The Eassons: Family, culture, and community
LE3 .A278 2009
2009
Moody, Barry
Acadia University
Bachelor of Arts
Honours
History
History & Classics
When the young Scottish master artificer John Easson migrated to Annapolis Royal, Nova Scotia, in 1734 to begin a career in imperial service at that lonely, colonial outpost, he also began the process by which he would found one of the first English families in what became the modern day country of Canada. In doing so, John Easson also created, established, and shaped a family culture defined by an entrepreneurial tradition, maintained strong religious convictions, commitment to education, and, interestingly enough, an aversion to civic duty and public service. Through the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries and over successive generations of the Easson family, this distinctive family and family culture demonstrated a remarkable persistence. Utilizing primarily the Easson family fonds, a collection of colonial- era family documents significant for their quantity and quality, this family study utilizes the concepts of folkways, as envisioned by David Hackett Fischer, in an examination of the evolution of family structure, the demarcation of power, roles and responsibilities, as well as the function of eighteenth and nineteenth century colonial family, and the complex network of interconnections between family and society.
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https://scholar.acadiau.ca/islandora/object/theses:656