List of Historical References regarding Beechville and the War of 1812 Black Refugee Settlement
June 2022
“Copy of a letter from Lord Castlereagh to the Governor or Commander of the forces in Nova Scotia, …Enclosing orders in Council etc., relating to the slave trade…”, 10 April 1808, Nova Scotia Archives, Commissioner of Public Records collection, RG 1 Vol. 420 No. 9.
John Boileau, Half-Hearted Enemies: Nova Scotia, New England and the War of 1812 (Halifax, Nova Scotia: Formac Publishing Co. Ltd., 2005).
Andrew Lambert, The Challenge: Britain Against America in the Naval War of 1812, (London: Faber & Faber, 2012).
[1]John N. Grant, The Immigration & Settlement of the Black Refugees of the War of 1812 in Nova Scotia and New Brunswick (Hantsport, Nova Scotia: Lancelot Press, Ltd., 1990)
Harvey Amani Whitfield, Blacks on the Border: The Black Refugees in British North America, 1812-1860 (Burlington, Vermont: University of Vermont Press, 2006).
Thomas Malcomson, “Freedom by Reaching the Wooden World: American Slaves and the British Navy during the War of 1812”, The Northern Mariner/le marin du nord, XXII No. 4 (October 2012), pp. 361-392.
Alan Taylor, The Internal Enemy: Slavery and War in Virginia, 1772-1832, (New York: W.W. Norton & Company, 2013).
“Names of Black Refugees who are settled upon lands conveyed to them by Henry H. Cogswell at the head of the North West Arm, Halifax”, 2 November 1815, Nova Scotia Archives, RG 1 Vol. 420 No. 93;
“License to Men of Colour at Refugee Hill”, 27 March 1818, Nova Scotia Archives, RG1 Vol. 419 No. 36.
“List of Black Refugees located on lands on the Prospect Road, Township of Halifax.” 1 July 1816, Nova Scotia Archives, RG 1 Vol. 419, No. 64.
“List of those settled at Refugee Hill and Head of North West Arm, showing the number of houses and lots of land”, n.d., Nova Scotia Archives, RG 1 Vol. 422 No. 112.
“Names of 5 Black Refugee families settled at Refugee Hill near the North West Arm, lands formerly granted but to be escheated”, 3 June 1816, NSA RG 1 Vol. 419 No. 53.
A certificate from October 1816 certifies that one Benjamin Roberts, “a Black Man, is a decent and industrious Man, [and] that he occupies a piece of Land obtained from Government on Refugee Hill near Halifax upon which he has built a House and made some Improvements and that he has a Wife and Three Sons…” – “Certificate in favor of Benjamin Roberts, a Black Refugee at Refugee Hill near Halifax”, 5 October 1816, Nova Scotia Archives, RG 1 Vol 419 No. 68.
http://www.novascotia.ca/nsarm/virtual/africanns/results.asp?Search=&SearchList1=4&Language=English; Bridglal Pachai, Peoples of the Maritimes: Blacks (Tantallon, Nova Scotia: Four East Publications, 1987).
Pearleen Oliver, A Brief History of the Coloured Baptists in Nova Scotia, 1782-1953 (Halifax: African United Baptist Association of Nova Scotia, 1953).
Pearleen Oliver, Song of the Spirit: An Historical Narrative of the History of the Beechville United Baptist Church (Halifax: Lancelot Press, 1994)p. 16, 74.
"Halifax List: Return of American Refugee Negroes who have been received into the Province of Nova Scotia from the United States of America between 27 April 1815 and 24 October 1818" (available online at Nova Scotia Archives, http://www.novascotia.ca/nsarm/virtual/africanns/1812results.asp ).
Folio 1 1827 Petition of Black Refugee settlers for road improvements between Halifax and Beech Hill
Nova Scotia Archives, RG5 Series P Vol. 92 No. 83
Transcription of 1818 Licence of Occupation for “Men of Colour” at “Refugee Hill”, Nova Scotia Archives, RG1 Vol. 419 No. 30
1815 “Beech Hill” Land License Plan indicating Shiers Grant, Nova Scotia Archives, RG1 Vol 419 No. 28
1818 “Refugee Hill” Land License Plan , Nova Scotia Archives, RG1 Vol 419, No. 36
1881 Land Grants to George Yeadon adjoining Lovett Lake. NS Registry of Deeds, Book 250, p. 136, #984.
1865 A.F. Church map of Victoria County, indicating Baptist Church at Beechville, with Lovett Lake, Nova Scotia Museum.