The Lost Valley

THE BLACK MARKET BABIES SCANDAL IN SAINT JOHN, 1948

2012-01-07T12:19:00.000-08:00

BLACK MARKET BABIES, a 1945 noir film made by Monogram Pictures. It would be fifty years before any movie described a Canadian baby smuggling ring - BUTTERBOX BABIES.

Lost Valley readers have shared many wonderful stories with me since this Blog was launched in 2007. Among the most harrowing were the experiences of young and often desperately poor Saint John girls forced to make the painful sacrifice of giving up their babies to adoption rings. My own mother, a Valley girl, was sent upriver to live with a doctor in Grand Falls when her pregnancy started to become obvious. She very nearly played into the hands of that cunning medicine man who had brokered my sale to a waiting couple. I haven't yet published any of these adoption stories, but I continue to research the illicit market in babies which once blackened New Brunswick's reputation. I knew of Karen Balcom's work, including her 2007 doctoral dissertation, but couldn't access a copy, so I was pleased when it was published last year by the University of Toronto Press as THE TRAFFIC IN BABIES. In this article I supplement Balcom's work with material from my own research files.

THE TRAFFIC IN BABIES was written by Professor Karen A. Balcom, and was published by the University of Toronto Press in 2011. It is essentially an edited version of her academic thesis and lists at $75.

The most infamous baby-selling-ring in Canada operated as the IDEAL MATERNITY HOME (I.M.H.) in East Chester, N.S. from 1928-45. The story was told in a book entitled BUTTERBOX BABIES. which was filmed. The DVD is available on Amazon.ca. It was Balcom who alerted me to a direct connection between the Young's who ran the I.M.H. in Nova Scotia and a Saint John lawyer who first tried to help the Young's save their business, but who finally replaced them with a Saint John baby-ring of his own.

Balcom describes how in 1944 an amendment to Nova Scotia's adoption law forced the Young's to begin working with lawyer Benjamin R. Guss, who began processing all their cases through the New Brunswick Court, where there were few impediments to rapidly placing babies with willing buyers. By 1946 Guss, who was Jewish, was a "partner" in the Young operation. Guss had a pipeline to firms in the New York area where it was very difficult, almost impossible, for Jewish couples to adopt across the religious divide. He was not required to disclose what he charged American couples but it was alleged to be several thousand dollars - a great deal of money in the 1940s. When it became obvious that the Nova Scotia government was going to shut I.M.H. down permanently, Benjamin Guss urged the Young's to move their business to Saint John. They declined, and as Balcom writes, "Guss became an independent operator, building up his own black market baby business out of Saint john, New Brunswick."

In the absence of photographs U.T. Press included graphics such as this one showing that the customers for Saint John babies were families in Delaware, New Jersey and New York.

So who was Benjamin R. Guss ? If you read tribute pieces, and "ethnic history" published in Saint John, you get a portrait of a man who devoted his life to the public welfare. Yet behind every carefully crafted profile there are less noble motives. Balcom's findings exist in three versions. When Ms. Balcom submitted an initial article to UNB's ACADIENSIS in 2001, she may have been cautioned to avoid digging any deeper. For most of his career Benjamin Rex Guss was a member of the Saint john monied establishment, and he ended his days as a retired judge and legal advisor to the provincial government.

Ben Guss was born of Lithuanian Jewish parents in 1905. The family of eight arrived in Saint John in 1907, first settling on Chapel Street and later on Acadia Street. (This was a Jewish neighborhood which I have previously discussed in a Blog article.) His father worked hard as a junk dealer in the North End and later established a scrap metal business. Guss attended Dalhousie University and got his Bachelor of Laws in 1930. He was called to the New Brunswick Bar in November 1931 and immediately began to work at shaping a political career. He started by joining the Zionist Council, canvassing for the United Palestine Appeal and becoming active in the Conservative Party of Canada.

Guss made a point of travelling to regional and national events and he secured his first party position, election to the post of Vice President of the National Young Conservatives. [He later competed for and took the presidency.] At the 1938 Conservative Party Convention in Ottawa Benjamin Guss was one of 3000 delegates to salute outgoing leader R.B. Bennett, "We are losing a true Jewish friend." and to pledge allegiance to the new Tory leader, Dr. Robert Manion. It was the genesis of the era of the so-called "Progressive" strategy of the Conservative Party and Dr. Manion in his speech won the hearts of Jewish Canadians by claiming "Conservatives were always progressive since the days of Benjamin Disraeli." Disraeli was Britain's first and only Jewish Prime Minister.

Guss had done so brilliantly well in Saint John political circles that he felt confident enough to reveal his ambitions to a reporter for a Jewish press. His plan was published. "He is slated to become the next member of Parliament from his city, and, if elected, he will be the first Jewish Conservative M.P. in Canada." The final step to complete the political profile was a bride, and on Dec. 2, 1938 he was married in a ceremony conducted in Lawrence, Massachusetts. Clearly lawyer Guss believed he had control of the nomination inside his riding association, and by supporting Dr. Manion in Ottawa he could be assured that the Party Leader would sign his nomination papers. But fate intervened - and we call it World War Two. We all know the rest of the story - Liberal leader W.L. Mackenzie King, the creepy oddball who travelled to Berlin to meet Adolph Hitler and found him worthy, retained power and was our wartime Prime Minister. The P.C.s were banished to the political wilderness and Ben Guss did not become Canada's first Jewish M.P.

Well, a man of energy whose ambition is thwarted is prone to redoubling his efforts, and directing them elsewhere. Ben Guss chose to make money the old fashioned way - he earned it, client-by-client, and he quickly built up his business with the same dogged effort he had put into networking the Tory archipelago. During the war he fell in with the Young's and their baby selling business. In that era all the larger Maritime towns and cities in Atlantic Canada had Maternity Boarding Houses, and Saint John was no exception. Much is made of the Catholic Sisters' work with orphans and unwed mothers, but in fact the nuns had plenty of organized competition. At some point, and I'm thinking it was around 1944-45, Ben Guss opened one of his own. He kept his personal residence at 70 Orange Street from 1946 - 1974.

Saint John lawyer Benjamin Rex Guss was a lifelong Tory stalwart. He is shown here in a portrait made c1960. His political ambitions stymied by the 1948 baby selling scandal, he concentrated on his legal career and ultimately was appointed a judge. (Lost Valley Collection)

The Saint John police became aware of the baby smuggling ring sometime in late 1946. Provincial authorities and even the RCMP were made aware of it by the Saint John City and County Children's Aid Society which privately demanded a halt to babies being processed in the city for export to the U.S.A. Mum was the word until Society President Travis W. Cushing decided to expose the traffic to the media. The ring was disclosed at a meeting on May 20, 1948 and it was a bombshell. He said that the C.A.S. had become so distressed by the shear volume of the traffic in Saint John babies, that his group had "snatched" five children from the ring during the previous month. The press came running for more and Cushing played a careful game, only providing names off the record, or in private correspondence with investigators and with the Premier's office. (Premier John McNair was also the Attorney-General of N.B.)

