Item

George Boardman Remembers

Beacon
Dec 19/1895
A little bit of history
Mr. George a. Boardman remembers when he first used to visit it sixty years back. (1836)
Then there were no steamboats on the river and I used to go by way of Robbinston, and cross the ferry by Joe’s Point. A tall man they used to call Long John was ferryman. He was afterwards drowned in crossing. My employer sold lumber to the merchants of Sa, and I used to go down and sell an collect about every month in the busy season and can say that those old merchants of that day very a very superior set of men, such as the McMaster’s, Pagans, Raits, Stranges, Scott, Dunns, Wilsons, Hatch, Allenshaws, Campbells, Jacks, Streets, Whitlock, and others. the most of my business was with James Raite, and I used to think him an ideal merchant. He was an Englishman but came from Jamaica. His wife was a Miss Watt and her brother took a farm near the present Watt Junction, it being named after him. Mr. Raite took a hand in the wild speculations of 1836. He bought a large field in Calais on the road to Milltown, paid down a part of the high price and it was abandoned and sold for taxes. I know you cannot spare me space to go into a biographical history of those men as I should like, but I must say a few words of John Wilson, who was a very energetic and enterprising merchant. It was through his perseverance and push that the railroad from St. Andrews to Woodstock was built, about he earliest road in the province. St. Andrews at that time was a busy, thriving, driving, town. the stores and warehouses were large and well filled, there were nice wharves along the shore, and the harbor was full of large vessels loading for foreign ports.