170 HARVEY SETTLEMENT. 



of settling on the lands of the New Brunswick and 

 Nova Scotia Land Company. On their arrival at 

 Fredericton, however, in July 1837, they found no pre 

 paration had been made by the Company for their recep 

 tion or location. Being poor, they were at once thrown 

 upon the public bounty ; and though a few got employ 

 ment, yet the great bulk, both of the men and of their 

 families, were soon in distress. The Legislature, there 

 fore, at once assigned to them the tract of land they 

 now occupy, furnished them with supplies, and appointed 

 a commission at the head of which was the present 

 Attorney-general to assist in arranging the division of 

 the land, and other necessary matters. 



At first, twenty-three families, comprising about two 

 hundred individuals, were located ; and though they 

 endured many hardships, especially during the first 

 winter, yet only two deaths occurred among them all for 

 six years after their arrival, while there were thirty-nine 

 happy births without medical aid. There are now fifty- 

 three families of them, counting in all between three 

 and four hundred souls, each family owning from three 

 to five cows, and a hundred acres of land at least. 



The cultivated land of these numerous farms lies on a 

 succession of low ridges, between which cedar-swamps of 

 greater or less extent intervene, and interfere botli with 

 regular clearing and cultivation, and with the continuity 

 of farms. I stayed over night at this settlement, in a 

 comfortable little inn kept by a Mr Cockburn, who had 

 several sons grown up, all of whom but one had 

 already left him, and settled on farms of their own. 



Nov. 13. A second tier of lots a second concession, 

 as it would be called in Lower Canada has been taken 

 up and settled behind the farms first laid out here, along 

 the high-road. The families of the old emigrants of 

 1837 are now becoming straitened for room. They 

 complain bitterly that all the good land within imme- 



