During the 18th century, Halifax was sometimes called the “wickedest city in North America” with soldiers and sailors outnumbering the townsfolk 6 to 1. A Yankee settler writing home reported, “the business of one half the town is to sell rum and the other half to drink it.” One man whose business it was to sell rum was Jonathan Prescott, an Oak Island lot owner and founding member of Chester. Shortly after Halifax was established, Prescott received a land grant as well as a license to operate a distillery in the town. Prescott done well for himself during his stay and by the time he put up his distillery for sale in 1761, he was producing 40,000 gallons of the stuff annually. His – To Be Let or Sold - advertisement, shows us the facility included a distilling house, two warehouses and a wharf. Even more revealing in an early advertisement from 1753 shows his association and partnership with another distiller who is not as well known to the Oak Island Community. That associate is Joshua Mauger (pronounced Major) and for people interested in smuggling during that time period in Oak Island history, you may be interested in the following:
Joshua Mauger was born on Jersey Island in 1725. It is unsure his path to Fort Louisbourg but in 1749 he is recorded as a victualler for the Navy (distributor of rations, clothing, etc.) during the fort’s handover to the French. After a short trip to England to meet with the Board of Trade, he returned to Halifax as Agent Victualler for the entire Province. Mauger obviously had powerful connections in England, who are yet unknown. What is known is that Mauger had also managed to secure a contract providing the entire rum supply for the Royal Navy in the province. Over the next eleven years he would go on to parlay his position managing provisions and distilling spirits, into a commercial empire trading in rum, lumber, fish, vessels and slaves.
With the establishment of Halifax, Governor Cornwallis had declared there was to be no trading with the French, but technically - it was not against British law to do it. Mauger had established French suppliers for vegetables and the like from his time at Louisbourg, so it was not long before Cornwallis would accuse him of smuggling. One of Mauger’s first duties in Halifax was the settling of affairs and the transfer of goods from Louisbourg to Halifax. Mauger drug this process along and used it as cover to ship French goods directly to the docks of Halifax. On Cornwallis Island (todays McNab Island), he broke up the illicit cargos and then scattered the goods to his many warehouses. In 1750 and again in 1751, Governor Cornwallis caught him red-handed with illegal goods (100 casks of rum / 22 hogshead of French wine). Mauger however, was able to provide witnesses to provide an explanation for each case. We do not know if it was ever noted that one of the witnesses was a business associate of Mauger’s, or that the other would become a partner in many of his trading posts a couple years later.
Cornwallis recommended the removal of Mauger to the Board of Trade, complaining that Mauger was trading with the enemy from his various “truck houses” (trading posts) at Pisiquid, Minas, Grande Pre, Annapalis Royal and along the St. John River. Cornwallis also questioned how Mauger could mediate with French authorities the payment of ransoms for prisoners, when he found it impossible to do so as Governor. Mauger defended himself to the Board of Trade, explaining that Cornwallis was simply incompetent and not only disrupted trade but was incapable of defending citizens. He presented letters from “the real citizens of Halifax” signed by prominent merchants and businessmen. With the merchant’s support, Mauger began to abuse Cornwallis financially. He ruined Cornwallis’s credit with other suppliers by withholding payments, effectively forcing the Governor to use Mauger’s shipping companies. Cornwallis begged the Board of Trade for Mauger’s removal. But cry as he might - Mauger was never replaced. Seeing the writing on the walls, Cornwallis began writing to the Board of Trade, seeking a replacement governor.
Governor Hopson replaced Cornwallis in 1752 and Joshua Mauger, now cleared by the Board of Trade, continue his services. Lunenburg is founded, and new opportunities are afforded to the merchants of Halifax in supplying the new settlement. Mauger becomes even more powerful as a distributor between merchants. With Cook and Rundell, Mauger establishes the Mushamush mills to produce lumber and barrels. He opens new shipping companies with trusted partners, to bring in goods from New England and the West Indies. Sugar, molasses, rum and slaves, was traded for Nova Scotian fur, fish and lumber. England and the lower colonies also profited by suppling the new colony with goods. Lucrative contracts were made to deliver whatever was needed such as cooking pots, beads, blankets, clothing, shoes, vegetables, flour and beef.
