FORT CUMBERLAND, NOVA SCOTIA ORDERLY BOOK
Records of Sgt. John Boyd, owned by Herbert
H. Hixon of Medway, Mass.
Following the British capture of Fort Beausejour
in Nova Scotia in 1755,
and the expulsion of the Acadians, the Fort
was renamed Fort Cumberland and was
manned by troops largely from Massachusetts
Bay to complete "mopping up" of
the French inhabitants and put down such
resistance as remained in the territory.
In the fall of 1759 a hundred or more men
were collected from the southeastern
section of the Massachussets Colony to be
transported to Fort Cumberland
under the command of Capt. Simon Slocomb.
They included men from Wrentham,
Dedham, Medway, Medfield, Rehoboth, Roxbury
and other near-by towns, and were
detailed to form a part of the commands
of Col. Joseph Frye and Col. Francis Brindly
at Fort Cumberland.
The men were gathered at Castle William (now
Fort Independence on Castle
Island in Boston Harbor) and transported
from there in the schooner Two Brothers,
the brig Industry, and other convoys, about
the middle of September 1759, to Nova
Scotia.
Fortunately a roster of the men sent forward at that time has been preserved.
John Boyd, a resident of Wrentham, Mass.,
was the orderly sergeant of
Captain Slocomb's company, and his official
Orderly's Book giving a complete list
of the men in the expedition and a daily
record of what transpired at Fort
Cumberland for the year 1759-60, has been
preserved and has become available
for publication through the kindness of
Herbert N. Hixon of Medway, Mass., its
present owner, a member of the New England
Historic Genealogical Society.
The book was "Made and sold by William Nallis,
Stationer at the Crown &
Scepter---facing St. Peters Church, in Grace
Church Street, London", is
bound in parchment and remarkably well preserved
as well as recorded in unusually
good handwriting.
Orderly Sergeant John Boyd, who kept this
record, later became quite prominent.
He married Hannah Dean 6 Oct 1763, and had
four children: Polly Boyd b. 11
April 1764; Bethniel Boyd b. 11 Nov 1765;
Willard Boyd b. 12 June 1771 and
Hannah Boyd b. 29 May 1777. Bethniel married
Sukey Whiting and Willard
married Betsy Whiting. ( as found on IGI
sheets).
He became a captain in the Revolution, was
a selectman of Franklin, Mass.,
in 1783, 1785 and 1793 and was a representative
to the General Court in
18 00-04. In later life he was known
as "Colonel" John Boyd.
The Boyd orderly book supplements that Diary
of John Thomas, of Marshfield,
MA who was surgeon in Winslow's expedition
of 1755 against the Acadians, and
which was first published in The Register
in October 1879, volume 33, page 383.
The complete list of officers and men was
published April, 1944, in NEHGS Register
Vol. 98 starting page 102. [The New England
Historical and Genealogical Society.]
(It should also be told here that the French
Acadians who were forced out of Nova
Scotia after 1755, left that place and went
to New Orleans, which was still held by
the French. Later their name shortened
to "Cadians" and still later they became
known simply as "Cajuns" and their descendants
still live in New Orleans and in the
bayous of Louisiana today. Richard
G. Boyd)
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