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In 1768, as we shall see later, the first road from Cobequid to Tatamagouche came out at the Willow Church after crossing the mountain near Roode’s Pond and it may have been that in 1755, there was something of a trail or road in that location. If so, Willard would have gone that way on his return to Truro. But no one will ever really know. It is however, most unlikely that the destruction of the habitations on Waugh’s River was overlooked. And if they were destroyed by Willard it must have been when he was on his way back to Isgonish, after his burning the main village at the junction of the Rivers. From an historical point of view, Willard mentioned an interesting incident of his visit to this settlement. The only male inhabitant at the time, was an old Frenchman, who told Willard that he had lodged there since Annapolis Royal was taken by the British. This was in 1710 and unless the old man was romancing, it sets the earliest date of the settling of Tatamagouche. The old man, it seems, had "patience under his suffering," and made no complaint when he learned his fate. But his wife, to use Willard’s words in his own spelling "Toock on very much at their defecultys." There Willard and men lodged for the night and were kindly treated. Next morning as a strange return for hospitality, they set fire to the four houses and the several barns then filled with hay. Then they started for Isgonish and reached their headquarters at the Church about nine o’clock of the evening of the same day. When on August 26th, Willard returned to Fort Cumberland and made his report to Colonel Monckton, he delivered into the hands of the British twenty-two French prisoners. Of these several were taken by Lewis at Remsheg, so that of the inhabitants of Tatamagouche, perhaps no more than fifteen were taken but all of these were male adults. Back |
