Our knowledge of affairs on the River Saint John down to the period of English occupation is largely derived from the correspondence of the Jesuit missionaries, the last of whom was Charles Germain. After his retirement the Acadians and Indians remained for several years without any spiritual guide, a circumstance that did not please them and was also a matter of concern to the Governor of Nova Scotia, who in December, 1764, informed the Secretary of State that a promise had been made the Indians of the River St. John to send them a priest, which the Lords of Trade had now forbidden. The governor regrets this as likely to confirm the Indians in their notion that the English “are a people of dissimulation and artifice, who will deceive them and deprive them of their salvation.” He thinks it best to use gentle treatment in dealing with the Indians, and mentions the fact of their having lately burned their church[90] by command of their priest detained at Quebec, as a proof of their zealous devotion to their missionaries.
In the summer of 1767, Father Charles Francois Bailly came to the River St. John and established himself at Aukpaque, or, as he calls it, “la mission d’Ekouipahag en la Riviere St. Jean.” The register of baptisms, marriages and burials at which he officiated during his year’s residence at Aukpaque is still to be seen at French Village in the Parish of Kingsclear, York county. The records of his predecessor, Germain, however, were lost during the war period or while the mission was vacant. That there was a field for the missionary’s labor is shewn by the fact that in the course of his year’s residence on the River St. John he officiated at 29 marriages, 79 baptisms and 14 burials. His presence served to draw the Indians to Aukpaque, where there were also some Acadian families who seem to have been refugees of the expulsion of 1755. The older Indian village of Medoctec was now deserted and the missionary ordered the chapel there to be destroyed, seeing that it served merely as a shelter for travellers and “was put to the most profane uses.” The building had been standing for fifty years and was much out of repair. The ornaments and furnishings, together with the chapel bell,[91] were brought to Aukpaque.
For some reason the presence of the Acadians at Aukpaque and its vicinity was not acceptable to the authorities of Nova Scotia, and Richard Bulkeley the provincial secretary, wrote to John Anderson and Francis Peabody, Esqrs., justices of the peace for the county of Sunbury, under date 20th August, 1768: “The Lieut. 248 Governor desires that you will give notice to all the Accadians, except about six Families whom Mr. Bailly shall name, to remove themselves from Saint John’s River, it not being the intention of the Govern-ment that they should settle there, but to acquaint them that on their application they shall have lands in other parts of the Province.”
It is remarkable with what persistence the French clung to the locality of Aukpaque in spite of repeated attempts to dispossess them. The New Englanders under Hawthorn and Church tried to expel them as long ago as 1696, but Villebon repulsed the attack on Fort Nachouac and compelled them to retire. Monckton in 1759 drove the Acadians from the lower St. John and destroyed their settlements, but the lowness of the water prevented his ascending the river farther than Grimross Island, a little above Gagetown. A little later Moses Hazen and his rangers destroyed the village at St. Ann’s and scattered the Acadians, but some of them returned and re-established themselves near the Indian village at Aukpaque. The governor of Nova Scotia apparently was not willing they should remain, hence his orders to Anderson and Peabody in 1768.
What these magistrates did, or attempted to do is not recorded, at any rate they did not succeed in effecting the removal of the Acadians for we find that the little colony continued to increase. The missionary Bailly wrote from Aukpaque, June 20, 1768, to Bishop Briand, “There are eleven Acadian families living in the vicinity of the village, the same ones whom your Lordship had the goodness to confirm at St. Anne. * * It is a difficult matter to attend to them for they live apart from one another during the summer on the sea shore fishing and in the winter in the woods hunting.” It appears that these poor people were reduced to the necessity of leading almost an aboriginal life to save themselves from starvation, yet they clung to the locality.
Major Studholme sent a committee of four persons to explore the River St. John in July, 1783.[92] The committee reported sixty-one families of Acadians settled in the vicinity of Aukpaque. There were in these families 61 men, 57 women and 236 children. About twenty-five families lived on the east side of the river, most of them near the mouth of the Keswick; the others lived not far from the Indian village on the west side of the river, and there were in addition two or three families at St. Anne’s Point. In their report to Major Studholme the committee describe the Acadians as “an inoffensive people.” They had a considerable quantity of land under cultivation, but few, if any, of them had any title to their lands save that of simple possession. Those who claimed longest residence were Joseph Martin who came in 1758 and Joseph Doucet who came in 1763. The settlement began to grow more rapidly after the arrival of the missionary Bailly, for out of 249 the sixty-one heads of families included in the Committees report to Studholme nine came in 1767, thirteen in 1768, ten in 1769 and four in 1770. All of these enjoyed the ministrations of l’Abbe Bailly. The missionary seems to have remained a year in residence and then at the instance of the Governor of Nova Scotia was sent to the Indians and Acadians of the peninsula to the eastward of Halifax. He, however, paid occasional visits to the River St. John as is shown by the records of the baptisms, marriages and burials at which he officiated when there.[93] He is heartily commended by Lord William Campbell, the governor of Nova Scotia, for his tact in dealing with the Indians and his loyalty to the constituted authorities of the province. It is not probable that there was very much ground for the complaint of Simonds & White in their letter of June 22, 1768, in which they say, “We have made a smaller collection of Furrs this year than last, occasioned by the large demands of the Priest for his services, and his ordering the Indians to leave their hunting a month sooner than usual to keep certain festivals, and by our being late in getting to their village, the reason of which we informed you in our last. * * It’s expected that there will be a greater number of Indians assembled at Aughpaugh next fall than for several years past.” The extract quoted serves to show that the Abbe Bailly’s influence was felt while he lived on the St. John river. He returned to Canada in May, 1772, and was afterwards consecrated Bishop Co-adjutor of Quebec.
