Chapter 62 - My German Ancestry in Nova Scotia

Eliza West and her granddaughter

One of the things that always has confused me about the results of my DNA test is that it shows that my ancestry is 63% Western European, but only 24% Irish, Scottish, or Welch, and but a mire 11% British. Yet when we review all of the chapters in this family history blog it would seem that our ancestry is largely British other than perhaps my Ferree and Rappleye French ancestry, and my Bogaert, Schenck and a few other Dutch ancestors. It just does not seem like it should add up to 63% Western European. Anyway, we figured that we had better do some more research.

One of the things that we discovered as we again reviewed our family tree was that we had never uncovered the ancestry of our 2nd great grandmother on my mother's side of our family, a woman by the name of Eliza West (abt 1831-1912), who is pictured in the photograph above along with her cute granddaughter Irene Stevenson, who is my late 1st cousin, 2x removed. The photograph was taken around 1902. Eliza West was the grandmother of my mother's father, Douglas Ross Patterson (1888-1979) who was born in Nova Scotia, Canada as were all of his parents and grandparents including Eliza West. Our Patterson ancestry is described in Chapter 5 of this blog and while Eliza West is briefly mentioned in the story no details about her life are described. For some reason over the many years that we have built our family tree on Ancestry.com, we never focused on Eliza West's ancestry in part because we believed that little has been uncovered about her ancestors and hence we made little effort to do any research. Unfortunately this is still true to some degree although we have finally uncovered the names and origins of many of her ancestors and we believe that their story is worth telling. One of the reasons that it is worth telling is that most of her ancestors were born in "Western Europe", or as we noted in the title of this chapter, they were born in Germany.

There is a lot of confusion about the birth year of my great grandmother Eliza West. While her name and birthyear appear in at least four different Canadian census records from 1871 to 1901, the birth dates vary somewhat especially in the year 1871 which places her birth year as 1825. The other records however, suggest that she was born later around 1831. If the year 1831 is accurate as her birth year, then she was only around 17 years old when she married her then 42 year old husband and my 2nd great grandfather, Thomas Savage (1806-1876) around the year 1848. Who knows but perhaps our Eliza was lying to her husband and the census taker about her age when she was younger. Unfortunately we know nothing about the ancestry of my great grandfather Thomas Savage. All that is known about his early life is that he was born in Ireland and that he joined with thousands of other Irishmen and their families who emigrated to Nova Scotia and other areas in America in the 1830s. In his case he arrived in the year 1836 at the age of around 30 years old. All of the census records report that his occupation was that of a "laborer" which we are sure that even back in the 1800s was not a highly paid position, however, considering the rapid growth in their town of Dartmouth, he was undoubtedly busy. Despite Thomas' rather low paid but busy occupation and the around 25 year age difference between Thomas and Eliza, that did not seem to stop them from have sex frequently as between 1849 and 1869, Eliza gave birth to eleven children including my great grandmother, Mary Elizabeth Savage (1856-1931 who was undoubtedly born in her parents' home in Dartmouth, Nova Scotia.

Not unexpectedly considering their age difference, my great grandfather Thomas Savage died many years before Eliza. The exact year of his death is not known for certain although a few sources list it as sometime just prior to 1876. In the 1881 census record Eliza is listed as still living with 8 of her 11 children and her youngest child was still only 11 years old. There is no reason to believe that Eliza ever remarried and she finally died at around the age of 81 years old in the year 1912.  In the final years of her life she is shown living with her youngest daughter and her daughter's husband. We have to believe that her funeral was attended by many family members especially considering the size of her family. Perhaps even my grandfather, Douglas Ross Patterson and his parents, his mom being Elizabeth Savage, were in attendance. He was around 24 years old in the year of his grandmother's death and still living in Halifax, Nova Scotia. The following year he moved to Niagara County in New York State.

One thing that we had not previously mentioned was that Eliza West Savage was born in Lunenburg, Nova Scotia as were both of her parents and three of her four grandparents. Surprisingly, even six of her eight great grandparents had also lived in Lunenburg, Nova Scotia before their deaths and all of these six great grandparents were born in Germany and were among the group of original founding settlers of Lunenburg around the year 1753. Furthermore and even more surprising was that several of Eliza's great, great grandparents were also among the original settlers. We think that their participation in the original founding of the City of Lunenburg, Nova Scotia is a story worth reviewing.

The earliest settlers of Nova Scotia and the other coastal areas of eastern Canada were the Indians known later as the Mi'kmaq. The Mi'kmaq tribes are believed to have settled in the area at least a 1,000 years before the French landed in Nova Scotia in the year 1605 and created a village later to be known as Port Royal located on the northwest coast of the island. Obviously this early French settlement took place twenty years before the landing of the Pilgrims on Plymouth Rock in the year 1620. These early French settlers were primarily fur traders and fishermen and growth in the colony was slow for unlike the British who for religious reasons were rapidly moving to New England by the 1630s, in Nova Scotia there were less motives for the French to leave their country. Fortunately as the years went by, the French settlers and the Mi'kmaq Indian tribes were able to live peaceability together and many even married as the years pasted by. Furthermore in the year 1627, the French declared that the native Indians could become Roman Catholics if they so desired which further helped to strengthen the relationship between the original inhabitants and the new French settlers. In contrast in the New England area, the new British settlers took an entirely different approach with the local Indian tribes. The area of Nova Scotia and the other surrounding areas were soon to be known as Acadia and the French were to be called the French Arcadians.

