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New Settlers and a New Name
This map, c 1779, shows the extent of some of the original land grants in the Partridge Island community.
It was the afternmath of the American Revolutionary War that really made the colony viable, for thousands of "Loyalists" fled North from the Thirteen Colonies seeking new land and the protection of the Crown. Many of these people were given lands grants in this area and significantly added to the development of the region both commercially and socially.
One of these arrivals presumably was Captain Thomas Wm Moore who arrived at Partridge Island in 1781. He purchased a Lot of land, No. 6, from one Jacob Hurd, and built his home on the creek near the present Whitehall Bridge, which he had covered on the outside with gypsum plaster obtained at Windsor, earning it the name of "The White Hall". The name still exists as Whitehall Road though the house is long gone.
He also purchased Lot No 9 from Jacob Bacon, a large portion of which he later turned over to the Church of England. It was on that lot that the first actual church was erected for the parish established in 1786. A cairn has been erected on the Ottawa House site to mark the location of this first church.
Two individuals, Vickery and Josiah Davison of Falmouth purchased Lots 7 and 8 from the Scotts, and there on the tidal creek they established a grist mill, the first of several mills, which soon earned this expansion of the original settlement the name of Mill Village.
(Illustration drawn from "Twin Heritages, Irwin Press, 1967)
A Governor Visits
In 1784, Governor Parr, himself a Loyalist, came by land from Annapolis up through the Valley on a tour of inspection of the new Townships. He crossed over the Basin by ferry to Partridge Island to visit his friend Maj Moore (of Whitehall). Maj Moore took the Governor horseback riding and hunting throughout the new territory. At Diligent River they stopped at the home of Lieutenant Taylor whose wife had just given birth to a son. The Governor, in a fine display of both charity and vanity, declared that he would add a thousand acres to Taylor's lot if the boy would be named after him. The boy, the first born in the region, was thus named John Parr Taylor and was said to have lived to the fine old age of 90. As an aside, records show that the first girl born in Parrsboro was a J Vickery born in the same year.
New Township
In 1786, two years following the Governor's visit, the township lines were drawn, encompassing a territory which stretched from Five Islands to Advocate.
Residents decided then to further honour the Governor by naming the Township Parrsborough. It is this spelling which is still used today when referring to the whole shoreline as the "Parrsborough shore". The abbreviated spelling of Parrsboro', with the apostrophe, was adopted in reference to the major community in the Township and became its' official name (without the apostrophe) at the time of incorporation over a hundred years later, in 1889.