The Louisbourg Institute of / L' Institut de Louisbourg de Cape Breton University ~ © 1995-present ~ Louisbourg.info@pc.gc.ca 
  A Research Site for the Fortress of Louisbourg National Historic Site of Canada operated by the Louisbourg Institute ~
  Un site de recherche du lieu historique national du Canada de la Forteresse-de-Louisbourg géré par l'Institut de Louisbourg
Report/Rapport © Eric Krause --- Report Assembly/Rapport de l'assemblée © Krause House Info-Research Solutions
Historical Not-For-Profit Societies (Cape Breton Island)

Old Sydney Society
Old Sydney Society

The Jost House, 54 Charlotte Street, Sydney, Nova Scotia
 Please click on the above image 
of the Jost House to enlarge it

THE SAMUEL SPARROW HOME PAGE ~
 18TH-CENTURY CAPE BRETON ISLAND 

(Samuel Sparrow: Wapping, England; Halifax, Nova Scotia: c. 1774; Sydney, Nova Scotia: 
c. 1785-1786 to 1788; London, England, 1788; 
Charleston, South Carolina, d. c. 1799-1803)

Return to the Jost House

MORE ABOUT 18TH-CENTURY SAMUEL SPARROW
(An Evolving Project - 2001 to Present)

By Eric Krause
(Krause House Info-Research Solutions)
http://www.krausehouse.ca/

(1) TRANSCRIBED SAMUEL 
SPARROW DOCUMENTS
  

1749

Please click on the image to enlarge it - Source: http://www3.ns.sympatico.ca/bryanfkeddy/hfx1.html
Halifax Harbour, 1750

1775

Abstract of the Number of Families settled in Nova Scotia from a state of that Province taken in August, 1775 Halifax Contains 400 houses, has 200 Militia and about 1300 inhabitants [National Archives of Canada: Manuscript Division, Dartmouth papers, MG 23, A1, vol. 1, pp. 349-351]

1779

1780

According to T. B. Akins, "History of Halifax City," Collections of the Nova Scotia Historical Society, Volume 8, Halifax: Nova Scotia Historical Society, 1895, p. 213, quoted by Allan Everett Marble, Surgeons, Smallpox and the Poor: A History of Medicine and Social Conditions in Nova Scotia, 1749-1799, McGill-Queen's University Press, Montreal & Kingston, 1993, note 220 (Pages 131-5):

 ... In the year 1765 there were two hospitals in the north suburbs, near the beach at the foot of Cornwallis Street called the Red and Green Hospitals. They were there in 1785 - One stood on the site of the present North Country or Keating's market, the other stood on property now owned by the heirs of the late H.H. Cogswell. ...

1781
  

1782

1783

1784

1784 - 1785, 1793

 

1784 - c. 1790

 1785

New Settlement on the Island of Cape Breton in Nova Scotia in the Year 1785

Founding of Sydney by Lt. William Booth, 1785

[Cape Breton Centre for Heritage and Science]

Lieut. W. Booth's Description of Sydney, August 1785 ...

