Those who know me but imperfectly may assert and insinuate that I am anxious to stir up strife, that I have ulterior views that do not now appear. I hope to live down such aspersions. Sir, when I go to England, when I realise that dream of my youth, if I can help it, it shall not be with a budget of grievances in my hand. I shall go to survey the home of my fathers with the veneration it is calculated to inspire; to tread on those spots which the study of her history has made classic ground to me; where Hampden and Sydney struggled for the freedom she enjoys; where her orators and statesmen have thundered in defence of the liberties of mankind. And I trust in God that when that day comes I shall not be compelled to look back with sorrow and degradation to the country I have left behind; that I shall not be forced to confess that though here the British name exists, and her language is preserved, we have but a mockery of British institutions; that when I clasp the hand of an Englishman on the shores of my fatherland, he shall not thrill with the conviction that his descendant is little better than a slave.”

With some modifications, Mr. Howe’s twelve resolutions were passed, the most of them by handsome majorities, and on the 4th of March he moved for a committee to throw them into the form of an Address to the Crown.

Howe, Joseph, 1804-1873, William Annand, and Joseph Andrew Chisholm. “The Speeches And Public Letters of Joseph Howe: (Based Upon Mr. Annand’s Edition of 1858)” New and complete ed., revised and edited by Joseph Andrew Chisholm. Halifax, Canada: The Chronicle publishing company, 1909. https://hdl.handle.net/2027/uc2.ark:/13960/t87h1hh71

The story of Christ Church, Dartmouth

Christ Church as seen at 10:15am, May 31st 1932, looking north from the corner of Ochterloney and Wentworth Streets. https://archives.novascotia.ca/photocollection/archives/?ID=5300

  • When Halifax was first settled, this side of the harbor was the home and hunting ground of the [Mi’kmaq].
  • Soon after the settlement of Halifax, Major Gillman built a saw mill in Dartmouth Cove on the stream flowing from the Dartmouth lakes.
  • On September 30th 1749, [Mi’kmaq] attacked and killed four and captured one out of six unarmed men who were cutting wood near Gillman’s mill.
  • In August 1750, the Alderney, of 504 tons, arrived at Halifax with 353 immigrants, a town was laid out on the eastern side of the harbor in the autumn, given the name of Dartmouth, and granted as the home of these new settlers.
  • A guard house and military fort was established at what is still known as Blockhouse hill [—the hill on King Street, at North].
  • In 1751 [Mi’kmaq] made a night attack on Dartmouth, surprising the inhabitants, scalping a number of the settlers and carrying off others as prisoners.
  • In July 1751, some German emigrants were employed in picketing the back of the town as a protection against the [Mi’kmaq].
  • In 1752, the first ferry was established, John Connor, of Dartmouth, being given the exclusive right for three years of carrying passengers between the two towns.
  • Fort Clarence was built in 1754.
  • In 1758 the first Charles Morris, the Surveyor General, made a return to Governor Lawrence giving a list of the lots in the town of Dartmouth.
  • In 1762 the same Charles Morris wrote: “The Town of Dartmouth, situate on the opposite side of the harbour, has at present two families residing there, who subsist by cutting wood.”
  • In 1785 three brigantines and one schooner with their crews and everything necessary for the whale fishery arrived, and twenty families from Nantucket were, on the invitation of Governor Parr, settled in Dartmouth. These whalers from Nantucket were Quakers in religion. Their fishing was principally in the Gulf of St. Lawrence which then abounded with black whales.
  • In 1788 a common of 150 acres [—200 acres, in keeping with with the New England tradition of “200 acres for a common, sixty acres for a Town Site“, (1808 Toler map overlay) and certain tracts for a meeting house, cemetery, school”] was granted Thomas Cochran, Timothy Folger and Samuel Starbuck in trust for the town of Dartmouth. When these good Quakers left, Michael Wallace, Lawrence Hartshorne, Jonathon Tremaine, all subsequently members of Christ Church, were made trustees [in 1798]. Acts relating to this common were passed in 1841, 1868 and 1872, and the present Dartmouth Park Commission was appointed in 1888.
  • In 1791 the idea of building a canal between the Shubenacadie river and Dartmouth by utilizing the lakes, a plan which originated with Sir John Wentworth, was brought before the legislature. The Shubenacadie Canal company was incorporated in 1826.
  • In 1792 most of the Quakers left Dartmouth. One at least, Seth Coleman, ancestor of the Colemans of today, remained.
  • In early days Lawrence Hartshorne, Johnathon Tremain and William Wilson all Churchmen, carried on grist-mills at Dartmouth Cove. At a ball given by Governor Wentworth on December 20th, 1792, one of the ornaments on the supper table was a reproduction of Messrs. Hartshorne and Tremain’s new flour mill.
  • Many French prisoners of war were brought here off the prizes brought to the port of Halifax. Some were confined in a building near the cove, which now forms part of one of the Mott factories.
  • In 1797 “Skipper” John Skerry began running a public ferry between Halifax and Dartmouth.
  • In 1809 Dartmouth contained 19 houses, a tannery, a bakery and a grist-mill.
  • In 1814 Murdoch relates that “Sir John Wentworth induced Mr. Seth Coleman to vaccinate the poor persons in Dartmouth, and throughout the township of Preston adjoining. He treated over 400 cases with great success.
  • The team boat Sherbrooke made her first trip across the harbor on November 8th, 1816.
  • As already related the first schools in the town were established by the Church of England, the teachers getting salaries, small it is true, from the Society for the Propagation of the Gospel. Mary Munn (appointed 1821) was the first teacher of the girls at a salary of £5 a year. William Walker (appointed 1824), father of E.M. Walker, and grandfather of H.R. Walker, now superintendent of Christ Church Sunday School, at £15 year of the boys. Mr. Walker held school in a little half stone house on the site of the present Central School. The S.P.G. was specially anxious for the religion instruction of the children, and the following “Prayers for the use of the Charity Schools in America”, issued by the society were doubtless regularly used by these early teachers.
  • A fire engine company was formed in 1822, a Axe and Ladder Company in 1865, and a Union Protection Company in 1876.
  • Lyle & Chapel opened a shipyard about 1823.
  • In 1828 a steam ferry boat of 30 tons, the Sir Charles Ogle, was built at the shipyard of Alexander Lyle. In 1832 a second steamer, the Boxer, was built; and in 1844 a third, the Micmac.
  • In 1836 the ice business was commenced. William Foster erecting an ice house near the Canal Bridge on Portland Street. The ice was taken in a wheel-barrow to Mr. Foster’s shop in Bedford Row, Halifax, and sold for a penny a pound.
  • In the thirties the industries of Dartmouth included besides the grist mill, of which William Wilson was chief miller, a foundry run by James Gregg on the hill back of the railway station; the manufacture of putty and oils by William Stairs; a tannery kept by Robert Stanford; a tobacco factory; the making of silk hats or “beavers” by Robinson Bros.; a soap chandlery run by Benjamin Elliott opposite Central School, and several ship building plants.
  • It is estimated that altogether $359,951.98 was spent on this canal. The stone locks and parts of the canal are all that remain today.
  • Edward H. Lowe, a leading member of Christ Church, was for many years secretary and manager of the Dartmouth Steamboat Company. At his death he was succeeded by another good Churchman, Captain George Mackenzie, whose wife was a daughter of Rev. James Stewart.
  • The first vessel built in Dartmouth was called the “Maid of the Mill”, and was used in carrying flour from the mill then in full operation.
  • In 1843 Adam Laidlaw, well known as driver of the stage coach between Windsor and Halifax, commenced cutting and storing the ice on a large scale, making this his only business.
  • In 1845 a Mechanics Institute, the first of the kind in Nova Scotia, was formed in Dartmouth.
  • The first regatta ever held on Dartmouth Lake is said to have been that on October 5th, 1846.
  • About 1853 the late John P. Mott commenced his chocolate, spice and soap works.
  • In 1853 the inland Navigation company took over the property and in 1861 a steam vessel of 60 tons, the Avery, went by way of the canal to Maitland and returned to Halifax.
  • In 1856 George Gordon Dustan Esq., purchased “Woodside.” He was much interested in the refining of sugar, and the Halifax Sugar Refinery company was organized with head offices in England, and Mr. Dustan was one of the directions. The first refinery was begun in 1883, and sugar produced in 1884. In 1893 the refinery was transferred to the Acadia Sugar Refinery Company, then just founded.
  • Mount Hope, the Hospital for the insane, was erected between 1856 and 1858, the first physician being in charge being Dr. James R. DeWolfe.
  • About 1860 the Chebucto Marine Railway Company was found by Albert Pilsbury, American Consul at Halifax, who then resided at “Woodside,” four large ships being built by H. Crandall, civil engineer.
  • In 1860 the Dartmouth rifles were organized with David Falconer as captain, and J.W. Johnstone (afterwards Judge) and Joseph Austen as lieutenants.
  • A month later the Dartmouth Engineers with Richard Hartshorne as captain and Thomas A. Hyde and Thomas Synott lieutenants were found.
  • Gold was discovered at Waverly in 1861.
  • In 1862 the whole property and works were sold by the sheriff to a company which was styled “The Lake & River Navigation Company,” which worked the canal for a little time at a small profit. Thousands of pounds were spent on the enterprise.
  • The works of the Starr Manufacturing Company were commenced by John Starr in 1864, associated with John Forbes. At first they made iron nails as their staple products. Mr. Forbes invented a new skate, the Acme, which gained a world-wide reputation, and in 1868 a joint company was formed.
  • In 1869 the Boxer was sold and the old Checbucto also built there, put in her place.
  • In 1868 the firm of Stairs, Son & Morrow decided to commence the manufacture of rope, selected Dartmouth for the site of the industry, erected the necessary buildings and apparatus in the north end of the town, and began the manufacture of cordage in 1869.
  • Dartmouth was incorporated by an act of the Provincial Assembly in 1873 with a warden and six councillors. The first warden was W.S. Symonds, the first councillors, Ward 1 J.W. Johnstone, Joseph W. Allen; Ward 2, John Forbes, William F. Murray; Ward 3, Thomas A. Hyde, Francis Mumford.
  • In 1885 a railway was constructed from Richmond to Woodside Sugar Refinery, with a bridge across the Narrows 650 feet long, which was swept away during a terrific wind and rain storm on Sept. 7th, 1891. A second bridge at the same place was carried away on July 23rd, 1893.
  • In 1886 the railway station was built.
  • In 1888 the Dartmouth (ferry) was built.
  • The present Ferry Commission was appointed on April 17th 1890. It purchased the Arcadia from the citizens committee, and also the Annex 2 of the Brooklyn Annex Line, which was renamed the Halifax. The Steam Ferry Company finally sold out to the Commission, thus terminating an exciting contest between town and company.
  • In 1890 the Halifax and Dartmouth Steam Ferry Company withdrew the commutation rates, and the indignant citizens purchased the Arcadia which carried foot passengers across for a cent, but at a loss.
  • Until 1890 most of the water was obtained from public wells and pumps.
  • In 1891 a Water Commission was formed. E.E. Dodwell, C.E. was appointed engineer, and on November 2nd 1892, our splendid water supply was turned on for the first time.
  • In 1891 a public reading room, believed “to be the only free reading room in the province” at the time, was established near the ferry docks.
  • The old brick post office near the ferry was erected in 1891, the present fine building quite recently.
  • On July 13th 1892, the Dartmouth Electric Light and Power Company began its service.
  • Woodside once had a brickyard and lime kilns, first owned by the late Samuel Prescott. They then passed by purchase to Henry Yeomans Mott, father of John Prescott Mott and Thomas Mott.
  • Mount Amelia was built by the late Judge James William Johnstone.
  • Among the early settlers in Dartmouth was Nathaniel Russell, an American loyalist, who settled near the Cole Harbor Road near Russell Lake. He was the father of Nathaniel Russell, who took so great an interest in the Mechanics Institute, grandfather of Mr. Justice Benjamin Russell, great grandfather of H.A. Russell, one of our progressive citizens of today.
  • The Rev. J.H.D. Browne, now of Santa Monica, California, and editor of the Los Angeles Churchman, who was with the Late Archdeacon Pentreath, one of the founders of Church Work, was born and spent his boyhood in Dartmouth.
  • Captain Ben Tufts was the first settler at Tuft’s Cove.
  • John Gaston, who lived near Maynard’s Lake, drove a horse and milk wagon into Halifax, a two-wheeled conveyance known as “Perpetual Motion”. He is said to have been the first to extend his milk route from this side to Halifax.

Christ Church, interior, view looking NE towards altar from near door, photographed on the afternoon of June 2nd, 1932. https://archives.novascotia.ca/photocollection/archives/?ID=5299

See also:

Vernon, C. W. "The story of Christ Church, Dartmouth" [Halifax, N.S.] : publisher not identified , 1917 https://www.canadiana.ca/view/oocihm.80672

A summary of colonial law

“The colonies now belonging to the Crown of Great Britain, exclusive of those under the government of the East India Company, (to which this work does not profess to extend,) are as follows:

In the West Indies and South America:

  1. Antigua, including Barbuda
  2. Barbadoes
  3. British Guiana
  4. Dominica
  5. Grenada
  6. Jamaica
  7. Montserrat
  8. Navis
  9. St. Christopher’s, including Anguilla
  10. St. Lucia
  11. St. Vincent
  12. Tobago
  13. Trinidad
  14. Virgin Islands

In North America, continental and insular:

  1. Bahama Islands
  2. The Bermuda, or Somer’s Islands
  3. Canada, Lower
  4. Canada, Upper
  5. Prince Edward’s Island
  6. New Brunswick
  7. Newfoundland, with part of Labrador
  8. Nova Scotia, including Cape Breton

Africa:

  1. Cape of Good Hope
  2. Sierra Leone, with the settlements on the Gold Coast

In the Indian Seas:

  1. Ceylon
  2. Mauritius, with the Seychelles

In the South Seas:

  1. New South Wales, with Norfolk Island
  2. Van Dieman’s Land
  3. Western Australia

(In this enumeration of the colonies nothing has been said of Honduras, which has been decided expressly not to be a colony (see ante p.2 n.1.)

These are almost all of the class above described, as Provincial establishments, there being at present no Proprietary government, nor with the exception of Sierra Leone, any Charter Government among the colonial dependencies of Great Britain.”

“The constitution of Nova Scotia is, by royal commission, a representative provincial government, one of the three original forms of the colonial constitutions.. Its legislature is formed upon that of the United Kingdom, and consists of a Council and House of Assembly. The council are twelve in number, at the head of whom are the Chief Justice of the province, who is the president, and the Bishop of Nova Scotia, who ranks next to him.

In 1758, a House of Representatives was formed, agreeably to a constitution granted to the colony, corresponding to that of England.”

Clark, Charles. “A summary of colonial law : the practice of the court of appeals from the plantations and of the laws and their administration in all the colonies; with charters of justice, orders in council, &c.” London : S. Sweet, A. Maxwell, and Stevens; Dublin : R. Milliken, 1834. https://www.canadiana.ca/view/oocihm.54637

An historical and statistical account of Nova Scotia

rulesofprecedency

A few interesting notes about initial attempts to settle Halifax are included here, as well as some details about the settlement of Dartmouth. The entirety of Chapter five is included also, a thorough overview of Nova Scotia’s legal and constitutional situation and its place outside the realm, some interesting observations on the constitutional nature within England itself, as well as the various institutions that were a part of life previous to the “paper revolution” that introduced “Responsible government” (previous to the overthrow of Nova Scotia’s constitution in an 1867 coup known as “confederation”).


