"The whole district of cultivated land was shrouded in the agonizing memorials of some dreadful deforming havoc. The songs of gladness that formerly resounded through it were no longer heard, for the voice of misery had hushed them. Nothing broke upon the ear but the accents of distress; the eye saw nothing but ruin, and desolation, and death. New Castle, yesterday a flourishing town, full of trade and spirit, and containing nearly one thousand inhabitants, was now a heap of smoking ruins; and Douglasstown, nearly one third of its size, was reduced to the same miserable condition. Of the two hundred and sixty houses and store-houses that composed the former, but twelve remained; and of the seventy that comprised the latter, but six were left. The confusion on board of one hundred and fifty large vessels, then lying in the Mirimachi, and exposed to imminent danger, was terrible—some burned to the water's edge, others burning, and the remainder occasionally on fire.
"Dispersed groups of half-famished, half-naked, and houseless creatures, all more or less injured in their persons, many lamenting the loss of some property, or children, or relations and friends, were wandering through the country. Of the human bodies, some were seen with their bowels protruding, others with the flesh all consumed, and the blackened skeletons smoking; some with headless trunks and severed extremities; some bodies burned to cinders, others reduced to ashes; many bloated and swollen by suffocation, and several lying in the last distorted position of convulsing torture; brief and violent was their passage from life to death, and rude and melancholy was their sepulcher—'unknelled, uncoffined, and unknown.' The immediate loss of life was upward of five hundred beings! Thousands of wild beasts, too, had perished in the woods, and from their putrescent carcasses issued streams of effluvium and stench that formed contagious domes over the dismantled settlements. Domestic animals of all kinds lay dead and dying in different parts of the country. Myriads of salmon, trout, bass, and other fish, which, poisoned by the alkali formed by the ashes precipitated into the river, now lay dead or floundering and gasping on the scorched shores and beaches, and the countless variety of wild fowl and reptiles shared a similar fate."
Such was the violence of the hurricane, that large bodies of ignited timber, and portions of the trunks of trees, and severed limbs, and also parts of flaming buildings, shingles, boards, &c., were hurried along through the frowning heavens with terrible velocity, outstripping the fleetest horses, spreading destruction far in the advance, thus cutting off retreat. The shrieks of the affrighted inhabitants mingling with the discordant bellowing of cattle, the neighing of horses, the howling of dogs, and the strange notes of distress and fright from other domestic animals, strangely blending with the roar of the flames and the thunder of the tornado, beggars description.
Their only means of safety was the river, to which there was a simultaneous rush, seizing whatever was buoyant, however inadequate; many attempted to effect a crossing; some succeeded; others failed, and were drowned. One woman actually seized an ox by the tail just as he plunged into the river, and was safely towed to the opposite shore. Those who were unable to make their escape across plunged into the water to their necks, and, by a constant application of water to the head while in this submerged condition, escaped the dreadful burning. In some portions of the country the cattle were nearly all destroyed. Whole crews of men, camping in the interior, and engaged in timber-making, were consumed.
Such was the awful conflagration of 1825 on the Mirimachi.
This event, of course, put a great check upon the lumbering operations of that section; but since that period, the places named, "phœnix-like, have risen from their ashes finer towns than they were before the period of that terrific conflagration." Hundreds of shipping annually load with lumber, which is exported to the mother country.
The next considerable river in this region is the Ristigouche, larger than the Mirimachi, "two hundred and twenty miles long." "The entrance to this river is about three miles wide, formed by two high promontories of red sandstone." "For eighteen miles up this river, one continuous, safe, and commodious harbor for the largest class of ships is found." "Two hundred miles from its embouchure, whither the tide flows, it is upward of a mile wide; and from thence to within forty miles of its source it is navigable for barges and canoes." "The appearance of the country" on this river "is exceedingly grand and impressive; wherever the eye wanders, nothing is to be seen but an immeasurable dispersion of gigantic hills, with an infinite number of lakes and streams, glens and valleys. Some of the mountains are clothed with the tall and beautiful Pine; others sustain a fine growth of hard-wood; many have swampy summits, and several terminate in rich meadows and plains; in form some are conical, others exhibit considerable rotundity, many lank and attenuated, and not a few of most grotesque shapes. Sometimes the precipitous banks of the river are three hundred feet above its bed. Seventy miles from the sea the country becomes comparatively level, and all the way to the head of the Ristigouche is a fine, bold, open territory, consisting of a rich upland, skirted with large tracks of intervale, and covered with a dense and unviolated growth of mixed wood, in which large groves of Pine are very conspicuous." On this river the Pine is said to be of a very superior quality.
Other rivers might be named of no ordinary interest and capacity.
The following table gives an account of the lumbering installments and products of New Brunswick, as taken from the "History of Nova Scotia, Cape Breton," &c., &c.:
| COUNTIES | Establish- ments for sawing, &c. | Estimated value of all mills, Estimated including all improvements: viz., privilege, site, sluices, land, dams and piers. | Estimated quantity of lumber sawed at the mills during the year. | Estimated value of lumber sawed and carried to places of shipment. | Number of men employed in logging, sawing, and bringing to places of shipment. |
| £ | Feet. | £ | |||
| St. John's | 29 | 31,700 | 11,305,000 | 28,262 | 320 |
| King's | 30 | 14,800 | 3,905,000 | 9,785 | 287 |
| Gloucester | 7 | 15,500 | 2,920,000 | 6,050 | 105 |
| Westmoreland. | 53 | 18,530 | 8,805,000 | 22,012 | 324 |
| Kent | 10 | 6,950 | 2,650,000 | 6,575 | 84 |
| Northumberland | 15 | 44,350 | 15,600,000 | 39,800 | 800 |
| Sudbury | 7 | 8,500 | 4,500,000 | 11,250 | 103 |
| Queen's | 6 | 9,200 | 6,200,000 | 15,500 | 118 |
| Charlotte | 42 | 64,500 | 38,955,000 | 99,475 | 1,357 |
| York | 29 | 18,000 | 9,000,000 | 22,500 | 300 |
| Grand Total | 228 | 232,030 | 103,840,000 | 261,210 | 3,792 |