The Guysborough County Advocate and Canso Breeze

DOWN GUYSBOROUGH WAY

How the Boles Family Came to Guysborough
By JOHN A. MORRISON

Submitted by Kate Colwell ~
Transcribed by Ardella Grant McPhee

In a previous sketch we made reference to the Robert Boles family who left Clonmel, Ireland, one hundred and twenty years ago, and settled at Guysborough, at the head of Chedabucto Bay. Also, we made reference to the many descendants and marriage connections in the early days of the nineteenth century; and this is the story of how they came to settle in the Manchester district.

Ralph Cunningham of Clonmel, Ireland, (who was probably a relative of Boles) was living in Boston at the time of the American War of Independence and joined the Loyal Irish Volunteers as a Second Lieutenant under Captain James Forrest December 7th 1775.

Following the Declaration of Peace, Ralph Cunningham, now a Captain in the late Duke of Cumberland�s Reg�t (known as Lord Monatague�s Reg�t) came with other Loyalists and disbanded soldiers and acquired a lot of land in 1785 and a Town lot in 1790 on what is known as the Hallowell Grant.

On returning to his former home at Clonmel, Cunningham was a frequent visitor of Robert Boles and his family. Boles also was a retired soldier and kept a store at Clonmel. Cunningham praised his land at the head of Chedabucto Bay so much that Robert Boles became keenly interested more especially when Cunningham offered part of his land for sale.

We do not know what year Captain Cunningham returned to Ireland, but the sale was made, evidently before Boles had seen the property. We give the transaction from the Guysborough Records which we are sure, will prove of much interest to the numerous Boles Descendants and family connections in Nova Scotia and elsewhere: here is a copy of the sale:

Ralph Cunningham to Robert Boles, Nov 4th 1821
For the sum of seventy pounds sterling.
Lot 34, 35 and 36 containing 300 acres, forty of which is fit for present tillage, and also 200 acres more or (less?) about one mile west of aforesaid lands of which said Ralph Cunningham Esq., lived on and mortgaged by said Ralph Cunningham Esq., to Alexander Copeland for seventy pounds sterling in American currency and that there is on or about 20 acres of said land clear and fit for present tillage.
�County of Tipperary to wit.�
Henry Harvey came before me, one of His Majesty�s Justice of the Peace for aforesaid county and maketh oath on the Holy Evangelists that he was present and one of the subscriber witnesses to a Deed signed, sealed and delivered by Mr Ralph Cunningham to Mr Robert Boles of a tract of land supposed to contain 300 acres of land situated and lying on the North-East side of the Milford Haven River and in the Township of Manchester, County of Sydney, Nova Scotia, on or about the 25th day of November 1821. Sworn before me the 2nd of September 1830, William Cheators.
Registered 2 of the clock in the afternoon on the 14th day of November 1832.
Witnesses: W. McLelland, Daniel Sweeny, Henry Harvey.
Witness present: Henry Pedder.
To be paid to said Ralph Cunningham his heirs etc. in annual instalments of one-fifth part.
In the summer of 1823 , Robert Boles came to Guysborough to look over the property, evidently bought on trust. He was delighted with the beautiful town of Guysborough and its charming land-locked harbour, the low-lying hills, tree covered, and shadowed fringe of Milford haven River and gravelly shallows of the Manchester shore. The depths and silences of forests and sense of deep solitude in the shade of the trees, so refreshing after the ceaseless noise of the city streets.

Boles returned to Clonmel and made plans to bring his wife and family to Nova Scotia.

In the summer of 1824, they had their furniture conveyed to the Cove of Cork where they embarked with a Captain Leslie who was bound for New York, via Saint John�s Newfoundland and for three weeks they did not see land. At Saint John�s they transferred to Captain Lothrop Whitman�s vessel which brought them to Guysborough.

Mrs Boles told the Simpson grandchildren about how their grandfather Boles happened to come to this country (as we have explained). Grandfather Boles said, �it was a beautiful Sabbath morning when they arrived in Guysborough and the church bells were ringing when they came up the harbour and the surface of the sea was bathed in a flood of colour. The whole landscape was charming, the lovely harbour bounded by low hills, with hardwood and firs on either side. But they were glad to get ashore after the long voyage.

