A Loyalist weekend of tea, tents and descendants

And there were 225 of them at the July 10 event—a fitting number since the celebration occurred on the 225th anniversary of the Loyalist landing.

The July event got underway with an address by David W. States, an authority on African Nova Scotian history. States told the crowd that 3,000 blacks came to Nova Scotia as free persons and more than 1,200 came as slaves of their Loyalist masters.

States is a direct descendant of George and Mary States who arrived in Nova Scotia from New York in 1783.

The Handspiker, Titus, Dakin, Saxton, Outhouse, Hankinson, Morehouse, Ruggles, Peters, Edison and Prime families were others whose family histories were covered during the day’s events.

Sheryl Stanton, curator of Admiral Digby Museum, says the idea for the gathering began to take form a year and a half ago at the suggestion of Aubrey Prime. A loyalist descendant himself, Prime said he would make a donation to help fund a historical event in Digby. With 2008 marking 225 years since the arrival of the Loyalists, the timing for a gathering of Loyalist descendants was logical, she said.