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Key Events in the History of Nova Scotia: 1776.
§This is the year that Gibbon gives forth with his first volume of The Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire; Adam Smith, The Wealth of Nations; Jeremy Bentham, Fragments on Government; and Thomas Paine, Common Sense.
§February:Governor Legge is ordered back to England.
§March 17th: Washington forces General Howe, to evacuate Boston and to sail for Halifax; Howe's forces arrive at Halifax on April 1st, 1776. That autumn the troops were to be evacuated because of the cold weather and the price of supplies.
§March 30th:Jonathon Belcher, the First Chief justice of Nova Scotia dies at Halifax.
§April: A navel officer, Marriot Arbuthnot, who had been sent from England the year before as the Commissioner of the Navy Yard, takes over from Michael Francklin as the lieutenant-governor of Nova Scotia.
§May: Legge departs Halifax.
§July 2nd: The Continental Congress carries a motion for the independence of the 13 states on the East coast of America. Two days later the Declaration of Independence is adopted.
§July 7th, Sun: "About five leagues from the lighthouse, wind bearing N. by W. We spoke His Majesty's ship Rainbow, belonging to a fleet of near sixty sail of ships. Some with the Hessian troops on board." (Perkins Diary.)
§On a rise to the south end of Halifax peninsula, then known as Windmill Hill, at the intersection of the present day streets, Queen and South -- The construction of Fort Massey was commenced. (It was named after General Eyre Massey [1719-1804], who was in charge at Halifax 1776-8.) "Its purpose was to was to command the dangerous deep hollow formed by Freshwater Brook, in which an attacking force might find shelter out of reach of the citadel's guns." Its construction was to continue on through to 1778.
§The troops at Halifax, including the "40th" are transported to Staten Island.
§October 11th, Fri: "[It is reported to Perkins that] ... a sloop, Capt. Jones, of Rhode Island has been at Canso, and taken away 5 sail of ships, brigs, etc. Burnt, sunk and destroyed 5 or 6 more, and taken some things out of stores." (Perkins' Diary.)
§November: The "Eddy Rebellion" at Cumberland.
§On Christmas night, 1776, with morale at its lowest ebb, Washington and his troops crossed the Delaware River and defeated the British at Trenton and Princeton, N.J.
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[Backward In Time (1775)]
[Forward In Time (1777)]
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Peter Landry
2012 (2020)