The Nathaniel Smiths aboard the Brigantine "Albion" in 1774 - Maritime Monday

Nathaniel Smith (1720-1791), my Fifth Great Grandfather, was one of about a thousand Yorkshire emigrants who arrived in Nova Scotia, Canada between 1772 and 1775 as part of the British resettlement. Along with his wife Elizabeth, daughter Nancy, and sons Robert, John, and Nathaniel with his wife Rachel, left Hull, England in March 1774 on board the brigantine "Albion."

I was able to obtain a a booklet recently from the Tantramar HeritageTrust entitled "Nathaniel Smith : A Stranger in a Strange Land." It contains excerpts from his letters home to family, even written during the crossing.  On May 29, 1774, he wrote to his brother Benjamin:

"...we had three weaks of excessive stormes and dreadful horicanes but in no great dainger of suffering, save upon Sable Island which sertainly would have been the case of our Capton had not been before the ship in his rekoning two hundred miles, as the Isle is that distance from the Cape called Sable, he begun to sound expecting to we were nigh the shores and about the Dead of Night could find not bottom, again about two they sounded on the starbord Side and found only aleven fathom, All was in an uprore expecting we were just upon the rocks."

Photo credit: http://www.windewardbound.com

Nathaniel Smith : A Stranger in a Strange Land,, Pat Finney, ed., a publication of Tantramar Heritage Trust Inc., Sackville, NB, Canada, August, 2000.


The Descendants of Nathaniel and Elizabeth Smith, Philip and Joan Smith Brides, Halifax, MA, 2000.