New Brunswick -- Description and travel; New Brunswick -- History
The Parish of Fredericton adjoins Kingsclear, and extends to the Parish
of Lincoln in the County of Sunbury. It includes the town of
Fredericton, before described, with a back settlement called New
Maryland, and another on the Rushagoannes. The road from Fredericton to
St. Andrews passes through these settlements, and is fast improving.
The lands in the immediate vicinity of the town are not much improved.
Having been reserved for the College, they remain without tenants; the
settlers in this country not liking to lease farms, which are hard to
clear up, when they can obtain lots for themselves by paying the grant
fees. A great part of the land in the site of the town, likewise
belongs to the College or Church, or is reserved for Government uses,
which has been and still remains a great check to the growth and
improvement of the Town.
The County of York is upwards of two hundred miles in length. A great
portion of the lands in this county are well adapted to grain,
particularly wheat. It is well stored with excellent timber and abounds
with navigable rivers and streams. It is settling and improving very
fast, and furnishes the major part of the lumber shipped at the port of
St. John. Fredericton is the principal Town, and situated within four
miles of the lower extremity of the County.--The inconvenience of the
Courts, &c. being established at the extremity of such extensive
Counties are many, and amount almost to a denial of justice to the
distant settlers, who have to travel from one to two hundred miles to
the County Courts. The consequence is that wrongs are frequently
unredressed, and crimes, if not of a capital nature, are often
unnoticed; which if not remedied will in time have a pernicious effect
on the moral character of the inhabitants.
SECTION II.
SUNBURY.
Joins York on the North West, Northumberland on the North East, Queen's
on the South East, and Charlotte on the South West. It stretches along
both sides of the river Saint John, and contains four Parishes, with a
population of three thousand two hundred and twenty-seven inhabitants.
This is the smallest County in the Province, not being over twenty
miles in length. It is, however, the oldest settled part of the river
St. John. The first establishment of any consequence on the river was
made at this place in 1761, by a number of families from Massachusetts,
who having obtained a grant of a Township on the river St. John from
the British Government, after exploring different parts of the country,
settled at Maugerville. Here they were joined at different periods
during the troubles in America, by several more families from
New-England. These settlers made improvements on both sides of the
river, and called the whole district Sunbury. The first commission of
the peace for this place was dated 11th August, 1766, and for holding
Courts of Common Pleas 1770.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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