During the year of his sojourn on the River St. John and in his subsequent visits the Abbe Bailly baptized, married and buried many of the Acadians as well as Indians. The names of a good many individuals occur in his register whose descendants are numerous in Madawaska, Bathurst, Caraquet, Memramcook and other places in the province. Among them may be mentioned Joseph Martin, Jean Baptiste Martin, Louis Mercure, Michel Mercure, Jean Baptiste Daigle, Olivier Thibodeau, Jean Thibodeau, Joseph Terriot, Ignace Caron, Joseph Cyr, Pierre Cyr, Jean Baptiste Cyr, Paul Cyr, Francois Cyr, Pierre Pinette, Francois Violette, Joseph Roy, Daniel Godin, Paul Potier, Francois Cormier, Jacques Cormier, Jean Baptiste Cormier, Pierre Hebert, Joseph Hebert, Francois Hebert, Louis Le Jeune, Joseph Mazerolle, and Jean Baptiste Vienneau.
Of these families the Cormiers, Cyrs, Daigles and Heberts came from Beaubassin at the head of the Bay of Fundy; the Martins from Port Royal (or Annapolis), the Mercures and Terriots from l’Isle St. Jean (or Prince Edward Island); the Violettes from Louisbourg, and the Mazerolles from Riviere Charlesbourg.
It is worthy of note that despite the hardships and misfortunes endured there are instances of marvellous longevity among the old French settlers. Placide P. Gaudet, who is by all odds the best authority on this head and whose wonderful knowledge of Acadian genealogy has been attained by years of hard study and patient research, gives a striking instance of this fact amongst his relatives of the 250 Vienneau family. The ancestor of this family was one Michael Vienneau, who with his wife Therese Baude were living at Maugerville in 1770: both were natives of France. The husband died at Memramcook in September, 1802, at the age of 100 years and 3 months; his widow in March, 1804, at the age of 96 years. Their son Jean died at Pokemouche in August, 1852, at the extraordinary age of 112 years, leaving a son Moise who died at Rogersville in March, 1893, aged over 96 yeas. The united age of these four individuals—father, mother, son and grandson—are equivalent to the extraordinary sum total of 404 years.
In the course of a year or two after the arrival of the Loyalists the greater portion of the Acadians living on the St. John river above Fredericton removed—either from choice or at the instigation of government—to Madawaska, Caraquet and Memramcook. A few, however, remained, and there are today at French Village, in York county, about 31 families of Acadian origin numbering 149 souls, and 17 families in addition reside at the Mazerolle settlement not far away. The most common family name amongst these people is Godin; the rest of the names are Mazerolle, Roy, Bourgoin, Martin and Cyr. The influences of their environment can hardly be said to have had a beneficial effect upon these people, few of whom now use the French language. And yet the fact remains that from the time the valley of the River St. John was first parcelled out into seigniories, in the year 1684, down to the present day—a period of 220 years—the continuity of occupation of some portion of the soil in the vicinity of St. Ann’s has scarcely been interrupted, and the records of the mission on the River St. John may be said to have been continuous for about the same time. The missionaries as a rule spoke well of the people of their charge. Danielou said that there were 116 Acadian inhabitants in 1739 and that Monsieur Cavagnal de Vaudreuil, governor of Trois Rivieres, was “Seigneur de la paroisse d’Ekoupag.” He claims as a special mark of divine favor that in the little colony there was “neither barren woman nor child deformed in body or weak in intellect; neither swearer nor drunkard; neither debauchee nor libertine, neither blind, nor lazy, nor beggar, nor sickly, nor robber of his neighbor’s goods.” One would almost imagine that Acadia was Arcadia in the days of Danielou.
It may be well, whilst speaking of the remarkable continuity of the French occupation of the country in the vicinity of St. Anns, to state that after Chapter VII. of this history had been printed the author chanced to obtain, through the kindness of Placide P. Gaudet, some further information relating to the brothers d’Amours, the pioneer settlers of this region.
The brothers d’Amours, Louis, Mathieu and Rene, were residents on the St. John as early at least as the year 1686, when we find their names in the census of M. de Meulles. A document of the year 1695[94] shows that their claims to land on the St. John river were rather extravagant and hardly in accord with the terms 251 of their concessions. Louis d’Amours, sieur de Chauffours, claimed as his seigniory at Jemseg a tract of land extending two leagues along the St. John, including both sides of the river two leagues in depth. He also claimed another and larger seigniory, extending from a point one league below Villebon’s fort at the Nashwaak four leagues up the river with a depth of three leagues on each side. His brother Rene d’Amours, sieur de Chignancourt, lived on this seigniory a league or so above the fort.
The statement made in a previous chapter that Rene d’Amours was unmarried and lived the life of a typical “coureur de bois” is incorrect. The census of 1698 shows that he had a wife and four children. His wife was Charlotte Le Gardeur of Quebec. The names of the children, as they appear in the census, are Rene aged 7, Joseph 5, Marie Judith 2, and Marie Angelique 1. While fixing his residence in the vicinity of Fort Nashwaak, Rene d’Amours was the seignior of a large tract of land on the upper St. John extending “from the Falls of Medoctek to the Grand Falls,” a distance of more than ninety miles. After the expiration of eleven years from the date of his grant, Rene d’Amours seems to have done nothing more towards its improvement than building a house upon it and clearing 15 acres of land. Even in the indulgent eyes of the Council at Quebec, of which his father was a member, this must have appeared insufficient to warrant possession by one man of a million acres of the choicest lands on the St. John river. He made rather a better attempt at cultivating the land near his residence upon his brother’s seigniory, for the census of 1695 shows that he had raised there 80 minots [bushels] of corn, 16 minots of peas, 3 minots of beans. He had 3 horned cattle, 12 hogs and 60 fowls; two men servants and one female servant; three guns and a sword.
