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Stephen Higginson Tells Fish Stories To Parliament In 1771 and Gets Arrested For It

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In 1771, the British government desperately needed to know how American colonists felt about fishing policies. Stephen Higginson filled them in, and almost got jailed as a traitor because of it.

Stephen Higginson served in many capacities during the American Revolution and the formative years of the country – military leader, representative to Congress and political intriguer.

Higginson was born in Salem, Mass., in 1743 into a family of politicians and clergymen. Well-connected, his single act of rebellion against his place in society seems to be his decision to marry Susannah Cleveland, his second cousin from Connecticut. As their families opposed the marriage (probably because of their youth), the couple ran away to New Hampshire to marry in 1764.

After returning to Salem, Higginson took up his position as a merchant trader, same as his father. He set up a home near East India Square in Salem across from the Lafayette Coffee House. Armed with introductions from his well-connected father, he sailed to England in 1771.

Stephen Higginson in London

Etching of Stephen Higginson

Stephen Higginson

In England, Higginson had his first critical brush with politics. Higginson, on his travels in England to introduce himself to his trading partners, found himself summoned before Parliament to answer to an investigation about New England’s fisheries.

Higginson’s testimony gave a picture of how large and vital cod fishing was to the New England economy.

Seven hundred fishing vessels, most between 40 and 70 tons, worked the waters off New England fishing for cod. It took more than 4,000 people to man those vessels, Higginson estimated. Another 2,000 worked on shore, curing and preparing the catch for sale. And another 350 vessels, employing another 3,000 people, transported the fish to market.

Between 1768 and 1772, fish accounted for 35 percent of all New England exports by value. But the interests of the English and their American colonies often diverged when it came to codfish.

Fishing schooners

American fish fed slaves in the West Indies and Catholics in Europe. This resulted in New England fishermen trading with the French, importing French sugar, rum and molasses, as well as trading directly with the French in Newfoundland. Britain implemented a series of tariffs to limit New England fishermen’s ability to trade with the French, preferring to keep such trade for Englishmen.

By 1771, the arguing over the New England fishery had gone on for 40 years, and Britain’s Navy actively seized American fishing vessels caught trading with the French. Edmund Burke, a member of  Parliament who sympathized with the colonists and their position, summoned Higginson to testify.

Stephen Higginson Testifies

The British, as usual, were concerned that New England was trading too much with Spain and France, rather than England.

Higginson explained that Britain remained New England’s primary trading partner. He suggested that restricting New England trade would result in the region being unable to pay its debts to English companies.

In particular, the Parliament questioned what New England fishermen would do if the government closed the fishery entirely.

A partial transcript of his testimony:

Under Questioning

Q. What would these people do if the Fishery was stopped?

A. I can’t readily resolve that question. I suppose they would remain where they are as long as they could subsist in hopes of being engaged in their old employment.

Q. But when that hope failed and they could no longer subsist?

A. Then they will probably go elsewhere?

Q. Whether they would settle at Halifax?

A. In general I think not … the Fishermen in Salem and other Towns are a very quiet and steady set of men They esteem the people of Halifax to be dissolute and of a quite contrary turn. I think therefore they would not sit down among a people so different in their manners. Another reason is that they think the Government of Halifax is arbitrary and have a terrible notion of it. Another, those who have been there have disliked the country very much as being inhospitable.

Q. Would they go to Miguelon and St Pierre and fish for France?

A. Don t think they would generally. From Marblehead some perhaps would.

Q. Why would they from thence?

A. Because the people there are of various nations Spaniards, Portuguese and Dutch, but the others are born in the towns where they live, have tenements and freeholds there and would not leave their place of abode, I conceive.

Return of the Traitor

News of Higginson’s appearance before Parliament spread, and upon his return to Marblehead, the colonial authorities arrested him on suspicion of traitorous conduct. Higginson had walked a fine line in Parliament, both continuing to state the American case for greater freedom in operating the fishery while defending the loyalty of the colonists.

Fortunately for his sake, Higginson had brought a detailed account of his testimony home with him. When he presented what he had said, the colonial authorities reversed themselves and praised him for his poise and presentation.

