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There is evidence of native settlement on Minister's Island dating back thousands of years, and excavations in the sixties and seventies have turned up graves, tools and the remains of semi-subterranean buildings.The first white settlers were two men by the name of John Hanson and Ephraim Young. They were United Empire Loyalists from Gouldsboro, Maine. Hanson had served in the British Provincial Army from 1757 to 1763, and was with Wolfe in 1759 when Quebec fell. In 1777 he and Young left Salem, Massachusetts in a whaleboat and, having obtained location tickets from the Nova Scotia government in recognition of their military service, settled on what the natives called Consquamcook or Quanoscumcook Island. Over the course of the next six years they raised large families, cleared land, and for a few rough years subsisted almost entirely on shellfish and game. At that time St. Andrews was still wilderness with a mostly ceremonial native presence and few white traders operating a post at what is now town center.
In 1783 came the main Loyalist influx. Surveyors laid out lots and New Brunswick was sectioned off from Nova Scotia as a new Loyalist homeland. But the new government refused to honor Hanson and Young's location tickets, so in 1785 they petitioned Governor Carleton in Halifax for the rights to Chamcook Island, citing their hardships, loyalty to the Crown, and the misery they would endure again were they forced to leave. Unfortunately a prior application for the Island had been made by a Captain Samuel Osborn of the British warship Arethusa, then stationed at St. Andrews to protect the newly arrived Loyalists. They would have to move, but consideration would be given to the various "improvements" they had made on the Island.
Not content with this ruling, Ephraim Young sent yet another petition to Carleton, in which he noted that though Hanson had already "sold his improvements" to Osborn and left the Island, he would like to have his own improvements considered as a claim upon the land "as if he had had a formal application subsisting for such grant during the whole period of his tenure." This request fell on deaf ears. Hanson had moved to Bocabec, where he eventually opened a mill. Young, probably also having been recompensed for his improvements, moved inland, and Chamcook Island passed into the hands of Captain Osborn.