“It having been represented to Brig’r. General Fox that the King’s American Dragoons under your command cannot be enhutted at the place where they are at present encamped, without inconvenience to the great number of Loyalists who are forming settlements at the mouth of the River St. John’s, and he being also informed that His Excellency the Governor of this Province has assigned a certain tract of land for the accommodation of the Provincial Regiments on the River St. John’s, beginning at the eastern boundaries of the Townships of Sunbury and Newtown, and extending up the River, I am directed to acquaint you that you have Brigadier General Fox’s permission to remove the King’s American Dragoons to 365 that part of the district which has been allotted to the regiment.... Lieut. Colonel Morse, chief Engineer, will, in consideration that your Regiment may be exposed to peculiar inconveniences from being the first who are ordered to but on the River St. John’s, forward to you such articles as he apprehends cannot be procured at that place.”
On the 16th September, Gen’l Fox wrote from Annapolis, informing Governor Parr that the Loyalist regiments embarking at New York were, by the Commander in Chief’s express order, to be discharged as contiguous as possible to the lands on which they were to settle, and he accordingly asked the Governor to determine the district each regiment was to settle, so that on their arrival they might proceed immediately to their respective destinations. Up to this time no attempt had been made to lay out lands for the troops, save in the district of Prince William for the King’s American Dragoons. There was, it is true, an order to reserve for the Provincial Regiments, a tract extending from the townships of Maugerville and Burton on both sides of the river on the route to Canada as far as to accommodate the whole, but no survey had been made.
About this time the Hon. Charles Morris prepared a plan of the river in which the land not yet granted was laid out in blocks. These blocks were numbered and drawn for by the various regiments shortly after their arrival. But as the lines had not been run, nor any lots laid out for settlement the disbanded troops were in great perplexity. They knew not where to turn or what to do. Extracts from the letters of two regimental commanders will show how they regarded the outlook. Lieut. Col. Gabriel De Veber, of the Prince of Wales American Regiment, writes at Parrtown on the 14th December. “I am still here, where I have built a small house for the present. I have not been up the River yet, indeed the block, No. 11, which our Regiment has drawn, is so far up that I am totally discouraged. The numerous family I have demands some attention to the education of children. At such a distance they never can hope for any, and I should think myself highly culpable, were I not to endeavor to settle nearer to the metropolis, or to some place where I can attend to this necessary duty.”
Major Thomas Menzies, of the Loyal American Legion, writes on March 2d, 1784: “I drew Block No 10 for the Corps under my command, which commences 48 miles above St. Anns, so that whatever becomes of me, it would be wildness to think of carrying my family there for the present.”
We get a glimpse of the distress and perplexity of the men of the loyal regiments in one of Edward Winslow’s letters to Ward Chipman. “I saw all those Provincial Regiments, which we have so frequently mustered, landing in this inhospitable climate, in the month of October, without shelter and without knowing where to find a place to reside. The chagrin of the officers was not to me so truly affecting as the poignant distress of the men. Those respectable sergeants of Robinson’s, Ludlow’s, Cruger’s, Fanning’s, etc.,—once hospitable yeomen of the Country—were addressing me in language which almost murdered me as I heard it. ‘Sir, we have served all the war, your honor is witness how faithfully. We were promised land; we expected you had obtained it for us. We like the country—only let us have a spot of our own, and give us such kind of regulations as will hinder bad men from injuring us.’”
A great many of the disbanded soldiers drew lots at Parrtown in the Lower Cove district. Some of them spent their first winter in canvas tents on the Barrack square. They thatched their tents with spruce boughs, brought in boats from Partridge Island, and banked them with snow. Owing to the cold weather and the coarseness of the provisions, salt meat, etc., the women and children suffered severely and numbers died. They were buried in an old graveyard near the present deep water terminus of the Intercolonial railway.
The last of the transports that sailed from New York to St. John, in addition to her passengers—mostly women and children—carried an assortment of clothing and provisions. The officer in charge was Lieut. John Ward of the Loyal American Regiment, grandfather of Clarence Ward, the well known secretary of the New Brunswick Historical Society. There was not time to build even a hut, and Mr. Ward was obliged to spend his first winter in the country under canvas. His son, John Ward, jr., was born in a tent on the Barrack square, Dec. 18, 1783. The Ward family were a sturdy stock and were noted for their longevity. The child born on the Barrack square attained the age of 92 years, and a younger son, Charles Ward, died in 1882 at the age of 91 years. The father, Lieut. John Ward, was 92 years of age when he died on the 5th August, 1846. He was known in his later years as “the father of the city.” At the semi-centennial of the Landing of the Loyalists he was honored with a seat on the left of the mayor, John M. Wilmot, on whose, right sat Sir Archibald Campbell the Lieut. Governor. On the 18th May, 1843, the sixtieth anniversary of the landing of the Loyalists, the corporation of the city waited on Mr. Ward, then aged 90 years, at his residence, and presented him with an address. The officers of the Artillery also presented an address in which they say: “We claim you with pride as one of the first officers of the corps to which we now have the honor to belong; and we hail you at the same time as one of the few survivors of that gallant band, who—surrendering all save the undying honor of their sacrifice—followed the standard of their Sovereign to these shores, and whose landing we this day commemorate. That health and prosperity may be yours, and that the evening of your days may be as free from a cloud as your past life has been unspotted, is the sincere desire of the corps in whose behalf we have the honor to subscribe ourselves.”
The experience of the disbanded soldiers, who wintered with their families at St. Anns, was even more trying than that of those who remained at Parrtown. The month of October was cold and rainy, and those who went up the river in boats had a very miserable time of it. A few were fortunate enough to be admitted into the houses of the old settlers, but the vast majority were obliged to provide themselves a shelter from the approaching winter by building log and bark huts. At St. Anns, where Fredericton was afterwards built, there were only two English speaking settlers, Benjamin Atherton, who lived on the site of Government House, and Philip Wade whose house stood on the river bank in front of the present Cathedral.
Speaking of the hardships endured by the founders of Fredericton, Peter Fisher observes: “Scarcely had they begun to construct their cabins, when they were surprised by the rigors of an untried climate; their habitations being enveloped in 367 snow before they were tenantable.... The privations and sufferings of some of these people almost exceed belief. Frequently, in the piercing cold of winter, a part of the family had to remain up during the night to keep fire in their huts to prevent the other part from freezing. Some very destitute families made use of boards to supply the want of bedding; the father or some of the elder children remaining up by turns, and warming two suitable pieces of boards, which they applied alternately to the smaller children to keep them warm; with many similar expedients.”