The Allisons of Nova Scotia: Farmers, Privateers and Merchants

Liverpool Packet

We established in an earlier (and less flattering) story that the Allisons who came from Londonderry were relatively well off for tenant farmers.  How they accumulated wealth in the colony of Nova Scotia is fairly well documented in their purchase of lands.  Additional research, however, has uncovered that our ancestors were also pirates of the legal sort:  privateers.

The Colony at Nova Scotia had steadily been growing through the 18^th century.  At the same time, wars had continued to rage between the major world powers and in the colonies.  During the American War of Independence, ships carrying people and goods to and from the British Colonies were subject to attack by privateers.  Privateers are pirates who are legally permitted to raid and capture enemy ships to support the war effort.  What they took they could sell for their own enrichment.  Privateers outfitted their merchant vessels with armaments and soldiers, and if they could overtake an enemy’s merchant vessel, they could easily outgun and out-soldier them.  Some privateers couldn’t let go of their lifestyle at the conclusion of wars, and turned to piracy:  which is essentially the same activity but without the “letters of marque” that made their privateer endeavours legal.

Enos Collins

Privateers often turned their stolen wealth into investment income to support their own entrepreneurship.  Indeed, one of the most famous and successful privateers made their wealth primarily in the War of 1812 and lived in Nova Scotia:  Enos Collins (1774-1871).  Collins became so wealthy that he, and some others, founded the Halifax Banking Company in which he could safely store his riches (one of his earliest business partners in the banking industry was Joseph Allison – our first ancestor in the colonies).  This company is still around today, though known under its current name as the Canadian Imperial Bank of Commerce.  Collins had partners in his work, among whom were the Allisons, and particularly John Allison (1753-1821).

John Allison had shares in Enos Collins’ most successful privateering schooner, the Liverpool Packet. Liverpool Packet was purchased by Enos Collins at auction in 1811 (having been captured by the British due to the fact that it was illegally engaged in the by then outlawed slave trade).  This schooner captured 50 American vessels during the War of 1812, and the resulting riches made its owners relatively wealthy in the growing colony.

Halifax was a critical town for the British, who used it to assert control over the colonies, settle Loyalists from the American War of Independence, act as a naval station and army garrison, and be a “Warden of the Honour of the North” (Rudyard Kipling). Halifax was more British than the British, conserving those traditions as a matter of honour and duty.  While the population of the town didn’t expand above 15,000 through the first half of the 19^th century, its role as keeper of British tradition, and as a port of extraordinary military and economic importance meant that Halifax had plenty of opportunities for early entrepreneurs like John Allison.

Imagine the many traders, privateers, soldiers and the like who would come to Halifax.  A decent farmer with good transportation to the town would be able to easily sell their goods to the visitors and inhabitants of Halifax.  John Allison, his father Joseph (the first Allison emigrant of our ancestry), and William, his brother, were given plots of land as settlers.  We can find evidence of the accumulation, sale and purchase of other lands.  In 1804, John moved to Newport, Hants as both a trader and “one of the most successful farmers in Nova Scotia” (Bell).  

John used his money to purchase more valuable land and engage in trade.  A farmer who also bought shares in privateer vessels would be able to re-invest their bounty in more land and goods and increase their wealth in the colony.  If you had decent business sense and some good fortune, you could do quite well.  As apparently did John,  “…by great perseverance, industry, frugality, and integrity, secured for himself and family a respectable competency” (Morrison). 

It’s that investment that demonstrated John’s trading prowess enough for one such as Enos Collins to take note.  Collins and John Allison became partners in more than a couple of vessels during the War of 1812.  John had shares in other vessels at that time (although none as profitable as Liverpool Packet), and took advantage of Halifax’s prosperity to generate an inheritance for his family. 

It turns out that the War of 1812 was the last time privateers played a pivotal role in armed conflict.  Halifax made a number of people wealthy through the War of 1812.  John Allison and his family were among them.  The Allison prosperity was maintained through the 19^th century, and the family continued to farm and trade in their goods around the colony.  John’s son William (1792-1851) was equally engaged in the family businesses. 

