BRITISH FAMILIES IN ARICHAT AND VICINITY

Before delving into the story of British settlers in Arichat, it might be helpful to set their arrival in context by summarizing some of Arichat's early history. This will hopefully help make clearer the story of Arichat's immigrant families. Arichat is a community located on the south coast of Isle Madame -- an irregular body of land, measuring about ten miles in length and eight in breadth, situated off the southeast comer of Cape Breton. Arichat is also the shire town of Richmond County, and one of the oldest villages in North America. Although there are no longer First Nations settlements around Arichat, its earliest inhabitants would have been Canada's aboriginal people. It derives its name from the Mi'kmaq word "nerichat" meaning "split rock". For a time the community was also known as Port St. Mary's.

British settlers were latter-day residents of Arichat. As early as the 1500's, fishermen from Bourbon France travelled to Arichat each spring, built huts, fished the surrounding waters and returned home in the fall. A Louisbourg fisherman named Gabriel Samson established the first permanent base on Isle Madame in 1714 at Petit de Grat. During the years the French operated the fort at Louisbourg, Arichat canied on a brisk but illegal sea trade. New England vessels brought rum and molasses from the French West Indies, trading them for tar, pitch and planks.

Arichat was once the most important commercial centre of Cape Breton, outranking Sydney in both population and volume of business. At the beginning of the nineteenth century it was a thriving metropolis, with brigs, barks and sailing craft of all kinds frequenting her harbour and carrying her fish across the seas. The waterfront of Arichat was lined with two miles of wharves. One of the landmarks on the waterfront today is the LeNoir Forge, a stone building used in marine construction in the days when five shipyards were in operation. It began with a blacksmith shop which Thomas LeNoir built in 1811.

The American Civil War provided a great boost to the local economy as ships from Arichat carried much-needed coal to New England from Sydney and Pictou. Although the fisheries kept sailing ships in prominence till the end of the nineteenth century, the handwriting was on the wall for the economy of Isle Madame. The advent of steam-powered and steel-hulled ships led to Arichat's subsequent decline as an important commercial centre.

A number of milestones in the development of Arichat are worth noting. A court house was built in 1814, and a post office established in 1824. By 1851 there was a lighthouse on Jerseyman's Island in Arichat Harbour. The Arichat Seminary, the forerunner of St. Francis Xavier University, opened in 1853, and subsequently was moved to Antigonish. Beginning in 1897 "The Richmond County Record" became the voice of Arichat, for many years published by Bertrom Bourinot and later by his son Marshall Bourinot. Publication continued until the 1970's. In 1911 the first govemment wharf was constructed at Arichat.

Most of the early families that arrived in the Arichat area, no matter what their origins, were by necessity self-sustaining and multi-occupational -- they were engaged in a mixture of farming, fishing and forestry. In addition, the pioneer women made blankets and clothing from sheep's wool, and the young people were involved in berry picking. For many years the Duke of York Cranberry Meadow provided employment to pickers at the Latimer farm on Grandique Road.

During the 1930's and 1940's, the magnificent sum of 10 cents could be earned for every box picked. The cranberries from this operation were shipped across Canada, the United States and beyond.

The religious needs of Arichat families were met by three church bodies -- the Roman Catholic (serving the French and Irish), the Church of England (serving the English and the Channel Islanders) and the Presbyterian (serving the Scottish). Notre Dame de l'Assumption, established in 1756, was the frst church constructed in Isle Madame. After a fire, it was rebuilt in 1837. At different times, there was in Arichat a community of Christian brothers and a convent of nuns, both involved in educational ministries. In addition to Notre Dame, other Roman Catholic churches on Isle Madame were located at Petit de Grat, D'Escousse and West Arichat.

The educational needs of the children were met by at least thirteen different schools located around Isle Madame, with the earliest being at Arichat and D'Escousse, both established in 1828. Because of the severe winter weather and poor roads, school terms were offen much shorter than today, and students frequently had to walk up to five miles to reach their school. Initially, Isle Madame could only be reached from mainland Cape Breton by boat or scow. Transportation was greatly enhanced in 1919 when a drawbridge was completed at Lennox Passage, with horse power used to swing the bridge whenever a boat passed through the channel.

