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Significant Historical Happenings 1755
In Connection With:
Bk. 1, Pt. 6. - "The Taking of Beausejour and The Deportation of The Acadians.-
APRIL, 1755
London- April the 10th: The English cabinet authorized the sending of a naval squadron to cruise off Louisbourg, with instructions to "fall upon any French ships of war that shall be attempting to land troops in Nova Scotia or to go to Cape Breton or through the St. Lawrence to Quebec."
Alexandria, Virginia- April the 14th: The Colonial governors gather at The Council at Alexandria and determine to make in America four independent, pre-emptive strikes against the French. Their objectives are to capture Fort Duquesne (Pittsburgh), Fort Niagara, Crown Point and Fort Beausejour (Acadia).
Boston- Two thousand provincials muster at Boston; they are in two battalions; one under Winslow and the other one under Scott. The combined English force is under Monckton. The objective for this army is to capture Fort Beausejour.
MAY, 1755
France- May the 3rd: The French fleet leaves Brest and has aboard six battalions of French soldiers, 3,000 men.
Boston- May the 23rd: The 2,000 troops raised in New England sail from Boston in "forty sloops and schooners." In convoy, the fleet is escorted by three small frigates.
Annapolis Royal- May the 26th: The troops from Boston arrive at Annapolis Royal; there, they are joined by some regulars and a train of artillery. This armada then pushes to the head of the Bay of Fundy.
JUNE, 1755
Piziquid (Fort Edward)- June: The English commander, Captain Murray on orders that he is to enforce the corn embargo, denies the Acadians the use of their boats; and, further, he requires the Acadians in the area of Minas to hand in their arms.
- The 10th: The Acadians present a petition to Murray, to be sent on to Governor Lawrence, signed by 25, for the return of their boats and their arms.
Chignecto
- June the 2nd: The English armada arrives.
- The 2nd: Vergor, the French commander at Fort Beausejour gets a message off to Louisbourg: "Under attack, send help."
- The 3rd: The English troops are landed without resistance and bivouacked in the field below the English fort, Fort Lawrence.
- The 4th: The English cross the Missaquash River (the designated English/French line) and dig in on the high ground, north of Fort Beausejour.
- The 14th: Message received at Fort Beausejour from Louisbourg that it could not afford to send help; Fort Beausejour was on her own. Off the Coast of Nova Scotia
- June the 15th: Boscawen's naval squadron takes the Alcide and the Lys. The rest of the French fleet had already (June 14th) made it into the fortified harbour of Louisbourg. Lunenburg
- June the 15th: Victualing of the settlers at Lunenburg, which had been carried on since the settlers first arrived at Halifax during 1750-53, and though it was threatened to be cut off on numerous occasions before, is finally ended. Chignecto
- June the 16th: The French surrender Beausejour.
- The 18th: Winslow with a detachment of men marches over from Beausejour to the other side of the isthmus and demands the surrender of Fort Gaspereau; its French commander, who had but a few men under him, and knowing of Beausejour's surrender, immediately gives in without a shot being fired.
- The 24th: The troops of the captured French garrisons of Fort Beausejour and Fort Gaspereau (Bay Verte) are sent aboard English transports sent and sent to Louisbourg via the Bay of Fundy.
- The 30th: The English in three 20 gun ships and a sloop arrive at the mouth of the St John. The French at that place burst their cannon, blow up their magazine, and flee up river.
JULY, 1755
Louisbourg- July 6th, 1755: The troops of the captured French garrisons of Fort Beausejour and Fort Gaspereau (Bay Verte) arrive at Louisbourg.
In the Deep Woods of Pennsylvania
- July 9th, 1755: The English general, Braddock, seven miles above Fort Duquesne (Pittsburgh), sustains, at the hands of the French and their Indian allies, a terrible defeat .
Halifax
- July 3th, 1755: Having been called to Halifax, certain of the Acadians deputies (ten of the twenty-five pleaded sickness) who had signed the petition in June (re return of their boats and their arms) are reprimanded before Council for the tone of their memorial. The Acadians, however, remained unmoved; and, were surprised when brought back into the Council Chambers and informed that they and their lot were to be removed from the province.
