THE PROVINCIALIST

THE PROVINCIALIST, with Patrick Clinch*

by Elinor Mawson

St. George, NB 16 September 1980

When I learned that this meeting was to be held in St. George it seemed that it would be appropriate to say something particularly concerned with this part of the country, and there was no need to look around for a subject as I had one right at hand.

Back in June of this year Mr. Howard Vye called Carl Medcof's attention to a bundle of newspapers that he had found in the attic of the Wren Store in St. Andrews of which he is the owner. Carl passed these on to me and I was thrilled to find a local newspaper that I had never seen before. It was called the Provincialist and its editor and proprietor was Patrick Clinch. As many of you know, Patrick was the eldest son of the Loyalist Peter Clinch who is regarded as the founder of St. George. Both father and son were magistrates and members of the provincial legislature so it was a surprise to find that Patrick was publishing a newspaper in St. Andrews in 1856. It may have been due to the fact that he was now Inspector of Schools for Charlotte County and this necessitated his having an office in the shiretown, or it may have been related to the deaths of his wife and son about six months before he started the paper. Eleanor Clinch died in July, 1854 and the following month Peter Clinch was killed by a fall from a horse.

This newspaper was a real find for we know of only two other copies still in existence, one in the National Library in Ottawa and the other in the British Museum. But it isn't only its rarity that makes this paper interesting but also the fact that it was oriented toward St. George and this was many years before St. George had a newspaper of its own.

In the week in which our issue was published, September 9th, 1856, news was scarce and Mr. Clinch was at a loss for a subject on which to editorialize so he chose instead to give a description of the eastern part of Charlotte county and in particular of his home town of St. George..this is how the town appeared to him in 1856:

After describing its location and surroundings, Mr. Clinch said; "The town itself, with regard to its buildings and improvements, presents no very striking appearance, the houses are quite plain...and latterly however, there has been some stylish buildings erected and we may expect to see more of them ere long -there are three religious edifices - the Episcopalian Church, R. C. Chapel, and Baptist meeting house, each of them having large congregations. St. George is steadily progressing, and must in the course of time become a large town; this is inevitable considering the great natural resources there are to back it; the River extends full sixty miles into the country, with numerous branches and is headed by a lake three miles wide and eight miles long - with several inlets, and throughout the whole extent the country is well timbered, the supply of logs is indeed almost inexhaustible. A vast amount of timber is manufactured at the mills and many ships load there, but this year fewer than ever. The ships always load at the mouth of the river, near M'Dermod's beach, which is four miles below the falls although small vessels can go up to the Basin without difficulty and ships that are built there, of which there are many, can be easily floated down. St. George commands a good share of the trade from the neighbouring parishes of St. Patrick and Pennfield, the people resorting there from those places to buy dry goods and groceries, of which there are abundant supplies; the dry goods stores in particular, though not presenting quite so brilliant an appearance as at St. Stephen and elsewhere, can furnish every article required, and rig out a lady from top to toe. If they were in the habit of advertising (which they are not) a display might be made in print which would have an improving effect and add much to the respectability of the place, in that line, we must say it, we are not patronised, although numbering 150 subscribers in St. George, yet since starting our paper we have had only three advertisements from men in business there; we would advise them to consider whether a more liberal system of advertising would not help them along with their business as it certainly would ours. In addition to all this it may not be amiss to state... that the town of St. George is one of the most healthy places in existence owing chiefly to the free circulation of air which is felt there in the closest and most sultry weather and its being blessed with the most pure and excellent water - it would indeed be a most desirable resort for invalids - which indeed it has been in several instances and with perfect success - and would be to a greater extent were it not for the want of sufficient hotel accommodation - in which the place is as yet greatly deficient. We are not done with St. George and will resume the subject in our next." Unfortunately the next is not available.

Following this, Mr. Clinch doffed his editorial hat and briefly put on that of Inspector of Schools with a notice to teachers reminding them that no teacher was entitled to an allowance from the Government unless he or she could produce a memorandum in writing from the local trustees to the effect that they had provided a sufficient school house and engaged a duly qualified teacher for a term of not less than six months. The allowance paid to the teacher by the trustees had to be at least equal to the allowance from the Government and could include what the teacher received by way of board and washing. Further on in his paper, Mr. Clinch announced that school books could be purchased at the Provincialist Office until another agent was appointed in place of Mr. Neal Lochary, resigned.

