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| Photos by J. Candace Clifford |
Mary Perth was evacuated from New York in 1783. "L'Abondance weighed
anchor in a fine natural harbor on the southern coast of Nova Scotia. . . . Because Shelburne was already bursting at the
seams, the free black loyalists were told to start a new town three miles away on the northwest side of the bay. The newcomers must have borne their lame preacher,
Moses Wilkinson, ashore to lead them in prayer and thanksgiving on the beach of what they believed was their promised
land."
From Slavery to Freetown, p. 43-44
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The company captains "returned to the ship to tell Wilkinson and the others of the luxuriant growth of forest along the
shore and the potential for hunting and fishing. They happily agreed to the site chosen for them, and in a general discussion
among the ship's passengers decided to call their settlement Birchtown, in honor of the English general who had signed their
certificates of freedom in New York. They could not foresee that rock outcroppings lay just below the surface, that forest
and swamps would be a formidable barrier to clearing farms, that the shallow, sandy soil along the south coast produced only
scanty crops, and that the harbor froze over in the winter."
Ibid.
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| A certificate of freedom signed by General Birch |
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| Memorial at the site of Birchtown |
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For more information about the freed black loyalists, click on From Slavery to Freetown.
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