2. ENGLISH AND CHANNEL ISLAND SETTLEMENT

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The English families of Arichat included both the English settlers who came out from southern Britain and the Channel Islanders, who spoke both English and French. In the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries, the fishing industry brought many families from the islands of Jersey and Guernsey. Most were of Norman French extraction, and by religious conviction were Protestant Huguenots. Ultimately they chose to become members of the Church of England.

The foundation of Arichat's early prosperity had been laid by a man who came out from the island of Jersey. In 1764, after the fall of Louisbourg and the expulsion of the Acadians, Charles Robin arrived on Isle Madame and founded the first fish plant at Arichat. He initially settled on Jerseyman's Island at the mouth of the harbour, and established his fishing business there. The business prospered but there were also setbacks. During the Revolutionary War, John Robin's establishment at Jerseyman's Island was sacked and burned by the notorious American privateer John Paul Jones. Undaunted, Robin rebuilt, this time on the south side of the harbour at Cape Auget. More fishing families came out from Jersey, Guernsey and the Bristol area of England. By 1776 the population of Arichat had climbed to over 250.

Charles and John Robin were very hard taskmasters, requiring their workers to serve for two years before they were allowed to bring out their wives and families to Cape Breton. The Robin company ships were manned by Acadians and Channel Islanders, and in time the fleet increased to thirty vessels. By 1839 Arichat was a bustling port with 200 ships based there. Cod, haddock and swordfish were the principal catches. Eventually, lobster packing plants were established, and operated by such families as the Loggies, Duffs and Nevilles. The Robin company is still in business in Cape Breton today, some 235 years after its founding, operating in Cheticamp and Invemess under the name of Robin Jones and Whitman Inc.

St. John's Anglican Church was founded by Jersey settlers in 1828. In that year the Rev. James Allen Shaw, a native of Dumbartonshire, Scotland, became the first Protestant minister on Isle Madame. The original structure was ultimately replaced in 1895, and is still in use today. Among the principal family names of the early Channel Islanders were Robin, Janvrin, DeCarteret, Beaudrot, Cutler, Fixott, Forrest, Gruchy, Hubert, Luce, Malzard, Broussard, Rideout, Barrett and Ballam. Other families whose names may still be found on Isle Madame today (based on names listed in the current telephone directory) are Jean, Amey, Binet, Bourinot, Dorey, LeLacheur, LeVesconte and Mauger. This represents less than 40 % of the original list of families from the Channel Islands. Families which identified themselves as English, according to the 1871 census, were Edwards, Gibbs, Nichols, White, Wilson and Brusheff.

Many Channel Islanders were prosperous merchants in Arichat. In addition to the Robins, there were also the Jeans, Janvrins and Huberts. Others, like me LeVescontes and DeCarterets, were leaders in the fishing industry.

3. IRISH SETTLEMENT
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British families have always been a small minority in a sea of French on Isle Madame. Of the fhree principal groups of British immigrants, the Irish were slightly more populous than the English and the Scottish settlers at the time of the 1881 census. Irish families came from both northem and southern Ireland. The Irish settlers seldom came straight from Ireland to Isle Madame. Some came via Newfoundland and other parts of eastern British North America. They offen avoided the major ports where they would have had to reckon with immigration officials and red tape.

In the early nineteenth century there was a sharp increase in the population of Ireland. In 1815 six million Irish were surviving on thirteen million acres of workable land, which was mainly farmed by backward and unproductive methods. By 1821 Ireland had more mouths to feed per square mile than any other country in Europe. Farms were subdivided to the point where eventually, thousands of tennant farmers were dispossessed, and began to look elsewhere to make a living. Many chose to emigrate to Nova Scotia.

Greedy ship owners found a practical and lucrative use for the ships which were returning to Canada empty affer delivering their loads of timber to Britain. They lined both sides of the ships and down the centre with double tiers of six foot square bunks, and filled them with emigrants. All too offen, old battered sailing hulks, with hatches battened down, were crowded with sick, under-nourished immigrants. In the year of the Irish potato famine, sixteen percent of these immigrants died miserably at sea.

Some of the shipmasters who carried immigrants were unbelievably callous. One of them, out of Galway, forced about sixty of his poorest and most sickly passengers to land on an uninhabited Nova Scotia shoreline. The local inhabitants were appalled to see these wretched stragglers wandering thropugh the countryside with no idea where they were going and without money or provisions of any kind. The locals did what they could to help them till they found a place to settle.