The British and European news, always a feature in colonial newspapers, was considered "wholly unimportant" that week and Mr. Clinch filled his news columns with items from other New Brunswick and Canadian papers having the usual complement of murders and other untoward events...

The one marriage reported that week is of exceptional interest:

"At St. George on the 27th August, at 11 o'clock in the forenoon, by the Rev. Samuel Thomson, Charles C. Ward Esq., Merchant of St. John, to Julia E., youngest daughter of Abraham J. Wetmore Esq., Collector of Her Majesty's Customs at the former place. The bridegroom accompanied by a select party of his friends, ladies and gentlemen, who were present at the ceremony and partook of a collation at the house of the bride's father, immediately after which the happy couple started for St. Andrews, whither they arrived the same evening, and put up at Stentiford's Hotel on their way to New York."

This wedding was probably the social event of the year and of special concern to the editor of the newspaper as the bride was the younger sister of his daughter-in-law Josephine, widow of his son Peter mentioned previously.

It seems unlikely that any of the 150 subscribers in St. George who read of this event can have had any idea of the significance it would have for their town in the future. I have learned from another source that Charles Ward's father and grandfather were merchants in St. John and he had been destined to follow in their footsteps. However, his inclination was toward art and he managed to persuade his father to allow him to study drawing and painting in England and France and later in New York. The wedding trip would have enabled him to introduce his bride to his New York friends but the couple very soon returned to St. George where Charles engaged in business for several years. But the lure of pencil and brush was too strong and they went to New York where he made a great reputation for himself as a painter.

About 15 years after the marriage, as Miss O'Halloran has told, Charles Ward was back in St. George on a fishing trip and was fascinated by the immense ledges of beautiful dark red granite and his enthusiasm, carried back to his friends in New York, led to the formation of the Bay of Fundy Red Granite Company of which he became the secretary. This company was the first of its kind there and brought much employment and prosperity to St. George. After Miss O'Halloran's article was published our Archives acquired the business papers of this company including many bundles of letters all carefully folded and tied up by Charles Ward himself. And so they remain for the time being. I am looking forward to the day when I have time to go over them and find out what eventually went wrong with the Bay of Fundy Red Granite Company. To complete the story of Charles Ward, he finally retired to live in Rothesay and went on painting until the end of his life. His landscapes were particularly admired. He must have painted in St. George and the surrounding area and it would be nice if there were samples of his work available for display in Charlotte County.

To return to the Provincialist, I also found an obituary notice recording the death of Elizabeth, wife of Samuel McCartney of St. Patrick, who had come with her husband from County Down in Ireland in 1819. It is worth remembering that newspaper obituaries frequently mention the family's place of origin which is difficult to find otherwise.

Despite Patrick Clinch's remarks, the advertising columns did contain items of interest to St. George. One was an announcement of the premiums to be awarded at the Annual Exhibition of the St. George and Pennfield Agricultural Exhibition to be held in St. George on October 18th, signed by A. B. Tayte, secretary. Another was about a farm for sale by Abram Young. This was located between First and Second Falls close to the Linton Mill.

There was also an advertisement for the coach running three times a week from St. John to St. Andrews with stages at Musquash, Lepreau, McGowan's (Pennfield perhaps), St. George and St. Andrews. The through fare was ten shillings and it was claimed that passengers would find good horses, comfortable carriages and sober, careful and accommodating drivers. The promise regarding sobriety was given at a time when the consumption of liquor was considered necessary for happiness as well as an infallible cure for most ailments and the accompaniment of practically every social gathering. Perhaps it was regarded as a pious hope rather than a guarantee.

