Quakers

The Impeachment of the Judges of the Nova Scotia Supreme Court, 1787-1793: Colonial Judges, Loyalist Lawyers, and the Colonial Assembly

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In 1790, the Nova Scotia Assembly passed impeachment articles against two puisne judges, Isaac Deschamps and James Brenton, accusing them of illegal and corrupt acts. The charges stemmed from alleged incompetence, partiality, and dishonesty, including lying during an earlier inquiry. The trial before the Committee of the Privy Council in London resulted in the judges’ exoneration. Despite the failure, the impeachment attempt sheds light on colonial legal systems, judicial professionalization, and the relationship between judges and local power structures. In particular, it highlights the lack of separation of powers between the executive and judiciary in colonial governance.

The judges received staunch support from the executive, revealing the limited control the elected branch had over judicial appointments and dismissals. One of the impeachment articles, focusing on a criminal case involving Christian Bartling, criticized Judge Brenton’s handling of the bail process and re-committal following the failure to secure an indictment. However, the criticisms were largely unfounded, with the Privy Council finding no fault in Brenton’s actions. The Bartling case, marked by political tensions and racial prejudice, exemplified the complexities of colonial justice and the influence of local politics on legal proceedings. Despite attempts to discredit the judges, the impeachment proceedings failed to tarnish their reputations or undermine their authority.

“Isaac Deschamps and James Brenton, puisne judges of the Nova Scotia Supreme Court [NSSC], had, charged the colonial Assembly in April 1790, committed “divers illegal, partial, and corrupt acts” such as to justify “Impeachment” for “High Crimes and Misdemeanors.”‘ These words come from the preamble to a list of seven “articles of impeachment” passed by the Nova Scotia Assembly on 5-7 April 1790. The seven articles, distilled from thirteen draft articles which had been introduced on 10 March, listed ten cases in which the judges were alleged to have acted incompetently or partially, or both, and also included accusations that they had lied to the Lieutenant-Governor’s Council of Twelve when it had conducted an inquiry into some of the allegations two and a half years earlier. The “trial” of the judges on these articles of impeachment took place before the Committee of the Privy Council for Trade and Plantations in London, and resulted in their complete exoneration. This was one of only two occasions on which pre-confederation Canadian colonial assemblies passed “impeachment” articles against superior court judges, and both failed. Judges were removed, but by executive power, for they did not hold their commissions on “good behavior” and, thus, enjoy independence. The best known Canadian examples of executive removal are Robert Thorpe and John Willis in Upper Canada, but three other British North American judges were removed by colonial executives-Caesar Colclough and Thomas Tremlett in Prince Edward Island, and Richard Gibbons in Cape Breton.’

The Nova Scotia Assembly’s failure matters much less than the attempt; the long, drawn out saga of the efforts to censure and remove the NSSC judges is of interest to historians of colonial legal systems. It represents a chapter in the history of judicial professionalization, for much of the rhetoric aimed at the judges, especially Deschamps, concerned their basic competence. The event also reveals the role played by colonial judges within local power structures. The modern notion of a separation of powers between executive and judiciary was no part of the British system of colonial governance, with judges expected to be firm supporters, indeed active members, of government and receive in turn the backing of the executive. Hence, the Nova Scotia judges received unqualified support from the Lieutenant-Governor and his Council. Conversely, the failed impeachment shows that the elected branch of the constitution had as little control over the dismissal of judges as it did over their appointment. While the impeachment crisis is a significant event in Canadian legal history, and while that is the focus of the article, the events of the late 1780s and early 1790s also contribute to our understanding of the province’s general history, in particular of the transformations that took place after the American revolution.”

Article 2: R v Bartling (and R v Small)

Article 2 principally concerned R v Bartling, one of only two criminal cases among the allegations, the other being R v Small, which was used not so much as a ground of complaint but as a contrast to the Bartling case. Bartling and Small were the two cases from 1789 that, I suggest above, provided part of the catalyst for a successful re-raising of the judges’ question early in 1790, at a time when Parr believed the crisis was long over.

Christian Bartling was a very early settler in Halifax/Dartmouth and, by the 1780s, a substantial landowner on the Dartmouth side of the harbour. In May 1789 he got into boundary disputes with Jonathan Foster, Nathaniel Macy, and Barnabas Swain, all recent arrivals and all members of a group-some 40 families-of Nantucket Quaker whalers who had moved to the area in 1785. Although encouraged and indeed subsidized by Parr and his Council, the move was controversial both in London and Halifax in part because a considerable amount of land had been expropriated for them from absentee proprietors and in part because this particular economic development project was seen as aiding Americans and evading the imperial Navigation Acts.”‘ Bartling, apparently convinced that Swain et al were trespassing, defended his turf with a shotgun, and a considerable amount of shot ended up in Swain. He lost an eye to the assault.

Bartling was remanded for trial by a JP, and an application for release through a writ of habeas corpus in mid-June was denied. He went to trial a month or so later in Trinity Term. Although, as was common, the indictment was prosecuted by Attorney-General Blowers, the grand jury rejected it. When the judges were told this Brenton asked Blowers if he had another charge to prefer, but he did not. In Bartling’s lawyer Martin Wilkins’ words, he “turned his Back upon the Court and remarked that he washed his hands Clear of it and their Honors must decide for themselves.” Solicitor-General Uniacke, also in court, then declared “with some degree of heat” that “he would prefer Bills to.. .Grand Jury after Grand Jury, against Bartling so long as there was a Grand Jury in the Country, until a Bill was found… or until the Prisoner had a Public Trial.” Brenton remanded Bartling, although his further confinement lasted only one day; he was discharged when the court met the following morning. According to lawyer Daniel Wood, Deschamps gave no reasons but told Bartling “that in consideration of his long confinement and Large family they would then release him, without his giving Security, notwithstanding the Grand Jury had tho[ugh]t proper to acquit him, his Crimes appeared to be very enormous, and hoped the indulgence they then gave him would have some good effect upon him.”‘