The market was entirely profit oriented he said, with no consideration for the needs of the children, with babies sold for an average of $1,500. He estimated that the leader of the baby-selling-ring was pocketing $1,000 per week, after expenses. The ring had its own boarding house and had insinuated itself inside Saint John hospitals. The C.A.S. reported that at least fifty babies had been sold to Jewish families in three American states, and that the ring had all the advantages - using careful contract language with clients, while maximizing on lax wording or non-existent protection in provincial statutes. Privately the police acknowledged that Guss and his associates could not be charged "since the selling price for children could be described as a high legal fee for arranging adoption."

Travis Cushing and the C.A.S. had made their point and the government was stung. With both the RCMP and FBI actively investigating his baby racket, and the Legislature working to plug the more obvious loopholes, lawyer Ben Guss began to rethink his business strategy. More to the point it was the end of any political ambitions he still harboured. From that point onward he became heavily involved in local causes related to child welfare, cultural development, and Jewish philanthropy, but he knew people in his home town had long memories. He was appointed a Queen's Counsel in 1952 and in August of 1971 he was made a judge of the Family Court Division of the Provincial Court. Today he is known for what he did from 1950 to 1974, the date of his retirement from the practice of law, and nothing is said of the 'Wonder Boy' years when he was expecting to represent his community in Ottawa.

When the Wicker Shopping Basket was King in Saint John

2011-12-06T13:59:00.000-08:00

Before the brown paper grocery bag or the infamous plastic sack, the wicker basket was King in Saint John.

When I was growing up on Churchill Boulevard in the North End, one of the many household items hidden away in our cubby hole was a brown wicker basket. It rarely got used, but it might one day be needed, and therefore we held on to it. I suspect the basket was borrowed from my grandmother, and never returned. My guess is, it got the toss when we left our flat in the Rifle Range, but I recall it was virtually identical to the one above.

Out of curiosity I did a little research, and found more than I can use in a Blog article. Our basket was well travelled. It was made in a little town in Poland, imported into Canada through the Port of Saint John, shipped to Toronto by train, and then sold back to Saint John by a wholesaler. When I was a toddler living on Taylor Avenue, that happy wholesaler was selling 5,000 Polish wicker baskets a year into Saint John. Saint John, N.B. was his top market, and the reason was that Saint John women had grown accustomed to using grocery baskets in the 19th Century. You can find many newspaper accounts of Indians bringing large bundles have hand crafted baskets downriver and selling them wherever crowds gathered - the ferry dock in Indiantown, along Main Street and across Portland Bridge to Saint John street corners.

The square "Hollander" type basket was preferred by my grandmother's generation of women in Saint John because of its exceptionally rigid frame and reinforced handle. You could pound it with canned goods for years, and it would never break down. It's a thing of beauty, light weight and durable. My ancestors immigrated from Sligo into Saint John in the 1830s, and the only change for them was buying baskets from the Indians, rather than using the traditional Irish version.

This photo from 1910 shows a variety of wicker baskets hanging above the canned goods and produce. The grocer made a buck or two for a basket that would take a decade of hard use.

When this photo was taken of Dunham's store in Saint John, round baskets were still the most common. The square Hollander basket became popular in the late 1940s.

This lady, crossing at the head of King Street in 1955, had about all she could carry, but the basket handle kept one hand free. [detail from a photo owned by Grant Kelly in S.J.]

I collect anecdotes about any and all aspects of life in old Saint John, so I had to smile when I read one recently that complimented my research into wicker baskets. Janette Lachance was attending St. Vincent's, the Catholic High School, in 1955. (The year the photo above, was taken) She had a basket on her arm, when she caught the attention of some American sailors in port. They teased her about carrying a "lobster trap". Says Janette, "I used a wicker basket to carry schoolbooks all my years in St. Vincent's."

Heavy canned goods, or a load of text books - all in a days work for a wicker basket.

1908 Birds-eye-view of Saint John, N.B. - when commerce was dramatic

2011-11-30T10:13:00.000-08:00

Visible in this 1908 (BEV) map of Saint John, N.B. are:

A) New Brunswick Cold Storage Co. Limited

B) The Patrick Brown residence, 92 Paradise Row

C) Intercolonial Railway (ICR) Grain Elevator and conveyor line over Mill Street

D) the dome shape of Victoria Skating Rink

E) Union Station, with a streetcar passing in front

F) the Hospital

[scanned by Doreen Hayes]

Everyone loves to pour over antique Birds-Eye-View maps of their city or town. In the 19th Century the B.E.V. was a much desired trophy for successful men of business to hang on the office wall - because the salesmen who canvassed for the Lithographer ensured that every prominent business was drawn in. Even the stately homes were drawn in, with much detail, in the hope that proud homeowners would buy a copy of the B.E.V. portrait of their town. Today, every tourist district from Mexico City to Ottawa offers reproduction B.E.V.s to visitors looking for a quality souvenir.

Several B.E.V. portraits of Saint john were drawn over a 75 year period, and I think the hardest to find is the 1908 view published by James Lovell Wiseman, a Montreal Lithographer. I have never seen an original, but I like it because the Saint John Valley (THE LOST VALLEY) is pencilled in with such dramatic effect. My other favourite is the view of the docks of Montreal Harbour, produced by Wiseman but I am only hunting for an original of the 1908 Saint John map. Until I find one, these scans provided by Doreen Hayes will do.

I do not know what, if any, subscription fees Wiseman charged the businesses which were given prominence in this 1908 map, but I do see that commerce in the old valley was prominent. Saint John had just gone through a building boom, which added approximately $2 million worth of new commercial buildings, and upgrading of the port infrastructure. The port was heavily subsidized by Federal policies and rate structuring, which did promote an air of confidence - that is until a brief economic slump just before WW1.

When one enjoys these old charts, we should not assume that what we see is literal truth. These are promotional products, not faithful renderings. Often these B.E.V.s deceive as much as the old postcards of that era, which removed the poorly dressed pedestrians and the horse apples dropped in front of a proud man's business. For example - "INTERCOLONIAL ELEVATOR". When our ancestors walked down Mill Street they would actually read INTERCOLONIAL RAILWAY on the massive wooden structure. Note that the tenement houses on the north Valley wall are depicted as neatly terraced, but of course nothing was ever so neat on either slope. Folks crowded in wherever they could acquire a lot of sufficient square footage to be able to squeeze in another structure.

1908 Birds Eye View of Saint John, N.B. which was produced by J.L. Wiseman, a Lithographer in Montreal. (This section is the left third of the chart.) This surviving copy of the map, somewhat damaged, was reproduced in the 1970s and given out to retail customers. [These scans provided by Doreen Hayes]

Fortress Saint John - 8th Anti-Aircaft Battery on Fort Howe during WW2

2011-11-11T23:12:00.000-08:00

I do feel guilt for having neglected the LOST VALLEY readership, but I have been flattened by my work commitments of late. Still, Remembrance Day is a good time to make amends, so I thought I would assemble a few items relating to one of my favorite topics - the military history of Fort Howe. Going through old files tonight I had the pleasure or reading a few pieces I had not even looked at since I wrote them in the 1970s. One article, written in 1980, was quite interesting to re-discover. It covers the camouflage schemes used to conceal the coastal artillery and anti-aircraft batteries in and around Saint John during WW2. In it I found details concerning the 8th Anti-Aircraft Battery R.C.A., which was dug in at the eastern end of Fort Howe hill, and camouflaged as well as such an exposed and obvious position might be. Most of the photos used with my article, Harold had found on a research trip to Ottawa.

