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Dictionary of Miramichi Biography

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COLEPAUGH, GEORGE (1804-1887)

COLEPAUGH, GEORGE, innkeeper; b. New York state, 16 Jan 1804, s/o Johan Christian Colepaugh (or Colbach) and Elizabeth Cronkite; m. Catherine Donovan; d. Renous River, 17 Aug 1887.

George Colepaugh was baptized in the Reformed Lutheran Church at Gallatin, Columbia Co., N.Y., as the son of a family with deep Dutch and German roots in that part of the state. Nothing is known about his childhood or youth, but he arrived in New Brunswick around 1827 and is said to have found his first employment at Boiestown. He later lived in Blackville parish, where six children were born to him and Catherine Donovan between 1834 and 1847. In 1845 he made a profession of faith in the Catholic church, to which his wife belonged.

Sometime after 1851 Colepaugh was hired to look after a lumber camp on the Renous River, about five miles east of McGraw Brook. He later acquired this wilderness property, moved his family there, and started a farm. By the mid 1860s he and his son Thomas Colepaugh had a woodsmen's inn at the site, where men travelling to and from the lumber woods could stay overnight and have their horses stabled. This was the establishment which was frequented by "the old portashin' crowd" of Hedley Parker's lay entitled "The Days of Duffy Gillis." The poet asks to be carried back in time to Colepaugh's,

Where we always fed our horses,

And put up for the night,

And gathered round the fireplace

With birch logs blazing bright...

to enjoy again the food and drink,

How hunger seemed to flee before

Those dishes boiled and fried,

With spruce beer for a chaser

And colcannon on the side...

the reading and conversation,

And some would read the Gleaner

Before the backlog's flame,

And we'd talk Confederation,

And the wondrous "Quaybec Skame"...

and the evening's entertainment,

Then one from out the company,

With lusty lungs and strong,

Would give out a good Come-all-ye

' Bout ninety verses long...

Then we'd pass around the bottle,

And each man would take a swig,

And we'd welt the hardwood timbers

While the fiddle played a jig...

George Colepaugh's son Thomas was his successor at the Renous River property and raised a family there.

Sources

[b/d] Colepaugh family data / Parker

Remarques

No marriage record has been discovered, and there is some question as to whether George Colepaugh and Catherine Donovan were ever officially married.


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