August 4th, Arrived at Spanish River, at one oClock in the Forenoon. At the Entrance is a spacious Bay, and about 2 miles from the mouth of the River, is a Bar of Sand, and Beach, with a Beacon upon it, and two, or three Huts, with a small wharf. It is necessary to take notice, that before you arrive off this Bar, ... At the distance of Eight Miles, according to the opinion of some, and nine by others, is the commencement of the new settlement, Sydney; at this part of the River you have 7, and 8 fathoms Water. and that, close to the shore, which renders it very commodious for Shipping during the Spring and Summer. The Town of Sydney will stand on an Isthmus of three quarters of a mile broad, and one and a half miles in length, according to ye Governor's plan - below the Ground, and immediately under the Town, is a projecting beach, that they say is designed for Dockyard, or rather, that one is intended to be made there, This part of the River, I understand, is frozen up Four Months in the Year. The Eminence, when covered with Houses, and Inhabitants, according to their expectations. will, certainly form a beautiful appearance, as it cannot be doubted, but that they will possess many advantages, having a good soil around them, easily clear'd, together with Three Rivers, abounding with Fish. At present there are not a dozen Families, besides the six Companies of the 33rd Regt. encamp'd and Hutted, on this new Settlement. 'tis given out, that 150 Families are daily expected. I am sorry to find that the settlers, who venture into these unknown regions do not meet with the encouragement that they, with just reason, might look for ... At 4 oClock We dined with Governor DeBarres, &t his half finished Hut, & which he says is merely Temporary; but that when the Ground shall be cleared, he means to build a good House, in one of the principal streets. We remained, off Sydney, till the 8th in the morning, when we weighed Anchor, and moved down to the Coal Mines, at the entrance of this river. We here met the Governor, who had an elegant dinner prepared for us. Before dinner the General examined the ground and the state of the Coal Works. Great exertion has been used to clear the shafts of the water, but without complete effect. When this grand object shall be obtained, the produce must be very valuable, as the Wines appear Rich in many parts, and some of the veins, or Strata's, tolerably good. At the usual hour for dinner, we attended, and had the pleasure of meeting the Governor, his Daughter, and two of his Sons: one of the sons is of the Council. All the principal officers were at Table. I must observe, that on the General's landing, they endeavor's to shew him every respect in their power, due to his rank by a Salute of 15 Guns, from the Battery on the edge of the rock, above the Road. and tho' these Guns were, seemingly, served by Coal-heavers, and Blacksmiths, and fired with red-hot pokers, yet, the duty was well conducted. Having dined, and drank Several Loyal Toasts, we took our leave, and were attended by the whole party to the Barge.

C. Bruce Ferguson (editor), Uniacke's Sketches of Cape Breton and Other Papers Relating to Cape Breton and other Papers Relating to Cape Breton Island (Halifax: Public Archives of Canada, 1958), pp. 143-144 [Note: This is not a complete transcription].

1785 - 1786

1786 

... Engraving of the plates had begun in 1774 and is claimed to have been completed in 1780. As DesBarres' salary had been stopped in 1779, and as his habitual financial problems became ever more acute, it seems unlikely that he continued employing engravers after that year. Certainly no production could have continued after October 1784 as on the 16th of that month DesBarres sailed from England to take up his post as Lieutenant Governor of the newly-established colony of Cape Breton, taking the plates with him. An estimate based on later musters suggests there were some 251 full-size plates as well as numerous smaller ones, Even ignoring the extra weight these must have added to the Governor's baggage the decision to take them seems a curious one. It was, or should have been, a peak period for the marketing of his atlas and he was unlikely to find facilities for reprinting in Cape Breton. One possible explanation is that sales of his atlases were not proceeding all that briskly and that ample stocks remained unsold in London. A representative sample of plates weighed in the National Archives of Canada, Ottawa, resulted in an average figure of 7.5 kilograms for a large plate and an approximate total for the whole collection of 2,100 kilograms, or 4,600 lbs., of copper ...

Underfunded and on inhospitable territory DesBarres found it a struggle to keep his colony viable. Both supplies and money soon ran short and the Governor was reduced to negotiating credits on his own assets. A principal creditor for the shipping of necessities was a Mr. Samuel Sparrow of Halifax, Nova Scotia. In the Autumn of 1785 Sparrow visited the Governor at Sydney, Cape Breton's newly-founded capital, in order to negotiate a contract for the supply of provisions. DesBarres first offered him a mortgage on his lands in Nova Scotia but Sparrow showed little enthusiasm for this offer. Instead he expressed an interest in The Atlantic Neptune. If DesBarres would put the work into his hands "his mind would be rendered perfectly easy, and he would engage to make any future supplies which might be wanted". According to DesBarres, Sparrow stated that the charts were greatly in demand, "a treasure which lay buried". He wished to be entrusted with the sale of them which would "procure the means of amply supporting all the Exigencies of the Infant Colony". DesBarres was in no position to argue; a bargain of sale was drawn up allowing Sparrow to approach the Admiralty with an offer to purchase the whole collection. The first £5,000 plus a half of any-excess on that figure was to be credited to DesBarres against the cost of provisions supplied. The plates, together with "a large quantity" of impressions were delivered to Mr. Sparrow on board his ship and they started on their way back to London after their first brief residence in North America.

