40 THE ROYAL SOCIETY OF CANADA 



ada after his discharge. He secured a grant of 200 acres, which he 

 occupied in April, 1797. Nicholas Sweet, of Vermont, arrived in the 

 next year with two brothers-in-law, and simultaneously with a family 

 of loyalists, Gordon by name, who had been at Sorel. A number of 

 other American families joined this settlement, but how many of 

 them were loyalists can not be ascertained. Samuel Covey, after 

 whom the locality was named, was the son of one of the loyalists who 

 founded Alburgh. After nine years on the hill. Covey and his family 

 removed to La Tortue, then to Clarenceville, and finally, in 1830, to 

 Franklin, where lived Samuel's three brothers, James, Enos, and 

 Archibald. Another resident of Franklin was Jacob Manning, son 

 of a loyalist of Poughkeepsie, who settled for a time at the head of 

 Lake Champlain, but in the spring of 1804 removed with his son to 

 Frankiln.* Among the loyalists living at La Colle, in 1788, were 

 Robert Whitman, formerly of Still Water, New York,|" and Angus 

 McBean, formerly of Otter Creek, Vermont. X 



At the western end of the County of Huntingdon, a large part of 

 Godmanchester Township on Lake St. Francis was ceded to veterans 

 of the American war, as was also a small part of Hichinbrook Township, 

 which adjoined it on the east. The survey of these and other townships 

 in the county was effected in 1788 and 1789, and both officers and 

 militiamen received grants. It is more than likely that some of these 

 were American loyalists, although we have not the information at hand 

 to confirm the conjecture. It appears, however, that the land nearest 

 the lake proved to be undesirable, and that the recipients disposed of 

 their claims, with the exception of perhaps a dozen families who formed 

 a settlement on the second range of St. Anicet. Little is known of the 

 subsequent history of this community, save that they abandoned their 

 habitations at the outbreak of the War of 1812, a fact patent to the 

 immigrants arriving some years later in the dismal testimony of the 

 roofless shanties still standing and the clearings already overgrown 

 with saplings.'* 



Among the earliest efforts to propagate the Protestant religion 

 in Canada were those made at Sorel before the war had terminated. 

 They proved unsuccessful for a brief period^ owing to the dubious 

 character and conduct of the clergyman in charge, whom a contemporary 

 wittily called "the irreverand Mr. Scott." As this person was chaplain 

 of the Thirty-fourth Regiment, he was under the jurisdiction of Colonel 



*Sellar, History of Huntingdon, Chateaugay, and Beauharnois, 14, 19, 22, 23, 

 26, 29, 30. 



tSecond Report, Bureau of Archives, Ont., Pt. I., 483. 



jlbid., 349. 



•* Sellar, History of Huntingdon, Chateauguay, and lîeauharnois, Ki, 17, 158. 



