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Published January 18, 1999 Journals & Diaries - Part I By Sandra Devlin Do you keep a journal? I have written about my everyday life sporadically ever since I was a child. But because lots of it is highly opinionated, some entries are very personal and other parts are potentially embarrassing to others, I had considered destroying my journals along with some letters and keepsakes. But I had second thoughts after I came across a handful of letters that my grandmother wrote shortly before her death. As thrilled as I am to have these, I so very much wish I had more of her personal writings. I want my granddaughters and great-granddaughters to have the opportunity to know me intimately. So now I think I will seal my private diaries, letters and any incriminating memorabilia with specific instructions to my survivors that the container not be opened until my 100th birthday and that they remain unpublished until 100 years after my death. Thankfully not everyone threw out their diaries. We learn a great deal about our Maritime heritage from the diaries of bygone days which have survived. Some of these journals are the topic of this new series of columns. Sarah (Scofield) Frost’s surviving diary of her Loyalist family’s exile aboard the ship Two Sisters from New York in the spring of 1783 to what is now New Brunswick is probably one of the best known. Sarah opened her diary 216 years ago on May 25, with these words:
The contents are invaluable to her direct descendants, it goes without saying. But the insights of life aboard ship and the feelings of displacement and wariness are relevant to all United Empire Loyalist descendants. That’s pretty much everyone in the Maritimes. The final entry on Sunday June 29 reads:
Sarah’s diary is reprinted in a booklet, which every United Empire Loyalist descendant should own, entitled Kingston and the Loyalists of the Spring Fleet of 1783. Men’s journals tend to detail facts, more than emotions -- but even dry facts are often revealing. At the Fort Beausejour museum in Aulac, New Brunswick the notebook of Yorkshire immigrant William Chapman breaths life into the hurried repairs to Fort Cumberland during the summer of 1776 made necessary by the anticipated attack by Rebels led by Jonathan Eddy. Chapman was the carpenter in charge of the repairs so he kept track of the weekly wages of one pound to workers under his supervision named Anderson, Wood, Brown and Besto. Chapman’s notebook was started in the Old Country in 1764. Its a handbook of everyday details: recipes, money loaned and repaid, the cost of mending a plow and accounting of the cost of firkins of butter. Another very early diary was written by Rev. William Drummond's from April 5, 1770 to May 12, 1771. Rev. Drummond sailed aboard the Falmouth from Scotland to Prince Edward Island (then St. John's Island ). The whereabouts of the original journal is unknown, but a typewritten copy is on file at the National Archives, Ottawa, reference number MG 23J1 Volume 1.The reverend’s first impressions of his new homeland are recorded for posterity:
"June 2nd. At 1 o'clock a Pilot came on board who took us into the harbour. About 2 P.M. we came to anchor. Most of our company were sent ashore, about 11 the ship ran aground. We went out to see them where they were accommodated in Princetown where are a great many Scotch, Irish and French families." "June 3rd. Sunday. Being still at anchor at 1 P.M. the Capt. and the rest of us went ashore, and being convened in a house we performed divine service in Princetown." "June 4th. Stayed on board until after dinner then went ashore where we saw a great number of French people who were very kind. Spent this afternoon sauntering about till about 7 when I baptized a child of 2 years old. At 9 went to another house where the French were convened, had a dance and spent the evening in jollity." There are so many delightful entries in Louisa’s diary, it is difficult to cite only a few. I have settled first on the evidence of young love (I am, after all, a hopeless romantic); second and third on illustrations of the endless round of daily chores, the abundance of sociability and the weather -- the three staples uppermost in the daily lives of the pioneers at Colin Grove, on eastern outskirts of Dartmouth, Nova Scotia.
Then the following day, Monday, Aug. 28, 1815, Louisa writes: "I have been picking currants from nine this morning till four this afternoon. We have got a large washing-tub full for wine. -- Since (then) I have been raking hay till nearly night. -- Mr. Beamish and George left here very early this morning. I did not see them. -- While I was picking currants, my thoughts were employed with where I should be and what I should be doing this day twelve months." But, back to the more practical. Tuesday, Sept. 5, 1815: "After I had finished making butter this morning, I went to spinning. Mrs. Brinley sent for some of us to go to Miss Farquharson. I declined going and none went but Betsy. In the afternoon, Mama and the girls went to pick berries and I was left alone, except little Joanna who was asleep. -- Last night the frost was so great as to kill all the cucumber, and it has been very cold all day. Sunday, Dec. 31, 1815:
More next time on journals and diaries - Part II. Footnote: Bill Norin, who has published the quarterly MacDonald Family newsletter for 11 years shares this story after reading the column about Maritimers going to the Boston States.
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