Brundage Point River Centre Interpretive Signage


 First Nations People

For thousands of years before Europeans arrived, First Nations people lived here.  Wolastoqiyik, usually known today as Maliseet, took their name from Wolastoq, the great river of their territory, which Champlain later called the St. John. 

The river, its tributaries and portages were vital transportation routes to their neighbours (Mi’qmaq and Passamaquoddy), and were ideal for their exquisitely designed and built birch bark canoes.  Although some Maliseet communities in the Lower River Passage were overrun by later settlement, Maliseet families returned seasonally to favoured sites like the junction of the St. John and Nerepis rivers for many generations.Many Wolastoq’kwey descendants still live in communities along the river, often on or near traditional sites.


The French Connection

Champlain’s “discovery” of the St. John River in 1604 marked the beginning of nearly a century and a half of French influence and settlement in the Lower River Passage. 

Explorers, traders and missionaries visited the region and the river became part of an inland travel route between Nova Scotia and Quebec.  Here and there, Acadian families established homesteads along the river.  By the mid 18th century, Fort Boishebert had been built, Reinforcing a Maliseet palisade at the mouth of the Nerepis River tributary, but was abandoned after 1749.  Less than a decade later, British and New England troops drove the Acadians from their homes in the region as part of what has become known as “Le Grand Dérangement”, or “The Great Expulsion”.


The Loyalist Settlers

 The Loyalists were refugees.  They remained “loyal” to the British King during the American Revolution.  At the close of the war they chose – or were forced into – exile from their homes in the Thirteen Colonies. 

Thousands of Loyalists – men, women and children with all their moveable possessions, arrived on ships at the mouth of the St. John River through 1783 and 1784.  The head of each family was granted a small urban lot in the present day City of Saint John, and most received a larger lot upriver.  Many suffered in the first cold winters, but the Loyalists endured to build prosperous farms and establish the towns and villages of the Lower River Passage.


The Canada

 The Canada sailing yacht was built in Saint John in 1897-1898, and is typical of the late-Victorian racing sloops.  Constructed for Fred S. Heans by his father William Heans, Canada proved her mettle in competition, winning 17 trophies in a 40 year racing career. 

After passing from Heans’ family ownership in the mid-20th century, Canada was re-located to Ontario.  A rare survivor from a time when yacht racing was a popular “gentlemen’s sport”, Canada is the oldest registered sailing boat in the country.  Canada’s fame predates that of the Bluenose as the best racing boat on the east coast.  Many of its trophies remain with the Heans family of Harding’s Point.

Historic Places
Located at Harding’s Point, The Harding House, built in 1785, remains the oldest building in the area.  Mount Hope Farm (on the Nerepis River), was built shortly after, by Henry Nase.
On June 1st, 1786 he wrote in his diary “Began my farm on Mount Hope”.  Nase, a veteran of seven years of service with the King’s American Regiment, recorded ‘only 28 snows’ in his first New Brunswick winter:“…never was there better Weather in this World…”.  Nase eventually acquired more than 2400 hectares (6000 acres) of land.  Diary entries show him traveling on the river in all seasons, by boat, skates, or ox and sled.  Mount Hope Farm is listed on Canada’s Register of Historic Places and remains in the possession of Henry Nase’s descendants.
 

Railways

The Railway Age in southern New Brunswick began in the late 1850’s.  The availability of cheap, rapid, year-round transportation for people and freight – especially for those communities linked by rail lines – spurred development and changed lives.  The railway created new community names and produced a distinctive architectural style for its stations.  The first railway through Westfield began operations on October 12, 1869 with the locomotive “Yo-Yo” pulling six passenger cars on the route from Saint John to Fredericton.  The opening run had been delayed by a day as a consequence of the famous Saxby Gale which uprooted trees, destroyed buildings and damaged the engine “John Parks” which had been scheduled for the inaugural trip.


Prince of Wales Elm

In the year 1860, the most exciting event in New Brunswick was a visit to the colony by the Prince of Wales, eldest son of Queen Victoria.  The Royal party traveled from Saint John to Fredericton on the steamboat Forest Queen.  While the boat passed Harding’s Point, the Prince’s attention was drawn to a large solitary elm tree on the beach whose trunk divided towards the top into three large separate branches, resembling the three ostrich feathers of the Prince of Wales’ crest.  Long a landmark, the tree was known thereafter as the Prince of Wales Elm.  It survived another century, and was nearly two meters (6 feet) in diameter when it died from Dutch Elm disease, an imported fungal infection affecting native elms since the mid 20th century.


The Westfield Fire

On the hot and dry Saturday afternoon of August 6, 1921, residents of Westfield, Ononette, Hillandale, and Lingley were confronted with “a terrific fire which leapt from the woods on a 5 mile front”.  The blaze had originated near Musquash (west of Saint John) months previously and had been smouldering in the forest, defying efforts to extinguish it.  Driven by high winds, the flames destroyed more than 100 buildings that afternoon.Residents fled by car, train, and boat, and no lives were lost.  The fire’s legacy is the distinct architecture of the many homes that were rebuilt in the 1920’s style, replacing those lost in the blaze. 



Cable Ferries

The underwater cable ferry was invented by Captain William Abraham Pitt, of Reed’s Point on the Kingston Peninsula, who had operated a sail and oars scow-ferry there for 30 years.  His new invention was first installed across the Kennebecasis River between Reed’s Point and Gondola Point in 1904. 
By the middle of the 20th century, New Brunswick’s road network improved and cable ferries to  carry passengers and vehicles could be found in many river communities.  In Grand Bay-Westfield, two cable ferries (the Woolastook I and the John Irwin) connect the Town with Harding’s Point on the Kingston Peninsula.
 

The Sand Point Lighthouse

Lighthouses remain a vivid and tangible reminder of the steamboat days on the lower St. John River.  Among St. John River lighthouses, Sand Point is unique in both design and construction.  One of the “point-to-point” lights – beacons visible from each other up and down river – its 17.5 meter (58 foot) skeletal steel tower contrasts with the usual shingled pyramid shape of the inland waterway lighthouses. Built in 1869 as a “mast and shed ” light under the care of J.N. Williams as the first light keeper, it was upgraded and raised in 1897 to become the tallest light on the river.  It is one of seven active lighthouses in the Lower River Passage.



The Planters

With the conclusion of the Seven Years War in 1763, this region became uncontested British jurisdiction, administratively part of the colony of Nova Scotia, and open to settlement.  It was scouted for good land by agents acting for potential settlers (“Planters”) from the colonies, even before the Treaty of Paris was signed. Grants were issued to 30 families along the river in what was then known as the Township of Conway.  A 2000 hectare (5,000 acre) parcel called the Glasier Manor was granted to Beasley Perkins Glasier who was charged with the task of uniting the English, French, and Native inhabitants along the southern part of the St. John River, “to create a reserve force and provide a place of protection”.