Kennebecasis Island
When Cliff and I arrived home from school on this windy March day, we could hear Dad hammering in the horse barn. We slid open the door and observed him making a flat bottom for the bobsleds. He saw our bewildered looks and told us, “ The hay in the mow is getting low so I am taking the team to Lower Norton tomorrow to get a load of hay.”
As we were leaving, he suggested we take a half dozen bricks into the house. Mum would leave them in the oven all night and tomorrow they would provide a bit of warmth under the buffalo robe.
I wonder if the Keith men who lived on Kennebecasis Island used bricks and buffalo robes to help keep warm when they took their loads of hay across the ice to Saint John. Since there were livery stables and horses in the city, they had a good market. They did the horse owners a favour by removing the manure and taking it back to the Island but actually this natural fertilizer was one of the reasons for the great vegetable crops that they placed in boats and paddled to the city to sell during the summer months.
In an article written by James M. F. Keith in 1991, he explains the reason the spelling changed from Keefe to Keith. He also tells that in 1783, James Keith, who had been a sergeant in the Queen’s Rangers in the American Revolution was granted lot #1013 on the south side of Queen Street in the new city of Saint John. He came with a wife and two sons. He bought a 50 acre lot of land from Michael Butler granted on Kennebecasis Island in 1789. He must have been living up there earlier because a notice in the Royal Gazette of 1786 mentioned the death of a 17 year old Keefe boy, who perished on the Milkish Creek side of the island in a March storm.
On September 25, 1807 James stated in his land petition the that he was living on the Island and that he and his family were the only inhabitants, half of his land was cleared and he had a need for more. He had planted an acre and a half of turnips on land that had been granted to a man named Mabee who had returned to the States. This article by James m. F. Keith can be found in Generations, the publication of the New Brunswick Genealogical Society in the Winter issue of 1996 on page 21 which can be viewed at the Saint John Library, Library and Archives of New Brunswick Museum, Kings County Museum and the Provincial Archives. It can also be read at http://www.parl.ns.ca/projects/kisland/keithfamily.html.
In 1864, Sarah Charlton married John Hutchings, a native of England. They raised a large family. Their great-great grandson Mark Hutchings of California has information on the family at http://familytreemaker.genealogy.com/users/h/u/t/mark-d-hutchings/index.html?Welcome=1014352358 and would like to communicate with others. His E-mail is inspmark@aol.com.
Although Eric Stackhouse now lives in Nova Scotia, his thoughts often take him back to the family summer camp on Kennebecasis Island, therefore he has created a website on the island at http://www.parl.ns.ca/projects/kisland/ filled with information on its history, maps, links to cemetery listings, an item from the school inspector’s report in 1844 and lots more. If you have any information to share, you can contact him at calvin@nsis.com.
The tombstones that have survived through the years in the two cemeteries bear the names: Carter, Charlton, Hutchings, Irvine, Keith, Morrow, Reed, Saunders, Strayhorn, Thomas and Woods and a listing compiled by Gordon Miller’s is at http://www.parl.ns.ca/projects/kisland/cemeteries.html.
By the way, even though Kennebecasis Island is near enough to Millidgeville that teens of the area have been known to swim out there, it is in Westfield Parish of Kings County.
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Query 939
Traynor - Carr: I am seeking information on the parents and siblings
of Barnaby (Bernard) Traynor who married Sarah Carr. They lived in Barnesville,
Kings County, New Brunswick and had a son, James born about 1841. Barnaby
died before 1843. There is possibly a connection to the Thomas Traynor
who was the second husband of Sarah Carr's mother. Any information on the
Traynor - Carr families would be much appreciated.
-Maureen Aulson, 201 Pond St., Georgetown, MA, 01833, USA. E-Mail
Almo21aulson@aol.com.
Query 940
Traynor - Quinn: I am interested in sharing information on the
William and Sarah Quinn family, and also the Trainer or Traynor family, who
immigrated from Carlingford to Saint John, New Brunswick.
-Judy O'Brien, 6615 Embassy Court, Maumee, OH., 43537, USA. E-mail
kandjobrien@ aol.com.