The second article of impeachment criticized two aspects of Brenton’s handling of this case; Deschamps was not involved in the charges. It complained that Bartling had not been given bail when habeas corpus was applied for, as he should have been for committing a trespass. It was here that a contrast was drawn to R v Small. 4′ William Small was one of a group of black men and women who became involved in an altercation with three young, and drunk, white men returning home from a night of carousing in late November 1788. The whites had assaulted a fiddle player, George Warner, and Warner ran for refuge to Small’s house. When the whites tried to follow Warner in, Small came out armed with a spade. In the melee William Lloyd was struck with the spade and he died almost two months later. A coroner’s jury found that Lloyd had died from the blow inflicted by Small and he was arrested. A week later Small was bailed, by Brenton, with the sureties being William Brenton, the judge’s half-brother, and loyalist merchant Samuel Hart. Article 2 made the contrast between the two cases: Brenton had refused bail to Bartling but he had earlier “bailed a certain William Small, a [black] man, positively charged by, and committed on the Coroner’s Inquest, for [a]… felonious murder.”

The Privy Council made short work of the bail complaint, not even adverting to the contrast with Small. The evidence before the Assembly had made a lot of the fact that Brenton waited a day to hear the habeas corpus application, and the committee simply, and rightly, held that a Judge was not required to hear the application “the moment it is presented to him,” as “[i]t may be often material to enquire for what… crime” a person had committed “before he is brought up in order to be prepared in some sort to judge how it would be either legal or proper to Bail him.” When Brenton did hear the application, he was prepared to grant bail, but no sureties could be found, always a requirement for bail. In the Assembly the prosecution had alleged that Bartling had lost his sureties by the delay, but the evidence also showed, and the committee accepted this, that the reason he could find no sureties was that the men willing to do so were only prepared to stand bail for his appearance in court, not to be answerable for his keeping the peace, because Bartling “was apt to be in liquor.” The committee also adverted to evidence from Halifax sheriff James Clarke that he had summonsed possible sureties to court but they had refused to come.

The committee also noted that the statement in Article 2 that Bartling had been arrested for trespass was inaccurate, that he had been arrested for a felony, a serious assault leading to a wounding. As the indictment put it, Bartling had inflicted “several grievous wounds” and “the sight of one of [Swain’s] eyes” had been “ruined and destroyed.”‘ The committee made nothing more of this mis-statement in the charge, perhaps because if Brenton could have been criticized for anything in this stage of the proceedings it was that he was prepared to bail Bartling at all. The Marian bail laws were in force in Nova Scotia and they made remand the default option in the vast majority of felonies. It was extremely rare for anybody charged with a felony to receive bail-only ten of the more than 700 defendants who appeared in the NSSC at Halifax between 1754 and 1803 were bailed.'” Evidence given before the Assembly suggested that it was known that Parr favoured remand, and thus Brenton had somehow been improperly influenced by the Lieutenant-Governor. But since Brenton granted bail that complaint amounted to naught and did not find its way into the article of impeachment.

All in all the Assembly’s complaint about the bail process was worthless; ironically, as noted, they would have had a stronger case if they had attacked Brenton for not remanding Bartling. There was not even any validity to the contrast with the Small case-the latter was a highly exceptional but nonetheless explicable exercise of discretion, and, given contemporary attitudes towards blacks, criticisms of Brenton were surely a product of racism as much as anything else.

The second principal cause for complaint over the Bartling case was the re-committal following the failure to get an indictment. Certainly it was an unusual proceeding-normally a defendant not indicted or found not guilty was immediately released from custody. Yet there were other cases in which defendants were recommitted and another indictment drawn up, and in this instance Solicitor-General Uniacke declared that he would do so. Questioning of witnesses before the Assembly tried to elucidate testimony to the effect that Brenton remanded Bartling before Uniacke made his declaration, but witnesses were either contradictory or unsure on the point. The committee asserted that a recommittal pending another indictment was “the common practice at the Old Bailey,” and criticized the grand jury’s decision in any event. It was clearly a felony and there seemed to be enough evidence to proceed to trial. The committee could have made more of this point. A marginal note in the proceedings states that if the English “Black Act” was in force in the colony it certainly was a felony. What it did not say was that it was not just a felony, but a capital offence, and it seems surprising that the committee did not pursue this question further, for malicious shooting at somebody was indeed a capital offence in the colony. That they did not do so is perhaps attributable to the problem raised above: Brenton was very much at fault for bailing a person accused of so serious a crime.

It seems likely that the Bartling case became something of a cause celebre because of its political overtones. Neither the loyalists who supported Bartling out of resentment at the American whalers nor the elements in government and the city who sided with the whalers behaved particularly creditably. The JP who initially took down the parties’ depositions, loyalist James Gautier, does not appear to have committed Bartling or issued recognizances to prosecute, as he should have done. It was only later that another JP, William Folger, one of the whalers, did so. Parr, a supporter of the whalers, might well have had an opinion, along with many other people in the city, but as we have seen that opinion cannot have influenced Brenton. The fact that the contrast with Small included the statement that he was “a [black] man” suggests that racism played a role; the contrast of Bartling’s treatment with somebody else’s would not have mattered had not that other person been a black resident.

As already noted, the really questionable decision was the grand jury’s turning back of the indictment. Attorney-General Blowers probably should have had another indictment to put forward, but seems from the evidence given above to have been too peeved, and perhaps surprised, to bother. Solicitor-General Uniacke had to intervene on the spur of the moment; he was a vigorous supporter of the whalers’ move to Dartmouth and obviously wished the law to be used against those who resisted their integration into the community. Initially exasperated at a form of “grand jury nullification,” we can only suppose that he thought better of the politics of preferring another indictment on reflection. But the principal point for our purposes is that the Assembly’s criticisms of Brenton in this case were misplaced. It was a case riven with politics and prejudice, which may have inflamed local passions on all sides, but not one which showed the court in the bad light the Assembly tried to cast on it.