“The beauty and the safety of this (Halifax) harbor attracted the notice of speculators at a very early period, and many applications were at different times made, for a grant of land in its vicinity. The famous projector, Captain Coram, was engaged in 1718, in a scheme for settling here; and a petition was presented by Sir Alexander Cairn, James Douglas, and Joshua Gee, in behalf of themselves and others, praying for a grant upon the sea coast, five leagues S.W. and five leagues N.W. of Chebucto, upon condition of building a town, improving the country around it, be raising hemp, making pitch, tar and turpentine, and of settling two hundred families upon it within three years. This petition received a favorable report from the Lords of Trade; but as it was opposed by the Massachusetts’s agents, on account of a clause restricting the fishery, it was rejected by the Council.”

View of Halifax from Dartmouth Cove

“Dartmouth – Opposite at Halifax, on the eastern side of the harbour, which is there about nine tenths of a mile wide, is situated the town of Dartmouth, which was laid out and settled in the year 1750. In the war of 1756, the [Mi’kmaq] collected in great force on the Bason of the Minas, ascended the Shubenacadie river in their canoes, and at night, surprising the guard, scalped or carried away most of the inhabitants. From this period, settlement was almost derelict, till Governor Parr, in 1784, encouraged 20 families to remove thither from Nantucket, to carry on the south sea fishery. The town was laid out in a new form, and £1,500 provided for the inhabitants to erect buildings. The spirit and activity of the new settlers created the most flattering expectations of success. Unfortunately, in 1792, the failure of a house in Halifax, extensively concerned in the whale fishery, gave a severe check to the Dartmouth establishment, which was soon after totally ruined. About this period, an agent was employed by the merchants of Milford, in England, to persuade the Nantucket settlers to remove thither; the offers were too liberal to be rejected, and the Province lost these orderly and industrious people.

During the late war the harbour became the general rendezvous of the navy and their prizes, which materially enriched the place, and extended the number of buildings. Between Dartmouth and Halifax a team boat constantly plies, for the accommodation of passengers. The whole of the eastern shore of the harbour, though by no means the first quality of soil, is much superior to the western… On the eastern passage there are some fine farms, chiefly settled by Germans, and every cove and indent contains a few families of fisherman, who supply Halifax with fresh and cured fish. A chain of lakes in this township, connected with the source of the Shubenacadie River, suggested the idea of uniting the waters of the Bason of Minas with Halifax harbour, by means of a canal. Of these lakes Charles, or the first Shubenacadie Lake, is distant from Halifax about three miles and a half.”

A close up of the map above, centered on the Dartmouth area.

Chapter V:

Various kinds of Colonial GovernmentsPower of GovernorNature of CouncilJurisdiction and power of House of AssemblyCourt of ChanceryCourt of ErrorSupreme CourtInferior Courts of Common PleasCourts of General SessionsJustices CourtsProbate CourtsSheriff and ProthonotaryCourt of Vice AdmiraltyCourt for the trial of PiraciesGeneral observations on the laws of Nova-Scotia

“A desire to know something of the Government under which we live is not only natural but commendable. In England there are many books written on the constitution of the Country, but in Nova Scotia, the inquisitive reader, while he finds enacted laws, will search in vain for any work professedly treating the origin of the authority that enacts them. The labor of examining the History of other colonies analogous to our own for this information is very great, and the means of doing so not always attainable. In a work of this kind, a brief outline is all that can be looked for, consistently with the space claimed by the other objects which it embraces; but it is hoped that it will be sufficient for the purpose of general information.

In British America there were originally several kinds of Governments, but they have been generally classed under three heads.

  • 1st. Proprietary governments, granted by the Crown to individuals, in the nature of feudatory principalities, with all the inferior regalities and feudatory powers of Legislation, which formerly belonged to Counties Palantine, on condition that the object for which the grant was made should be substantially pursued, and that nothing should be attempted in derogation of the authority of the King of England. Of this kind were Pennsylvania, Maryland and Carolina (now Louisiana.)
  • 2nd. Charter Governments, in the nature of civil corporations, with the power of making bye laws, for their own internal regulations, and with such rights and authorities as were especially given to them in their several acts of incorporation. The only charter Governments that remained at the commencement of the Civil War, were the Colonies of Massachusetts Bay, Rhode Island, Providence and Connecticut.
  • 3rd. Provincial governments, the constitutions of which depended on the respective Commissions, issued by the Crown to the governors, and the instructions which accompanied those commissions -Under this authority Provincial Assemblies were constituted, with the power of making local ordinances not repugnant to the laws of England. Of the latter kind is Nova Scotia, which is sometimes called the Province and sometimes the Colony of Nova Scotia. For some time previous to the Revolution in America, the popular leaders affected to call the Provincial establishments, or King’s governments on the Continent, Colonies instead of Provinces, from an opinion they had conceived that the word Province implied a conquered Country. But whatever distinction there might once have been between the terms Province, Colony and Plantation, there seems now to be none whatever, and they are indiscriminately used in several acts of Parliament. A Provincial government is immediately dependent upon the Crown, and the King remains sovereign of the Country. He appoints the Governor and Officers of State, and the people elect the Representatives as in England. The orders of judicature in these establishments are similar to those of the mother country, and their legislatures consist of a governor, representing the crown, a council or upper house, and an assembly chosen by, and representing the people at large. The following is a short account of the powers and privileges exercised in Nova-Scotia, by these several branches respectively in their own systems:

Governor

The Provinces in British North America are in general comprised in one command, and the Captain General, Governor and Commander-in-Chief, resides in Canada. The Governors of the several Provinces are styled Lieutenant-Governors, and have the title of Excellency, in consequence of being the King’s immediate Representative. The Governor of Nova- Scotia has the rank of Lieut.-General, and is styled “Lieutenant-Governor and Commander-in-Chief, in and over His Majesty’s Province of Nova-Scotia, and its dependencies, Chancellor and Vice-Admiral of the same”.

He is invested with the following powers:

  • 1st. As Commander-in-Chief he has the actual command of all the militia, and if a senior military officer, of all the army within his Government; and he commissions all officers of the militia. He appoints the Judges of all the different Courts of Common Law, he nominates and supersedes at will, the Custodes, Justices of the Peace, and other subordinate civil officers. With the advice of his Council he has authority to summon General Assemblies, which he may, from time to time, prorogue and dissolve as he alone shall judge needful. All such civil employments as the Crown does not dispose or are part of his patronage, and whenever vacancies happen in such offices as are usually filled up by the British Government, the Governor appoints pro-tempore, and the persons so appointed are entitled to all the emoluments till those who are nominated to supercede them arrive in the Colony. He has likewise authority, when he shall judge any offender in criminal matters a fit object of mercy, to extend the King’s pardon towards him, except in case of murder and high treason, and even in those cases he is permitted to reprieve until the signification of the Royal Pleasure.
  • 2d. The Governor has the custody of the Great Seal, presides in the High Court of Chancery, and in general exercises, within his jurisdiction, the same extensive powers as are possessed by the Lord High Chancellor of Great Britain, with the exception of those given by particular statutes.
  • 3d. The Governor has the power of granting probate of wills and administration of the effects of persons dying intestate, and, by statute, grants licences for marriages.
  • 4th. He presides in the Court of Error, of which he and the Council are Judges,to hear and determine all appeals, in the nature of writs of error, from the Superior Courts of Common Law.
  • 5th. The Governor is also Vice-Admiral within his Government, although he cannot, as such, issue his warrant to the Judge of the Court of Vice-Admiralty to grant commissions to privateers.
  • 6th. The Governor, besides various emoluments which arise from fees and forfeitures, has an honorable annual provision settled upon him, for the whole term of his administration in the Colony ; and that he may not be tempted to diminish the dignity of his station by improper condescensions, to leading men in the Assembly, he is in general restrained by his instructions from accepting any salary, unless the same be settled upon him by Law within the space of one year after his entrance into the Government, and expressly made irrevocable during the whole term of his residence in the administration, which appears to be a wise and necessary restriction.

A Governor, on his arrival in the Province, must (agreeably to the directions of his commission and his instructions – The Gazette has, in some instances, been held sufficient, when the Commission was not made out) in the first place, cause his commission as Governor and Commander-in-Chief, and also of Vice-Admiral, to be read and published at the first meeting of the Council, and also in such other manner as hath been usually observed on such occasions. In the next place, he must take the oaths to Government, and administer the same to each of the Council, and make and subscribe the declaration against transubstantiation, and cause the Council, unless they have previously done so, to do the same. He must then take the oath, for the due execution of the office and trust of Commander-in-Chief and Governor, and for the due and impartial administration of Justice; and he must also cause the oath of office to be administered to the Members of the Council.

— In the last place, he must take an oath to do his utmost, that the several laws relating to trade and the plantations be duly observed; which oaths and declaration, the Council, or any three of the members thereof, are empowered to administer.

Every Governor, together with his commission, receives a large body of instructions, for his guidance in the discharge of his various duties. In the event of his death, the next senior Counsellor, not being the Chief Justice or a Judge, takes the command of the Colony, until an appointment is made by His Majesty, and is required to take the same oaths, and make the same declaration as a Governor. Such are the powers and duties of a Governor, and the mode of redress for the violation of these duties, or any injuries committed by him upon the people, is prescribed with equal care. The party complaining has his choice of three modes

  • 1st. by application to Parliament.
  • 2d. by complaint to the Privy Council.
  • 3d. by action in the King’s Bench.

By statute 11 and 12th, William 3d, cap. 12, confirmed and extended by 42d Geo. 3d, cap. 85, all offences committed by Governors of plantations, or any other persons in the execution of their offices, in any public service abroad, may be prosecuted in the Court of King’s Bench in England. The indictment is to be laid in Middlesex, and the offenders are punishable, as if the offence had been committed in England, and are also incapacitated from holding any office under the Crown. The Court of King’s Bench is empowered to award a mandamus to any Court of Judicature, or to the Governor of the Colony, where the offence was committed, to obtain proof of the matter alleged, and the evidence is to be transmitted back to that Court, and admitted upon the trial.

The Council

The Council consists of twelve members, who arc appointed either by being named in the Governor’s instructions, by mandamus (A nomination by a Governor must be followed by a mandamus, but the person nominated acts until his mandamus arrives) or by the Governor. Their privileges, powers, and office, are as follow:

  • 1st. They are severally styled Honorable, they take precedency, next to the Commander in-Chief, and on his death or absence, the eldest member succeeds to the government,under the title of President.
  • 2d. They are a Council of State, the Governor or Commander-in-Chief, presiding in person, to whom they stand nearly in the same relation as the Privy Council in Great Britain does to the Sovereign.
  • 3d. They are named, in every commission of the peace, as Justices throughout the province.
  • 4th. The Council together with the Governor, sit as Judges in the Court of error, or Court of appeal, in civil causes, from the courts of Record, and constitute also a Court of Marriage and Divorce. It has, however, been lately decided, that if the Governor dissent from the Judgment of the Council or be in the minority, the judgment is nevertheless valid.
  • 5th. The Council is a constituent part of the legislature, as their consent is necessary to the enacting of Laws. In this capacity of legislators, they sit as the upper house, distinct from the Governor, and enter protests on their journals, after the manner of the House of Peers, and are attended by their Chaplain, Clerk, &c. As there was no order of hereditary nobility in the Colonies, out of which to constitute an intermediate body, like the Peers of England and Ireland, a legislative authority was doubtless, at an early period intrusted to the Governors and their Council acting conjointly, and forming a middle branch, between the Crown on the one hand, and the representatives of the people on the other. That this was formerly the case, the history of most of the colonies clearly evinces.

(In the Saxon times the Parliament did not consist of two distinct houses, the Peers being freeholders of large territory, were deemed the hereditary representatives of their vassals and tenants. In the Scotch Parliament there ever was one House, consisting of three estates, Peers, Representatives of Shires, and commissioners of Boroughs, they all voted together indifferently, but in Committees and the like, the proportion of Committee-men from each was limited).

The governor and council in legislative affairs, constitutes not two separate and distinct bodies independent of each other, but one constituent branch only, sitting and deliberating together. As it sometimes became necessary to reject popular bills, the Governors to divert the displeasure of the assembly from themselves to the Council, gradually declined attending on such occasions, leaving it to the board to settle matters as they could, without their interference. The council readily concurred with their designs, because their absence, removing a restraint, gave them the appearance of a distinct independent estate, and the crown perceiving the utility of the measure, gradually confirmed the practice in most of the British Colonies. This appears to be the plain origin which the Council enjoy of deliberating apart from the governors, on all bills sent up by the Assembly, of proposing amendments, to such bills, or of rejecting them entirely, without the concurrence of the governor.

The Councillors serve his Majesty without salary. In the grant of all patents, the Governor is bound to consult them, and they cannot regularly pass the seal without their advice. Though they deliberate as a distinct body, in their capacity as legislators, yet as a privy council, they are always convened by the Governor, who is present at their deliberations. As an upper house, their proceedings, though conducted with closed doors, are formal, and in imitation of the usage of the house of Lords, and although they cannot vote by proxy, they may enter the reasons of their dissent on their journals. Dissimilar as this body is in many important particulars to the house of Lords, any nearer approach to the original, appears from the state of the country, to be very difficult.

Mr. Pitt seems to have entertained the idea of creating an order of hereditary nobility in Canada, for the purpose of assimilating the constitution of that province, as nearly as possible to that of Great Britain; and accordingly a clause was introduced to that effect, in the act of the 31st. Geo. 3d. Chap. 31. “That whenever his Majesty, his heirs, or successors, shall think proper to confer upon any subject of the Crown of Great Britain, by letters patent, under the great seal of either of the said Provinces, any hereditary title of honor, rank or dignity of such Province descendable* according” to any course of descent therein limited, it shall and may be lawful for his Majesty, his heirs, or successors, to annex thereto, by the said letters patent of his Majesty, his heirs or successors, shall think fit an hereditary right of being summoned to the Legislative Council of such Province, descendable according to the course of descent so limited, with respect to such title rank or dignity, and that every person on whom such right shall be conferred, or to whom such right shall severally so descend, shall be entitled to demand of the Governor, Lieutenant Governor, or Commander-in-Chief, or person administering the government of such province, his writ of summons to such Legislative Council, at any town, after he shall have attained the age of twenty one years, subject nevertheless to the provisions hereinafter contained.”

Rules of precedency compared and adjusted from the several acts and statutes, made and provided in England, for the settlement of the precedency of men and women in America

This power has never been exercised: it has been justly observed, that these honors might be very proper, and of great utility in countries where they have existed by long custom, but they are not fit to be introduced where they have no original existence; where there is no particular reason for introducing them, arising from the nature of the country, its extent, its state of improvement or its peculiar customs; and where instead of attracting respect they might excite envy. Lords, it was said, might be given to the Colonies, but there was no such thing as creating that reserve and respect for them, on which their dignity and weight in the view of both the popular and monarchical part of the Constitution depended, and which could alone give them that power of controul and support, which were the objects of their institution.

