Halifax history with a legal slant.
Big news! I’ll be filing weekly briefs for the Halifax Examiner for a new column, Court Watch. Each week I’ll share decisions and stories from Halifax civil and criminal courts, accessible to non-legal audiences. It’s for Examiner subscribers only, so don’t miss out–subscribe here.
An Act to provide for the support of Bastard Children, and the punishment of the Mother and reputed Father is found in chapter 19 of Nova Scotia’s 1758 Statutes at Large. The Nova Scotia Legislature website has the statutes dating back to 1758 online, and I’m diving into them, starting with the subject of child welfare.
A mother giving birth to a child “who shall be chargeable or likely to be chargeable to the Province” could apply to a Justice of the Peace to charge a person with being the father of her child. That man would be required to present proof to the court that he could support the child. The mother and reputed father could be subject to a court order requiring them to reimburse the town or parish for costs of supporting the child–or they could cough up £20 and be done with the order. If they could do neither, they would spend up to six months in jail or a house of correction.
The law would not apply if the charged father could prove either that he was wrongfully charged, or that the mother was “a woman of ill fame or a common whore” (s 4). If the mother of the child was not really pregnant, or if the court decided the man she had charged was not really the father and that she had “[contrived] to defame the person or cheat him of his money” (s 3), she would be whipped and sent to a house of correction for six months. The comment on defamation and cheating the father of his money seems almost editorial; presumably no woman was found to have falsely charged a father without also being found to have tried to ruin his reputation.
The law would also not apply if the child’s father were prepared to acknowledge paternity and support the child himself. Legislative concern for illegitimate children extended only to those likely to end up costing the state money. But in the tradition of attempting to legislate both poverty and sexual activity, it also had to do with deterring premarital sex.
This is a more recent case than I have lately written about, and it’s possible that estate law is not as sexy as murder. Fair warning!
The Nova Scotia Court of Appeal recently released its decision in Smith v Beals Estate, 2015 NSCA 93 (CanLII). The appellant (Smith) and the respondents (Lester Beals’ estate and his remaining heirs) all held deeds to parcels of a property in Preston, which was granted to them by Beals. All parties were self-represented.
From reading the trial decision, 2014 NSSC 156 (CanLII), it seems that a group of family members signed a quit claim deed in 1991 which granted their interest in the land to Lester Beals, who they understood “would not really own the land but just be ‘taking care of it'” (para 13). Out of that property, Lester Beals granted parcels of land by deed to half a dozen family members, including the appellant, Smith. Some of those individuals built homes on these pieces of land. His widow, one of the respondents in the appeal decision, testified at trial that Beals’s intention was to look after the land and pay any expenses such as taxes. She testified that he gave deeds “to any family member who asked”.
Continue reading “A different kind of election: “equitable” remedies”
Wherever there is authority, there is a natural inclination to disobedience.
I am currently reading Cornwallis: The Violent Birth of Halifax by Jon Tattrie (Pottersfield Press, 2013) and Bluenose Justice: True Tales of Mischief, Mayhem and Murder by Dean Jobb (Pottersfield Press, 1993). Both are narrative nonfiction, as rich in story as in thorough detail. Jobb’s book was Tattrie’s source for Cornwallis on the subject of the first murder and execution in Halifax.
“I am gone!” were the last words of Abraham Goodsides, Halifax’s first murder victim.
The accused was Peter Cartcel, not Carteel — Thomas Akins didn’t have digital restoration to help with his research. Cartcel didn’t speak much English among settlers who were mostly from London. He and Abraham Goodsides got into an argument on the Beaufort. Goodsides slapped Cartcel, and Cartcel returned it with a knife to the chest, which translates to any language. The other victims were wounded trying to apprehend him, and Goodsides died immediately.
As I wrote earlier, Governor Cornwallis (pictured above) formed his council of high-ranking colleagues into a general court. None had legal training, but all knew they had to show they could maintain order. Justice must be seen to be done, and swiftly.
Continue reading “Criminal procedure in Halifax’s first murder trial”
In my post about Halifax’s first hanging, I suggested that Halifax life in its earliest years must have been terribly isolated. Not exactly a dramatic assertion. It was so small, and surrounded by thick pine woods, beyond which lay a long and difficult journey to any other settlement. Pictured in the header is one of the blockhouses which encircled Halifax in its earliest days — you can see all the newly-felled trees which were cut down both to build it and make room for it.
Today at the Alderney Landing library I read some of Underground Nova Scotia: Stories of Archaeology by Paul Erickson and Jonathan Fowler (Nimbus). In their chapter on the excavation of the blockhouse at Fort Edward, at what is now Windsor, they described early Halifax, as its blockhouses were identical to the one at Fort Edward (pictured, right, via Nova Scotia Archives virtual collection).
These defence buildings were scarcely more than outposts, and were the only defence the first Haligonians had. There were vastly more Acadians and Mi’kmaq in Nova Scotia than there were Englishmen in Halifax, and no one was exactly chuffed with the creation of this new British town. Cornwallis had little interest in making peace.
For various points in the province, as well as for certain Halifax streets, the pioneers chose the family names of English noblemen. Haligonians should be thankful that for the name of their city the title was chosen instead. The name of the Earl of Halifax was George Dunk.
To start this legal history interest project, I wanted to go back to the founding of Halifax in 1749. The Mi’kmaq were here long before, of course, with their own systems of justice.
The peninsula was called Chebucto, from Kjipuktuk. The site of the new English town was chosen for its natural defensive position in the harbour and its shelter from the weather. The original choice, Point Pleasant (then called Sandwich Point, yum), was apparently too exposed to violent eastern gales. No kidding.