I found this Provincialist so interesting that I obtained a copy of the issue owned by the National Library, an earlier one, dated April 9th of the same year, 1856. This contained a long account of the proceedings in the New Brunswick Legislature and Mr. Clinch must have had a very good reporter in Fredericton for he was able to quote from the speeches made by various members. They were dealing with the perennial problem in those days, the sale of crown land. There were complaints about people who paid one instalment on a lot, cut off all the timber and refused to pay the remainder, while there were others whose petitions for lands remained unsatisfied...The former were warned in an advertisement in another part of the paper that unless they paid up their lands would be sold.

Mr. Clinch's editorial was about railways. He approved of them on the whole although he seemed to feel that enthusiasm for them was getting a bit out of hand and he particularly objected to a suggested line running from St. John to the American frontier saying that goods could be transported by water just as easily.

This issue included under a special heading, News from California. A few years earlier there had been quite an exodus from Charlotte County caused by the gold rush and many who hadn't found gold had remained to pursue other occupations, especially lumbering. It can't have been very comforting for people here to learn that thirty families in Klamath County had been slaughtered by Indians;

Among the advertisements was one from James Boyd of St. Andrews and John Helm of St. George offering for sale the schooner Grace Darling. Some of you may remember the story of Grace Darling, daughter of a lighthouse keeper regarded as a heroine in England for helping to rescue five people form a shipwreck. Later on, in 1882 her exploit was repeated by Bertha Grace Boyd, daughter of the Spruce Point Lighthouse keeper on the St. Croix but this was long after the Provincialist had ceased publication so that James Boyd's schooner must have been named after the original heroine in England. James Boyd was a wealthy man in St. Andrews and at one time a member of the legislature. He had another advertisement in the same issue warning persons against cutting and carrying away sawlogs from land he owned on the Piskehagan.

There is one further advertisement that I mustn't omit. It is a personal item, a notice asking for payment by those indebted to the estate of the late Alexander McKay of Pennfield signed by his widow, Elizabeth who was executrix. If I am not mistaken these were the ancestors of our treasurer, Rose Haughn.

At the beginning I suggested a couple of reasons that Patrick Clinch may have had for leaving St. George and going to St. Andrews at the end of 1854 but I haven't considered the problem of how he suddenly acquire the expertise to launch and apparently successful newspaper. A clue to this may be found in another newspaper called the Charlotte Gazette which, according to Harper's book about New Brunswick newspapers, was first published by John McLachlan and then by Peter Clinch and John S. Magee. There is some confusion here for when the Charlotte Gazette closed down on December 16, 1853, McLachlan was still the editor. But Peter Clinch turned up again in Harper's book associated with John S. Lormier in the publication of another paper called the Charlotte Advocate in St. Stephen about 1860.

Who was this Peter Clinch? He wasn't Patrick's brother Peter who died in 1846 and he wasn't the son Peter, an attorney in St. George who died in 1854 as already mentioned. However, Patrick had two brothers John and Rufus so there is the possibility of a nephew called Peter with newspaper experience who was out of work at the time and could have provided the skills and knowledge necessary for publishing the Provincialist. It will be interesting to find out more about Peter.

You will see from all this that there is a lot to be learned from old newspapers, but unless we are looking for an account of some particular event, for example a disaster, they don't very often tell a complete story.

But we are now faced with a situation when there are very few people left who can tell us about things that happened in former times and we must depend increasingly on written records even if it does mean collecting a little information here and some more there and putting our facts together to make a complete story. But we won't be able to do this unless the written records are preserved. I feel sure that there are still many old documents, letters, account books and old newspapers still in existence and we should see that they are put into safe keeping and available for study before it is too late, before someone with little feeling for the past mails them off to distant relatives as souvenirs or - worse still - sends them to the dump and this does happen as we know only too well. Now, at last, we have a home for our archives and rows of empty shelves waiting to be filled and I hope that everyone interested in Charlotte County history will turn in and help to fill them. One of you may even find another copy of the Provincialist!

As you know, I will be leaving very shortly but Carl Medcof is nearly always here to receive donations to the archives and, as was mentioned in the Bulletin, Mrs. Anderson is going to take charge of our genealogical records.

*Report found in vertical files, Charlotte County Archives, St. Andrews, New Brunswick.

If you know of any historical stories, history, of St. George Parish, I would be happy to place it here! Please drop me a note.