Origin of the Name Mahone Bay

Date: [unknown] [unknown]
Location: Nova Scotia

WHEN WAS MAHONE BAY GIVEN ITS NAME? AND BY WHOM?

Search for Historic Information Yields Non-Answers
I set out on the Google search page, intending to answer two very simple questions:

What was the earliest recorded use of the name Mahone Bay?

And by whom was it first used?

I ended up, instead, with a lot of search results providing "non-answer answers," which necessitated my taking a deep dive into maps and history books in an attempt to answer the questions myself.

After posing my questions to Google, I first checked the Wikipedia entry for "Mahone Bay." Surely, if there was a quick answer to the origin of the name, it would be found there, right? Wrong.

Wikipedia's page for Mahone Bay had this to say under the "History" section:

"The area was first inhabited by the indigenous Mi'kmaq. The first Europeans in the area were the French, the early maps of whom labelled the bay as La Baye de Toutes Iles (The Bay of Many Islands). The current name derives from the French mahonne, a type of barge.

"In 1754 the British brought German speakers from Europe to colonize the area, starting in Lunenburg..."

Exactly none of this answered my questions. The article did everything but bring in a clown show to distract us and redirect our thoughts away from the fact that the most basic question of how Mahone Bay got its name was not provided.

Yes, the area was, indeed, inhabited by Mi'kmaq tribes, but the Mi'kmaq name for today's Mahone Bay was Mushamush, named after the Mushamush River which empties into the bay.

And yes, the first Europeans in the area were the French, but—as we shall see momentarily—their maps did not label the area of today's Mahone Bay "La Baye de Toutes Iles." (The writer of said statement of fact provided not a single map as proof.) That the word "Mahone" derives from the French word mahonne is also easily proved false. (As we shall see shortly, the word is of Turkish origin.)

And the last sentence, regarding the Germans, was so incorrect as to be worthy of a facepalm for the poor author. German Protestants were brought to Halifax, between the years 1750 and 1752, and were relocated, beginning on 29 May 1753, to the Mi'kmaq village of Merligueche, which had just several weeks earlier been renamed to Lunenburg. (And, sorry to nitpick, but were they really German speakers—"Freunde, Römer, Landesleute, leiht mir eure Ohren ..."^[1]—or were they German-speaking immigrants?)

Let's return to the statement that the French labeled "the bay" as "La Baye de Toutes Iles." And by "the bay" we suppose the writer meant Mahone Bay, seeming as this was an article about Mahone Bay (you'd think, right?). Realizing that my search for the first use of the name "Mahone Bay," and by whom, was proving fruitless, I next shifted to searching for the stated "early maps" of the French that carried the label "La Baye de Toutes Iles." They spoke from experience, as though they had seen the said maps.

Early Surveys With Missing Bay
The French had a long history with Nova Scotia (which they called l'Acadie), beginning in the early 1600s. In spite of this long history, there aren't many good maps online. Many of the maps from the 1600s were not really meant to be used for navigation, but instead were highly stylized for display—in the drawing rooms of the wealthy, I suspect. A good chunk of these seem to be fake "old" Oak Island treasure maps. (My guess is that the real ones would not have copyright statements?)

The maps of the early 1700s aren't much better. One gets the impression that the artists who drew them had never actually met an Acadian surveyor, as the bays were both incorrectly shaped and incorrectly scaled, and none of the current features were very recognizable.

It was during the War of Austrian Succession (1740-1748) that the French maps of Acadia improved. Searching with Google, I found three French maps that were detailed enough to provide the required information about the geographic features along the south coast, and were of high enough resolution to allow zooming in for reading the fine details.^[2]

A map titled "l'Acadie" (Acadia, en franҫais), published in Gilles Robert de Vaugondy's, Atlas Paratif, universel et militaire (Paris, 1748/1749) shows a mixture of French and Mi'kmaq place names. Proceeding westward along the south shore, we see the following in succession:

*) today's Halifax Harbor, labeled "B.[aye] de Chibouctou" (its Mi'kmaq name)