But although the introduction of titles is not desirable, this board is susceptible of great improvement, by a total separation of its duties as a Privy Council, and a branch of the Legislature. Experiments of all kinds in Government are undoubtedly much to be deprecated, but this plan has been adopted elsewhere, not only with safety but with mutual advantage to the interests of the Crown and the people. By making the Members of the Legislative Council independent of the Governor for their existence, (for at present he has not only the power of nomination, but of suspension – Stokes mentions an instance of a Governor of a Colony, suspending a Councillor, on the singular ground of having married his daughter without his consent) and investing them with no other powers than those necessary to a branch of the Legislature, much weight would be added to administration, on the confidence and extent of interest that it would thereby obtain, a much more perfect and political distribution of power would be given to the Legislature, and the strange anomaly avoided of the same persons passing a law, and then sitting in judgement on their own act, and advising the Governor to assent to it.

This could be effected in two ways, by making the Legislative Council elective, or leaving the nomination to the Crown. If the former were preferred, it could be constructed on the plan proposed by Mr. Fox, in his speech in Parliament on the Quebec Bill. He suggested that the Members of the Council should not be eligible to be elected, unless they possessed qualifications infinitely higher than those who were eligible to be chosen members of the House of Assembly, and in the like manner, that the electors of the members of the Council, should possess qualifications, also proportionally higher than those of the electors of Representatives. By this means this country would have a real aristocracy chosen from among persons of the highest property, by people possessed of large landed estate, who would thus necessarily have the weight, influence, and independency, from which alone can be derived a power of guarding against any innovations which might be made either by the people on the one side, or the Crown on the other; should this mode be objected to, as bordering too much on democracy, the election might be left with great safety to the Crown, with this express proviso, that every Councillor so named, should be possessed of landed estate in the Colony, to a certain given extent, and should hold his seat for life. In either mode it would be rendered a most respectable and useful body.

Whether the Council forms a Court for the trial of offences, by impeachment from the House of Assembly, upon analogy to the practice of Parliament, is a question which never having been agitated here, has not been judicially determined. As Councillors do not represent any particular body of people, like the House of Lords, nor assemble as hereditary Legislators, in support of their rights and dignities, equally independent of the Crown and the people, but are appointed at the discretion of the Governor (In 1791, the articles of impeachment against the Judges of Nova-Scotia, were ordered to be heard before the King in Council), it seems very questionable whether they possess the power. The reason assigned in England, for the peculiar propriety of prosecuting high crimes and misdemeanors, by impeachment, is that as the Constituents of the Commons, are the parties generally injured, they cannot judge with impartiality, and therefore prefer their accusations before the other branch, which consists of the nobility, who have neither the same interest nor the same passions as popular assemblies. This distinction not being so obvious in the Colonial Legislatures, it appears that a complaint in the nature of impeachment, should be addressed to the King in Council.

House Of Assembly

The Assembly resembles the lower house of Parliament in its formation, mode of procedure, and power within its jurisdiction, as far as the different circumstances of the country permit. The freeholders are are assembled in the several Counties and Towns entitled to representation by the king’s writ, and their suffrages taken by the Sheriff. The members thus elected, are required by the Governor to meet at Halifax, the capital of the province, at a certain day, when the usual oaths being administered, and a Speaker chosen and approved, the sessions is opened by a speech from the person administering the Government, in imitation of that usually delivered from the throne, in which after adverting to the state of the Province, he calls their attention to such local subjects, as seem to require their immediate consideration. Halifax chooses 4 county, and 2 town, members; all the other counties 2, and the towns mentioned in the subjoined Table one.

The qualifications for a vote or representation are either a yearly income of forty shillings, derived from real estate within the particular county or town for which the election is held, or a title in fee simple of a dwelling house, and the ground on which it stands, or one hundred acres of land, five of which must be under cultivation. It is requisite that the title be registered six months before the test of the writ, unless it be by descent or devise. The declaration against transubstantiation has hitherto proved an effectual bar to the admission of Catholics into the Assembly, but upon the re-annexation of Cape-Breton to the Government of the Province, a gentleman professing that faith was returned as a member for the Island, and a dispensation procured from his Majesty, for administering the declaration to him.

—When this was made known, the Assembly, after much debate, adopted the following resolution:

“Resolved, that this House, grateful to his Majesty for relieving his Roman Catholic subjects from the disability they were heretofore under, from sitting- in this House, do admit the said Lawrence Kavanagh to take his seat, and will in future permit Roman Catholics, who may be duly elected, and shall have the necessary qualifications for a seat in this House, to take such seat without making a declaration against popery and transubstantiation; and that a Committee be appointed to wait upon his Excellency the Governor, and communicate to him the Resolution of this House.”

In 1827, an address was voted to his Majesty, by the unanimous voice of the House, praying for the total removal of this obnoxious test, as far as regarded his Catholic subjects of Nova Scotia. The Assembly continues for the term of seven years, from the return day of the writs of election, subject nevertheless to be dissolved in the mean time by the Governor, who has the power of proroguing the Council and Assembly, and appointing the time and place of their Session; with this constitutional injunction, that they shall be called together once at least every year.

The Legislature meets generally in winter, and continues in Session from six to twelve weeks. The principal business consists in investigating the public accounts; in appropriating the Revenue; which, after the discharging of the civil list, is chiefly applied to the improvement of the roads and bridges, bounties for the encouragement of agriculture; and sometimes for promoting the fisheries. As its jurisdiction is confined to the limits of the Province, and as there are no direct taxes in the Country (poor and county rates and statute labour excepted) the above mentioned business, together with some few Laws, principally of a local nature, usually occupies their attention. Sometimes however, business of a more general interest comes before them, when the debates are often conducted with ability and spirit. In treating of the Assembly, it will be proper to investigate the origin of the claim of the Colonists to legislate for themselves; and to unfold the principles in which this claim was confirmed by the Mother Country.

—The constitution of England, as it stood at the discovery of America, had nothing in its nature providing for Colonies. They have therefore, at different periods of their growth, experienced very different treatment. At first they were considered lauds without the limits of the realm, and therefore, not being united to it, not the property of the Realm: as the people who settled upon these lands in partibus exteris, were liege subjects, the King assumed the right of property and Government, to the preclusion of the jurisdiction of the state. He called them his foreign dominions, his possessions abroad, not parts and parcels of the Realm, and “as not yet annexed to the crown.”

It was upon this principle, that in the year 1621, when the Commons asserted the right of Parliament to a jurisdiction over them, by attempting to pass a bill for establishing a free fishery on the coasts of Virginia, New England, and Newfoundland, they were told by the servants of the crown that it was not fit for them to make laws for those countries which were not yet annexed to the crown, and that the bill was not proper for that house, as it concerned America. Upon this assumption the Colonies were settled by the King’s license, and the Governments established by Royal Charters; while the people emigrating to the Provinces considered themselves out of the realm; and in their executive and legislative capacities, in immediate connection with the King as their only Sovereign Lord. These novel possessions requiring some form of government, it became an exceedingly difficult matter to select that form. At last an analogy was supposed to exist between the Colonies and the Dutchy of Normandy; and the same form of Government* was adopted as had been used for the Island of Jersey.

*It is however observable, that although it was evidently the intention of the mother country, to grant the power of election to the people of the Colonies, so soon as they should be in a situation to receive a representative form of Government, yet the people assumed the right themselves, as appears by the following extract from Hutchinson, 1 vol. 94. ‘”Virginia had been many years distracted, under the government of Presidents and Governors, with Councils, in whose nomination or removal of the people had no voice until in the year 1620, a house of Burgesses broke out in the Colony, the King nor the grand Council at home, not having given any powers or direction for it. The Governor and assistants of the Massachusetts, at first intended to rule the people, but this lasted two or three years only, and although there is no colour for it in the Charter, yet a house of deputies appeared suddenly in 1634, to the surprise of the Magistrates, and the disappointment of their schemes of power. Connecticut soon after followed the plan of Massachusetts. New Haven, although the people had the highest reverence for their leaders, yet on matters of legislation the people, from the beginning, would have their share by their representatives. New Hampshire, combined together under the same form with Massachusetts. Barbadoes or the Leeward Islands began in 1625, struggled under Governors and Councils, and contending proprietors, 20 years. At length in 1645, an Assembly was called and the only reason given was, that by the grant to the Earl of Carlisle, the inhabitants were to have all the liberties, privileges and franchises of English subjects. After the restoration, there is no instance on the American continent, of a colony settled without a representation of the people, nor any attempt to deprive the colonies of this privilege, except in the arbitrary reign of King James the 2d.

It was a most fortunate circumstance, that the Island had by its constitution, “a right to hold a convention or meeting of the three orders of the Islands, in imitation of those august bodies in great kingdoms, a shadow and resemblance of an English Parliament.”

The King having assumed a right to govern the Colonies, without the intervention of Parliament, so the two Houses of Lords and Commons, in the year 1643, exerted the same power, without the concurrence of the King. They appointed the Earl of Warwick Governor in Chief of all the Plantations of America,created a committee for their regulation, and passed several laws concerning them. (See Pownal on the Colonies, passim)

Upon the restoration of Monarchy, the constitution of the Colonies received a great change. Parliament asserted, that all His Majesty’s Foreign Dominions were part of the realm, and then, for the first time, in their proper capacity, interposed in the regulation and government of the Colonies. From that period sundry laws have been passed, regulating their commerce, and having, in other respects, a direct operation on the Colonies. But nothing emanating either from the power assumed by the King, independent of Parliament, or from the Parliament without the concurrence of the King, or from the union of both, establishing the right of legislation in the colonists. It may be asserted, that every British subject has an essential right to the enjoyment of such a form of government, as secures the unrestrained exercise of all those powers necessary for the preservation of his freedom and his rights, according to the constitution of England; and that no authority can contract it within a narrower compass than the subject is entitled to by the Great Charter. Hence the Charters and Proclamations of the Crown to the several Colonies, are considered as declaratory only of ancient rights, and not creative of new privileges.

It is worthy of remark, that when England was herself a Province, the Colonies of London, Colchester, &c. enjoyed the same privilege of being governed by a legislative magistracy, which the American Colonies always contended for. At a subsequent period, but before the discovery of the New World, and when the precedent was considered as not likely to be often followed, we find that when King Edward ordered the French inhabitants to leave Calais, and planted an English Colony there, that place sent Burgesses to Parliament.

To all this it has often been answered, that the Colonies are virtually represented in Parliament. A few words will suffice in reply to this position. It was well observed by the Earl of Chatham, (although he carried the doctrine of the power of Parliament over the Colonies, to every circumstance of legislation and government short of taxation) “that the idea of virtual representation, as regards America, is the most contemptible that ever entered the head of man.” Of England it is entirely true.

Although copyholders and even freeholders, within the precincts of boroughs (not being burgesses) have no vote, yet the property of the copy-holders is represented by its lord, and the property of the borough is represented by the corporation, who choose the member of Parliament; while those persons who are not actually freeholders, have the option of becoming so if they think proper. But the Colonies are neither within any county or borough of England. Few members of Parliament have ever seen them, and none have a very perfect knowledge of them. They can therefore neither be said to be actually, or virtually represented, in that august body.

Hence the Colonies have a right, either to a legislature of their own, or to participate in that of Great-Britain. To the latter there are many objections; and when suggested on a former occasion, the plan was not cordially received on either side of the water; the other, custom has sanctioned and experience approved. To what extent the British Parliament has a right to interpose its authority, or how far the power of the Colonial Assembly extends, it is impossible to ascertain with accuracy. The doctrine of the omnipotence of the one, and the independence of the other, has at different times been pushed to an extreme by the advocates of each.

The true distinction appears to be, that Parliament is supreme in all external, and the Colonial Assembly in all internal matters. The unalterable right of property has been guaranteed to the Colonists, by the act renouncing the claim of taxation, the 18th Geo. 3d, by which it is declared “that the King and Parliament of Great Britain will not impose any duty, tax, or assessment, whether payable in any of his Majesty’s Colonies, Provinces or Plantations, in North America or the West Indies, except such duties as it may be expedient to impose, for the regulation of commerce; the net produce of such duties to be always paid and applied to, and for the use of the Colony, Province or Plantation, in which the same shall be respectively levied, in such manner as other duties, collected by the authority of the respective General Courts or General Assemblies of such Colonies, Provinces or Plantations, are ordinarily paid and applies.

Taxation is ours, commercial regulation is theirs; this distinction, says a distinguished statesman, is involved in the abstract nature of things. Property is private, individual, abstract; and it is contrary to the principles of natural and civil liberty, that a man should be divested of any part of his property without his consent. Trade is a complicated and extended consideration; to regulate the numberless movements of its several parts, and to combine them in one harmonious effect for the good of the whole, requires the superintending wisdom and energy of the supreme power of the Empire.

—The Colonist acknowledges this supremacy in all things, with the exception of taxation and of legislation in those matters of internal Government to which the Local Assemblies are competent. This may be said to be the “quam ultra contraque nequit consistere rectum.” But ever in matters of a local nature the regal control is well secured by the negative of the Governor; by his standing instructions not to give his assent to any law of a doubtful nature without a clause suspending its operation, until his Majesty’s pleasure be known, and by the power assumed and exercised, if disagreeing to any law within three years after it has passed the Colonial Legislature.

With these Provinces it is absurd to suppose, whatever may be said to the contrary, that the Local Assemblies are not supreme within their own jurisdiction; or that a people can be subject to two different Legislatures; exercising at the same time equal powers yet not communicating with each other, nor from their situation capable of being privy to each others proceedings. This whole state of commercial servitude and civil liberty when taken together, says Mr. Burke, is certainly not perfect freedom, but comparing it with the ordinary circumstances of human nature, a happy and liberal condition.

Court Of Chancery

The Governor is Chancellor in Office. The union of these two offices is filled with difficulties, and where the Governor is, as has been the case in almost all the Colonies of late years, a military man, they seem wholly incompatible. Mr. Pownal, a gentleman of great experience in colonial affairs, having been Governor of Massachusetts, South Carolina and New Jersey, thus expresses himself on this subject: “How unfit are Governors in general for this high office of law, and how improper it is, that they should be Judges, where perhaps the consequence of judgment may involve Government and the administration thereof, in the contentions of parties.— Indeed the fact is, that the general diffidence of the wisdom of this Court, thus constituted, the apprehension that reasons of state may be mingled with the grounds of the judgment, have had an effect that the coming to this Court is avoided as much as possible, so that it is almost in disuse, where the establishment of it is allowed.”

The Court of Chancery in this Colony, has never been conducted in a manner to create the dissatisfaction alluded to in other Provinces; but the increased business of the Court, the delicate nature of the appointment, and the difficulties attending the situation, induced our late Lieutenant Governor, Sir James Kempt, to request his Majesty’s Ministers to appoint a professional man, to fill the situation of the Master of the Rolls, and the Solicitor General has been appointed to that office, with a Provincial salary of £600 a year. This is the first appointment of the kind ever made in the Colonies. It may be still doubted, whether it would not have been more advantageous and convenient to the country at large, to have abolished the Court altogether, and to have empowered the Judges of the King’s Bench to sit as Judges in Equity, at stated and different terms from those of the Common Law Courts. The nature of the Court, as at present constituted, admits of great delays. An appeal lies from an interlocutory decretal order of a Chancellor to His Majesty in Council, and so toties quoties, by means of which the proceedings may be protracted by a litigious person to an indefinite length. The unnecessary prolixity of pleadings, which characterises the Chancery at home, has been introduced into practice here, and the expence and delay incidental to its proceedings, arc not at all calculated for the exigencies and means of the country.

