Isthmus of Chignecto

The Isthmus of Chignecto is an isthmus bordering the Maritime provinces of New Brunswick and Nova Scotia which connects the Nova Scotia peninsula with North America.

The isthmus separates the waters of Chignecto Bay, a sub-basin of the Bay of Fundy, from those of the Northumberland Strait, an arm of the Gulf of St. Lawrence. The isthmus is generally acknowledged to stretch from its northerly point at an area in the Petitcodiac River valley near the city of Dieppe, New Brunswick to its southerly point at an area near the town of Amherst, Nova Scotia. At its narrowest point between Amherst and Tidnish, the isthmus measures 24 kilometres wide. Because of its strategic position, it has been important to competing forces through much of its history of occupation.

Geography

The majority of the lands comprising the isthmus have low elevation above sea level; a large portion comprises the Tantramar Marshes, as well as tidal rivers, mud flats, inland freshwater marshes, coastal saltwater marshes, and mixed forest. Several prominent ridges rise above the surrounding low land and marshes along the Bay of Fundy shore, namely the Fort Lawrence Ridge (in Nova Scotia), the Aulac Ridge, the Sackville Ridge, and the Memramcook Ridge (in New Brunswick).

In contrast to the Bay of Fundy shoreline in the west, the Northumberland Strait shoreline in the east is largely forested with serpentine tidal estuaries such as the Tidnish River penetrating inland. The narrowest point on the Northumberland shoreline is opposite the Cumberland Basin at Baie Verte. If sea levels were to rise by 12 meters, the isthmus would be flooded, effectively making the mainland Nova Scotia an island. [1]

Transportation

A key surface transportation route since the 17th century, the Isthmus of Chignecto was crossed by French and later British military roads to the Tantramar Marshes and along the strategic ridges.

In 1872, the Intercolonial Railway of Canada constructed a mainline between Halifax, Nova Scotia and Moncton, New Brunswick across the southern portion of the isthmus. It skirted the edge of the Bay of Fundy while crossing the Tantramar Marshes between Amherst, Nova Scotia and Sackville, New Brunswick.

In 1886 a railway line was built from Sackville across the isthmus to Port Elgin and on to Cape Tormentine. The latter was a port for the iceboat service. In 1917 a rail ferry service to Prince Edward Island was established by Canadian National Railways to connect with the Prince Edward Island Railway.

In the mid-1880s, the isthmus was also the site of one of Canada's earliest mega-projects: construction of a broad-gauge railway from the port of Amherst to the Northumberland Strait at Tidnish for carrying small cargo and passenger ships. This ship railway was never successfully operational, and construction was abandoned shortly before completion.

In the 1950s, while construction of the St. Lawrence Seaway was underway, a group of industrialists and politicians from the Maritimes called for a Chignecto Canal to be built as a shortcut for ocean-going ships travelling between Saint John and U.S. ports to the Great Lakes to avoid travelling around Nova Scotia. The project never progressed beyond the survey stage.

In the early 1960s, the Trans-Canada Highway was built on the isthmus to connect with Nova Scotia and Prince Edward Island. Route 2 in New Brunswick and Highway 104 in Nova Scotia were built parallel to the existing Canadian National Railway trackage; this inter-provincial highway was upgraded to a 4-lane expressway in the 1990s. Route 16 in New Brunswick was built from an interchange with Route 2 in Aulac to the ferry terminal at Cape Tormentine; this was subsequently modified in 1997 to connect with the Confederation Bridge at Cape Jourimain.

History

The first European settlements on the isthmus were French. Prior to British control of present-day mainland Nova Scotia (after 1713), the isthmus was the location of a growing Acadian farming community called Beaubassin. The isthmus became the location of the historic dividing line between the British colony of Nova Scotia and the French territory. French military forces established Fort Beausejour on the Aulac Ridge in 1749 in response to the British construction of an outpost called Fort Lawrence on the ridge immediately to the east. Between the two ridges was a tidal stream called the Missaquash River which France generally accepted to be the boundary between the territories, although the powers had never determined and agreed to an official boundary. France also constructed Fort Gaspereau on the shores of the Northumberland Strait to effectively control travel on the isthmus.

King William's War

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Benjamin Church: Father of American ranging

Raid on Chignecto (1696)

Main article: Raid on Chignecto (1696)

During King William's War - the first of the four French and Indian Wars - French and Native raided Pemaquid, Maine (present day Bristol, Maine) earlier that year. In response, the English colonial militia leader Benjamin Church led a devastating raid on the Chignecto at Beaubassin in 1696.