The seigniory of Mathieu d’Amours, sieur de Freneuse, lay between the two seigniories of his brother Louis at Jemseg and Nashwaak, extending a distance of seven leagues and including both sides of the river. Both Louis and Mathieu made far greater improvements than Rene, having a large number of acres cleared and under cultivation, together with cattle and other domestic animals. They had a number of tenants and eight or ten servants.
The census of 1695 contains the following interesting bit of information: “Naxouat, of which the Sr. Dechofour is seignior, is where the fort commanded by M. de Villebon is established. The Sr. Dechofour has there a house, 30 arpents [acres] of land under cultivation and a Mill, begun by the Sr. Dechofour and the Sr. de Freneuse.”
The reference to a mill, built by the brothers Louis and Mathieu d’Amours in the neighborhood of Fort Nashwaak, may serve to explain the statement of Villebon in 1696, that he had caused planks for madriers, or gun platforms, to be made near the fort.[95] This mill at any rate ante-dates by the best part of a century the mill built by Simonds & White at St. John in 1767 and that built by Colonel Beamsley Glacier’s mill wrights at the Nashwaak in 1768. Doubtless it was a very primitive affair, but it sawed lumber, and was in its modest way the pioneer of the greatest manufacturing industry of New Brunswick at the present day.
Among the contemporaries of the brothers d’Amours on the River St. John were Gabriel Bellefontaine, Jean Martel,[96] Pierre Godin, Charles Charet, Antoine Du Vigneaux, and Francois Moyse. The author is indebted to Placide P. Gaudet for some interesting notes regarding the family of Gabriel Bellefontaine. Mr. Gaudet has satisfied himself in the course of years of genealogical research, that the Godins now living on the River St. John and in the county of Gloucester, the Bellefontaines of the county of Kent, and the Bellefontaines and Beausejours of Anichat and other parts of Nova Scotia all have a common origin, and that in each case the real family name is Gaudin, or Godin. To any one conversant with the practice of the old French families of making frequent changes in their patryonymics this will not appear surprising. The common ancestor of the Gaudin, Bellefontaine, Beausejour and Bois-Joly families in the maritime provinces was one Pierre Gaudin, who married Jeanne Roussiliere of Montreal, Oct. 13, 1654, and subsequently came to Port Royal with his wife and children. Their fourth child, Gabriel Gaudin (or Bellefontaine) born in 1661, settled on the St. John river in the vicinity of Fort Nashwaak. He married at Quebec in 1690, Angelique Robert Jeanne, a girl of sixteen, and in the census of 1698 the names of four children appear, viz., Louise aged 7, Louis 5, Joseph 3, Jacques Phillipe 7 months. Of these children the third, Joseph Bellefontaine, spent the best years of his life upon the St. John river and his tribulations there have been already noticed[97] in these pages. He was living at Cherbourg in 1767 at the age of 71 years, and was granted a pension of 300 livres (equivalent to rather more than $60.00 per annum) in recognition of his losses and services which are thus summarised:
“The Sieur Joseph Bellefontaine or Beausejour of the River St. John, son of Gabriel (an officer of one of the King’s ships in Acadia) and of Angelique Roberte Jeanne, was commissioned Major of the militia of the St. John river by order of M. de la Galissonniere of 10th April, 1749, and has always done his duty during the war until he was made prisoner by the enemy. He owned several leagues of land there and had the sad misfortune of seeing one of his daughters and three of her children massacred before his eyes by the English, who wished by such cruelty and fear of similar treatment to induce him to take their part, a fate that he only escaped by fleeing to the woods, bearing with him two other children of the same daughter.”
Notwithstanding all their misfortunes and persecutions the Acadians living on the St. John continued gradually to increase. After the return of the missionary Bailly to Canada they were without a priest until the arrival of Joseph Mathurin Bourg in September, 1774. This intrepid missionary was the first native of Acadia to take holy orders and as such is a subject of especial interest. He saw the light of day at River Canard in the district of Mines on the 9th of June, 1744. His father, Michel Bourg, and his mother, Anne Hebert, with most of their children, escaped deportation at the time of the Acadian expulsion in 1755 and sought refuge at the Island of St. John [Prince Edward Island], from which place they 253 were transported by the English to the northern part of France. Young Joseph Mathurin became the protege of the Abbe de l’Isle-Dieu, then at Paris. He pursued his studies at a little seminary in the Diocese of St. Malo and on the 13th of September, 1772, was ordained priest at Montreal by Monseigneur Briand. After a year he was sent to Acadia as missionary to his compatriots of that region. He took charge of his mission in September, 1773. It at first extended from Gaspe to Cocagne, but in August, 1774, the Bishop of Quebec added the River St. John (including “Quanabequachies,” or Kennebeccasis) and all the rest of Nova Scotia and the Island of Cape Breton. The bishop also appointed the Abbe Bourg his grand vicar in Acadia. Almost immediately afterwards he visited the River St. John and the little settlement at French Village near the Kennebeccasis where, early in September, he baptized a considerable number of children, whose names and those of their parents are to be found in the register which is still preserved at Carleton, Bonaventure Co., in the province of Quebec.
(Signature) Joseph Mth. Bourg prétre Grand. V.