Unfortunately for both the French Acadians and the Mi'kmaq Indians life in Nova Scotia and most of eastern Canada was never peaceful during the 17th century for it seemed that there were almost constant wars between the British and the French and in some cases between the Mi'kmaq Indians and the British such as during the King Philip's War in 1675-1678. There was even a short period in the 1670s when the Dutch gained control of parts of Nova Scotia. Without going into a lot of details about the prolonged wars during this time period, it should be noted that in 1713 a peace treaty was made between the British and the French titled the Treaty of Utrecht that basically gave control of much of Nova Scotia to Great Britain. Unfortunately for the British, the Mi'kmaq Indians were not a part of the treaty so military conflicts did not entirely disappear.

Early painting of Halifax in year 1750

Also unfortunate for the British was that they found it very difficult to encourage a lot of English emigrants to settle in Nova Scotia despite the signing of the treaty and the offering of land at no cost. Apparently by the year 1749 the British felt that they had no choice if they wished to continue to strengthen their position in Arcadia but to encourage families living in Central Europe to emigrate to Nova Scotia provided of course that they were Protestants as opposed to being Roman Catholics. Their primary focus was to be on German Protestants who were farmers living along the Rhine River corridor. To facilitate the new emigration plan, the British constructed fortresses in and around the future city of Halifax which was located on the southern shoreline of Nova Scotia. Furthermore the new town was located just off the Atlantic Ocean and within a larger harbor that was well suited for the access and the docking of large vessels. Then over the next three summers from 1750 through 1753 more than a dozen ships unloaded passengers into Halifax including an estimated 2,400 southwest German farmers and tradesmen including many of them who were mine and Eliza West's ancestors. In the year 1753, 1,400 Germans settled in the nearby and newly created community of Lunenburg located about 100 kilometers west of Halifax and also just off the Atlanta Ocean. Obviously considering the new and rapid immigration, the existing French settlers and Mi'kmaq Indians continued attacks against the British and the new settlers, however the British were able to hold control over the area until the present day. Battles and wars were not uncommon during this period including the French and Indian War that took place all through northeast America between the years 1754 and 1763 including battles in Nova Scotia.

The first ship to carry any of our ancestors from Germany to Nova Scotia was the Murdoch which set sail out of Rotterdam in Holland on 22 June 1751 and arrived in Halifax after three awful months at sea in late September. On board the ship were an estimated 398 passengers or approximately 100 families including all four of Eliza West's great grandparents on her father's side plus three of her great, great grandparents, plus in some cases their children. The ship was very crowded, the food was awful, and almost 10% of those onboard died before the ship landed in America. Johann Wendel Wuest (West) (1721-1811) and his wife, Maria Apollonia Ewald (1724-1759), my 5th great grandparents, were onboard along with three of their young children. Unfortunately we know almost nothing about the lives of Johann other than he listed himself as a blacksmith and he most likely ultimately lived and worked on a farm. Unfortunately for the majority of the passengers onboard all of the ships traveling to Halifax during this time period, the cost was not free and as a result Johann and many others were obligated to work for the British owners to help pay off their loans. It was of course, this strong obligation that quickly led to the development of Halifax and the other local expanding villages including Lunenburg. In late May of 1753, Johann Wendel Wuest was among the original settlers of Lunenburg located west of Halifax. These mostly German settlers and their English leaders spent a number of months building temporary shelters and then protective walls before any of the settlers were granted any land for all of the work that they performed. One source that we found online claims that the deed granted to Johann Wendel West was the very first deed executed in Lunenburg and it was dated 3 December 1753. It is also written that a few of the local British did not treat these new German settlers with any degree of respect and cheated them out of some of their originally promised entitlements and our Johann Wuest was among a group of men arrested and imprisoned for protesting. Fortunately he was soon released and pardoned. Johann and Maria are believed to have had seven children including my 4th great grandfather, John Jacob Wuest (1755-1836), before Maria's early and untimely death in 1759 at the age of only 35 years old. Johann Wendel Wuest remarried a woman named Maria Elizabeth Wittesham in 1760 and they had five children before Johann's death in Lunenburg in 1811 at the surprisingly old age of 90.

