Isthmus of Chignecto

Isthmus of Chignecto

The Isthmus of Chignecto is an isthmus bordering the Maritime provinces of New Brunswick and Nova Scotia which connects the Nova Scotia peninsula with North America.

The isthmus separates the waters of Chignecto Bay, a sub-basin of the Bay of Fundy, from those of Baie Verte, a sub-basin of the Northumberland Strait which is an arm of the Gulf of St. Lawrence. The isthmus stretches from its northerly point at an area in the Petitcodiac River valley near the city of Dieppe, New Brunswick to its southerly point at an area near the town of Amherst, Nova Scotia. At its narrowest point between Amherst and Tidnish, the isthmus measures 24 kilometres wide. Because of its strategic position, it has been important to competing forces through much of its history of occupation.

Geography

The majority of the lands comprising the isthmus have low elevation above sea level; a large portion comprises the Tantramar Marshes, as well as tidal rivers, mud flats, inland freshwater marshes, coastal saltwater marshes, and mixed forest. Several prominent ridges rise above the surrounding low land and marshes along the Bay of Fundy shore, namely the Fort Lawrence Ridge (in Nova Scotia), the Aulac Ridge, the Sackville Ridge, and the Memramcook Ridge (in New Brunswick).

In contrast to the Bay of Fundy shoreline in the west, the Northumberland Strait shoreline in the east is largely forested with serpentine tidal estuaries such as the Tidnish River penetrating inland. The narrowest point on the Northumberland shoreline is opposite the Cumberland Basin at Baie Verte. If sea levels were to rise by 12 meters, the isthmus would be flooded, effectively making the mainland Nova Scotia an island. [1]

Transportation

A key surface transportation route since the 17th century, the Isthmus of Chignecto was crossed by French and later British military roads to the Tantramar Marshes and along the strategic ridges.

In 1872, the Intercolonial Railway of Canada constructed a mainline between Halifax, Nova Scotia and Moncton, New Brunswick across the southern portion of the isthmus. It skirted the edge of the Bay of Fundy while crossing the Tantramar Marshes between Amherst, Nova Scotia and Sackville, New Brunswick.

In 1886 a railway line was built from Sackville across the isthmus to Port Elgin and on to Cape Tormentine. The latter was a port for the iceboat service. In 1917 a rail ferry service to Prince Edward Island was established by Canadian National Railways to connect with the Prince Edward Island Railway.

In the mid-1880s, the isthmus was also the site of one of Canada's earliest mega-projects: construction of a broad-gauge railway from the port of Amherst to the Northumberland Strait at Tidnish for carrying small cargo and passenger ships. This ship railway was never successfully operational, and construction was abandoned shortly before completion.^[1]

In the 1950s, while construction of the St. Lawrence Seaway was underway, a group of industrialists and politicians from the Maritimes called for a Chignecto Canal to be built as a shortcut for ocean-going ships travelling between Saint John and U.S. ports to the Great Lakes to avoid travelling around Nova Scotia. The project never progressed beyond the survey stage.

In the early 1960s, the Trans-Canada Highway was built on the isthmus to connect with Nova Scotia and Prince Edward Island. Route 2 in New Brunswick and Highway 104 in Nova Scotia were built parallel to the existing Canadian National Railway trackage; this inter-provincial highway was upgraded to a 4-lane expressway in the 1990s. Route 16 in New Brunswick was built from an interchange with Route 2 in Aulac to the ferry terminal at Cape Tormentine; this was subsequently modified in 1997 to connect with the Confederation Bridge at Cape Jourimain.

History

The first European settlements on the isthmus were French. Prior to British control of present-day mainland Nova Scotia (after 1713), the isthmus was the location of a growing Acadian farming community called Beaubassin. The isthmus became the location of the historic dividing line between the British colony of Nova Scotia and the French territory. French military forces established Fort Beausejour on the Aulac Ridge in 1749 in response to the British construction of an outpost called Fort Lawrence on the ridge immediately to the east. Between the two ridges was a tidal stream called the Missaquash River which France generally accepted to be the boundary between the territories, although the powers had never determined and agreed to an official boundary. France also constructed Fort Gaspereau on the shores of the Northumberland Strait to effectively control travel on the isthmus.

