POST OCCUPATIONAL HISTORY OF THE OLD FRENCH TOWN OF LOUISBOURG, 1760-1930

By Wayne Foster 

Unpublished Report H D 02

Fortress of Louisbourg

December, 1965

(Note: The illustrations, are available from the Fortress of Louisbourg / 
A noter : les illustrations pourrait être consulter à la
Forteresse-de-Louisbourg.) 

Table of Contents

FORWARD

The Project out of which this report grew commenced in January, 1964. Work was done at the Public Archives of Canada, the Archives of Louisbourg Historical Unit, the Nova Scotia Archives, the Halifax Crown Grant Office, the Sydney Registry of Deeds and the Sydney Public Library, as well as the libraries and archives of the Maritime Universities.

I have always referred to this project as the post-occupational of Louisbourg because of the cessation of human habitation of the town which occurred abruptly with the failure of British policy to provide a means by which land tenure might be secured, thereby causing the population to move to the northeast shore of the Harbour within a few years of the withdrawal of the British garrison. The report is therefore entitled the Post-Occupational History of the Old French Town of Louisbourg 1760-1930. It has been prepared as an historical aid to archaeological excavation.

This report is based on material collected before 1964. New material which was collected at the William Clements Library in July 1965, namely the Gage Papers, will greatly add to our knowledge of the period of the British occupation 1758-68 and to a markedly less degree the years 1769-79. Also material now being studied in the Public Record Office in London is revealing further information about the period 1780-1820. It can be assumed that significant additional evidence relating to the history of Louisbourg in the 19th and early 20th centuries, including photographic evidence, will come to light over the next few years.

I would like to stress the fact that this report is not of the standard that could have been achieved had it been extensively reworked and rewritten from the first draft copy. It has been severely edited, but first draft characteristics remain, as evidenced in the organization of the material and the style of the writing. I elected to leave it in this form because the time required to rewrite it would be better spent by Mr. Foster on another project, the historical topography of the Louisbourg National Historic Park.

B.C. Bickerton, Senior Historian.