If any reader has further information on the men named below, I would be happy to add it here.

FORTRESS IN THE SHADOWS: Camouflage Deception in Saint John 1940-1944 was published in NEW BRUNSWICK magazine, Vol. 5, No. 4, 1980. Article written by Ronald Jack and the D.N.D. Ottawa photos supplied by Harold Wright. We were students back then, but we knew our stuff.

A souvenir wall pennant made for the 8th Anti-Aircraft Battery canteen in Saint John, N.B. probably at the end of WW2. One example recently sold on Ebay for $15.

Some men from the 8th A.A. Battery pose with a 3.7 inch A.A. gun on Fort Howe hill, 1941.

A partial ID of the names include (L to R) Acting Sgt. Les Cull, Bombardier R. Collins, Bdr. Clifton Lovett, Sgt. Olie Cormier, and two unknowns.

Seven Saint John gunners of the 8th Anti-Aircaft Battery gather in the cookhouse. The names are, (L to R) are Reg Tapley, O. Cormier, O. Oram, A. Whittaker, F. Jones, Joseph McFarlane and Leo Conway. The date was 2 September 1939. Note that Gunner Cormier is wearing a sweatshirt with "8TH A.A. BTY". Most of the men purchased one of the locally printed sweatshirts.

Brigadier Phillip W. Oland was a WW2 veteran. He died in Rothesay, N.B. on Nov. 29, 1996. Demobilized in August 1945, he returned to Saint John, and in October 1945 was given command of the 8th A.A. Battery. The appointment lasted only one month as Fort Howe battery and other gun positions in and around Saint John were stripped of their weapons and stores.

Nov. 26/11 - Reader Response

I thought I would share the response of Harvey Kennedy, who contacted me by email. Harvey, who joined the RCAF in the jet age, recalled playing the War Heroes game with his chums in the gun pits and shelters on top of Fort Howe hill circa 1946, after the site was abandoned and the guns and military stores removed. He was student at St. Peter's School, behind Fort Howe.

In your last blog you mentioned Fort Howe during the war years , in particular the camouflaged bunkers that were built. A half dozen of us kids made good use of them after the war fighting thousands of the enemy and we always came out unscathed.--beats the hell out of the electronic games nowadays.

In the

1940's I was 7-11 years old and had a great time exploring life and events in the old city... we lived on Moore Street and I was one of eight kids in rough times as a lot of people were in those years...War movies as you know were a common past time with kids, as were Westerns, so to my way of putting it...they were the catalyst for the chemistry to spark the imagination. Another thing is we all wanted to be the star from the movie so that was determined and away we went."

The K-CLUB Army Camp - Echoes of WW2 in the North End

2011-08-28T19:20:00.000-07:00

Since my article (below) was web-published six months ago, a sharper version of the SHAMROCK PARK photo has come to light. We now know this photo was taken by Saint John photographer Joe Michaud in 1954. I wasn't too far off in dating it as "Circa 1950". Vintage Photo & Frame Ltd have the original negative and can sell you a print.

So much interesting correspondence was generated by the previous article on Main Street in the 1950s-60s and the arrival of the Fairview Shopping Plaza, that I felt I should do a followup. Today I concentrate on what was there before a wide swath of Crescent Valley was paved over for Fairview Plaza parking. I suppose I am not straying too far off topic, because the postwar reality was that hundreds of working class families, including my own, left the tenements of the Portland Valley and foreshore and took up residence in the government housing projects built in the Rifle Range (later termed Crescent Valley).

Air photo of the "K-CLUB" army camp, taken August 4, 1942. The vehicle entrance was at the end of Lansdowne Avenue, which is easy to see here. In the 1930s the local chapter of the Kiwanis Club maintained a sandlot ball field /circus ground between Lansdowne and Adelaide. A rifle range and war gases range was built for the training of infantry housed at the camp, which is why the postwar neighborhood took on the name of the "Rifle Range". (I have a photo of an old blue S.J. transit bus with RIFLE RANGE displayed above the drivers head.) A trimmed version of this photo resides on a website run by staff at a S.J. community college. The photo credit is - Directorate of History and Heritage, D.N.D., Ottawa.

This shot is fabulous because it shows St. Lukes Church from the air, before Metcalfe Street was put in between Adelaide and Lansdowne. That really bothers me because the 1925 street map clearly shows that block of Metcalfe already existing - and fully 60 feet wide. This aerial photo shows a stretch of winding dirt track. That would make the photo pre-1925, which I doubt. The photograph illustrated a memoir written by the late Harold McQuinn, which was published by the Times-Globe in 1996. The pen lines across the image are detailed annotations made for me the parents of Paul Cusack, who for 17 years operated a Florist business across the street from Fairview Plaza.

I have never seen ANY photographs taken from the spire of St. Lukes, and yet any North End photographer might have begged for the opportunity to shoot from that vantage point. The bell tower would have been the best position prior to WW2, from which to photograph the old Kiwanis Grounds and the adjacent Shamrock [Baseball] Club Grounds. The problem was that the old facilities, including the older Dominion of Canada Rifle Range, were not attractive to the camera, in spite of the large crowds which used to gather for events. In the photo we can just see the bleachers of the K-Club, a field which was completely fenced in, as well as the intersection of Lansdowne Avenue and Main Street which was discussed in the previous article.

I tentatively date this photo of the old Shamrock Park, as circa 1950. When the municipality took over the land after WW2, the first thought was to revert to its old use - recreational activities. An oval track was laid out and playground equipment installed. This is an "event" photo, with almost 40 children visible, under magnification, and cars in the parking lot. The cluster of tenements in the background, festooned with lines of wet washing, are on Metcalfe and Adelaide Streets. This corner of the playing field is well to the west of the acreage covered in the 1942 aerial photo of the army camp. By the 1950s government housing projects were going up from one end of the valley to the other, and then the city approved redevelopment of the park as a shopping centre. Shamrock Park was relocated a few blocks beyond Adelaide Street. [Photo - Wesley Foster]

Earlier this week I discussed this photo with a few LOST VALLEY stalwarts and I couldn't resist pointing out the boy climbing the swing set. Note that the chains and seats are either missing or haven't yet been installed. North End kids, its so true, were always very rough on playground equipment and public monuments. I thought of that when this past spring the press covered a new aqua-playground which was installed in the Courts off Churchill Blvd., at a cost of over half a million dollars. I noticed that it was engineered to resist the destructive capabilities of today's urban youth. Of course when you over do the child proofing, you sometimes end up with a playground that looks like the steel and wood obstacles Albert Speer used to defend the beaches of Normandy.

When Main Street was still part of the N.B. Provincial Highway System

2011-08-13T09:18:00.000-07:00

This is a photo I used in a previous article. Taken c.1958, it shows two Saint John policemen directing traffic on Main Street, possibly because the power was out at the intersection lights. One officer is cropped from the image and the other is a block downhill, but their vehicle is visible below the Irving Oil Sign. This section of Main Street was then part of the N.B. Provincial Highway system and it was designated part of Routes 1 and 2. The photo shows the tail of a truck which has just turned onto Douglas Avenue, heading for the Falls Bridge.

