Gram's house had big double parlours that were reserved for special occasions but quite often Aunt Sadie took us in there. I loved to look around these rooms. Many paintings decorated the walls. Our Great grandparents looked out from oval frames with bubble glass. Two horses raced from a thunder and lightening storm. Queen Victoria seemed to watch our every move from her walnut frame.
Cliff was allowed to play the piano, but that really didn't interest me. I went directly to the lamp table and picked up the beautiful pink conch shell. Gram had shown me how to listen to the sound of the sea by holding this shell close to my ear.
The children who lived in the West Isles of the Passamaquoddy Bay didn't need a conch shell to hear the sound of the waves breaking. They listened to the waves crashing on windy days or sat on the beach watching beautiful sunsets.
‘Passamaquoddy' Genealogies of West Isles Families by Martha Ford Barto portrays the life of the people who lived in this area in the days past.
The first chapters of the book are very informative as they deal with the Passamaquoddy tribe of the Abnaki nation - a small peaceable tribe, descendants of a few families who had separated from the Malecites of the Saint John Valley and the explorers who first came in 1604.
John Frost, Alexander Hodges and James Parsons arrived in 1763 and settled at Pleasant Point, fishing and trading furs with the Indians.
James Chaffey was born in Somersetshire, England and after being apprenticed to a goldsmith in London went to Philadelphia and from there made his way up the coast to Indian Island in 1765 and engaged in the trade of fur, fish and lumber. During the Revolutionary War, James remained loyal to the King and on February 17, 1784, he received 450 acres on the Digdequash River. James's wife was Elizabeth Fountain and there were eleven children from this marriage.
In 1767 Passamaquoddy Outer Island (Campobello) was granted to Captain William Owen, R.N., a member of a distinguished Welsh family and three of his nephews.
With the close of the Revlutionary War, the migration to major islands of Passamaquoddy began. Illness was a frequent visitor. Over the years childbirth and the sea constantly took their toll of life. The dead were buried on family land, in handmade caskets placed so the deceased faced toward the east.
Martha Ford Barto dedicated her book to the early settlers who, with very little more than faith in God and great courage, succeeded in establishing themselves in a foreign and hostile environment.
The axe and the saw were their indispensable tools and made possible their food, clothing, shelter and the economy on which they would thrive.
One hundred and thirteen pages of this publication are devoted to the history of the West Isles and are followed by more than one hundred pages of genealogies on the West Isle Families of: Adams; Appleby; Barker; Barteau; Beaney; Boyington; Bridges, Buhot; Calder; Card; Chaffey; Clark; Cline; Conley; Cook; Cummings; Dean; Dixon; Doughty; Eaton; English; Farris; Felix; Ferris; Flinn; Fountain; Gardner; Gibson; Gould; Green; Greemlaw; Grew; Haskins; Heney; Herson; Holmes; Hooper; Hurley; Ingersoll; Johnson; Kay; Lambert; Leeman; Leonard; Leslie; Lloyd; Lord; Maloney; Marshall; Martin; Merriam; Mitchell; Morang; Moses; McDonald; McGinnis; McKemmey; McLaughlin; McNeill; Palmer; Parker; Pendleton; Randall; Richardson; Rogerson; Simpson; Smith; Stievers; Stover; Stuart; Tewksbury; Thompson; Trecartin; Wallace; Ward; Welch;Wentworth; Whalen and Wilson.
If you have roots in the area, you will find ‘Passamaquoddy
- Genealogies of West Isles Families' very informative.
The book is available at several research institutions in New Brunswick.
Martha Ford Barto states, "The heritage of the past is the seed that
brings forth the harvest of the future."