Jim Phillips, “The Impeachment of the Judges of the Nova Scotia Supreme Court, 1787-1793: Colonial Judges, Loyalist Lawyers, and the Colonial Assembly” (2011) 34:2 Dal LJ 265.

https://digitalcommons.schulichlaw.dal.ca/dlj/vol34/iss2/1/

To amend (An act for establishing a Public Burial Ground at Dartmouth 1842 c25) 1843 c47

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1843-47
1843-47

An Act to amend the Act for establishing a Public Burial Ground at Dartmouth.
Passed the 29th day of March, 1843.

Preamble:
WHEREAS it is expedient to alter the limits of the Public Burial Ground, established by the Act passed in the fifth year of Her present Majesty’s Reign, entitled, An Act, for establishing a Public Burial Ground at Dartmouth, and to lay off certain Roads in order that access may be had to the different parts of the said Burial Ground.

Bounds of Burial Ground:
I. Be it therefore enacted by the Lieutenant-Governor, Council and Assembly, That instead of that portion of the Cummon of Dartmouth directed to be set off for a Public Burial Ground rial place by the said Act, it shall and may be lawful for the Trustees of the Dartmouth Common now appointed, or hereafter to be appointed, to set off and allot all that portion of the Common at Dartmouth, lying to the northward of the Burial Ground occupied by the Church of England, commonly called the old Quaker Burial Ground, included within the following limits, that is to say: bounded on the south by a street sixty feet wide, called Stairs’ Street, and on the east by a street sixty feet wide, running along the western bounds of the land of Thomas Boggs, Esquire, measuring on the last mentioned Street, two hundred and sixty-four feei, and on Stairs’ Street, three hundred and forty-nine feet and six inches, on the west by a line parallel with the street, running along the bounds of the said Thomas Boggs’ land, and ineasuring two hundred and sixty four feet, and on the north by a line parallel with Stairs’ Street, and measuring three hundred and forty-nine feet six inches, thus forming a parallelogram three hundred and forty nine feet six inches, by two hundred and sixty-four feet.

Road:
II. And be it enacted, That the said Trustees of the Dartmouth Common shall, and they are hereby authorised to lay off a Road around the said Common, of the width of sixty feet, comiencing at the public Landing at Stairs’ Street, thence to the Land of Thomas Boggs, Esquire, thence along the line of the said Thomas Boggs’ Land to Land owned by Edward Foster, thence along the north bound of the Common to Starbuck and Fogler’s land, thence along the line of the said Starbuck and Fogler’s Land to the Halifax Harbour.

“To amend the last named (An act for establishing a Public Burial Ground at Dartmouth 1842 c25)”, 1843 c47

An act for establishing a Public Burial Ground at Dartmouth, 1842 c25

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1842-25
1842-25

An Act for establishing a Public Burial Ground at Dartmouth.
(Passed the 19th day of March, 1842.)

Preamble:
WHEREAS, by and under the provisions of an Act, passed in the last Session of the General Assembly, entitled, “ An Act for regulating the Dartmouth Common,” certain persons have been appointed Trustees of said Common, and the same is now under their charge and control ; And whereas, there is no Public Burial Ground at Dartmouth, and there is a portion of said Common suitable therefor, which is of little value for other purposes, and it is desirable that the same should be laid off as a Public Burial Ground:

Scite for Burial Ground in Dartmouth, Trust:
I. Be it therefore enacted by the Lieutenant-Governor, Council and Assembly, That the said Trustees of the Dartmouth Common now appointed, or hereafter to be appointed under the provisions of the aforesaid Act, shall set off and allot all that portion of the said Common at Dartmouth, lying to the North ward of the Burial Ground occupied by the Church Dartmouth of England, commonly called the Old Quaker Burial Ground, included within the following limits, that is to say: beginning at the North-west corner of the Burial Ground so occupied by the Church of England, and running thence Northerly in a continuous line with The Western side line of the said Church of England Burial Ground twenty-nine degrees West two hundred and sixty-four feet; thence North fifty-nine degrees, East three hundred and forty-four feet six inches, until it comes to the Old Road leading from Water Street, in Dartmouth, to the Wind Mill; thence by said Old Road until it comes to Land owned by Thomas Boggs, Esquire; thence by said Lands of the said Thomas Boggs two hundred and fifty-five feet and six inches to the North-east corner of the said Church of England Burial Ground; thence by said Burial Ground three hundred and forty-nine feet to the place of beginning, containing two acres and one eighth of an acre, or thereabouts, which said Lot shall be held by the said Trustees in trust as and for a Public Burial place for the use of the Inhabitants of Dartmouth, except those Denominations of Christians who have Burial Grounds attached to their respective places of Worship.

“An act for establishing a Public Burial Ground at Dartmouth”, 1842 c25

Seth Coleman

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From the Reports of the London Vaccine Institution, we have a contribution from July 28th, 1823 about Dartmouthian and Quaker Seth Coleman and how he tended to the people of Preston (and Dartmouth at large) who had smallpox.

In 1814, when the “medical gentleman of the town of Halifax were not to be induced to cross the harbour”, Seth Coleman stepped in and saved the lives of at least 423 people, including 285 black refugees and 59 Mi’kmaw.

Coleman relayed that his feelings were “often hurt at the expressions of people who are ignorant of (the refugees’) situations.”

An experience corroborated in ‘The Internal Enemy: Slavery and War in Virginia, 1772-1832’ by Alan Taylor and ‘The Blacks in Canada: A History’ By Robin William Winks.

Joshua Evans

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quaker

On July 17th 1795 Joshua Evans arrived at Dartmouth. Evans was a Quaker minister and abolitionist born in 1731 in West Jersey, he was a vegetarian, an ardent proponent of the peace testimony along with Quaker plainness and ending slavery. He visited with local Quakers Seth Coleman and Thomas Green, among ten other local families.