Into the History Books

During the American Revolution, Higginson ran his ships as privateers, and in 1783 Massachusetts elected him to the Continental Congress. Following the war, he participated in the military force that put down Shay’s Rebellion in 1786 and 1787.

Higginson’s most well-known legacy involves his opposition to John Hancock, during Hancock’s term as governor of Massachusetts. Higginson was a firm Federalist, along with John Adams and many others. The Federalists wanted a strong central government, and they were opposed by the Anti-Federalists who wanted the states to retain more power in the new country that they were forming.

John Hancock, meanwhile, had become something of a political chameleon. He managed to win support from enough Federalists and Anti-Federalists to serve as governor.

Stephen Higginson led probably the harshest attack on Hancock, though there were many. He published the “Laco Papers” in a newspaper, castigating Hancock for a weak military record during the Revolution. He called into question Hancock’s fitness to serve, as well as the alliances he had struck with his opponents, including Samuel Adams. In addition to printing the letters in a newspaper, under the pseudonym Laco, he also had them bound and distributed.

The Laco Papers had  a remarkable effect, though not the one Higginson intended. Historians agree that the publication most likely generated sympathy for Hancock and helped extend his political reign.

Thanks to: Life and Times of Stephen Higginson, Member of the Continental Congress (1783)

Images: Stephen Higginson, Delegate to Continental Congress, New York Public Library, Max Rosenthal(Etcher)

Postcard of fishing vessels at the Portland Dock, Maine, c. 1908.

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Rodman and Ruth Law Take Their Sibling Rivalry to Crazy Heights

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Rodman and Ruth Law rocketed to fame just before World War I with daredevil movie stunts and breathtaking aeronautical feats. Their father attributed their success to the strong strain of sailor blood that ran through the family.

Rodman, nicknamed the Unkillable Actor, starred in feature films. Ruth, called the Queen of the Sky, smashed height and distance records set by men.

Their father, Frederick Law, told a newspaper in 1919 that the Laws of New England were noted for their fearlessness in the rigging during the days of sail.

Rodman and Ruth Law.

Rodman Law was born Jan. 21, 1885 in Lynn, Mass. Ruth Bancroft Law came two years later, on May 21, 1887. Even as small children, they brought their father and mother, Sarah Bancroft Breed, to the verge of prostration.

“Rodman and Ruth always were daring one another to do something dangerous. If they were not jumping from a barn or climbing a tall tree they were riding our cattle or doing something equally hair-raising,” their father said.

Rodman Law

As a young man, Rodman worked as a sailor, a detective, an ironworker and a circus rider, but his work as a steeplejack launched him on his path to fame and fortune. In 1909, on a bet with another steeplejack, he climbed the Flatiron Building in New York with his bare hands.

He kept performing daredevil stunts even after he married Florence Kimball. To his wife’s dismay, life insurers wouldn’t cover him. They had three children and lived in Brooklyn.

In 1912 he walked into the Pathe film production company offices in Jersey City and suggested they film him parachuting off the Statue of Liberty.

Rodman Law in 1917

Pathe was then a two-year-old company hungry to fill its silent newsreels. A Pathe executive saw the possibilities in the daredevil stunt and agreed, according to Jacob Smith in The Thrill Makers: Celebrity, Masculinity, and Stunt Performance.

On Feb. 12, 1912, Rodman Law and an assistant climbed to the top of Lady Liberty’s arm. A small crowd of cameramen, reporters and photographers watched from below. Law, who had never used a parachute before, stepped outside the rail and noticed his assistant crying.

Then he looked down. “I must admit that just then I didn’t enjoy the prospect of dropping 345 feet,” he recalled. But he jumped anyway, his chute opened and he landed unhurt on the cold ground. Newspapers and newsreels brought his thrilling stunt to an eager audience around the country.

A film star was born.

Ruth Law

Five months after Rodman jumped off the Statue of Liberty, little sister Ruth flew a plane for the first time. She had tried to enroll in the Wright brothers flying school, but Orville refused her because of her sex. He sold her an airplane, though, a 26-foot-long Wright Model B, which could reach speeds of 45 mph.

