I believe my husband Bob’s 6x great grandfather Silas Woodworth was one of six Woodworth “Planters.” Thus beginning the Woodworth’s in Nova Scotia.
The migration of the New England Planters was the first significant migration to the Atlantic colonies in British North America. In the wake of the deportation of the Acadians in 1755, newly cultivated lands opened up in Nova Scotia, which needed to be populated. Roughly eight thousand men and women from New England came to settle in the Annapolis Valley of Nova Scotia, and in the Upper St. John River Valley of present-day New Brunswick, between 1759 and 1768. They left a legacy that can be found in the social, religious, and political life of Atlantic Canada.
The first move towards settling the newly vacated lands after the Acadian Deportation was made via the Proclamation by General Charles Lawrence to the Boston Gazette on 12 October 1758, inviting settlers in New England to immigrate to Nova Scotia. The agriculturally fertile land in Nova Scotia would be a driving force in enticing the emigrants, but the New England colonists were wary. Lawrence sent a second Proclamation on 11 January, 1759 stating that in addition to land, Protestants would be given religious freedom, and a system of government similar to that in New England would be in place in the Nova Scotia settlements.
According to an article on the Canadian Museum of Immigration at Pier 21 website [pier21.ca/research/immigration-history/the-forgotten-immigrants-the-journey-of-the-new-england-planters-to-nova-scotia-1759-1768] by the Western University’s MA Public History Program Students - The Forgotten Immigrants: The Journey of the New England Planters to Nova Scotia, 1759-1768
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Red flag shows the area of King’s County, Nova Scotia which sits on the shores of the Bay of Fundy.
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In the autumn of 1758, therefore, under instructions from England, the Council adopted a proclamation relative to settling the vacant lands. The proclamation stated that by the destruction of French power in Cape Breton and Nova Scotia, the enemy who had formerly disturbed and harassed the province and obstructed its progress had been obliged to retire to Canada, and that thus a favorable opportunity was presented for "peopling and cultivating as well the lands vacated by the French as every other part of this valuable province". The lands are described as consisting of "upwards of one hundred thousand acres of interval and plow lands, producing wheat, rye, barley, oats, hemp, flax, etc." "These have been cultivated for more than a hundred years past, and never fail of crops, nor need manuring. Also, more than one hundred thousand acres of upland, cleared, and stocked with English grass, planted with orchards, gardens, etc. These lands with good husbandry produce often two loads of hay per acre. The wild and unimproved lands adjoining to the above are well timbered and wooded with beech, black birch, ash, oak, pine, fir, etc. All these lands are so intermixed that every single farmer may have a proportionate quantity of plow land, grass land, and wood land; and all are situated about the Bay of Fundi, upon rivers navigable for ships of burthen".
….That a hundred acres of wild wood land would be given each head of a family, and fifty acres additional for each person in his family, young or old, male or female, black or white, subject to a quit-rent of one shilling per fifty acres, the rent to begin, however, not until ten years after the issuing of the grant. The grantees must cultivate or inclose one third of the land in ten years, one third more in twenty years, and the remainder in thirty years. No quantity above a thousand acres, however, would be granted to any one person. On fulfillment of the terms of a first grant the party receiving it should be entitled to another on similar conditions.
From: The History of Kings County, Nova Scotia, Heart of the Acadian Land, Giving a Sketch of the French and Their Expulsion, And a History of the New England Planters who Came in Their Stead, with Many Genealogies, 1604-1910 – Arthur Wentworth Hamilton Eaton
LITTLE ABOUT THE RAYNEs
I started out looking at Bob’s g-g-grandparents Robert Weir and Martha Louise (WOODWORTH) RAYNE. I don’t know why I became interested in my husband’s ancestors, I have plenty of my own to look at. I like learning about historical events and as it turns out I got unexpected early New England/Nova Scotia history as well as family history along the way. So why not look a little further?
Robert Weir was born in Nova Scotia as was Martha Louise. I decided to look up the RAYNE family on Ancestry.com and FindMyPast.com to see what more information I could find. I didn’t come away with much more than the usual which I also had, so I switched to finding more about the WOODWORTHs. And with that, the story started to interest me. Granted there is more to this research, but I would have to go up to Nova Scotia or out to Boston to research at the New England Historical Genealogical Society’s research center. So for now, I am relying on just the findings on the internet since travel is out of the question at this time. [image came from Bob’s family book]
Martha immigrated to Boston, sailing on the SS Acadia; arrival date 29 Apr 1854; she was 19. Her occupation was “Servant.”