“Through a lifetime of increasingly rigorous and peculiar “testimonies”, Joshua Evans bore witness against a spirit of self-indulgence and greed within himself and in his society… his purpose, however, was not primarily negative.. he loved humanity – indeed all living things are creations of his divine master. He was especially fond of blacks and indians, the Acadians, the poor, and the oppressed.”

“Evan’s rejection of “contaminated products” also stemmed from his abhorrance of slave labor. As early as 1761, and perhaps before, Joshua Evans was launched on a journey of “plain dealing” with slaveholders… “to plead for the Liberty of the Black people, and to visit those who held them…” The work went hard, but it was “the Lord’s requiring.””

Evans described Dartmouth as “situated on the east side of Chebucto bay, and contains between fifty and a hundred houses.”

He attended several meetings in Dartmouth “large for the place, and proved to be a heart-tendering, favoured opportunity” including public worship, a meeting of conference and a preparative meeting “in which, those who incline to marry are allowed to declare their intentions…on account of their situation being so remote from any monthly meeting.”

“These friends have had their trials, by reason of others removing away, when they had not freedom to go. Our visit was very acceptable, as coming in a needful time; which some of them expressed.”

On July 27th 1795, the day he departed Dartmouth, Evans described his visit as “Many people, Friends and others, coming together”.

Evans’ visit to Dartmouth was nearly three years before his travels through the southern States (in the spring of 1798) where he continued to labor with friends and others about the evils of slavery. He returned to New Jersey and died in July of that same year.

Dartmouth’s motto is “Amicitia Crescimus”, Amicitia meaning “friendship” or “an alliance”, Crescimus being a first-person plural of cresco which has several meanings including to “come in to being”, to “arise”, to “grow”, to “grow up”, “to increase”, to “swell”, to “prosper and thrive”, to “become great”, to “attain honor”.

“We grow in friendship”, “friendship grows”, “through friendship we prosper and thrive” — perhaps Evans’ visit to Dartmouth and his musings served as inspiration.

“Joshua Evans, 1731-1798: A Study in Eighteenth Century Quaker Singularity” Donald Brooks Kelley https://www.jstor.org/stable/41935203

“Joshua Evans Papers”, ca. 1788- ca. 1804
https://archives.tricolib.brynmawr.edu/resources/5190joev

“Journal of the Life, Travels, Religious Exercises and Labours in the Work of the Ministry of Joshua Evans, Late of Newton Township, Gloucester County, New Jersey”, ca. 1834
https://books.google.ca/books?id=Z92QXSO773EC

“Descendants of Benjamin Green Sr.”
https://web.archive.org/web/20120803104226/http://www.jangaard.com/bengreen20%20sep2007.pdf

“The New College Latin & English Dictionary”, Bantam Books, NY, 1969.

Crown Land Grant Records

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dartmouth map land grants

Crown Land Grants are an invaluable historical resource, especially considering how little is made freely available in terms of property records, a system which seems to exist in some kind of quasi-privatized state: https://novascotia.ca/natr/land/grantmap.asp

The map itself is a 1940s era base-map and so you’ll see the original configuration of many once rural now suburban roads.

Beyond the Land Grant Map Index, individual grants also have records of their own, and sometimes maps to go along with them.

Included here is a map from Seth Coleman in 1790 – who was Clerk of the Dartmouth Meeting of Friends (The Quaker Fellowship). He owned the land that today stretches from Ochterloney Street to Church Street along the Dartmouth shore. This area was once littered with shipyards and later served as the terminus for one of our early ferries.

1790s

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From The Story of Dartmouth, by John P. Martin:

The removal of the Nantucket Whaling Company to Dartmouth in 1785, gave the town its first major industry; and also brought about a marked change in the shape of the 1750 town-plot. A local commission of inquiry set up in 1783, ruled that all but two of the Dartmouth proprietors had failed to fulfill conditions of their grants. The Legislature of Nova Scotia voted a considerable sum of money to assist this enterprise, because candles, sperm oil and other products were as essential then, as are gasoline and electricity in our own day.

Most of the houses and lots in the town-plot were then escheated by the Government, and re-allotted to the Nantucketers. This procedure caused much discontent and created disputes over titles for years afterwards.

These Quaker people were industrious. Years ago, old residents used to relate how they could erect a dwelling within a few days. They must have been co-operative. No time was spent in excavating cellars. That they intended to remain permanently, is evident from the spaciousness of their houses and from the fact that they constantly cultivated and improved the soil by grubbing-up tons of our familiar slate-rock to build breast-high stonewalls along the borders of their gardens and orchards.

What is perhaps the last of these walls, still supports the bank at the corner of King and Queen Streets. On that elevation, the Quakers erected Dartmouth’s first house of worship. It was in this building that the Dartmouth Society of Friends made their decision to remove to Wales in 1792. Seth Coleman was clerk.

Houses directly opposite the site of the Meeting House at 63, 65, and 67 King Street, with their very small squared panes of glass over the porches, are typical of Nantucket style. And families still prominent on Nantucket Island, whose ancestors migrated to Dartmouth at the time, include names like Coleman, Coffin, Bunker, Greaves, Swaine, Macey, Ray, Barnard, Leppard and Paddock.

Promoters of the Whaling Company, like Hon. Thomas Cochran of Halifax; and leading Quakers like Samuel Starbuck and Timothy Folger (Foal-jer), got whole blocks of downtown property near Dartmouth Cove. Their idea of reserving Dartmouth Common was to provide grazing-ground for owners of livestock in the town-plot. They builded better than they knew, for the Common has always been the town’s chief recreational centre.

Besides their downtown holdings, Messrs. Folger and Starbuck obtained large tracts in the suburbs. One grant in 1787 comprised 1,156 acres in the present Westphal district. Another of 556 acres bordering Edward Foster’s property, seems to be near the Rope-works. These two men also made application for the swamp land of four acres, which was to be drained and improved for English meadow. Historian George Mullane, writing of this period, calls it the “Folger and Starbuck land grab”.

