This collection contains three documents related to a boundary dispute on the Nappan River, a tributary of the Maccan River-in the County of Cumberland, Nova Scotia, Canada. The lawsuit involved Captain George Adam Gmelin and Lieutenant Joseph Frederick Wallett DesBarres of the 60th Regiment of Foot. See the box and folder listing below for details about each item.
Joseph Fredrick Wallet DesBarres was born in November 1721 and attended school in Basel. Around 1753, he joined the Royal Military Academy at Woolwich, under the patronage of the Duke of Cumberland. In 1756, he arrived in North America as a lieutenant in with the Royal Americans 62nd (later, the 60th Regiment of Foot). DesBarres was engaged by the Admiralty to survey and chart coastal areas in and around Nova Scotia and, in the process, refined surveying techniques of the period. DesBarres participated in the American Revolution and, in 1784, received an appointment as lieutenant governor of the loyalist colony of Cape Breton. In 1804, DesBarres was re-assigned to Prince Edward Island. Relationships with two women, Mary Cannon and Martha Williams, produced 17 children. DesBarres died in Halifax on October 27, 1824.
Michael Francklin was born December 6, 1733, in Poole, England. He came to Halifax in 1752 and initially found employment as a merchant. He was captured and held for three months by the Micmac tribe in 1754. In 1759, Francklin was elected to the House of Assembly in Halifax and became lieutenant governor in 1766. In 1762, he married Susannah Boutineau in Boston, Massachusetts, and together, they had four children. Francklin died in Halifax on November 8, 1782.
Lord William Campbell was born around 1730. He joined the Royal Navy, achieving the rank of captain in 1762. He married Sarah Izard on April 7, 1763, and they had three children. He won election to the British Parliament in 1764, and, in 1766, secured an appointment as governor of Nova Scotia. In 1775, Campbell assumed the governor's duties in Charleston, South Carolina. He was wounded while on board the Bristol in the Charleston Harbor in June 1776. He returned to England and died on September 4, 1778 in Southampton.
William Nesbitt was an attorney, politician (1758), justice of the peace (1760) and surrogate general of the Probate Court in Halifax (1763). He died in Halifax on March 23, 1784, at age 77.
