The French had been present in Acadia since the early 1600s, but when the British expanded into the area in the 1700s, Acadian settlements on the South Shore were few and tiny. After the Expulsion of the Acadians the British wanted to repopulate vacated lands, and offered land grants to colonists from New England, which was experiencing a population explosion. In 1761, led by founders Timothy Houghton and Rev. John Seccombe, New England Planters were granted lands in the Chester area, then called Shoreham.