She took flying lessons from the Burgess Company in Marblehead, Mass. In August she soloed and in November she earned her commercial pilot’s license. She also took lessons from a German mechanic so she could fix her own plane.

Ruth Law in Daytona Beach

Ruth then went to work in Florida ferrying passengers from the Sea Breeze Hotel and barnstorming in aerial exhibitions.

Her father first saw her fly in an aerial show in Columbus, Ohio. He almost fainted. “I had to hang on to a fence,” he said.

The Unkillable Actor

In one of Ruth’s exhibition flights, she had a passenger – Rodman. Of course he jumped out of the plane. The Ryno Film company recorded the jump, during which he dislocated his neck.

Rodman had quickly made a name for himself, first appearing in newsreels about his exploits and then in feature films as a stunt performer. He scaled skyscrapers and climbed across a ravine on a 250-foot cable. He jumped off the Brooklyn Bridge, and his parachute didn’t open until his feet nearly touched the East River.

In 1913, Rodman climbed into the nose of a 44-foot skyrocket loaded with 900 pounds of gunpowder. He planned to shoot himself into the air and parachute to earth. Instead, the rocket blew up and threw him 30 feet, burning him badly and knocking him unconscious.

Rodman the year before had starred in a feature film, At the Risk of His Life. The next year he appeared in the Daredevil Mountaineer, followed by Fighting Death. His daring stunts earned him the nickname “The Unkillable Actor.”

His father disapproved. “I could not see why he should risk his life merely to send cold chills down the backs of spectators and to please ‘movie’ men,” he later said in a 1919 newspaper interview.

The reason was simple: He was making scads of money. And spending it as fast as he made it.

Ruth Law, Queen of the Air

In 1915, Ruth became the first woman to perform an aerial loop the loop—like her brother, on a bet. On the morning of November 19, she took off from Chicago in her new plane, a Curtiss Pusher, and headed to New York. She intended to reach the city in a day, something no aviator had ever done.

People didn’t think she’d make it. No woman could withstand the cold or the long hours in the cramped, exposed cockpit. Plus she got a late start when a strong wind prevented her departure from Grant Park until 8:25 a.m. And in a scene that her brother would recognize, her mechanic started crying as she prepared to take off in her tiny wire-and-stick biplane.

She barely got off the ground in the gusting Chicago winds, but she then flew 590 miles without a stop.  At 2:10 p.m., she landed in Hornell, N.Y., smashing the record of 452 miles of continuous flight.

On the ground in Hornell, Ruth was so numb with cold she had to be helped into a waiting automobile. But she ate lunch while her plane was refueled, and then took off from Hornell. Her late start cost her, though, and it got so dark she had to land in Binghamton at 4:20 p.m. She tied her plane to a tree, asked a policeman to watch it and checked into a hotel.

Little Girl

The next morning she took off for New York City, encountering fog so thick she sometimes couldn’t identify any landmarks. She found the Hudson River as she started to run out of fuel, so she glided the last few miles. Finally she landed on Governors Island, where Gen. Leonard Wood and a large crowd greeted her.

“Well done, little girl, you’ve beaten them all,” Wood said to the 29-year-old woman. “We all feel proud of you.”

Arriving on Governors Island

She won a $2,500 prize for breaking the cross-country nonstop record, having gone 884 miles in 8 hours, 55 minutes, something no man or woman had done in America.

Now Ruth was a star, too. She continued to barnstorm and by 1917 she was making as much as $9,000 a week for her stunt flying.

Not So Unkillable

Rodman Law’s career had more or less ended by then. In 1914, he injured himself while parachuting from a balloon in Trenton, N.J.

“Rodman Law, the daredevil aviator whose hazardous feats have thrilled thousands throughout the country, is now paying the price of his recklessness,” reported the Brooklyn Daily Eagle on Feb. 22, 1917.

What money he hadn’t squandered he spent on hospital bills. He had to give up his big home in Brooklyn and move his wife and three children to a furnished rooming house.

Eventually he recovered enough to join the Army Aviation Corps during World War I. He contracted tuberculosis while in the Army. Rodman Law, the unkillable actor, died Oct. 14, 1919 at the age of 34 in a hospital bed in Greenville, S.C.

