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Claude Bergier led other merchants from [[La Rochelle, France]] in enjoying a fishing monopoly in Acadia. In 1682, Fort St. Louis was established by the Company of Acadia (Compagnie de la Peche Sedentaire) to protect the fishery.<ref>Brenda Dunn, p. 29</ref> The principal ports were at [[Chedabucto Bay]], which accounted for fifty fishers in 1686. Dauphin de Montorgueil was the commandant at Fort Saint-Louis.<ref>http://www.biographi.ca/009004-119.01-e.php?&id_nbr=194&&PHPSESSID=ychzfqkvzape</ref>
Claude Bergier led other merchants from [[La Rochelle, France]] in enjoying a fishing monopoly in Acadia. In 1682, Fort St. Louis was established by the Company of Acadia (Compagnie de la Peche Sedentaire) to protect the fishery.<ref>Brenda Dunn, p. 29</ref> The principal ports were at [[Chedabucto Bay]], which accounted for fifty fishers in 1686. Dauphin de Montorgueil was the commandant at Fort Saint-Louis.<ref>http://www.biographi.ca/009004-119.01-e.php?&id_nbr=194&&PHPSESSID=ychzfqkvzape</ref>

=== Raid on Chedabucto (1688) ===
The Company of Acadia suffered heavy losses in 1688, when Chedabouctou was pillaged by New Englanders.<ref>http://www.biographi.ca/009004-119.01-e.php?&id_nbr=56</ref>


=== Battle at Chedabucto (1690) ===
=== Battle at Chedabucto (1690) ===

Revision as of 10:16, 11 November 2010

Guysborough
Baile Mhainisdear (Gaelic)
Village
Guysborough Harbour
Guysborough Harbour
Country Canada
Province Nova Scotia
CountyGuysbrorough County
MunicipalityMunicipal District of Guysborough
Founded1600s
Area
 • Total7.8 km2 (3.0 sq mi)
Population
 (2001)
 • Total922
 • Density302.1/km2 (782/sq mi)
Time zoneUTC-4 (AST)
 • Summer (DST)UTC-3 (ADT)
Postal code
B0H 1N0
Area code902
Telephone Exchange533
Total Dwellings437

Guysborough (population: 992) is an unincorporated Canadian community in Guysborough County, Nova Scotia.

Located on the western shore of Chedabucto Bay, fronting Guysborough Harbour, it is the administrative seat of the Guysborough municipal district.

History

The Mi'kmaq name for the village of Guysborough was Chedabuctou. The village of Guysborough was first settled by europeans in 1634 by Isaac de Razilly. He built a fort named Fort St François à Canso at the entrance to the harbour. In 1655 Nicolas Denys, governor of the new St Lawrence Bay Province, built Fort Chedabuctou on Fort Point to serve as his capital. The fort was later replaced and renamed Fort St Louis.[1]

In 1682, a permanent settlement was started by Clerbaud Bergier‎. A group cleared land and spent the winter with the first crops being planted in 1683. Louis-Alexandre des Friches de Meneval landed at Chedabouctou in 1687 when arriving to take up his position as governor of Acadia.

Claude Bergier led other merchants from La Rochelle, France in enjoying a fishing monopoly in Acadia. In 1682, Fort St. Louis was established by the Company of Acadia (Compagnie de la Peche Sedentaire) to protect the fishery.[2] The principal ports were at Chedabucto Bay, which accounted for fifty fishers in 1686. Dauphin de Montorgueil was the commandant at Fort Saint-Louis.[3]

Raid on Chedabucto (1688)

The Company of Acadia suffered heavy losses in 1688, when Chedabouctou was pillaged by New Englanders.[4]

Battle at Chedabucto (1690)

main article: Battle at Chedabucto (Guysborough)

During King William's War, in 1690, Captain Cyprian Southack proceeded to Chedabucto to take Fort St. Louis which, unlike Port Royal, Nova Scotia, put up a fight before surrendering.[5] As part of Sir William Phips expedition to destroy te capital of Acadia Port Royal, Phips sent Southack to Chedabacto with 80 men to destroy Fort St. Louis and the surrounding French fishery. Meneval was stationed at the fort with 12 soldiers. They tried to defend the fort for over six hours, until fire bombs burned the fort to the ground. Southack destroyed the enormous amount of 50, 000 crowns of fish.[6]

At the same time, Phips also dispatched Capt. John Alden who raid Cape Sable Island as well as the villages around the Bay of Fundy, particularly Grand Pre and Chignecto.

