222 THE ROYAL SOCIETY OF CANADA 
year committees or single agents began to arrive at Halifax to make 
terms with the Government and inspect the offered lands. In govern- 
ment vessels these agents were sent along the Atlantic coast and round 
to the Bay of Fundy, and having fixed on locations that suited them, 
when they reached Halifax again they contracted for townships, and 
promised to bring settlers, the total number of such arranged for in 
the spring and summer of 1759, Lieutenant Governor Francklin says, 
being not less than twelve thousand. In this way was planned the 
settlement of Falmouth, Horton, Cornwallis, Annapolis, Granville, 
Cumberland, Amherst, Sackville, Liverpool, Onslow,’ and Yarmouth. 
The settlement of Truro was also then projected and a grant of it issued, 
but the actual settlement, as we shall see, did not take place until the 
latter part of May, 1761. 
The call in New England for troops for the “final reduction of 
Canada” had been promptly answered throughout Massachusetts, and 
among the regiments that saw active service were the Hampshire 
regiment, under command of Colonel Israel Williams, and a regiment 
under command of Colonel Jedediah Preble. In Colonel Williams’ 
regiment was Lieutenant Joseph Scott, of Ware River, and in Colonel 
Preble’s regiment, under the captaincy of Andrew Dalrymple, was 
Ensign Daniel Knowlton, also of Ware River, whose parents, however, 
are said to have lived in Ashford, Connecticut. Among the advance 
agents sent to Nova Scotia to make arrangements for the settlement 
of groups of Massachusetts people were these two men, the latter of 
whom the Knowlton family history says, had already been in Nova 
Scotia, and so had seen something personally of the province. The other 
applicants whom they represented, like themselves in many cases from 
the western part of Massachusetts, numbered fifty-two, and in response 
to their petition, on the 24th of July, 1759, the erection of the town- 
ship of Onslow was ordered in Council, and a grant of the lands more 
or less formally given to the petitioners. 
On the return of Scott and Knowlton to Massachusetts they 
spread the news of their grant, and soon a hundred and sixty-four 
others, most conspicuous among whom seems to have been Richard 
Upham, signed a paper requesting an interest also in the grant. Shortly 
after, Timothy Houghton and William Keyes came to Halifax and 
submitted to the Government the names of fifty-one persons, whom 
they described as very desirable men to be admitted to settle also at 
Cobequid. On the 18th of October, 1759, an order was passed in 
‘The Township of Onslow was named, it is presumed, after the English states- 
man, Hon. Arthur Onslow, who was born in 1691, was Speaker of the House of 
Commons from 1727 to 1754, and who died February 17, 1768. 