The missionary made his headquarters at Carleton (on the north side of the Bay of Chaleur) but from time to time visited different parts of his immense mission. During the Revolutionary war he paid special attention to the Indians on the River St. John, who largely through his efforts were kept from taking the warpath and going over to the Americans. The raids made by the Machias rebels under Jonathan Eddy and John Allan, in 1776 and 1777, interfered in some measure with the visits of the missionary, for Col. Michael Francklin in his interview with the Maliseets at Fort Howe in September, 1778, assured them that Mons’r. Bourg would have visited them sooner but for the apprehension entertained of his being carried off by the rebels.
The chapel at Aukpaque was not entirely disused during the absence of the missionary. We learn from John Allan’s narrative that while he was at Aukpaque in June, 1777, a number of Acadians came on Sundays to worship at the Indian chapel and that he and his prisoners, William Hazen and James White, also attended. While there they witnessed the funeral of an Indian girl. The ceremony was a solemn yet simple one. The body was borne into the chapel, the bell tolling the while; after a short prayer they sang funeral hymns, that done some of the chiefs bore the coffin to the grave where there was another prayer followed by a funeral hymn. The coffin was then deposited in the grave and a handful of earth cast upon it by the relatives and friends of her sex. Immediately afterwards the family wigwam was struck and removed into the thickest part of the village that the parents might be the better consoled for the loss of their child.
The important services rendered by Father Bourg to government during the American Revolution will be told in another chapter.
The first clergyman of the Church of England to visit the River St. John was the Rev’d. Thomas Wood, a native of the town of New Brunswick in the then British province of New Jersey. Mr. Wood went to England in 1749—the year of the founding of Halifax—to be ordained by the Bishop of London. He bore with him testimonials declaring him to be “a gentleman of a very good life and conversation, bred to Physick and Surgery.” He became one of the missionaries of the Society for the Propagation of the Gospel and was transferred from New Jersey to Nova Scotia in 1753. Halifax and Annapolis were destined to be the chief scenes of his labors, but he made frequent tours amongst the new settlements.
Mr. Wood was an excellent French scholar and his gifts as a linguist were of no mean order. While at Halifax he lived on terms of friendship and intimacy with Antoine Simon Maillard, the missionary of the Indians and Acadians. In the year 1762 Mr. Wood attended the Abbe Maillard for several weeks during his last illness, and the day before his death, at his request, read the Office for the Visitation of the Sick in the French language in the presence of a number of Acadians, who were summoned for the occasion by the venerable missionary. Mr. Wood also officiated at the burial of M. Maillard, reading over his remains in French the burial service of the Church of England in the presence of “almost all the gentlemen of Halifax and a very numerous assembly of French and Indians.”
As the Indians were for the time being without any religious teacher Mr. Wood resolved to devote much attention to them. He applied himself diligently to the study of their language, in which he had the assistance of the papers left him by the Abbe Maillard and by devoting three or four hours daily to the task he made such progress that upon reading some of M. Maillard’s morning prayers the Indians understood him perfectly and seemed themselves to pray very devoutly. He resolved to persevere until he should be able to publish a grammar, dictionary and translation of the Bible. He writes in 1764, “I am fully determined that nothing but sickness or the Bastille shall impede me in this useful service.” Two years later he sent to England the first volume of his native grammar, with a Micmac translation of the Creed, Lord’s Prayer, etc. He was now able to minister to the Indians in their own language.
In July, 1767, the Indians attended a special service held in St. Paul’s church, Halifax, at which there were present, the Governor of Nova Scotia, Lord William Campbell, the officers of the army and navy and the principal inhabitants. The service was in the Micmac tongue. An anthem was sung by the Indians at the beginning and again at the close. On the 12th of August in the same year Mr. Wood married Pierre Jacques, an Indian, to Marie Joseph, eldest daughter of old Thoma, who deemed himself “hereditary king of the Mickmacks.” There were present at the wedding, besides the Indians, Sir Thomas Rich—an English baronet, and other gentlemen. After the ceremony Mr. Wood entertained the company at his own house.
It was in the summer of the year 1769 that Mr. Wood made his first tour up the River St. John. Lord William Campbell provided him with a boat and 255 party of men, under the direction of Capt. William Spry of the Engineers. Capt. Spry will be remembered as one of the active promoters of the settlement of the townships on the St. John river, where he had large land interests. His knowledge of the river made him an excellent guide.
The English missionary arrived at St. John harbor on the 1st day of July, and the day following, which was Sunday, held the first religious service conducted by an English speaking minister at Portland Point.
The account books of Simonds & White suffice to show that no business was transacted at their establishment on Sunday, and doubtless the day was honored as a day of rest, but up to this time there had been no opportunity for church-going. Among those who heard the first sermon preached at St. John in English were in all probability, the Messrs. Simonds & White and their employes, Edmund Black, Samuel Abbott, Samuel Middleton, Michael Hodge, Adonijah Colby, Stephen Dow, Elijah Estabrooks, John Bradley, William Godsoe, John Mack, Asa Stephens, and Thomas Blasdel. To these may be added the wives of James Simonds, of Black, Abbott and one or two other workmen; also a few settlers living in the vicinity. It may be observed in passing that Edmund Black was foreman in the lime burning; Abbott, Middleton and Godsoe were employed in making hogsheads and barrels for lime and fish; Hodge and Colby were shipwrights engaged in building a schooner for the company; the others were fishermen and laborers. Doubtless the service held by Mr. Wood was a very simple one, and if there were any hymns they were sung from memory, for there is reason to believe that there was not a single hymn book in the community, with the exception of a copy of Watt’s psalms and hymns owned by James White.
