THE ROUND-UP by Murray Gault

My son Jim was about four years old when Raymond Francis sold me the little calf which we named “Henrietta”. He told me it was a pure Hereford and the markings would lead you to believe this was true. I wanted a Hereford so I wouldn’t have to milk it when it got older, but as it grew the genes of what appeared to be a Jersey started to show themselves in its posture and in her hooves which were starting to point outwards instead of straight ahead. However we kept her anyway and she and Jim got along famously. When she first came, I tethered her out in the yard on some grass, but she didn’t eat. It was a hot day in the spring and Bentley King, who lived directly across the road called me on the telephone to tell me that I had better put Henrietta in her stall. I immediately thought of a cougar or a bobcat threatening her but he said she would get sunburned out in the hot sun without her coat being very thick yet. He also said that he thought she wasn’t weaned yet which was why she had not eaten the grass. I bought some feed for calves and took some milk out to her. I then dipped my hand in the milk and then in the feed and let her suck my fingers and hand. I did this for a week or so until she got the idea to eat it herself. It was easier to raise the two kids than to raise Henrietta. One day Jim came running into his mother crying. She asked him what was wrong and he said that Henrietta had butted him and knocked him down. Hilda asked him what he had done to her. “I was only trying to nail a board on her,” was his reply. We had a great laugh about that when I got home from the store.

Later that summer, Ron Barry drove in the yard with his truck which had two cows on it. Ron made his living by buying and selling livestock so he was here to sell me the two animals. They were fully grown but not very old and like Raymond Francis, he told me they were pure bred Herefords. Because they were fully grown, you could tell that they were definitely Herefords. Besides I had great respect for Ron Barry and trusted his judgement. I bought the two heifers. Ron said that he thought they were old enough and ready for breeding, so I made arrangements with Charlie Francis who had a farm on Darlings Island with a pure bred Hereford bull. Both Raymond and Charlie were brothers of Marshall Francis who was my partner in the Hardware store. All three heifers spent the winter in the big barn and I dug a hole in the comer or the pasture which filled with water so they could get it whenever they wanted it as I had taken the door off their end of the barn.

When spring arrived, I could see that there was not enough pasture to feed the three animals all summer and still have enough left for their hay next winter. I had been told that some people turned their stock out on the Nerepis marsh (the high ground part) just across the river from my place. I felt that this was the answer so I put a rope around each of their necks and walked them down the driveway, down the road and down the lane by Bentley’s boathouse. He was with me so I wasn’t trespassing. We got them to the river and proceeded to push them in with some help from switches. They would go in the water, swim away from us, then turn around and swim back to the same side they had just left. There seemed to be only one solution, so I took off all my clothes except my shorts, took an end of each rope and swam across to the other side. Then Bentley pushed the cows in the river again, one by one, and I pulled them over when they tried to turn around. They got up on the shore quite easily and took off into the bushes and disappeared. During the summer I only visited about four times, hoping that their calves had been born and that they were O.K. They were getting pretty wild but I saw they were fine and I got a glimpse of one calf which hid when I appeared and I hoped that there were two. While they were over there, we cut the hay with the little International Cub tractor and Ed Vallis came with his baler and we baled the hay and stored it in the barn hayloft. Over on the Nerepis interval, Bob Yeomans was busy building the new Sunset Valley summer cottages not far from where the cows roamed and sometimes got in their way. There were several more than my three over there.

Autumn was fast approaching and it was time to bring the cows and calves home. I didn’t feel it was wise to swim them back due to the new arrivals, so I called Ron Barry again and we decided to truck them home. This was easier said than done as the cows were quite wild by now and the calves had not been around any humans before. We called it a round-up as we had to chase them like the old cowboys out west, only we didn’t have any horses. It took several hours and I honed my lasso skills as we had to get a rope on them to get them on the truck. When we caught Henrietta, I could see that she was pregnant. There must have been a bull pastured over there as well as several other cows. It was in the early spring when her calf was born on a mild and icy day. She was on her way to the water hole, it was very slippery and she lost her footing, one leg going left and the other right. Her calf started to come but was only half out when I arrived with help from the Hogan boys, Jim and Danny. We assisted Henrietta with the birth and I was surprised to see that the calf was in a bag that looked like plastic. Henrietta used her teeth and opened the bag and the calf immediately tried to stand up. I picked it up and started for the barn and Henrietta got up and followed. I took them to a separate part of the barn and made a comfortable bed for them and brought feed and water for the mother. Hilda, Jim and Sandra all came to see the baby which was now standing and feeding off his mother. All three calves were bulls which I found disappointing so I had to make a decision whether to keep them or not. I chose not and sold them to Joe Oliver for a rifle, a rowboat and $800. I wasn’t a very good businessman or farmer, for that matter.