The Company of Acadia encountered a variety of difficulties on the way to its final disappearance in 1702.[7]

Raid on Chedacacto (1718)

Shortly after Southack established himself at Shelburne, Nova Scotia, the Mi'kmaq raided the station and burned it to the ground. In response, Southback led a raid on the Bay of Chedacacto at Canso and Guysborough, Nova Scotia (1718), seizing two French ships, and encouraged Governor of Nova Scotia Richard Philipps to fortify Canso.[8]


St Ann's Catholic Church

The area remained in French possession until the Treaty of Paris in 1764 transferred control of northern Nova Scotia to the British, leading to the expulsion of the Acadians. British settlers renamed the town Guysborough after Sir Guy Carleton, commander of the British forces and Governor General of Canada in the 1780s. Land in the area was granted to soldiers of disbanded British regiments following the American Revolutionary War and the population grew.[1]

Guysborough Blockhouse (1812 - 1815) was built to defend the town's harbour by the British during the War of 1812.

The town's fine natural harbour led to its establishment as the administrative centre for the county, and despite the diminishing role of the harbour for transport links, forestry, fishing and agriculture remain of great importance to the area.[1]

St Ann's Catholic Church is the second church on the present site and was built in 1873.[1]

Attractions

  • The Old Guysborough Court House Museum (c. 1842 to 1843) is a Municipal Heritage Property on the Canadian Register of Historic Places. [9]
  • The former residence of Supreme Court of Nova Scotia Justice W.F. DesBarres. The justice was the grandson of Joseph Frederick Wallet DesBarres who was an army officer, military engineer, surveyor, colonizer and colonial administrator who created an important 4-volume atlas of nautical charts for the coastline of eastern North America called the Atlantic Neptune. The residence was renovated into the DesBarres Manor Inn in 2003. Several maps from the Atlantic Neptune hang in the inn.[10]
  • The Rare Bird Pub, The Skipping Stone Souvenir Store and Candlery, built in the 1920s and located on the scenic waterfront, were built from the old Jost Buildings. Frequented from their opening to the mid 1970's, the last of them, a general store, closed its doors in the early 1990's.[1]

References

Secondary Sources

  • Brenda Dunn, A History of Port-Royal/Annapolis Royal 1605-1800, Halifax: Nimbus, 2004.
  • Griffiths, E. From Migrant to Acadian. McGill-Queen's University Press. 2005.
  • John Mack Faragher, A Great and Noble Scheme: The Tragic Story of the Expulsion of the French Acadians from their American Homeland (New York: W. W. Norton & Company, 2005).
  • John Reid, Maurice Basque, Elizabeth Mancke, Barry Moody, Geoffrey Plank, and William Wicken. 2004. The 'Conquest' of Acadia, 1710: Imperial, Colonial, an Aboriginal Constructions. University of Toronto Press.
  • Geoffrey Plank, An Unsettled Conquest. University of Pennsylvania. 2001

Endnotes

  1. ^ a b c d e "History of Guysborough". Guysborough Historical Society.
  2. ^ Brenda Dunn, p. 29
  3. ^ http://www.biographi.ca/009004-119.01-e.php?&id_nbr=194&&PHPSESSID=ychzfqkvzape
  4. ^ http://www.biographi.ca/009004-119.01-e.php?&id_nbr=56
  5. ^ Brenda Dunn, p. 39
  6. ^ Emiley Griffith, p. 153
  7. ^ Daigle, Jean. 1650-1686: 'Un pays qui ne'est pas fait'. in Buckner, P. and Reid J. (eds). The Atlantic Region to Confederation: A History. Toronto University Press. 1994. p. 74.
  8. ^ Geoffery Plank. An Unsettled Conquest. University of Pennsylvania. 2001. p. 76-77.
  9. ^ Canadian Register of Historic Places
  10. ^ DesBarres Manor

External Links


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