In the same year that the Quakers left, there occurred the death of Christian Bartling. He was of Danish origin. Despite the fact that he had built a house in the 1750’s, yet his property was escheated for the Nantucket families. Later he obtained Crown grants near Lake Banook. The well-known Walker families of Dartmouth are his descendants.

Another name to note is that of Thomas Hardin (no. 5 Block B). As an illustration of tangled titles and also of the hazardous existence of pioneer Dartmouthians, the following quaint petition of Mrs. James Purcell, dated 1792, is most enlightening:

“To the Hon. Richard Bulkeley,

The humble petition of Mary Purcell, the Grand daughter of Thomas Hardin, most humbly sheweth. That your honor will be pleased to remember that my Grand Father was one of the first settlers in Dartmouth and lived on said place until about 15 years ago. And Bequeathed said Lott of Land to my mother Jean Hardin which served her apprenticeship in Your Honors family and my father Lawrence Sliney likewise, at my Marrying my present husband James Purcell, about four years ago My Mother and Uncle Thomas Hardin Resigned over their Right and Title to us for to subsist our Family- Which is a Lott of Land that was granted by Lord Cornwallis to my Grand Father which he suffered a Vast Deal of Hardship in Clearing and Erecting a House on it. Likewise Lost his Son by the [Mi’kmaq] as he was Obliged to Oppose them by Day and by Night. My husband having registered said Lott pursuant to the Laws of the Province.

But now being informed by a Letter from Mr. Morrice Surveyor General that said Lott is made over by a Grant from his Excellency Governor Par and his Majestys Council to one Cristian Barlet in Dartmouth which has had no Right or Title to said Lott but was to pay to our Family Twenty Shillings Currency a Year. Therefore I Beg and Emplore the favour of your Honour to see me and my poor children Rightified. And will be in duly bound to pray”.

In that same summer of 1792, another menace presented itself. All the munitions for the port were then kept at the Eastern Battery. Several thousand barrels of gunpowder stored in a wooden building near the border of the forest caused considerable alarm, there were frequent fires in the woods. In a petition to the House of Assembly, the inhabitants of Halifax expressed fear for the safety of their town, and asked that the munitions be moved in a more suitable storehouse and in a more remote section.

Hartshorne and Tremaine’s gristmill commenced about this time. The firm purchased the lower mill stream and lands on both sides, where Richard Woodin had his dwelling. They also obtained permission from James Creighton, the proprietor of the upper stream, to lower the bank at the outlet of the lake, and to dam up the river in order to provide a head of water for the millrace.

“Plan of Estate Lawrence Hartshorne Portland, King, Wentworth & A. Lane”, 1871. https://archives.novascotia.ca/maps/archives/?ID=910

In 1793, Lawrence Hartshorne purchased from Samuel Starbuck, Jr., for £100, the square block “L” bounded by King, Portland, Wentworth and Green Streets. On the old plan it is marked “D”. The lofty tenement building demolished at Woolworth’s corner in 1951, was known a century ago as the “Mansion House” of the Hartshornes. The estate was called “Poplar Hill”.

Jonathan Tremaine acquired the triangular block “M” at Green and King Streets, just below “Poplar Hill”. This had been the property of Samuel Starbuck, senior. But Tremaine’s residence is thought to have been in square block “E”, because he was regranted land at the northeast corner of Portland and Wentworth in 1796, and purchased the remaining lots and buildings in that block from the Starbucks. According to Tremaine genealogy, Jonathan died in 1823 at Dartmouth where he had “a country seat.”

At the same time, the wharves and water-lots left by the Nantucket Whaling Company were also taken over by Hartshorne and Tremaine. For many years this firm had the most extensive flour mill in the Province. Their warehouse was on Water Street in Halifax, whither the finished products were transported by the first vessel built in Dartmouth, “The Maid of the Mill”.

The milling business evidently was profitable in those times, for a third windmill commenced in 1798. An advertisement in the Weekly Chronicle of that year announced that Davis and Barker “have erected a gristmill in Foster’s Cove, and are ready to receive grain to manufacture into flour etc.”

A search through every available record fails to reveal the location of the town-plot ferry-dock during the first four decades of Dartmouth’s history. Certainly the present landing was not the place. The original acclivity of Portland Street can best be gauged by bridging with the eye, the space between the natural heights still seen in the rear of properties on each side of Portland Street, just east of Commercial Street.

The most suitable part of the waterfront for pulling up small boats and erecting cribwork wharves, was on the shelving shore of the crescent-shaped bay which then curved from Queen Street to Church Street. The low-lying land, still seen a few yards west of the Belmont Hotel, indicates that some harbor inlets must have flooded little bays of the original beach now covered with tons of fill leveling the area east of the railway tracks.

During the Quaker period, Zachariah Bunker of the Whaling Company, was located at the southeast corner of Ochterloney and Commercial Streets, where now stands Morris’ Drug Store. On the beach not far from his door he had a water-lot and shed set up, no doubt to ply his trade which was that of a boat-builder.

After the Quakers’ departure, all of Bunker’s town and rural property was bought in 1797 by Dr. John D. Clifford, the ship’s surgeon attached to H.M.S. “Leopard”. Whether Dr. Clifford resided in the corner house is not known, but it was in the above mentioned year that John Skerry commenced his ferry service.

There is no apparent record as to who operated ferries from the 1756 charter of John Rock until Skerry started 40 years later. Perhaps there had not been any organized system, and boats ran privately, for in 1785 a bill was introduced in the Legislature by Hon. Michael Wallace for the establishing of a “public ferry” between Halifax and Dartmouth. This might possibly refer to Creighton’s, or the lower ferry, already mentioned as beginning in the year 1786.