In July 1787 DesBarres was recalled to London, arriving in April 1788 in disguise in order to escape his now numerous creditors, including Samuel Sparrow. The latter's high expectations of the value of The Atlantic Neptune had, not been realised. Sparrow had announced himself as the new owner but failed to interest the Admiralty in its purchase. All Sparrow did succeed in doing was to sell a number of single charts, mostly at one shilling a sheet, but some at two shillings and sixpence.

A Committee of Arbitration was appointed to sort out the ex-Governor's financial transactions and between March 1790 and May 1791 this continued to meet in various inns and coffee houses in the City of London. On the whole the ex-Governor seems to have survived these hearings with his reputation intact and most of his expenditures were met. When the case of Samuel Sparrow came up the Committee ordered an audit of the unsold stock and plates,

This revealed a printed stock of: -

20 superior sets, complete. 4 volumes each
4 sets which want the 3rd & 4th volume
6 sets of Nova Scotia in sheets.

Of the plates, packed in cases in a warehouse at Snow Hill near St. Paul's Cathedral, there were 286, both small and large. Of these 202 were described as "good" and eighty-four as "bad". Mr Sparrow claimed that these represented all he had received at Sydney and that on comparing them later with a complete set of impressions in his possession he had found six missing. The outcome of the arbitration left DesBarres repossessed of his collection, possibly by now to Sparrow's relief. DesBarres himself appeared a shade less enthusiastic; he would probably at this juncture have preferred £5,000.1 [The National Archives of Canada, Ottawa, DesBarres Papers, MG 23, Fl, Series 5, Volumes 4-6]

Throughout the years that followed, his efforts to capitalise on The Atlantic Neptune continued, but with little success. On his appointment as Lieutenant-Governor of Prince Edward Island in 1804 his son, James Luttrel DesBarres, continued to work in London to improve the family finances. In 1813 the Admiralty was once more approached to buy the plates, a quite extraordinary figure of £40,000 being quoted as the price. This time, however, the family were not only dealing with a professional Hydrographic Office but with a man [Captain Thomas Hurd] in charge who nursed a strong antipathy to the ageing Joseph ... [Christopher Terrell, "A sequel to The Atlantic Neptune of J.F.W. DesBarres: the story of the copperplates," in The Map Collector, Number 72 (Autumn, 1995), pp. 1-9. Thanks to Gillian Hutchinson, Curator of the History of Cartography, National Maritime Museum, Greenwich, London, who informed me of the existence of this article and to Mike Klein, Senior Reference Librarian, Geography and Map Division, Library of Congress, Washington, D.C. for providing me with a copy.]

1786 - 1787

1787 

1788 

In 1787, from Cape Breton Island, "... DesBarres departed for Europe, having chartered an old brigantine to convey him thither. Having been warned that those who claimed money from him [he had kept the Sydney colony going pretty much on his own signature], because of the bills which had been dishonoured, were waiting to have him arrested, he sailed to the Island of Jersey where he arrived on December 7th. He sent a requisition to Lord Sydney asking for a guarantee of immunity from arrest so that he might safely visit London, but this was refused [Sydney, who was to get DesBarres the job as Cape Breton's governor, but just a few years earlier was to desert DesBarres]. He, thereupon, went secretly in disguise to England and reached Whitehall in April, 1788." (John Webster Webster, The Life of Joseph Frederick Wallet Desbarres (Shediac, N.B.: Privately printed, 1933), p. 42.)

Please click on the image to enlarge it - Source: http://www.galaxymaps.com/
"An exact survey of the city’s of London,
Westminster ye borough of Southwark ...” in
1746 by John Rocque

ftp://142.176.49.195/EIS/VOL1-09-AppendixG-N.pdf

1788 - 1790 
  

Please click on the image to enlarge it - http://www.bayoffundy.com/mariner/1-tides.htm
Peticodiac area
  

1789

1790

1791

1792

1793 

1794 

1795

1796

Gifts to the National Library from the Friends of the National Library of Canada, 1992-2001  ----- 

Acquired with assistance from the Canadian Cultural Property Export Review Board. 

