New Brunswick Time Line

This Time Line is For the Grand Falls & Four Falls Region

1300 - 1850 - Little Ice Age
May 18, 1783 - Landing of the Loyalists with the Spring Fleet in St. John, New Brunswick
1784 - With the Loyalists numbers increasing the population, Nova Scotia is partitioned and the province of New Brunswick is created.
1787 - Rev. Frederick Dibblee first Anglican Priest in the Woodstock parish Arrives
1789 - French Revolution
1791 - Military Posts Built at Presqu'Ilse and Grand Falls
1791 - Fort Carleton was established, it became the town of Colebrook
1792 - a mission was established in St. Basil
1796 – Smallpox vaccination is developed using the less deadly cowpox virus

1801 - Maliseet Tobique Reserve was established.
October 1803 - The Kings German Legion was raised in Britain.
25 October 1806 - R.W.I.R. was formed up in Britain.
'From Europe 7 Jan 1808'....'These men that joined 7 Jan from Europe were paid at the Depot in the Isle of Wight to the 18 January inclusive'.....
1809 - Martinique Campagne
1810,1815 - Guadeloupe Campagne
1803–1814 - Britain & France at War
1814 – Treaty of Ghent ends the war
18 June 1815 - Battle of Waterloo
1815 – Road construction between Grand Falls & Aroostook
1816 - RWIR Description Book is done in Britain
1817 – Military Settlement Survey in Upper St John River Valley
1817-1820 - Presqu'ile Post used as an administration centre and supply depot for the military settlers
18 May 1819 – RWIR Arrive on the ships the, Abeona, the Buena and the Starr
In Halifax, Nova Scotia
10 June, 1819 - Ships Arrived in St John, New Brunswick carrying the RWIR
24 June 1819 - Military Discharge From the R.W.I.R., St John, New Brunswick
10 July 1819 - RWIR settlers Received supplies of Flour, Pork and Beef in Grand Falls, New Brunswick
10 October 1819 - RWIR settlers Received supplies of Flour and Beef in Grand Falls, New Brunswick

Winter of 1819-1820 - Many settlers forced to return to the Presqu'ile post for their first winter because supplies did not arrive from Fredericton for them
1820 - The MacLaughlan Report of the Farming Military Settlers
July 1822 – RWIR Granted Lots, Kent's Parish on the River St John
July 1822 – State of the Military Settlement in the Parish of Kent on the River Saint John
First wagon road ran through the North Tilley, behind St. Joseph's Catholic Church, beside the brook which flows down over the hill behind the cemetery and into the Saint John River
1824 - George Morehouse clears the river of rocks and made towing paths along the shore from the military post at Presqu'ile to just below the "Grand Falls".
September 19, 1825 - The Great Miramichi Fire burning 6,000 square miles, from the Northwest Miramichi to the outskirts of Fredericton.
3 January 1826 – RWIR military settlers Obtained property in Kent, York County (Now Victoria County)

1831 - Deane & Kavanaugh survey the area for Maine anyway
January 1831 - Unbiased arbitrator chooses compromise for border dispute .Grand Falls stays in British hands
1832 - Worldwide Cholera Epidemic
1832 - Carleton County created in 1832
1836 - St. Bruno Mission established in Van Buren, Maine.
1837 - Fire Burns St John, New Brunswick.
1839 - The Bloodless War – Maine V.S. New Brunswick
1839 - The Aroostook War

1845 – Little River Mills later known as Four Falls was founded
1846 - The first Steamboat, the Reindeer, to travel up the St. John River as far as Grand Falls was the "Reindeer"
1847 - Irish Potato Famine
1850 - Victoria County borders defined
1852 - Aroostook founded
1854 - Roads built from Fredericton to Woodstock then north to Grand Falls.
1854 - Post offices were established in Grand Falls and Andover
1858 - The first suspension bridge was completed in Grand Falls

1860 - The second suspension bridge in Grand Falls was built over the St John River to replace the first one that was washed away.
1860 – First Resident Doctor in Grand Falls
1871 – School attendance becomes compulsory in New Brunswick
1871 – School attendance becomes universal and compulsory in Canada West
1871 - North Tilley & Medford have a school
1873 – Madawaska County was created
1874 - Morrell Siding School was built next to the ferry road.
1875-76 - Railroad was built from Fredericton to Edmundston
1877 - First train passed through Morrell Siding
1878 - Aroostook became a railway centre with the completion of the New Brunswick Railway from Fredericton to Edmundston and the Aroostook Valley Railway from Aroostook to Caribou, Maine.

