.

HomePort

Family from Forfar - Chapter 4.2

Search HomePort

.

The Fourth Generation (1st & 2nd Canada Line)

Although Nova Scotia had established the family within North America and been the starting point for the two major banches, both branches essentially moved as intact families to the United Sates locating eventually in Boston and Pittsburgh.  Because two of the Boston group has ties to Nova Scotia they remained there when the moves took place and established their family lines in Canada, while the other seven lines were developing in the U.S.

Jane Dill Scott's the eldest of the family had an important reason to remain in Canada - her marriage to farmer James Sterling of the neighbouring village of Meander near Ste Croix. Tradition indicates they remained on the Sterling farm, although records show James Sterling purchased his father-in-law's store property in Wolfville for £27 in 1849, at Scott's Corner.  Their marriage produced four members of the fourth generation; daughters Annie, Amelia, Emma and son James Sterling Jr.  Three of the four did not marry, but remained on the family farm, thus the line carried on through Amelia Sterling who married Charles MacDonald.  This line has not been researched in detail yet, although known descendants were living in San Francisco in 1910.

3 Jane Dill Scott #24 b. 05 Mar 1823 d. before 1911
      m. James Sterling #42 m. 03 Jan 1848 b. 23 Jan 1820 d.  Meander, Nova Scotia ?
      4 Annie Elizabeth Sterling #43 b. 07 Apr 1849 Newport N.S.? d. 23 Apr 1928
      4 Amelia Sterling #190 b. 06 Jun 1851 Newport N.S. ?
        m. Charles MacDonald #162 m. 06 Jun 1877
        5 Bessie J. MacDonald #191 b. 07 May 1878 d. 24 Oct 1878
        5 Arthur M. MacDonald #164 b. 11 Aug 1879
        5 Charles T. MacDonald #192 b. 23 Dec 1882
      4 James Sterling   b. 04 Apr 1853 Newport N.S.? d. 12 Apr 1934
      4 Emma Sterling  b. 04 Apr 1856 Newport, N.S.? d. 10 Jun 1932

Just a few miles from Jane Dill (Scott) Sterling lived her brother David Scott who also had a reason to remain in Canada.  After the death of his mother Elizabeth Dill he was adopted by her brother and his wife. Alexander Dill of Elm Farm, Ste Croix was the uncle and although he had no children of his own his name was honoured with  the birth of David's first son Alexander Dill Scott .

David Scott received the 200 acre farm upon his uncle's death - but only half of the house - his aunt remained part owner of the house, as the will granted her:

One half of the house. . . namely the west end with the privilege of cooking in the back room also fuel at the door and cut up fit for fire place or stove as my beloved wife may choose I give to my beloved wife a good milk cow: - and the cow to be summered and wintered also three ewes kept as the cow summer and winter . . one quarter of the garden on the west . . . one quarter of the fruit trees.

Elm Farm, was only part of the estate, which included part ownership of the Windsor registered schooner Adonia and owner of the carding mill on the Ste Croix along with the mill pond and dam.  David Scott had ambitions and after selling the milling operations to the Stanfield family of Truro - a family still involved in global textile operations from their Nova Scotia base in Truro - he moved the entire family to Halifax, Nova Scotia  Nova Scotia.  Purchasing a store on 20 Sackville St. which was near the waterfront, the family in 1873-74 were successors to S.S.B. Smith, Grocer.  Renaming the operation after their home village, Ste Croix House was listed as a Commission Merchant Wholesale and Retail in American & West Indian Goods. Located at the foot of Sackville between Lower Water Street and Hollis Street, the area was in the centre of highly competitive trade in the city.

With eight children in the family (six girls and two boys), soon the boarding house next door at 22 Sackville, which had operated by D. Stamper as the Mayflower House, the year they arrived, was listed as the Scott residence.

By 1878 the business had run a rough course and refinancing had already tried once to rescue the
operation.  With three mortgages on his farm properties in Ste Croix, David Scott had to admit that the
business he had purchased was not surviving. Although family legends contend an unscrupulous owner, keen to unload a losing business took advantage of the novice merchant when selling the operation initially, the business had survived and fed a family of ten for half a decade, despite the ever changing nature of retail and wholesale business.

