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ABOUT ST. JOHN.
Tourists are apt to regard St. John as a gateway, through which they unobservantly pass to the rural retreats concerning which reports have reached them. And yet, in the immediate vicinity of our city there are many objects to attract the stranger, and it is a question with us if one, having but a few days to spend amongst us, can do better than to make his headquarters in St. John, and occupy his time in exploring its immediate neighborhood.
The site of St. John, according to Micmac legend, was once the residence of the divine Glooscap; it was discovered by Champlain and DeMonts in 1604. LaTour erected a fort here in 1634 and engaged largely in the fur trade with the Indians. In 1749 the place fell into the hands of the English, and on the 18th of May, 1783, it was the landing place of the Loyalists.
St. John and its suburbs are surrounded with associations of the past two centuries, and no one at all familiar with American history can fail to find here plenty of subjects for reflection.
But, allowing the past to bury its dead, St. John and its neighborhood are replete with attractions. One may spend a day or two in visiting our squares and public buildings, or about Lily Lake and the Falls, and Gilbert’s Island, and Carleton Heights and the Martello Tower, or he may drive over the Suspension Bridge, through Fairville to Randolph and Sutton, or down the Manawagonish road to Spruce Lake, with its beautiful scenery, or past Greenwood cemetery to Manawagonish Island beach, one of the most wonderful in the world, or he may cross the Marsh bridge and passing down the shore of Courtenay Bay come to Mispec with its magnificent coast scenery, or he may proceed to Loch Lomond, one of the most delightful of summer resorts, or up the Marsh valley, or out past Highland Park; or, at Indiantown, for a trifling sum, he may charter a sloop for a day’s sail up the Narrows, or through the Falls and down the Bay.
While we by no means disparage the manifold attractions of our interior hamlets, our rivers, lakes and villages along our coasts, we think tourists may thank us for calling their attention to objects of interest and pleasant resting places that lie in our immediate vicinity.