Waterfront plans of those years have Skerry’s dock marked “Maroon Wharf”, which suggests that the foot of Ochterloney Street was the landing-place used by the Jamaica Maroons during the four years that they were billeted at Preston.

Although the story properly belongs to the latter township, yet a brief sketch of the Maroons is included here, because their sojourn in our suburbs stimulated real-estate and transportation activities, and also resulted in the laying-out of a new highway.

The Maroons, deported from the island of Jamaica, arrived in this port in the summer of 1796. For a time they were employed by the Duke of Kent on the Citadel fortifications at Halifax. Later, most of the band were settled at Preston where their superintendents Colonel William D. Quarrell and Alexander Ochterloney bought some 5,000 acres of land with funds furnished by the Government of Jamaica. More was purchased on the Windsor Road near Sackville. In addition, Colonel Quarrell secured several properties in the town-plot of Dartmouth.

1879

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From The Story of Dartmouth, by John P. Martin:

Although the exodus of young people seeking work in the United States continued, and there were several houses for sale or let in 1879, yet the industrial situation seemed to be improving.

The annual output of the Starr Factory was about 40,000 pairs of skates and many of these were shipped to the United States and to Europe. Of late years German competition was beginning to threaten their sales. About this time they commenced the manufacture of shovels, and the firm continually submitted tenders on government bridge-building projects. Among local jobs completed by the Starr Factory in 1879 was the making and setting-up of iron vaults and doors for the new Merchants Bank at Halifax. (Now Royal Bank.)

Aggressive Dartmouthians kept up their agitation for a railway that spring. There was talk in the air that the Allan line might build piers in Dartmouth if railroad connections were made available. At a public meeting held in April 1879, resolutions were passed memorializing the Dominion Government on the subject of building a branch line from Windsor Junction. About that time also, steps were taken to beautify the town when the Council encouraged the planting of shade-trees by abating taxes on property so ornamented. The tax rate was $1.05 compared with a 75 cent rate in the first year of incorporation. The estimate expeditures for the municipal year beginning May 1st, was $16,882. An amount was to be asked for the purchase of Lake Loon, and $200 was voted to build a school-house for [black] children. J. G. Foster became Town Magistrate.

Perhaps the biggest construction job that year was the $1,990 contract for a new Baptist Church on King Street built by Rhodes Curry and Co. of Amherst. This Gothic-style edifice occupied the site of the original Church which was then removed to the rear to be used for Sunday School classes.

About the same time, the lofty three-storey structure at the southwest corner of Portland and Prince Street was built for Mrs. Isabelle Lawlor. (This is now Chisling’s corner.)

The present Lesbirel building on Commercial Street was erected for George Craig, the barber-photographer, by Contractor John T. Walker, also in 1879. This soon became the leading tonsorial parlor in town and was patronized by leading citizens. Mr. Craig possessed considerable talent and ambition. As a young man he worked regularly as a factory hand in the Ropeworks, and employed his nightly leisure learning the barbering trade. Barber shops then kept open evenings, and also on Sunday mornings to serve Saturday midnight shop-workers.

Safety razors were 40 years away. The danger and difficulty of manipulating straight-edge razors did not encourage the majority of males to practise the fine art of shaving, with the result that many a man made frequent visits to his chosen barber-shop where his private shaving-mug was held in readiness. Shaves were seven cents. Most adults grew moustaches, sometimes sideburns. A haircut on Saturday night was generally taboo, even though long waits were of little consequence. Spending an hour or so in a group where everybody knew one another was an entertainment in itself, especially with a punster like George Craig steering the conversation.

The masculine privacy of 19th century barber-shops was seldom violated by the presence of women. Occasionally of an afternoon, some fond mother whose young hopeful needed a haircut, might be seen herding the little fellow past the customary row of spittoons to a distant seat where both were isolated from the men-folk, over whom an awed silence would generally descend.

The unsolved mystery of Dr. John McDonald, was brought again to public attention in 1879 when a human skull was found underground in the cellar-kitchen of the house where the Doctor once lived on Blockhouse Hill. For a time the incident aroused considerable excitement among older residents who now felt there was sufficient proof that Dr. McDonald had been murdered in that house. At the ensuing inquest, however, a former occupant, Mrs. Mary Loner declared that the skull had been given her by the widow of Dr. John Slayter, and that she had hidden it in the ground some years previously. Dr. W. H. Weeks also stated that he recognized the skull as the one belonging to Dr. Slayter, and it was supposed to be the head of one of the “Saladin” pirates who were hanged in 1844.

In October, Dartmouth had another mystery on its hands. Hugh Greene well-known resident and former inn-keeper at Skerry’s Corner was listed as missing. His family organized search-parties to scour the woods for some days until tidings came that the old man had eaten dinner at Nichols Hotel at Grand Lake on the 18th. More parties continued the search in that area, and only abandoned their attempts when it was felt that Mr. Greene must have frozen to death or been drowned.

County Magistrate Andrew Shiels, best known as “Albyn,” died in his 88th year at his residence 114 Ochterloney Street in November. His first blacksmith shop was set up near the ferry wharf in Halifax. In the volume of Albyn’s poetry available at the Provincial Archives, appear the following lines deploring the fact that the sacrifices of early settlers are not better remembered:

Lo! even in Quakertown, the fiendish raid Is quite forgotten that the Micmacs made;

And all the legends which it once could boast Have, with itself in Dartmouth, long been lost!

Nor is there any vestige left that says,

Where stood the Blockhouse in the former days.

By 1879 several telephones had been installed in business houses and offices of Halifax. The first telephone line in Dartmouth was a private wire strung that autumn from the residence of John P. Mott at Hazelhurst to one of his factory buildings about 150 yards southward.

In the shipbuilding line, Eben Moseley built a 32-ton schooner called the “Mora.” Alexander Forsyth acquired the grocery establishment in the new shop and residence at the present 85 Commercial Street which had been previously erected by E. L. Coleman. The latter lost the property in a Sheriff’s sale. At the northeast corner of Pine and Ochterloney Streets, an unoccupied house belonging to Alexander Richard was destroyed by fire.