Court Of Error And Appeals

The Governor and Council, conjointly, constitute a Court of Error, from which an appeal lies in the dernier resort to the King in Council. At the time of settling the Colonies, there was no precedent of a Judicatory besides those within the realm, except in the cases of Guernsey and Jersey. These remnants of the Dutchy of Normandy were not, according to the prevailing doctrine of those times, within the realm. According to the custom in Normandy, appeals lay to the Duke in Council; and upon the general precedent (without, perhaps, adverting to the peculiarity of the appeal, lying to the Duke of Normandy, and not to the King) was an appeal established from the Courts in the Colony to the King in Council. An appeal is under the following restrictions :

  • 1st. No appeal shall be allowed to the Governor in Council, in any civil cause, unless the debtor damage, or the sum or value appealed for, do exceed the sum of £300 sterling, except the matter in question relates to the taking or demanding any duty payable to the King, or to any fee of office, or annual rent, or other such-like matter or thing, where his rights in future may be bound ; in all which cases an appeal is admitted to the King, in his Privy Council, though the sum or value appealed for, be of less value. In all cases of fines for misdemeanours, no appeals are admitted to the King in Council, except the fines, so imposed, amount to or exceed the value of £200 sterling.
  • 2d. That every such appeal to the Governor in Council be made within fourteen days after Judgment or sentence is pronounced in the Court below ; and that the appellant or plaintiff in error, do give good security that he will effectually prosecute his appeal or writ of error, and answer the condemnation money, and also pay such costs and damages as shall be awarded, in case the judgment or sentence of the Court below shall be affirmed.
  • 3d. That no appeal be allowed from the judgment or sentence of the Governor in Council, or from the decree of the Court of Chancery, to the King in his Council, unless the debt, damages, or the sum or value so appealed for, do exceed the sum of £500 sterling, except where the matter in question relates to the taking or demanding any duty payable to the King, or to any fee of office, or an annual rent, as above mentioned.
  • 4th. That such appeal to His Majesty or his Privy Council, be made within fourteen days after judgment or sentence is pronounced by the Governor, in the Court of Chancery ; and that the appellant or plaintiff in error, do give good security, that he will effectually prosecute his appeal or writ of error, and answer the condemnation money ; and also pay such costs and damages as shall be awarded by his Majesty, in case the sentence of the Governor in Council, or decree of the Court of Chancery, be affirmed. There is no appeal allowed in criminal causes.

Supreme Court

The Supreme Court is invested with the powers of the King’s Bench, Common Pleas, and Exchequer. It is composed of a Chief Justice, three Assistants and a Circuit Associate. The Chief Justice receives from the English Government an annual salary oi £800 sterling, in addition to which he receives fees to a large amount. The assistants are paid by the Province, and are entitled, under a permanent act, to £600 a year, and a guinea a day additional, when travelling. This Court has a jurisdiction extending over the whole Province, including Cape Breton, in all matters criminal and civil; but cannot try any actions for the collection of debts, when the whole amount of dealings do not exceed five pounds, except on appeal, or when the parties reside in different counties. It sets four times a year at Halifax, and has two Circuits on the eastern and western districts —one at Cape Breton, and one on the south shore. The venerable Chief Justice, Hon. S.S. Blowers, has presided in this Court since the year 1798—the patient investigation which he gives every cause that is tried before him—the firmness, yet moderation of temper which he exhibits—the impartiality, integrity and profound legal knowledge, with which he dignifies the bench, have rendered him an object of affection, not only to the gentlemen of the bar, but to the public at large. Etiam contra quos statuit, tequos placates que dimisit.


The law regulating the admission of the Attorneys has been allowed to expire, and it is now governed by rule of Court. It is required, that every person applying for admission, shall have been duly articled as a clerk, to an Attorney of the Supreme Court, for the period of five years preceding such application; except graduates of King’s College, Windsor, who are eligible to admission at the expiration of four years. There is also a farther distinction made in favor of the College. The graduate signs the roll as an Attorney and Barrister at the same time, while the other student is required to practice as an Attorney for the space of one year, before he is entitled to the privileges of a Barrister. The conduct and discipline of the bar is regulated by an Institution, established in 1825, under the patronage of his Excellency Sir James Kempt, and denominated the Bar Society. It consists of the Judges of the Supreme Court and Common Pleas, the Crown Officers, and other members of the profession.

The legal acquirements of the Bench and Bar are highly respectable, but the decisions of the Court are not easily known for want of reports. There are a great variety of questions constantly arising upon our Provincial Statutes, which, from the novelty of the circumstances under which they were framed, are peculiar to the Country, and correct reports of these cases are alike important to the Judges, the Lawyers, and the public. Such a system would tend to produce an uniformity of decision, to check litigation, and to foster a laudable ambition in the Court, to administer law upon such principles of argument and construction, as may furnish rules which shall govern in all similar or analogous cases. At an early period of the Constitution of England, the reasons of a judgment were set forth in the record, but that practice has long been disused.

According to the modern practice, the greater number of important questions agitated in the Courts of Law come before them on motions for new trial; cases reserved on summary applications of different sorts. In neither of these cases does the record furnish the evidence, either of the facts, or the arguments of the Counsel and the Court, for which there is no other depositor} than reports, on the fidelity of which a great part of the Law almost entirely depends. The most ancient compilations of this sort are the year books, the works of persons appointed for that purpose. The special office of Reporter was discontinued so long ago as the reign of Henry VIII. and although, in the reign of James I., Lord Chancellor Bacon procured its revival, it was soon dropped again,and the proceedings of Westminster Hall, from that time till now, would have been lost in oblivion; had it not been for the voluntary industry of succeeding Reporters. As the demand for books of reports in the Province, would be chiefly confined to the Gentlemen of the profession, the sale of them would not only afford no remuneration for the labour of preparing them for the press, but would not even defray the expense of publication, which most unquestionably deserves to be borne by the public purse. It is hoped that the time is not far distant, when this subject will receive the attention of the Legislature, and that means will be found to remedy the evil so universally felt in the Province.

Inferior Courts Of Common Pleas

There is no separate Court of Common Pleas for the Province, but there are Courts in each County, bearing the same appellation, and resembling it in many of its powers. These Courts, when first constituted, had power to issue both mesne and final process to any part of the Province; and had a concurrent jurisdiction with the Supreme Court in all civil causes. They were held in the several counties by Magistrates, or such other persons as were deemed best qualified to fill the situation of Judges; but there was no salary attached to the office, and fees, similar in their nature, but smaller in amount than those received by the Judges of the Supreme Court, were the only remuneration given them for their trouble.

As the King’s Bench was rising in reputation, from the ability and learning of its Judges, these Courts fell into disuse, and few causes of difficulty or importance were tried in them. It was even found necessary to limit their jurisdiction, and they were restrained from issuing mesne process out of the county in which they sat. The exigencies of the county requiring them to be put into a more efficient state, a law was passed in 1824, for dividing the Province into three Districts or Circuits, and the Governor empowered to appoint unprofessional man to each Circuit, as first Justice of the several Courts of Common Pleas within the District, and also President of the Courts of Sessions. The salary provided for their appointments was £450, inclusive of travelling and other fees, while the fees previously held by the former Judges, were made payable to them as long as they continued in office. The process and course of practice is the same in the Courts of King’s Bench and Common Pleas, and the jurisdiction of both limited to five pounds. All original process is issued by the Court of common law itself, and tested in the name of the Chief Justice; and the Chancellor issues no writ whatever, whereon to found the proceeding of these Courts.

Few real actions are in use in the Colony, except actions of Dower and Partition, as all titles to land are tried either by ejectment, trespass, or replevin. The writs of mesne process are of three kinds. A summons, or order to appear and defend suit, a capias by which the Sheriffis ordered to arrest the debtor, and on which bail may be put in, as in England, and an attachment, which is a mened writ, and both summonses the party,and attaches as much property as, by appraisement, will amount to the sum sworn to. Perishable property, thus attached, if not bailed or security given for its forth-coming after judgement is immediately sold. The operation of this writ has of late been restrained to the recovery of debts existing prior to the year 1821, and to securing the effects of absent or absconding debtors. After judgment an execution is issued, which, combining the four English writs of final process, directs the Sheriff to levy the amount thereof on the goods and chattles, lands and tenements of the defendant, and in default thereof to commit him to prison.

Court Of General Sessions

This Court is similar in its constitution, powers and practice, to the Courts of Quarter Sessions in England.

Justices Court

The collection of small debts is a subject every¬ where fraught with difficulties; and various modes have been adopted at different times, with a view to combine correctness of decision in the Judge, with a diminution of the expense of collection. At present any two Magistrates are authorised to hold a Court for the trial of all actions of debt, where the whole amount of dealings is not less than three, and does not exceed five pounds. All sums under three pounds may be collected by suit before a single Justice. From the decision of these Courts, an appeal lies to the Supreme and Inferior Courts of Common Pleas.

Hitherto local influence, and the intrigues of elections, have had great weight in too many of the recommendations which have been made to the Executive, for the appointment of Justices of the Peace; and the patronage, and the little emoluments of the office, which the collection of small debts has encreased, have occasioned the commission to be eagerly sought after; and to use the words of Lord Bacon—“There are many who account it an honor to be burdened with the office of Justice of the Peace.” The proceedings in these Courts are summary, and when judgment is given, an execution issues to a constable to levy the debt and costs, in the same manner as the Sheriff proceeds on a similar writ, from the higher Courts. Whether the evils incidental to these Courts are unavoidable, or whether a better system could not be devised, is a subject well worthy of serious consideration.

Probate Courts

The Governor, in his capacity of ordinary, formerly delegated his power to the Surrogate General, who resided at Halifax, and whose jurisdiction extended over the whole Province. Since that period, Surrogates have been appointed in the several counties, and the law requires probate to be granted in the county where the testator last dwelt. There is no Provincial system of law regulating these Probate Courts, and the Judges are left to find their way by the feeble light of analogy to the Ecclesiastical Courts of England. This, perhaps, will account for the irregularity and confusion prevailing in those districts where Lawyers do not preside in these Courts. There is no branch of the jurisprudence of the country which requires revision so much as this department. The statute of distribution, of Nova Scotia, directs the estate of an intestate to be divided in the following manner:

—One third, after the payment of debts, is allotted to the widow, both of personal and real estate, the former absolutely, the latter during her life. Of the other two thirds, two shares are given to the eldest son, and the residue equally distributed between the remaining children, or such as legally represent them. If the real estate cannot be divided without great injury, the Judge of Probate is required, upon evidence thereof, to order it to be appraised, and to offer it at such appraised value to the sons of the intestate successively, who have preference according to seniority. If either of the sons take the estate at the price offered, he is bound to pay, in a given time, the proportionable shares of the purchase money to the other heirs.

— After the widow’s death, her dower in land is divided in like manner. If there be no child, the widow is entitled to a moiety of the personal estate, and a life interest in one third of the real estate ; and if there be neither wife nor child, the whole is distributed among the next of kin to the intestate, in equal degree, and their legal representatives ; but representatives among collaterals, after the children of brothers and sisters, are not admitted. Where the estate is insolvent, an equal distribution takes place among the creditors, with the exception of the King, who takes precedence of all other mortgages, and those who have obtained judgment against the debtor in his life time.

The act of distribution was founded upon that in Massachusetts, and the reason given for deviating from the course of descent in England, and assigning only two shares of the real estate to the eldest son, is, that in a new country, the improvements necessary to be made upon land, and the expence of subduing the soil, constantly absorb the whole of the personal property ; and that if the real estate were inherited by the eldest, there would be nothing left to provide for the younger children. And it is on this ground that such an essential alteration in the Law of England has been approved of by the King in Council.

Sheriff And Prothonotary

The Sheriffs of the different Counties are appointed annually by the Governor, from a list made by the Chief Justice, proposing three persons for each county for his choice. This office being lucrative is always solicited, and the Sheriff is invariably continued from year to year, so long as he discharges the duties of his situation with diligence and fidelity.

—The offices of Prothonotory and clerk of the Court, are patent appointments held by the same officer. The person now holding them, notwithstanding the law on the subject of non residence, has lived for many years in England. He has a deputy in each county, who acts as clerk of the Supreme Court and Common Pleas.

Court Of Vice Admiralty

In the year 1801 his Majesty directed the Lords Commissioners of the Admiralty to revoke the prize Commissions, which had been granted to the Vice Admiralty Courts in the West Indies, and in the Colonies upon the American continent, except Jamaica and Martinique. An act of Parliament was then passed, 41. Geo. 3. c. 96. by which each and every of the Vice-Admiralty Courts, established in any two of the Islands in the West Indies and at Halifax, were empowered to issue their process to any other of his Majesty’s Colonies or Territories in the West Indies or America, including therein the Bahama and Bermuda Islands, as if the Court were established in the Island, Colony or Territory, within which its Junctions were to be exercised.

His Majesty was also authorised to fix salaries for Judges, not exceeding the sum of two thousand pounds per annum for each Judge, and it was enacted that the profits and emoluments of the said Judges should in no case exceed two thousand pounds each and every year, over and above the salary. Sir Alexander Croke, L.L.D. then an advocate of the Civil Law, had the first appointment upon this new establishment at Halifax, and presided in it from that period until the termination of the American War. He had not only distinguished himself as an advocate in Doctors Commons, but his vindication of the belligerent rights of Great Britain, in his celebrated answer to Schlegel, and his introduction to the case of Horner and Lydiard, brought his talents into that notice which added a value to his judicial decisions. The causes decided in that Court have been collected, and very ably reported, by the Hon. James Stewart. As the emoluments of the office terminated with the war, the duties of the situation are performed temporally by the Chief Justice. The Court of Vice Admiralty exercises three sorts of jurisdictions.

  • 1st. it is the proper Court for deciding all maritime causes.
  • 2d. it is the Court for the trial of prizes taken in time of war, between Great Britain and any other state, to deter¬ mine whether they be lawful prizes or not.
  • 3d. it exercises a concurrent jurisdiction with the Courts of Record in the cases of forfeiture and penalties,incurred by the breach of any act of Parliament, relating to the trade and revenue of the Colony.

The King’s Privy Council constitute a court of appeal, to which body, by 22 . Geo. 2 . c. 3. the Judges of the Court of Westminster Hall were added, with a proviso that no Judgment should be valid unless a majority of the Commissioners present were actually Privy Counsellors. In matters relating to the trade and revenues of the Colony, if the sum in question does not exceed £500 sterling, the party aggrieved must first prefer a petition to his Majesty, for leave to appeal from the judgment of this Court.

Court For The Trial Of Piracies

There is a Court of a peculiar construction established in the Colonies, for the trial of piracies. Formerly pirates were tried in England by the Court of Admiralty, which proceeded without Jury, but as the exercise of such an authority was not only repugnant to the feelings of Englishmen, but to the genius of the Laws of the country, a statute was passed in 28 Henry VIII. which enacted that all piracies, felonies and robberies, committed on the high seas, should be tried by Commissioners, to be nominated by the Lord Chancellor; the indictment being first found by a Grand Jury, and afterwards tried by a Petit Jury, and that the proceedings should be according to the Common Law.