*) today's Prospect Bay, labeled "Havre Prospec" (havre being French for harbor)

*) today's St. Margarets Bay, labeled "B[aye] Ste. Marguerite

*) the Mi'kmaq village of "Mirligueche" (today, Lunenburg) on what is today's Lunenburg Bay—although the bay was unlabeled on this map

*) the village of la Heve (today's LaHave) on "P.[ort] de la Heve" (the mouth of the LaHave River)

Today's Mahone Bay, however, not only has no label on this map—it is entirely missing! It's hard to argue that "La Baye de Toutes Iles" was important to the French when it's not even shown on this 1748/1749 map published in Paris!

But the latter map was found through an English search of Google, when what was needed was a narrower search en franҫais. The search terms (franҫais "la baye de toutes iles") would hopefully signal to Google that we wanted to search French-language contents for the entire phrase "la Baye de toutes iles." As usual, Google did a bang-up job, and found a lovely pen and ink and watercolor map of "l'Acadie", drawn by an anonymous mapmaker and dating to between 1740 and 1749. ^[3] This map was titled "Acadie, Isle Saint Jean and part of Isle Royale with the Baye Franҫoise." It once belonged to King George III and was part of the British Library Collection.

This map probably appeared in the search results because it contains the label "Baye de toute les Isles," which is prominently placed across the Atlantic Ocean near the south coast of Nova Scotia. But the label appears to be applied a ways east of today's Halifax Harbor, which is again labeled with its Mi'kmaq name, "B. de Chibouctou." This placement of "Baye de toute les Isles" was a total surprise. It's quite obvious that "Baye de toute les Isles" had nothing to do with what is today Mahone Bay.

As before, proceeding westward along the south shore, we encounter the following labeled features in succession:

*) today's Halifax Harbor, labeled "B[aye] de Chibouctou"

*) a rather crude not-to-scale inlet representing what is likely today's Prospect Bay, labeled "H. Prosper."

*) today's St. Margaret's Bay, labeled "B. St. Mansgueride," likely a butchered attempt at "Baye de Ste. Marguerite," also not to scale.

*) the Mi'kmaq village of Merligueche, misspelled as "Mirligucal" (today's Lunenburg)

*) today's Mosher's Harbor and Ship's Channel outside of the mouth of the LaHave River, the latter labeled "R. de la Havre"

Mahone Bay is, once again, missing on this map, proving that the map from the Atlas Paratif, above, wasn't just an odd duck. This bay was not at all important to the French. It appeared to be completely unknown to the French surveyors. Why was this? The French weren't using the harbors on the south coast of Nova Scotia, as their stronghold was Louisbourg on the east side of Cape Breton Island. As a result, they had done only a very crude survey of the area.

The British did not begin to use the south side of the island until Governor Edward Cornwallis arrived in 1749 with English settlers to found the town of Halifax. But in the next few years, Cornwallis got bogged down with all of the problems surrounding the foreign Protestants, and spent little time exploring.

Halifax Harbor was selected in the first place likely because (ironically) it had fewer islands onto which the typically-large, not-very-maneuverable English ships could run aground. Therefore, due to the non-use of today's Mahone Bay, it wasn't well explored or surveyed. Many mapmakers of the day simply "borrowed" geographic features from earlier maps drawn by others, adding their own details where needed, so this would explain how today's Mahone Bay could be missing on so many maps. It's anybody's guess how many primary, original maps there were to serve as the basis for copies.

The label "Baye de toute les Isles," on this map, seems to be centered underneath an area stretching along much of the southern coast east of Halifax Harbor. The western edge of the label appears to be east of today's Jeddore Harbor ("C[ap] Jeador"), and it then stretches eastward to the area of the St. Mary's River.

