NBR – 1845.06.13 – Reminiscences of New Brunswick – #8
COMMUNICATION.
[CONTINUED.]
To take a view of the present state of those two posts before mentioned we find the old works at the Grand Falls, have long since gone to decay; but [accomodations] have lately been provided for a small detachment of soldiers who are at present stationed there. The Isthmus likewise is improving in buildings and forms a rendezvous for the traders and lumberers in their lumbering operations on the upper St. John; and there is a good reason to believe that the place will go on progressing till a thriving town covers the whole space from the upper landing to the brow of the hill below the Falls. It is likewise very probable that a canal or tunnel will be cut through the upper part of the Isthmus, from bank to bank, to facilitate the transit of timber, the distance being only 836 yards. This would be of the utmost importance to the province, as the resources of the upper country are incalculable, and a great quantity of timber of the very best quality is yearly destroyed in passing it through the Falls, This spot forms one of the great features of New Brunswick. It is the connecting link between the upper country and the seaboard. In a military point of view it is one of the keys of the upper country. So well is the home government convinced of this that a large clearing has lately been made directly opposite the Falls for military purposes. The Great road of communication lately surveyed by order of Government between Halifax and Quebec intersects this clearing where it joins the present route.
It is now a little over half a century since the troops who garrisoned those two posts were called in to join their regiments for foreign service. The 6th regiment at that time occupied the old range of barracks near the river that have lately been taken down and the 65th was quartered in Barracks and posts in what is now the college square.
Those two regiments were called away shortly after the breaking out of the French Revolution. On St. Georges day 1793 the 65th marched out of their comfortable quarters and embarked on board of sloops to leave Fredericton never to return. They were followed in June by the 6th. – Both regiments soon after joined the expedition against the French West Indian Islands under General Grey in 1794. They suffered severely at the storming of Fort Bourbon and the 6th regiment were subsequently nearly all destroyed; a great part of them having been blown up in the Island of Gaudaloupe.