Dartmouth deaths in 1879 included Olivia, 28 years, wife of John Greene, Portland Street jeweler; Anne 61, wife of David Falconer at “Greenvale”; Charlotte, wife of S. P. Fairbanks, Eastern Passage Road (Woodside); Mary Ann 24, wife of Peter O’Hearn, Halifax schoolteacher; Charlotte Donig, 53, wife of John Mansfield; Mary 92, widow of James Collins, Portland Street; Elizabeth 78, widow of Michael Waddell, Blockhouse Hill; Barbara 69, widow of John Jackson; Louise 70, widow and second wife of ex-Premier James W. Johnston, died at residence of her stepson at “Sunnyside”; Stephen Faulkner 66, Dundas Street; Francis Young 67, shipbuilder; Sackville McKay 73, Ochterloney Street; Daniel Sullivan 52, Austenville; Jeremiah Donovan 79; Henry Monohan 39, Porto Bello Road at Port Wallace.

1857

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From The Story of Dartmouth, by John P. Martin:

Hon. J. W. Johnston, who had been at the head of the Nova Scotia Government in the previous decade, again became Premier of the Province in February 1857 when the Liberals were defeated on a want of confidence vote in the Assembly. (See Calkin’s History.)

One of the ablest of the Conservative members was Dr. Charles Tupper of Cumberland, who was residing that winter with Dr. Parker at “Beechwood” not far from Mr. Johnston’s home at “Mount Amelia.” In his reminiscences published long afterwards, Sir Charles Tupper tells us that it was at “Beechwood” where Mr. Johnston and he met to hold discussions on Conservative policy and no doubt to select the new Executive Council of that time.

Hon. Dr. Tupper evidently remained in Dartmouth after the close of the Legislative session on May 1st, because the ferry records show that he had a commutation ticket for himself, his wife and family for the six-month period ending on June 30th, 1857.

There is considerable information available regarding schools about this time. From the newspaper “Dartmouth Journal” we learn that the old school on the Quaker Meeting House site was torn down about 1857, and the teachers were scattered around in different buildings so that there was no system of school management.

From scraps of annotations on school returns, one gathers that classes were held in private houses, that pupils still paid fees and the teacher in some cases “boarded round”. For instance the school return of William Cox shows that he taught in Dartmouth for the summer term ending November, 1857. Fees for those, “who write, read and spell and cipher 12/6 per quarter. The smaller class 7/6 per quarter.” Salary for six months, “£25 exclusive of board and lodging”. Number of scholars, 19 boys, 6 girls. And finally, “school was held in a room of a dwelling in a large upper room.”

The school return of Elizabeth Frame that term shows 35 small boys and girls enrolled, among them being Benjamin Russell aged 8. In his reminiscences 75 years later, Judge Russell locates this house on Wilson’s Lane near Quarrell Street. His teacher in 1856 had been Miss Eliza Kuhn in a house next to the present Capitol Stores on Portland Street. (Up to within recent years children’s classes continued to be taught in private houses.)

John R. Miller, who later became School Inspector, commenced teaching at Dartmouth in 1857. His scholars varied in age from 9 years to 19. These were the more advanced pupils and their curriculum included Latin, Greek and French. Mr. Fitch assisted for three months, then Mr. Chase came, according to the school return. At the closing exercises of that term, a Halifax newspaper referred to the school as the Dartmouth Academy and gave the name of Miss Carlisle as junior class teacher.

1839

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From The Story of Dartmouth, by John P. Martin:

“At this stage of our story, we turn to the columns of the Dartmouth “Atlantic Weekly” to give readers a first-hand account of life in Dartmouth in the 1830s, as written by an old resident in April 1899. He gave credit to three octogenarians of that time for furnishing him with much information. The three were Thomas Gentles, Thomas Synott, and George Shiels.

…The town naturally centered itself around the ferry. The ferry in those days landed at the foot of Ochterloney Street. The ferry service consisted at first of rowboats simple, later an addition was made in the shape of the “Grinders”, boats resembling whalers, having paddle-like arrangements driven by a hand-crank, which propelled them forward. These again were supplanted by the team-boat which requires no explanation. The horses used on the boat were housed overnight in an old schooner lying on the offside of the landing. The fare was fourpence, return sevenpence halfpenny, or twelve cents. The departure of the boats was signaled by the blowing of a horn, and shouting “hover rover”.

At the left on landing, i.e. the northwest corner of Ochterloney and Water Streets, stood the “Stone Jug”, being built of stone as the name suggests. It is said to have got its name from the fact that there was a well immediately back of it. This well constituted the water supply of the town, and in spite of being frequently flooded by the sea, the water in it never tasted the least brackish. To understand this better, it must be remembered that the level of Water Street from the “Stone Jug” north was ten feet lower than now — or about the level of Coleman’s yard. The lower side of the street was the sea wash at that time.

Across the street to the south (of the Stone Jug) was Indian Hill, on which was a flagstaff. Immediately opposite was Skerry’s corner, owned and occupied by “Skipper” Skerry. Passengers on the ferry paid their fare at the house, and it is said that it was as common a sight to see coppers barrelled as it was pork.

On the remaining corner stood the building recently replaced by the new Hotel. It had been built by Quakers, after the Quaker fashion. Continuing up Ochterloney Street on the left, a building stood midway in the block in which the late Frank Hyde’s father carried on a grocery business. Farther along, a building stood near the corner of Prince Edward Street. A building stood on Gentles’ Corner.

(Gentles bakery, northeast corner Ochterloney and Edward Streets.)

From there to “Bush Inn” was a blank. “Bush Inn” occupied the site of George Jackson’s house.

(Bush Inn with its stables stood at 63 Ochterloney St. In front was a long hedge.)