Ruth Law Returns to Earth

When the United States entered the war, Ruth declared her ambition to join the Army Aviation Corps as well. But the Secretary of War refused to give her a commission. He said, [it would] “let down the bars to women in the United States to seek commissions in the army.”

So Ruth Law instead performed aerial stunts for crowds to raise money for war bonds and the Red Cross. The army allowed her to wear a non-commissioned officer uniform as she flew around the Statue of Liberty and down Pennsylvania Avenue in Washington, D.C. She dropped Liberty Bond pamphlet bombs from her plane.

After the war, she returned to the barnstorming circuit. She started a flight school in Miami and formed Ruth Law’s Flying Circus. Her little aerial circus – a troupe of three planes – thrilled audiences at county fairs and race tracks. They raced cars, flew through fireworks and did stunts like wing walks, plane-to-plane transfers and loop the loops.

The stunts got increasingly dangerous, and in October 1921 a young stuntwoman died in an accident.

Ruth had married a mechanic and motorcycle racer, Charles Augustus Oliver. He supported her flying career—up until that point.

“It’s my husband’s turn now, I’ve been on the limelight long enough, I’m going to let him run things hereafter and me, too,” she told a newspaper reporter.

They moved to Beverly Hills, where she had a nervous breakdown 10 years later. In 1946, they moved to San Francisco. Charles died the next year.

Ruth Law died on December 5, 1970, and was buried in Pine Grove Cemetery in Lynn, Mass.

With thanks to Ruth Law–Queen of the Air: Challenging Stereotypes and Inspiring a Nation by Billie Holladay Skelley and Jacob Smith in The Thrill Makers: Celebrity, Masculinity, and Stunt Performance. This story last updated in 2022.

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The 1790 Census: New England by the Numbers

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Just after the American Revolution, Gilmanton, N.H., ranked as the 30th biggest municipality in the United States. The Lakes Region town was bigger than Pittsburgh, Portland, Raleigh, Trenton, Louisville, Cincinnati and Savannah, according to the 1790 census.

New Hampshire, in fact, had four towns among the 30 largest in the country, including Londonderry, Portsmouth and Rochester. Only four New England states belonged to the union then, but they were home to 19 of the 30 biggest cities and towns in the country. Back then, one in four U.S. citizens lived in New England.

The region’s power and influence in the early Republic can be inferred from the 1790 census, the first taken in the United States. It didn’t last long. The westward migration had already begun in 1787, from a minister’s house in Ipswich, Mass. As people migrated west for land and opportunity, new cities and towns began to eclipse those of New England.

Maj. Gen. Henry Dearborn served as U.S. Marshal for Maine during the 1790 census. Painting by Gilbert Stuart.

The 1790 Census

In 1790, there were 93,000 people living in Connecticut, New Hampshire, Rhode Island and Massachusetts, including the District of Maine. A year after the federal government took the 1790 census, 86,000 Vermonters officially joined New England.

Massachusetts alone held nearly 10 percent of the U.S. population, and Boston ranked as the third biggest municipality. Only New York and Philadelphia had more people. Census takers counted Boston’s population at 18,320 — about the size of contemporary Hopkinton, Mass.

Jonathan Jackson served as U.S. Marshal for Massachusetts during the 1790 census.

Today, only 2.1 percent of the U.S. population lives in Massachusetts, and Boston has slipped to the 24th biggest city.

Census taking in 1790 was an inexact science. Congress ordered U.S. marshals to take it. Each state had only one marshal, so the marshal appointed assistants to count people. The 650 enumerators had nine months to collect the data and post the results in two public places. Then they stored the results in the federal courthouse.

The U.S. marshals in New England included Maj. Gen. Henry Dearborn for Maine, Jonathan Jackson for Massachusetts, John Parker for New Hampshire, William Peck for Rhode Island and Philip Bradley for Connecticut.

Presidents George Washington and Thomas Jefferson both questioned whether the census could count everyone. During a time of difficult travel and communication, the enumerators probably missed some people. And they deliberately missed all Indians not taxed, for example.

In the end, the census takers managed to count just under 4 million people.