Under this Law piracies have continued to be tried in England, but as the provisions of that statute did not extend to the Colonies, it became necessary, when offenders were apprehended in the Plantations, to send them to England, to take their trial. To remedy so great an inconvenience, the statute of William III. was passed, which enacts that all piracies, felonies and robberies,committed on the high seas, may be tried in any of the Colonies by Commissioners, to be appointed by the King’s Commission, directed to any of the Admirals, &c. and such persons, by name, for the time being, as his Majesty shall think fit; who shall have power jointly and severally to call a Court of Admiralty, which shall consist of seven persons at least, and shall proceed to the trial of said offenders.

The statute of Henry VIII. was also extended to the Colonies by the 4 Geo. I. c. 11. The mode hitherto adopted in the Colonies is, to collect the Court under the 11 and 12 of William III. and to proceed to the trial of the prisoners without the intervention of a Jury. But this practice seems very questionable; wherever, by any constitution of Law, a man may enjoy the privilege of trial by Jury, great care should be taken that he be not deprived of it. To obviate these difficulties, it has been thought that a Commission might issue under 11 and 12 of William III. and the proceedings be regulated by the statute of 2S Henry VIII.

When this Court assembled but once in several years, its extraordinary jurisdiction was in some measure excused by the rare exercise of its powers; but when it meets so often as it has of late years in the West Indies, it affords a just ground of Legislative interference. Having treated of the several Courts, it will now be necessary to make a few observations upon the Laws of the country.

Laws of Nova Scotia

The Law of the Province is divisible into three parts. Is. the Common Law of England. 2d. the Statute Law of England. 3d. the Statute Law of Nova-Scotia. A minute consideration of each would be foreign from the design of this work, but the subject is too interesting to be altogether passed over. I shall therefore show in what manner the two first were introduced, the extent to which they apply, and the alteration made in them by the Local Statute Law.


Upon the first settlement of this country, as there was no established system of jurisprudence, until a local one was legally constituted, the emigrants naturally continued subject and entitled to the benefit of all such Laws of the parent country, as were applicable to their new situation. As their allegiance continued, and travelled along with them according to those Laws, their co-relative right of protection necessarily accompanied them.


The common law, composed of long established customs, originating beyond what is technically called the memory of man, gradually crept into use as occasion and necessity dictated. The Statute Law, consisting of acts, regularly made and enacted by constituted authority, has increased as the nation has become more refined, and its relationship more intricate. As both these laws grew up with the local circumstances of the times, so it cannot be supposed that either of them, in every respect, ought to be in force in a new settled country ; because crimes that are the occasion of penalties, especially those arising out of political, instead of natural and moral relationship, are not equally crimes in every situation.

Of the two, the common law is much more likely to apply to an infant colony, because it is coeval with the earliest periods of the English history, and is mainly grounded on general moral principles, which are very similar in every situation and in every country. The common law of England, including those statutes which are in affirmance of it, contains all the fundamental principles of the British constitution, and is calculated to secure the most essential rights and liberties of the subject. It has therefore been considered by the highest jurisdictions in the parent country, and by the legislatures of every colony, to be the prevailing law in all cases not expressly altered by statute, or by an old local usage of the colonists, similarly situated; for there is a colonial common Law, common to a number of colonies, as there is a customary common Law, common to all the Realm of England.

With such exceptions, not only the civil but the penal part of it, as well as the rules of administering justice and expounding Laws, have been considered as binding in Nova-Scotia. In many instances, to avoid question, colonial statutes and rules of court have been made, expressly adopting them. Since the artificial refinements and distinctions incidental to the property of the mother country, the laws of police and revenue, such especially as are enforced by penalty, the modes of maintenance for the clergy, the Jurisdiction of the spiritual Courts, and a multitude of other provisions, are neither necessary nor convenient for such a colony, and therefore are not in force here.

The rule laid down by Blackstone is, that all Acts of Parliament, made in affirmance or amendment of the common law, and such as expressly include the colonies by name, are obligatory in this country. On the first part of this proposition there can be no difficulty, except as to determining whether a particular statute is in fact in amendment and affirmance of the common law or not, and whether any particular act of Parliament is applicable or not to the state of the Colony. The power of making this decision, a power little short of legislation, is and must be left with the Judges of our Local Courts, and on referring to the manner in which it has been exercised, there is little danger to be apprehended that an improper use will be made of it. Hence it is that the rights of the subject, as declared in the petition of rights, the limitation of the prerogative by the act for abolishing the Star Chamber, and regulating the Privy Council, the Habaes Corpus act and the Bill of rights, extend to the Colonies. In the same manner do all statutes respecting the general relation between the crown and the subject, such as the Laws relative to the succession, to treason, &e. extend throughout the Realm.

—The difference between the local and general laws, or clauses of a law, may be illustrated by 13 and 14 of Charles II. c. 2. By that act the supreme military power is vested in the King without limitation ; this part of the act extends to all the Colonies, but the enacting clause respecting the militia officers applies to England alone. The other part of the proposition of Blackstone, that act; of Parliament are binding upon such Colonies as are expressly named therein, is not expressed with his usual accuracy, and must be understood with some very material exceptions. It is true that Parliament has declared, by act 6. Geo. III. c. 12, that it has the power to make laws and statutes of sufficient validity to bind the Colonies in all cases whatever. But it is plain, if it had not the power before, it is impossible the mere declaration could invest it with it.

I have already observed that the true line is, that Parliament is supreme in all external, and the Colonial Assemblies in all internal legislation ; and that the Colonies have a right to be governed, within their own jurisdiction, by their own laws, made by their own internal will. But if the Colonies exceed their peculiar limits, form other alliances, or refuse obediance to the general laws for the regulation of Commerce or external Government, in these cases there must necessarily be a coercive power lodged somewhere : and cannot be lodged more safely for the Empire at large than in Parliament, which has an undoubted right to exercise it in such cases of necessity. It is in this manner the passage alluded to, in the commentaries, must be understood, which states those laws to be binding on the Colonies that include them by express words, and the English act of Parliament is generally received in the same sense.

The system of jurisprudence is, from these circumstances, very similar in both countries; and as it is a fundamental principle in all the Colonies not to enact laws repugnant to those of England, the deviation is less than might be supposed. The statute of distribution has been already alluded to and explained, and it may be added that, as respects wills, the same formality in execution, and the same rules of construction, as prevail in the parent state, are adopted here. For other peculiarities the reader is referred to various parts of this work, where they are incidentally mentioned.”

A note at the end of Volume II on behalf of publisher Joseph Howe.

Haliburton, Thomas Chandler. “An historical and statistical account of Nova-Scotia : in two volumes” Halifax [N.S.] : J. Howe, 1829. Volume I: https://archive.org/details/historicalstatis01hali/mode/2up, Volume II: https://archive.org/details/McGillLibrary-rbsc_lc_historical-nova-scotia_lande00400-v2-16708/mode/2up

Epitome of the laws of Nova Scotia (Volume 1-4)

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“Above 70 years’ legislation has accumulated a mass of provincial enactments (contained in 3 large quarto volumes, down to 1826.) Since 1826, very many acts have passed. Much inconvenience has been felt in referring to them, as it requires intimate acquaintance with their contents, to enable any one to distinguish those directly or virtually repealed, from such as remain in force.

This difficulty has been experienced by professional men as well as others, although the small Index published by Chief Justice Marshall afforded some remedy. The variety of instances in which our Provincial acts and usages have altered the laws of England, and the uncertainty as to what English acts are or are not in force here, suggested to the writer the usefulness of such a work in humble imitation of the Commentaries of Blackstone, retaining such English law as we have adopted, and adding under each head or chapter the substance of provincial enactments that belonged to it.

(Under an impression of an analogous kind, an edition of Blackstone, with notes showing the changes of law in the United States, has been there published).

The author has been favored with a reading of the Commentaries of Mr. Kent on American law, and has found them of much service, in preparing this work. The materials from which he has produced this Epitome were so scattered and disjointed, that few can appreciate the fatigue attending it. He has had his constant view, to give the substance of all the provincial statute laws in the plainest terms, freed from the technical language in which they were written, and to refer page by page and section by section – so that the original act could always be easily found when necessary.

He hopes in 4 or 5 small volumes to comprize the whole body of the provincial statutes on every subject, arranging them in a rational order, and connecting them in every chapter, with such English law as is in force here or necessary to be noticed. This first volume being chiefly statutes, has been less laborious in composition, but more so in revising and preparing for the press, than any other portion of the work.

The writer has to request his readers to bear in mind, that the duties of a laborious profession have not allowed him to dedicate as much time and attention to this undertaking, as its importance deserved. He trusts it will be found useful notwithstanding, and he will publish the remaining volumes as rapidly as they can go through the press, having the manuscript of all nearly finished. He hopes at some future period, if the work in its present state is acceptable to the subscribers, to publish a more valuable and enlarged edition.

He begs leave to return his thanks to the gentleman at the bar, the magistrates – the agents for the work, and to his subscribers in general, for their kind approbation and encouragement; which have stimulated him to preserve in his endeavors, and to several of his friends, for their liberality in the loan of law works required.

The employment and improvement of mind, and the interest he has felt during these three years in this pursuit, are in themselves no small reward for his labor, and if its usefulness will bear any proportion to the exertion bestowed upon it, he will have no cause to regret the occupation of so many solitary hours. Halifax, April 2, 1832.”


“A half hours inspection of a large law library is almost enough to deter any young person from embracing such a profession; and even the nerves of those who have been inured to poring over black letter, and law-French, and, worse than that, law-Latin, will sometimes twitch with involuntary shrinking from the barbarous aspect of these Sibylline leaves. The motley and tasteless jargon, the obsolete dialect, the antiquated questions and rules, the contradictions of early Gothic type, and the moldering dust, that unite in presenting impediments to the enquirer, seem to throw an impenetrable veil over the original features of our jurisprudence.”

“Course recommended to students in Nova Scotia

Part 1

  1. Blackstone’s Commentaries
  2. Selwyn’s Nisi Prius
  3. Phillips on Evidence (A Compendium of the Law of Evidence,  Thomas Peake, Josiah Randall)
  4. Tidd’s Practice

Part 2

  1. Newland’s Chancery Practice (1st Volume)
  2. Maddox on Chancery (1st vol. & a few chapters of the 2nd.)
  3. Jones on Bailments
  4. Toller on Executors
  5. Adams on Ejectment
  6. Comyn’s Landlord and Tenant

Part 3

  1. Doctor and Student
  2. Coke on Littleton (part of it only)
  3. Saunder’s Reports
  4. Roberts on Wills
  5. Sugden on Vendors

Part 4

  1. Comyn on Contracts
  2. Roberts on Frauds
  3. Holt on Shipping
  4. Leach’s Crown Law
  5. Archbold’s Criminal Pleading and Evidence
  6. Holt’s Law of Libel

Part 5

  1. Brown’s Civil and Admiralty Law

This list includes about 33 volumes. Some of them merit the closest study… I would recommend a 2d and a 3d reading of Blackstone’s Commentaries, at intervals of one or two years, -the first time referring to a law dictionary when necessary, -the second time referring to, and reading the chief acts of the province, as they bear upon the subjects in the Commentaries, -the third time reading the leading cases referred to… The order in which I have placed the books in this list is, such as I should be inclined to recommend generally to our students in Nova Scotia.”


“The seat of government was transferred to Halifax in 1749, where it continued to be administered by a governor, lieutenant governor, and council. The laws, from this period, were chiefly such as were in force in the neighboring English colonies, and a general court and other institutions were copied from theirs. In 1758, his Majesty transmitted instructions directing the Governor to call together the representatives of the people in general assembly, after the manner of the older English settlements. Counties and townships were then erected, to which others have since been added and the freeholders in this province have ever since exercised, without interruption, the right then conferred, of choosing from their own number the persons to whom they were willing to confide the protection of their political interests.”

“The settled parts of the province and those where settlements were attempted, have been further divided into townships, some as large as smaller counties, and many more of smaller dimensions; and it is probable that this mode of division will be extended over the whole surface of the country. as it is a favorite manner of allotment in North America and is very useful as a guide to the arrangement of representation, the local assessments and a variety of other purposes.

As to ecclesiastical divisions, the province is the chief establishment of an episcopate, which bears its name, and includes the whole of ancient Nova Scotia, together with Newfoundland and the Bahamas. It is not yet subdivided into parishes, except in a few instances, though the missions of the clergy are fixed permanently in the different settlements.”

“The sovereignty, as well legislative as executive, over this colony, may be properly considered as residing in the crown from 1713, the date when the province became British, until a constitutional form of government was erected in 1758. His majesty’s instructions to the governors, his proclamations, commissions, and other acts of government, during this period had therefore a legislative authority, and on them our present constitution is grounded, as well as on the general principles of British law and liberty considered the birthright of free people…

The next source of our provincial law is to be sought in those portions of the common law and statute law of England, as have been adopted into our own code by provincial usage, enactment or decision.

The acts of our own general assemblies are a third source of provincial law.

The rules of practice and decisions of our provincial courts, constitute a fourth source of law.

British acts of parliament for the regulation of commerce in the colonies form a fifth source of our colonial law”

“While it seems doubtful whether any English laws (except those in which the colonies are expressly named) have any validity here, until they have been adopted into our local jurisprudence by distinct legislation or general recognition and usage; yet, what are generally esteemed the most valuable portions of British law, have been transplanted in our land — the Habeas corpus — the freedom of the press — the trial by jury — the representative branch of legislature, — the viva voce examination of witnesses; in fine all those branches of public law which have drawn the eulogium of the wisest and the best of men upon the British constitution, we possess. While we are freed from many that have formed the subject of constant objection in the mother country. Thus our law, by dividing the inheritance among all the children of an intestate, and by abolishing most of the unnecessary and artificial distinctions between real and personal property, has relieved us from unjust rules of primogeniture and from much subtlety of legal definition.

The Game Laws, the Tithe system, and much of the expensive and unnecessary variety of courts are unknown among us, and the comparative simplicity of our legal forms, in conveyancing and in law suits, would astonish an English practitioner: while the cheapness of law proceedings in general (though there are some exceptions) would be equally wonderful in his eyes. The Poor laws in Nova Scotia are simple and unproductive of litigation, answering every end of benevolence without burdening the country. Stamp duties are not in existence, and the titles of land have from our earliest settlement been rendered infinitely more secure than in England by a general and simple act of registry. Marriage is not shackled by arbitrary legislation. The penal law is perspicuous and mild, and indeed I may refer to every chapter of the book to shew, that having an opportunity of establishing a Provincial Code with the benefit of the experience and philosophy of older countries, our forefathers have not failed in their duty; but have transmitted to us a system simple and concise, founded on the best principles, they have left little to their successors beyond the duty of preserving, polishing and throwing light upon, the useful result of their labors.”

“Personal liberty has been secured by a multitude of provisions, in the common law and statutes of the mother country, all of which that go to establish the freedom of the people, from magna charta down to the period of colonization in 1749, may be considered in full force in Nova Scotia, and have been constantly recognized as law by the colonial judges… although many British statutes have been reenacted by the Provincial legislature ex abundanti cautela [out of an abundance of caution]; — they have not considered it necessary or judicious to reenact any of those which establish public liberty considering the national faith and royal authority pledged to the first settlers, to have confirmed them in the indisputable possession of that portion of the laws of England. By the great charter it was enacted that no freeman should be imprisoned in an arbitrary manner; and by the petition of right 3 Car. I -and the habeas corpus acts of 16 Car. I, c. 10, and 31 Car. II. c. 2, a speedy and efficacious method of obtaining liberation and redress for any unjust and illegal imprisonment is given. – and by 1 Wm. & M. st. 2. c. 2. it is directed, that excessive bail shall not be demanded where the imprisonment may be legal.

