ago by the grandmother of the late Judge Fisher to
one of her descendants. This good old lady came to St. Anne's in the
fall of 1783 with the Loyalists. Not very many months after their
arrival, there was so great a scarcity of provisions that the
unfortunate people in some cases were obliged to dig up the potatoes
they had planted and eat them. As the season advanced their hearts
were cheered by the discovery of some large patches of pure white
beans, marked with a black cross. They had been planted by the French,
but were now growing wild. In their joy at this fortunate discovery
the settlers called them "the staff of life and hope of the starving."
Mrs. Fisher says she planted some of these beans with her own hands
and that the seed was preserved in her family for many years.

The close of the year 1759 brought its anxieties to Colonel Mariot
Arbuthnot, who had succeeded Major Morris as commandant at Fort
Frederick. Quebec had fallen and the long and costly struggle between
England and France for the possession of Canada and Acadia had
terminated in favor of England.

The Massachusetts troops in garrison at Fort Frederick expected to be
now relieved, as their period of enlistment had expired and the crisis
of the war was over. But unfortunately for them, General Amherst at
Crown Point found the force at his disposal insufficient, he could not
spare a man, and Monckton, who commanded at Quebec, was in precisely
the same predicament. Lawrence at Halifax had no troops at his
disposal. Unless, therefore, the Massachusetts men remained Fort
Frederick would be left without a garrison. In this emergency the
Massachusetts legislature took the responsibility of extending the
period of enlistment of the troops of their colony, at the same time
voting money necessary to provide them with beds and other comforts
for the approaching winter. General Amherst strongly commended the
patriotic action of the legislature, and wrote to Governor Lawrence,
"They have judged very rightly that the abandoning any of the
Garrisons may be attended with most fatal consequences to this
country; and as they have made a necessary provision for the men to
continue during the winter, if the men do not stay and serve
voluntarily, they must be compelled to it by force."

Evidently the men remained with great reluctance, for the following spring
we find the Governor of Massachusetts writing to Governor Lawrence, "I
find our people who are doing duty