1790-census-pitcher

A pitcher commemorating the 1790 census

Urban vs. Rural

The vast majority of Americans lived in the country in 1790. New Hampshire was one of the more urban states, with more towns in the Top 30 rankings than Connecticut, which only had New Haven and Hartford. New Hampshire, in fact, had more municipalities in the Top 30 than Pennsylvania, which had almost three times the population.

Today, New Hampshire’s biggest city – Manchester – ranks 259th, the only New Hampshire municipality among the top 300 U.S. cities.

Massachusetts was similarly urban, though some towns had not yet started to grow into cities – Worcester, Springfield and Fall River, for example, were all smaller than Gilmanton, N.H. Lowell didn’t even exist.

But the towns in Massachusetts that ranked in the top 30 might surprise you. In ascending order, they were Plymouth, Beverly, New Bedford, Taunton, Middleborough, Sherburne, Newburyport, Gloucester, Marblehead and Salem. Salem was bigger than Richmond, Va., and Albany, N.Y. Middleborough, Mass., was also bigger than Albany.

New England, in fact, had five of the 10 largest urban places in the United States: Boston, Salem, Mass.; Newport, R.I.; Providence, R.I., and Marblehead, Mass.

Connecticut had a significantly more rural character then than it does now. New Hampshire’s population was denser, especially along the southern border. The Connecticut towns of Stamford, Waterbury and Danbury had fewer people than Gilmanton. Bridgeport, now Connecticut’s biggest city, wouldn’t incorporate for another 30 years.

Westward Ho!

The center of the U.S. population has steadily moved west and slightly south, as people migrated and new states joined the union. New England’s presence steadily declined.

Ten years after the 1790 census, only 15 New England cities ranked in the top 30, despite having added Vermont. And in 1820, New England had just 13 of the biggest cities and towns.

In 1790, Massachusetts had 9.7 percent of the U.S. population. Twenty years later it had only 6.5 percent, as four states had joined the union. And in 229 years, the Bay State has slipped from fourth to 15th place.

Gilmanton has grown a little from its base of 2,613 in 1790, when it had an ironworks and a half-dozen villages and parishes. In 2017, 3,734 lived in the town. But Gilmanton never again appeared on the list of the top 30 cities and towns in the United States.

For a list of the Top 30 cities, click here.


This story was updated in 2021. 

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Salem Chop Suey Sandwiches, A Sign of Summer Again

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Chop suey sandwiches have marked the beginning of summer for generations of people who grew up on the North Shore of Massachusetts. Vendors once sold the beloved cheap treat throughout New England and as far south as Coney Island in New York.

They’ve been sold at the Salem Willows seaside park since the early 1900s. And then the last restaurant that sold them, Salem Lowe. closed its doors in 2022.

But like a phoenix rising from the ashes, the North Shore Chinese restaurant in Salem Willows Park reopened in 2023. The Salem News reported the happy development:

Meet the new Salem Lowe, bringing chop suey and pepper steak back this April under new ownership.

 

salem-chop-suey-lowes

Salem Lowe, courtesy Google maps.

The chop suey sandwich is a cheap and filling concoction of roast pork or chicken, onions, celery and bean sprouts cooked in a thickened soy gravy and served on a hamburger bun. It is not to be confused with the Fall River chow mein sandwich, which lack bean sprouts and, often, meat. Chow mein noodles are an option on the chop suey sandwich, but required on the chow mein sandwich.

The Salem Lowe restaurant served the chop suey sandwich in bread rolled into a cone and wrapped in wax paper. According to the Roadfood blog, you had a choice of  your sandwich in a take-out container or in a paper cone. “The cones are designed for eating while strolling, which is what you should do,” reported Roadfood.

“If there were a Nobel Prize for food stuffs, one would surely have been awarded to the culinary genius at Salem Lowe that created the chop suey sandwich,” wrote one reviewer on Yelp. “Forget radiology, penicillin and world peace: this deliciously salty sandwich has done more for humanity than those things combined.”

Chop Suey Sandwiches

Chinese immigrant cooks started restaurants and lunch wagons near mills, schools and amusement parks. They tailored their food to local tastes. Foods like chow mein and chop suey, with soft vegetables in a brown sauce, resembled Yankee cooking. Add bread and you had a cheap and filling Asian fusion food – also known as “cheap Chinese.”