It is considered part of a man’s liberty, that he shall not be compelled to leave his native country, nor be forced to quit his residence in any part of it. It is equally essential to liberty, that he should not be hindered from traveling abroad, whenever his interest or inclinations lead him to do so.”

Murdoch, Beamish. “Epitome of the laws of Nova-Scotia” [Halifax, N.S.? : s.n.], 1832 (Halifax, N.S. : J. Howe)

Volume One: https://www.canadiana.ca/view/oocihm.59437

Volume Two: https://www.canadiana.ca/view/oocihm.59438

Volume Three: https://www.canadiana.ca/view/oocihm.59439

Volume Four: https://www.canadiana.ca/view/oocihm.59440

The justice of the peace, and county and township officer in the province of Nova Scotia (1837)

“With regard to our Magistrates, although in general selected from the most suitable persons, yet the greater number, as may reasonably be supposed, are but of ordinary education and attainments, and nearly all, from necessity, being actively engaged in private avocations, they have but little leisure for the acquisition of any particular knowledge of the laws. Moreover, with most of them, the means for obtaining that knowledge are extremely limited. The English Works on the office of a Justice of the Peace, are in general voluminous and expensive, and can hut rarely be procured in this country; and, comparatively, but a small part of them are of any practical use to our Magistrates, especially with reference to any Provincial enactments. No publication for their general in-formation and guidance has yet been afforded in the colony..

The work by Mr. Murdoch, although valuable and generally useful, has, evidently, not been designed to be one of that description. It is chiefly an exhibition of our Statutes in general. Now, as a very considerable part of the authority and duties of Justices of the Peace arises out of the Common and Statute Law of England, and as Precedents or Forms for their use, are of essential importance, it follows, that a work of that nature cannot form a complete and universal guide for the discharge of the almost endless variety of their duties. Then, as to the Provincial Statutes; but few of our Magistrates possess all the volumes containing them.

Some have but one volume, others two, but are deficient of the rest; and indeed, as to the first volume, it can but rarely be procured. Besides, it most candidly be admitted, that on several subjects, in which the duties of Justices are involved, our Statutes are in such a defective, or intricate state, that it requires the close application of a persons killed and exercised in legal investigations, to reconcile or rightly understand them.

It cannot, therefore, reasonably be expected, that plain persons, of ordinary attainments, and actively engaged in private pursuits, should either be fitted, or will afford time, for such an unprofitable and unpleasant occupation.

Owing to these unfavorable circumstances, many of our Magistrates remain generally uniformed as to the nature and extent of their authority, and the due and effective discharge of their duties; and in consequence, very frequently, when applied to, delay or decline to act, from a want of information as to their powers, or through a fear of erring, or from being at a loss in what manner to proceed.

Also, on many occasions, when they commence an exercise of their authority, on meeting with embarrassments and difficulties, they feel compelled or induced, from the same causes, to stop short of its full and effectual exertion.

The concurrence of these disadvantages and evils, prevents any general diffusion of the knowledge of the penal part of our Laws; while a disregard or contempt for the authority of Magistrates, is engendered and perpetuated, so that the daring violator of social regulations, or the rights of individuals, often proceeds in his course of transgression, without the fear or infliction of penal consequences.

Considering all these unfavorable circumstances, it seems highly important and requisite, that some work should be afforded for the special information and guidance of our Magistrates; particularly, as the sphere of their duties is continually increasing.

The present Publication is intended to answer that purpose. It was designed, and would have been executed some years ago, but was postponed, from a desire that the proposed revision and consolidation of the Provincial Statutes, should previously take place. It is much to be regretted that this most desirable object has not yet been accomplished, although two Legislative enactments have, at different periods, been made for the purpose.”

Marshall, John G. “The justice of the peace, and county and township officer in the province of Nova Scotia : being a guide to such justice and officers in the discharge of their official duties” [Halifax, N.S.? : s.n.], 1837 (Halifax [N.S.] : Gossip & Coade) https://www.canadiana.ca/view/oocihm.36869

See also, the second edition (1846):

Chronological Table of Dartmouth, Preston, and Lawrencetown

dartmouth township

Between 1746 and 1894, Dartmouth’s history unfolds with significant events including the arrival of settlers, establishment of saw-mills, and conflicts with the Mi’kmaq people. Dartmouth saw fluctuations in population, the building of churches and other infrastructure, and incorporation as a town in 1873. Economic activities like shipbuilding, ferry services, and the discovery of gold at Waverley mark periods of prosperity. However, tragedies such as fires, mysterious disappearances, and drowning incidents also punctuate Dartmouth’s timeline.

The town experienced advancements such as the introduction of steamboats, electricity, and the establishment of amenities like bathing houses and public reading rooms. Infrastructure projects like railway construction, water supply, and sewerage systems reflect efforts to modernize Dartmouth. Despite setbacks like bridge collapses and refinery closures, the town continued to evolve and grow, reaching a population of over 6,000 by 1891.


1746-1799

  • Duc d’Anville arrived at Chebucto, 10 Sept 1746
  • Halifax founded, 21 June 1749
  • [Mi’kmaq] attacked 6 men at Maj. Gilman’s saw-mill, Dartmouth Cove, killing 4, 30 Sept 1749
  • Saw-mill let to Capt. Wm. Clapham, 1750
  • Alderney arrived from Europe with 353 settlers, Aug. 1750
  • Town of Dartmouth laid out for the Alderney emigrants, Autumn 1750
  • Order issued relative to guard at Dartmouth, 31 Dec. 1750
  • Sergeant and 10 or 12 men ordered to mount guard during the nights at the Blockhouse, Dartmouth, 23 Feb. 1751
  • [Mi’kmaq] attacked Dartmouth, killing a number of the inhabitants, 13 May, 1751
  • German emigrants arrived at Halifax and were employed in picketing the back of Dartmouth, July 1751
  • Ferry established between Dartmouth and Halifax, John Connor, ferryman, 3 Feb. 1752
  • Mill at Dartmouth sold to Maj. Ezekiel Gilman, June 1752
  • Population of Dartmouth 193, or 53 families, July 1752
  • Advertisement ordered for the alteration of the style [Introduction of the Gregorian calendar], 31 Aug. 1752
  • Permission given Connor to assign ferry to Henry Wynne and William Manthorne, 22 Dec 1752
  • Township of Lawrencetown granted to 20 proprietors, 10 June 1754
  • Fort Clarence built, 1754
  • John Rock appointed ferryman in place of Wynne and Manthorne, 26 Jan. 1756
  • Troops withdrawn from Lawrencetown by order dated, 25 Aug, 1757
  • Dartmouth contained only 2 families, 9 Jan 1762
  • Phillip Westphal (afterwards Admiral), born, 1782
  • Preston Township granted to Theophilus Chamberlain and 163 others, chiefly loyalists, 15 Oct, 1784
  • Free [black people] arrived at Halifax and afterwards settled at Preston, Apr., 1785
  • George Augustus Westphal (afterwards Sir) born, 1785
  • Whalers from Nantucket arrived at Halifax, 1785
  • Town lots of Dartmouth escheated [See also] in order to grant them to the Nantucket whalers (Quakers), 2 Mar, 1786
  • Grant of land at Preston to T. Young and 34 others, 20 Dec. 1787
  • Common granted to inhabitants of Dartmouth [District, aka Township], 4 Sept. 1788 [Oct 2, 1758?] [–see also: “For regulating the Dartmouth Common, 1841 c52“]
  • First church at Preston consecrated (on “Church Hill”), 1791
  • Free [black people] departed for Sierra Leone, 15 Jan, 1792
  • Nantucket Whalers left Dartmouth, 1792
  • Francis Green built house (afterwards “Maroon Hall”) near Preston, 1792
  • Dartmouth, Preston, Lawrencetown and Cole Harbour erected into parish of St. John, Nov. 22, 1792
  • M. Danesville, governor of St. Pierre, arrived at Halifax (afterwards lived at “Brook House”), 20 June 1793
  • Act passed to build bridge of boats across the Harbour (1796, c7), 1796
  • Maroons arrived at Halifax (afterwards settled at Preston), 22 or 23 July, 1796
  • Subject of a canal between Minas Basin and Halifax Harbour brought before the legislature, 1797
  • Col. W.D. Quarrell returned to Jamaica, Spring 1797
  • Capt. A. Howe took charge of Maroons, Ochterloney having been removed, 1797
  • John Skerry began running ferry, about 1797
  • Howe removed and T. Chamberlain appointed to superintend Maroons, 9 July, 1798
  • Heavy storm did much damage, 25 Sept, 1798
  • Mary Russell killed by her lover, Thomas Bembridge, at her father’s house, Russell’s Lake, 27 Sept. 1798
  • Bembridge executed at Halifax, 18 Oct, 1798

1800-1849

  • Maroons left Halifax, Aug 1800
  • “Maroon Hall” sold to Samuel Hart, 8 Oct, 1801
  • Town of Dartmouth said to have contained only 19 dwellings, 1809
  • S. Hart died at “Maroon Hall” (property afterwards sold to John Prescott), 1810
  • United States prisoners of war on parole at Dartmouth, Preston, etc. About 1812-1814
  • Terrible gale, much damage to shipping 12 Nov 1813
  • Gov Danseville left “Brook House”, 1814
  • [Black people] arrived from Chesapeake Bay, 1 Sept 1814
  • Smallpox appeared in Dartmouth, Preston, etc., Autumn, 1814
  • Margaret Floyer died at “Brook House”, 9 Dec 1814
  • Act passed to incorporate Halifax Steamboat Co., 1815
  • Act passed allowing substitution of team-boats for steamboats by the company just mentioned, 1816
  • Team-boat Sherbrooke launched, 30 Sept, 1816
  • The team-boat made its first trip, 8 Nov., 1816
  • Foundation stone of Christ Church laid, 9 July, 1817
  • John Prescott died at “Maroon Hall” (property afterwards sold to Lieut. Katzmann), 1821
  • Ninety Chesapeake Bay [black people] sent to Trinidad, 1821
  • Dartmouth Fire Engine Co. established, 1822
  • Lyle’s and Chapel’s shipyards opened, About 1823
  • Act passed to authorize incorporation of a canal company, 1824
  • Theophilus Chamberlain died, 20 July, 1824
  • Joseph Findlay became lessee of Creighton’s ferry, About 1824
  • Shubenacadie Canal Co. incorporated by letters patent, 1 June, 1826
  • Ground first broken on canal, at Port Wallace, 25 July, 1826
  • Consecration of church at Preston which had been built to replace the one consecrated in 1791, 1828
  • Congregation of Church of St. James (Presbyterian) formed, Jan (?), 1829
  • St. Peter’s Chapel commenced at Dartmouth, 26 Oct. 1829
  • J. Findlay succeeded by Thos. Brewer at Creighton’s Ferry, About 1829-30
  • Sir C. Ogle launched (first steamboat on ferry), 1 Jan, 1830
  • Sixteen persons drowned by the upsetting of one of the small ferry boats, 14 Aug, 1831
  • Ferry steamboat Boxer launched, 1832
  • Brewer retired, and Creighton’s or the lower ferry ceased to exist, About 1832-33
  • A. Shiels started Ellenvale Carding Mill, July, 1834
  • Cholera in Halifax, Aug to Oct 1834
  • William Foster built an ice-house near the lakes, 1836
  • “Mount Amelia” built by Hon. J.W. Johnston, About, 1840
  • Death of Meagher children, Jane Elizabeth, and Margaret, in woods near Preston (bodies found 17 April), April 1842
  • Adam Laidlaw began ice-cutting on a large scale, 1843
  • Dartmouth Baptist Church organized, 29 Oct, 1843
  • Death of Lieut. C. C. Katzmann at “Maroon Hall”, 15 Dec, 1843
  • Ferry steamboat Micmac build, 1844
  • Dartmouth Baptist meeting-house opened, Sept, 1844
  • Cole Harbour Dyke Co. incorporated, 28 Mar., 1845
  • Incorporation of Richmond Bridge Co. (J.E. Starr, A.W. Godfrey, etc.) for purpose of erecting bridge of boards across Harbour, 14 April, 1845
  • Mechanics’ Institute building erected, 1845
  • Col. G. F. Thompson’s wife, said to have been a cousin of the Empress Eugenie, died under suspicious circumstances at “Lake Loon”, 20 Sept., 1846
  • First regatta on Dartmouth Lake, 5 Oct, 1846
  • Dr. MacDonald mysteriously disappeared, 30 Nov, 1846
  • Mechanic’s Institute building opened, 7 Dec, 1846
  • Second church at Preston (in the “Long swamp”) destroyed by fire, June (?), 1849

1850-1894

  • Third C. of E. church built at Preston, near Salmon River, About 1850-1851
  • Subenacadie Canal sold to government of N.S. (McNab, trustee), 1851-52
  • Inland Navigation Co. incorporated, 4 April, 1853
  • Methodist Church dedicated at Dartmouth, 1853
  • Canal purchased by Inland Navigation Co., 10 June, 1854
  • Mount Hope Insane Asylum cornerstone laid, 9 June, 1856
  • “Maroon Hall” burnt, June, 1856
  • Dartmouth Rifles and Engineers organized, Spring 1860
  • Checbucto Marine Railway Co. formed by A. Pillsbury, 1860
  • Gold discovered at Waverley, 1861
  • Lake and River Navigation Co. purchased Canal, 18 June, 1862
  • Dartmouth Rifles disbanded, 1 July, 1864
  • Dartmouth Axe and Ladder Co,. formed, 1865
  • Dartmouth Ropewalk began manufacturing, Spring, 1869
  • Ferry steamboat Chebucto built, About 1869
  • Prince Arthur’s Park Co. incorporated, 1870
  • New St. James’s Church (Presbyterian) built, 1870
  • Lewis P. Fairbanks purchased the canal from the Lake and River Navigation Co., Feb, 1870
  • Population of town of Dartmouth, 3,786, 1871
  • Dartmouth incorporated, 30 April, 1873
  • Union Protection Co. organized, 1876
  • Andrew Shiels, “Albyn”, died, 5 Nov, 1879
  • New Baptist Church opened, 4 Jan, 1880
  • Sandy Cove bathing houses opened at Dartmouth, 7 Aug, 1880
  • Foundation-stone of Woodside Refinery laid, 3 July, 1883
  • Railway to Dartmouth commenced, 1885
  • Railway opened for business, 6 Jan, 1886
  • Halifax and Dartmouth Steam Ferry Co. formed, in place of old company, 1886
  • Woodside Refinery closed, Dec, 1886
  • Ferry steamboat Dartmouth built, 1888
  • Public Reading-Room opened, 1 Jan, 1889
  • Dartmouth Ferry Commission formed, 17 April, 1890
  • Ferry Co. sells its property to the commission, 1 July, 1890
  • Several persons drowned on the arrival of the ferry-boat Annex 2 (Halifax), 11 July, 1890
  • New St. Peter’s Chapel begun, Autumn, 1890
  • Act passed to provide for supplying Dartmouth with water and sewerage, 19 May, 1891
  • Narrows railway bridge carried away, 7 Sept., 1891
  • Trenching and laying the main water pipe begun, 3 Oct., 1891
  • Woodside Refinery again opened, 1891
  • Population of town of Dartmouth, 6,252, 1891
  • St. Peter’s chapel opened, 7 Feb., 1892
  • Dartmouth first lighted by electricity, 13 July, 1892
  • Water turned on the town from Topsail and Lamont’s Lakes, 2 Nov, 1892
  • Narrows bridge destroyed for second time, 23 July, 1893
  • Woodside Refinery transferred to Acadia Sugar Refining Co., Aug, 1893
  • New Post Office opened, 1 May, 1894

Piers, Harry, 1870-1940. Chronological Table of Dartmouth, Preston, And Lawrencetown, County of Halifax, Nova Scotia. Halifax, N.S.: [s.n.], 1894. https://www.canadiana.ca/view/oocihm.12013/12?r=0&s=1, https://hdl.handle.net/2027/aeu.ark:/13960/t8pc3fx9z

Old Annapolis Road

old-annapolis-road2

After piecing together several Crown land grant maps, you can see the path of the Old Annapolis Road much more clearly. Open the image in a new tab, to see it in more detail.