Notwithstanding the difficulties of the situation, the Rev’d. Thomas Wood on the occasion of his first Sunday at St. John established a record which, after the lapse of nearly a century and a half, remains unequalled for interest and variety. In the morning he held divine service and preached to the English settlers and baptized four of their children. In the afternoon he conducted a service for the benefit of a number of Indians, who chanced to be encamped there, baptized an Indian girl and addressed them in their own language. In the evening, many of the French inhabitants being present, he held a third service and preached in French, the Indians again attending as many of them understood that language. These French people were chiefly Acadians living at what is now called French Village, in Kings county. They were at that time employed by Simonds & White in building an aboideau and dykeing the marsh. In one respect the Indians perhaps did better than the English or the Acadians, for at the close of their service Mr. Wood desired them to sing an anthem which, he says, “they performed very harmoniously.”
The next day the missionary sailed up the river, visiting the settlers in their homes as he proceeded. At Gagetown he baptized Joseph and Mary Kendrick, twin children of John and Dorothy Kendrick. Mr. Wood says the children were born in an open canoe on the river, two leagues from any house, a circumstance 256 that illustrates the exigencies liable to arise in a region so sparsely inhabited as the valley of the River St. John then was.[98]
On Sunday the 9th of July Mr. Wood held service at Maugerville, where he had a congregation of more than two hundred persons but, owing to the fact that the people were chiefly “Dissenters from New England,” he baptized only two infants. He thought, however, if a prudent missionary were settled among them their prejudices against the Church of England would speedily vanish. He speaks in his letter to the S. P. G. of the rising townships of Gagetown, Burton and Maugerville as a most desirable field for a missionary and commends the Indians to the special consideration of the society. After making a call at Morrisania, a little below Fredericton, where two children were baptized, Mr. Wood and his companions proceeded to “Okpaak” which he terms “the farthest settlement upon the River.” He thus describes the reception they met with on their arrival:
“The Chief of the Indians came down to the Landing place and handed us out of our boat, and immediately several of the Indians, who were drawn out on the occasion, discharged a volley of Musketry turned from us, as a signal of receiving their friends. The Chief then welcomed us and introduced us to the other Chiefs, and after inviting us to their Council Chamber, viz. their largest wigwam, conducted us thither, the rest of the Indians following. Just before we arrived we were again saluted with their musketry drawn up as before. After some discourse relative to Monsieur Bailly, the French Priest that Government have thought proper to allow them, finding them uneasy that they had no priest among them for some time past, I told them that the Governor had employed him to go to the Indians to the eastward of Halifax and had sent me to officiate with them in his absence. They then seemed well enough satisfied, and at their desire I began prayers with them in Mickmack, they all kneeling down and behaving very devoutly. The vice concluded with an anthem and the blessing.”
Mr. Wood says that although there were then at Aukpaque Indians of three different tribes, Micmacs, Maliseets and Caribous,[99] they all understood the Micmac language, and he expresses regret that he had not been sent among them two years before, being satisfied that he could have gained their confidence and good will.
The Reverend Thomas Wood closed a laborious and successful ministry of thirty years at Annapolis, where he died December 14, 1778.
Some account has already been given, in the chapter descriptive of the progress of the settlement at Maugerville, of the first religious teachers in that locality, Messrs. Wellman, Webster and Zephaniah Briggs. We shall have something more to say of their first resident minister, the Rev’d. Seth Noble, when we come to deal with events on the river at the time of the American Revolution. As already stated the first Protestant church on the river was erected at Maugerville in the year 1775. This building was at first placed on a lot the title of which was afterwards in dispute, and regarding the possession of which there was rather a bitter quarrel between the old inhabitants and the Loyalists. In consequence the 257 building was removed to the lot in Sheffield where the Congregational Church now stands. An interesting account of this incident is given in the narrative of the Rev. Joshua Marsden, a Methodist pioneer missionary on the St. John river, who says:—
“The Presbyterian [i. e. Congregational] chapel at Sheffield, was a church-like building of frame-work, with a spire steeple and a spacious gallery. This chapel had been drawn down upon the ice of the river more than five miles: it had first been erected at Maugerville, upon a litigated lot of land, which the society, not choosing to bring to the issue of a law-suit, they determined to remove the chapel bodily to their own glebe, five miles lower down the river. The whole settlement, men, horses and more than one hundred yoke of oxen, were present to assist in this more than herculean enterprise. The chapel was raised from its stone foundation by immense lever screws. Prodigious beams of timber were then introduced under the whole length of the building; into these were driven large staples, to which the oxen were yoked with strong chains of iron. When all things were ready for a movement, at a given signal, each man standing by his horse or oxen, this great building, capable of holding eight hundred persons, was drawn along and down the bank of the river to its appointed place, where another foundation having been prepared, it was again raised by levers upon it with very little damage. Not a single pew in the gallery or bottom having been removed in the process. In this emigrated chapel, I had the satisfaction of preaching the gospel of the kingdom to a large congregation. Perhaps you will wonder how the ice of this mighty river bore upon its bosom so ponderous a body; but your surprise will cease when I inform you that in the depth of winter, it is from two to three feet in thickness, making a bridge of aqueous crystal capable almost of bearing up a whole town.”
When the county of Sunbury was established in 1765, there was no English settlement north of St. Ann’s and the river was but sparsely settled from that place to the sea. Nevertheless the immense forest wealth of the St. John was gradually becoming known and appreciated.