The Statement concerns the request for compensation for considerable personal expenditures incurred by Des Barres while in the employ of the British Admiralty in a major survey and charting of the coasts of eastern North America, 1764-1774. The work was published as The Atlantic Neptune… [London, 1774-1784] and became the standard guide for navigation for the areas charted. See article by Joyce Banks, "National Library Acquires Important Rare Book," National Library News, January 1992, vol. 24, no. 1, p. 1-2.

http://www.collectionscanada.ca/bulletin/015017-0111-04-e.html

1798 - 1799

1799

"This View of Sydney In The Island of Cape Breton ...", 1799.
Painting by John Hames / National Archives of Canada / C-024939  

http://www.londonancestor.com/maps/london-central.htm

Shard's Place

http://www.mappalondon.com/london/south-east/peckam.jpg

 

http://freepages.genealogy.rootsweb.ancestry.com/~genmaps/genfiles/COU_files/ENG/LON/weller_peckham_1862.html

   

South Lambeth

http://www.londonancestor.com/maps/bc-lambeth-n.htm and http://users.bathspa.ac.uk/greenwood/  and http://www.oldlondonmaps.com/greenwoodpages/greenwoodsouth11a.html

Sparrow made out his will on July 7th, 1799 in South Carolina, with a concern that the "I find the yellow fever prevailing and may prove fatal. " This was no idle fear, for on October 24, 1799, in Charleston, the following was reported: "City in the midst of a yellow fever epidemic. Funerals range between 5 to 8 per day, with the highest for one day being 18. The dreadful disease kills some 362 people before it subsides." http://www.bcdcog.com/publications/Month_In_Review/october02.pdf  ] Of interest, in the same year, in Nova Scotia, the assembly met on Friday, 7 June, 1799 (7th general assembly, 7th and last session). and Governor Wentworth in his speech recommended quarantine laws to guard against "yellow fever."

Further of interest: A DesBarre copperplate, once in Sparrow's hands, that did not survive into a 20th century inventory was DesBarres' chart of Charles Town, South Carolina [Christopher Terrell, "A sequel to The Atlantic Neptune of J.F.W. DesBarres: the story of the copperplates," in The Map Collector, Number 72 (Autumn, 1995), p. 6]

 

Please click on the image to enlarge it - Source: http://www.geocities.com/Heartland/Hills/3837/sc_countyhistories.html

Please click on the image to enlarge it - Source: http://www.galaxymaps.com/

South Carolina, United 
States - c. 1792 - 1868: 
Districts and Old Counties

IIchnography of Charleston, South-Carolina : at the request of Adam Tunno, Esq., for the use of the Phoenix Fire-Company of London, taken from actual survey, 2d August 1788 / by Edmund Petrie. [London] : E. Petrie, 1790. 

Please click on the image to enlarge it

Pllease click on the image to enlarge it - Source: http://www.red-duster.co.uk/

London, England, 
Camberwell - St. Giles

A Brig - A typical 
merchant ship - like
the Industry?  

Please click on the image to enlarge it ~ Source: http://www.antique-maps-books.com/

Please click on the image to enlarge it ~ Source: http://www.londonancestor.com/

Surrey, England, 
c. 1780 ~ From Grose Antiquities of England and Wales, first published 1772-1773 

Surrey, England - Showing 
Camberwell, Peckham, Lambeth,1819 ~ Portion from Leigh's New Map of the Environs of London, Published by Samuel Leigh, 18, Strand., Drawn and Engraved by Sidy. Hall, 14, Bury St. Bloomsby, Published 1819 

John Stow, A MAPP of the PARISH OF St GILES’S IN THE FIELDS TAKEN FROM THE LAST SURVEY,
WITH CORRECTIONS AND ADDITIONS (Publisher: John Strype Colouring: Hand coloured Atlas: A Survey of the Cities of London & Westminster), 1755

http://www.old-church-galleries.com/stock_9460.asp 

1801

1802 

1803 

Please click on the image to enlarge it - Source: http://www.londontown.com/maps/search.phtml?titlegif=street&grid=L5&letter=s&street=&name=St.+Bride+Street
London, England, 
St. Bride, Fleet Street

1804 

1815 

1817  

1818

1819

1823

1826

1828

(2) APPENDIX TO THE 
TRANSCRIBED DOCUMENTS

(3) SAMUEL SPARROW LINKS

(4) J. F. W. DESBARRES LINKS/USEFUL DOCUMENTS

(5) SECONDARY SOURCES

(6) USEFUL LINKS - GENERAL

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