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On November 26, 1782, the Nova Scotia Gazette Weekly Chronicle announced the arrival of transports from Charleston with heavy cannon, ordnance stores of the garrison and 501 refugees, men, women and children, from the American Revolution.
Governor Parr said, “these from Charleston are in a much more miserable state than those from New York, coming almost naked from the burning sands of South Carolina to the frozen coast of Nova Scotia, destitute of almost every necessity of life.”
Once again Michael Eisan found himself in a perilous situation, living in a tent on common land. Only this time, it was winter in Nova Scotia, not summer in London; he was 50 years old, not 30 years old; and help from the King did not come quite as quickly.
Eventually he was given land, first at Jeddore and then at Ship Harbour, but it was not like his land in South Carolina; it was rocky and infertile. He managed to make a living, probably by selling his trees to supply the building boom in Halifax. He married and produced seven more children, in addition to the two he brought from South Carolina.
In spite of all the hardships he endured, Michael Eisan lived to the age of 103 and managed to marry again at 101. And this is where the story begins.
St. Stephen’s Anglican Church at Ship Harbour, Nova Scotia, built in 1835, a few years after Michael’s death on land deeded to the church by Michael’s youngest son Frederick. The steeple, a later addition, was built by my great-grandfather, Charles Edward Dean, who married Isabelle Eisan, Michael’s great-granddaughter.
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