Salem Willows Historic District

Salem Willows Historic District

Salem Willows was an ideal location for the chop suey sandwich. It was developed around 1875, at the same time the Salem Willows resort community (now a historic district) was built. The park and the cottage district were named for the European white willow trees planted in 1801 along a walkway for smallpox patients at a nearby hospital.

Streetcars brought hordes of day trippers attracted by the beaches, the casino, the pavilion and the carousel. They flocked to Restaurant Row, where celebrated eateries served fresh seafood. One by one the eating places succumbed to fire and changing demographics.

salem-chop-suey-salem-willows

Entrance to Salem Willows, courtesy Google Maps.

The last restaurant on Restaurant Row closed in the 1960s, but Salem Lowe still soldiered on with the chop suey sandwiches. (E.W. Hobbs also serves much- loved popcorn, but that’s a story for another day.) But owner David Yee said it’s time for him to retire.

An online exhibit of Salem food linked to Salem State University dates Salem Lowe from ca. 1912. The reasoning: the menu refers to itself as a ‘bill of fare,’ a term not used after 1914. Salem, notes the author, played an important role in the old China trade, which began in 1783. Yee told Boston.com his father had bought into the business in the 1960s.

Nostalgia

Today, Salem Willows still has the carousel and several arcades, one containing a few rides. Two small beaches are popular for watching July 4th fireworks from Salem, Beverly and Marblehead.

chop suey sandwich willows beach

The North Shore inspires a strong sense of nostalgia among those who grew up there. Some say you can’t call yourself a native if you haven’t had the chop suey sandwich at Salem Willows. Brunonia Barry captured that devotion in her novel the Lace Reader, in which the fictional detective eats chop suey sandwiches at least once a day.

Devotees flocked to Salem Lowe on Aug. 12, 2022, the Friday before its last weekend. The Salem News reported,

The window opened Friday to a line that was already more than 50 people deep. By 11:45 a.m., 60 were lined up. By 12:15 p.m., 82. Soon, the line nearly ran the length of the Willows strip, crossing ice cream windows and arcade entrances along the way.

Woodman’s, famous for its fried clams in nearby Essex, Mass., offers a recipe for making your own chop suey in The Woodmans Restaurant blog.

Photo: Salem Willows Historic District, By Fletcher6 – Own work, CC BY-SA 3.0, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=11752323.

This story about chop suey sandwiches was updated in 2023.

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The Hope and Despair of Acadian Exiles, 1755-1766

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In the winter of 1755, two Marshfield, Mass., selectmen knocked on the door of the Michel family, seven Acadian exiles. They brought bad news: The two oldest sons, 23-year-old Francis and 15-year-old Paul, had to go into involuntary servitude. Francis would work for a farmer, Paul as a sailor, though he suffered from debilitating seasickness.

New England had no love for the French families living among them. But the French families — Acadian exiles — had no choice because the British had resettled them there by force.

Acadian Exiles

When the French and Indian War raged in  Nova Scotia, French families refused to take a loyalty oath to the British ended up in exile. The Acadian refugees who landed in Puritan New England bore the stigma of their Catholic religion — and of their poverty.

Beginning in 1755, the British took nearly 10,000 Acadians  from their homes and forcibly deported them to the British colonies and to England. They confiscated or burned the Acadian exiles’ houses and farms, and deliberately separated families.

The colonies, Massachusetts and Connecticut, treated the Acadian exiles like prisoners of war. They could not practice their religion, nor could they move from town to town.

The Michel family had more luck than most. They survived the disease-ridden voyage to Boston, and the family stayed together.  The two eldest sons threw off their indentures and worked for wages.  The town even helped feed and shelter them.

French and Indian War

Map of Acadia

Map of Acadia

For many years the French and British fought over Acadia. The region included Nova Scotia, Prince Edward Island, New Brunswick, parts of southern Quebec and northern Maine.

By 1713 the British took control and demanded loyalty from Acadians. Most refused, earning the nickname “French Neutrals.” That posed a problem for the British, since the French far outnumbered them in Acadia.