In the mid 1930’s, we spent a summer on Mather’s Island at the end of Long Island on the Kennebecasis River. There, one afternoon while the family was walking on the tide beach my dad picked up some nice shells cast off by sea animals, and there on the beach lay a perfectly shaped real Indian arrowhead. Its edges were neatly flaked and it had a balanced shape including the carefully fashioned part for tying the tip to the arrow shaft with raw hide. Probably it was formed from quartz and it stayed in a case in our house for years as a curio, and dad spent many a fruitless day looking for another one. And I was reminded of the Indian arrowhead that was in one of the milled boards in Doreen Reaman’s sun porch in a house they built on a lakeside in Ontario.  Doreen was a pupil of mine in my first class in Langstaff, Ontario in 1947. Her father had found the saw logs in a gully forming a water dam, built hundreds of years ago.  He had the logs milled and gave the lumber to Doreen and her sister for building their own homes.

It was hard for me to visualize at that time when real Indians canoed all over this region and hunted with ‘primitive’ bows and arrows to bring down deer and moose for their food. In later years I saw the expeditions of eager canoeists led by Dr. MacIntosh of the New Brunswick Museum, headed throughout the various waterways of the St. John River system in search of relics left by the early inhabitants. The expeditions would come canoeing along the river as a group headed for White’s Bluff where they would make camp in the sheltered cove on the welcoming beach, as they carried out their explorations. Overnight they would dismantle their tents and leave silently, making one realize that they had come and gone and we had hardly seen them.

Years later I remember Ted McLean travelling those same routes with a Chestnut canoe and sail and see him coming down from the Cedars in a strong blow that was coming up river from the south. Sometimes the canoe would disappear behind a wave crest. Then he would appear again on top of the wave, speeding through the water. Sometimes only the tip of the sail could be seen above the wave as we watched from the Brown’s Flat wharf and wondered, “Would he make it to his destination?” He always seemed to arrived sun-tanned in swim trunks, in great shape and relishing his trip.

I never dreamt that someday, I would meet some of these Indians in the flesh and hang-out with them long enough to become their friends and to be taught the basket making, woodcraft and water lore that they and their forefathers had known for hundreds of years. It made museum exhibits somewhat lifeless and lacking the reality of real people performing these tasks.

Dear Editor,

While shopping in an antique store in Florida, my sister picked up this post card. The post mark was 1906. We are unable to identify the area. I wonder if any of your readers are familiar with Beatty’s Beach, Blue Rock.

Thelma Lourie-Gosse

Editors Note:  We contacted local historian and author David Goss and asked him about this postcard and he sent along the following description.

Yep, that is Beatty’s Beach all right, sometimes spelled Beatteay’s, but also known as the Nice’s Beach, Blue Rock Beach and Beacon Beach. It existed from about 1890 until about 1914. Brass Bands like the Carleton Cornet Band would play there on Sunday afternoons. The men would dive into the cold bay in their long, shoulder to mid thigh suits. There was a raft offshore. The ladies usually bathed, but did not swim. Their suits covered even more of their bodies. Bathing was considered therapeutic, despite the fact that the Blue Rock Hill Sewer ran down Ludlow Street and emptied into the Bay via a creek in the middle of the beach! There were at least two working wiers on the beach, one of them was called the Dolly Watter’s Weir.  (Extracted from my book Saint John West and its Neighbours and Saint John West Vol 11, which have just been reprinted and are available in your area at Guardian Drugs.)

David Goss

In 1877, Saint John experienced the most catastrophic fire in the city’s history that resulted in the loss of over 1,600 homes and businesses.  Although many of the structures that were rebuilt still stand today, the 1950s brought urban renewal development to the city and some historic buildings disappeared.

In a new book called Saint John: 1877-1980 by renown west side author David Goss, vintage photographs highlight the many changes the city has seen over the years. The book features never before seen vintage photographs from both public and private collections. The reader gets a behind the scenes look at what was going on in the city streets. Most of the photos were given to Goss over the years by people who found them in their scrap books and albums. Goss says it’s amazing how many people are sitting on valuable pictures and heritage items and don’t realize their significance. He says it’s important they be placed in the archives or museum so they don’t get thrown away. Once Goss uses a photo for an article or in a book he makes sure it goes to the archives.