While searching for additional maps from the 1740s at the Norman B. Leventhal Map & Education Center at the Boston Public Library, I did find one additional map: a map drawn by Frenchman Monsieur Jacques Nicolas Bellin, dated 1745, copied from an original in Paris ("T. Jefferys sculp."), but published in London. It was titled, in a beautiful cartouche in the lower right corner, "A New Chart of the Coast of NEW ENGLAND, NOVIA SCOTIA, NEW FRANCE or CANADA, with the Islands of NEWFOUNDLD CAPE BRETON ST. JOHN'S &c. Done from the original Publish'd in 1744 at Paris. BY MONSR N. BELLIN. Enginier to the Marine Office."

Where Was the Bay of Islands, Really?
Upon zooming in on the south coast, I noted that, as in the previous two maps—no surprise—today's Mahone Bay area was again missing. But there were two differences to note from the other maps. First was that the label "The Bay of Islands," in English on this map, had been applied a bit further east. The second thing I noticed was that this earlier map has a "Bay of Islands [fishing] Bank" below and slightly east of the "The Bay of Islands" label. This third map, then, underscored both the fact that the area of today's Mahone Bay was unknown to, and therefore unimportant to, the French—being omitted from important French maps prior to English rule—and that the label "La Baye de toute les Isles" (en franҫais) or "The Bay of Islands" (in English) applied to a completely different area of the southern coast of Nova Scotia, one east of Halifax Harbor.

Just for grins, I pulled up Google Maps and typed into its search box, "Bay of Islands, Nova Scotia, Canada." And I was totally surprised when I actually got a hit, but disappointed in the results. The red marker showed a tiny area near East Quoddy and Harrigan Cove. I believe that this is a mere remnant of the former "Bay of Islands." Often in Google Maps you will find that important areas a couple hundred years ago no longer exist, or that the only remnant is a street name in the former location.

Upon zooming out on the modern map, I noted the huge number of islands off the southern coast in a particular section east of Halifax Harbor. (I captured this in an image.) I believe it's very likely that the entire stretch of the bay from Little Harbor eastward to the mouth of the St. Mary's River was once called the "La Baye de toute Isles" (French) / "The Bay of Islands" (English), due to the huge number of islands off the coast.

We have now disproved the statement on Wikipedia's "Mahone Bay" page: "The first Europeans in the area were the French, the early maps of whom labelled [what is today Mahone Bay] as La Baye de Toutes Iles (The Bay of Many Islands)." But we still haven't answered the questions we set out to find: What was the earliest recorded use of the name Mahone Bay? And by whom was it first used?

Because the area of today's Mahone Bay was not important to, or surveyed by, the French, the name was probably applied under English rule, and we will develop that hypothesis next.

The English Rule of Nova Scotia Begins
The English acquired dominion over the area on October 18, 1748, when they signed the treaty of Aix-la-Chapelle with the French at the Free Imperial City of Aachen in the Holy Roman Empire.

While researching the origin of Mahone Bay, I visited the online Canadian Encyclopedia, which in its entry for "Mahone Bay," said, "Its name is derived from the French mahonne (barge), referring to the long, low boats used by pirates ... who frequented the area." This sent me on another deep dive for research.

According to the entry for "mahonne" in the Larousse French Dictionary, mahonne, a feminine French noun of Turkish origin, means a "decked port barge, without its own means of propulsion, used for loading ships." Yes, mahonne truly meant a barge. Conversely, the "Golden Age of Piracy" website says that pirates "... used to swoop down on their targets in oar-powered boats called galleys ..."

So, the French mahonne refers to a towed craft, without its own means of propulsion, while pirates used oar-powered boats. It would seem that there was a big enough difference between the two that it would be hard to confuse them.

Furthermore, according to Wikipedia, the "golden age" for piracy has been said to have run from 1690 to 1730 or thereabouts. So, piracy in Nova Scotia had died out decades before the change in dominion over Nova Scotia. This timeline seemed important, because the current name is not "La Baye de Mahonne," but "Mahone Bay," suggesting that the name was not French, but was rather of either English or German origin.

"Why has no one suggested a German origin?" I wondered. I checked my modern Oxford-Duden German Dictionary, but found that there was no entry for "Mahone." However, that dictionary's focus was no doubt modern German, as it was published in 1990. I then searched Google for "Was heißt Mahone auf altdeutsch" and got a search result for a German dictionary printed in 1800! Sweet!