1885 - First Post Office opened on West side of river in Costigan. (Morrell Siding)
1885 - First Post Office opened on East side of river in Tilley
January 1, 1885 – Sir Sandford Fleming introduces the world to Standard Time
1885 – Smallpox outbreak in Montreal

1890 - The town of Colebrook changed to Grand Falls
1890 – First school built in Four Falls
1889-90 - St. Alban's Church of England was built in Medford
1893 - Another Post Office opened on East side of river in Meford
1894-95 - St. Joseph's Catholic Church was built in North Tilley
1895 – Anglican Church Built in Four Falls
1896 – 1914 – 3 million immigrants come to Canada
1896 - Ferry installed at Morrell Siding
1896-97 - Baptist Church was built in North Tilley
1896 – 1914 – 3 million immigrants come to Canada
1899 - Start of Boer War (Canada offers transport for troops. We send our first troops to an overseas war.)

1902 - Tobique Narrows bridge and the road to Tilley were built.
1904 - Evangelist Joseph Morrell (Van) crossed the Grand Falls on a tightrope
4 May, 1910 - P.M. Laurier builds a Canadian Navy
1914 – Start of World War 1
1915 – Battle of Ypre
1917 - Battle of Vimy Ridge
25 July, 1917 - Income tax introduced in Canada
1918 - Post Office on West side of river moved to Limestone Siding then to Four Falls
1918 - WWI is over 230,000 Canadian soldiers are maimed or killed during the war to end all wars
1918 – Spanish Flue kills 100,000s
January 23, 1922 - Insulin first applied to humans with success

1925 – Gravel Road built through Four Falls
1932 – Stage Coach Line set up between River de Loup & Woodstock
1932 - Four Falls became a major stopover between Andover & Grand Falls.
January 1937 – Grist Mill in Four Falls burns down
1942 – Dieppe
1945 – WWII ends. 42 000 Canadian soldiers are killed.
1956 - Brooks' Bridge was built.
1960 - Native Canadians are given the right to vote
1963 - Morrell Siding School closed.
9 September 1969 - Official Languages Act – Canada becomes bilingual
1987 - R. R. looses 2 bridges to ice jams downstream from Aroostook
March 1987 - CPR abandoned service to Aroostook

1900s List of Ferry’s to Cross The St John River in the Four Falls Area

Indian Point
Dorsey Ferry
Morrel Siding Ferry
Limestone Ferry
Ortinville Ferry
Argosy Ferry

WWI Battles New Brunswickers Took Part In

Attack on La Coulotte. 23 Apr 1917.
Battle of Arleux. 28-29 Apr 1917.
Third Battle of the Scarpe. 3-4 May 1917.
Battle of Hill 70. 15-25 Aug 1917.
Second Battle of Ypres (Passchendaele). 26 Oct-10 Nov 1917


List of Sources

The Weary The Famished and The Cold – The Story of the Military Settlement on the Upper St John River 1814 – 1821, by Ernest A. Clarke @ 1981 by the Carleton County Historical Society

Rev Diblee School Letters - Microfilm

Pioneers of North Western New Brunswick - John & Hannah Baker
By Linds M. Baker Failey
Publisher: [Perth-Andover, N.B.] : [1994].
ISBN: 0969893000 DDC: 929.20971 LCC: CS88

How Grand Falls Grew, by Anita Lagace @ 1946, Grand Falls

1816 RWIR Description Book – British Archives

1820 Commissariat at Presque Ilse – Library & Archives Canada, Ottawa, Ontario, Reference Numbers: R6253-0-1-E , Old Number : MG24-F82

1826 Land Grants – Microfilm F16312 - New Brunswick Provincial Archives Microfilm Service,
1831 Land Grants - Microfilm F4213- New Brunswick Provincial Archives Microfilm Service,

The Upper Saint John River - best web site I have seen for this area

Grand Falls Genealogy Club
http://www.rootsweb.ancestry.com/~nbgfgc/ressbiblio.html

Victoria County Genealogy

Diocese of Edmunston

Tobique Valley Genealogy & Local History Group

History of New Brunswick by Peter Fisher
http://www.archive.org/stream/historyofnewbrun00fishuoft#page/n3/mode/2up

British Forces In The West Indies, by René Chartrand
Google Books

Mori Hillman’s WebPages on The Royal West India Rangers. Excellent source of information about the Royal West India Rangers. Unfortunately, a lot of the links no longer work.
Royal West India Rangers