Gov. William Shirley

Massachusetts officials also worried about the Acadians. Gov. William Shirley feared for the safety of Massachusetts merchants and sailors in Acadian waters. Usually three or four boats from Boston anchored there at a time.

In 1751, the French began to build Fort Beausejour in nearby New Brunswick. Shirley began recruiting forces to kick them out of Acadia. Troops that left Boston in May of 1755 captured Fort Beausejour in June.

Le Grand Derangement

Illustration of the Acadians listening to the deportation order.

On Sept. 5, 1755, the expulsion of the Acadians began.  The British announced they would seize the homes and property of the French Neutrals. The Acadians called it Le Grand Derangement.

The British lured Acadian men into churches under false pretenses and then locked them inside. They seized others in their homes and their fields. Their wives and children had to feed them at gunpoint until ships took them away. The British took over their farms and livestock, pillaging and burning their homes to make sure they wouldn’t return.

Estimates vary, but the British rounded up as many as 10,000 Acadians out of a population of 12,000. On Oct. 8, 1755, they boarded ships provided by Thomas Hancock, uncle of John Hancock. The ships sailed to the 13 British colonies in North America and to France. Several thousand died of disease, starvation and drowning.

John Winslow, the second in command in Nova Scotia, described the scene. They “began to Embarke the Inhabitants who went verry solentarily and Unwillingly. the women in Great Distress Carrying Their Children In their arms.”

Others, he wrote, carried their decrepit parents in carts in scenes of confusion, woe and distress.

Acadian Exiles in Massachusetts

On Nov. 15, 1755 the first overcrowded ships filled with sick, hungry Acadian exiles arrived. There hadn’t been enough food for the journey and many died of smallpox or malaria.

A deportation ship

A deportation ship

Nearly 2,000 Acadians sailed into Boston Harbor to be parceled out to the colony’s 98 towns. The General Court gave overseers of the poor the power to ’employ, bind out or support’ the Acadian families. That generally meant indentured servitude.

The first ship, the sloop Seaflower, entered Boston Harbor with 206 destitute Acadians aboard. They then continued to arrive until the French and Indian War ended in 1763. Once on shore, the colony treated them like convicts.

Thomas Hutchinson in 1750.

Some took pity on the Acadian exiles. As a member of the General Court, Thomas Hutchinson tried to keep families together and helped write letters petitioning the Legislature. He may have helped Joseph Michel write a letter asking that his sons be released from their indenture. In Westborough, Ebenezer Parkman (grandfather of historian Francis Parkman) befriended Simon Leblanc and gave work to his children.

More often the Acadian exiles were feared and hated. A letter to the editor of the Boston Gazette cautioned the Acadian exiles could escape in stolen ships. Or they could destroy the town or powder house, ‘heated with Passion and Popish zeal.”

If there were any Catholic priests in Massachusetts, they weren’t allowed to say Mass. Acadians who wanted to get married did so by laymen and hoped they could renew their vows in front of a French priest some day in the future.

Departation of the Acadians

Acadian Exiles

At first, the Acadian exiles had some freedom. Some took jobs as sailors and left for Canada. In response, the General Court passed a law in April forbidding Acadian exiles to work as sailors. Soon after, lawmakers ordered them to stay within the boundaries of their assigned towns.

Marbleheaders complained about the 37 Acadians they got stuck with. The exiles could escape by water, but the town would have to support them if they didn’t.

An Acadian fisherman named Belloni Melancon ended up in the frontier village of Lancaster. He apprenticed his son to an artisan to earn money, but the artisan beat him so badly he couldn’t use his arm for a month. Then the town got sick of supporting the destitute Melancons. Some townspeople took Belloni’s crippled wife from her bed and threw her into a cart.

Melancon then petitioned the General Court to let him move to Weymouth, where he could earn a living as a fisherman. The General Court allowed him to go to Weymouth and fish, and the state paid for his rent and wood.

On The Town

Thomas Hancock by John Smibert

Thomas Hancock by John Smibert

The towns expected the General Court to reimburse them for the expense of keeping the Acadian exiles. The General Court in turn expected payment from Nova Scotia. Nova Scotia expected payment from Great Britain. Only Massachusetts helped pay to feed, house and clothe the Acadian exiles who couldn’t support themselves.

