History
Through Photographs
New Brunswick Museum
As
soon as Gramp arrived from town, he handed us the Robbins Drug Store
envelope that held the developed pictures we had taken last week.
We could hardly wait to see the results of our day as photographers.
Fortunately the pictures had turned out just fine, even better than we
expected.
The one of the black bridge brought memories to Dad of the picture
Tillie took years ago when the sloven, loaded with turnips, broke
through the floor. This led into quite a discussion about that eventful
day.
Pictures certainly do bring back memories and get people talking.
That happened last week when I mentioned photographers in my column.
Ron Keith advised me the Library and Archives Canada had a very
interesting paper compiled in 1973 by Jim Burant, titled,
“Photographers and Photographic Studios, St. John New Brunswick 1845 -
1865".
Peter Larocque, Curator of NB Cultural History & Art at the New
Brunswick Museum very kindly made me aware of the collection of
photographs on their website at www.nbm-mnb.ca in the Exhibitions section.
When I clicked on the website, I was astounded. I forgot about the
necessary tasks of housework and escaped to the world of yesteryear
through all the photographs.
My first stop was at “The New
Brunswick Museum Presents” to discover New Brunswick's history
through five exhibitions created by the NBM Archives and Research
Library.
1) Double Vision: New Brunswick
Stereographs 1865-1880 gave me a glimpse of more than two
hundred images of such scenes as: Mispec Saw Mill, Inner Harbour at
Quaco, Ruins of Calhoun Mill in Jacquet River, View of Homes in
Portland Valley of Saint John, Brick Yard on Loch Lomond Road in Saint
John, John Boyer's House at Markhamville, Log Jam at Grand Falls and
View of Countryside at Clifton Royal.
2) William Francis Ganong's field
trips around the province of New Brunswick provided 820 loose
photographs and nine photograph albums containing an additional 1,053
images, which constitutes a unique record of late 19th and early
20th century New Brunswick, capturing many out-of-the-way places
perhaps never before, and seldom since, photographed. More than 800 can
be viewed on the website with scenes of a Cow Moose Swimming in Diatom
Lake, Scow - the Tobique Lass, Six Trout and Guide at Milpages Inlet,
William Laskey in the McKiel Brook Region, and Mouth of Tay Creek at
Nashwaak River
3) Nearly 200 photos of before and after the Great Fire of Saint John, New
Brunswick in 1877 portray a city that fell to ashes but rose again.
4) Wolastoqiyik, Mi'kmaq and
Passamaquoddy First Nations Cultures in Atlantic Canada provides
a visual point of access into many aspects of the daily life and
history of the province's First Nations citizens with photos such as,
Aboriginal Group at Gagetown, Gabe Tomah at Grand Lake, Louis Mitchell
- Passamaquoddy - 1898, Nicholas Lolar - Wolastoqiyik Guide, Mrs. Noel
Peter Paul with family members, Silas T. Rand with two boys, and
countless pictures of canoes and many of camps and other Indian
dwellings.
5) Construction of the Cutty Sark and
the War Moncton is a virtual exhibit documenting the
construction of these two cargo vessels, from the laying of their keels
to their launching. The images detail the traditional shipbuilding
methods used in New Brunswick at the end of an era when wooden-hulled
sailing vessels were being rapidly superseded by steel-hulled steam
vessels.
The Keys to History portal
consists of dozens of virtual exhibitions and a searchable database of
some 110,000 images of selected items from the collections of the New
Brunswick Museum, McCord Museum, Musée acadien of the
Université de Moncton, Guelph Museum, North Vancouver Museum and
Archives Centre d'études acadiennes.
The website of the New Brunswick Museum at www.nbm-mnb.ca provides many
interesting details of New Brunswick’s history through photographs.
**
Query 1307
Hodgson
- Photographs: Clifford Hodgson of Saint John, a landscape
photographer in New Brunswick from 1950 to 1990, died in 2000 at the
age of 97. He left a collection of more than 10,000 photos which
his family will be donating to the Provincial Archives of New
Brunswick. But first the family is looking for help in identifying and
dating approximately 150 photos. Corrections of any of the named
pictures would also be greatly appreciated. To help with the
identification and to display some of his father's work, Donald Hodgson
has set up a website at www.tchphotos.com with more than 800 of the
photos. He can be contacted at dwhodgson@shaw.ca.
Query 1308
Bryson:
James Bryson, Irish, was granted land in Sunbury County in June of
1829, having arrived in New Brunswick in 1819. Was he in the
Royal West India Rangers or Royal York Rangers? Was he the
brother of Michael Bryson, Irish, who arrived in New Brunswick in June
of 1829?
PATRICK DOHERTY
2703 Mayfair Ave. N.
Seattle, WA
98109, USA
E-mail pddqa@yahoo.com
Query 1309
Lane
- Beatty: Nellie Alice Lane of Saint John, New Brunswick
married Benjamin Beatty at Charlottetown, Prince Edward Island in May
of 1888. Both were in the Salvation Army. In the 1901 census for Saint
John, Benjamin was a Baptist Minister. It was listed that their first
child was born in Nova Scotia in 1889. By 1910 they were living
Maine. Their only son, Percy Gladstone Beatty, was a Baptist Minister
in Maine and died in Florida. Can anyone provide information on the
names of the parents of Nellie Alice Lane Beatty?
CAROLYN RUTH LARSEN
Gamleveien 13
3218 Sandefjord
Norway
E-mail carolyn.larsen@lycos.com
