In the fall of 1758 Charles Lawrence, Governor of Nova Scotia, issued a proclamation inviting inhabitants of the New England colonies to settle on vacant lands in Nova Scotia. Over the course of the next fifteen years, well over 8000 men, women, and children made the trip northeastward. With them they brought the Puritan traditions of strong local government, a free church, and formal education.
This group, known as the New England Planters, left behind them vast quantities of paper, recording their relations with the government, with the court systems, with the military, with merchants and financiers, and with their own friends and families.
Judith A. Norton has compiled a bibliography of documents found in repositories throughout the Maritimes and New England: diaries, letters, private grants, court records, church records, and a wide range of government documents. There are over 3000 entries in all.