It was built by Quakers. It was a low one-storey house with a large verandah. The place was kept by Mrs. Manning, who also ran a dancing school there.

From “Bush Inn” to Sullivan’s Pond was fields and woods with the exception of the Church of England, a possible log-cabin on the corner of Pine Street, and Stanford’s Tannery at the foot of Maple Street.

(By the 1830’s the “fields and woods” on the upper side of Ochterloney Street were undoubtedly developed. In 1831, James W. Johnston subdivided 2 1/2 acres between the present Victoria Road and Crichton Avenue, and extending back to Thomas Boggs’ boundary, which was about on a line with Whebby Terrace. Mr. Johnston divided the land into lots having a 66-foot frontage on Ochterloney Street. Timothy Murphy purchased lot no. 1 for £20, and by 1834 had erected and was offering for sale a three-storey double house “At the Sign of the Golden Boot”, already mentioned. Some other purchasers in order of numbers, were David Vaughan, A. Spriggs, Alex. Farquharson, Richard McCabe, Michael Dormady, Mrs. Simpson and James Stanford, the tanner, not Robert. The site of McCabe’s is at the present 137 Ochterloney. Ponnady’s foundation and vacant lot adjoins on the east, Simpson’s was the half-stone house opposite Greenvale Apartments, recently demolished. All this section is thought to have comprised part of Canal Town or Irish Town.)

All the land back of Ochterloney Street and north of Pine Street then belonged to Thomas Boggs. Mr. Thomas Farrell’s father was old Boggs’ gardener, and lived about the present John White house.

(The John White house is now the property of Mrs. D. W. B. Reid at 13 Myrtle Street. On that property is the Farrell foundation.)

On the south side of Ochterloney Street there were Skerry’s corner already mentioned; a blacksmith shop stood where the drugstore is now, being run by Thomas Miller who did iron work for the Canal Company. Findlay’s house stood where E. M. Walker’s residence is at present.

(The drugstore was Parker Mott’s, son of Thomas Mott. The store is just east of Eldridge Lloy, the grocer. E. M. Walker’s residence was southwest corner Edward and Ochterloney. J. W. Tufts’ drygoods store is now a restaurant at 73 Commercial St. The northeast corner Quarrel (Queen) and Water is the Bell Bus Station. Allan McDonald had just died and the building demolished, but a few months before this article was written. It stood at the southeast corner of Quarrell and Water Streets. Mr. McDonald sold fishing tackle, made flies and mended rods. Over the front door, a metal fish dangled on a pole.)

Then came the Chapel, and it is possible a building stood on the corner of King Street. This is all the buildings that Ochterloney Street could then claim, on that side.

On Water Street, Dave Vaughan had a slaughterhouse near where Mr. Tufts’ store now is. The building on the northeast corner of Quarrel and Water Streets certainly ranks among the oldest existing houses in Dartmouth. The building lately occupied by Allan McDonald, and which was recently torn down, was originally a cabin off a ship. Jackson’s house occupied the present site of James Simmonds and Company. The old wooden building which stood where Sterns’ magnificent brick store is now, was a famous landmark of the town. It showed traces of Quaker architecture, and was certainly built by them. It was owned by Edward H. Lowe and afterwards fell into the hands of the McDonald family.

(The old wooden building at Sterns’ corner had about a dozen rooms, with a grand staircase inside the front entrance on Portland Street, and a flight of ordinary steps near the back door to be used by the hired help. On the Water Street side were two separate shops. We lived there from 1890 till its demolition in 1893. — JPM.)

Mrs. Lawlor’s corner stood there then as now. Immediately south of the corner there still exists a building which is second to none as regards age.

On Portland Street, a little above Mrs. Lawlor’s, stood a large barn occupied by “Cups” Murphy and “Larry” Ring, respectively shoemaker and tailor.

(Mrs. Lawlor’s corner is the southeast corner Portland and Water Streets. J. B. Mac-Lean’s grocery was at 35 Portland Street, head of Prince Street. Dr. Milsom’s was northeast corner King and Portland, now the Owl Drugstore. Scallions was on the bank near 147 Prince Albert Road, foot of Bolton Terrace.)

Connors held out where J. B. MaeLean* is now, the entrance then being nearly 15 feet higher than now, the street having suffered considerable cutting away since then.

Dr. Milsom’s present residence was built by John Kennedy. It was then known as Dartmouth Hotel, and it was a very favorite resort.

Perhaps the more favorite resorts of those days were “Commercial Inn” on the corner of Portland and Dundas Streets, which also showed the effects of Quaker settlement in the town. Its flowery days were under the proprietorship of Captain Searl. Its destruction by fire is within the knowledge of the present generation. “Mill Bank Inn” on Quarrel Street, now called the old salt box, was owned by William Warren who kept a skittle alley, the great game of those days.

“Tea Garden”, latterly known as Hoyne’s Hotel, now the residence of J. B. MacLean, is the remaining one of the three famous resorts of the boys in the Thirties. It also had a skittle alley. It was run by Thomas Medley. Of course, Dartmouth had then as now its out-the-road houses. The favorite was Jimmy Scallions, a little above Sullivan’s Pond. The “boys” of town used to assemble there on a Sunday and watch the [Mi’kmaq] go through their war dances, jigs, etc., in all the paint, feathers and style of a more remote period.

I have already noted the lasting effect that the Quaker settlement left in the town, but they were not the only landmark makers. The Scotch and Irish masons brought here to work on the Canal have left their lasting trademark in the shape of buildings. All the stone houses in town were built at the time the Canal was undergoing construction. All of them were built by these imported masons, and all of them — no, I won’t say all, but at least some — were built of stone from the Canal, and they were not very scrupulous how the stone was come by — I don’t say it was stolen. (The Downey house on the west side of Coleman Street was a stone house. It was pulled down a short time after the 1917 Explosion. The only stone house left in the downtown area, is at North and Edward Streets.)

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