This photo was taken down slope a few years after Fairview Saint John Plaza had been constructed. (It opened in 1961) The Irving gas filling station is visible in the far distance. The illuminated sign shows how Routes 1 and 2 traffic had been diverted briefly in the 1960s, which required the tourist maps to be amended. The posted speed limit for this block of Main Street was 15 MPH in the 1960s. Fairview Plaza is today a shadow of what it once was, as the North End was depopulated by an extraordinary out migration accelerated by urban renewal schemes.

The hybrid traffic diverter put in at the intersection of Main and Lansdowne was remarkable. It placed an illuminated commercial sign out in the middle of a busy arterial with no curbing, (perhaps FAIRVIEW SHOPPING CENTRES LTD. paid for the work?) and even though there was a small striped warning sign at its base, I do wonder if any driver ever plowed into it. I recall that in the early 1970s there were squat, square concrete boxes placed at intervals on Main Street, between Elm and Lansdowne. I have a distinct memory of standing at the window in Miss Murray's classroom at St. Peters Intermediate, and looking down at the intersection of Main and Elm. I caught the instant when a car plowed into one of those median barriers.

A 50 year old tourist map indicates Routes 1 and 2, which included Main Street from Douglas Avenue to the Mill Street Viaduct. Note "Proposed Shopping Centre" astride Lansdowne Avenue. This became Fairview Plaza, Saint John's first shopping centre. The project used up most of the property that had been the old Kiwanis Grounds and it was intended to revitalize the North End. It did that, but only for a few years. For one generation at least, the plaza was a neighborhood focal point as its offerings included SEARS, a laundromat and a bowling alley.

[My mother worked for a time as a cashier in the DOMINION store and I recall lugging the "specials" home on my shoulder - it might be a 50 pound bag of potatoes or Campbell's tomato soup when they were "on," five or six cans for a dollar. The annual University Women's Club book sale was usually held in Fairview Plaza and my back has never forgiven me for the time, circa 1973, when I filled a whole banana box with books and somehow dragged it down to our flat at the far end of Churchill Blvd.]

LOST VALLEY reader Al Graham sent a query about the metal "M" which formed part of the support bracket for the traffic lights on either side of Main Street, at the corner of Douglas Avenue. There would seem no point to indicating "M" - Main Street, so my thought is that it referred to the Main Routes 1 and 2. But I just do not know. Perhaps another reader can give Al the answer he seeks. [Reader comments - Below - provide answers.]

Will Saint John's Catholic Cathedral be Saved?

2011-07-26T07:33:00.000-07:00

Few institutions in Saint John have much hope of surviving the wrecker's ball, but the one structure which seemed impregnable is the enclave of Patrician families whose lineage stretches back to the industrial and mercantile growth era of the 19th Century. The ghastly murder which shattered the Oland family will produce repercussions indefinitely, but I worry that in the near term it may have contributed to the demise of Saint John's Catholic cathedral.

There were several factors which contributed to Saint John's decline in the closing decades of the 20th Century. The program of creative destruction known as "Urban Renewal" was but a precursor, and truth be told, social change made it very unlikely that old city would hold together. Birth control, the decline of Christianity and the political mantra of the Canada Health Act first, last and forever, pretty well guarantees that the present will always remain irrevocably disconnected from the past. Still, there is something to be said for a stubborn determination to remember where we came from.

I have been thinking of late about the Cathedral of the Immaculate Conception, a landmark heritage building which continues to serve its original purpose, but which is broke. In Saint John an institution which does not have its beak in the public $$ trough, has virtually no chance of survival... unless it attracts a champion with a loud voice and a shillelagh in his mitts. Richard "Dick" Oland might have become that man. On July 5th Mr. Oland held talks with Catholic Bishop Robert Harris, the subject of which was his crafting of a fund raising campaign to finance the urgently needed repairs. The roof of the cathedral is shot, and when it rains buckets and plastic sheets are deployed under five leaks. The building, erected in the 1850s, does not meet current code and ballpark estimates of the money needed for repair and upgrading span from ten to twenty million dollars. Oland was the most experienced fund raiser to step forward so far, and now that he has been murdered the Bishop may not find another civiv leader to speak up for one of Saint John's most important houses of worship.

A rare view of uptown Saint John in which the only spire visible is that of the Catholic Cathedral. Taken circa 1930, this FOLKARD shot directs the eye north toward the Valley. The Cathedral spire dominates the skyline but its silhouette is merged with the broad shoulders of newly constructed Saint John General Hospital.

FOLKARD Letter Cards were printed by the U.S. company's Montreal subsidiary. This example notes that "Saint John has 35 schools, 63 churches. 16 banks, 2 radio stations, and numerous industrial plants, as well as the largest Dry Dock in the British Empire." Not... any... more.

Concerned about what the death of Dick Oland might mean to the health of one of Canada's few great cathedrals, I gave thought over the weekend to what I might write here. It was startling to read in this morning's edition of the Saint John newspaper, the TELEGRAPH JOURNAL, no update at all (or editorial) on the Oland murder investigation, but instead an opinion column written by Maureen Dowd, of the NEW YORK TIMES - "The End of Awe". The T.J. doesn't carry the Times column, so why did they choose to buy and publish this Dowd column in particular? Dowd quotes a fiery speech given by Ireland's political leader, in which he thoroughly denounced the Catholic Church. His opportunity to launch an assault was the release of an official report on the pedophilia scandal in Ireland, and Enda Kenny did not pull his punches. The report, he says, "excavates the dysfunction, disconnection, elitism, the narcissism that dominate the culture of the Vatican to this day. The rape and torture of children were downplayed or 'managed' to uphold, instead, the primacy of the institution, its power, standing and 'reputation'. " Well fine, we all loath pedophiles, especially teacher and priest sex predators, but Saint John has a long history of sectarianism, and this 21st Century assault on the Catholic church is an echo of age old sentiments. Does the populace of Southern New Brunswick really care about Irish politics, or what Ms. Dowd of New York thinks about the Vatican? No.

[AUG. 9 - I correct myself: A couple of well travelled copies of the TELEGRAPH JOURNAL reached me yesterday, and I see that Ms. Dowd's NYT column IS in fact run in the T.J. every Tuesday. I'm extracting a few East Coast terms to share with students. It's fun to spot terms like "cop cars" in a newspaper article. Incredibly, the SJPD has yet to make an arrest in the infamous Oland axe murder case. The national papers lost interest two weeks ago.]

The roof of Saint John's Catholic Cathedral leaks in five places, damaging the ceilings and walls as well as creating a slipping hazard for the mostly senior parishioners. When it rains many oak pews are shrouded in plastic sheet and the sound of water dripping into plastic buckets creates a forlorn atmosphere. (Paul Cusack photograph)

What concerns me is that the Cathedral of the Immaculate Conception needs many friends or it may vanish. The City of Saint John would be acting within the law to demand it be repaired or closed, and that may well happen. As the TELEGRAPH JOURNAL is the primary means of selling ideas in the old city, a staff which harbours antagonisms to the Catholic Church may guarantee that any Cathedral fund raising effort may get lukewarm press, if indeed "God's house" gets any supportive press at all.

