by STEVE CAMPBELL--Taken from the Saint Croix Courier, Tuesday, July 10, 2001 (with permission)
Taken July 12, 2001
Before 1935, the land where the post office now sits
belonged to Hon. Dr. H.I. Taylor, Minister of Health in the Conservative
NB Legislature.
There was a bandstand with a roundish roof and a
long bench where older men would sit and look up Main Street and chat in
their leisure time. Also, there was a nice flat field where young
boys and girls could play ball.
All that ended in 1935 as the new red and grey granite
post office began to rise by a contractor by the name of Marr (not a native
of St. George).
The late Helen McMullin worked in four post offices
in her lifetime. The first was where the Bank of Nova Scotia now
stands, the second near where the Sears order office is located; the third,
in the Irving Oil office building on Portage Street and the present one.
Ella O'Brien worked in the last two in her postal
working days.
Helen McMullin wnt down from her home on the main
street during the big fire of 1916 and with a clothesbasket, picked up
all the valuable things she could before the fire reached that building.
The first janitor was Joe McHuges and then Irvine
Tabor took over in 1937.
In 1935 the Depression was not really completely
over and the building of the new post office was surely a welcome thing
for the town and the many men who got jobs there.
Also that summer, the new extension to the wharf
in the basin was going on and that also helped the employment situation.
Now the town has no wharf at all.
There were four elections in 1935, federal, provincial,
one regular town election and a town plebiscite election.
What makes the granite post office so unique is
that there will not likely ever be another building like it built again
in St. George as there are no more young local stonecutters left to do
it even if the money was available. All the square grey granite pieces
at the corners and over the doors and windows had to be cut by hand by
many local granite tradesman of that day.
In the 1920's there was a granite monument shed
running where Wayne Lee's garage is today. It was owned by the Monumental
Stone Company, McGratton's (now 2001 David Hatt's business) of St. George
and Jack and Tom, brothers of the company, were hired to take charge of
the different crews of stone cutters and have all the squared, lightcolored
granite stones cut to the blueprinted specifications for the new post office
building built by the contractor.
Just below is of course old St. George granite history.
Just lately I received a letter from Eldon Thorn,
who is living in California. He would be the only tradesman stonecutter
living today who cut stone in the St. George area during the time the granite
post office was being built.
Thorn thinks the building was finished in 1936 by
the contractor R.B. Corbett and Son of Saint John. They sublet the stonework
to Milne Coutts Co. in St. George and also to Marr.
George Maxwell of Canal was one of the quarry crew
as he remembers.
He thinks the red stone was quarried in the Canal
district and a lot of the red granite stones were likely in the stock
pile or grout pile for many years and likely just what they wanted for
that big building. The new work that was done lately on the side
and front was stone from the red grout pile, formerly operated by the McGrattan
Co. above the railroad bridge up Bonny River Road. That was called
the twin quarry as there were both red and grey stone there.
Horace Maxwell supplied the stone for the wheelchair
ramp and the new work on the front, from the same twin quarry. Hody
Mann, George Anderson, and Hugh Parks, Sr., worked on the foundation stones
in 1935.
The names of the St. George stonecutters were Harold
Dow, George Kernighan, his brother Jim Kernighan, Roy Hatt, Jack McGratton
and Eldon Thorn.
Stone cutters from outside St. George were Guilford
Hastings, Edward Carrol, Fred Wade and two others from Hampstead, Queens
County.
Joe McHugh was crane operator, George Reardon carried
tools from Bill McFeeter's blacksmith shop. McFeeter was the chisel
sharpener for the job. Dave Boyd was inspector when the job was started,
but passed away during the building and Vern McNichol of L'Etete took over
the inspector's job.
Oscar Leavitt Sr., of Canal, with crew, quarried
the grey stone in Bethel up Roix Road. His crew may have been Harry and
Louis Stevens from Canal.
The granite stone bridges on No. 1 highway at New
River and beyond are noticeably narrow now and may some day be widened
and their beauty would be changed.
They built the new No. 1 highway between St. Stephen
and Saint John, so they did not have to change the old time granite bridges
which was a wonderful thing.
Like the St. George Post Office and Presbyterian
Manse, there likely will never be any granite stone highway bridges or
church foundations constructed in the future in Charlotte County.
The bridges should be looked at from the side, as
it shows their arches made of the two colors, red and grey.
Charlotte County is also lucky in having covered
wooden bridges left, one spanning the Canal a few miles northeast of St.
George. The Still Water Bridge, spanning the Digdeguash River west
of St. George, both had large granite stones for their foundation abutments.
Note: The sad thing is that the Still Water
wooden bridge was burned a few years ago as a prank in a late night fire.
I just found out lately that Dr. Henry I. Taylor
(our town doctor in the early part of the century) owned the land, and
the town council of the day even tried to have a post office built but
did not get around to it until about 1934 or 5 when they really got serious
and made the commitment and bought the land. It would be good to
know how much Dr. Taylor got for the piece of land? Old records might
tell.
Taken July 12, 2001
*"The Author
Steve Campbell was born in L'Etete, N.B. in 1913
and moved to St. George when he was five years old, where he has lived
ever since. He was active in the Boy Scout movement for twenty-five
years, starting the troup in 1940.
He is a member of the United Baptist Church in St.
George, a member of the Rotary Club, and he takes an interest in the Charlotte
County Historical Society. He has been writing these stories for
the St. Croix Courier for more than ten years. By putting them into
a book, he hopes to preserve a small portion of local happenings."
Taken from the book 'Come Back With Me Again' by Steve Campbell
©Charlene Beney 2001