New Brunswick Historical Tidbits

On the St. John River

By Mitch Biggar

A number of British settlers came to the St. John River some were traders others were retired officers. As early as 1762 a band of New Englanders settled Oromocto Island. In 1763 a band of settlers from Massachusetts found their way up the St. John River and established a township, which they named Maugerville. Joshua Mauger was the English agent through whom they obtained the land. This settlement included what is now Maugerville and Sheffield and by 1765 there were 400 people living there.

Then in 1765 General Thomas Gage and nineteen of his friends from New York were given a grant of twenty thousands acres where the French settlement of Grimross had been. Two years later the grant was transferred to Stephen Kemble but continued to be called Gagetown.

In the vicinity of the river at Fort Frederick was a garrison under the command of Capatin Gilfred Studholme. On August 28th, 1762 James Simonds , Richard Simmons, Hugh Quinton, Francis Peabody, and James Quinton arrived from Haverhill, Massachusetts. In 1764 they were joined by William Hazen, James White, and thirty others.

In 1765 the Council of Nova Scotia gave John Anderson and Captain Isaac Caton a licence to trade with the Indians on the St. John River. Anderson established his trading-post at the mouth of the Nashwaak. Caton settled on the Island of Emenenic which has ever since been known as Caton's Island.

In 1764 permission was given to the Acadians to return to New Brunswick, provided they take the oath of allegiance as British subjects. In 1766 eight hundred of them gathered in Boston and came to New Brunswick. Some of these eight hundred settled at St. Anne's Point while others settled at Saint John. In 1770 Lietenant William Owen brought a colony of thirty people to Campobello. There were also scattered settlements of New England fishermen along the coast of Charolotte County and the islands of the Bay of Fundy.

This page was designed by Irene Doyle September 1999