King William's War

Benjamin Church: Father of American ranging

Raid on Chignecto (1696)

Main article: Raid on Chignecto (1696)

During King William's War - the first of the four French and Indian Wars - French and Native raided Pemaquid, Maine (present day Bristol, Maine) earlier that year. In response, the English colonial militia leader Benjamin Church led a devastating raid on the Chignecto at Beaubassin in 1696.^[2]

Church and four hundred men (50 to 150 of whom were Indians, likely Iroquois) arrived offshore of Beaubassin on September 20. They managed to get ashore and surprise the Acadians. Many fled while one confronted Church with papers showing they had signed an oath of allegiance in 1690 to the English king.

Church was unconvinced. He burned a number of buildings, killed inhabitants, looted their household goods, and slaughtered their livestock. Governor Villebon reported that

"the English stayed at Beaubassin nine whole days without drawing any supplies from their vessels, and even those settlers to whom they had shown a pretence of mercy were left with empty houses and barns and nothing else except the clothes on their backs."^[2]

Queen Anne's War

Raid on Chignecto (1704)

In Queen Anne's War, in retaliation for the Raid on Deerfield, in which many colonists were killed and more than 100 taken captive and forced overland from Massachusetts to Montreal, Major Church returned to Acadia. On July 17, 1704 he raided Chignecto. The Acadian settlers returned some gun fire but quickly sought shelter in the woods. Church burned 40 empty houses and killed over 200 cattle and other livestock.^[3]

On this campaign against Acadia, Church also raided Castine, Maine, Grand Pre, and Pisiguit (present-day Windsor/Falmouth).

King Georges War

During King George's War, Chignecto was used as the staging area for French raids on British Nova Scotia. It was the gathering place for De Ramezay prior to the Siege of Annapolis Royal (1744).^[4] Chignecto was also the base of Coulon de Valliers prior to the Battle of Grand Pre (1747).

Father Le Loutre's War

Battle at Chignecto (1749)

During Father Le Loutre's War, conflict in Acadia continued. On September 18, several Mi'kmaq and Maliseet killed three Englishmen at Chignecto. They lost seven natives killed in the skirmish.^[5]

Battle at Chignecto (1750)

Main article: Battle at Chignecto

In May 1750, Lawrence was unsuccessful in getting a base at Chignecto because Le Loutre burned the village of Beaubassin, preventing Lawrence from using its supplies to establish a fort. (According to the historian Frank Patterson, the Acadians at Cobequid also burned their homes as they retreated from the British to Tatamagouche, Nova Scotia in 1754.^[6]) Lawrence retreated, but he returned in September 1750.

On September 3, Rous, Lawrence and Gorham led over 700 men to Chignecto, where Mi’kmaq and Acadians opposed their landing. They killed twenty British, who in turn killed several Mi’kmaq. Le Loutre's militia eventually withdrew, burning the rest of the Acadians' crops and houses as they went.^[7] Le Loutre and the Acadian militia leader Joseph Broussard resisted the British assault. The British troops defeated the resistance and began construction of Fort Lawrence near the site of the ruins of Beaubassin.^[8] The work on the fort proceeded rapidly and they completed the facility within weeks. To limit the British to peninsular Nova Scotia, the French also began to fortify the Chignecto and its approaches; they constructed Fort Beausejour and two satellite forts: one at present-day Port Elgin, New Brunswick (Fort Gaspareaux) and the other at present-day Saint John, New Brunswick (Fort Menagoueche).^[9]

During these months, 35 Mi'kmaq and Acadians ambushed Ranger Captain Francis Bartelo, killing him and six of his men while taking seven others captive. The Mi'kmaq conducted ritual torture of the captives throughout the night, which had a chilling effect on the New Englanders.^[10]

Raid on Chignecto (1751)

The British retaliated for the Raid on Dartmouth (1751) by sending several armed companies to Chignecto. They killed a few French defenders were killed and breached the dikes, allowing the low lands to flood. Hundreds of acres of crops were ruined, which was disastrous for the Acadians and the French troops.^[11] In the summer of 1752, Father Le Loutre went to Quebec and then on to France to raise funds and supplies to re-build the dikes. He returned in the spring of 1753.

