[RAyMoND] PRE-LOYALIST SETTLEMENTS OF NOVA SCOTIA 49 
It was found necessary in some cases to surrender the original grants 
and take out fresh ones bearing the names of actual settlers." 
In all the townships, hitherto mentioned, advantage was taken of 
the improvements made by the former Acadian occupation. The 
general plan adopted was to grant a township to a number of proprietors 
who afterwards drew their shares, or rights, by lot. Every right entitled 
the owner to a house lot, a farm lot, a wood lot and a marsh lot. 
Five other townships were planned along the south-west. coast of 
Nova Scotia, commonly called, at that time, the Cape Sable shore. The 
settlers of these townships came, with few exceptions, from Plymouth, 
Nantucket and Cape Cod, and the localities where they settled are 
largely peopled by their descendants.” 
Governor Lawrence continued to note with growing satisfaction 
the development of the province. In his letter to the Lords of Trade 
of the 20th September, 1759, he wrote:—‘‘I make not the least doubt 
but that every acre of cleared Land in the Province, as well as the 
whole coast from hence to Cape Sable, will be well peopled sooner than 
heretofore has been conceived to be possible. . . . . This Town 
[Halifax] and its environs in the course of the summer have been sur- 
prisingly improved, a great number of very good new Houses have been 
erected, as many bad ones repaired, enlarged and beautified, the whole 
Beach in the front of the Town is made good by Wharfs and Abuttments, 
and the inside of the Church will be handsomely finished in a month; 
the Meeting House is extremely improved, a convenient Stone building 
is almost erected on the Common as a Work-house, and a Light-House 
erected at Cape Sambro of masonry, the first of its kind in America. 
Most of the people have money in their pockets and many of them 
quantities of goods in their shops. Many additional lotts have been 
improved and inclosed with Stone fences within the Peninsula, and 
all this, my Lords, seems to have been pretty much the effect of the 
prospect that opened upon the appearance of the new Settlers. Fleets 
and armies indeed have introduced sums of money amongst us, but if 
that ceases with war, Peace will put our Farmers in a state of security 
and on the road to riches by more wholesome and more lasting means. 
The people that take up the lands of La Have and Port Senior are 
Fishermen from Plymouth in New England and dealers in Lumber 
from other parts of that Province. They are coming amongst us with 
views of entering immediately on those branches of business. Those 
1 The first grants to intending settlers in Horton and Cornwallis were issued 
May 21st, 1759. A new grant of Horton township was passed on May 29th, 1761, 
and a new grant of Cornwallis on July 21st, 1761. In the later grants the names 
of actual settlers appeared. 
2 Collections of Nova Scotia Historical Society, Vol. VII, p. 68. 