Their son John Jacob Wuest in 1684 married in Lunenburg a young girl by the name of Maria Magdalena Morasch (1761-1834), my 4th great grandmother, whose parents and two of her four grandparents had also sailed from Germany with John's parents on the Murdock in 1751. While both John and Maria were born in Nova Scotia, their parents were likely friends after their arrival and were also likely close neighbors in Lunenburg. While Maria's grandfather on her father's side, a man named Johann Leonhard Morasch (1706-1739), had died before the voyage to America, his wife and my 6th great grandmother, Anna Elizabeth Dosch (1710-1790) had remarried and with five of her children including Maria's father, Johann Michael Morasch (1728-1784), had sailed along with almost 100 other families on the Murdock. Obviously these German families were very close as not only did Maria's father's mother travel to America in 1751 but so did her mother's father. Her mother's name was Maria Elizabeth Haas (1722-1786) and her maternal grandfather's name was Barthol Haas (abt. 1692-abt. 1753). Also traveling with Maria Elizabeth Haas were all of her brothers and sisters. So, despite a lot of names and dates some of which may be incorrect, it is probable that onboard the ship Murdock we estimate that at least 18 to 20 of the passengers were either my direct great grandparents or my great uncles or aunts most of whom were early settlers in either Halifax or Lunenburg or both. Here again we know very little about the life of John Jacob Wuest and his wife and my great grandmother, Maria Magdalena Morash. We know that John Jacob and his family lived in Lunenburg from birth to death and that John Jacob was a tanner. We also know that they had at least ten children including my 3rd great grandfather, John Wendel West (1785-1843). These ancestors of mine were remarkable in their willingness to immigrate to an unknown and wilderness county, but they personally were not great heroes, wealthy individuals, nor politicians and therefore very little is known about their personal lives.

Early construction in Halifax

On 22 August of 1752 another ship arrived in Halifax, the Pearl, wherein at least four of my great grandparents and around four to six of my great aunts and uncles were onboard all of whom were born in Germany. The trip on the Pearl must have been terrible for the passengers as of the original 251 passengers onboard, forty of them died during the voyage and when they landed in Halifax the locals required the passengers to remain onboard for two more weeks as they were deeply concerned that contagious diseases might be passed along to the Halifax residents. The voyage from Rotterdam to Halifax took around 2-1/2 months and for most of the time the passengers were crammed below the main deck in quarters that were hot, crowded, bedless, and food was poor at best. It was also a long and stormy passage.  My two 6th great grandparents, Johann Philip Herman (1706-1758) and Sabina Maria Elizabeth Weick (1709-1753) were ages 46 and 43 when they arrived. Sabina died less than a year after their landing and Johann Philip died around five years later in 1758 at the age of only 51 years old. The voyage and the harsh life in Nova Scotia obviously encouraged their early demises. Also on board the Pearl were their children including their oldest son who was both married and my 5th great grandfather, Johann Philip Herman (Jr) (1723-1788). Johann Philip Harman Jr. had only recently married my 5th great grandmother, Elizabeth Sevilla Knauff (1728-1815) around two years earlier than their departure and they had yet to have any children.  Unfortunately here again we know very little about the lives of my 5th great grandparents other than they too were relocated to Lunenburg where they were granted land and where they were to have around ten children including my 4th great grandmother, Anna Barbara Herman (1767-1821). Anna Barbara Herman married a somewhat older man named Isaac Gray (1754-1831) in Lunenburg in 1791. He was 37 years old; she was only 23. Isaac was born in Pennsylvania and as the story goes he was opposed to the Revolutionary War and apparently after supporting the British during the war, near or at the close of the war he emigrated to Nova Scotia where he met and married Anna. One of their children was a daughter named Catharina Elizabeth Gray (1794-1871) who married John Wendel West in 1816. John's family is described in the earlier paragraphs. Catharina Elizabeth Gray and John Wendel West are the parents of my 2nd great grandmother, Eliza West.

Lunenburg, Nova Scotia today

Obviously we have spent the last three paragraphs listing the names of our many German ancestors who were early settlers in Halifax and Lunenburg and hopefully in doing so we did not overlook the importance of what they and other German settlers did for their British leaders and for Nova Scotia. When the British decided to take control of Nova Scotia and created Halifax in 1749, the initial settlers of Halifax were described by the then British leader, Col. Edward Cornwallis, as follows:
"the number of settlers men, woman, and children is 1,400 but I beg leave to observe to your Lordship that amongst these the number of industrious active men proper to undertake and carry on a new settlement is very small - of soldiers there is only 100 - of tradesmen sailors and other able and willing to work not above 300 more - the rest are poor idle worthless vagabonds . . . "  Not surprisingly over the following year or so many of these initial settlers left Nova Scotia and moved south to areas near Boston. Partially as a result of this problem as well as the difficulties that they were having encouraging English settlers to emigrate, a decision was made to encourage French, German, and Swiss Protestants most those living along the Rhine River in Germany to make the move to Nova Scotia and between 1750 and 1752 approximately 2,400 Europeans arrived in Halifax including as we noted above somewhere between 25 and 30 of my great grandparents and great aunts and uncles. Partially as a result of the overly rapid growth of the town of Halifax and the fact that the land surrounding Halifax was not ideally suited for farming, in the year 1753 approximately 1,500 of these mostly German settlers relocated to what would soon be the town of Lunenburg including our ancestral family.  We believe that it is very safe to say that we should be extremely proud that a line of our ancestors on my mother's side of our family, were among the group of initial settlers of Halifax, now Nova Scotia's largest city with a population of 297,900, and Lunenburg, a beautiful but quiet and fairly small coastal town located just west of Halifax with a population of only around 2,300. Again we are quite proud to be the descendants of some of the original founders of these two early Nova Scotia cities.