Amherst Island

About

Amherst Island is located in Lake Ontario, 10 kilometres (6 mi) west of Kingston, Ontario, Canada. Amherst Island, being wholly in Lake Ontario, is upstream, above the St Lawrence River Thousand Islands. The island is part of Loyalist Township in Lennox and Addington County. Amherst Island is located about 3 kilometres (2 mi) offshore from the rest of Loyalist Township and is serviced by public ferry from Millhaven. The Island measures over 20 kilometres (12 mi) in length from Bluff Point in the southwest to Amherst Bar in the northeast and over 7 kilometres (4.3 mi) at its widest point across. The island is about 66 square kilometres (25 mi2) in size and is one of the largest islands in the Great Lakes. The Amherst Island archipelago also includes: Nut Island, Grape Island pronounced Grapee, the Brother Islands and Salmon Island, totalling over 6,800 hectares (16,700 acres) or about 66 square kilometres (25 mi2). Nut Island is the largest of these islands and is about 610 metres (2,000 ft) off the Amherst Island shore between Amherst Bay and Long Point Bay. Grape Island is located about 300 metres (1,000 ft) off the Amherst Island shore, and can be easily seen from shore. The Brother Islands are situated equidistant between Amherst Island, Amherstview and Lemoine Point, Kingston, Ontario.

Amherst Island had been frequented, inhabited seasonally by Indigenous peoples who named it, Ka8enesgo translated as big, long island. Amherst Island was known by the French as Isle Tonti, after Henri de Tonty, Lieutenant to La Salle during their explorations. Loyalist-era settlement had started by 1792 and the Island was thickly settled by 1835. In a proclamation by the Lieutenant Governor of Upper Canada John Graves Simcoe on 16 July 1792, the Island was formally renamed to Amherst Island, in honour of Jeffery Amherst, 1st Baron Amherst, who was commander-in-chief of British forces in North America. Simcoe was renaming the archipelago to commemorate British Generals of the Seven Years' War: Wolfe Island, Amherst Island, and Howe Island. In 1788, the island was granted by the Executive Council to one of their own Sir John Johnson, who had lost his father's extensive New York Colony possessions to the revolting colonies. In 1823, Sir John's widowed daughter, Catharine Maria Bowes, gained control of the island estate from her disinterested father. She sold numerous conversions of life-leases to freehold ownership to avoid the looming Wild Land Tax, 1824. By 1827 Mrs. Bowes was still in financial difficulty and granted a power of attorney to the Stephen Moore, 3rd Earl Mount Cashell, who purchased the balance of the Island Estate outright from her in 1835. Individual freeholders already owned and farmed nearly 4,000 acres, approximately one quarter of the Island, predominantly, but not restricted to, the First Concession. Mount Cashell's interest in Amherst Island was both profit-oriented and initially humanitarian. He aspired to establish a feudal estate, and reap large returns on his investment by the settlement of the Island with industrious tenants who would continue to clear and cultivate the land, thereby improving its value and providing his heirs with a perpetual rental income. But his vision initially, extended beyond pecuniary ends. Inspired by the evangelical belief in human improvement, he thought that by encouraging emigration from Ireland to Canada he could help solve the overpopulation of his homeland, create a prosperous, loyal farming population in the new world, and strengthen the Empire through a transatlantic grain trade. Mount Cashell became a leading spokesman of these views in North America. Most of the Irish settlers had been small farmers, labourers, sailors, artisans, and the better-off class of labourers from Ards Peninsula Ards, County Down (importantly property not owned by Mount Cashell). Since their homeland was particularly exposed to coastal winds and the absence of water-power, their built environment had been dotted with windmills. Mount Cashell issued the settlers seven-year leases at a nominal rent and requiring them to make certain improvements each year. He erected two piers, to secure and make serviceable two excellent natural harbours; he introduced a clergyman for St James' Anglican Church, for whom he provided a glebe house; he sent out a surgeon, for whom also he built a house; he built a house for an active agent; he built and furnished an excellent general store and a forge. Families from the Ards had begun arriving by the 1820s. Throughout the 1830s and 1840s their numbers swelled as friends and relatives continued to arrive – chain migration. But by the 1860s the movement had subsided. Settlers who arrived in the early years moved straight into leases while those arriving after 1850 often laboured for friends before renting existing leases. By 1841, the community had three schools and a population of over 1,000 people. The majority of families were Presbyterian, followed by Roman Catholics, Church of England, and recent Methodist converts. These Irish immigrants lived in either shanties or one-storey log houses on their leased land, and never achieved purchasing farms from departing, pre-Mount Cashell freeholders.

Adapted from Wikipedia (CC BY-SA). Photography via Wikimedia Commons.