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Transcribed by Grace Blackette, [email protected]

Saville's Letter to the Examiner, Apr. 13, 1895

The Daily Examiner, Saturday, April 13, 1895

Died at Annandale, Lot 56 on the 21st day of March 1895 of William Blackett at the advanced age of 102 yrs. Wm.Blackett, grandfather of the deceased came to this province shortly after the Revoluntary War of 1776-78, probably about the year 1881 and settled on a portion of the land on Lot 56 , near Annandale,land that was reserved for American Loyalists.

William's son John Blackett married one of the resident French women and with his father and wife would seem to be the 3 persons between 16 and 60 yrs of age in the 1798 census. The deceased William would then be about 5 years of age,being the one male under 16yrs.

Mrs Michael Taylor of Milton, Mass. and Mrs George Lewis over 60 years dead being 2 of the 3 females under 16. The other child the writer has not been able to trace.

Early in the 19th Century John Blackett rented 100 acres from Lord Townshend near to where his father first settled, this land descended to his son Wm.- the subject of this sketch, who through many years of hardship and privation reclaimed it from the forest and made it one of the best farms on Lot 56, although much retarded by the long agitation for escheat. Blackett was one of those who, over 50 years ago suffered 8 months imprisonment in Georgetown Jail besides paying a pecuniary penalty of 20 pounds (this a very large sum for an ordinary farmer to pay) for assisting or sympathizing with the late James Douglas of Bay Fortune, in resisting what he considered the very unjust demands of the proprietor or claimant of the land in which he lived; and the justice of whose contention was recognized by the Legislature some years after by the adoption of a resolution recommending that 200 acres of land on Lot 43 be granted to the heirs of James Douglas in consideration of his unjust eviction from his farm on the occasion referred to.

Somewhere about the year 1820 William Blackett married Sarah (Sally) Brown, daughter of Joseph Brown, an old English soldier and, who had the reputation of being a very pretty girl at a time in history when pretty girls like "topsy" just grew. She was a servant for Edward Abel, the agent for Lord James Townshend, at the time of the visit of the warship described by Captain Maryatt in his naval officer

And it is said that Pat Pearce - the author of Abel's subsequent death, was hidden in her father's house during the week that elapsed between the time of the stabbing and the final termination. Most of whom with their children and grandchildren are settled around and within a few miles of the old homestead and followed his remains to their last resting place in Bay Fortune church yard.

William Blackett (1793-1895) was an intelligent ,industrious and peaceable man, hardly ever making an enemy during his long life and he walked from his own house to Annandale a distance of nearly 3 miles a few months before his death. In his younger days he was fond of shooting, and dozens of geese fell victim to his patient vigils and deadly aim. This writer can remember before the days of steel pens, getting from him a bunch of their quills, clarifying them by a process since forgotten and sending them to Colonial Secretary Mr. Haviland

Saville