The Irish settlement of Isle Madame was spearheaded by Lawrence Kavanagh (sometime spelled with a "C" instead of a "K') when he secured a hundred acre grant at Rocky Bay and moved there from Louisbourg. Before long, Rocky Bay became literally an Irish enclave. The Irish of Isle Madame in time acquired a reputation for being scrappers, and political meetings and weekend dances were usually occasions for fights between the Acadians and the Irish. In time, there was inter-marriage between the two groups. If the wife was Irish, she usually moved to the French neighbourhood, and the children grew up in the Acadian culture. If a French wife married an Irish fisherman, the children tended to follow her culture because of the father's long absences at sea. Gradually, many of the Irish families were assimilated into the dominant culture.

Early Irish family names in Arichat were Brennan, Scanlon, Walsh, Dunphy and Parker, and in Rocky Bay, Boyle, Foley, Flynn, Kelly, Kenny and Kent. Among those names surviving today in Arichat (based on the telephone directory) are Britten, Joyce, Madden, Roach, Shannon, Burke, Callahan, Keoughan, Green, McGrath, Malloy, Power and Linden, and in Rocky Bay, Doyle, Hearn, Cavanagh, Keating, Kehoe and Stone.

Although the Irish pioneered many settlements, such as Grandique, most were eventually absorbed into the French community. However, a number of Irish families did prosper. Lawrence Kavanagh became a well-to-do shipbuilder. P. C. Brennan was a successful Arichat merchant and trader. John Walsh and Nicholas Doyle were respected school teachers. John Joyce operated a busy fish market. Many Irishmen also served in the militia, as well as in the fishing trade. The Dunphy family operated a successful sawmill at Pondville. Father William Phalen, a Roman Catholic priest of Irish extraction who went to Arichat in 1786, was the first clergyman of any denomination who was a regular resident of the community.

4. SCOTTISH SETTLEMENT
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The extensive Scottish migration of the nineteenth century to Cape Breton was precipitated by significant social and economic changes which were taking place in northern Britain. These included the agricultural and industrial revolution, poor land, high rent, and the depression which followed the end of the Napoleonic War. Scottish crofters and cottars were squeezed off their land, and handloom weavers were put out of business by the factory system. They came to Cape Breton hoping to improve their circumstances. Lots were settled, forest was cleared and family farms were created. These in time provided a modest but relatively secure living. Those who had frontland farms -- bordering on lakes or rivers -- did better than did those in the backland regions.

In 1774 the population of Cape Breton was 1012 of whom 502 were Acadian, 206 Irish, and the remainder were English, including the Channel Islanders. At that time, there were not a dozen Scots in the whole of Cape Breton. In 1801 the population of the island stood at 2513. In 1802 the first Scottish immigrants came to Cape Breton from Scotland, with the arrival of 299 in Sydney. There is no further record of immigration until 1817 when "The Hope" and "The William Tell" arrived at Sydney with 382 from the island of Barra. By 1815 the population of Cape Breton had increased to 6,000, by 1827 to 18,700, by 1838 to 35,420, and by 1861 to 63,000. A majority of these citizens of Cape Breton were from the highlands and western islands of Scotland.

The immigrants often arrived in areas such as Isle Madame penniless and with little food, clothing or equipment to face the privations of a harsh Canadian winter. The Nova Scotia government had to come to their aid by providing necessary relief money, flour, potatoes and seed. Frequently within a few years of settlement, crop failure reduced many families to the starvation level. According to government records in 1871, the national origins of the population of Richmond County were given as follows: French 6,965, Scottish 4,902, Irish 1,437 and Others 964 making a Total of 14,268. Immigration records in the nineteenth century were very poorly maintained, and the actual population increases were always greater than the recorded entries into the country.

A Scottish Presbyterian Church was built in Arichat in the late 1800's, but the congregation was small and when the congregation was unable to afford to keep a minister, services ceased. The large church building, which had a high tower and was located directly below the Alphonse Boudreau property, was sold to a farmer for stable and storage, and ultimately was torn down.

Names of Scottish families which still survive in the Arichat area today are Campbell, Elliott, Hill, Lawrence, MacDonald, MacNeil, Murray, Skinner and Stewart. Scottish families that once played a prominent part in the life of Isle Madame but no longer reside there include the Robertsons, Shaws, McPhersons and Dixons.

