Item
The property on which Kennedy's Hotel stands was occupied originally by the home of Colonel Thomas Wyer, an original Loyalist settler of the town. After Mr. Wyer's death in 1824 the building operated as a hotel under various names. It was enlarged at some point, probably under the ownership of Edward Pheasant, who named it the Railroad Hotel after the beginning in 1847 of the St. Andrews and Quebec Railway. The building passed to Michael Clark but burned in 1874, along with the Market House next door. The property stood vacant for a few years and was then picked up by Angus Kennedy, an Ontarian who had been running his own hotel in St. Andrews since 1869, when the building the corner of Water and Augustus burned. The new hotel was erected in 1881.1881 marked a high point in the history of tourism in St. Andrews. Spillover traffic from New England resorts had made Passamaquoddy Bay very attractive to American vacationers looking to "rusticate" in seaside towns less crowded than venues such as Old Orchard Beach and Mount Desert Island. In 1881 no less than 5 hotels sprang up around the Bay - 3 on Campobello Island and 2 in St. Andrews. Kennedy's Hotel was not a tourist hotel, strictly speaking. It stayed open year round, and catered to business as well as tourist traffic. The color of the new hotel was described as "light stone" with trimmings "dark stone." The new Kennedy's boasted the latest in plumbing. Reported the Bay Pilot: "On the premises are the indispensable conveniences of water closets and bath rooms which are of the century valve style, the wash-basins are set in marble slabs, the faucets and couplings are of the latest patterns and nickel plated, the soil pipes extend upward through the roof, with fresh air inlet at foot and trapped outside to exclude impure gases; traps and closets ventilated. The bathroom is supplied with hot and cold water, and in it is a copper-lined tank with a capacity for 250 gallons." The hotel did not originally have running water, nor did the town itself until 1922. It used artesian wells, from which water was pumped into an attic holding tank by a windmill. The town had many such windmills in those days.