SADLER, DAVID (1804-1885)

SADLER, DAVID, teacher and land surveyor; b. Kirkpatrick-Juxta parish, Dumfriesshire, Scotland, 9 Jul 1804; m. 1826, Jane Barclay, d/o William Barclay, formerly of Scotland; d. Dalhousie, N.B., 7 Jun 1885.

David Sadler came to the Miramichi from Scotland in the spring of 1824 and settled in Chatham parish. He taught school there and in neighboring Glenelg for approximately twelve years and then received an appointment as a deputy provincial land surveyor. His Miramichi surveys included the establishment of the metes and bounds of the Little Southwest Indian reserve in 1836 and the laying out of settlers' lots on surrendered portions of the reserve in the 1840s.

In 1849 Sadler was made deputy surveyor for Restigouche County and took up residence in Dalhousie. When he died there thirty-six years later he was survived by five of the ten children who had been born to him and his wife, Jane Barclay. His sons John Sadler and William Sadler made their permanent homes in Chatham, William being a businessman who died at age thirty-eight. His son David Sadler Jr married and lived for a time at Napan. Like his father, he was a land surveyor, and Sadlers Brook on the Lower North Branch of the Little Southwest derives its name from him.