Long Island in the Kennebecasis Bay
By Ruby M. Cusack
 |
| H.W.H. (Hal) Swann lived in Saint John as a boy, and served
in the Canadian
Engineers in World War I. Although he brought up his family in
Massachusetts,
he spent every vacation on Long Island, in the Kennebecasis Bay, Kings
County.
This picture of him was taken in 1902.
Photo from the Collection of Barbara Swann Mouffe |
The brook that ran by our home was our playground for the summer. Cliff and I spent hours, if not days, remodelling our raft but actually we had no place to sail it. If we had been one of the children who lived on Long Island, we would have had miles of blue water to explore.
On May 12, 1786, Surveyor Thomas Wetmore set out thirty lots of about fifty acres each on an island that was five miles long and one mile wide in Kennebecasis Bay and it became known as Long Island. It appears the only Loyalist families to remain there were the Keithline (Cathline) and Sharpe families.
Philip Keithline (Cathline) along with his wife and son arrived with the first group of Loyalists in 1783 and soon settled on Long Island. They had seven children and at least twelve grandchildren who lived on the island. For more information on the Cathline family, pay a visit to Ralph Cathine’s website at http://members.rogers.com/iris.graphics/cathline/.
Death took the life of Anna Sharp Delong’s husband requiring her to live in the home of her father, Nathaniel Sharp with her five children.
William Redmore came from England in 1816 and in 1823 married Elza Rosanna Cooper, a lately arrived colleen from Ireland. Here on Long Island, they raised their nine children.
Although John Breen immigrated from Ireland in 1822, it wasn’t until1834 that he purchased land on the island. By 1855 he had sold his holdings to his two eldest sons, James Irvine Breen and John Darrah Breen. James had eleven children and John had thirteen. Their sister Mary Ann Breen married Henry Redmore and they also raised their six children here.
Austin Hornbrook came from Bandon, County Cork in 1827 and married Elizabeth Ann Cathline and they had eight children.
Although water made travel to the mainland difficult, the residents did not abandon their religious believes. For example, the Anglicans went to Whitehead by boat in the summer while crossing the ice in winter and several Island residents were buried there.
In 1843, Michael Penistan was the teacher for thirty-four pupils of whom 28 were Catholics and six were Church of England.
The census of 1851 shows sixteen families on the island, ten had Irish roots, four were of Loyalist origin, one was of English origin, and one was headed by a black man, Jupiter Watts who had come to New Brunswick in 1814, from America.
Barbara Swann Mouffe, is one of the twin daughters of Henry Wright Hogarth Swann and Rosamond Lillie. Her father lived in Saint John as a boy, and served in the Canadian Engineers in World War I. He brought up his family in Massachusetts, but spent every vacation on Long Island. Each spring Barbara counted the days until the family could make their annual summer trek to their camp on the Island. Her father took many pictures and Barbara has added more to give us a view of the island with its residents and homes.
Through her publication, ‘Long Island in the Kennebecasis Bay, Kings County, New Brunswick, Canada’, Barbara Swann Mouffe lets us look across the water to catch a glimpse of all those stouthearted pioneers, who left difficult situations in their homelands to come to a climate with harsh winters, and with rough land to be cleared, yet they were full of hope for the future and here on Long Island in Kennebecasis Bay a very close-knit community evolved.
The Appendix of the book is a goldmine to family researchers as it
contains the genealogies of Long Island families of, Rev. Richard
Mathers, John Breen,
Robert Hornbrok, Philip Keithline, Nathaniel David Sharpe, David
Jordan,
George Kingston, John McLaughlin, William Redmore, and Arthur Lionel
Swann.