The Cathedral of the Immaculate Conception in Saint John. The historic structure was consecrated in 1855 A.D. and is still operating, although in dire need of repair. This photo emphasizes the detail of the stone masonry. The recently restored west wall was a restoration project which cost $1.2 million. It exhausted all available funds. (Paul Cusack photograph)

My special thanks to Paul Cusack of North End Saint John, a very supportive reader of the LOST VALLEY BLOG. Paul provided a wonderful selection of photos of the cathedral, from which I was invited to pick.

North End Saint John - are these its last days?

2011-07-05T13:37:00.000-07:00

Last week we took a five day road trip down to Astoria and Portland. I enjoy Oregon and its welcoming spirit, and I am drawn to the coastal city of Astoria in particular. I've been there before and I do know why I returned. The old port city at the mouth of the Columbia River has preserved enough of its original architecture - private homes, tenements and public buildings, that any nostalgic visitor will feel an instant connection to the past. I am one who appreciates the authentic when I find it. I have at hand the brochure of a preservation society which recently conducted a survey and discovered "that at least 500 homes built in Astoria before 1900 are still in use as residences". Indeed, as we threaded our way through a century old neighborhood one evening last week, we could marvel at entire streets which are still largely intact. Some residences are carefully tended while others are needing repair... but all homes co-exist, just as the working poor co-exist with the affluent. There was no litter, abandoned cars or any overt evidence of crime. As I turned to look down at the commercial waterfront, I felt a very tangible sense of place - a deeply satisfying feeling which I have rarely had since leaving the North End for good in 1981.

The Telegraph Journal in Saint John has just completed a series of reports on the sustained erosion of living conditions in the North End. I knew there wasn't much left to lose, but I had hoped that standards had stabilized. Incredible as it may seem, there are now only about 1,800 people in what is termed "the Old North End". Proof positive that the wholesale demolition of neighborhoods in the 1970s, which extended from Main Street eastward, triggered a process from which Saint John has never recovered. "Creative destruction" is a dangerous gambit, and most cities prefer to allow the inner core to evolve through periodic infill, rather than opting for "Urban Renewal" demolitions which drive out all the small proprietorships contributing to the fabric of any downtown.

The residents of this old house on the corner of Albert and Victoria Streets in Saint John, has been giving the police headaches. Should Prince William and his lovely Kate ever accept an invitation to visit Canada oldest incorporated city, I doubt they will be taken to this street corner, named for Queen Victoria and her husband Albert.

In the North End many of the older properties would not yield sufficient rent to cover the cost of maintaining them, and dozens were boarded up by their owners. This created opportunity for a new generation of arsonists. Saint John has always been a city of "firebugs" but the figures reported in the paper are nothing short of tragic. From 2006 to date, there have been 117 acts of arson in North End buildings, which are not described as homes but as "housing stock". [Jargon hurts. It never helps.] A frustrated Staff Sergeant with 40 years on the S.J. Police Force, says that crime in the "old" North End is the worst he's ever seen it. "It's related to drugs. Plain and simple." Crack cocaine is now "the drug of choice" in Saint John and in spite of record levels of poverty, record volumes of drugs do flow. It was reported, for example, that "$400.000" worth of cocaine was seized in a raid this past March.

The principal of Lorne Middle School, one of the few schools still running in the depopulated North End, deals with drugs on a daily basis, noting: "... it's normal for Grade 6, 7 and 8 students to start the school days high on marijuana". His working reality contradicts the opinion of a North End community activist who claims that of the 1,800 remaining residents there are "probably fewer than a dozen people who cause all the trouble". Well NO. The evidence paints a dismal portrait of a community where there are hundreds of people causing trouble. The North End always had its aches and pains, but in my day the chief concern for boys and girls was avoiding getting beaten up by the Black kids. Drugs were almost non-existent in the schools and we never gave a thought to bullets coming through the window or the house next door being lit up by an arsonist. At the current rate of attrition the remaining heritage properties in the North End will be disposed of by fire before the decade is out, and the term "Old North End" will drop out of use.

All may not be lost. Clearly there are residents in the "Old North End" who still maintain their properties, and a few more willing to give the neighborhood a chance. This four bedroom house at 64 Albert Street sold on June 3oth for $73,500. Annual municipal taxes $1,393.

The Great Saint John Fire of June 20, 1877

2011-06-17T08:28:00.000-07:00

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June 20 is the anniversary of the "Great Saint John Fire 0f 1877", so it seems appropriate to finally cover it here in the Lost Valley blog. I must confess that there were other Saint John conflagrations which attract my interest, especially those which broke out in Portland near the waterfront. There were many, many of those. The Valley did though, play a supportive role in the tragic fire of 1877. It was in the valley that many families, and uncounted wagon loads of household and commercial goods took shelter, while the "fire demon" was hungrily licking the wooden structures in Saint John. It was to the ICR train station that the Western Union Telegraph Office was relocated, even as the fires were spreading. The first news the outside world had that Saint John was burning, was transmitted from the valley, and it is recorded that hooligans cut the line in attempt to isolate the town, and the telegraph line was then put under guard. Relief supplies began to pour into the city and it was all coordinated by The St. John Relief and Aid Society, which established its warehouse and distribution center inside the Victoria skating rink, alongside the Inter Colonial Railway tracks in the Valley.

The Isaac Erb (not "Erl") stereo photo of the INTERNATIONAL HOTEL sold for $37.76 which is to be expected. Saint John fire stereos are rather common but this one is scarce. The owner of the hotel, an American, chose not to rebuild after the fire and he returned to New England. The name "International Hotel" was therefore up for grabs, and for a time it was used by a lodging house in the Valley, near the train station.

For we Saint John expatriates, Ebay is a convenient source of early stereo views of Portland and Saint John. Among the most commonly found are McClure, Climo and Simonson images of The Great Fire of June 20, 1877. It was a disaster which all local photographers scrambled to cover. Within a few days they were offering dozens of different images for stereo viewers which documented the smoking ruins as well as how some of the more prominent buildings appeared before they were consumed by flames. The greater number of these stereoviews were exported to New England, to relatives starving for news.

Today the U.S. is where most of these camera artifacts surface, and so far this month three lots of Saint John views have popped up on Ebay. I consult online markets regularly but I never bid on Saint John material. With stereo images like these, you don't need to make a purchase as the vendors usually offer a sharp scan, larger than the original image surface, in order to entice buyers. It is sufficient for me to copy the images to file, as I usually just need to reference the information the photographer recorded. Lost Valley stereos are far less common, but they do turn up. If I need to use an image to illustrate my writing, there is no copyright on any of these old images. The New Brunswick Museum in Saint John understands this fact, which explains their online gallery of Great Fire stereoviews. The images are so small that they are scarcely worth looking at. For historians or the collectors out there, the N.B.M. stereographic gallery serves only as a checklist.

James McClure left Saint John for Massachusetts circa 1881, possibly taking his cameras and much of his stock with him. I like the succinctness of his labels and the fact that he spelled the city name out in full.