In Newton, only two of the 13 Acadian exiles could work, since most were children. The town billed the General Court for a six-month supply of food for them: 206-3/4 pounds of pork, 166 quarts of milk and 10 bushels of Indian meal to the Acadians.

In Methuen, Laurence Mius protested in the fall of 1756 that he worked for two months, but received only three rods of old cloth, two pounds of dried cod and a pound of pork fat. The overseer of the poor chased him with a poker and beat him so badly he spit blood for a day.

In Wilmington, John Labrador and his seven children lived in a house with no roof. He complained when the house flooded, and a town councilor told him to build a boat and navigate in it.

Not Wanted Here

Early on, Massachusetts officials tried to get rid of some of the refugees. Thomas Hancock outfitted a vessel to take some of them to North Carolina in May 1756. But the Acadian exiles overpowered the crew and forced their way back.

Massachusetts asked New Hampshire to take in some of the Acadians, but New Hampshire refused.

Some Acadian exiles were confined to the workhouse or hospital in Boston. But then in 1760, colonial troops returned from the war. The sick Acadian exiles were turned out of the hospital to make room for the sick and wounded troops.

In 1762, French forces occupied St. John’s in Newfoundland, galvanizing the Acadians. In response, the British rounded up more Acadians and put them aboard five English vessels headed toward Boston. But then the Massachusetts government refused them permission to land and sent them back to Halifax.

Map of deportation

Map of deportation

Acadian Exiles in Connecticut

Acadian exiles began arriving in New London, Conn., in late 1755 and continued through the next year. In the end, 400 arrived in Connecticut and went to 50 different towns. Haddon received three, Hartford 13, Wethersfield nine, Farmington 14, and so forth.

A 76-year-old man and his seven grandchildren went to Woodbury in the winter of 1756. The malnourished, vermin-ridden cousins had been separated from their parents. The town’s overseer of the poor put the children to work for joiners and farmers.

On Jan. 2, 1757, four adults described as ‘skeletal,’ ‘naked’ and ‘having the itch, vermin, etc.,’ staggered into Woodbury for a joyous reunion with their children. The British sent the parents to Annapolis, Md. They then spent a year petitioning officials to let them reunite with their children.

War Ends

Under the Treaty of Paris of 1763, the Acadian exiles had 19 months to leave the British North American colonies for any French colony. They began petitioning to go home to Nova Scotia, to Quebec, to France, or to the French West Indies, specifically Saint-Domingue (Haiti).

However, they had to pay for their own transport.

In 1766, 900 Acadian exiles in Massachusetts gathered in Boston and decided to return to their native land. They marched 400 miles through the wilderness. Many died along the way. Then in Acadia they found the English had taken over their farms. They found new homes in the counties of Digby and Yarmouth.

Many found their way to Louisiana, where they are called Cajuns.

The Michel Family

Petition of Joseph Michel

Petition of Joseph Michel

The Michel family belonged to the lucky ones. A wealthy Marshfield landowner, Nathaniel Ray Thomas, supported them briefly.  The town helped pay for wood for cooking and heating, let the family use a cow for milk and eventually paid for Joseph Michel’s funeral.

Michel then petitioned the General Court for help. He argued that Francis and Papul already had jobs and the indenture should be considered null and void. The General Court investigated and finally agreed with Michel. Since the Acadian boys were willing to work, they shouldn’t be forced into indenture, the Court decided. The family then stayed in Marshfield after the war ended.

End Notes

For an alphabetical list of the Acadians/French Neutrals exiled to Connecticut, click here.

For a list of the Acadians/French Neutrals exiled to Massachusetts – and to the specific towns they were parceled out to – click here and here.  

Photos: Map of Acadia 1754 By Mikmaq – Own work, CC BY-SA 3.0, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=1351882; Portrait of Thomas Hancock, By Cullen328 (Jim Heaphy) – Own work, CC BY-SA 3.0, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=18351503. With thanks to The Acadian Diaspora by Christopher Hodson and Le Grand Derangement 1755-1766, The Acadian Exile in Massachusetts by the Massachusetts Secretary of State.

This story was updated in 2023.

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