Relocated his family from Westborough, Massachusetts to Nova Scotia in 1760, following the British call for New England settlers to take up former Acadian lands after the Acadian Expulsion. Appears in the 1768 Nova Scotia census in a household of four people with livestock holdings. Died in Annapolis Royal, Nova Scotia, around 1793 at age 83. This is the Canadian chapter of the Rice line; not all of Ebenezer Jr.'s children stayed in Nova Scotia, and Joseph Rice (our direct ancestor) was already grown and remained in Massachusetts.
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Ebenezer Rice Jr.
Stories
The Canadian chapter: Ebenezer Rice Jr. moves the family to Nova Scotia, 1760
1709 to 1793
By 1760 the Rice family had been in Massachusetts for four generations. Ebenezer Rice Jr., born in Sudbury in 1709, was 51 years old, married 17 years to Anna, and the father of seven children, the youngest just a few years past her birth in Westborough. That summer the British Crown opened up the former Acadian lands of Nova Scotia to New England settlers, the so-called Planters, and Ebenezer Jr. took the offer. He moved the household north to Annapolis Royal. The 1768 Nova Scotia census recorded a household of four people with livestock holdings. Anna died there in 1770; Ebenezer Jr. died there around 1793 at age 83. The line easily could have stayed Canadian. But Joseph Rice, Ebenezer Jr.'s twin-born middle son, was already an adult by 1760 and stayed in Massachusetts. The Rice line through Brant Hindman descends from Joseph and the Mass branch; the Canadian branch is a parallel line of cousins still in the Maritimes today.
Source: WikiTree profile Rice-653: Ebenezer Rice Jr. (1709-abt.1793)
Documents and artifacts
hand-drawn-family-tree
Rice family tree (Edmond Rice 1594 to mid-20th-century descendants, including the Hindman marriage)
Current location: Brant Hindman's family papers