William continued to accumulate lands in Northumberland, and owned shares in ships such as the Lisbon, a brigantine, but at this point as a merchant and trader, not a privateer.  William Allison died in 1851 in Charlestown, Massachusetts of “insanity”.  His death certificate lists Somerville as his place of death, which also happens to be the location of the McLean Hospital, known as Somerville Asylum.  This psychiatric institution was founded in 1811 in Charlestown.  In 1850, William and his 20-year-old daughter Sarah travelled on the schooner Lark, along with three other passengers, with the intention of living in the United States.  It stands to reason that Sarah brought her father to this relatively modern hospital in the hopes of a cure to whatever mental illness plagued him.

Perhaps William’s mental illness is the reason his son Joseph (1840-1924) decided at the age of 12 to leave home and try his hand at the merchant trade in Saint John.  By the age of 13 he was working in the dry goods business as an apprentice and within another 13 years, he entered into a partnership with James Manchester and James F. Robertson that would last into the next century.

Joseph Allison 1840-1924

The two thriving businesses that contributed greatly to the prosperity of Saint John will be the focus of part three of this four part series on the merchants of the Allison and Hayward families. 

Sources

Various immigration, census and land transfer records

Secondary sources

History of the Alison or Allison Family in Europe and North America, Leonard A. Morrison (1893)

A Genealogical Study, Winthrop Pickard Bell (1962)

St. John and its business, N.B. John,St. John and the province of New Brunswick. (Eastern provinces guides), John R. Hamilton (1884)"Everything was new, yet familiar": British Travellers, Halifax and the Ambiguities of Empire, Jeffrey L. McNairn, Queen’s UniversityNotes on Nova Scotian Privateers, George E.E. Nichols (1904)

Links

http://www.ourroots.ca/e/page.aspx?id=315141

History of Nova Scotia http://www.blupete.com/Hist/NovaScotiaBk3/Ch17.htm

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/McLean_Hospital

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Liverpool_Packet

http://journals.hil.unb.ca/index.php/Acadiensis/article/view/5735/11061

http://www.chebucto.ns.ca/~jacktar/shiplist.html#AmerRev

http://archives.gnb.ca/Exhibits/FortHavoc/html/Nova-Scotia-Privateers.aspx?culture=en-CA

Privateering in the War of 1812 - http://www.eighteentwelve.ca/?q=eng/Topic/66

http://archives.canbarchives.ca/manchester-robertson-allison-firm

The Haywards: From Farmers to Merchants

The following is Part One of a four-part series on the merchants of the Allison and Hayward Families

Like others of my ancestors, the Haywards made their way to the colonies in order to take advantage of land grants and become farmers.  In a previous blog, I wrote about Henry Hayward (1745-1808), who was the first of our Hayward ancestors to settle in Nova Scotia after his discharge as a foot soldier in the British Army.  In 1785, Henry received 500 acres of land in Hants County.

Nova Scotia in the 18^th century included all of the Maritime provinces and parts of Maine.  The area had been subject to significant upheaval during 75 years of colonial wars between the French, the Mi’kmaq, the Acadians and the English.  A negotiated treaty between the English and the Mi’kmaq ended with the Burying the Hatchet ceremony on June 25, 1761.  The treaty resulted in a joint commitment to the rule of law (although many settlers ignored treaty commitments in the ensuing decades), and a relative peace was created in the colonies.

New Brunswick was separated in 1784 into a separate colony.  Maine became part of America and Cape Breton also became its own colony (although it returned to Nova Scotia in 1820).  The colonies had been farmed for centuries already, so it is unlikely that too much land would have needed clearing to sustain agriculture successfully.  Indeed, the Acadians, since expelled, had done much of the difficult work before this newest crew of Loyalists and British army veterans settled the colony at the close of the American Revolutionary War in 1783.

Hants County

Henry Hayward had spent most of his adult life as a foot soldier in the British army.  He and his wife Nancy and their eight children started their new life in Nova Scotia as farmers.  Life would have been difficult for settlers, particularly those who had not been farmers previously, like Henry. Annapolis Valley offered excellent agricultural opportunities, as did other lands offered to the settlers.    Our family records show, however, that the Haywards were not satisfied with the land they received, as it was "so rocky as to be practically worthless."  Starting a career as a farmer on poor agricultural land with little or no experience would have been a daunting experience.  Consistent with the times, all eight children were likely contributing to the welfare of the family and the working of the land.