But the biggest surprise was that the entry was in the English-to-German section of the dictionary; it was an English word introduced into the German language, and not a German word! It was described as, "die Name einer Art türkischer Schiff" ('the name of a type of Turkish ship"). The same definition, essentially, as in the French.

It was likely that it was some wealthy and powerful Englishman familiar with commerce and shipping—someone familiar with trading throughout the world, from the Mediterranean to Africa to the Orient and to the Americas—who had encountered the name of a Turkish ship and thought to use it in Nova Scotia. Just park that thought in the back of your mind for now.

We return to the hypothesis that Mahone Bay probably got its name after the changeover of dominion from France to England.

Immediately after the changeover, the English government realized that the virtually-empty lands in their new province were vulnerable to colonization by the French Acadians. To prevent this, they began making plans for colonizing Nova Scotia with "Foreign Protestants." The management of this task was assigned to the Lords of Trade and Plantations, who began communicating with merchants in Rotterdam who were already involved in the business of advertising and shipping of German migrants to Philadelphia. In 1750, they signed a contract with a man named Mr. John Dick to bring 1,500—mostly German-speaking—foreign Protestants to Nova Scotia.

The first three shiploads of German immigrants (the Alderney, the Ann and the Nancy) were brought to Halifax in the month of September, 1750 (new style dating), bringing approximately 1,325 souls. The reason the settlers were brought to Halifax is that there was still a danger of Indian attacks in the outlying areas. The settlers had been promised 50 acres each—every man, woman and child—so that they could cultivate the land and become self-sufficient, but this promise was the equivalent of what they call "vaporware" in the software industry: the announcement of a non-existent product used to draw business away from competitors.

Late April 1753: Reconnaissance of Merligueche and Mushamush
Two years and eight months, ten ships and another 1,925 passengers later, the English government, which had been procrastinating about fixing the untenable situation of what basically amounted to refugee camps full of people being "victualled" at public expense, was finally stimulated to actually do something due to outright revolts, with some of the settlers petitioning the home government (i.e. "going over their heads"), giving one-star reviews of Nova Scotia to anyone who would listen, and cetera. It was likely the latter, the 18th century version of "Yelp" that ultimately did the trick. The German Protestants were—finally!—to be moved and given their land!^[4]

I had left the "two questions" cooking somewhere on the back burner in my subconscious as I did research for various Lohnes profiles. It was while reading Winthrop Bell's book, The "Foreign Protestants" and the Settlement of Nova Scotia (1961), that I finally found the answers to both questions while reading about the move to Lunenburg, and the distribution of lots.

In section 56 ("CHOICE OF SITE"), on pages 401-402, Bell wrote: "At a meeting just one week after his assumption of the government [Governor Peregrine Thomas] Hopson had informed his Council of the instructions he had been given about settling the foreign Protestants, and invited their opinions as to the possibilities. . . . When Hopson forwarded his report to London in October 1752 he added: 'Merliguish by Margaret's Bay is another place about eighteen leagues to the Westward [under consideration for settlement].' "

Merligueche, meaning "whitecaps," was the Mi'kmaq name for the village that was to be renamed to Lunenburg. (Hopson seemed to alternate spellings between Merliguish and Merligash, which were English variations of its Mi'kmaq name, the French being Merliguèche.)

I noted in Hopson's report to London, above, that not only had Merligueche not yet been renamed to Lunenburg, but Hopson described it as being located "by Margaret's Bay," appearing not to know that the village sat on its own bay—in fact, two bays, with Merligueche Bay on the front and Mushamush Bay (as Mahone Bay was then known by the Mi'kmaq) on the back side. The reason for Hopson's erroneous description was precisely because the area had still not been surveyed!

