Saint Croix Courier, St. Stephen, NB
February 2, 1893
GLIMPSES OF THE PAST
Contributions to the History of Charlotte County and the Border Towns.
LIII – OTHER PRE-LOYALIST SETTLERS.
After the peace of 1783, Curry, who was carrying on a lumber business on the Digdeguash,1 seems to have lost no time in getting a further grant of timber-land on the upper waters of that river from the governor of Nova Scotia; knowing that if he did not secure it there would soon be other applicants. Five hundred acres of the lands received by Curry at this time are stated to be ‘for a mill.’ It is interesting to see how many pre-Loyalist settlers were associated with him. The grant, dated March 29, 1784, covered a tract of 15,250 acres; the names of grantees being John Curry, Jott [Joel] Bonney, John Hanson, John Carmock, Henry Bowen, Jonas [Jones] Dyer, James Cochran, Joshua Bridges, James Chaffey, William Ricker, Caleb Boynton, Edmund Meagher, John Pace, Benjamin Walton, Stover Witham, Hatfield [Hataville or Hatevil] Leighton, William Alderade, John Miller, John Fountain, Samuel Huckings, Joseph Dinbow, Jeremiah Young, Jonathan Stover, Nathan Preston, Samuel Leighton, John Fountain, Widow Wilson, William Elwell, Abiel Sprague, Widow Clarke, Widow Oliver, Alexander Hodge, Ephraim Young, Simeon Woodward, Stephen Fountain, James Mailer, William Crow, John Lawless, Daniel Laha, John Snodin, James Dyer, Calvin Holmes.
Of the forty-one names in the list, sixteen besides Curry have been already mentioned in this series.2
Joel Bonney, who went to Machias as a millwright in 1763, probably came in the same capacity, not long after, to Digdeguash, where he was one of the first permanent settlers. His house stood on the east side of the river, some distance south of the county road. Bonney River preserves his name. Among his descendants of the present day is Councillor Stevenson, of St. Patrick.
John Hanson was probably the first settler of Bocabec.
Chaffey was in sole possession of Indian Island.
Carmock, Stover and the Fountains probably lived on Deer Island; as did certainly Elwell and Lawless. Stephen Fountain removed to Moose Island, (then recognized as a part of Nova Scotia,) in 1784.
Cochran, Crow, Ricker, Bowen and Boynton had settled at Moose Island, the two first named in 1772, the others in 1774.
Ephraim Young was one of the first settlers of St. Andrews, and lived there before a frame house had been erected. He died at St. George in 1841, aged eighty-eight.3
Meagher (or Mahar), the Leightons, Hodge (or Hodges), Mrs. Wilson and Mrs. Clarke, (widows of the men drowned at Cobscook,) Huckings, Perston, Mrs. Oliver, and probably Bridges, Laha and Dinbow, (a family name which was afterwards changed to Dinsmore,) all lived on that part of the mainland now included in Perry, Pembroke, Dennysville and the adjoining districts.4 James and Jones Dyer and Abiel Sprague were among the pioneers of Calais.
It is possible that the Joshua Bridges of this list may have been Joseph Bridges, who came with his family from York, Me., 1780 or earlier, and settled at Birch Point, in what is now the township of Perry, a short distance from the western entrance to the narrow channel that divides Moose Island from the mainland. Joseph Bridges was an ancestor of Councillor Bridges, of St. Stephen, and of the well-known writer, Harriet Prescott Spofford. Family traditions say that he had been a soldier in the French and Indian wars, and was with the British army in the repulse at Ticonderoga. He is described as a man of gigantic stature, and of great physical strength and courage. The Passamaquoddy Indians tried to drive him from his little clearing, thinking that he had encroached upon land that of right belonged to them; and to accomplish this they finally resorted to threats of personal injury. Coming to his cabin one evening, when he sat bare-footed before the fire, and threatening to kill him if he did not leave the place, one of them began sticking his spear into the floor, closer and closer to the white man’s naked foot. Bridges did not wince at this, nor move his foot to avoid the spear; but dared the Indian to aim his thrust close enough to touch him. Failing thus to intimidate him, and not willing to risk a blow from the heavy fire shovel, with which Bridges in turn threatened them, they withdrew and left him in peaceable possession. Their dogs, however, proved to be such undesirable neighbors for his flock of sheep that in a short time he removed to another locality, becoming one of the early settlers of the present town of Pembroke.
At the close of the war, there were settled on Moose Island about half a dozen families, of whom Kilby says, ‘the majority had either been of British sympathy or indifferent to the result of the great struggle.’5 This remark would apply with equal truth, no doubt, to the inhabitants of all the adjacent region; and all those whose names are included in the above list of grantees must, of course, have claimed to be good British subjects.
The Pennfield Loyalists had come before this grant was issued, and the first Passamaquoddy company came only a few weeks later.
1See article xliii.
2Articles xxxvii-xliv and lii.
3Sabine’s American Loyalists.
4Kilby’s Eastport, and Wilder’s Pembroke. Laha may be the same as the Daniel Lea in Avery’s census of 1790.
5Eastport and Passamaquoddy, chap. vi.
ADDITIONS AND CORRECTIONS.
Article xli.[sic - should be xl.]-An old plan belonging to the Chipman papers shows that the William Gorham grant included Oak Bay. Tucker’s point was apparently what is now called Hill’s point, in Dufferin; and the east line of Tucker’s grant ran northward from a point near the Ledge. The Sheriff and Gamble grant is not marked, but would seem to have been a narrow strip fronting on the river between the Ledge and the Raven’s head. Farrel’s grant on the Didgeguash was too far north to join the Boyd grant. South of the Mascareen grant was a tract of 2000 acres on the shore of Letete passage granted to Thomas Gamble. The plan is roughly drawn, and bears no mark of authority.
Article xli.-Add to paragraph ending with the name of Gen. Gage: A list of army officials at New York in the year 1776 includes the names of Deputy Quarter Master General, Major Wm. Sheriff; Assistant Quarter Master General, Capt. Thomas Gamble. No doubt they are the men referred to in the Tucker grant as Capt. Sheriff and Lieut. Gamble; both having been promoted in rank since 1768.
Article l.-In Capt. Preble’s letter, eighth line above signature, ‘Crmp’ should be ‘Camp.’ Erase the last two sentences of the foot-note to this article, and substitute, ‘Odcobbahommuck was Pendleton’s Island, which Mr. Ganong say the Indians still call Un-kup-a-hum’k.
Correction: Article LXX contains the following correction to this one: "Erase the last paragraph, the closing statement in which is incorrect."
Addition: Article LXXX contains the following addition to this one: "From his grandson, Mr. Chas. Jameson, of St. Stephen, we learn that Joel Bonney was born in Pembroke, Conn., (now in Mass.,) and was of Welsh descent. He was a very stout and able man, six feet and one inch in height, and remarkably fine looking. He fought in the French and Indian wars, and was present as an ensign at the taking of Detroit; and tradition says that it was he who pulled down the French colors when the British entered the fort. As a carpenter and millwright, he came to Schoodic with the Machias men to help in building the first mill here; and he built a house for Squire Curry at Digdeguash. He lived for a time on Grand Manan, where two of his children were born, the elder of whom is said to have been the first white child born on the island. After living for some years at Digdeguash, he removed to Portland, Me., where he died about 1824, at the age of 84."