"MARKET SQUARE, SAINT JOHN, N.B." by James McClure, sold for $12.53 plus postage last week on Ebay. The image has faded but we can see the problem McClure had with long exposure time. There are ten carts or carriages in the image and approximately thirty people, but because they are unaware of the photographer they do not stand still for him. It is one of the few "action shots" we have of the aftermath.

THE STORY OF THE GREAT FIRE IN ST. JOHN, N.B. by George Stewart, Jr. This is the cover of the paperback reprint produced in 1980 by NON-ENTITY PRESS, which used the McClure image of the rubble at Market Square. As you can see I paid the princely sum of $9.95 at the time, but it has been a handy reference all these years. Stewart selected from the dozens of stereo views of the fire available to him in 1877, and in a cost saving measure had a firm in Montreal prepare simple sketch facsimiles of the photos for his book. This removed all the blurred people and horse carts who had moved during the long exposures made by the photographers, or indeed inserted a few human figures for a sense of scale.
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ROY LONDON - " Brother, there was a man! "

2011-06-09T19:06:00.000-07:00

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Roy London's three abiding passions were his family, his work and hockey. A North Ender born and raised, he had lost both parents and begun providing for his siblings at the tender age of eleven. Then he married and had five kids of his own. His daughter, Nancy Hatfield, remembers him with pride.

Roy Burton London had a very short childhood. Born on May 31, 1916 his playground was the industrialized Valley, where Saint John's working class shared their living space with trucks, trolleys and steam trains. He got just a start at a formal education, attending Winter Street and Dufferin Schools, before the adult world crashed down upon him. His Dad, Walter Haslett London, was a blacksmith supporting a large family on a tradesman's pay. Married to Bessie Jane Garnett, life was a struggle with few rewards. They moved their brood from flat to flat, talking of owning a home, but never achieving the dream. Roy watched and learned.

"His father died when Roy was 10 and his mother Bessie Jane died when he was 12. That is when he went to work. There were four boys and three girls to feed and clothe and yet he saved a down payment for a house. He worked and helped maintain the house at 39 Barker Street [near Fort Howe] which is still there, until he married my mother. ... His first job was selling newspapers in front of the City Market. "

Though underage, Roy displayed all the qualities of a working man, and he was respected for it. His uncle, a boilermaker at St. John Iron Works decided to speak for him. "His uncle, Bill Ganderton worked with C.N. Wilson (owner of the Dry Dock) and got him a job when his mother died. [Wilson believed in taking care of family and had relatives of his own working for the Drydock and associated companies.] Roy started out at the Dry Dock as a water boy, carrying water in buckets. He ended up a Foreman for the Boiler Shop." When he finally retired Roy had worked over a half century at the shipyard. He was begged to return to consultant on a big job, but refused. "Dad had accumulated a wealth of knowledge which he never shared with anyone. He always told us if you show someone how to do your job, then you are replaceable."

When Roy London (centre) retired from Saint John Shipbuilding and Drydock in 1981 he had 52 years of service. On the occasion he was joined by his brother Ralph London for a photo with company Chairman J.K. Irving. Ralph had retired from the drydock in 1977 with over 51 years, giving the brothers a combined record of 103 years - both in the Boilermaking Department. The London's had helped install or to repair the propulsion systems of every type of vessel worked on in Saint John, from tugboats to aircraft carriers.

Roy Burton's start date at the Saint John Dry Dock was October 14, 1929. He was thirteen years old. He essentially grew up on Main Street, his Dad having moved them to 424 Main a few years before he died. The first ten years of Roy's wages went to supporting his siblings and establishing a home of their own on Barker Street, well above the soot and diesel fumes of the Valley. In 1940, the shipyard was booming with big military contracts and wages were up. Now 24, and very confident in his ability to provide, Roy took himself a bride. Lucy Nickerson was a Catholic girl from High Street, and Catholics had a lot of kids.

"My mother was a devout Catholic, so she would not marry outside her church. [The London's married in St. Peter's Rectory.] I don't know what miracle she used to have that done but she did. My Dad was Anglican but knelt to say his prayers every night and came to church with us on Christmas, Easter and anytime one of us made our first communion."

Rock Street is one of the shortest streets in the old Valley, and is located half way up the slope of the south Valley wall. It was once a thriving enclave of working class families but now, scraped clean of people and buildings, it is a reminder of the failed experiment called urban renewal. In 1910 Walter H. London, a Black Smith, lived at 22 Rock Street with his young family. By 1912 he and wife Bessie Jane Garnett had carried their household possessions across the street to a better flat at 47 Rock Street. After WW1 they moved to a flat on Main Street. This Google Street View shows 22 Rock Street, a blue three storey rental property, recently listed for $129,900. It is the sole holdout on the old street below St. Joseph's Hospital.

Roy London had a passion for hockey and the tough routines of the industrial shop kept his body in shape. Here he poses in the team uniform of the Saint John BISONS in the old Forum, at 130-150 Main Street.

"My Dad played hockey all of his life. My sister remembers that he and his brothers built a rink behind the house on Barker Street (which would have been between Barker and Wellesley Avenue) every winter and hockey was their life (after work and chores). So, I guess that is where his love of hockey came in. He played at the Old Forum in the North End and at the Beaverbrook Rink. I have a picture of what they called the War Workers Hockey League

The Saint John Drydock Royals pose for a team photo, circa 1944. Roy London is 2nd from the right, in front. Dave Garnett is 2nd from left, in front. Ralph London is 2nd player from the left, back row. When World War Two threatened to bring Saint John hockey to a standstill, two leagues persisted - the Saint John Army Garrison and the Saint John War Workers, giving fans a few teams to support.

After the war Roy found time to develop local talent. He was the coach of the SILVER FALLS ACES for several years, taking the Princial Cup in the 1952-53 season. Incredibly, he remained fit and athletically active even after he retired from the shipyard. "Dad played hockey at Lily Lake well into his seventies. He was quite a legend at the lake. Someone said: "The old guy was a puck hog and so small and wiry you couldn't get the puck away from him."

Roy worked hard and he played hard but he also took family very seriously. "He had five children and a wife (sons Roy, Garnett and Terry and daughters Nancy and Patricia) and we never went hungry because of his had work." In our time union wages and benefits can make people over confident about their future, but Roy came up through leaner times. He never trusted in his union seniority to protect him. In 1961 over a thousand employees of the Saint John shipyard walked off the job for five weeks. Roy's hourly wage was $1.88 per hour and he lost 5 1/2 weeks of work for a 9 cent increase, staged over a year in 3 cent increments! As a precaution Roy was always using weekends and holidays to build up his savings. "My Dad mowed lawns all summer for the rich people in West Saint John's Duck Cove area. He did this after supper, with the help of us kids, after a long day's work. He also sold Watkin's Products to coworkers and everyone he knew. He sold Irish Sweepstakes tickets (which I know was not legal) but my Dad worked at everything and anything he could."