The French ship of war “Avenant,” as long ago as the year 1700, after discharging her cargo of supplies for Villebon’s garrison and goods for the French traders, took on board some very fine masts for the French navy that had been cut upon the River St. John. Afterwards, when the control of Acadia passed into the hands of the British, they in turn began to procure masts for the navy on the St. John. England’s place among the nations then, as now, depended very largely on the efficiency of her navy, and the reservation of trees suitable for masts for the largest ships of war became a matter of national concern. In consequence Governor Legge, at the request of the home government, desired Charles Morris, the Surveyor general of Nova Scotia, to report as to ungranted lands in the province that might be reserved for the purpose of supplying masts for the navy. On the 21st May, 1774, Mr. Morris submitted his report. He states that his knowledge of the country was based upon personal observations during a residence of nearly twenty-eight years, in the course of which he had visited nearly all parts of the province. In the Nova Scotian peninsula there were very few pines fit for masts, but on the River St. John, above the settlements, and on the other rivers flowing into it were great quantities of pine trees fit for masts and great quantities of others growing into that state, which being so far inland, protected by growth of other timber and by hills, and remote from those violent gales which infest the coast would prove the most desirable reserve for the purpose intended. Mr. Morris adds: “I am of opinion that a reserve of all the lands on the River St. John above the settlements for the whole course of the river, at least twenty-five miles on each side, will be the most advantageous reserve to the Crown of lands within this province, especially as the river is navigable for boats and rafting of masts the whole course of it, as also for rafting of masts in the several branches of it; and in this tract is contained a black spruce, fit for yards and topmasts, and other timber fit for ship-building.”
The importance to coming generations of the “black spruce, fit for yards and top-masts,” was little dreamed of by Charles Morris. However, it seems that in accordance with his recommendation the region of the upper St. John was at this time reserved to the crown because its towering pines supplied the best masts in the world for the British navy, and at the close of the American Revolution it was still unbroken forest.
After the formation of the County of Sunbury, April 30, 1765, magistrates and other officers were appointed and representatives chosen to sit in the House of 259 Assembly. Some of our local historians, including the late Moses H. Perley, have stated that the first representative of Sunbury County was Charles Morris jr., but although Mr. Morris may have been the first to take his seat he was not the first elected representative. The late Thos. B. Akins, of Halifax, a recognized authority on all points of local history, in a communication to the late J. W. Lawrence states that the election writs on file at Halifax give the names of Capt. Beamsley Glasier and Capt. Thomas Falconer as the first representatives of the County of Sunbury. It does not appear that either of these gentlemen attended the sessions of the House of Assembly, and as it was the rule for members who were absent two years to forfeit their seats for non-attendance, a new election was held in 1768, when Richard Shorne and Phinehas Nevers were returned. The House of Assembly was dissolved two years later, and at the ensuing general election Charles Morris, jr., and Israel Perley were returned; the former took his seat but Mr. Perley appears never to have done so and in 1773 James Simonds was elected in his stead. Mr. Simonds was in attendance in October, 1774, and took the customary oath, being the first inhabitant of the county to take his seat in the legislative halls of Nova Scotia. A little later William Davidson was elected a member and he and James Simonds were the sitting members when the old Province of Nova Scotia was divided at the isthmus and the Province of New Brunswick constituted in 1784.
Among the earliest magistrates of the County of Sunbury were John Anderson, Beamsley Glasier, Francis Peabody, James Simonds, James White, Israel Perley, Jacob Barker, Phinehas Nevers and Gervas Say. The Courts of General Sessions of the Peace meet regularly at Maugerville and transacted such business as was necessary, appointed constables and other parish officers, administered justice and so forth. Benjamin Atherton was clerk of the peace for the county, James Simonds registrar of deeds and judge of probate, and James White deputy sheriff. The first collector of customs was Capt. Francis Peabody, who died in 1773. The attention given to the collection of duties was but nominal and Charles Newland Godfrey Jadis, a retired army officer who had settled at Grimross on the St. John river, wrote to the secretary of state in 1773 calling his attention to the prevalence of smuggling of which “Major-Ville” was the centre, connived at, as he alleges, by the magistrate and collector. This little incident is an indication that the sentiment of the Massachusetts settlers of Maugerville was identical with that of their kinsmen in New England in regard to the enactment of the stamp act and the duties imposed by the British government.
A few particulars of interest regarding the settlers on the River St. John are to be gleaned from the papers of David Burpee,[100] at one time deputy sheriff of the county. There were very few framed dwellings, nearly all the settlers living in log houses. As late as 1783 there were in Gagetown, Burton, and at St. Anns and vicinity about 76 houses occupied by English inhabitants, of which only 9 were framed buildings. The proportion of framed dwellings in Maugerville was little better, the vast majority being log houses.
Horses were few and nearly all the ordinary farm work was done by oxen. It is doubtful if any of the settlers owned a carriage, wagon or sleigh at this time. Carts were generally used in summer and sleds in winter. Some of the men owned saddles, of which there was much borrowing, and there were a few pillions for the ladies. Traveling in the summer time on land was either on horseback or afoot for the roads were too bad to admit of the use of wheeled vehicles.
All the cooking in those days was done at old-fashioned fireplaces and the utensils included a gridiron, toasting iron, frying pan, iron kettle and a number of pots and pans. The dishes used in the farm houses were mostly of pewter and their number limited.
A broadcloth coat or a beaver hat was a valuable asset which might be handed down to the second or even the third generation. A decent broadcloth suit would cost a man as much as he could earn in three months at the current rate of wages, after paying his board; consequently the early settler did not often indulge in the luxury of a new suit. Leather breeches were commonly worn, and from their lasting qualities were an economical garment.
