Colonel John Goreham was a native of Massachusetts; he was with General Pepperal at the siege of Louisburg in 1745, as Lieutenant-Colonel of his father's regiment raised in Massachusetts. He afterwards had command of a company of Rangers at Annapolis and came down to Chebucto with his rangers to meet Governor Cornwallis in 1749. He took precedence next to Governor Mascarene at the council board. He is styled Captain Goreham by Mascarene and by Cornwallis in his commissions and correspondence. That of Lieutenant-Colonel was probably militia rank only. It is probable he returned to Boston soon after the settlement was formed as his name does not appear on the Council books after 1752. He had a brother, Joseph Goreham, who was also a member of Council in 1766; he afterwards attained the rank of Lieutenant-Colonel in the British army. He was engaged in the border skirmishes on the isthmus from 1754 to about 1758, and was afterwards appointed Commandant at Newfoundland.
Lieutenant-Colonels Horseman, Ellison and Merser, who were afterwards appointed to the Council, were the officers in command of the regiments which came from Louisburg. They all retired soon after to England.
Charles Lawrence was a Major in Warburton's Regiment of Infantry. He came up with the army and was engaged during 1749 and '50 in the French wars at Cobequid. He acted as Brigadier General under Amherst at Louisburg; he was a member of the Council and sworn in Governor of the Province on the death of Governor Hobson; the first assembly was convened during his administration, (2nd October, 1758); he died unmarried on 11th October, 1759, it is said of an inflammation, caused by overheating himself at a ball at Government House; he was deeply respected by the whole community, and the Legislative Assembly caused a monument to be erected to his memory in St. Paul's church "from a grateful sense of the many important services which the Province had received from him during a continued course of zealous and indefatigable endeavors for the public good, and a wise, upright, and disinterested administration." This monument has now disappeared from St. Paul's Church. His escutcheon remains in the East Gallery. Lawrence, though an active and zealous governor, by his desire to favor the officers of Government with a partiality for his military friends, brought on himself an organized opposition from the leading inhabitants of the town, who petitioned the Home Government for redress of their grievances, which they in a great measure attributed to the Governor and his Lieutenant Colonel Monckton. His resistance to the desire to call a Legislative Assembly was among the chief charges against him. His death shortly after the petition put an end to the difficulties. He was succeeded by Judge Belcher as Administrator of the Government.
Charles Morris was a native of England; he was Captain of Provincials under General Pepperal at the siege of Louisburg in 1745. He had been engaged by Governor Shirley of Boston in a survey of the interior parts of Nova Scotia with a view to British colonization, in 1745. He also commanded one of the Provincial Companies sent to Minas under Colonel Noble in 1747. He was in Halifax in 1749, and in company with Mr. Bruce the Military Engineer laid out the town and peninsula. He was appointed to the Council in 1755. Though Surveyor General of the Province he acted for some time as Judge of the Supreme Court during the time of Chief Justice Belcher, which offices were both afterwards filled by his eldest son Charles. Captain Morris died in 1781, and was succeeded in the office of Surveyor General by his son Charles, whose son, the Hon. Charles Morris, also filled the same office and was a Member of Council in 1808. He was the father of John Spry Morris, Esq., afterwards Surveyor General, who was the fourth in succession who had charge of the Surveying Department in Nova Scotia. There are numerous descendants of Captain Morris in Halifax.
Jonathan Belcher, the first Chief Justice, was a native of Massachusetts, son of the Governor of that province, of an eminent colonial family; he was appointed Chief Justice of Nova Scotia in 1754, when a young man, and administered the government on the death of Governor Lawrence; Chief Justice Belcher arranged and revised the laws as they appear on our first Statute Book, and rendered good assistance to Governor Lawrence in founding the settlements at Horton, Cornwallis, Falmouth, &c., in 1758, '9, and 1760. Judge Belcher died poor; the Legislature voted a provision to his only daughter. His son, the Honorable Andrew Belcher, was for many years a resident in Halifax and member of Council.
Captain Wm. Cotterell was the first Provost Marshal or Sheriff, (there being no county divisions at this time). He was succeeded in that office in 1750 by Captain Foy, who held that situation many years, and received a small pension on his retirement. Mr. Cotterel afterwards acted as assistant Provincial Secretary.
William Nisbett came out with Cornwallis in 1749 as one of the Governor's clerks. He practised as an attorney and solicitor. He was appointed Attorney General on the resignation of Mr. Little, which office he held for 25 years. He was one of the first representatives in the General Assembly of 1758, and was elected speaker on 4th December 1759. He continued in the Chair of the House (with the intermission of one session when sick) until 1783, when he retired on a small pension and died the following year aged 83. In 1763 he declined a seat in the Council. During the period of his being Speaker, the House sat for 11 years without being dissolved. The old house in which Mr. Nisbett resided situated in Grafton Street, Block letter E, Collins' division, mentioned in a former chapter, still remains, though much changed by the cutting down of the street many years ago. He left no male descendants. His daughter, Mrs. Swann, died in the old Grafton street house about 60 years ago.
Archibald Hinshelwood was one of Governor Cornwallis' clerks, and performed the duties of Deputy Secretary with Mr. Cotterell and others for many years. Most of the drafts of the letters sent to England by the first three Governors are in his handwriting. He was elected a member of Assembly for Lunenburg in 1759 and again in 1765. Lord William Campbell the Governor appointed him to the Council in 1773, but he died before taking his seat. His property on Argyle Street after occupied by the City Water office fell to his nephew, (he having no children), who left two sons in the navy, both of whom died young. The old property was sold about 60 years since and purchased by Mr. W. A. Black, who resided there many years.
Otis Little was Captain of one of the New England Independent Companies. He was probably a native of England. Being in England in 1749, he came out with Governor Cornwallis, who appointed him Commissary of Stores, from which office he was dismissed on suspicion of having traded in the supplies for the settlers. He acted as first Attorney General of the Colony, and was probably a lawyer by profession. He was the author of a well-written pamphlet on the resources of Nova Scotia, written in 1748, with a view to encouraging British emigration to the province. Capt. Little left a daughter, who died unmarried at Halifax early in the present century.
John Baptiste Moreau, designated gentleman and schoolmaster in the book of the settlers, had been originally a Roman Catholic priest, and Prior of the Abbey of St. Matthew at Breste. He joined the expedition under Cornwallis in 1749, and went to Lunenburg with the settlers in 1752. He received ordination as a clergyman of the Church of England in 1750, and officiated to his countrymen and the Germans in the County of Lunenburg, where he died much esteemed and regretted in the year 1770. He left a son, Cornwallis Moreau, who was the first male child born in Halifax, and was called Cornwallis after the Governor. This old man was living at La Have, in Lunenburg County, in the year 1848, being nearly 100 years of age. He received pecuniary assistance from the Nova Scotia Philanthropic Society in that year.