Roy wanted to instill his values and his work ethic in his children. "He had a passion for gardening and grew gladiolas and other flowers to sell to stores. Our yard on Garnett Road looked like the Garden of Eden in summer. He loved his hand-dug, hand-shaped flower beds and had a knack for colour and composition. He cultivated raspberries, which we picked each year and sold to go to the Exhibition. If you didn't earn it, you didn't go. He sure taught us the value of money. " Roy amassed enough of a reserve to support himself and his family till the end of his days. Nancy said Roy told stories of unbelievable childhood hardship, including a fond memory of a kind stranger in uptown Saint John took him to a shoe store to buy the first new pair of shoes he ever wore. She added wryly: "He saved all his life and had a fear of poverty, so we were poor but had money in the bank that never got spent. Ha Ha."

Roy London never trusted his union job to guarantee him protection from unemployment and poverty. All of his life he supplemented his wages with self employment, including selling "Watkins Products". Watkins was, and is, a U.S. direct marketing company (some say the first one) which entered Canada in 1913. This is a magazine Ad published in 1953, perhaps the very one that enticed Roy Burton into giving it a try.

The Sealed Train - German POWs at Union Station 1945

2011-04-18T19:19:00.000-07:00

The shelters over the passenger platforms at Union Station in Saint John show up well in this 1956 photograph. It was taken from the NBTEL building. I have indicated 92 Paradise Row, where my mothers family lived and the backyard from where she made dangerous forays across the tracks to steal ice from rail cars. (Photo from the Collection of Bob Boudreau)

For over 75 years the house at 92 Paradise Row overlooked the rail yard in the Valley. When Patrick Brown bought the house in 1903 the original Union Depot still stood and the Intercolonial Grain Elevator had not yet been constructed. In the 1940s, when Joyce Brown was a girl, the busy station was just one large feature of the neighborhood landscape. Open boxcars were opportunities for curious children, especially on a Sunday when the station was less busy. She recalls that a neighbor lady, Mrs. Moore, would give her "an old chipped enamel dishpan" to fill with a block of ice from any refrigerated boxcar she could get into. It was a hard way to make a nickle. "One time her son, Barry Moore, locked the hatch on me and wouldn't let me out until I'd had a good long cry."

One of my mother's often told stories involves the Canadian soldiers returning from the war in 1945-46. Troop trains in the station would be packed with servicemen who were very excited to be home. Many of them delighted in chatting with Saint John kids, perhaps in anticipation of their own family reunions somewhere in Canada. Most of the men still had unspent European coins in the pockets of their battle dress, and my mother was given many of them. In another act of adult kindness, she and other kids were welcome to bring small change to the Bank of Nova Scotia branch on Main Street for exchange.

Recently I asked Orin Manitt for some recollections of a his boyhood living alongside the second Union Station. I pointed out that most anecdotes I had on file were purely visual, and I asked what he recalled of the soundscape. In part, this is his answer:

Nazi Prison Train. I vividly recall an event that, as far as I know, happened only once in Saint John. I'll date it as August 1945, and I may not be far wrong. At wars end I was eight years old. While I was playing with friends on Lombard Street early one evening, a train slowly approached from the east. What I found strange, or different, was the quiet of it all. There were no bells or whistles, no hissing of steam or the usual screech of iron wheels on iron tracks. The train came to a dead stop right in front of us and, within the blink of an eye, armed Canadian soldiers took up positions on either side of the train.

We realized with astonishment that the train was full of German soldiers, and scrabbled up the fence, holding ourselves across the top of it by outspread elbows, to get a trackside view. I was surprised to see machine guns in the aisles of the train cars, but guessed correctly that they had been put out of commission long before.

Our Canadian infantrymen were not happy to see and hear a passel of very curious and energetic boys suddenly shouting and shaking fists at the prisoners on the train. Most of those P.O.W.s ignored us - the windows had been sealed shut, so I had heard - but one fellow jumped out of his seat and began raging at us, even though we could not hear him. He was clearly very angry, and I had the chilling thought that he would have killed us very easily and very quickly. I was jostling with another boy for position along the fence when he seemed to stare straight at me and shake his fist. It was not a pleasant feeling. The Canadian sentries then shooed us away from the fence, and it was not long before the sealed train began to proceed west.

Many years later I learned there was a POW camp just north of Fredericton; but I did not know anything about that at the time, and the Germans may have been taken further on to another province. The only other memory that I have of that encounter with the enemy is that there were no adults on the fence or on Lombard Street at the time. And that makes sense because there would not likely have been any publicity about German soldiers passing through our fair city.

I know of the wartime camp Orin is referring to. We now have an entire shelf of books on the Canadian camps built for Axis P.O.W.s in WW2, but I can remember a time when there were none. Ted Jones, a Fredericton high school teacher, was the first to investigate Camp 70 – or Camp B, which confined Wehrmacht prisoners at Ripples, N.B. I remember his series in the ATLANTIC ADVOCATE magazine, which later became a major book project. An October 1989 CBC TV interview with Jones, The Remains of Camp 70, is archived online. In the segment he describes Camp B and shares images from his research collection. It’s here.

Bob Boyce of the Saint John Society of Model Railroaders created this wonderful trackside diorama of Lombard Street as it was in 1972. The only structure in the recreation which still exists is the small white warehouse building on the left edge of the photograph. - Note the fence. This is the spot where eight year old Orin Manitt stood in 1945 jeering at Nazi POWs who had silently entered the Valley.

STEAM TRAINS - Ah yes, the railway and Union Station! I loved it all. The rail yard was very busy and, at times, very noisy ! But, you know, I do not remember anyone complaining about it. My very first ambition in life, formulated at a very tender age, was to become an "engineer". I wanted to drive a steam locomotive. I recall that I loved the power of those unbelievably huge machines belching coal-black smoke with their steel wheels actually spinning one or two rotations on the steel tracks as they began to move forward from a stationary position. As they picked up speed, the smoke came in ever-increasing blasts straight up from their stacks. The chug-chug kept getting louder until the train was under a full head of steam. By then, of course, the trains would have cleared the station area.

Adding to the noise which so impressed the kids, was the venting of massive amounts of steam from those great engines, and a lot of steam there was, too. I imagined myself sitting on the raised seat by the window high up on the locomotive where the engineer sat, almost half out the window (or so it seemed), surveying the whole world in front of me. I recall there was also a lot of general "grunt" work in the rail yard: locomotives shunting boxcars from one siding onto another, that sort of thing. As a consequence, there was a lot of "banging", for lack of a better word, as cars were coupled and uncoupled. And the continual screech and squeal of iron on iron, the grinding of wheels rolling on the tracks, And how I remember the belching black smoke!

Right at the eastern end of Lombard Street was the "foot bridge", little more than an open, steel-framed structure with only a wooden deck and wide wooden stairs at either end that allowed pedestrian traffic to cross back and forth over the railway tracks between Lombard Street and Pond Street (later Station Street). One of our favourite childhood pastimes was to run up the stairs and position ourselves on the walkway right over the tracks beneath us on which a train was chugging along. As the train passed under the bridge, we would become totally enveloped by the mass of heavy, thick smoke billowing furiously around us. With only the wooden planking of the walkway separating us from the tumultuous roar directly underneath, we became animated by the cloud of darkness, dancing and whooping out until the smoke cleared. I suffered from bronchitis more times than I can remember, missing school on several occasions. No one ever made the connection, but we all somehow survived as our years of innocence inexorably passed away.

