Westfield
A History Told by Residents
I hurried through my long division questions and wrote out my spelling sentences as quickly as possible so I could give my full attention to the teacher as she did the French assignment with my older brother Ken's class.
I couldn't wait to get home to show off my newest accomplishment. I knew how to say in French, "Close the door" "Open the window" and "Place the book on the table."
If I had been in the Backland or Finley Settlement school in the 1860s, I would have learned lots of French phrases from teacher John Caulfield who came from Ireland via New York sometime between 1860 and 1870. He was well educated and spoke and wrote French fluently. He first settled in the area to teach the children and there he had a family of 13 children.
I found out about Mr. Caulfield in the History of Westfield, Kings County, New Brunswick that was researched and written by Susanne Sutton. Using interviews of residents and old document she wrote a history of the communities of Ononette, Hillandale, Westfield Beach, Woodman's Point, Lingley, Sagwa and Nerepis which now comprise the village of Westfield. It is illustrated with 80 photographs and traces the village's development from Loyalist roots through agricultural days to being a residential area.
One of the crops grown was hops used for making beer. Men of the area carried bags of hops on their backs to the Ready's Brewery in Fairville.
Some of the surnames mentioned are: Ballentine, Barbour, Bates, Baxter, Bewick, Brundage, Buchanan, Buckley, Calkin, Caulfield, Church, Coffin, Crawford, Currie, Day, Elliott, Finley, Finley, Gale, Gallagher, Gelding, Gilliland, Graham, Handel, Jones, Keefe, Kirkpatrick, Leonard, Likely, Lingley, Lister, Litlejohn, Macaulay, McBeth, McCain, McKenzie, McPartland, Michaelson, Miles, Milner, Nase, Nason, Patterson, Pipes, Polchis, Rankine, Rathburn, Roberston, Rowley, Sancton, Sealey, Spencer, Spencer, Stephenson, Stevenson, Stevens, Warwick, Watters, Wetmore and Willett.
"Westfield: A History Told by Residents" by Susanne Sutton provides an insight into life for this area of New Brunswick.
Copies can be ordered from:
Grand-Bay Westfield Town Office
P O Box 3001
New Brunswick
Canada
E5K 4V3