Below you’ll find a few representations of the road as a contiguous route, as opposed to what is left recorded on the Crown Land Grant maps. (You can find find the individual Crown Land Grant maps here: https://novascotia.ca/natr/land/grantmap.asp)

One of the earliest road maps, from 1755, the Bay of Fundy still going by the name of Argal’s Bay. “A New map of Nova Scotia and Cape Britain”, https://gallica.bnf.fr/ark:/12148/btv1b53089581f

“Map of Nova Scotia, or Acadia, with the islands of Cape Breton and St. John’s, from actual surveys” https://gallica.bnf.fr/ark:/12148/btv1b53209890m

Previous to the construction of the more direct route to Annapolis, this map from 1776 shows a road (from Dartmouth, certainly an error, likely from Fort Sackville at the head of the harbor) to Annapolis. “A general Map of the northern British Colonies in America which comprehends the province of Quebec, the government of Newfoundland, Nova Scotia, New England and New-York” https://gallica.bnf.fr/ark:/12148/btv1b8443126p

One of the first representations of the Old Annapolis Road, “Road markt out by Gov. Parr’s orders in 1784”

nova scotia map Annapolis road

“A map of Nova Scotia showing the post roads”, 1787. https://collections.leventhalmap.org/search/commonwealth:hx11z4938

“A Map of the United States and Canada, New Scotland, New Brunswick and New Foundland”, 1806. https://gallica.bnf.fr/ark:/12148/btv1b53100560v

“Map of the Province of Nova Scotia Including Cape Breton, Prince Edwards Island and Part of New Brunswick”, 1819. https://nscc.cairnrepo.org/islandora/object/nscc%3A112, https://collections.leventhalmap.org/search/commonwealth:8049g892q

“Map of the Provinces Of New Brunswick, and Nova Scotia”, 1825. https://nscc.cairnrepo.org/islandora/object/nscc%3A715

annapolis road map 1827

“Map of the United States; and the Provinces of Upper & Lower Canada, New Brunswick, and Nova Scotia”, 1827: https://www.davidrumsey.com/luna/servlet/detail/RUMSEY~8~1~4239~340032:Map-of-the-United-States-

“The Provinces of Lower & Upper Canada, Nova Scotia, New Brunswick, Newfoundland & Prince Edward Island with a large section of the United States”, 1831. https://gallica.bnf.fr/ark:/12148/btv1b530987207

“Maps of the Society for the Diffusion of Useful Knowledge”, 1832: https://www.davidrumsey.com/luna/servlet/detail/RUMSEY~8~1~20966~530058:Nova-Scotia,-N-B-,-Lower-Canada

“North America : sheet I. Nova-Scotia with part of New Brunswick and Lower Canada”, 1832: https://digitalarchive.mcmaster.ca/islandora/object/macrepo%3A26988

“Nouvelle carte des Etats-Unis, du Haut et Bas-Canada : de la Nouv[el]le-Écosse, du Nouv[e]au-Brunswick, de Terre-Neuve”, 1832
https://gallica.bnf.fr/ark:/12148/btv1b530354369

“Map of the United States; and the Provinces of Upper & Lower Canada, New Brunswick, and Nova Scotia”, 1835: https://www.davidrumsey.com/luna/servlet/detail/RUMSEY~8~1~316476~90085094:Composite–Map-of-the-United-States

From: “The London atlas of universal geography”, 1837: https://www.davidrumsey.com/luna/servlet/detail/RUMSEY~8~1~33890~1170042:Lower-Canada

From: “British Possessions in North America, with part of the United States”, 1840: https://hdl.huntington.org/digital/collection/p15150coll4/id/9901

From: “Nelson’s new map of the British provinces in North America”, 1840–1849: https://collections.leventhalmap.org/search/commonwealth:0z709278h

From: “Lower Canada, New Brunswick, Nova Scotia, Prince Edwards Id. Newfoundland, and a large portion of the United States”, 1846. https://digitalarchive.mcmaster.ca/islandora/object/macrepo%3A31427

“Map of the provinces of Canada, New Brunswick, Nova Scotia, Newfoundland and Prince Edward Island”, 1846. https://digitalarchive.mcmaster.ca/islandora/object/macrepo%3A81413

“Lower Canada, New Brunswick, Nova Scotia, Prince Edwards Id. Newfoundland, and a large portion of the United States.”, 1853. https://hdl.huntington.org/digital/collection/p15150coll4/id/100

“Belcher’s map of the Province of Nova Scotia”, 1855: https://www.davidrumsey.com/luna/servlet/detail/RUMSEY~8~1~3016~290077:Belcher-s-map-of-the-Province-of-

“Map of the British Province of New Brunswick”, 1858: https://www.davidrumsey.com/luna/servlet/detail/RUMSEY~8~1~325278~90094243:Map-of-the-British-Province-of-New-

“The royal atlas of modern geography”, 1861: https://www.davidrumsey.com/luna/servlet/workspace/handleMediaPlayer?qvq=&trs=&mi=&lunaMediaId=RUMSEY~8~1~21338~620038

“Mackinlay’s map of the Province of Nova Scotia, including the island of Cape Breton”, 1862: https://www.davidrumsey.com/luna/servlet/detail/RUMSEY~8~1~2372~220044:Mackinlay-s-map-of-the-Province-of-

The portion of the Annapolis road that traverses Halifax County, as seen in the “Topographical township map of Halifax County” from A.F. Church and Co, 1864. https://collections.lib.uwm.edu/digital/collection/agdm/id/14722/rec/1

“Mackinlay’s map of the Province of Nova Scotia”, 1865: https://www.davidrumsey.com/luna/servlet/detail/RUMSEY~8~1~2374~220046:Mackinlay-s-map-of-the-Province-of-

“Colton’s… Nova Scotia”, 1865: https://www.davidrumsey.com/luna/servlet/detail/RUMSEY~8~1~208606~5003402:New-Brunswick,-Nova-Scotia–Prince-

“Colton’s Dominion of Canada”, 1869: https://www.davidrumsey.com/luna/servlet/detail/RUMSEY~8~1~208947~5003938:Dominion-of-Canada–Provinces-of-Ne

Annapolis Road seen here at Stoddards as it made its way through to what is now Dalhousie East. “Annapolis County part of A.F. Church Map”, 1876. https://archives.novascotia.ca/maps/archives/?ID=942

Annapolis Road pieced together from several pages of the “Atlas of the Maritime Provinces of the Dominion of Canada”, Roe Brothers, St. John, NB 1878. https://www.islandimagined.ca/roe_atlas

“Statistical & general map of Canada”, 1883: https://www.davidrumsey.com/luna/servlet/detail/RUMSEY~8~1~31463~1150419:Canada-1-

“Canada : the provinces of Quebec, Nova Scotia, New Brunswick, Prince Edward Island and Newfoundland”, 1886. https://digitalarchive.mcmaster.ca/islandora/object/macrepo%3A27057

“Mackinlay’s map of the Province of Nova Scotia”, 1890: https://www.davidrumsey.com/luna/servlet/detail/RUMSEY~8~1~3012~220131:Mackinlay-s-map-of-the-Province-of-

“Stanford’s London atlas of universal geography”, 1904: https://www.davidrumsey.com/luna/servlet/detail/RUMSEY~8~1~314730~90083550:Quebec,-New-Brunswick,-Nova-Scotia

“Dominion of Canada : E. Quebec, New Brunswick, Nova Scotia, Prince Edward Id. and Newfoundland”, 1910. https://collections.library.yale.edu/catalog/15827305

One of the last representations of the Old Annapolis Road:

Mackinlay’s map of the Province of Nova Scotia Compiled from Actual & Recent Surveys, 1912: https://nscc.cairnrepo.org/islandora/object/nscc%3A534

Fifteen years later, by 1927, the Old Annapolis Road disappears from the maps. Perhaps it wasn’t fit for automobile travel, though it’s hard not to notice the change (back?) to “Annapolis Royal” from “Annapolis” occurred at the same time.

From: “Rand McNally auto road atlas of the United States and Ontario, Quebec, and the Maritime Provinces of Canada”, 1927: https://www.davidrumsey.com/luna/servlet/detail/RUMSEY~8~1~33775~1171491:Maritime-Provinces-

Much of the road is now incorporated into other routes. It’s the #8 from Annapolis through Lequille, it’s the West Dalhousie Road through to Lake La Rose and from West Dalhousie to Albany Cross on to Stoddard’s where it once continued straight at what is now a turn (see above at 1876). It then crossed over the brook that empties into Upper Thirty Lake, from there it continued across another bridge, this time over the LaHave River to connect to what is now Camel Hill Road. The route proceeded to where it now meets Cherryfield Road and becomes Dalhousie Road, and on eastwards from there, through to Franey Corner and on to New Ross. At this point the route seems to have been reclaimed by the woods somewhat but it continued south and east near Sherwood, and then north of Canaan and Timber Lake, to the south of Panuke Lake (once called “Carrying Place”, see above at 1864) near Simms Settlement, through the country between Sandy and Rafter lake then terminating at Pockwock Road, north of Wrights Lake in Upper Hammonds Plains.

From: “Halifax & Dartmouth City & Maritimes map”, 1976. https://archives.novascotia.ca/maps/archives/?ID=948&Page=202012493

See also:

Howe (1835), Dixon (1920) and McLachlan (1923): Comparative Perspectives on the Legal History of Sedition

Joseph howe province house

This paper recounts three trials for seditious libel in Nova Scotia, drawing parallels between Joseph Howe’s trial in 1835, F.J. Dixon’s trial in 1920, and J.B. McLachlan’s trial in 1923. Howe’s trial, though acquitted, established him as a folk hero due to his successful self-defense. Dixon, emulating Howe’s defense, was also acquitted, while McLachlan’s trial, marked by government manipulation and interference, resulted in his conviction and imprisonment.

McLachlan’s case, unlike Howe and Dixon’s, exemplifies a miscarriage of justice, orchestrated to suppress the working-class. Despite legal efforts inspired by Howe’s defense, McLachlan’s trial failed to challenge the unjust system. The analysis emphasizes the significance of these trials in Nova Scotia’s legal and political history, showcasing struggles against state oppression and the impact of legal and political maneuvering on outcomes.


“Then there is Howe, who was prosecuted by the corrupt magistrates whom he exposed in his day. By the way, he successfully defended himself, and I hope to perhaps follow his glorious example. He is now proclaimed as Nova Scotia’s noblest son.” — FJ. Dixon, 1920

“When they tried Joseph Howe for sedition, they erected a monument to him in the shadow of the County jail [sic: Province House yard].” — J.B. McLachlan, 1924

“I am not a prophet, nor the son of a prophet, but I tell you that what happened to Howe will happen to McLachlan.” — J.S. Woodsworth, 1924

In Halifax, in 1835, Joseph Howe, a newspaper proprietor and editor, was tried for seditious libel for publishing the second of two pseudonymous letters critical of local government. In Winnipeg, in 1920, F J. (Fred) Dixon, an independent labour member of the Legislative Assembly of Manitoba, was tried for seditious libel for publishing in the strike bulletin which he briefly edited during the General Strike of 1919, articles critical of the strike’s suppression. In Halifax, in 1923, J.B. McLachlan, communist secretary of United Mine Workers of America District, was tried for seditious libel for having written an official letter critical of the violent actions of the provincial police in Sydney. These three “state trials” document the important historical conflicts out of which they arose, reflect the politico-legal contexts in which they occurred and illustrate the meaning of the “misrule of law” as it developed through the repressive exercise of state power during both the colonial and the national periods.”

“Ironically, the industrial action which led to the prosecution of McLachlan did not originate with the Cape Breton coalminers. In June 1923, Sydney steelworkers struck again for recognition of their union. When mounted provincial police, who had been summoned at the behest of the British Empire Steel Corporation (Besco), made a bloody charge against the Sunday evening crowd on Victoria Road in Sydney on July 1, McLachlan, in his capacity as secretary of District 26, authorized a wildcat strike. “This was a fateful decision,” writes David Frank, quoting McLachlan’s official letter (sea Appendix 1), one that brought down the wrath first of the provincial government and then of the international union. For his call to arms McLachlan was charged with seditious libel and subsequently sentenced to two years in jail. For his violation of international union polity in calling the sympathetic strike he was removed from office by John L. Lewis [president] of the United Mine Workers. McLachlan was prosecuted because he was the leader of an illegal sympathetic strike. The seditious libel for which he was convicted was an official letter signed and ordered circulated by McLachlan in his capacity as secretary of District 26 of the UMWA.”

“The parallels to Howe rest with Fred Dixon, who was acquitted after defending himself in a great forensic address purposely modelled on Howe’s. McLachlan, on the other hand, was dissuaded from defending himself, did not testify on his own behalf and was perfunctorily convicted. “[C]ivil libertarians, then and since,” according to Howe’s biographer, Murray Beck, “have excoriated the [McLachlan] trial for its alleged unfairness.” Yet, Beck too refuses to acknowledge any parallels between Howe and McLachlan. He forbears describing Howe as “seditious libel,” a technical term he uses in relation to McLachlan, and does not confront the suspicion that chief counsel for the defence, Gordon Sidney Harrington K.C., (in David Frank’s words) “deliberately exploited the case to promote the fortunes of the Conservative Party and prove the iniquity of the Liberal government.” Beck also fails to identify “McLachlan’s lawyers” as two politically ambitious Conservative barristers — the other was Halifax labour lawyer, John Archibald Walker — both of whom were elected to the Assembly in the Conservative sweep of 1925 and appointed to the cabinet. Harrington, a former mayor of Glace Bay, which was also home town to McLachlan and headquarters of District 26 of the UMWA, was counsel to the union.”