The money handled by the early settlers was quite insignificant; nearly all transactions were of the nature of barter. Corn and furs were the staple articles of trade. The value of corn varied considerably, according to the season, from 4 shillings to 8 shillings a bushel, the average rate 5 to 6 shillings. Half a bushel of corn was the equivalent of a week’s board. The ordinary rate of farm wages was 2s. a day except for such work as mowing, framing, hoeing corn, and raking hay, for which the rate was 2s. 6d. a day. The wages of a woman servant were 10s. a month and as all articles of clothing were very dear compared with modern prices, they became excessively so when the rate of wages was taken into account. It took a whole month’s wages to purchase a pair of stays and two months wages to buy a gown. A pair of silk mits cost 5s. 6d. and a lawn handkerchief 6s. 6d. Calico was charged as high as 6s. a yard and cotton wool at 6s. 6d per lb. As a rule everything that had to be purchased out of a store was dear, while the prices of country produce were exactly the reverse. Butter sold as low as 6d. per lb.; lamb at 2½d. per lb.; beef, 1½ to 3d. per lb.; geese at 3s. each; fowls 1s.; potatoes 1s. 3d. a bushel.
Dr. Hannay quotes the following as a transaction on the part of Mr. Burpee, which would be regarded as unusual at the present day:
“September 30, 1778.
“Took a hog of Mr. Joseph Howlin of Burton to fat, the hog weighs now 113 lbs. and I am to have as many pounds of pork as he weighs more when I kill him.
“Dec. 1st, 1778, killed Mr. Howlin’s hog. Weighed before he was killed 181 lbs.”
Showing that Mr. Burpee obtained 68 lbs. of pork as the result of his bargain.
David Burpee taught school one winter, receiving 4s. per month for each pupil. The tuition fees were paid in a great variety of ways; in work, in grain, leather, musquash skins, rum, hauling hay and making shoes; he only handled 10s. in cash for his entire winter’s work.
In the year 1770 Mr. Burpee kept a diary which, while it contains some facts of interest, serves on the whole to show how narrow and monotonous was the life of the early settlers on the St. John. On Sundays they attended religious services 261 held at the houses most convenient for the purpose and in the winter there was some social visiting. However, we are now to speak of more stirring events.
Many were the trials and tribulations of the dwellers on the St. John—particularly of those living at the mouth of the river—during the American Revolution. Most of their calamities might have been avoided had an efficient garrison been maintained at Fort Frederick, but the troops were withdrawn from that post in 1768 and sent to Boston in consequence of disturbances there, and for five or six years the care of the fort and barracks was entrusted to James Simonds.
Lord William Campbell reported, about the close of 1771: “Since Fort Frederick at the entrance of St. John’s river has been dismantled and the garrison, which formerly consisted of an officers’ command, reduced to a corporal and four privates, he had had frequent complaints of the Indians on the river.” The presence of a half dozen soldiers was of little utility at any time and of no utility whatever after the Revolution began. It was not until the erection of Fort Howe that adequate steps were taken for the protection of the inhabitants.
The year 1774 was an extremely busy one at St. John. Our old pioneers James Simonds, James White and William Hazen were making strenuous efforts to place settlers upon their lands in the township of Conway, while at the same time Mr. Hazen’s house was being finished at Portland Point, an aboideau was being built to reclaim the “great marsh,” and the business of the fishery, lime-burning and general trade was being vigorously prosecuted. Troublous times were now at hand.
The situation of Hazen, Simonds and White when hostilities arose between the old colonies and the mother country was very embarrassing. By birth and early association they were New Englanders and most of their old time friends and neighbors were hostile to the crown. Massachusetts was practically the cradle of the Revolution, and the vast majority of its inhabitants were bitterly opposed to the King and his government. But while Simonds, White and Hazen were Massachusetts men they now held various official positions under the government of Nova Scotia and had sworn true allegiance to the King. Very likely they would have gladly assumed a neutral attitude in the approaching contest, but alas for them the force of events left no room for neutrality.
It is clear that at the beginning of the war the people of Massachusetts hoped for the cordial support of the settlers on the River St. John. This is probably the reason why the small colony at Portland Point was not molested during the early stages of the war and that William Hazen was able on two occasions to obtain the release of the company’s schooner “Polly” after she had been taken by American privateers. But as the war progressed considerate treatment gave place to acts of vandalism, and the sentiments of the settlers at St. John towards their old compatriots of Massachusetts became intensely bitter. Their tenants in the township of Conway were driven from their homes and obliged to seek refuge up the river, and those living at Portland Point suffered equal hardships.
When the Loyalists arrived in 1783, it was proposed that the township of Conway 262 should be escheated for their benefit. James Simonds protested stoutly against this, representing the expense that had been incurred in the endeavor to settle the township and the losses and sufferings of the tenants who were for a long time unprotected against the depredations of the enemy. He adds, “Instead of our being stripped of our rights to make amends for the losses of the Loyalists, who were plundered in New York or elsewhere, we have at least as weighty reasons as they can possibly offer to claim restitution from Government for the value of all the property taken from us, our distress by imprisonment, etc. They had a numerous British army to protect them, we had to combat the sons of darkness alone. In a word we had much less than they to hope for by unshaken loyalty and incomparably more to fear.”
The statement of Mr. Simonds is confirmed by Major Studholme who wrote to Gov’r. Parr, “Messrs. Hazen and Simonds, two of the original proprietors of Conway, have at different times placed a number of settlers on the lands of that Township and have used every effort on their parts to comply with the terms of their Grant, but the continual robberies committed by the Rebel boats during the war, to which these settlements have been exposed, obliged a number of their tenants to remove. However, as every exertion was used by them I take the liberty to recommend their claims on that Township to your consideration.”
