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    The Road to Canada: The Grand Communications Route from Saint John to Quebec
    The Road to Canada: The Grand Communications Route from Saint John to Quebec
    The Road to Canada: The Grand Communications Route from Saint John to Quebec
    Ebook162 pages4 hours

    The Road to Canada: The Grand Communications Route from Saint John to Quebec

    By W.E. (Gary) Campbell

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    About this ebook

    Since the last Ice Age, the only safe route into Canada's interior during the winter started at the Bay of Fundy and followed the main rivers north to the St. Lawrence River through what is now New Brunswick. Aboriginal people used this route as a major highway in all seasons and the great imperial powers followed their lead.

    The Grand Communications Route, as it was then called, was the only conduit for people, information and goods passing back and forth between the interior settlements and the wider world and became the backbone of empire for both England and France in their centuries of warfare over this territory. It was Joseph Robineau de Villebon, a commandant in Acadie, who first made strategic use of the route in time of war because he understood its importance in the struggle for North America. A strategic link between the Atlantic colonies and Quebec, the French made extensive use of the route to communicate and move troops between the northern settlements and Fort Beauséjour, Louisbourg, and Port-Royal. The British put great effort into maintaining and fortifying the route, building major coastal forts at Saint John to guard its entrance and erecting garrisons and blockhouses all along the way to the St Lawrence, first as a defence against the French and then to ward off the Americans.

    The route also played a key role in the American Revolution as well as the Aroostook War of 1839 that saw bodies of troops lining each side of the border extending from St. Andrews (NB) and Calais (ME) to Madawaska. In 1842, the Grand Communications Route and the Webster-Ashburton Treaty determined the location of the Canada—US border.

    It is still in use today: the Trans-Canada Highway and Route 7 follow its path. As well as telling the story of the Grand Communications Route from the earliest human habitation of the area, The Road to Canada describes the historic sites, forts, blockhouses and other historic remains that can still be visited today, including Martello Tower (Saint John), the Fort Hughes blockhouse (Oromocto), the Fort Fairfield blockhouse (Fort Fairfield, ME), Le Fortin du Petit-Sault (Edmundston), the Fort Kent blockhouse (Fort Kent, ME) and Fort Ingall (Cabano, QC).

    The Road to Canada is volume 5 in the New Brunswick Military Heritage Series.

    LanguageEnglish
    PublisherGoose Lane Editions
    Release dateSep 30, 2011
    ISBN9780864925992
    The Road to Canada: The Grand Communications Route from Saint John to Quebec
    Author

    W.E. (Gary) Campbell

    Major W.E. (Gary) Campbell has served for over forty years in the Canadian Army (Militia), the Canadian Army (Regular), and the Canadian Forces. He is a PhD candidate at the University of New Brunswick and has obtained a bachelor of arts (history) from the University of Western Ontario and a master of arts (War Studies) from the Royal Military College of Canada. His passion for military history, especially logistics, and his many tours of duty as a transportation officer in the Logistics Branch of the Canadian Armed Forces led to his interest in the Grand Communications Route. Gary Campbell is presently posted to the Combat Training Centre headquarters at CFB Gagetown, New Brunswick, after serving in a variety of line nad staff positions in navy, army, air force, and headquarters units across Canada as well as in the United States and the United Kingdom. He has twice received the Royal Logistics Corps Review Award. He is an active member of the Orders and Medals Research Society, the Military Collectors Club of Canada, and the York-Sunbury Historical Society, and he has served on the boards of the latter two groups.

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      Book preview

      The Road to Canada - W.E. (Gary) Campbell

      The Road to Canada

      The Grand Communications Route from Saint John to Quebec

      The New Brunswick Military Heritage Series, Volume 5

      The Road to Canada

      The Grand Communications Route from Saint John to Quebec

      W.E. (GARY) CAMPBELL

      Copyright © W.E. (Gary) Campbell, 2005.

      All rights reserved. No part of this work may be reproduced or used in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, or any retrieval system, without the prior written permission of the publisher or a licence from the Canadian Copyright Licensing Agency (Access Copyright). To contact Access Copyright, visit www.accesscopyright.ca or call 1-800-893-5777.

      Edited by Brent Wilson.

      Cover illustrations: Front: Reinforcements for Canada Passing Through New Brunswick: A Portion of the 63rd Regiment Crossing Nerepis Valley, ILN UNB. Back: Officers’ Barracks at Fredericton, Winter, 1834 (1836), by W.P. Kay, NAC C-041071.

      Cover and interior design by Julie Scriver.

      Printed in Canada by Marquis Book Printing.

      10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1

      Library and Archives Canada Cataloguing in Publication

      Campbell, W. E. (William Edgar), 1947-

      The road to Canada: the grand communications route from Saint John to Quebec / W.E. (Gary) Campbell.

      (New Brunswick military heritage series; 5)

      Includes bibliographical references and index.

      ISBN 0-86492-426-7

      1. Roads — New Brunswick — History. 2. Indian trails — New Brunswick — History.

      3. Military roads — Canada, Eastern — History.

      4. Trans-Canada Highway — History. I. Title. II. Series.

      FC2461.R63 2005 971.5’1 C2005-902272-8

      Published with the financial support of the Canada Council for the Arts, the Government of Canada through the Book Publishing Industry Development Program, and the New Brunswick Culture and Sports Secretariat.