Church and four hundred men (50 to 150 of whom were Indians, likely Iroquois) arrived offshore of Beaubassin on September 20. They managed to get ashore and surprise the Acadians. Many fled while one confronted Church with papers showing they had signed an oath of allegiance in 1690 to the English king.

Church was unconvinced. He burned a number of buildings, killed inhabitants, looted their household goods, and slaughtered their livestock. Governor Villebon reported that "the English stayed at Beaubassin nine whole days without drawing any supplies from their vessels, and even those settlers to whom they had shown a pretence of mercy were left with empty houses and barns and nothing else except the clothes on their backs."

Queen Anne's War

Raid on Chignecto (1704)

In Queen Anne's War, in retaliation for the Raid on Deerfield, Major Church returned to Acadia and on July 17 he raided Chignecto. There was some resistance with gun fire but the Acadians quickly fled to the woods. Church burned 40 empty houses, killed over 200 cattle and other livestock.

On this campaign against Acadia, along with raiding Chignecto, Church also raided Castine, Maine, Grand Pre, and Pisiguit (present-day Windsor/Falmouth).

King Georges War

During King George's War Chignecto became the staging area for French raids on British Nova Scotia. It was the gathering place for DeRamsay prior to Siege of Annapolis Royal (1744). Chignecto was also the base Coulon de Valliers prior to the Battle of Grand Pre (1747).

Father Le Loutre's War

Battle at Chignecto (1749 August)

During Father Le Loutre's War, conflict in Acadia continued. On September 3, Rous, Lawrence and Gorham lead over 700 men to Chignecto. Mi’kmaq and Acadians opposed the landing. They killed twenty British and several Mi’kmaq were killed. They eventually withdrew, burning the rest of their crops and houses as they went.

Skirmish at Chignecto (1749 September)

On September 18, several Mi'kmaq and Maliseets killed three Englishmen at Chignecto. There were, however, seven natives killed in the skirmish.

Battle at Chignecto (1750)

In May 1750, Lawrence was unsuccessful in establishing himself at Chignecto because Le Loutre burned the village of Beaubassin, thereby preventing Lawrence from using the supplies of the village to establish a fort. (According to Historian Frank Patterson, the Acadians at Cobequid burned their homes as they retreated from the British to Tatamagouche, Nova Scotia in 1754.) Lawrence retreated only to return in September 1750 with a force of 700 men. Le Loutre and Acadian militia leader Joseph Broussard resisted the British assault. The British troops defeated the resistance and began construction of Fort Lawrence near the site of the ruined Acadian village of Beaubassin. The work on the fort proceeded rapidly and the facility was completed within weeks. To limit the British to peninsular Nova Scotia, the French began also to fortify the Chignecto and its approaches, constructing Fort Beausejour and two satellite forts - one at present-day Port Elgin, New Brunswick (Fort Gaspareaux) and the other at present-day Saint John, New Brunswick (Fort Menagoueche).

During these months, 35 Mi'kmaq and Acadians ambushed Ranger Bartelo, killing him and six of his men while taking seven others captive. The captives blookcurdline creams as the Mi'kmaq tortured them thoughout the neight had a chilling effect on the New Englanders.

Raid on Chignecto (1751)

The British retaliated for the Acadian and Mi'kmaq Raid on Dartmouth (1751) by sending several armed companies to Chignecto. A few French defenders were killed and the dikes were breached. Hundreds of acres of crops were ruined which was disastrous for the Acadians and the French troops. In the summer of 1752 Father Le Loutre went to Quebec and then on to France to advocate for supplies to re-build the dikes. He returned in the spring of 1753.

To limit the British to peninsular Nova Scotia, the French fortified the isthmus and its approaches, constructing Fort Beausejour and two satellite forts - one at present-day Port Elgin, New Brunswick (Fort Gaspareaux) and the other at present-day Saint John, New Brunswick (Fort Menagoueche).

French and Indian War

Battle of Fort Beauséjour (1755)

Main article: Battle of Fort Beauséjour

On May 22, 1755 the British commanded a fleet of three warships and thirty-three transports carrying 2,100 soldiers from Boston, Massachusetts; they landed at Fort Lawrence on June 3, 1755. The following day the British forces attacked Fort Beausejour, and on June 16, 1755 the French forces evacuated to Fort Gaspereaux, arriving at Louisbourg on June 24, 1755.

On the isthmus, they renamed Fort Beausejour as Fort Cumberland and abandoned Fort Lawrence; they recognized the superior construction of Fort Beausejour. Beginning the Acadian expulsion (the Great Upheaval), British forces rounded up French settlers during the Bay of Fundy Campaign (1755). The British deportated them and burned their villages at Chignecto to prevent their return.

