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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 

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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
  


SPARROW'S SYDNEY


POST 1749
  


1750

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

 MAP, PLAN, ELEVATION OR VIEW


1774

SAMUEL SPARROW ARRIVES IN HALIFAX

[1774 or, more likely, 1775 or most probable, 1776]

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NOTE FOR 1774 - 1800:

Nova-Scotia The Halifax Gazette,
and The Nova Scotia Gazette and Weekly Chronicle

Only selections from the 1750s-1800s of Nova-Scotia The Halifax Gazette, and The Nova Scotia Gazette and Weekly Chronicle are available on line as of January 17, 2017.

Selections reviewed from The Halifax Gazette, and The Nova Scotia Gazette and Weekly Chronicle were as follows:

The Royal Gazette
and The Nova-Scotia Advertiser

Selections reviewed from The Royal Gazette and The Nova-Scotia Advertiser were as follows:

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When Mr. Des Barres Came over to his Government in the year 1784 __ (being then of ten years Establishment as a Merchant in Halifax) I was to unfortunate as to be the person he applied to for the purpose of Supplying his Government with the Necessaries of Erecting Public works at Cape Breton towards establishing a town and Settlement.

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1775

NOTE: PLEASE SEE DISCUSSION AT 1774 REGARDING
NOVA SCOTIA NEWSPAPER RESEARCH

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1776

NOTE: PLEASE SEE DISCUSSION AT 1774 REGARDING
NOVA SCOTIA NEWSPAPER RESEARCH


1779

NOTE: PLEASE SEE DISCUSSION AT 1774 REGARDING
NOVA SCOTIA NEWSPAPER RESEARCH


1780

NOTE: PLEASE SEE DISCUSSION AT 1774 REGARDING
NOVA SCOTIA NEWSPAPER RESEARCH

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
   


1783 - 1784


1784
  


1784 - 1786

 MAP, PLAN, ELEVATION OR VIEW

The 17 Sheets

SEE ALSO:

MAP, PLAN, ELEVATION OR VIEW


1784 - 1787


1784 - 1788


1784 - 1789


1784 - c. 1790


 1785

NOTE: PLEASE SEE DISCUSSION AT 1774 REGARDING
NOVA SCOTIA NEWSPAPER RESEARCH

 

NORTH AMERICA: Colonies or States: Cape Breton: W Roberts: encloses list of bills drawn on him by Lieut Governor Des Barres for erecting public buildings
Date: 1785 Dec 30
Held by: The National Archives, Kew
Legal status: Public Record
Closure status: Open Document, Open Description


1785 - 1786


1786 

NOTE: PLEASE SEE DISCUSSION AT 1774 REGARDING
NOVA SCOTIA NEWSPAPER RESEARCH

 

... 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.]

In 1948, Lord Inverchapel, Britain's ambassador to Washington, revealed that DesBarres's copper plates from the Atlantic Neptune were being distributed among the appropriate American libraries and historical societies along the Eastern Seabord according to the territories they showed. "The Quarto: Prepared in the Interests of Book Collecting at the University of Michigan", UM Libraries, No. 15, March 1948, p. 4.

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]  So - Was this the reason that Sparrow as in Charlestown, South Carolina, in 1799, to sell the missing plate that perhaps he had not turned back in 1791?


1786 - 1787


1787 

NOTE: PLEASE SEE DISCUSSION AT 1774 REGARDING
NOVA SCOTIA NEWSPAPER RESEARCH

DESBARRES DEPARTED CAPE BRETON OCTOBER 13, 1787, THE SAME DAY THAT WILLIAM MACARMICK REPLACED HIM,  AND ARRIVED IN WHITEHALL, ENGLAND, APRIL 16, 1788

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
 
 


1787 - 1788


1787 - 1790


1788 

NOTE: PLEASE SEE DISCUSSION AT 1774 REGARDING
NOVA SCOTIA NEWSPAPER RESEARCH


1788 - 1790 


1789  

NOTE: PLEASE SEE DISCUSSION AT 1774 REGARDING
NOVA SCOTIA NEWSPAPER RESEARCH


1790


1790 - 1791


1791


1792


1793 


1794    


1795


1796


1797


1798

NOTE: PLEASE SEE DISCUSSION AT 1774 REGARDING
NOVA SCOTIA NEWSPAPER RESEARCH


1799

NOTE: PLEASE SEE DISCUSSION AT 1774 REGARDING
NOVA SCOTIA NEWSPAPER RESEARCH

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

MAP, PLAN, ELEVATION OR VIEW

1799 - 1804


1800

NOTE: PLEASE SEE DISCUSSION AT 1774 REGARDING
NOVA SCOTIA NEWSPAPER RESEARCH


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

MAP, PLAN, ELEVATION OR VIEW


1804 


1806


1807


1810


1813


1814


1815 - 1818


1817  


1818


1819


1823


1826


1827


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


(7) SPARROW - FURTHER RESEARCH

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