Glimpses of the Past: History of the River St. John, A.D. 1604-1784

by W. O. Raymond

“The intendant, M. Bigot, is going to send a ship, as soon as the ice breaks, to carry such supplies as we can furnish them. Unless some assistance is sent by sea, the lands, cattle, and effects hidden in the woods must all be sacrificed, and the Acadians obliged to go elsewhere.”

At the beginning of the year 1756, the governors of Massachusetts and Nova Scotia discussed the situation of affairs on the St. John river, and agreed that steps must be taken as soon as possible to dislodge the French.

In one of his letters to Governor Lawrence, Shirley observes, “I look upon dispossessing the French of the St. John River, and fortifying it, to be necessary for securing the Bay of Fundy and the Peninsula against attempts from Canada. * * * If I am rightly informed, nothing hath yet been done towards it, 122 except making a visit up the River as far as the lower Fort, near the mouth of it, upon which the French abandoned it, having first destroyed the stores and burst the cannon, and there still remain the settlements they have above that Fort, by means of which they keep the Indians inhabiting it in a dependence upon them, and have a passage across a carrying place into the River Patcotyeak (Petitcodiac) whereby a communication may be maintained between St. John’s River and Cape Breton across the Gulf of St. Lawrence.” In another letter Shirley wrote that it was essential the French should be dislodged from the St. John and their settlements broken up, since, if suffered to remain, they would soon be very strong and able to maintain communication by the river with Canada, depriving the English of the fur trade upon it and maintaining absolute control of the Indians.

The Indians were at this time decidedly hostile to the English and Lawrence determined to wage against them a merciless warfare. Accordingly, with the advice and approval of his council, he issued a proclamation offering a reward of £30 for every Indian warrior brought in alive, a reward of £25 for the scalp of every male Indian above the age of sixteen years, and for every woman or child brought in alive the sum of £25; these rewards to be paid by the commanding officer at any of His Majesty’s Forts in the Province on receiving the prisoners or scalps.

This cold-blooded and deliberately issued proclamation of the chief magistrate of Nova Scotia and his council can scarcely be excused on the plea that the Abbe Le Loutre and other French leaders had at various times rewarded their savage allies for bringing in the scalps of Englishmen. As for the savages, they had, at least, the apology that they made war in accordance with the manner of their race, whereas the proclamation of the Governor of Nova Scotia was unworthy of an enlightened people. Nothing could be better calculated to lower and brutalize the character of a soldier than the offer of £25 for a human scalp.

About this time, two of the New England regiments were disbanded and returned to their homes, their period of enlistment having expired, and the difficulty of obtaining other troops prevented anything being attempted on the St. John for a year or two. Lawrence and Shirley, however, continued to discuss the details of the proposed expedition. Both governors seem to have had rather vague ideas of the number of the Acadians on the river and the situation of their settlements. Shirley says he learned from the eastern Indians and New England traders that their principal settlement was about ninety miles up the river at a place called St. Annes, six miles below the old Indian town of Aukpaque. He thought that 800 or 1,000 men would be a force sufficient to clear the river of the enemy and that after they were driven from their haunts the English would do well to establish a garrison of 150 men at St. Annes, in order to prevent the return of the French and to overawe the Indians. He also recommended that the fort at the mouth of the river, lately abandoned by Boishebert, should be rebuilt and a garrison of 50 men placed there.

During the years that followed the expulsion of the Acadians occasional parties of the exiles, returning from the south, arrived at the River St. John, where they 123 waited to see what the course of events might be. Their condition was truly pitiable. Some had journeyed on foot or by canoe through an unexplored wilderness; others, from the far away Carolinas, having procured small vessels, succeeded in creeping furtively along the Atlantic coast from one colony to another until they reached the Bay of Fundy; and thus the number of the Acadians continued to increase until Boishebert had more than a thousand people under his care. Some of them he sent to Canada, for his forces were insufficient for their protection, and his supplies were scanty.

The locations of the French settlements on the river at this period are described in detail in Dr. Ganong’s “Historic Sites in New Brunswick.” The largest settlement, and that farthest up the St. John, was at St. Annes Point, where the City of Fredericton stands today. Here the Acadians had cleared 600 or 700 acres of land and built a thriving village with a little chapel (near the site of Government House) and probably there was a sprinkling of houses along the river as far up as the Indian village of Aukpaque, six miles above. Their next settlement was at the mouth of the Oromocto, where 300 acres of land had been cleared. A very old settlement existed near the abandoned fort at the mouth of the Jemseg, but its growth had been retarded by the annoyances of the spring freshets and many of the inhabitants had been obliged to remove. There was an important settlement on the site now occupied by the village of Gagetown and houses were scattered along the river for several miles below. Another small settlement existed above the mouth of the Bellisle, and there may have been a few inhabitants at the mouth of the Nerepis where stood Fort Boishebert. At St. John the French had cleared some land on the west side of the harbor, and in Bruce’s map of 1761 the places cleared are marked as “gardens,” but it is probable that the inhabitants abandoned them and fled up the river in 1755 when their fort, “Menagoueche,” was destroyed by Captain Rous.

In the year 1756 England declared war against France and the capture of Louisbourg was proposed. The governor of Canada ordered Boishebert to hold himself in readiness to aid in its defence, and he accordingly proceeded to Cape Breton with a force of 100 Acadians and Canadians and about 250 Indians, many of them Maliseets of the River St. John. The latter did not go very willingly, for they had been reduced to so great a state of misery in consequence of not receiving the supplies they had expected from the French that they had entered into peace negotiations with the English. However by means of harangues and promises Boishebert contrived to bring them with him.

The Chevalier de Drucour, the commander at Louisbourg, urged the French minister to send at once presents and supplies for the savages. “These people,” he observes, “are very useful in the kind of warfare we are making, but unless we act towards them as they have been led to expect I will not answer that we shall have them with us next year.” He urges the French minister to send him some medals for distribution. The distinction of possessing one was very highly prized and often retained the fidelity of a whole village of the savages.