Immigrant numbers to the Island and Lot 16 started to grow again around 1802. Settlers were needed and the people of Scodand were an obvious choice because their country was experiencing high unemployment. Several straight years of crop failures led the landlords to force their tenant farmers from the land and turn to the more profitable raising of sheep. The Grand River or Ellis River flows Northeast into . The name is possibly derived from the French and earlier from the Mi'kmaq, "Amasebooguck" meaning long river. A note in J .H. Adas of 1831 states the river was named ' Ellis River ' by Samuel Holland in 1765, after Welbore Ellis (1713-1802), brother in-law of Sir Hans Stanley. Sir Stanley was Lord of the Admiralty in Great Britain. The river is named the '' in the Wright and Cundall book of 1874. It is listed as the ' Grand River ' in the Meacham 1880 Adas . Researched by Doreen MacLean. Lot 16, as surveyed by Captain Samuel Holland from 1764- 1766, consisted of approximately 21,000 acres of land, which extended from and consisted of the modern-day boundaries of Wellington Center, Southwest , Belmont, and Central to its Lot 17 boundary. Holland's survey indicated there were no buildings and very litde land cleared in Lot 16 .9 The waterway system influenced Lot 16 's early settlement and development. , and the coastline of Bel¬ mont, made the area an obvious choice for early settlement. The Ellis River flowed along the shoreline of Southwest and emp¬ tied into the Bay. The waterways were the vital transportation link when the land was heavily forested. Land closest to the rivers and bays was the first to be settled. It was natural for business and travel to flow back and forth across the bay between Belmont and Princetown , the proposed capital and commercial center of . It also extended westward along the coast of Lot 14. Later, as more setders began to arrive from the British , settlement was forced inland and a network of roads began to appear through the forests and bush. Much of the land along the shorelines of Lot 16 was low and marshy, but fertile for farming. United Church and Its People