MF – 1866.10.20 – Settlements – Johnville – Queens County – Albert County – #152 – F12251

The New Settlements

The season has now arrived when the working men who have remained in the city should once more ask themselves what advancement they have made during the year. Have they been able to save any money during the past year? Are they in any respect better off than they were a year ago? Have they all money enough now to buy food and clothes and firewood to keep them comfortable during the approaching winter? Do they feel perfectly satisfied with their condition? Are they as independent as they wish to be? Are they making sufficient provision for sickness and old age?

If they can answer Yes to all these questions we congratulate them; but if they cannot, then let them ask themselves why they cling to this city life, so full of miseries and trouble and trials for them and their families.

Men who occupied positions similar to their own; men known to many of the class we now address, bravely resolved three of four years ago to make an effort to put an end to the state of [dependance] in which they then lived, and to become owners of land their own masters. These men settled, some on the Grand Lake, in Queen’s County and in Sunbury some in Johnville, some in Albert County, and to-day all of them who persevered are absolutely independent, owners of houses, of barns full of oats, barley, buckwheat, potatoes, hay, &c., of cattle and sheep and horses. They are positively wealthy, compared to those who shrank from the very appearance of difficulty and preferred to live in filthy lanes and alleys, paying high rents for their miserable tenements, and dragging on a precarious existence on such wages as they could earn, rather than venture into the woods, even in company with hundreds of others.

We constantly receive the most cheering accounts from the settlements. The Newcastle settlement, a gentleman who does business in the neighbourhood assures us is one of the most thriving and flourishing in the Province young as it is. The settlers who three or four years ago were worth little or nothing, now own six or seven head of cattle each, draught oxen, sheep, &c., and have plenty of food for themselves and fodder for their cattle, and are selling large quantities of oats, &c., so that the property actually accumulated by them at this moment is worth more than all the wages they could possibly have earned if they had remained in St. John.

The difficulties which frighten so many are but temporary, and vanish almost as soon as they are fairly grappled with. We wish some of the men who now toil in mills and at other heavy work, or hang about the corners waiting for a chance job, could see those settlements for themselves, could see all the comfort, and happiness, and independence that they too may attain if they muster courage to break old associations and to brave some difficulties. They would soon be convinced of their folly and gladly avail themselves of the great opportunities now within their reach.