This situation would change only one month before the transfer of German Protestants to the area. On page 403, Bell wrote: " . . . in 1753 Hopson could report that [as a result of a survey of the former French settlements]. . . there were at Merligash between 300 and 400 acres of cleared land.¹⁰" Footnote 10 at the bottom of the page: "Hopson to L. of T. [Lords of Trade], 26 May 1753." And on page 404, Bell noted that ". . . well before the spring of 1753 . . . Hopson had decided to make the whole 'out settlement' of the foreign Protestants in the Merligash area. Perhaps Hopson had already found at Halifax sufficient information about Merligash to give him confidence about it (though, as we shall see, he sent the surveyor-general thither to make a reconnaisance a month before the actual dispatch of the settlers)." [Bold italics mine.]

The very first transfer of German Protestants to the area was made on 29 May 1753. Therefore, the very first 'formal English survey of the Mahone Bay area, referred to above, must have taken place in late April 1753.

Early May 1753: His Excellency Renames Merligueche and Mushamush
The town of Lunenburg was only given its name about three weeks before the transfer of settlers. In section 57 ("THE NAME") on page 406, Bell wrote:

Moreover, so far as Lunenburg was concerned, the name was conferred on it almost a month before any of the foreign Protestants had arrived there at all. Council minutes of 10 May 1753 record that it was "resolved that the settlement to be made at Merligash be called the township of Lunenburg." While this appears as a resolution of Council, a later clause in the same minutes seems to imply that the choice had really been Hopson's own: "Whereas it is intended by His Excellency the Governor forthwith to settle a Township . . . by the name of Lunenburg." There is not the slightest evidence to suggest that the German immigrants had anything whatsoever to do with the choice.

Earlier on the same page, Bell pooh-poohed another author for suggesting that the settlers had had any part whatsoever in selecting the name. He stated during that discussion something on the order of, "Why, how silly that thought! Any historian should know that ordinary peons in that day weren't allowed to suggest place names—especially not for something so important as a county name! After all, this was one of the perks of high offices of government."

Bell's exact words were, "For one thing, in those days the naming of townships was not a privilege appertaining to settlers at all." [Here he adds a footnote stating that ". . . even for a location much less extensive or formal than a township, when some of the foreign Protestants a few years later wished to give it a name of their own choosing they felt it necessary to petition the local government for acceptance of that name."] He continued, "The instructions to Governor Philipps in 1730,^[5] in giving the rules for 'erecting' townships, had declared that each such township should be 'called by such name as you shall think convenient.' "

Thus, Bell was correct that it was surely Hopson himself who selected the name Lunenburg, after careful consideration—taking into account, for example, that their new monarch, King George III, had been the Duke and Prince-elector of Brunswick-Lüneburg ("Hanover") in the Holy Roman Empire before becoming King of Hanover on 12 Oct 1814, and also that the choice of the modified name of "Lunenburg" might appeal to the many Germans from Hanover.^[6]

Late May 1753: First Appearance of Mahone Bay on a Map
In connection with the move to Lunenburg on 29 May 1753 was—in addition to the layout of the town itself— the distribution of the first lots in the renamed town. I recalled that some of the first lots to be distributed were the Garden lots. I thought that a plat map showing the Garden lots might be a good place to look for the very first appearance of the name "Mahone Bay." Therefore, I searched the Nova Scotia Archives by year until I found a plat map dated 1753. It was titled "A TRUE COPY of A PLAN of The Town of Lunenburg Garden Lotts and Commons adjoining. Laid out by order of his Excellency Peregrine Thomas Hopson Esq Captain General & Governor in Chief in & Over his Majesties Province of Nova Scotia Etc. Etc." It was signed "By W. S. Morris D. S."^[7] I was not disappointed in my search: off the coast on the back side of Lunenburg was the label "Arm of Mahone Bay." Thus, the bay, at the time this plat map was made, now had the formal name "Mahone Bay," whereas just months before it had been unknown to the day's surveyors and mapmakers, as well as to Governor Hopson.^[8]

I firmly believe that, along with the renaming of Merligueche to Lunenburg, it also fell to Governor Hopson to come up with a name for the new bay discovered by Charles Morris, his Chief Surveyor. Hopson seemed to be a person who studied issues meticulously. So he may have dug through the annals in Halifax for anything he could find about the bay and its former inhabitants. Perhaps they also asked around of the oldest inhabitants, including one half-Indian person named "Old Labrador," and found that they called the bay "Mushamush," after a river by the same name that fed into the bay. There was also a small village on its shore by the same name. (The bay and the village became Mahone Bay and the village of Mahone Bay. The river is still the Mushamush River.)

