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Retrieval
Number: 8317/12/6 |
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Each
document contains a high level of detail, ranging from the rates of
assessment on each property to finance drainage or dyking work, to the
rates of pay for labourers, and the prices paid for materials. The Commissioners
operated with a high degree of autonomy, answering directly to the landowners
of the marsh lots (including themselves) rather than to the dictates
of a provincial government bureaucracy - although the latter was to
come eventually. The Commissioners operated at a sub-municipal government
level and in some cases were able to gather about them considerable
influence on the directions of marshland agriculture. The Anderson family
owned large portions of the Tantramar Marshes, at both Sunken Island
and Coles Island and their involvement in the management of the marsh
was entirely logical. As early as the 1820s, the marsh records in the
Tantramar region indicate a concentration of political influence within
the Commissioners of Sewers. Large landowners, such as the Andersons
and the Botsfords (whose holdings on the Westcock Marsh were central
to the family being the dominant agriculturalists listed in the 1861
census), dominated the work done on the marsh, in some cases ensuring
that their own marshlands were well-drained and dyked. Land ownership
was most concentrated in the Dixon’s Island and West of Cole’s
Island marshes where between a quarter and a third of the proprietors
owned approximately 60% of the marshland. Greater dispersion was seen
in the East of Sunken Island and Bear Island/Middle Village marshes
but even in these cases the top four proprietors owned over 50% of the
marshland. The pattern of ownership on the large Great Marsh showed
relatively little concentration, although the four largest proprietors
owned in excess of 20% of the land and one landowner held 10%. |
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This
project was made possible -in part or entirely - through the Canadian
Culture Online Program of Canadian Heritage, the National Archives of
Canada and the Canadian Council of Archives. |
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