The New York Loyalists in Nova Scotia

“From the beginning of the strife in the American colonies, New York, which unlike Massachusetts [–and like Nova Scotia] was a royal or crown colony, naturally showed marked loyalist sympathies. It has often been sweepingly asserted that all the leading families of New York were Tories, but that this was far from being the case is shown by the fact that some of the most active supporters of the revolutionary cause, like John Jay and Gouveneur Morris, bore names as proud as any in the province; and that although the DeLanceys, DePeysters, Philippses and Johnsons, and the greater part of the local aristocracy who acknowledged the leadership of these families, were enthusiastic supporters of the crown, the Schuylers and Livingstons, at least, were known as equally enthusiastic in the Whig cause.”

“So far as religion ruled, the Episcopalians naturally were almost entirely Tory in feeling, and the same was true of a minority of the adherents of the Dutch Reformed body, while the Presbyterians and people of other dissenting bodies, as a rule, were Whigs. In both New York and New England the government officials, almost without exception, ranged themselves on the side of the crown…”

“Of Queen’s County, Long Island, Jones’ History of New York says: Nearly a third of the whole inhabitants have since the late peace and the recognition of American independence preferred inhospitable wilds of Nova Scotia rather than live in a country governed by the iron and oppressive hand of rebellion”

“Many of the Loyalists who had come to Nova Scotia were so destitute that in May, 1783, an order for a muster was issued by Governor Parr… According to this muster the Revolutionary war had brought into Nova Scotia 28,347 persons, of whom 12,388 were men, 5,486 women… of these people, 480 (settled at) Dartmouth.”

Eaton, Arthur Wentworth Hamilton, 1849-1937. The New York Loyalists In Nova Scotia. [New York: The Grafton press, 1910] https://hdl.handle.net/2027/hvd.32044019369461