Also in conjunction with his research on the area of the bay, I'm reasonably certain that Governor Hopson would have come across an account of the incident in 1726, which Bell describes on pages 402-403: ". . . a man and his son and three Indians seized another New England fishing vessel in Merligash harbour. But the skipper and his own men later managed to regain control at sea and took the offenders to Boston, where they were tried for piracy, found guilty, and hanged." This incident was probably the last known act of "piracy" in the area. (Although, I'm not sure whether the offenders qualified as true pirates, or were simply hostile Indians, who hated the English.) Thrilling stories about real pirates have always captivated people, and therefore this story—which happened on the very bay he was to name—may have captured Governor Hopson's imagination.

Now, a little ways back I mentioned the following: "It was likely that it was some wealthy and powerful Englishman familiar with commerce and shipping—someone familiar with trading throughout the world, from the Mediterranean to Africa to the Orient and to the Americas—who had encountered the name of a Turkish ship and thought to use it in Nova Scotia. Just park that thought in the back of your mind for now." I believe that Governor Hopson, being the educated man that he was, and surely being a person familiar with the British shipping trade throughout the world, thought about this incident of piracy, thought about a pirate ships, and came up with the name Mahone, a Turkish merchant ship on the Mediterranean with which he was probably familiar. So, for capturing the thrilling "pirate history"—the lore of the area told in stories—I believe he named the newly-rediscovered bay "Mahone Bay." It makes sense that Governor Hopson chose this name as part and parcel of naming the the town of Lunenburg and its bay, now Mahone Bay.

Finally: The Answers to the Questions
So, at long last, we are able to answer the questions we set out to research. (Drumroll, please. . .):

What was the earliest recorded use of the name Mahone Bay? Likely in very early May, 1753. Governor Hopson had sent a surveyor to the area in approximately late April, 1753, who surely reported back to him about the "rediscovery" of a large bay. Governor Hopson had already made his decision regarding his renaming of Merligueche to Lunenburg prior to its announcement at Council on May 10, 1753. Surely, during that same time period is when Mushamush Bay was renamed to Mahone Bay.

And by whom was it first used? The first use, of course, was surely by the man who had the privilege of naming townships and other important geographic features: Governor Peregrine Thomas Hopson himself. I commend him for obviously putting some thought and imagination into the name.

The first extensive survey of the newly-rediscovered bay was carried out by Charles Morris, Chief Surveyor for Nova Scotia, in the year 1755, at the behest of Lieutenant Governor Charles Lawrence. The newly-drawn map, in full colour—finally one that shows Mahone Bay and the surrounding areas to-scale and with the correct shapes—was titled, "A CHART OF THE SEA COASTS OF THE PENINSULA OF NOVA SCOTIA done by Order of His Excellency Charles Lawrence Esqr Lieut Govr and Commr in Cheif [sic] of his MAJESTY'S PROVINCE OF NOVA SCOTIA from many actual Surveys, and the whole corrected by Observations by Charles Morris Chf Survr NOVA SCOTIA 1755."

By the way, as Charles Morris—a Bostonian reputed to be the best surveyor in all of New England, whose work was greatly admired in London as well as the Colonies—seemed to have come up with the absolute best survey I had yet seen of Nova Scotia, I decided to do a search for him on Google, and in the process found an older Charles Morris survey of Nova Scotia, dated 1749. Now, curiosity got the better of me, and I just had to find a high-resolution copy of this map in order to see whether Morris was aware of today's Mahone Bay in 1749, even if he called it Mushamush.