Subsequent governors found that Mauger was easy to get along with… as long as he got his way. When unhappy, Mauger would complain to the Board of Trade and enlist his supporters to send complaints signed by a minimum of 20 Halifax merchants. Distillers like Jonathan Gifford, William Murrey, John Fillis and Dr. Prescott naturally signed many of these letters as well as several other town notables who were the cream of the crop of Halifax high society. People like Thomas Saul, Michael Franklin, Jonathan Binney, John Butler, Isaac Deschamps, the brothers Benjamin and Joseph Gerrish – could be the core of what is known as the “Halifax Party”.
The Halifax Party was a trade network designed by merchants to maximize profits for themselves. They were the ones who had been there since the founding of the town, slopping through the mud and sleeping in wooden huts. They were the ones who put their lives on the line and took a chance on getting scalped. It was their influence and political connections (along with that of their trading partners), which gave credence to Mauger’s complaints to the Board of Trade. This power would be used against any governor who tried to change the system they had spent years putting in place. Over the years some his associates publicly bragged that Mauger was responsible for the recall of at least three governors; namely Belcher, Campbell and Legg. While this claim is impossible to prove, the fact remains Mauger made life miserable for any governor who attempted to change the system of the Halifax Party. Governors who bucked the system soon learned that Joshua Mauger had partners who also had powerful allies in the Board of Trade as well. Men like Thomas and John Hancock, Charles Apthorp and Jonathan Trumbull from the lower colonies and Sir Brooks Watson, who represented the merchant suppliers from England.
Over the years Mauger’s associates began filling government positions which put the Mauger Machine into a state of perpetual motion. In April 1762, the Nova Scotia House of Assembly, chose Joshua Mauger as the colony’s Agent in London. This was not too surprising since many of those elected were his business associates. In England, he could directly influence the Board of Trade, but his ambition did not stop there. Eventually, Mauger would be elected to Parliament from the Borough of Poole, but even in that endeavor, he would be accused of buying support due to his “present” of 1000 pounds to the town of Poole for public uses “if elected”. Apparently, the borough was carrying a 2000-pound debt.
Many fortunes were made and lost by the Halifax Party of merchants throughout the colonies over the course of the French and Indian War. Along with a partner Mauger funded at least three privateer ships between 1756 and 1758 with mixed results. With the large amount of military personnel inhabiting the province, Halifax distillers like Dr. Prescott, Fillis, Gifford and Mauger, did exceptionally well. But after Fort Louisbourg fell to the British in 1758, the end of the war was in sight. Mauger began liquidating his assets and settling his affairs in Nova Scotia. He sold his fleet of ships and installed John Butler and Isaac Deschamps as his agents to manage the businesses and land holdings he still held. His distilling associates were left to maintain his rum contract with the navy and jointly profited in the monopoly they had created. Rum was his golden goose, and he would maintain that contract almost until his death in 1788. After his political retirement, Mauger would continue to serve as a Nova Scotia “influencer” with the Board of Trade for the rest of his life.
In closing, when Joshua Mauger left Nova Scotia the power of the Halifax Party was handed over to his business partners – or should I say, “the government”. One of Mauger’s main adversaries Governor Legg, wrote to his cousin Lord Dartmouth in 1775: “The first assembly [in 1758] was composed of persons solely under the influence of Mauger ... The means they adopted for securing power by squandering the money in the treasury and the money borrowed on useless works, bounties, &c., threatening the governor and members of council, many of them being officers of Government, with a refusal to vote their salaries, and, the members being traders, by keeping these members in debt; by granting to the distillers duties to exclude West Indian produce, and through the influence of Mauger to fill the council with their supporters so as to prevent any check on the assembly. They have so monopolized the trade, that the governor cannot introduce any measure for the public good, that is opposed to their interest, without complaint.”
It is fair to say that even with Joshua Mauger leaving the colony, elements of the Halifax Party continued to influence Nova Scotia for at least another decade.
- By Chris Boze
Excerpts taken with permission from: Oak Island Mystery Trees and other Forensic Answers (Appendix N, Notorious Networks), Neisen-Cook-Boze, 2022
Bibliography
James S. MacDonald, The Life and Administration of Governor Charles Lawrence 1749-1760, Nova Scotia Historical Society, 1880
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