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Provincial Archives of New Brunswick

Dictionary of Miramichi Biography

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MORELL, HUGH (1775-1855)

MORELL, HUGH, first Newcastle postmaster; b. Ireland, c1775; m. Margaret Ross; d. Newcastle, 20 May 1855.

Hugh Morell arrived in Newcastle around 1826. He was not accompanied by his wife or children, but after his wife's death occurred in Ireland, several of the children came to Newcastle, in the late 1840s, and made their homes there.

Morell advertised bricks for sale in 1831. In 1832 he announced that he had a house and farm to let. Ten years later he was selling patent medicines. Various dates for the opening of a post office in Newcastle are given in the available sources, but possibly the first newspaper or other contemporary reference to its existence is in his 1832 announcement, in which he gave his address as "Post Office, Newcastle." Newcastle was just a postal way station under the Miramichi (Chatham) office, however, until 1840, when he was officially appointed as postmaster.

In the census of 1851 Morell was enumerated as a widower, age seventy-five, and a paralytic. In July of that year he was succeeded as postmaster by Edward Williston. A grandson, Walter Morell, who was born a month after his death in 1855, was a successful building contractor in Newcastle.

Sources

[d] Gleaner 26 May 1855 / Gleaner 20 Sep 1831, 12 Jun 1832, 27 Sep 1842, 11 Oct 1842; JHA 1844 (re. post offices); Morell family data


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