Elliott, Bruce, 2004-2005: Emigrant Recruitment by the New Brunswick Land Company: The Pioneer Settlers of Stanley and Harvey.

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The Legislature debated how to respond to their application.   Various members of the House pointed to "the most hyperbolical and extravagant inducements" held out to the immigrants in the Company's English pamphlets, and to "its poetical and highly-coloured statements" in the Royal Gazette.

In the end the Legislature was swayed by the circumstances of the case.   Echoing the favourable reports on the arrival of the D'Arcy the year before, Mr Clinch, one of the members, observed that it was well-known "that most of the emigrants to this country, and especially the Irish, came here only as a way to the United States; the best of them always went off, and the worst and most useless only remained.   But these people were of a different class altogether."   They had been "induced to leave comfortable homes" by extravagant promises that the Company was not in a position to fulfill, and as they had arrived in the wake of a commercial depression in "a year of considerable distress, wages were low, business was greatly stagnated, and a variety of circumstances operated, to prevent these persons from advantageously scattering throughout the Province" looking for work.   Moreover, Clinch noted, they had some little capital with them, and were not seeking financial relief, merely the opportunity to buy and pay for lands that they could develop.

The Legislature voted the sum of £200 to defray the costs of locating them along a road then constructing between Fredericton and St Andrews, about 25 miles south of the city in what later became the parish of Manners Sutton.⁽⁸³⁾  It was named the Harvey Settlement, after the Governor.   The colonial administration supplied a man to teach them to fell trees, and by paying them to work on the road enabled them to pay for their lots.⁽⁸⁴⁾  As this was a special government program, their progress was regularly reported upon.

 

We are fortunate to have a list of the immigrants, including wives and children, with names, ages, relationships and occupations, compiled in the autumn of 1837.   It contains 146 names, setting aside two duplications, more than the 137 the newspaper reports having been aboard the Cornelius.

 

Table 5. Pop up link to table listing "Emigrants who ask for land on the New St Andrews Road. Source: PANB, RS 637,26d.

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(83) New Brunswick Courier, 29 July 1837, p. 1, cols. 2-4.

 

(84) Randall, History of Harvey Settlement.