- The 14th, 1755: A letter is sent by Lawrence to Vice-Admiral Boscawan and Rear-Admiral Mostyn inviting them to attend a Council meeting to discuss the Acadian question.
- The 25th, 1755: Captain Morris, from New York, sails into Halifax Harbour in his brig, the Lily, with the news that Braddock had been defeated and was killed in his attempt to take Fort Duquesne.
- The 25th, 1755: Another meeting of Council is convened and another memorial signed by 207 French Acadians is read: they continue to refuse to take any kind of a new oath.
- The 28th, 1755: The governing Council at Halifax, resolves: "After mature consideration it was unanimously agreed, that, to prevent as much as possible their attempting to return and molest the [English] settlers that may be set down on their lands, it would be most proper to send them to be distributed amongst the several colonies on the continent, and that a sufficient number of vessels should be hired with all possible expedition for that purpose."
[See The Deportation Orders.]
AUGUST, 1755
Chignecto- August: Colonel Monckton, acting under orders received from Lt. Governor Lawrence dispatches 250 men to Cobequid which leads to the destruction of the villages of Tatamgouche and Remsheg (modern day Wallace).
- The 14th, 1755: Monckton dispatches Winslow from the isthmus to Minas in order to supervise the removal the Acadians in the Minas area.
Louisbourg- August the 15th, 1755: The French admiral, de La Motte, leaves Louisbourg and takes his fleet safely back home to France via the Strait of Belle Isle.
Quebec- August the 18th, 1755: The troops of the captured French garrisons of Fort Beausejour and Fort Gaspereau (Bay Verte), having earlier been delivered by the British to Louisbourg arrive at Quebec.
SEPTEMBER, 1755
Grand Pre- September the 2nd, 1755: Winslow issues his order that all males above the age of 20 years are to meet on Friday, September 5th, at the church at Grand Pre; that, he has something to tell them.
- The 10th, 1755: "... 141 young men and 89 married men are put on board the five transport vessels that were in the Basin." The transports which had brought Winslow and his men over from Chignecto were to act as prisons in the stream of the Gaspereau River (Minas); with their "fighting men" under lock and key, the rest of the Acadian population -- the women, the old,and the young -- were easily rounded up.
- The 19th, 1755: Their best men having been now taken from them, the rest of the Acadians are assembled at the church at Grand Pre and told that they are prisoners; and, that, they and their families are to be transported out of the province; all that was needed were a suitable number of transport ships to arrived; and, they would be gone with only their easily portable possessions.
OCTOBER, 1755
Grand Pre- October the 10th, 1755: Seven transports arrive at Grand Pre, having been relayed up from Annapolis Royal.
- The 19th, 1755: Winslow, with four transports, sails over to load the inhabitants of Riviere-aux-Canards and Riviere-des-Habitants.
Piziquid
- The 20th, 1755: Murray on the snow Halifax (Taggert, master) drops down to the mouth of the Gaspereau River with his four transports to join ten others.
- The 27th, 1755: The fourteen transport vessels sail from the Basin, together with ten others that had come in from Chignecto. Thus, by this date, October the 27th, 1755, the Acadians had been deported from the province.
NOVEMBER, 1755
- November 13th: Winslow leaves Grand Pre for Halifax.
- November 19th: Winslow arrives at Halifax.
DECEMBER, 1755- December, 1755: Lawrence sends a party up from Halifax to the Minas area in order to round up any cattle and swine found, to slaughter them and to pickle them. They are frightened off by "renegade French and Indians" and return back to Halifax.
Halifax- December 9th, first post office in Canada established.
- December 30th, 1755: Charles Morris is appointed to Council.
WINTER OF 1755- Smallpox, which had taken a big toll the winter before, is still in amongst the population at Louisbourg; great numbers of men, women and children die.
- Four warships and two sloops, despite the lack of a careening wharf, winter-over at Halifax.
- [Backward In Time (1754)]
[Forward In Time (1756)] - April the 10th: The English cabinet authorized the sending of a naval squadron to cruise off Louisbourg, with instructions to "fall upon any French ships of war that shall be attempting to land troops in Nova Scotia or to go to Cape Breton or through the St. Lawrence to Quebec."
