The family of Nathaniel Smith (1720-1791) and Elizabeth Duck (1723-1799) emigrated from Osmotherley, Yorkshire leaving Hull on the brigantine Albion with Thomas Perrot, Master. After a stop in Halifax, Nova Scotia, they arrived on 17 May 1774 in Fort Cumberland, NS where they joined a family member who had gone ahead.  Wesleyan Methodists, they immigrated to Nova Scotia as a family including children, spouses, and two servants for a total of eleven in the party. 

Their son, Nathaniel Smith II known as "Thanny" and his wife Rachel Weighill, gave birth three months after arrival to Nathaniel Smith III  (1774-1846) who was born in Fort Lawrence, NS. Nathaniel Smith III, became a resident of Ste Croix, Hants Co., NS after his parents relocated to Hants Co. and he married Jane Dill (1777-1859) there.

The story of the family's journey and their trials as pioneers, told through letters sent to family members in Yorkshire, have amazingly survived although the original letters were lost due to a robbery, all letters had previously been copied. They became the basis of a Yale thesis in 1986 for Anne A. Calabresia and a book. They tell a chapter in Nova Scotia's history related to the Eddy Rebellion of 1776, and the impact it had on loyal settlers (like the Smiths) who refused to join the rebel cause, and eventually moved to the Cornwallis Township (currently Port Williams, NS) in 1782. Canada currently has an east coast, because of the failure by New England settlers in the area to bring British colonists living in Nova Scotia and New Brunswick, into the American Revolution.



“Nathaniel Smith: Stranger in a Strange Land”, a book based on the letters tells the family story over several generations. Few families have as vivid a picture of immigrant trials in a new land. The family letters are available as a PDF file.