The Raynes were married in Roxbury, Massachusetts, 9 Apr 1856, two years after Martha arrived in U.S.A. By 1860, Martha and her family lived in Freeport, Illinois next door to her father John B., mother Martha, brother [Robert] Knox, and sister Florance. All born in Nova Scotia. Both Rayne children were born in Illinois – Bessy 3, Lula 10 months. The Raynes most likely moved to Illinois sometime in 1857 or shortly after they married.
The Woodworths we find in Freeport, Illinois, two years after John immigrated. I don’t know exactly when the rest of the family came to U.S. presumably shortly afterward. You can see below the red X is the Rayne family and red arrow is Woodworth family.
WOODWORTHs
This image of John Woodworth came from Bob’s picture book. It has his birth year as 1796, but I have seen him in other documents as being born in 1797 or 1798. Yet, the 1858 ship manifest has him at 62 years, and the 1860 passenger list has him at 62. The 1860 US census has him at 63 years old. Does it really matter?
He was married three times: 1. Eunice Amelia Calkin / one child; 2. Martha Knox / three children; 3. Louise Lugrin / two children. John died in Freeport, Illinois 1869, Martha died November 1860. She could have been very ill which would make him come back home in August 1860.
I would love to know what type of “merchant” he was. What was he selling? His son-in-law, at one time, was a coffee salesman. Could that be what John was into?
The John B. Woodworth family is found on the 1851 Nova Scotia census. There are no names other than head of household: four males and one female under age of 10. I can only identify one male [Robert] Knox and one female Florance [sic]. There is a mark for one female from 10-20 years of age. I have no name for her. There is one male and one female age 20-30. No name for the male, Martha Louise is the female. There is one male and one female age 30-40. No name for male, female could be John’s wife, but the next slot has one male (John?) and one female (John’s wife?). I can’t read the last column where John should be. (Identity is based on the individual ages I found on the 1860 Freeport, Illinois Census / above.)
While doing a little more research on John, I found online, a reference book “North America, Family Histories, 1500-2000” which contained the family genealogy of the Woodworths going back to Colonial America, in particular Scituate, Massachusetts; Little Compton, Rhode Island; and Lebanon, Connecticut. A lot of the information hasn’t been proven; I am using it as a guide. Much of the information coincides with my independent research and what Bob’s father had done years ago.
The early Woodworth family was in Massachusetts around 1630-34. His earliest ancestor to arrive in the colonies is Bob’s 10x great grandfather Walter who was possibly from Kent, England. He would have been about 20 years old. Walter died about 1685 in Scituate, Massachusetts. The reason he is suspected to come from Kent is because he lived in the area in Scituate where no one but Kent families lived.
As the colonial lineage goes:
Bob’s 9x great grandfather Walter, b. about 1645 Scituate
8x great grandfather Benjamin, b. Aug 1674 Scituate and died 1729 Lebanon, Connecticut
7x great grandfather Ichabod, b. Mar 1691 Little Compton, Rhode Island, and died 1768 Lebanon, Connecticut
6x great grandfather Silas, b. Mar 1725 Lebanon, Connecticut, and died 1790 Cornwallis, Nova Scotia, Canada
IMMIGRATION TO NOVA SCOTIA
In 1760, Silas moved up to Cornwallis, Kings Co., Nova Scotia aboard the ship Wolfe, with his wife Sarah (English) and three sons one of which was Bob’s 5x great grandfather Solomon. Their daughter was supposedly born at sea. This is where the story became interesting to me. If you remember in 1758 King’s Co., Nova Scotia, was opened up to settling and many New England residents migrated mainly from Massachusetts, Connecticut, and Rhode Island. Four more Woodworth grantees moved up there to be with Silas:
….The Woodworth grantees in Cornwallis were Amasa, Benjamin, Silas, Thomas, and William Woodworth….
From: The History of Kings County, Nova Scotia, Heart of the Acadian Land, Giving a Sketch of the French and Their Expulsion, And a History of the New England Planters who Came in Their Stead, with Many Genealogies, 1604-1910 – Arthur Wentworth Hamilton Eaton
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Circled in red is King’s County, Nova Scotia. Found on en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Township_(Nova_Scotia)
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Silas Woodworth’s original land grant. Ancestry.com tree [www.ancestry.com/mediaui-viewer/tree/55087729/person/13771937005/media/f94ee694-806e-4076-b191-99a48151b25d?_phsrc=XUW8&_phstart=successSource]
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Ancestry.com. Massachusetts, Passenger and Crew Lists, 1820-1963 [database on-line]. Provo, UT, USA: Ancestry.com Operations, Inc., 2006.
I’m sure there is more to this story, but I have exhausted what I can do right now. If anyone would care to share more, please contact me through my regular e-mail in my profile. Please put “Woodworth research” in the subject field.
