Saint Croix Courier, St. Stephen, NB
September 14, 1893
GLIMPSES OF THE PAST
Contributions to the History of Charlotte County and the Border Towns.
LXXXII – A NEW DISTRICT COURT.
When the Loyalists first arrived in what is now the province of New Brunswick, there was great lack of civil government; nevertheless the magistrates of the old county of Sunbury were not unmindful of the necessity of doing something for the preservation of law and order. In the ‘St. John’s Royal Gazette and Nova Scotia Intelligencer,’ of Thursday, June 24, 1784, appeared the following:-
At his Majesty’s Court of General Sessions of the Peace, held at Maugerville the third Tuesday in June, certain persons having obtained license to keep public houses of entertainment and retail spirituous liquors, those who have not had license granted them by the said court and continue to sell spirituous liquors will suffer the penalty by the law provided in that case; and I am authorized to say that Captain Balfour, commanding his Majesty’s garrison at Forte Howe, hath received instructions from the Commander-in-Chief, Lieutenant-General Campbell, that as the Royal bounty of provisions ordered by his Majesty was intended as a support to real settlers and a spur to industry, all those detected keeping sutling houses, tents or wigwams without license, will be instantly struck off the provision list, as also their families.
GEO. LEONARD.
Parr, June 24, 1784.
The liquor traffic, which came to the front thus early at St. John, seems to have been also a source of trouble at Passamaquoddy. The late Patrick Clinch,1 referring particularly to the soldiers settled on the Magaguadavic, wrote:-
While the provisions lasted, not much land was cleared. Little, indeed, was to be expected from old soldiers. They preferred loitering around those places where rum was to be had, between which, and making a few shingles, catching fish, and hunting occasionally, the time was consumed.
There is evidence of the same trouble at St. Andrews. In his testimony before the boundary commission, Alexander Hodges said:-
Until the spring of 1784, the Indians had a cross standing upon St. Andrews Point, and a place of worship and a burying ground there; he understood their cross was cut down by some of the people of St. Andrews in a drunken frolick.
The war, as before stated, had put a stop to the proceedings of the Campobello courts2; and John Curry, the only resident magistrate remaining in the district of Passamaquoddy, had apparently ceased to exercise his authority.
To meet the emergency, a new district court was established by the following writ, which is the oldest public document on file at St. Andrews:-
By His Excellency John Parr, Captain-General and Governor-in-chief in and over His Majesty’s Province of Nova Scotia and its dependencies, Vice-Admiral of the same, &c, &c, &c.
To John Curry, Philip Bailey, Robert Pagan, and William Gallop, Esquires
Greeting:
By virtue of the power and authority to me entrusted by His Majesty’s Commission and Royal Instructions, reposing special trust and confidence in your Loyalty, Fidelity and good conduct I do by these Presents during pleasure nominate, constitute and appoint you, and every of you the said John Curry, Philip Bailey, Robert Pagan and Wm. Gallop, Esquires, to be Justices of the Peace for the District of Passamaquoddy in the County of Sunbury in the province aforesaid. Whereof you the said John Curry, Philip Bailey, Robert Pagan and William Gallop, Esquires, are to be the quorum for said district in the aforesaid county, and you and every of you the said John Curry, Philip Bailey, Robert Pagan and William Gallop, Esquires, are hereby empowered to hold sessions as the law directs, and you are invested with all the powers and authorities specified and contained in a Commission of the Peace for the said county bearing date the seventh day of July, one thousand seven hundred and eighty-three.
In witness whereof I have signed these Presents and caus’d the seal of the province to be hereto affixed at Halifax, this eighteenth day of February in the twenty-fourth year of the reign of our sovereign Lord George the third by the Grace of God of Great Britain, France and Ireland, King, Defender of the Faith, and so forth, and in the year of Our Lord, one thousand seven hundred and eighty-four.
J. PARR.
By His Excellency’s Command.
J. F. BULKELEY,
D’y Sec’y.
The authority of this district court ceased in the following year, when the county of Charlotte was established with its court of sessions at St. Andrews.
The sufferings endured by the Loyalists and the well disposed persons among the disbanded soldiers, during their first year in the province, must have been greatly increased by the presence of the disorderly element amongst them. In the following year, however, there seems to have been a noticeable change for the better. Rev. Jacob Bailey remarks, in his report to the S. P. G. for that year:-
The many bad, disorderly habits contracted during the war are declining apace, and the attention to order, religion and education of children proportionably increases.
1In the letter before cited, article lxxvii.
2Article xliii.
Correction: Article LXXXVII contains the following correction to this one: "The Passamaquoddy district court of 1784 was held at Campobello. Mr. Raymond writes:-In his evidence before the Boundary Commissioners, Robert Pagan says he came to St. Andrews early in the year 1784, and that he held a commission as a magistrate under the government of Nova Scotia for the county of Sunbury; and that a court of general sessions of the peace was held on Campobello island under the government of Nova Scotia, at which he (Pagan) attended. It is therefore clear that the Campobello courts, which ceased to be held during the Revolutionary war, were resumed at its close."