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Saint Croix Courier, St. Stephen, NB
June 21, 1894

GLIMPSES OF THE PAST

Contributions to the History of Charlotte County and the Border Towns.

CXXI – WEST ISLES AND CAMPOBELLO LOYALISTS.

Campobello and West Isles being held as private property, under the Owen, Gorham and Canada Company grants,¹ the records of the Crown Land office can furnish us with no list of the Loyalist settlers upon the islands in Passamaquoddy bay.  There were, however, not a few who chose to reside there; either for the sake of fishing, or to engage in trade and commerce and in the various industries connected with the needs of the fishing and shipping interests.  Besides those members of the Penobscot Association already mentioned as having taken up their residence on Deer Island,² there were others from St. John and elsewhere who found homes there; while a busier, though less settled population, occupied certain portions of Campobello, Indian Island and Moose Island.

The earliest Deer Island refugees probably were those who fled from Col. Allan’s rule, in Machias and the neighboring districts.

Among these, it would seem, was Josiah Heney;³ though the date of his permanent settlement on Deer Island was somewhat later.  He appears to have kept on to Halifax; and went from Halifax to Castine, where, in 1779, either he or another of his name was engaged in farming.  After the peace, he came to Deer Island, and built a house by the pretty beach opposite Pleasant Point.  William Cummings, shipbuilder, bought the place later; hence the name of Cummings Cove.

The following notes are gleaned from family traditions:

John Rolf,⁴ and his daughter, a Mrs. McNeil from Machias, came to Deer Island in 1783.  Mrs. McNeil was a widow, with six children.  At Deer Island she married John Fountain, of Indian Island, by whom she had five children.  John McNeil, one of her sons by the first marriage, was for a time overseer for the executors of Capt. Ferrol.

The Frosts and Dows were either old inhabitants or refugees who arrived before the close of the war.  A hill in the centre of the island bears the name of Hannah Dow’s hill, commemorating the death of a young woman who lost her way in a snow storm and perished there in the days of the first settlement.

John Appleby, a St. John Loyalist, settled at Chocolate Cove.  He has descendants now living on Deer Island.

Obediah Clarke, a Loyalist from Grand Lake, settled at Northwest Harbor, on the point afterwards known as Clarke’s Point.  He was the ancestor of the Clarkes of St. Andrews.

Pendleton’s Island takes its name from Gideon Pendleton, a Loyalist from Long Island.

Stephen Pendleton, a son or a brother of Gideon, born in Westerly, R. I., lived for a time in Northport, Me.  He was drafted at Castine; and after the peace he moved to St. Andrews.  The parish of St. Stephen is said to owe its name to the fact that he was a favorite of the surveyor who laid down the parish lines, and who, having exhausted the names of the patron saints of the British Isles, gave his friend’s name to the river parish.

The Pendletons belonged to an old New England family.  The will of Brian Pendleton, of Portsmouth, in 1677, devises lands at Saco and Piscataquis.  His son James bequeathed lands at ‘Wells in the Province of Mayne.’  Caleb, son of James, made his will in ‘y^e town of Westerley,’ and James, son of Caleb, of the same place, made his will in 1746.  Thomas, another member of the family, married Dorcas O. Dodge, a descendant of Sir Peter Dodge.  The family moved to Long Island in 1769.⁵

Isaac Richardson fought under Wolfe at Quebec, and owned property in St. John before coming to Deer Island.  His descendants have given their name to Richardsonville.

George Cline, (or Klein,) also from St. John, was of German descent and was born at Bristol, Me.  He was a recruiting sergeant during the war, and was at one time a prisoner in Philadelphia.  He lived for a time at Moose Island, (Eastport;) but died and was buried on Bar Island.

Joseph Conley, a son of Capt. John Conley, school teacher in St. John, was a native of Newark, and was the first apprentice pilot in the Bay of Fundy.  He married a daughter of Rev. Mr. Veitch, a Loyalist clergyman at Digby, N. S.; and came to Deer Island in 1809.  He was the pilot of the ship Terror, in the British fleet that destroyed Washington in the war of 1812.  He died at Deer Island in the 106th year of his age.  His wife was poisoned by eating mussels.

Paul Cook, a Loyalist, and Daniel Jourdan, a German and probably a discharged soldier, were among the early settlers at the lower part of the island.

George Leonard was a pensioner who came in 1801.  His descendants give their name to Leonardville.

Lambert’s Cove takes its name from the descendants of Daniel Lambert.  He was born at Queenstown, and married at Portsmouth, N. H.  He came to Deer Island, probably after the war; but returned to Portsmouth because his wife was homesick.  Afterwards he came back to Deer Island, and died there.  He began fish curing on the island.

¹Article xl.

²Article cix.

³Article xlix.

⁴Possibly the same as the John Rolfe mentioned among the pioneers of Schoodic, (Article lii.)  May be connected with the Daniel Rolf who removed from Passamaquoddy to St. John in 1779.  (Article cv.)

⁵Documents in possession of Mr. Joseph M. Stuart, of Lord’s Cove.