I was able to find the map at the Norman B. Leventhal Map & Education Center at the Boston Public Library, and download a copy in high-resolution. I couldn't wait to zoom in on the south coast of Nova Scotia! This map, dedicated to Governor William Shirley of Massachusetts Bay Colony, was titled, "Draught of the Northern English Colonies, together with the French Neighbouring Settlements; taken partly from actual Surveys, and partly from the most approved Draughts and other Accounts..." It was worth the wait, because in spite of the fame of Charles Morris, his map was just like all the other period maps in omitting the entire area of today's Mahone Bay! The title, however, should tell us the reason for this omission: his map was based on the surveys of others, and not his own work!

This was a final check to make absolutely sure that Charles Morris hadn't done an earlier survey of the Mahone Bay area, but the answer was an emphatic No!

We can now be sure of the findings above. In summary:

The bay on which Merligueche sat, called Mushamush by the Mi'kmaq, had been forgotten by the English for many years—if not by the French or by the Mi'kmaq—and was "rediscovered" during Charles Morris's reconnaisance of the area in late April, 1753, in preparation for the relocation of the German Protestants on May 29, 1753. Sometime between that reconnaisance and the May 10, 1753, meeting between Governor Peregrine Thomas Hopson and his Council, his Excellency, using the rules and privileges given to him as Governor, devised new names for both Merligueche and Mushamush, its forgotten bay: They would thenceforth be known as Lunenburg and Mahone Bay.

Sources

Encyclopedia Articles About Mahone Bay

• "Mahone Bay." Wikipedia, Wikimedia Foundation. Last modifed January 2, 2023 at 23:43. Visited June 14, 2024.

• "Mahone Bay." The Canadian Encyclopedia. Last modified March 4, 2015. Visited June 14, 2024.

Dictionaries:

• Entry for "mahonne." Larousse. (French Dictionary). Last modified date unknown. Visited June 14, 2024.

• Oxford-Duden German Dictionary. W. Scholze-Stubenrecht, J.B. Sykes, Eds. Oxford University Press, New York; 1990.

• Neues Hand-Wörterbuch der Englischen Sprache für die Deutschen Sprache und der Deutschen Sprache für die Engländer. Durchaus mit genauester Accentuation sowohl der Englischen als im Deutsch-Englischen Theile der Deutschen Wörter und der richtigen Aussprache eines jeden englischen Wortes versehen. Bearbeitet von Johannes Ebers gegenwärtig Professor zu Halle. Ersten Theils zweite Abtheilung. K–Z. Englisch–Deutsch. Halle in der Rengerschen Buchhandlung, 1800. Seite 1093: Mag–Mai. Found through Google search: ""Was heißt Mahone auf altdeutsch"

Books:

• Bell, Winthrop Pickard, Dr. The "Foreign Protestants" and the Settlement of Nova Scotia: The history of a piece of arrested British colonial policy in the eighteenth century. The University of Toronto Press; Toronto, Ontario, CA, 1961. Reprinted by the Centre for Canadian Studies, Mount Allison University; Sackville, New Brunswick, CA, 1990. Borrowed online from Archive.org March 15th through March 27th, 2023.

High-Resolution Maps:
Digital Maps Courtesy of the Collections at the Norman B. Leventhal Map & Education Center at Boston Public Public Library. WATERCOLOUR

• "Acadie, Isle Saint Jean and part of Isle Royale with the Baye Franҫoise." By anonymous mapmaker. Once belonged to King George III. Part of the British Library Collection. Accessed June 14, 2024.

• Bellin, Monsieur N., "Enginier to the Marine Office." "A New Chart of the Coast of NEW ENGLAND, NOVIA SCOTIA, NEW FRANCE or CANADA, with the Islands of NEWFOUNDLD CAPE BRETON ST. JOHN'S &c." Paris, 1744. Accessed June 14, 2024.

• Morris, Charles. "A CHART OF THE SEA COASTS OF THE PENINSULA OF NOVA SCOTIA done by Order of His Excellency Charles Lawrence Esqr Lieut Govr and Commr in Cheif [sic] of his MAJESTY'S PROVINCE OF NOVA SCOTIA from many actual Surveys, and the whole corrected by Observations by Charles Morris Chf Survr NOVA SCOTIA 1755." Accessed June 14, 2024.

