The Descendants of John Grant and Mary Sabean
Associated Families of Southwestern Nova Scotia and New England
by
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Peter Saxton Grant was born about 1825 in Weymouth North, Digby County, Nova Scotia (NS), the oldest son of Enoch Grant and Margaret Saxton. We know that Peter became a carpenter, learning this skill as an apprentice to one of the many skilled tradesmen in Weymouth. As a single young man, he would have lived with his parents and walked to a jobsite within a five-mile radius of home. Whether because of a lack of opportunity in Weymouth or drawn by the lure of jobs in the United States, Peter began to commute frequently between Weymouth and Boston and did so for some twenty-five years. Going to Massachusetts (MA) to find work was not a novel choice, … in fact, it was becoming the most attractive destination for young Bluenosers in search of opportunity. Those who made this choice landed in Boston and spread out from there to nearby counties. But to spend most of one’s working life commuting between the port of Weymouth and the city of Boston was an unlikely choice. Only mariners, and to a lesser extent, merchants, would have done this on a regular basis.
We do not know when Peter made his first voyage to Boston. There are some passenger lists that mention Peter Grant, or Peter S. Grant, and he may even be recorded in one US census return. An early instance took place on 12 June 1848 when twenty-four-year-old Peter Grant arrived in Boston aboard the schooner Laura. He was joined by two other carpenters from Weymouth, Henry Grant, age twenty-eight, and David Hankinson, who was two years younger than Peter. They may have traveled together before this time and might have been returning to the same job site in Boston. It is possible that Peter Grant was present in Portsmouth, NH, during the 1850 federal census. Six young men from NS were boarding with Paul and Martha Peterson at the time. Three who merit our notice are John Grant, a twenty-four-year-old carpenter; Peter Grant, a twenty-seven-year-old carpenter; and Richard Cosman, a twenty-three-year-old blacksmith. Richard Cosman appears in the 1851 Portsmouth City Directory, boarding at 31 Water Street. The Cosman family is associated with the early settlement of Weymouth and has a modest relationship to the Grant family of Digby County. John Grant’s age and birth year match those of another son of Enoch Grant and Margaret Saxton Grant. We find him traveling to Boston aboard the schooner Cygnet on 17 April 1852 out of Weymouth. So, it seems quite possible that our very own Peter and John traveled and worked together in New England in the 1840s and 1850s.
During the first five years of the 1860s, the vicious and destructive American Civil War intrudes in our family history. The period from April 1861 to May 1865 saw Confederate and Union soldiers and sailors fight bloody land battles and sea engagements. Merchants, farmers, fishermen, foresters, and coal interests in NS and NB benefited from increased exports to both belligerents. Travel to and from Boston became more difficult as Confederate naval vessels sought out and destroyed scores of ships engaged in carrying goods to US Atlantic ports; … it is probable that the fighting limited commuting between Weymouth and Boston. Lacking evidence to the contrary, we can assume that Peter Saxton Grant wisely stayed home and attended to the needs of his young family.
On 25 December 1853, Peter Saxton Grant married Elizabeth Payson, eldest daughter of James Everett Payson (1795–1881) and Jane Gregg (b. c. 1805), of Weymouth. Elizabeth was born in Weymouth on 22 August 1827. The couple had two children. Their son Robert Gregg Grant was born in Weymouth in 1864. Sadly, cousin Robert was gifted only five years of life and died on 20 March 1869 of an “intermittent fever.” … One other child, a daughter named Laura Jane Grant, was born about August 1858 in Weymouth; she would go on to live a long and productive life, …
A few months after Robert’s death, on 10 May 1870, Peter Grant made what was probably his last trip to Boston. The schooner Sissiboo carried Peter and eleven other passengers of various ages and occupations on the voyage. A few weeks later, in June 1870, Peter S. Grant, a married carpenter, was boarding at a residence in Newton, MA, along with six other carpenters, five of whom were from NS. Crowded living conditions, poor food, and long working hours may have left Peter open to disease. Or he might have died at work in any number of accidental ways. We cannot be certain. There is no further record to indicate how, or when, or even where he died. One last tantalizing clue is an entry for a Peter Grant in the Boston, MA, death index of 1870.
