New Brunswick S Early Roads

Except for Roman military roads and the Inca roads in Peru, roads and road-making have seldom attracted much attention. Like fields, fences and old stone walls, roads can seem so much part of the fabric of a landscape that we need reminding that many of them were made intentionally. In New Brunswick, road-building was a great labour performed, as elsewhere, without fuss by often reluctant workers drawn from a remarkably small population. Against heavy odds, New Brunswick by 1930 had roads and a highway system that, in terms of quality and coverage, was the envy of many larger provinces. A new addition to the Images of Our Past series, New Brunswick's Early Roads follows the development of the province's roadways through the era of post and military roads, the rise of the Good Roads movement, to the dominance of the automobile and paved highways Over 60 remarkable black and white images document the astonishing process.

The first chapter of this work starts with a brief account of the early settlement of New Jersey and the twenty-four proprietors, then leads into a comprehensive history of the town of New Brunswick, beginning with the establishment of the early boundary lines and some of the first settlers. Much historical information was taken from deeds; road books; court minutes; wills; marriage records; Chosen Freeholders' minutes; records of the Secretary of State's office in Trenton and the Proprietors' office in Perth Amboy; files of newspapers; minute books: of Queens College, of the New Brunswick Toll Bridge Company, of Christ Church and the Presbyterian Church in New Brunswick; the Archives of the New Brunswick Historical Club and of the State Historical Society, and private manuscripts, some of the latter going back four generations. The appendix contains several miscellaneous sections, most notably a bibliography and genealogical notes on the Bayard, Bennet, Billop, Ditmars, Drake, Farmar, French, Hardenbergh, Livingston, Low, Hude, Lawrence, Longfield, Inian, Greenland, Brinson and Cox, Parker, Runyon, Schureman, Schuyler, Scott, Taylor, Van Wickle, Beach, Wells, Voorhees and Williamson families. A special feature of this book is the fully indexed "Map of New Brunswick Lands, 1681-1800" which shows the location, acreage, year and owner of each plot. Another map shows the locations of Hessian fortifications during the Revolution.

Since the last Ice Age, the only safe route into Canada's interior during the winter started at the Bay of Fundy and followed the main rivers north to the St. Lawrence River through what is now New Brunswick. Aboriginal people used this route as a major highway in all seasons and the great imperial powers followed their lead. The Grand Communications Route, as it was then called, was the only conduit for people, information and goods passing back and forth between the interior settlements and the wider world and became the backbone of empire for both England and France in their centuries of warfare over this territory. It was Joseph Robineau de Villebon, a commandant in Acadie, who first made strategic use of the route in time of war because he understood its importance in the struggle for North America. A strategic link between the Atlantic colonies and Quebec, the French made extensive use of the route to communicate and move troops between the northern settlements and Fort Beauséjour, Louisbourg, and Port-Royal. The British put great effort into maintaining and fortifying the route, building major coastal forts at Saint John to guard its entrance and erecting garrisons and blockhouses all along the way to the St Lawrence, first as a defence against the French and then to ward off the Americans. The route also played a key role in the American Revolution as well as the Aroostook War of 1839 that saw bodies of troops lining each side of the border extending from St. Andrews (NB) and Calais (ME) to Madawaska. In 1842, the Grand Communications Route and the Webster-Ashburton Treaty determined the location of the Canada--US border. It is still in use today: the Trans-Canada Highway and Route 7 follow its path. As well as telling the story of the Grand Communications Route from the earliest human habitation of the area, The Road to Canada describes the historic sites, forts, blockhouses and other historic remains that can still be visited today, including Martello Tower (Saint John), the Fort Hughes blockhouse (Oromocto), the Fort Fairfield blockhouse (Fort Fairfield, ME), Le Fortin du Petit-Sault (Edmundston), the Fort Kent blockhouse (Fort Kent, ME) and Fort Ingall (Cabano, QC). The Road to Canada is volume 5 in the New Brunswick Military Heritage Series.

"History of New Brunswick" by Peter Fisher. Published by Good Press. Good Press publishes a wide range of titles that encompasses every genre. From well-known classics & literary fiction and non-fiction to forgotten−or yet undiscovered gems−of world literature, we issue the books that need to be read. Each Good Press edition has been meticulously edited and formatted to boost readability for all e-readers and devices. Our goal is to produce eBooks that are user-friendly and accessible to everyone in a high-quality digital format.