“My great great grandfather, the music Professor Caleb Rand Bill came from Nova Scotia to New England with his wife. They had their nine children in succession from New Brunswick, Maine, Boston and then Salem as he moved from place to place teaching music. According to the Bill Family Genealogy, he had three brothers. One died while studying away at Acadia College, and the other two went on a mission to New Zealand.” (Source: Heather Wilkinson Rojo – March 18, 2010).

“Sarah and Charles Skinner went to Maugerville, N.B. just before the Loyalists, and it is assumed they might have gotten a good price for their land and moved to Bass River, N.S., where Charles was a school teacher. They stayed there about five years before moving to Kings County. The school records in Bass River were burned in a fire.” (Source: Isabel Palmeter) This would suggest that the family came to Cornwallis Township just prior to the influx of Loyalists.

Charles Skinner was a grantee at Cornwallis township, that he was born 3 Jan 1748 in Colchester, Connecticut, son of Aaron Skinner. He married 24 Nov 1774 at Passamaquoddy, Sarah, daughter of Samuel and Sarah Osborn, perhaps from Martha’s Vinyard. She lists 15 children, including my Ann Skinner, who married 1802 Thomas Lyons. (Source: Esther Clark Wright in “Planters and Pioneers”)

The Skinners first came to Passamaquoddy, Campobello or Indian Island (all in Passamaquoddy Bay in Charlotte, New Brunswick), where Charles might have taught school from 1774 to 1778. They moved to St. John and Maugerville in 1778 where he taught school until 1780. The arrival of the Loyalists may have provided financial incentive to sell their lands profitably. They moved to Five Islands, Cumberland, N.S. (but I think then all part of Cornwallis Township) where the family lived for the first five years, before they settled in 1785 at Little Pereau, near Blomidon, in the Cornwallis area of present day Kings County. (Source: Rev. Davison in his book “Alice of Grand-Pré”)

Charles Skinner was a school teacher by profession, and one reference said he was a “refined gentleman”.

The father of Samuel Skinner (i.e., Charles Skinner) came from New England to the Maritimes just before the outbreak of the Revolutionary War. (Source: The book “Biographical Review… Province of New Brunswick” published in Boston in 1900 page 97)

“Died 15 January 1848 in Cornwallis, Mrs. Sarah Skinner in 88th year, daughter of the late Samuel Osborne of Martha’s Vineyard, U.S. They removed to Casco, Maine, to New Brunswick, then to Nova Scotia. Born 22 July 1760, married in NB at age 16 to Charles Skinner, native of Connecticut. Leaves 8 sons, 7 daughters, 113 grandchildren, 60 great-grandchildren. Late W. A. Chipman was a brother-in-law. Edward Manning and George Dimock sons-in-law. Rev. I. E. Bill married a granddaughter.” (Source: The Christian Messenger an early Baptist magazine).

“Some time ago some bricks fell off the top of one of the Isham House chimneys, upon the roof of the STANDARD office, and caused a leak. We sent up to see Pelow Graham, and get him to repair it. We have often spoken of C. Graham as the boss hand to put on metallic roofs. Early in the year 1871 he put the roof on our composing room. The roof is nearly flat, yet it has never leaked until it received this injury. Pelow, his son, can discover and repair injuries in a metallic roof with more certainly than any man we have ever employed.” (Source: The Jackson Standard, Jackson, Ohio, Thursday, June 28, 1883)