The following year, on 2 April 1871, Canada undertook its first national census. The widow Elizabeth Grant and her daughter Laura were living on a farm in Weymouth with Elizabeth’s probable younger brother, Henry Payson. Three months later, on 1 July 1871, Elizabeth and Laura sailed away to Boston on the schooner Sissiboo. The passenger list … suggests that they intended to remain in the United States. They did so for a time, but within four years, Elizabeth and Laura were back in Weymouth, where Laura was married on 20 December 1876. Laura married William Robertson Ruggles, a carpenter and house joiner from Weymouth, born circa 1843 in Weymouth, the son of Doctor Henry Ruggles (1810–1892) and Sarah Anne Campbell (1815–1895). Laura and William remained in Weymouth for a time and began their family. We will meet their children shortly, but first, we should step back in time and see how William Ruggles, like Peter Saxton Grant, sought opportunities to earn a living in MA. On 25 November 1865, not long after the end of the American Civil War, William R. Ruggles arrived in Boston, out of the bustling little port of Weymouth, aboard the ever-present schooner Sissiboo …
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About the Book
In Nova Scotia, the focus of study about Scottish settlers, including the Grants, has been on the eastern counties of the province, and on Cape Breton Island. In the United States, when Grants are mentioned, a significant concern seems to be to find a genealogical or DNA link to Ulysses Grant.
No one has seriously examined and written about the Grant families of southwestern Nova Scotia. That leaves a space for me to act in, and to develop a narrative history of a family founded in the soil, strengthened by the forest, and challenged by the sea environments that comprise the fundamental essence of Nova Scotia. And so, my passion has been to tell the story of my family and their relatives in southwestern Nova Scotia and to follow the paths of many of them to New England (especially to Massachusetts). This study will fulfill an implicit task left to me by my Aunt Ruth Dexter. That is the essence of why I have spent so much of my retirement on this task. But there is more to come as I follow suggestive clues left by my ancestors, or seek to overcome “brick walls” that stump every genealogist from time to time.
When I began this project, my aim was simply: “To collate and present a family history of the line descending from John Grant and Mary Sabean to myself.” If I had stayed within that framework this book would have been much shorter and less interesting. As it turns out, there are many fascinating aspects to our story. Not only will you read about the hard-working and courageous children of John and Mary, but you will follow them and their offspring as they find love and marriage, sometimes with close or distant cousins.
• You will ride or sail with them as they migrate within Nova Scotia and outward to New England.
• You will wonder at their expressions of faith and sense their hidden, internal conflict as they make religious choices based on factors we can only imagine (spirituality, simplicity, availability, or energetic missionaries), reflected in obituaries, burial sites, or their answers to census questions.
• You will share their sorrow at the deaths of loved ones through accident, disease, suicide, loss at sea or in the service of their country in war, particularly in World War I.
• You will learn of their varied occupations, trades and professions, from farming, fishing and forestry to shoemaking, carpentry and sailing, nursing and teaching.
• You will join them as they strive to become master mariners, volunteer in their churches, train young women with the YWCA in China, or succor the sick and wounded with the Red Cross in Siberia – follow them south to Boston and the Caribbean, east to Europe and across the Pacific to Asia.
Only then you will come to understand why, at its core, my passion has been to be the voice of my direct ancestors and extended family within a defined framework of time and place, to record their activities where sources allow, in essence, to be the story they could not write.
About the Author
Allen Grant is an active septuagenarian and retired Canadian military officer who resides in Ottawa, Ontario with his wife Lois. The search for meaning and understanding in faith and history has always been a significant factor in Allen’s life. During the past twenty years he has added a passion for genealogy to his interests. A major retirement goal for Allen has been to combine these pursuits in a manner that would be interesting and useful for his own family and of value to readers interested in writing their own history. This book is the outcome and proves that it can be done!