They had looked at the small homesteads snuggled against the low hills as they sailed up lovely Chedabucto Bay, winging their way over a strip of silver sea that blended with the distant sky; they viewed the green bluffs, the wooded promontories and jutting headlands of the south shore, the sandy coves and pebbly beaches with boats drawn up on the shingle beyond reach of the tide.

Entering the narrow channel that cuts in between the outstretched tip of Hadley�s Beach (now Long Beach) and the short-line of Fort Point, they enter the sheltered haven of Guysborough and what a harbour it is indeed, the very model of a harbour, not the seaport of city but the splendid grandeur of a Highland Loch (which it barely missed becoming) but for the narrow channel at the tip of Hadley�s Beach.

In the nearby Lakes one may angle for the rich red-speckled trout in the brown waters. We may not fill our creel, but we can hardly avoid filling our soul with sweet memories.

The beauty of the place was evidently the first impression conveyed to the mind of, at least, Mrs Boles at Guysborough; and there was the sense of confidence and security in the ringing of the church bells as the party stepped ashore on the dock, that the spiritual wants of the settlers had been provided for, they had left the old home beyond the seas and reached journey�s end and entered the frontier of the New World with its new everydays and tomorrows.

And so the Boles family sailed into Guysborough Harbour in the soft air of a Sabbath morning when the church bells were ringing and made their home on 300 acres of land purchased from Ralph Cunningham of the Duke of Cumberland�s Reg�t on the North-East side of the Milford Haven River in the Township of Manchester, County of Sydney, Nova Scotia.

Besides the children we named in a preceeding page there were other children born here: Grace Boles who became Mrs George Strople of Boylston (who lived near the Boles estate) and a son Robert Boles who married Annie Whitman. This son succeeded to the estate by Deed dated April 10, 1847. Another son born here was Charles who married Esther Whitman, a daughter of Ira and Elsie (Ross) Whitman.

They had eleven children; the greatest number of whom settled in Massachusetts. Two daughters married and finally settled in Seattle, Washington. Mary Boles married Rev Arthur Chute House, a Baptist minister from western Nova Scotia. He has been dead for a number of years and his wife lives in Seattle. David Boles married Miss Strople, a sister of the Strople who married Grace Boles.

Aimee Semple MacPherson, who established a church organization with branches all over the West Coast, left a son Rolfe MacPherson and he would be a descendant of the Boles, Simpson and MacPherson families of Manchester, Guysborough County.

The place now occupied by Buckley Simpson (a Descendant) was the old Robert Boles estate. A part of the property, below the road and next to the river was given to the Anglican Church for a Rectory and was first occupied by Rev H H Hamilton who was not only a minister but designated as a farmer. It may be of interest to some of the older generation to put on record that in December 1864, the congregation of the Church of England at Upper, Middle and Lower Milford (Manchester) paid a tribute of respect of Mr Hamilton by presenting him with an address, subscribed to by the following: Jessie Anderson, John Maguire, and Thomas Hadley, Church Wardens; - Jeremiah W Lyle, James H Carr, James Hunt, Elizabeth Anderson, Maria Lyle, John Lyle, Isabelle Lyle, Nancy Lyle, Nancy Lowry, James Loach, James Reeves, Jesse Reeves, Joseph Scott, Mary A Scott, Wheaton Scott, Samuel Scott, Richard Welsh, Jane Welsh, Richard B Carrigan, David Lyle, Susan Lyle, Robert B Anderson, Mr Hamilton served Mulgrave, Boylston, Steep Creek, Manchester and Guysborough.

Errata notes by Kate Colwell
� My great grandfather�s name was William Allen Chipman Rowse and not as above stated as � William Arthur Chute House�.
� Grace and Robert Boles were born in Ireland only Charles was born in Nova Scotia.
� Strople family sources say David Bowles married Mary Strople daughter of John George Strople and cousin of George Strople who married Grace Bowles, not sister.
� The name of the paper was the Guysboro County Advocate and Canso Breeze. I am estimating the time frame to be early 1950's that it may have been written. I called the Nova Scotia Archives and Record Management in Halifax to see if they would have copies of the newspapers on Microfilm and they do for years 1922 to about 1969 -- I personally feel that Mr Morrison was writing these articles in the late 40's or 50's. I don�t remember my mother cutting the piece out of the paper, so I may have already left home, which was about 1953.
� Boles family arrived in 1824 and article says �120 years ago� making the date about 1944.