SECTION II, 1912 [221] Trans. R. S.C. 
The Settling of Colchester County, Nova Scotia, by New England Puritans 
and Ulster Scotsmen. 
By Rev. ARTHUR WENTWORTH HAMILTON EATON, M.A., D.C.L. 
(Presented by VEN. ARCHDEACON W. O. Raymonp, LL.D.) 
Of the eighteen counties that compose the Province of Nova Scotia 
—the peninsula and Cape Breton island—Colchester is the most cen- 
tral, and the fourth in population and extent. In area it follows the 
counties of Halifax, Guysborough, and Cumberland, in population, 
Halifax, Pictou, and Cape Breton. Its whole square acreage is 928,640, 
its population in 1911 was 24,900. Its three commonly recognized 
townships have been Onslow, Truro, and Londonderry, with what 
Haliburton calls “their dependent settlement of Economy.” At an 
early period, but how early we do not know, a section of the county to 
the north was named the Township of Ramsay. How wide the boun- 
daries of this “township” were we cannot say, nor do we know when it 
received its name. On the 27th of March, 1840, however, an act of the 
Legislature was passed changing the name of the township to Stirling. 
The removal of the Acadians from Nova Scotia in 1755, and Gover- 
nor Lawrence’s subsequent proclamations offering their lands and other 
vacant lands in the province to British settlers, make the beginning 
of modern Maritime-Provincial Canadian history. In consequence 
of these proclamations of Lawrence’s the County of Colchester, like the 
other counties of Nova Scotia except Halifax and Lunenburg, soon re- 
ceived permanent inhabitants, and of the three chief townships of 
Colchester, in point of settlement Onslow comes a little the first. 
THE SETTLING OF ONSLOW 
Section I. 
The proclamations of Governor Lawrence offering the vacant 
lands of Nova Scotia to New England settlers met with quick response 
from groups of people in almost all parts of New England. The second 
proclamation, closely following on the first, was issued January 11, 1759, 
and as the Nova Scotia Council records show, as early as April of that 
