MENZIES, EDWARD ADAMS (1863-1929)

MENZIES, EDWARD ADAMS, sportsmen's guide and outfitter, and hotel proprietor; b. Strathadam, 24 Nov 1863, s/o John Menzies and Barbara McKay; m. Mary Dobie Jardine, d/o George Jardine and Mary Cameron, of Whitneyville; d. Newcastle, 11 Nov 1929.

Edward A. ("Ned") Menzies was a popular hunting and fishing guide who maintained sporting camps near the Bald Mountains, in the territory in which Arthur Pringle, the legendary trapper and guide from Stanley, N.B., had built camps and guided sportsmen as early as the 1880s.

Most of the 'sports' guided by Menzies were from the United States, but in the fall of 1903 he took in a party from Newcastle consisting of Mr and Mrs John Robinson and Miss A. Maud Lounsbury. From John Waye's on the Northwest the party proceeded through the deep woods to one of Menzies's Little Bald Mountain camps. They had a double team of horses for part of the distance but had some trail-walking to do, for which the women were "admirably costumed, wearing short skirts and walking boots, with leather leggings." Each one of the party killed a caribou, "that brought down by Mrs Robinson having one of the finest heads of the season. It had twenty-eight points while Miss Lounsbury's was also above the average, having twenty points....Coming home, they walked the whole distance to Way's from Little Bald Mountain, over forty miles, in less than two days."

In August 1906 Menzies guided the 'millionaire' John McKane and his wife, together with a Miss Aitken and Hubert Sinclair, on a bear hunting expedition. He advertised the hunting and fishing assets of the Northwest to non-residents at the Boston sportsmen's shows. In 1907 he was one of four New Brunswick guides in attendance, all of whom were dressed in corduroy uniforms and long-topped moccasins.

In 1922 Menzies, who had resided previously at Strathadam, took over management of the Waverley Hotel on Pleasant Street in Newcastle from his son Allan R. Menzies, who had been conducting it for a number of years. He was nearing sixty and entered semi-retirement at this time. His wife, Mary D. Jardine, died in 1928, and he the following year. They were survived by their son and five daughters. Their son, who had had a leg amputated, was the founder of A. R. Menzies & Sons of Fredericton, specialists in orthopedic devices.