In May 1753, Natives scalped two British soldiers at Fort Lawrence.^[12]

French and Indian War

Battle of Fort Beauséjour (1755)

Main article: Battle of Fort Beauséjour

Map of Chignecto (1755)

On May 22, 1755 the British commanded a fleet of three warships and thirty-three transports carrying 2,100 soldiers from Boston, Massachusetts; they landed at Fort Lawrence on June 3, 1755. The following day the British forces attacked Fort Beausejour, and on June 16, 1755 the French forces evacuated to Fort Gaspereaux, arriving at Louisbourg on June 24, 1755.^[13]

On the isthmus, the British renamed Fort Beausejour as Fort Cumberland and abandoned Fort Lawrence; they recognized the superior construction of the French fort. Beginning the Acadian expulsion (the Great Upheaval), British forces rounded up French settlers during the Bay of Fundy Campaign (1755). The British deported them and burned their villages at Chignecto to prevent their return.

Skirmish at Chignecto (1755 July)

During the French and Indian War, at Fort Moncton (formerly Fort Gaspareaux), one of Captain Silvaus Cobb’s soldiers was shot from his horse and killed in an ambush. Cobb assembled 100 troops but was unable to catch the Mi’kmaq. Monckton dispatched 200 men from Fort Lawrence but was also unsuccessful in catching any Mi’kmaq.^[14]

Raid on Chignecto (1755 September)

Marquis de Boishébert - Charles Deschamps de Boishébert et de Raffetot (1753)

On September 15, majors Jedediah Preble and Benjamin Coldthwait took 400 men to destroy an Acadian village a short distance outside of Fort Monckton.^[15]

Raid on Chignecto (1756 January)

On January 20, Boishebert sent Francois Boucher de Niverville to Baie Verte to burn a British schooner. Niverville killed seven soldiers and took one prisoner; he burned the ship. Boishebert and 120 Acadians/ Mi’kmaq escaped capture in a possible ambush when he tried to set up a siege of Fort Cumberland.^[16]

Raid on Chignecto (1756 April)

The Mi'kmaq and Acadians attacked Fort Cumberland for two days between April 26–27, 1756, and nine British soldiers were killed and scalped.^[17]

Raid on Chignecto (1756 October)

Boishebert moved against Fort Monckton. The British abandoned the fort and burned it to the ground so that it could not be used by the French.^[18]

Skirmish at Chignecto (1757 July)

On July 20 Mi’kmaq captured two of Gorham’s rangers outside Fort Cumberland.^[19]

Skirmish at Chignecto (1757 September)

On September 6, Monckton directed Lt. Colonel Hunt Walsh to take the 28th regiment and a company of rangers to Baie Verte to burn what was left of it. When they arrived, it was already vacated.^[20]

Yorkshire emigration

In 1758 Governor Lawrence issued a proclamation inviting New Englanders to come to Nova Scotia, settle on vacated Acadian lands, and take up free land grants. He also extended the invitation to New England soldiers' serving in Canada whose enlistments had expired and were planning on returning home. Such settlers became known as the New England Planters. Following the end of the Seven Years' War in 1763, the British created three 100,000-acre (400 km²) townships on the isthmus, called Amherst, Sackville and Cumberland.

The drive to attract settlers from New England was not immediately successful. After a few small groups arrived in 1760 and 1761, some families returned home, and the British government decided to look elsewhere for settlers. Between 1772 and 1775, more than 20 ships arrived from England, carrying upwards of 1,000 settlers from Yorkshire to the new townships. The descendants of the Yorkshire emigration continue to be prominent in the area's development and history.

One of these descendants was elected 22nd Prime Minister of Canada in 2006, namely the Right Honourable Stephen Harper. The Prime Minister's ancestor Christopher Harper and his family arrived in 1775 and took up residence in a farm he purchased within sight of Fort Cumberland. When Jonathan Eddy's colonial American forces arrived to attack Fort Cumberland in 1776, Christopher Harper and other Yorkshiremen went to Fort Cumberland to serve with Colonel Goreham and his forces in defence of the fort.

American Revolutionary War

Battle of Fort Cumberland

Main article: Battle of Fort Cumberland

Early in the American Revolutionary War, in October and November 1776 local guerrilla and colonial American forces led by Jonathan Eddy and John Allan attempted to take over Fort Cumberland and the Tantramar region. Supported by George Washington but with limited personnel, Eddy's attacking force consisted of "about twenty" Americans from Machias, Maine, 27 Yankee settlers from the Saint John River valley, 140 Malisseet and four Mi'kmaq, 21 Acadians from the Memramcook Valley and the Allen family farm, and about 120 farmers from Cumberland, Onslow, and Pictou.^[21] Eddy had insufficient forces to capture the fort in a direct assault so he had his men settle in for a siege of the fort which might succeed if the fort's defenders ran out of food and/or water. After a three-week-long siege of Fort Cumberland (also known as the "Eddy Rebellion"), British forces dispatched from Halifax and Windsor routed the invaders.