5. TRACING ROOTS -- AN ONGOING CHALLENGE
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Tracing one's own family roots is not an easy task. Checking out the roots of many families is even harder. It is diffcult to adequately deal with such a large subject as British Families in the Arichat area within the relatively brief span of a single presentation. I encountered a great deal of information in my research that it was not possible to incorporate into this address. Likewise, a great deal more information exists out there, of which the sufface has hardly been scratched.

In my readings, I came across many Isle Madame names which I have not yet been able, with any degree of certainty, to identify as specifically English, Irish, Scottish or French. That is because some families with common names may be found all over the British Isles, including the Channel Islands (which were originally French). In addition, other families whom we might tend to think of, for instance, as Scottish have listed themselves as English according to the census, perhaps thinking that the category pertained to language rather than national origin. Another problem, is the wide variation that is found in the spelling of family names. For instance I have come across sixteen different spellings of the name "Latimer".

Following are a few of the names currently in limbo in my records; in other words, I have no idea whether to classify them as English, Irish, Scottish or French. The names include Babin, Bowen, Diggdon, George, Joshua, DeBaie, DeCoste, DeLorey, DeWolfe, DeYoung, Mury, Pardy, Short and Tyrrel. If there are persons present here today who know the national origins of any by these families who came to Isle Madame, I would be grateful for the information.

In closing I would like to share with you an example of the problem of tracing roots based on the experience of the Latimer family. My great, great grandfather Charles Frederick Latimer came to Arichat sometime in the early 1800's. He married a Channel Islander Jane Dorey and they raised eight children in Arichat. For some reason -- never explained but perhaps job-related -they moved to New York where he became a wealthy entrepreneur, but lost his fortune when the economic bubble burst. He died there in 1838, and Jane and family retumed to Isle Madame, where she taught school, married a McPherson and had two more children.

I have in my possession the old family Bible which was owned by my great grandfather. In it there was a piece of paper on which was written in large, neat script "Charles Frederick Latimer, bom Glasgow, Scotland, died August 4, 1838 in New York City". Based on that one piece of evidence, I and hundreds of other Nova Scotia Latimers have spent our lives rejoicing in our Scottish roots. All attempts to uncover a birth record or immigration record for our great, great grandfather have ended in failure -- including a trip to the registry office in Glasgow.

Finally this year my brother David of Connecticut and I decided to check out the records of the Latter Day Saints Central Family Library in Utah. Last February we went to the local Mormon Church in West Hartford and requested a search of the burial records of New York City for August 1938. The information, when it came back, exploded on the family like a bombshell. We found that the Isle Madame Latimers weren't Scottish at all; they were Irish ! The records revealed that Charles F. Latimer, a resident of 106 Madison Avenue, died August 6, 1838 at the age of 51 of Cholera Marlius and was buried in Potter’s Field -- a graveyard for the penniless. His place of birth was given as Ireland, but we have no idea in what part of the Emerald Isle we should begin the search for our long-lost cousins.

Several weeks after we received this information, I got a fax from brother Dave in which he said: "I find that since I discovered I'm Irish, I'm a lot more easy-going and fun-loving" Others of the family are having a harder time making the cultural adjustment. The bottom line is that the task of tracing one's family roots– with all its ups and downs -- is never finished; it's the work of a lifetime. It has its frustrations, but the rewards are infinitely greater.

* "Cape Breton, Canada" by C. W. Veron

* "Cape Breton Over" by Clara Dennis

* "British Immigration Before Confederation" by Helen I. Cowan

* "Immigration to and Immigration from Nova Scotia" by N. S. Public Archives

* "Cape Breton Historical Essays" edited by D. Macgillivray and Brian Tennyson
(published by U. C. C. B. Press, 1980)

* "Myth, Migration and the Making of Memory" edited by M. Harper & M. E. Vance
(published by Gorsebrook Institute 1999)

* "The Irish in Cape Breton" by A. A. MacKenzie
(published by FORMAC 1979)

* "Echoes of the Past" by Donalda MacDonald
(published by Richmond Print 1988)

* "Latimer Family History" by R. S. Latimer
(published by LCS 1994)

[I also acknowledge the valuable insights on family origins provided by Jim St. Clair of Mull River, Cape Breton's foremost authority on genealogy, geography, family and place names]