John Hanson and Ephraim Young
One of the more important facts and interesting puzzles in the history of St. Andrews has to do with the first Loyalist settlers to the area: John Hanson and Ephraim Young. Hanson and Young fought for the British in the War of Independence and after the conclusion of that conflict headed north (some stories say in a whaleboat) with their young families, stopped briefly at Campobello Island, and settled on Chamcook Island, just off the coast of St. Andrews. At that time the peninsula of St. Andrews (the British called it St. Andrews Point) was merely a trading post in the woods, with a couple of traders at what is now Market Square, and a smallish native presence. This was 1777, six years before the main Loyalist influx. Hanson and Young cleared land on Chamcook Island, raised their families and, when the Town was settled by the Loyalist refugees in 1783, were summarily evicted from their Island. How this happened is a bit of a mystery. According to legend stemming mainly from the Hanson families (and there are many still in the area), John Hanson was invited onboard the warship Arethusa by Captain Samuel Osburn, who was stationed in the area to protect the Loyalists, and in cahoots with Samuel Osburn, the newly arrived Anglican Minister, proceeded to get Hanson so drunk that he signed away his title to the Island. There is also a corollary story in which Osburn was forced to fire his cannons at supposed targets along the shore in the hopes of dissuading the squatters (as he thought them) from resisting eviction. This was subsequent to Hanson's signing away his title.
As with most legends there is a grain of truth mixed in with the baloney. First, of all, as some have noted, it would have seemed incongrous at the best for a minister of the Gospel to resort to such underhanded tactics to secure a building site. Second, as the initial documents in the attached file indicate, Hanson and Young in fact had no legal title to Chamcook Island. They applied for such title to Governor Carleton in Halifax when the Loyalists started snapping up land all around them, but were informed that a prior application had been already made and they would have to go. This would have been by Captain Osburn. Third, although the deed on record in the Registry Office of Charlotte County shows that Chamcook Island was not transferred to Samuel Andrews until 1791, an excerpt from the Sessions of Charlotte dated 1792 has it on record that in an application for assistance in building a road to the Island from the highway, Samuel Andrews stated that he had been in possession of his Island for 7 years. This puts his original tenure in 1785, the year in which Osburn became owner. In 1897 Marshall Andrews, grandson of Rev. Samuel, in response to one of these defamatory Hanson stories, brought into the Beacon office the document transferring title to Osburn from George III, and containing a receipt from Osburn's lawyer to Andrews for 250 pounds, dated 1787. Perhaps the original transfer of title was made in 1785 (the 1791 deed seems to have been a late copy made in England) but final payment was not made for two years.
In any case, it is clear that Hanson and Young were not swindled out of their property but it is easy to feel sympathy for them and to understand where the stories come from, for it is obvious enough that, in contradistinction with Hanson and Young, who slaved hard on Chamcook Island, clearned forest, raised families and, for a time, they said, were forced to subsist on shellfish and whatever they could bring down with their guns, Osburn had no particular interest in the Island. Perhaps he was simply speculating in real estate, for property values must have been skyrocketing at the time; perhaps he was a friend or acquaintance of Andrews, simply holding the title until Andrews got here. Or perhaps, like many of the military, he simply wanted to get the heck out of this place and back to the motherland. Whatever the reason, he had nothing to lose, whereas Hanson and Young, who had location tickets to settle the Island but discovered that when the Loyalists arrived they were worth nothing, lost everything. Adding insult to injury, the deed from the Crown to Osburn didn't even mention previous settlement on the Island.
As a postscript, there does seem to have been some cannon firing at the squatters. Marshall Andrews told the Beacon that as a young boy he had asked his father the reason for all the blasted trees along the shore, and his father Elisha, son of Samuel, had told the story of Osburn's so-called target practice. In the next issue the Beacon noted that in fact large cannonballs had been found around the shores of Minister's Island.