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Daniel F Johnson's New Brunswick Newspaper Vital Statistics

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Daniel F. Johnson : Volume 86 Number 834

Date February 2 1893
County Charlotte
Place Saint Stephen
Newspaper Saint Croix Courier

info The language of the text is the original used in the newspaper entry and as transcribed by Daniel F. Johnson. Records acquired by the Provincial Archives are not translated from the language in which they originate.

After the peace of 1783, CURRY who was carrying on a lumber business on the Digdeguash seems to have lost no time in getting a further grant of timber land on the upper waters of that river from the government of Nova Scotia, knowing that if he did not secure it there would soon be other applicants. 500 acres of land received by Curry at this time are stated to be for a mill. It is interesting to see how many pre-Loyalist settlers were associated with him. The grant dated March 26, 1784 covered a tract of 15,230 acres; the names of the grantees being John CURRY, Joel BONNEY, John HANSON, John CARMOCK, Henry BOWEN, Jonas DYER, James COCHRAN, Joshua BRIDGES, James CHAFFEY, William RICKER, Caleb BOYNTON, Edmund MEAGHER, John PACE, Benjamin WALTON, Stover WITHAM, Hatfield LEIGHTON, William ALDERADE, John MILLER, John FOUNTAIN, Samuel HUCKINGS, Joseph DINBOW, Jeremiah YOUNG, Jonathan STOVER, Nathan P..., Samuel LEIGHTON, John FOUNTAIN, Abiel SPRAGUE, Widow CLARKE, Widow OLIVER, Alexander HODGE, Ephraim YOUNG, Simeon WOODWARD, Stephen FOUNTAIN, James MAILER, William CROW, John LAWLESS, Daniel LAHA, John S..., James DYER, Calvin HOLMES. Joel Bonney who went to Machias as a millwright in 1763, probably came in the same capacity not long after to Digdeguash where he was one of the first permanent settlers. His house stood on the east side of the river some distance south of the county road. Bonney River preserves his name. Among his descendants of the present day is Councillor STEVENSON of St. Patricks. John Hanson was probably the first settler of Bocabec. Chaffey was the possessor of Indian Island. Carmock, Stover and the Fountains probably lived on Deer Island as did certainly Elwell and Lawless. Stephen Fountain removed to Moose Islands (then recognized as a part of Nova Scotia) in 1784. Cochran, Crow, Ricker, Bowen and Boynton had settled at Moose Island, the two first named in 1772, the others in 1771. Ephraim Young was one of the first settlers of St. Andrews and lived there before a frame house had been erected. He died at St. George in 1841 aged 88. Meagher, the Leightons, Hodge, Mrs. Wilson and Mrs. Clarke, widows of the men drowned at Cobscool, Hockings, Preston, Mrs. Oliver and probably Bridges, Laha and Dinbow (a family name which was afterwards changed to DINSMORE) all lived on that part of the mainland now included in Perry, Pembroke, Dennysville and the adjoining districts. James and Jonus Dyer and Abiel Sprague were among the pioneers of Calais. It is possible that Joshua Bridges of this list may have been Joseph BRIDGES who camwe with his family from York, Me., 1780 or earlier and settled at Birch Point in what is now the township of Perry, a short distance from the western entrance to the narrow channel that divides Moose Island from the mainland. Joseph Bridges was an ancestor of Councillor BRIDGES of St. Stephen and of the well known writer, Harriet Prescott SPOTFORD. Family tradition says that he had been a soldier in the French and Indian wars and was with the British army in the repulse at Ticonderona. He is described as a man of gigantic stature and of great physical strength and courage. The Passamaquoddy Indians tried to drive him from his little clearing thinking that he had encroached upon land that belonged to them; and to accomplish this they finally resorted to threats of personal injury. Coming to his cabin one evening when he sat bare-footed before the fire and threatening to kill him if he did not leave the place, one of them began sticking his spear into the floor, closer and closer, to the white man's naked foot. Bridges did not wince at this, nor move his foot to avoid the spear; but dared the Indian to aim his thrust close enough to touch him. Failing thus to intimidate him and not willing to risk a blow from the heavy fire-shovel with which Bridges in turn threatened them, they withdrew and left him in peaceful possession. Their dogs, however, proved to be such undesireable neighbors for his flock of sheep that in a short time he removed to another locality, becoming one of the early settlers of the town of Pembroke. At the close of the war there were settled on Moose Island about half a dozen families, of whom Kilby says 'the majority had either been of British sympathy or indifferent to the result of the great struggle.

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