The Chignecto Isthmus And Its First Settlers [11]
A large number of families who came from New England at this time settled on the St. John River. They called their settlement Maugerville. The name Sunbury was subsequently given to the whole of the Province west of Cumberland County.
The Hon. Charles Burpee, of Sheffield, writes me that there were about two hundred families who at this time found homes along the river. Some of their names were: Perley, Barker, Burpee, Stickney, Smith, Wasson, Bridges, Upton, Palmer, Coy, Estey, Estabrooks, Pickard, Hayward, Nevers, Hartt, Kenney, Coburn, Plummer, Sage, Whitney, Quinton, Moore, McKeen, Jewett.
Simonds and White came to St. John some three or four years before the others. The Rev. Mr. Noble was there before the Revolution, but he did not come with the first settlers.
Largely through the influence of the Loyalists, in 1784, the Province of New Brunswick was set off from Nova Scotia, and the Missiquash River made the boundary between the two Provinces. This division cut the old township of Cumberland into two halves. Those who conducted the business for New Brunswick wanted the line at La Planche, or further east, while the Nova Scotians wanted it at the Aulac or further west. They compromised on the Missiquash.* This division made some trouble in nomenclature and has puzzled a good many persons since that date. The part of the old township of Cumberland on the west of the Missiquash became the parish of Westmoreland, in the county of Westmoreland. Fort Cumberland was in this district, and between Fort Cumberland and the old township of Cumberland, and the still older county of Cumberland, which once embraced the present Westmoreland and Albert counties, and the present county of Cumberland in Nova Scotia, there was a good deal of confusion. A number of years passed before Cumberland Point came to be called Westmoreland Point.
[FOOTNOTE: *The establishment of the Missiquash as the boundary between the two Provinces was eminently satisfactory to New Brunswick, but not so to Nova Scotia, as the latter Province at once vigorously protested against it, and did not seem inclined to give up agitating for a change. In 1792 the House of Assembly of Nova Scotia presented an address to the Lieutenant-Governor, in which they say "there is a very pressing necessity of an alteration in the division line, between this and the neighboring Province of New Brunswick." This agitation for a change in the boundary was kept up for several years, and in the correspondence, three other lines are suggested by Nova Scotia as being preferable to the one that had been already chosen.
The first of these was one from the head of the tide on the Petitcodiac to the head of the tide on the Restigouche River. A second from the head of the tide on the Memramcook by a certain magnetic line to the salt water of Cocagne Harbor, and the third by the course of the Aulac River to its head, and thence by a given compass line to the Gulf of St. Lawrence.
The present line was last surveyed by Alex. Munroe in 1859, under Commissioner James Steadman, Esq., acting for New Brunswick, and Joseph Avard, Esq., for Nova Scotia. The line is thus described by the Commissioners: Commencing at the mouth of the Missiquash River, in Cumberland Bay, and thence following the several courses of the said river to a post near Black Island, thence north fifty-four degrees, twenty-five minutes east, crossing the south end of Black Island, two hundred and eighty-eight chains to the south angle of Trenholm's Island, thence south thirty-seven degrees east, eighty-five chains and eight-two links to a post, thence south seventy-six degrees east, forty-six chains and twenty links to the portage, thence south sixty- five degrees, forty-five minutes east, three hundred and ninety-four chains and forty links to Tidnish Bridge, then following the several courses of said river, along its northern upward bank to its mouth, thence following the north-westerly channel to the deep water of the Bay water, giving to Nova Scotia the control of the navigable waters on Tidnish River.