Narrative of Charles Dixon, Cumberland County, Nova Scotia, September 21, 1773

Charles Dixon and his family came to Nova Scotia with the first wave of Yorkshire migrants to the maritime provinces. They left Liverpool on the Duke of York in March 1772 with 56 others, most of whom had been recruited by agents of Nova Scotia's lieutenant governor, Michael Francklin. Francklin, an Englishman by birth, came to Nova Scotia in 1752 where, as a successful merchant and politician, he was able to speculate heavily in the Nova Scotia land grab of the 1760s. Desperate to settle these lands with enterprising farmers, he visited Yorkshire in the early 1770s, where he was able to tap into a restless pool of potential emigrants. These people for the most part were victims of the late eighteenth-century economic and agricultural improvements that had led to high rents and evictions. But other forces were working as well to uproot the farmers. Many had converted to Methodism, which was prevalent in Yorkshire in the mid-to-late eighteenth century, and were eager to find a place where they could practice their religion without fear of abuse and derision. Nova Scotia beckoned with promises of cheap lands and freedom of religious worship.

By 1772 the Bay of Fundy area had been fairly well populated by Acadians and New Englanders, but many of them were later removed from their land by the British government or else they had left voluntarily for economic reasons.