In our distress we were gladdened by the discovery of some large patches of pure white beans, marked with a black cross. They had probably been originally planted by the French, but were, now growing wild. In our joy at the discovery we called them at first the "Royal Provincials' bread," but afterwards "The staff of life and hope of the starving." I planted some of these beans with my own hands, and the seed was preserved in our family for many years. There was great rejoicing when the first schooner arrived with corn-meal and rye. In those days the best passages up and down the river took from three to five days. Sometimes the schooners were a week or ten days on the way. It was not during the first year alone that we suffered from want of food, other years were nearly as bad.
The first summer after our arrival all hands united in building their log houses. Dr. Earle's was the first that was finished. Our people had but few tools and those of the rudest sort. They had neither bricks or lime, and chimneys and fireplaces were built of stone laid in yellow clay. They covered the roofs of the houses with bark bound over with small poles. The windows had only four small panes of glass.
The first store was kept by a man named Cairns, who lived in an old house on the bank of the river near the gate of the first Church built in Fredericton [in front of the present Cathedral]. He used to sell fish at one penny each and butternuts at two for a penny. He also sold tea at $2.00 per lb. which was to us a great boon. We greatly missed our tea. Sometimes we used an article called Labrador, and sometimes steeped spruce or hemlock bark for drinking, but I despised it.
There were no domestic animals in our settlement at first except one black and white cat, which was a great pet. Some wicked fellows, who came from the States, killed, roasted and ate the cat, to our great indignation. A man named Conley owned the first cow. Poor Conley afterwards hanged himself, the reason for which was never known.
For years there were no teams, and our people had to work hard to get their provisions. Potatoes were planted among the black stumps and turned out well. Pigeons used to come in great numbers and were shot or caught by the score in nets. We found in their crops some small round beans, which we planted; they grew very well and made excellent green beans, which we ate during the summer. In the winter time our people had sometimes to haul their provisions by hand fifty or a hundred miles over the ice or through the woods. In summer they came in slow sailing vessels. On one occasion Dr. Earle and others went up the river to Canada on snowshoes with hand sleds, returning with bags of flour and biscuits. It was a hard and dangerous journey, and they were gone a long time.
For several years we lived in dread of the Indians, who were sometimes very bold. I have heard that the Indians from Canada once tried to murder the people on the St. John River. Coming down the river they captured an Indian woman of the St. John tribe, and the chief said they would spare her if she would be their guide. They had eleven canoes in all, and they were tied together and the canoe of the guide attached to the hindermost. As they drew near the Grand Falls, most of the party were asleep; and the rest were deceived by the woman, who told them that the roaring they heard was caused by a fall at the mouth of the stream which here joined the main river. At the critical moment the Indian woman cut the cord which fastened her canoe to the others and escaped to the shore, while the Canada Indians went over the fall and were lost.[1 ]
In the early days of the settlement at St. Ann's, some fellows that had come from the States used to disturb the other settlers. They procured liquor at Vanhorne's tavern and drank heavily. They lived in a log cabin which soon became a resort for bad characters. They formed a plot to go up the river and plunder the settlers—provisions being their chief object. They agreed that if any of their party were killed in the expedition they should prevent discovery of their identity by putting him into a hole cut in the ice. While they were endeavoring to effect an entrance into a settler's house, a shot, fired out of a window, wounded a young man in the leg. The others then desisted from their attempt, but cut a hole in the ice and thrust the poor fellow in, who had been shot, although he begged to be allowed to die in the woods, and promised, if found alive not to betray them, but they would not trust him.
Here the story of the old grandmother comes abruptly to an end. Enough, however, is preserved in these extracts to indicate the source of a good deal of the very valuable information concerning the early experience of the Loyalists in the New Brunswick wilderness, which appears in Mr. Fisher's "Sketches of New-Brunswick." Doubtless what he has related on this topic in his little book is based upon what he learned from the lips of his mother. To her care and devotion, in all human probability, he owed his preservation during the first eventful winter spent under canvas on the old St. Ann's plain.
Peter Fisher acquired a pretty good education, for those days. A fac simile of his signature is here given, which shows that his penmanship was excellent, and compared more than favorably with that of his son and name-sake, Lewis Peter Fisher, who was for some thirty odd years mayor of Woodstock, and the leading barrister of that place, and whose signature is also here given for comparison.
