Early Settlement 15

English soldiers stationed in Ireland married to Irish girls, decided to settle in Elmira. Family names: Campion, Harris, Pierce, Price, Hughes, Tierney and Drummond, as told by Tommy Harris, great, great, grandson of Mrs. Moses Harris, last survivor ofthe ship wreck, who died in 1886 at age 104.25

The names of some ofthe descendents ofthe survivors ofthe St. Domingo are found in Souris East and Souris West today.

Acadian Settlers:

At the turn of the century, Acadians from Fortune looked to John Cam- bridge for land in Lot 44. They had been living in Lot 43 nearly twenty years before Louisbourg fell to the British and Lord Rollo was sent in 1758 to “conquer” the Island and remove the inhabitants to France. These people managed to evade deportation and return to their settlement at the mouth of Fortune River where they had twelve homes, a grist mill and eight hundred acres of land.26 But they returned to live under distressing circumstances.

Samual Holland, writing to Lord Hillsborough in November, 1764, tells him that the French who remained on the Island after 1758 were in a sad state. They were prisoners of war and the commanding officer, Captain Hill at Fort Amherst, claimed everything

. they owned in the name of the Crown. They were to live on their gardens and fish and were not allowed to sell any- thing. Holland, himself, was not per- mitted to buy an oxen from them to eke out his survey party’s salt provisions.

These Acadians at Bay Fortune asked Holland to intercede for them. He tried to help them as he was sympathetic to their plight. He was frustrated by authority at Charlottetown and cold

Andrew Rollo - 5th Lord Rollo and miserable himself as he prepared

for his winter survey of the Island. He applied to Governor Wilmot at Halifax (the Island was under Nova Scotia jurisdiction at this time) for a Commission of Peace promising: “I shall endeavour to see that justice is done and follow what orders you require".27 Presumably this would supercede Captain Hill’s authority. It was not granted.

In 1769, David Higgins newly arrived on the Island and its first naval officer—gave the Acadians to understand that, if they took the oath of allegiance, he would see that they were given land. The earliest instructions regarding land would suggest that all Acadians were thought of as fisher- men needing only a town lot because it was stipulated: “Those taking the oath might have lots in either of the Towns (Charlottetown or Georgetown) on the Island with pasture lots in the same manner.”28 When Higgins died in 1783, they still had neither title nor lease from the proprietor, Edmund Burke. At this time a number of Acadian families moved from Fortune to Cape Breton.

Courtesy Pictures of the Paul by Ilards