During the earlier stages of the Revolution the attitude of the people of Machias on the one hand, and of the inhabitants of the township of Cumberland on the other, proved a matter of concern to the dwellers on the River St. John. Machias was settled in 1763 by a colony from Scarborough, one of the oldest towns in Massachusetts. During the war it was the asylum of disloyal spirits who fled thither from various parts of Nova Scotia. The township of Cumberland included a considerable portion of what is now the county of Westmorland. The inhabitants were mostly natives of New England, and many of them warm sympathizers with the revolutionary pasty. Jonathan Eddy was their representative in the Nova Scotia House of Assembly in 1774, and John Allan in 1776. Eddy and Allan, aided by William Howe and Samuel Rogers, succeeded in stirring up an active rebellion in Cumberland, which called for prompt action on the part of the Government of Nova Scotia. The leaders fled to Machias and a reward of £200 was offered for the apprehension of Eddy and £100 for each of the others.
The attitude of the Indians was another matter of serious concern to the settlers on the River St. John. Immediately after the Declaration of Independence the American congress authorized Washington to call forth and engage the Indians of Nova Scotia, St. John and Penobscot to take up the hatchet and fight against the English. With strange inconsistency Congress a few days later, in an address to the people of Ireland, denounced the King of England on the ground that “the wild and barbarous savages of the wilderness have been solicited by gifts to take up the hatchet against us, and instigated to deluge our settlements with the blood of defenceless women and children.”
The Micmacs seem to have been reluctant to take sides in the contest and in answer to John Allan’s solicitations they said, with quiet dignity, “We do not 263 comprehend what all this quarreling is about. How comes it that Old England and New England should quarrel and come to blows? The father and the son to fight is terrible! Old France and Canada did not do so; we cannot think of fighting ourselves till we know who is right and who is wrong.”
The style of argument employed to induce the simple minded natives to side with the Americans is seen in the letter addressed to them by the agent of the Congress of Massachusetts (May 15, 1775), in which the following statements occur: “The ministry of Great Britain have laid deep plots to take away our liberty and your liberty; they want to get all our money and make us pay it to them when they never earned it; to make you and us their servants and let us have nothing to eat, drink or wear but what they say we shall; and prevent us from having guns and powder to kill our deer and wolves and other game or to send to you to kill your game with so as to get skins and fur to trade with us for what you want. * * * We want to know what you our good brothers want from us of clothing or warlike stores, and we will supply you as fast as we can. We will do all for you we can and fight to save you at any time. * * * The Indians at Stockbridge all join with us and some of their men have enlisted as soldiers and we have given each of them a blanket and a ribbon, and they will be paid when they are from home in the service, and if any of you are willing to enlist we shall do the same for you. * * * Brothers, if you will let Mr. John Preble know what things you want he will take care to inform us and we will do the best for you we can.”
In consequence of the inducements of Allan and the other agents, Pierre Tomah and Ambroise St. Aubin, leading chiefs of the Maliseets of the River St. John, went to the trading post the Americans had established at Penobscot, and signed an agreement to the following effect: “We heartily join with our brethren the Penobscot Indians in everything that they have or shall agree with our brethren of the colony of Massachusetts, and are resolved to stand together and oppose the people of Old England that are endeavoring to take your and our lands and liberties from us. * * * We desire that you will help us to a priest that he may pray with us to God Almighty, etc., etc.” The Indians agreed to bring their furs and skins to Penobscot and to procure their provisions, goods and ammunition there. Many of them were heavily in debt to Simonds & White, so that the prospect of a new trading post with no old scores to settle appeared to them particularly inviting.
Washington honored the Indians with letters accompanied by belts of wampum, after the approved Indian fashion. A delegation from the St. John river, Pierre Tomah at its head, went soon afterwards to Washington’s headquarters on the Delaware, where they received a flattering welcome and were sumptuously entertained. On the 24th December, 1776, Washington thus addressed them:
“Brothers of the St. John’s tribe: It gave me great pleasure to hear by Major Shaw that you keep the chain of Friendship, which I sent you in February last from Cambridge, bright and unbroken. I am glad to hear that you have made a treaty of peace with your brothers and neighbors of Massachusetts Bay. My good friend and brother, Gov’r Pierre Tommah, and the warriors that came with him shall be taken good care of, and when they want to return home they 264 and our brothers of Penobscot shall be furnished with everything necessary for their journey. * * * Never let the King’s wicked counsellors turn your hearts against me and your brethren of this country, but bear in mind what I told you last February and what I tell you now.”
Washington’s overtures were not without effect. This is evident from the fact that the Maugerville people in May, 1776, reported that Gen. Washington’s letter had set the Indians on fire, and they were plundering all people they thought to be Tories, and that perhaps when the supply of Tories was exhausted others might share the name fate. “We think it necessary,” they added, “that some person of consequence be sent among them.” The Indians had always been allies of the French and had never fully accepted the change of ownership on the River St. John. They were disposed to view the cause of the Americans with favor, more particularly when the French became their allies.
John Allan was by far the most active and energetic agent of Congress in dealing with the Indians. He was born in Edinburgh and when four years of age accompanied his parents to Halifax when that city was founded by Cornwallis. At the commencement of the Revolution he lived near Fort Cumberland, on the New Brunswick side of the isthmus of Chignecto and carried on an extensive Indian trade visiting all the villages as far west as the Penobscot river. His estimate of the Indians is not particularly flattering. He says: “The Indians are generally actuated according to the importance or influence any one has who lives among them. They are credulous to a degree, will listen to every report, and generally believe it and think everything true that is told them.”
We shall presently see that Allan was able to make good use of his knowledge of the weaknesses of Indian nature. He was appointed superintendent of the Eastern Indians in 1777 by the Massachusetts Congress, with the military rank of Colonel. He was the most persevering and troublesome antagonist the British had in Eastern New England. Had it not been for his exertions it is probable the Americans would have lost their outpost at Machias, and it is possible that the English would then have held the country as far west as the River Kennebeck.