      Dedicated to my wife

      Carolyn

      without whose loving support this book would not have been possible

      and

      to the memory of

      my great-great-great-great-grandfather,

      Private William Moran, 104th Regiment of Foot

      (late the King’s Orange Rangers and the King’s

      New Brunswick Regiment),

      who died at Kingston, Ontario, on January 12, 1814,

      while on active service,

      having made the winter march to Canada,

      and two of his sons,

      Private John Moran, 104th Regiment of Foot,

      who also made the winter march to Canada,

      and

      Boy and Private William Moran, 104th Regiment of Foot

      Contents

      Introduction

      Chapter One

      Establishing the Route: The Beginnings to 1760

      Chapter Two

      Planters, Rebels and Loyalists: 1760 to 1785

      Chapter Three

      Wars and Settlement: 1785 to 1824

      Chapter Four

      Border Crises and Resolution: 1824 to 1845

      Chapter Five

      British Strategy Vindicated: 1845 to 1870

      Epilogue

      Historic Sites to Visit

      Acknowledgements

      Illustration Credits

      Selected Bibliography

      Index

      Arrival of a detachment of the 63rd Regiment at the temporary barracks at Petersville, the first stop on the Great Communications Route and now part of Canadian Forces Base Gagetown. ILN UNB

      Introduction

      It has been said, with truth, that the history of human civilization has been determined and controlled by great rivers.

      — William O. Raymond,

      The River St. John

      At noon on Monday, April 12, 1813, a long column of infantry stopped to wash the mud off their legs before marching smartly into the garrison at Kingston, Upper Canada. The 104th Regiment of Foot had left Fredericton, New Brunswick, fifty-two days and over 1,128 kilometres earlier. The march through the wilds of northern New Brunswick in the dead of winter and then along the banks of the St. Lawrence River to Kingston was accomplished without loss of life. One soldier wrote that the men had marched on snowshoes in one of the severest winters ever known … undergoing hardships unequalled by any regiment in service during the war. After they passed Quebec, the weather broke; then they marched a part of the distance through mud, water and slush, knee deep. They had come to help save the Canadas from invasion. The march of the 104th became the best-known movement of troops along the Grand Communications Route through New Brunswick, but it was only one of many; until the late nineteenth century, this route formed the backbone of the French and then the British empires in North America.

      Today, many people are familiar with the importance of North American rivers such as the St. Lawrence and the Mississippi, but few realize that until quite recently the St. John River was also an important route joining the Atlantic to the hinterland of the Continent. This route ran from the mouth of the St. John River on the Bay of Fundy to the junction with the Madawaska River at Edmundston, up the Madawaska northwards to Lake Temiscouata, and on over the Grand Portage to the St. Lawrence River at Rivière-du-Loup; the British came to call this the Grand Communications Route. Until the advent of railways and steamships, from November to April, when ice closed the St. Lawrence River, it was the only secure way for the French and then the British to reach Canada.

      The St. John River system was used for personal travel and trade and by hunting and war parties long before the arrival of the Europeans in the seventeenth century. When French kings began exercising control over Acadia through their governor in New France, the route gained strategic significance in the European struggle for empire. While the preferred method of transportation was by ship, sea communication between Acadia and New France was not possible during the winter months. The only way to pass messages or dispatches or to move troops between the two places during the winter was over the Grand Communications Route, and it was used regularly during the rest of the year by couriers and small parties. The French also made extensive use of the branch route from the St. John River through Lake Washademoak, along the Canaan River, and over the Petitcodiac River portage to communicate with Fort Beauséjour, Louisbourg and Port-Royal.

      Following the conquest of Acadia and New France in the mid-1700s, the British inherited the route, but for a time they could also use the easier path from Montreal via the Richelieu River, Lake Champlain and the Hudson River to the ice-free port of New York. The American Revolution, however, thrust the Grand Communications Route into prominence once again, and the British made a concerted effort, not just to control it, but to improve it to accommodate sleighs and wagons. The vague definition of the border between Maine and New Brunswick in the 1783 Treaty of Paris made this very difficult. The American interpretation of the boundary placed parts of the Grand Communications Route inside their territory, threatening its integrity, and therefore the British settled Loyalist regiments along its path to help provide security. The route proved its value during the War of 1812, when troops urgently needed to defend Canada, including the 104th, moved over it during the winters of 1813 and 1814.

      After the War of 1812, disbanded British regiments settled along the upper St. John River to protect the route from American incursions. The route proved its importance again during the winters of 1837-1838 and 1838-1839, when it was used to move much needed reinforcements to Canada following the outbreak of rebellion. The Maine-New Brunswick border controversy reached its highest period of tension during the Aroostook War of 1839. Fortunately, open conflict was avoided, and the 1842 Webster-Ashburton Treaty placed the whole route firmly in British territory. Indeed, the British sacrificed the lumber and agricultural riches of Aroostook County, Maine, in order to retain the Grand Communications Route. This strategic goal was validated almost twenty years later during the American Civil War, when the Trent Affair of November, 1861 brought Great Britain and the United States to the brink of war. In the winter of 1861-1862, to deter the American invasion expected in the spring, the British sent the largest-ever reinforcement of troops to Canada along the Grand Communications Route.

      Following the peaceful resolution of the Trent Affair and the signing of the Treaty of Washington in 1871, the military importance of the Grand Communications Route faded. However, the route itself remained in use. Roads and railways followed its path from Saint John to the St. Lawrence River and continued the link between the Maritimes and Central Canada. Today, anyone who drives along the Trans-Canada Highway between Rivière-du-Loup and Fredericton is following the Grand Communications Route, which played such a central part in the colonial history of Canada.

      The Grand Communications Route. During the French period, the main route ran

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