“McLachlan — unlike Howe and Dixon — was a gross miscarriage of justice, in which the accused was “framed”, charged, tried, convicted and imprisoned for having published a seditious libel when in neither the legal nor the ordinary sense of the word had he published anything at all. Before the “fixed” publication, the Crown did not have even a prima facie case against the accused. The obvious motive for the government’s conniving at newspaper publication was not only to lay the basis for the charge of seditious libel, but also to give some reason for McLachlan’s incarceration and transportation to Halifax, which Attorney-General O’Hearn was later to characterize as “a neutral [safe?] county.” The very possibility of contesting the legal repression – by achieving a counter-hegemonic success à la Howe and Dixon — was precluded by the careful manner in which the government stage-managed the proceedings against McLachlan from beginning to end. Circumstantial evidence suggests that the McLachlan prosecution was the result of a conspiracy involving the Red-baiting provincial Liberal government, the management of Besco and the proprietor of the Morning Chronicle — the only Halifax newspaper in which McLachlan’s official letter was published. The District circular appeared verbatim on the front page of the edition of 6 July 1923 — a mere two days after it was issued — under the incendiary sub-headline, “McLachlan’s War Whoop.” Publication in Halifax had been arranged by Andrew Merkel, Maritime superintendent of The Canadian Press, whose vice-president, George Frederick Pearson, was also hereditary president of the Chronicle Publishing Company Limited. A lawyer and highly influential political insider — Beck describes him as “long a mastermind of the Liberal Party” — G. Fred Pearson was also Besco’s solicitor. Though McLachlan’s conviction for publication in Halifax was eventually struck down on appeal, at the time of the trial even the strongest legal defence would have been ineffectual against a government partial to Besco, a mass-circulation morning newspaper complicitously toeing the government’s line, an “anti-Bolshevik” Attorney-General prosecuting in person, a manipulable jury altogether unacquainted with labour-management relations in industrial Cape Breton, and an highly interested judge. Presiding over McLachlan was Justice Humphrey Mellish, a corporate lawyer and former solicitor for the Dominion Coal Company — who was elevated to the bench in 1918, so that he could more effectively protect the interests of his former corporate clients. The fact that Mellish’s law firm, Mclnnes Jenks Lovett & Macdonald [now Mclnnes Cooper & Robertson], was in Besco’s pocket — the senior partner, Hector Mclnnes, was a director of the corporation — was sharply emphasized by J.S. Woodsworth MP in House of Commons debate in March 1924, following the announcement of the government’s decision to parole McLachlan. Woodsworth, who toured Nova Scotia in January 1924 at the invitation of the Nova Scotia Workers Defence Committee, enquired “concerning the judges of the supreme court, and… was told that the corporation influence on the bench was so strong that the court is looked upon by labour as a company department.” Charges of seditious libel against Woodsworth, a former editor of Winnipeg’s Strike Bulletin, were indefinitely stayed when Fred Dixon was acquitted of the same charge. Woodsworth read into Hansard the words uttered by Joseph Howe before the jury while introducing his discussion of The Libel Act 1792: It is ninety years since in Nova Scotia a man was tried for sedition. Then a man was haled before the courts and accused of being “a wicked seditious and ill-disposed person, a person of most wicked and malicious temper and disposition.” That man is now regarded as one of Canada’s greatest sons, Joseph Howe. But he was able to say at that time, in connection with his trial: “And here I may be permitted to thank heaven and our ancestors, that I do not stand before a corrupt and venal court and a packed and predetermined jury.’,

Joseph Howe’s trial for seditious libel, eighty-eight years before McLachlan’s, has never been excoriated for unfairness by civil libertarians or anyone else, because Howe was tried by an impartial, disinterested judge — Chief Justice Brenton Halliburton — and acquitted by an enlightened jury. Indeed the canonical, politico-biographical interpretation of Howe does not consider the possibility that this too was a trial for sedition, lest it be compared with the trial of the politically persona non grata working-class radical, J.B. McLachlan. Repeated ad nauseam is the canard that Howe was tried for “criminal” libel, suggesting that the dual character of defamation as crime and tort could disprove the self-evident truth that Howe too was tried for seditious libel. Indeed the very success of Howe’s self-defence accounts for this misunderstanding of his trial, which resulted in an acquittal despite the fact that the truth of a libel was not pleadable except as a defence to an action, and that neither truth nor public benefit could be pleaded in justification of a seditious libel.”

“Joseph Howe — it needs to be said — was neither arrested nor jailed, though he expected to be and arranged for bail to be posted by his friends, while McLachlan and Livingstone were not only arrested, transported to Halifax and imprisoned, but were initially denied bail at the instance of the Crown. Nor was Howe’s venue changed from Halifax to Sydney, to be tried by a jury of coalminers, who had as little understanding of abuses in the administration of local government in the District of Halifax as the jury of Halifax petit-bourgeois who convicted McLachlan had of labour relations in industrial Cape Breton. The Crown failed to make its case in Howe and Dixon and would have failed to do so in McLachlan had he too been tried by a jury of his peers. Howe — tried and acquitted by sympathetic friends and neighbours and readers of his reformist newspaper, the Novascotian — was thought by the Halifax bar, who to a man refused his retainer, to be foredoomed. Conversely, McLachlan’s lawyer, seeing in his client a latter-day Howe, was overconfident of victory.”

“In preparing his defence of McLachlan, Harrington, like Dixon, availed himself of The Speeches and Public Letters of Joseph Howe, a new and complete edition of which had been produced in 1909 in a commendably bipartisan manner. The publisher was the Halifax Chronicle, the Liberal Party organ founded in 1844 and once edited by Joseph Howe, while the reviser was the prominent Conservative lawyer and municipal politician, Joseph Andrew Chisholm K.C. Chisholm, who in 1916 acceded to a puisne judgeship, played a significant collateral role in the proceedings against McLachlan. In June 1923, he presided at the criminal assizes in Sydney, when, according to Attorney-General O’Hearn, “in the neighbourhood of twenty-odd bills of indictment against strikers for their criminal activities in February 1923, were thrown out” by the grand jury for lack of witnesses willing to testify. Chisholm was also, according to J.S. Woodsworth, one of only two of seven judges of the Supreme Court of Nova Scotia who had had no “known relations” with Besco or its constituent operating companies.”

“What mattered were the changes in Canada between 1919 and 1923. By the latter date, sedition law was being used systematically against working-class radicals in general and strike leaders in particular, regardless of their lack of socialist credentials — a tendency strikingly illustrated by the prosecution of Fred Dixon MLA. Not only had new repressive state security laws been introduced, but also the state’s determination to repress working-class radicalism had been renewed since 1919 and the range of potential uses of existing sedition law accordingly broadened. If the significance of Howe for McLachlan relates more to the forensic use of history than to the forensic use of law, then McLachlan is an object lesson in the failure of legal history as legal argument. It is not a question of the uses or sources of law, however, because Howe, as a jury trial resulting in an acquittal did not form a legal precedent. Howe in relation to McLachlan concerns the historical uses of law versus the juridical uses of history, and in either respect depends upon a mutually agreed, authoritative and analytically sound reconstruction of the leading case. When the Crown denied the existence of any previous trials for sedition in Nova Scotia, the defence attempted unsuccessfully to adduce Howe as a precedent.”

“G.S. Harrington, who had never practised in Halifax and was far from being the “noted barrister” of John Mellor’s rose-coloured romance, was facing one of the leading criminal counsel of the Halifax bar in Attorney-General O’Hearn. Harrington nevertheless aimed to achieve, without any help from his client, whom he did not call to testify in his own defence, what Howe and Dixon had achieved by unassisted advocateship. The upshot was that Howe immediately became a “folk hero,” and ultimately a figure of Olympian myth. His trial became the defining moment in the political history of the province. Dixon was overwhelmingly re-elected to the Manitoba legislature in the general election held four months after his acquittal. McLachlan, however, remained a working-class anti-hero, whose trial and unsuccessful appeal, in David Frank’s words, “passed on into the untapped obscurity of legal history.” Scholars of Howe have failed to acknowledge the resemblance of the McLachlan sedition trial to the Howe sedition trial. They seem unaware that seditious libel at common law is sedition not libel, and that Howe was not on trial for defamation, but for a crime against the state. The politically and socially dangerous implication for the historiography is that Howe, the petit-bourgeois “conservative reformer,” would be coloured by association with McLachlan, the working-class radical and Bolshevik pariah. Yet, at the time of his own sedition trial Howe did not consider himself, nor did his friends or enemies consider him to be conservative in any sense of the word. That Howe stood four-square in the English radical whig tradition is clear from a close, impartial reading of the stenographic report of his courtroom address in his own defence.”

“In that sense, J.B. McLachlan no less than Fred Dixon was a legatee of Joseph Howe, as well as the provider of a legacy of working-class political radicalism — and his forerunners were the radical reformers of a century earlier. Excepting only McLachlan, the study of sedition in Nova Scotia has been obfuscated by the “criminal libel” misnomer such that the seditious libel prosecutions of William Wilkie in 1820 and Joseph Howe in 1835 are not seen for what they undoubtedly were: show trials staged by the ruling class to counter the perceived threat to the established order posed by ancillary crimes against the state. Just as Howe implicitly compared himself to the English radicals of the period of extreme Tory reaction in the late eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries — many of whom were tried and convicted of seditious libel — so the comparison with Howe was advocated by McLachlan’s senior counsel, the Conservative lawyer-politician Harrington. If the radical pamphleteer William Wilkie — tried and convicted of seditious libel in 1820 after an unsuccessful self-defence conducted along the same lines as Howe’s fifteen years later — was a forerunner of Joseph Howe, then Howe was a forerunner of J.B. McLachlan, who assumes a place of honour within the century-old tradition of political protest and trials for sedition in Nova Scotia. McLachlan, writes David Frank, “was a political trial, part of a Canadian tradition we have found it all too easy to forget. These kinds of trials, such as Joseph Howe’s in 1835, had long pitted the forces of change against the forces of continuity.””

“Clearly a line of defence which did not result in a verdict of not guilty was “an ineffectual one”; however, to criticize it as incoherent, as David Frank does, is ex post facto rationalization. Just as scholars of Howe have disposed of some archetypal myths — such as that the verdict established freedom of the press — only to replace them with others, so students of McLachlan fail to recognize that one of the lessons of that case is that criminal law and criminal justice history are not necessarily combinable in the context of legal proceedings. Political trials, however significant they may be in other respects, are not necessarily significant sources of law. Frank, for example, argues that counsel for the defence in McLachlan “probably unreasonably, accepted the argument that truth was no defence in a case of seditious libel.” Harrington’s acceptance of what had long been a settled principle of the common law can hardly be considered unreasonable for a lawyer pleading in a criminal court. Moreover, Harrington’s failure to recognize that one of the lessons of Howe was that the restriction on truth as a defence “could be easily evaded in the process of clarifying the defendant’s intentions” is fully consistent with his argument on appeal that seditious libel law was unaffected by the passage of The Libel Act 1792. There the jury’s right to “find” intention as a matter of fact was explicitly affirmed. The problem with Harrington’s defence was not incoherence but error of law. The Libel Act 1792 was the very statute which enabled Howe to evade this common law restriction on defence pleading in the course of clarifying his innocent intentions.

As John Mellor correctly states, Harrington “had based his whole case on the famous Joseph Howe and his acquittal on a similar charge of seditious libel.” Harrington either did not understand or failed to elucidate the legal justification for Howe’s acquittal. He not only misunderstood the implications of The Libel Act 1792 for sedition law, but also mistook the legal heart of Howe’s defence. Harrington nevertheless believed that he could defend McLachlan in the same manner and with the same success as Howe had defended himself. Despite the fact that McLachlan was not defending himself, and that Howe had called no witnesses, there seemed to Harrington little point in putting the accused in the witness-box, to be exposed to a withering, ideologically perverse cross-examination by the Attorney-General. “It was generally believed,” according to Mellor’s hearsay: that if Harrington had arranged for defence witnesses to give evidence for McLachlan at the trial, he could quite possibly have won an acquittal, but instead, Harrington had based his whole defence on drawing an analogy between the famous Joseph Howe case, which had ended in acquittal, and the McLachlan case with its communist overtones. This is an aspect in which McLachlan and Dixon differ; Dixon was a non-socialist, while McLachlan was a revolutionary socialist who could scarcely have been permitted to speak candidly in his own defence in open court.”

Just as the legal argument from analogy failed to obtain an acquittal for McLachlan, so the argument from legal history has failed to obtain recognition of McLachlan as a case which merits judicial reconsideration. As recently as 1990, the authors of an essay on the historiography and sources for the study of Russell could claim that “[t]he legal history of the Winnipeg General Strike trials has yet to be written.” The same may be said for the legal history of working-class radicalism in Nova Scotia.”

Cahill, Barry. “Howe (1835), Dixon (1920) and McLachlan (1923): Comparative perspectives on the legal history of sedition.” University of New Brunswick Law Journal, vol. 45, 1996, journals.lib.unb.ca/index.php/unblj/article/view/29601

Mic Mac Rotary

dartmouth rotary micmac
“Atlantic Air Survey aerial photo showing Mic Mac Rotary”, 1970s. https://cdn.halifax.ca/sites/default/files/pages/in-content/2022-06/101-80c-1-4-h-56_0.jpg, https://archives.novascotia.ca/communityalbums/HalifaxArchives/archives/?ID=472

In the photo above (and below) you can see the original path of Braemar Drive, as well as where the original shoreline was, previous to the construction of the rotary.

“Mic Mac Rotary [aerial photograph]”, Sept 2, 1963.
https://7046.sydneyplus.com/archive/final/Portal/Default.aspx?component=AABC&record=5a0cfb54-9e92-4958-bd31-040214655f8d
“Mic Mac Rotary [aerial photograph]”, 1960s. https://7046.sydneyplus.com/archive/final/Portal/Default.aspx?component=AABC&record=fc8d889c-68b3-4e01-9267-501465a9c2a4

Another view of the rotary shortly after construction, looking towards what is now Mic Mac Mall. To the right is what remained of Braemar Drive, along with one of the homes that once was a lakefront property before being swallowed up by “progress”.

mic mac beltway rotary

What is now Mic Mac Mall and “Mic Mac Village”, shortly after construction of the beltway that extended as far as Woodland Road as seen in the map at the bottom of the page.

From the Mail Star, Saturday May 24, 1986

“By August of 1961, the Micmac Rotary was nearing completion. Originally Main Street connected with Prince Albert Road and Braemar Drive was a continuous street where it is now split by the rotary. The site of what was to become Micmac Mall was at that time a tract of empty land. Many of the homes surrounding the rotary have since disappeared. And, the Dartmouth Inn has grown over the years.”

From 1830, a good view of the original shoreline around Graham’s Grove. “50 men commenced 8th Oct 1830 to make a new road”. “Plan of the Improvement of Dartmouth Road by Bells Sand Pit”, https://archives.novascotia.ca/maps/archives/?ID=459.

“Graham, Bell”…🤔

The same area as above nearly 25 years later, the “old road” alignment still noted. “Dartmouth, Property along the 1st Dartmouth Lake”, 1853. https://archives.novascotia.ca/maps/archives/?ID=730

https://archives.novascotia.ca/maps/archives/?ID=1370

The general vicinity in 1918, the road to Preston branching into what is now Lakecrest Drive and Tacoma Drive.

By 1956 there’s some subdivisions and aspirational plans included that didn’t quite come to pass as envisioned here. “Map and Directory of Information Halifax and Dartmouth and Vicinity, Nova Scotia”, Mapco. 1956. https://archives.novascotia.ca/maps/archives/?ID=1673&Page=202012450

Planning for the rotary underway, “Map of Halifax, Dartmouth and Vicinity”, 1962. Mapco. https://archives.novascotia.ca/maps/archives/?ID=1740&Page=202012470

From “Halifax Military Town Plan“, 1963. http://digitalarchive.mcmaster.ca/islandora/object/macrepo%3A81109

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