Sketches at Magaguadavic by our Wandering Special

Year
1894
Month
7
Day
26
Article Title
Sketches at Magaguadavic by our Wandering Special
Author
------
Page Number
4
Article Type
Language
Article Contents
SKETCHES AT MAGAGUADAVIC. BY OUR WANDERING SPECIAL. The chief point of historical interest in connexion with the Magaguadavic river is that our friends in the United States, for a long time, maintained it to be the true St. Croix of Champlain, a contention which, if it had succeeded, would have reduced the area of New Brunswick by many thousands of square miles. The question was, however, settled adversely to this contention in 1798, by the award of commissioners appointed for that purpose under the treaty made between Great Britain and the United States. Magaguadavic and the region about it was settled by the Loyalists in 1783. At L’Etang Captain Bailey and other officers of the Royal Fencible Americans settled, and proceeded to lay out a town on the foreground shown in the picture of L’Etang harbor, looking towards Fry’s Island. Barracks were erected for soldiers, the site of which was on the foreground of our second sketch. The town of L’Etang was destroyed by fire in 1790. One solitary grave marks the spot where the father of the family, Capt. Bailey, was laid to sleep in the winter of 1784. Man may go; cities may be wiped out; but the land and sea remain the same; old rocks and headlands and islands of L’Etang harbor, the beautiful are the same as in 1784. On the site of the town there are extensive beds of limestone, which only required McKinleyism to be wiped away in order to give new life to that magnificent sheet of water, L’Etang Harbor—destined by nature someday to be the Sebastapool of the Bay of Fundy. In the sketch above is a view of the lime rocks; in the distance is Fry’s Island, embracing 900' acres. The highest point is Cailiff, 183 feet above the level of the sea; to the left is part of Bliss Harbor, with western end of McCann’s Island, which belongs to the British government. The center piece is Jail Island, where the Canadian fishery protector of the bay, Curlew, lies peacefully at anchor. The sketch looking from the barracks represents the mouth of the harbor, Sandy’s Head on the left, and McCann’s Island on the right. The high land is Hawkin’s Hill, 195 feet above water mark. This view is from the old Barrack yard. The third sketch is Bliss harbor, taken from the east side of Fry’s Island. It is a roadstead, properly speaking, protected by the eastern fringe of islands that compose the Passamaquoddy Archipelago. As to the safety of L’Etang harbor we may state that a barque deal-laden rode out the Saxby gale in perfect safety therein. Moreover Admiral Owen pronounced the harbor of L’Etang the finest and safest of all the many harbors that indent the coast line of the Bay of Fundy. It is without bar or hindrance of any kind and varies all over from 8 1/2 fathoms to 16 at low tide. The old saying as applied to Digby that it would hold the British navy—we may say of L’Etang that it would hold all the ironclads and "greyhounds" of the world. According to the experience of the writer who has viewed every harbor from St. John’s Newfoundland to the Chesapeake there is not one half so handsome in point of surroundings, and as to safety and for military strategical or defensive purposes, it has been admitted by competent authorities that if war was to break out L’Etang would be fortified at once and could hold the bay. Like St. John it never freezes, not a particle of ice forms on its shores. As a summer resort it is capable of being made attractive at small cost. Fry’s Island is like a beautiful park. Magnificent views from all points or the compass can be sighted from the wooded vistas in the summits of Cailiff and Feldspar hills. There is excellent harbor fishing—the crustacean abounds in clams, scallops, lobsters, crabs and other members of the shell fish family.