Included in the Scott household that comprised the fourth generation of the family were:

3 David Scott  b. 30 May 1825 Nova Scotia d. 1906 Ste Croix N.S.
      m. Jane Hunter Dill b. 03 Nov 1828 d. 10 Feb 1907 Ste Croix N.S.
         [daughter of William Dill and Margaret Ann Hunter]
      4 Annie Elizabeth Scott  b. 1857 d. 06 Jun 1936 Ste Croix N.S.
      4 Isabella "Belle" D. Scott #17 b. 1859 d. 04 Feb 1889
      4 Alexander Dill Scott  b. 23 Jan 1860 Ste Croix, Nova Scotia d. 19 Jan 1945 Novato, California
        m. Mattie Benedict  m. 1889 d. 1893 Novato, Calif.?
        m. Frances Peters  m. 1895 b. 07 Oct 1858 California d. 18 Apr 1942 Marin Co. California
      4 Alice Sterling "Sis" Scott b. 17 Feb 1862 Ste Croix NS d. 26 Aug 1945 Ste Croix N.S.
      4 Ada Tuzo Scott b. 1864 Ste Croix NS d. Nov. 21, 1912 VG Hospital Halifax NS
        m. Lemuel C. Sperry
      4 John Albert Scott b. 22 May 1866 Ste Croix, Nova Scotia d. 27 Nov 1954 Ste Croix, Nova Scotia
        m. Lillian Jane Harvey m. 31 Dec 1907 1st Presbyterian Church, Boston  b. 16 May 1870 Ste
Croix Hants Co N.S ? d. 04 Aug 1939 Ste Croix, Nova Scotia
      4 Minnie Scott  d. 06 Sep 1891 Ste Croix N.S.
      4 Jessie Scott   b. 1873 d. 02 Mar 1889 Ste Croix N.S.

Although  all eight reached maturity, like their Sterling cousins, the majority did not leave descendants.  While two remained unmarried, the major loss to the family was the death of three sisters from Tuberculosis (called Consumption) between 1889 and 1891.  The youngest was just 16 when she died. A beautiful child named Jessie, the name and her memory took on symbolic significance. A sister and a brother both called their only daughters after her. The first, Jessie Helen Scott of Novato, California was the daughter of Alexander Dill Scott and Mattie Benedict.  As a two year old her mother died and young Jessie Helen arrived in Nova Scotia to be cared for by her relatives at Elm Farm until her father remarried two years later.

Jessie Maria Sperry was the second child named for Jessie Scott. Ada Tuzo Scott had married Lemuel C. Sperry an established merchant in Petite Riviere on the South Shore of Nova Scotia.  Operating the village store together, she was also the church organist in the local Methodist Church. The life of their only child Jessie Maria Sperry was tragically brief.  Born in 1895 she died at the age of three.

While all three Jessies would be without descendants Jessie Helen Scott remained a stalward connection between the growing families on the two coasts.

Like Jessie Helen Scott the two unmarried members of the Nova Scotia family contributed to the lives of their nephews and worked as part of the farm unit running Elm Farm. Their role is told through a companion essay called Kitchen of Ideas: Maiden Aunts in Rural Nova Scotia 1857-1945

The establishing of the Novato family of Alexander Dill Scott is likewise told though his biography and a linked collection of photographs compiled by his son Alger Benedict Scott in 1906 which tell of life in the pioneer village of Novato.

The late marriage of John Albert Scott December 1907 to his boyhood love, Lillian Jane Harvey, who had enjoyed a career in Boston as a nurse, established a continuing line at Elm Farm.  Married on New Year's Eve at 1st Presbyterian Church,  Boston,  the couple enjoyed royal treatment from their Boston relatives.  The newly wedded pair, Lillian and John started married life at age 37 and 41 respectively.  In Nova Scotia their two sons John Redford Scott and Frederic Charles Gillmore Scott were born.

With later marriages, over time generation numbers are not parallel thus there are individuals in 2001 in different branches who are the exact same age, but who are two generations apart.