MCCULLAM, HENRY (1759-1848)

MCCULLAM, HENRY, landowner and farmer; b. Ireland, c1759; m. Mary Rogers, a native of the United States; d. Newcastle, 26 Jan 1848.

Henry McCullam migrated to the Miramichi from Cumberland Co., N.S., in 1785 or shortly before that date and was among the first grantees of Newcastle. At the March 1790 Session he was one of five pilots appointed for the port. He was quartermaster of the 1st Battalion of militia during a term which ended in 1813. For many years he was a major landholder. He had a 200-acre lot between Henry Street (which bears his name) and Jane Street in Newcastle and donated part of the land on which St James Church was built. The point at the waterfront on which John Haws and Peter Mitchell had their shipbuilding yard was also formerly owned by him.

When McCullam died in 1848, at age eighty-eight, The Gleaner observed that "unbounded hospitality to travellers and strangers" had "marked his lengthened, respected, and useful career." He had several daughters, including Jane McCullam, the wife of William Davidson Jr, and Mary McCullam, the second wife of both Hugh Hamill and Thomas Vondy Sr. It is uncertain if Margaret McCullam, Vondy's first wife, was a daughter. His sons included men named Henry, Joseph, and Alexander McCullam. In 1841 Alexander acquired a deed to his father's residence by "fraud, artifice, and deception." Through The Gleaner, McCullam cautioned the public against buying it and stated that he planned to repossess it. He did not mention Alexander in his will, and neither did his widow, Mary Rogers, who died at Newcastle in 1853, at age eighty-five.