Goss says putting this book together was like a treasure hunt. People supplied him with a photo and he had to fill in the blanks. “It’s really like a giant scrap book of peoples collections and I filled in the stories,” says Goss. He received a lot of help in that area from Saint John historian Harold Wright. In fact Goss dedicated the book to him.

David Goss, a Saint John native, has had an interest in history since a very young age. While employed in the recreation field with the city, he began a program of community walks in 1978, where he shared stories of the heritage of the city. The series has been in continuous operation since then. Goss has also authored a dozen books and thousands of articles about Saint John and New Brunswick. He’s working on another book this winter about provincial curiosities that should come out in 2011.

Princess Elizabeth arriving in Saint John on November 6, 1951. Reprinted with permission from Saint John: 1877-1980, by David Goss. Available from the publisher online at www.arcadiapublishing.com or by calling 888-313-2665.

Saint John: 1877 – 1980 is available in local book stores including Guardian Drugs in Grand Bay-Westfield and Coles in Lancaster Mall. It sells for $24.99.

Long before insects, animals or mankind wandered over this province, the land was seriously affected by natural events like storms, tides and volcanoes. These left a lasting mark on our land that effects us to this day. When we cleared some acres of big tree stumps from our land, which Charles Donald left after pulping it, we used a mechanical stump-puller, loaned to us by Herb Paisley and built by some unknown blacksmith in years past. It was still very difficult work, the five of us struggling for months, until we had cleared many acres and built huge piles of stumps and allowed them to dry before burning them.

We found in some places we only had 4 inches of soil and in others, 24 inches. This influenced what we grew and it was a yellow forest soil that wouldn’t grow anything until we had tilled in many tons of manure from our dairy goats and Jersey cattle.  Then one day Dr. Cal Seaman walked on our land and said how surprised he was that our soil was so “springy” compared to his soil.

As we climbed the “front face” of our land, we could see the effect of the volcanic structure built over many years. When Ed Carson dug a pond for us he opened 5 boiling springs, in spite of the fact that we are the highest point of land around here. He had to quickly install a water pump to remove the water so he could finish the pond.

Years ago, our family of 6 took three, 16-foot canoes and camped for a week at Cody’s on the Washdamoak, where one morning I observed tens of thousands of dead salmon or trout fingerlings floating in the water. We camped on a beach by the abandoned railway abutment from the coal mines at Minto. I remember the years in the 1960’s when the osprey seemed to disappear. We used to watch them diving from a great height into the water and taking flight with a large fish in their talons. Before that, when Bill Campbell ran the Rockdale Hotel (now demolished) on the shore above the Brown’s Flat wharf, we used to find huge river salmon, some over 3 feet long, stored in sawdust in his ice house. I remember Bill used to serve salmon dinners. They were known for their fresh baked rolls, fresh vegetables, steamed salmon with white sauce and fresh-baked fruit pies. No wonder people would travel on the Majestic and D. J. Purdy just to have a meal at the Rockdale.

One cold, frosty winter day when the crusty snow was knee deep and we had no meat in the house, I stood in a grove of tall pine trees and watched a massive moose, with a shiny black coat, stride easily up an old wood road and head right for me. On the next property I could hear people cutting firewood with a chainsaw and I thought, if I killed the moose and took it home on the toboggan, I would leave a bloody sign and a trail of blood right to the house. So I decided it was too dangerous to kill it and I clapped my hands and the moose took off like a shot, over deadfalls in a bound, suddenly disappearing. I had to walk over the moose’s trail to make sure he had been there after all.

This photo is of students from Brown’s Flat School in the early 1950’s. This school was built beginning in 1948 and was replaced 39 years later by the present building. Herb Paisley, Dan Belyea, Cecil Machum and other men of our community built the first school in 1948-49.

Front Row:  Stewart Bolster, Blair Francis, Kenny Brewer, Robert Paterson, Bobby Sherriff, George Brown, Harold Williams, Ensley Williams.

2nd Row:  George Paisley, Elmer Johnson, Chick Dee, Jim Merritt, Donald Daye, Lloyd Francis, Dick Cochrane, George Sherriff, Norman Raynes.

3rd Row:  Lorraine Dee, Frances Lourie, Muriel Lindsay, Lorraine Paisley, Doreen Brown, Marilyn Johnson, Joanne Johnson, Dale Lindsay.

4th Row:  Wesley Vail, Donald Johnson, Margaret Vail, Thelma Lourie, Margaret Brown, Cyril McFate, Garfield Vail.

Back Row:  Jim Paisley, Arnold Vail.