There were other challenges as well.  Correspondence from the time complains of the “muss keetoes” that would “bite the English worse,” and the “blackfly worse than all the rest.  Everyone in this country has trowsers, and several women, for they fly up their petticoats and bite them terribly.”  Winters would have seen the end of these annoyances, but settlers would have been greeted by a cold wind from the ocean and loads of impassable snow to which they would not have been accustomed.  Products from overseas were expensive and settlers did their best to become independent of their homeland. 

The family eventually moved to Windsor, in what is now New Brunswick, selling their property in Hants County.  At the turn of the century, they moved again and tried their luck at farming on the other side of the Bay of Fundy at Hopewell.  This new spot was right on the Bay, and there they settled into Shepody, their family farm, for another decade.  Shepody had a beautiful view of the Bay, from which you could watch the ships sailing into the harbour. 

View of Albert County circa 1930 - near Shepody

While the family was living in Shepody, the Haywards met the McCullys. In fact, it was their relationship with their neighbours during this time, the McCullys and the Warwicks, that helped all of the families prosper for more than a century and a half.  

Despite the beauty of the area, after the passing of Henry, George and Abigail Hayward opted to move again, from Shepody to Sussex, selling their beautiful Hopewell farm to the McCully family. 

In Sussex, the Haywards bought 400 acres from the Force family, who were Loyalists from Pennsylvania.  Apparently the Forces had done much to improve the land, which would have made the Haywards well-positioned to settle into this property.  George Griffith Hayward and his wife Abigail Copp were staunch Methodists and succeeded in bringing a Methodist minister from England to the first Methodist Church built in Sussex in 1830.

George Griffith continued the farming tradition of his father, as did his son, David.  In 1821, David married Sarah McCully, whose parents bought Shepody from the Haywards in 1811.  They stayed together with David’s parents on the farm in Sussex for two years.  After this, George Griffith Hayward purchased for the new couple 500 acres at Smith’s Creek, where Sarah and David lived for 47 years as “models of piety, industry and thrift”.  They moved from Smith’s Creek in 1870 to “spend their declining years at Penobsquis.”  After 65 years of marriage and six children, a severe illness took David’s life.  Sarah, however, rallied for another eight years and lived to be 93 years old.

William Henry Hayward and Augusta Parlee

The next generation of Haywards ventured out from farming to try their hands as merchants.  David and Sarah’s son William Henry Hayward, grew up on the farm, but appears to have left home in his twenties and moved to the city of Saint John where he was a labourer.  Susannah, David and Sarah’s daughter, married William Warwick, a merchant.  

In 1855, William Henry Hayward set up shop with his brother in law, William Warwick, on Princess Street.  Thus began the partnership known as Hayward and Warwick Ltd., specializing in the purchase and distribution of high quality English crockery to the colonies.  This story will be told as another part in this series.

Even though Henry Hayward’s original 500 acre land grant was not good land, it was good enough for he and his family to continue to “trade-up” and sow the seeds of some amount of good fortune in their lives in Canada.  The Haywards continued as farmers through four generations, and eventually my branch of the family tree became successful merchants.  

The next part in this series will be about the merchant roots of the Allison family in Nova Scotia and New Brunswick.

Sources (primary):

Census (various)

Birth and death records

Obit of Sarah McCully – May 4, 1894, Kings County Record

Sources on history of settlement of Nova Scotia and New Brunswick:

Photo of Albert County from McCord Museum http://www.mccord-museum.qc.ca/en/collection/artifacts/1987.17.1130 

Canadian Encyclopedia  http://www.thecanadianencyclopedia.ca/en/article/nova-scotia/  

Loyalists – the First Refugees (1775-1812)  http://www.canadiana.ca/citm/themes/pioneers/pioneers4_e.html

http://www.blupete.com/Hist/NovaScotiaBk2/Part1/Ch05.htm

http://westhantshistoricalsociety.ca/history/  

History of Hayward and Warwick

Telegraph Jounral article by Mike Mullen