During the siege of the fort, rebel sympathizers from Sackville burned the house, barn and outbuildings on Christopher Harper's farm. After the rebel attackers were routed, Christopher Harper sued those responsible and was awarded a judgement to compensate him for his losses and that judgement was settled by the Court awarding him lands owned by the rebel sympathizer defendants in the Sackville area.

The Eddy Rebellion proved disastrous for the Acadian rebels. The British put to the torch eight of their houses and barns at Inverma Farm, Jolicoeur. Since their release as prisoners from Fort Cumberland in 1764, the Acadians had been tenants of Willian Allan, the father of John Allan, leader of the Nova Scotia rebels. With winter coming rapidly, the Acadians were forced to relocate with their families to Memramcook.^[22] Eddy, Allan and many of the other English-speaking rebels were also expelled from Nova Scotia. The American colonial government rewarded their efforts with land grants in Maine and Ohio.

References

Secondary sources

• Chris M. Hand, The Siege of Fort Beausejour 1755, 2004, Fredercton: Goose Lane Editions and the New Brunswick Military Heritage Project. ISBN 0-86492-377-5.
• Bernard Pothier, Battle for the Chignecto Forts, 1995, Toronto: Balimuir.
• Dr. John Clarence Webster, The Forts of Chignecto, 1930, self published.
• Grenier, John. The Far Reaches of Empire. War in Nova Scotia, 1710-1760. University of Oklahoma Press, Norman, 2008.

Endnotes

1. ^ Chignecto Ship Railway
2. ^ ^{a b} John Reid. "1686-1720: Imperial Intrusions", In The Atlantic Region to Confederation: A History, Phillip Buckner and John Reid (eds). 1998. Toronto University Press. p. 83
3. ^ THE BOSTON NEWS-LETTER, AUGUST 7, 1704, as recorded in "An historical digest of the provincial press; being a collation of all items of personal and historic reference relating to American affairs printed in the newspapers of the provincial period beginning with the appearance of The present state of the New-English affairs, 1689, Publick occurrences, 1690, and the first issue of the Boston news-letter, 1704, and ending with the close of the revolution, 1783", p. 112 (See Boston News Letter])
4. ^ Hand, p. 14
5. ^ Grenier, p. 149
6. ^ Frank Harris Patterson. History of Tatamagouche, Halifax: Royal Print & Litho., 1917 (also Mika, Belleville: 1973), p. 19
7. ^ Grenier, p. 159
8. ^ Hand, p. 20
9. ^ Hand, p. 25
10. ^ Grenier, p. 159
11. ^ Faragher, p. 272
12. ^ Beamish Murdoch. A History of Nova Scotia. Vol. 2, p. 219
13. ^ They moved onward to Fortress Louisbourg where they were re-garrisoned on July 6, 1755. This battle proved to be one of the key victories for the British in the Seven Years' War, in which Great Britain gained control of all of New France and Acadia.
14. ^ Grenier, p. 179
15. ^ Grenier, p. 183.
16. ^ Grenier, p. 186-187.
17. ^ Linda G. Layton. (2003) A Passion for Survival: The True Story of Marie Anne and Louis Payzant in Eighteenth-century Nova Scotia, Nimbus Publishing, p. 55
18. ^ Grenier, p. 189
19. ^ Grenier, p. 190
20. ^ Grenier, p. 191.
21. ^ Ernest Clarke, The siege of Fort Cumberland, 1776, McGill Queen's University Press, 1995. pp. 215-
22. ^ Régis Brun, De Grand Pré à Kouchibougouac, Éditions d'Acadie, Moncton, 1982, p. 59-60

External links

• History of Chignecto, Central Library, Nova Scotia
• Peter Landry, "The Eddy Rebellion - Chignecto and the American Revolutionary War", in The Lion and the Lily, self-published, BluPete
• "The Chignecto Ship Railway", University of New Brunswick Library
• Chignecto-region - Acadian

Coordinates: 45°54′59.9″N 64°9′56.9″W / 45.916639°N 64.165806°W / 45.916639; -64.165806