• Morris, Charles. "Draught of the Northern English Colonies, together with the French Neighbouring Settlements; taken partly from actual Surveys, and partly from the most approved Draughts and other Accounts..." Accessed June 14, 2024.

Nova Scotia Archives:
Other maps were obtained from the Nova Scotia Archives—Historical Maps of Nova Scotia:

• "l'Acadie." Atlas Paratif, universel et militaire Gilles Robert de Vaugondy. (Paris, 1748/1749). Accessed June 14, 2024.

• "A TRUE COPY of A PLAN of The Town of Lunenburg Garden Lotts and Commons adjoining. Laid out by order of his Excellency Peregrine Thomas Hopson Esq Captain General & Governor in Chief in & Over his Majesties Province of Nova Scotia Etc. Etc." (Probably late April or early May) 1753. Accessed June 14, 2024.

Historical Marker Database:

• Historical Marker Database: Old French Cemetery at Lunenburg, which says that Merligueche, the original Mi'kmaq name for Lunenburg, meant "whitecaps." Visit the page to see the plaque for the photos and text of Marker #78260. Last modified June 16, 2016. Visited June 14, 2024.

Golden Age of Piracy

• "Golden Age of Piracy." Wikipedia, Wikimedia Foundation. Last modified May 27, 2024 at 22:26. Visited 14 June 2024.
  
• "The Golden Age of Piracy." Royal Museums Greenwich. Last modified on date unspecified. Visited June 14, 2024.
  

References

1. ↑ German for "Friends, Romans, countrymen, lend me your ears...," the famous speech in the Shakespeare play Marc Antony.
2. ↑ Aside from recognizable features, there is the problem of resolution. It's possible to have a large, beautiful map of Acadia, with detailed information drawn for its bays along the south shore. But a map is of no use whatsoever if the details are so small that they they are nearly illegible, and when one tries to zoom in, the print turns into big, chunky, pixelated squares. To be able to view the details on these maps, it requires high resolution JPEG- or TIFF-format images that retain their clarity when enlarged.
3. ↑ The dates were explained by the fact that it does not name Halifax (founded 1749 by Britain), but does name Annapolis (captured from the French in 1710). Stylistically, they felt it dated from the 1740s.
4. ↑ The Germans never did receive the "50 acres for each man, woman and child" that they had been promised. Only a select few were given larger allotments of land than their garden lots, and most never received warranty deeds, as did English settlers in Nova Scotia.
5. ↑ Richard Philipps was governor of Nova Scotia from 1717 to 1749, although he didn't spend much time there. He died in London on 14 Oct 1750.
6. ↑ King George IV, however, was born and raised in England, spoke English as his first language, and had never even set foot in Hanover!
7. ↑ I couldn't find, through a Google search, the identity of W.S. Morris, but did read that Charles Morris had several sons who were involved in the family business. Perhaps the credential "D. S." was Deputy Surveyor? He had one son named Charles, and even a grandson by the name Charles, but I was unable to find the names of his other sons.
8. ↑ There is a plat map of Lunenburg, labeled "Figure 8," in the center section of Bell's book, which also has a label, "Arm of Mahone Bay." Why didn't I use a scan of this? After examination, I noted that the handwriting was modern. Therefore, I suspected that this map was either created by, or updated by, Dr. Bell himself. I didn't trust that this was an actual contemporary plat map—the first map to use the label "Mahone Bay."
   
   Since then, I have come to the realization, while reading up on Bell's description of the distribution of lots, that Figure 8 is completely in error in labeling the lots "300 acre lots." Bell describes "The Thirty-Acre Farm Lots" in section 64 (p. 468) as being 7.5 chains by 40 chains, or 300 square chains. Now, with 10 square chains being one acre, 300 square chains divided by ten square chains is 30 acres, not 300 acres. This tells me that Figure 8 was created by someone who wasn't very familiar with working in chain measurements—in other words, someone who wasn't born in the 18th century. This was what told me the map wasn't contemporary.