Skirmish at Chignecto (1755 July)

During the French and Indian War, at Fort Moncton (formerly Fort Gaspareaux), Captain Silvaus Cobb’s soldier was shot from his horse and killed in an ambush. Cobb assembled 100 troops but was unable to catch the Mi’kmaq. Monckton dispatched two hundred men from Fort Lawrence but was also unsuccessful in catching the Mi’kmaq.

Raid on Chignecto (September 1755)

Marquis de Boishébert - Charles Deschamps de Boishébert et de Raffetot (1753)

On September 15, Majors Jedediah Preble and Benjamin Coldthwait took four hundred men to destroy and Acadian village a short distance outside of Fort Monckton.

Raid on Chignecto (1756 January)

On January 20, Boishebert sent Francois Boucher de Niverville to Baie Verte to burn a British schooner. Niverville killed seven of the soldiers and took one prisoner and then burned the ship. At the same time Boishebert and 120 Acadians/ Mi’kmaq had escaped capture in a possible ambush when he tried to siege on Fort Cumberland.

Raid on Chignecto (1756 April)

Fort Cumberland was raided by Mi'kmaq and Acadians for two days between April 26–27, 1756, and nine British soldiers were killed and scalped.

Raid on Chignecto (1756 October)

Boishebert moved against Fort Monckton. In response the British abandond the fort and burned it to the ground.

Skirmish at Chignecto (1757 July)

On July 20 Mi’kmaq captured two of Gorham’s rangers outside Fort Cumberland.

Skirmish at Chignecto (1757 September)

On September 6, Monckton directed Lt. Colonel Hunt Walsh to take the 28th regiment and a company of rangers to Baie Verte to burn what was left of it. When they arrived it was already vacated.

In 1758 Governor Lawrence issued a proclamation inviting New Englanders to come to Nova Scotia, settle on vacated Acadian lands, and take up free land grants. He also extended the invitation to New England soldiers serving in Canada whose enlistments had expired and were planning on returning home. Such settlers became known as the New England Planters. Following the end of the Seven Years War in 1763, the British created three 100,000-acre (400 km²) townships on the isthmus, called Amherst, Sackville and Cumberland.

The New England settlement drive was not immediately successful. After a few small groups arrived in 1760 and 1761, some families returned home, and the British government decided to look elsewhere for settlers. Between 1772 and 1775, more than twenty ships carried upwards of 1,000 settlers from Yorkshire, England to the new townships. The descendants of the Yorkshire emigration continue to be prominent in the area's development and history.

American Revolutionary War

Battle of Fort Cumberland

Main article: Battle of Fort Cumberland

Early in the American Revolutionary War local guerrilla and colonial American forces led by Jonathan Eddy and John Allan attempted to take over Fort Cumberland and the Tantramar region in October and November 1776. Supported by George Washington, but with limited personnel, Eddy's attacking force consisted of "about twenty" Americans from Machias, Maine, 27 Yankee settlers from the Saint John River valley, 140 Malisseet and four Mi'kmaq, 21 Acadians from the Memramcook Valley and from the Allen family farm, and about 120 farmers from Cumberland, Onslow, and Pictou. After a three-week-long siege of Fort Cumberland (also known as the "Eddy Rebellion), the invaders were routed by British forces dispatched from Halifax and Windsor.

The Eddy Rebellion proved to be disastrous for the Acadian rebels. The British put eight of their houses and barns at Inverma Farm, Jolicoeur, to the torch. Since their release as prisoners from Fort Cumberland in 1764, they had been tenants of Willian Allan, the father of John Allan, leader of the Nova Scotia rebels. With winter coming rapidly, the Acadians were forced to relocate with their families to Memramcook. Eddy, Allan and many of the other English-speaking rebels were also expelled, but the American government rewarded their efforts with land grants in Maine and Ohio.

References

Secondary Sources

• Chris M. Hand, The Siege of Fort Beausejour 1755, 2004, Fredercton: Goose Lane Editions and the New Brunswick Military Heritage Project. ISBN 0-86492-377-5.
• Bernard Pothier, Battle for the Chignecto Forts, 1995, Toronto: Balimuir.
• Dr. John Clarence Webster, The Forts of Chignecto, 1930, self published.
• Grenier, John. The Far Reaches of Empire. War in Nova Scotia, 1710-1760. University of Oklahoma Press, Norman, 2008.

External links

• History of Chignecto, Central Library, Nova Scotia
• Peter Landry, "The Eddy Rebellion - Chignecto and the American Revolutionary War", Blue Pete
• "The Chignecto Ship Railway", University of New Brunswick
• Chignecto-region - Acadian