Enlarged detail from the 1956 photo at the head of this article enhances Orin's story. The Lombard Street foot bridge is on the left, and the Wall Street bridge is on the right. Note a string of boxcars sidetracked between the spans. (Photo from collection of Bob Boudreau)

Gordon Smith, a few years older than me, was a brave if not reckless young boy. He was very happy-go-lucky and seemed not to be aware of danger. On one occasion on the foot bridge, after the locomotive of a long, slow-moving train had passed under us, he decided he was going to jump onto one of the boxcars. I recall that we told him not to try it but, without any further ado, he sat on the deck and, holding on to the slats of the framework, eased himself to the outside. He then let his body hang down as the train continued to pass underneath. I don't think that the four or five us there at that moment fully understood the danger either, but I also recall that we were basically stunned into silence. As well, I clearly recall thinking that if Gordon didn't time himself correctly, he would fall between the cars and be killed. It was that simple.

Then Gordon released his grip and landed effortlessly on a car. As agile as a monkey, he scrambled across the top of the car, down a steel ladder, and jumped the remaining few feet to the ground as the train inched along. He looked very proud of himself, as if he had just conquered the universe - which, for my money, he had ! And he had also managed to avoid the railway police who were always on the lookout for kids playing on the tracks or in empty boxcars. (They caught me once - literally - and let me go only after they telephoned my mother. When my father got home from work, he gave me the strap).

I experienced my own version of "riding the rails", but it was small potatoes compared to Gordon's great achievement. I hopped onto the side ladder of a boxcar as a train was moving east, but chickened out when the train got to Gilbert's Lane (Haymarket Square, Marsh Creek, etc.). I had no idea where it was going, but it was not stopping and I was afraid it might speed up. I did that a few times, but never went very far.

I believe that it was around 1950, I'm not sure of the year, that the age of steam finally came to an end. I remember the diesel trains and the sound of them, and was not impressed. I didn't like the smell of diesel oil, and that only added to my disdain. My days of adventure on the railroad had finally run their course, as life presented me with new challenges and new directions.

ROCKLAND ROAD FIRE - Dec 1977 - "A doozer of a fire Uncle Fred would have loved"

2011-03-06T07:30:00.000-08:00

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Since 2007 I have received email from a dozen or more people suggesting that I write about Rockland Road and other streets on the Fort Howe side of the Lost Valley. While I do have plenty of material, I have always wanted to build articles around specific families. Thousands of families have lived on the massive stone face of Fort Howe hill, and in the 19th Century "Fort Howe" was an accepted address with the Post Office and the local newspapers. A few times I have come close to finishing articles, but did not publish because the person spurring me on at that particular moment sent anecdotes but no photos of family.

Working with a PC has spoiled me, and I rarely dip into my old Saint John clipping files. (The old yellowed clippings fill a banker box I lugged to B.C. in 1981.) Yesterday I came across a Charles Lynch story which I had filed under "Urban Renewal" instead of the slightly more appropriate "Saint John Fires". I'll get to that later.

Charles Lynch was an accomplished and well travelled Saint Johner. Long ago, when I did a minor in Asian Studies at U.N.B., I acquired a copy of his 1965 book CHINA: One Fourth of the World. During two months of research in that country Lynch argued down every Maoist cadre who attempted to slip him a bill of propaganda, or to bash the Americans. His assessment of why the Chinese would fail in attempts to export Maoist revolution to the Third World was accurate: "...the Chinese system of communism is non-exportable, if only for the simple reason that no other people in the world, underprivileged or otherwise, will work as hard as the Chinese do, or submit so readily to regimentation."

In 1977 Charles Lynch was awarded the Order of Canada, and was producing a bi-weekly column for Southam Press. In December he visited family in North End, Saint John and filed a couple of breezy columns from his hometown. I was a freshman at U.N.B.S.J. when his account of the Rockland Road fire of Dec. 5, 1977 was published.

This Ian MacEachern photograph, taken a few years before the fire, shows tenements on west end of Rockland Road. The structures here were well below the crest of the hill, but the fire was further east (to the right of the photo) and the flames could be seen in the Rifle Range.

"A Doozer of a fire Uncle Fred would have loved"

[headline given to this Lynch column by one Ontario newspaper]

Charles Lynch was a correspondent during WW2. Before leaving Saint John he was a cub reporter for THE CITIZEN. I have never read any of those stories, so cannot confirm that he actually covered fires.

Percy Clark was the Fire Chief in the 1970s, and I remember that he got almost as much press as Saint John's "hip" mayor, Bob Lockhart. The conflagration on Rockland Road was the worst of a string of sixteen arson fires which were lit during one week. It started at the rear of 301 Rockland Road on the night of Dec. 5th and spread to 299 - 309 Rockland Road and also burned 10 Parks Street. The blaze persisted for 12 1/2 hours.

Charles Lynch understood better than most, the mind-set of Saint John bureaucrats and do-gooders. In the column he seized the opportunity to describe the total devastation of the neighborhoods in the Lost Valley, comparing the area to post-war Berlin. "...the resemblance to post-war Berlin is heightened by the new throughway that cuts the city in two, having mowed down everything in its path, including our old family homestead, the site of grandfather's old shipyard, and numberless business enterprises including the plant that made plywood veneer for the Mosquito fighter-bomber in the Second World War. " I was in my first year at university and not yet versed in the politics of urban development or public policy, but I already recognized the significance of this famous ex-Saint Johner coming home and firing a broadside into the hull of our powerful local planners ... they who were gutting our city, and who would never have to account for a crippling of the city fortunes, so thorough that its effect is still felt. And that is why the clipping was filed under "Urban Renewal".

Saint John N.B. History - personal projects of Lost Valley readers

2011-02-14T21:00:00.000-08:00

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Since this Blogs inception in 2007, I have given prominence to the wonderful J.B. Comingo painting of Saint John as it appeared in 1814. There are several vintage images which show the city from roughly the same vantage point, but I like this water colour because it was formerly in the possession of the Hazen family, and the Hazen's once owned much of the Lost Valley. A few readers have asked that I match Comingo's 1814 view to a modern photograph. Here is a colour postcard printed for the Howard Johnson hotel when it was newly opened in the North End.

This colour postcard matches the vantage point of painter J.B. Comingo when he painted his landscape of Saint John in 1814. (top of this page) An engraving of his painting was made, and used to produce a print suitable for framing. Three or four versions of that image seem to have been produced, and they do turn up on eBay auctions.

I hold several cities and towns in my heart and in my head, but I'm also very conscious of the sage advice of Canadian author Margaret Laurence, on the subject of identity. Ms. Laurence insisted that we be aware of, and appreciate, how childhood shaped us. It's important for me, proud as I am of the old North End, to invest some time and effort in honouring the lives and landscape where my personal world began.

Richie Ellis is a life-long resident of Saint Johner and he is "obsessed" with the history literally beneath his feet. He is driven by a need to know what really happened in the past - perhaps even to fill in one of the many gaps which exist in the published record of the port city. Richie is not competing with those who print books or sell heritage tours. What he does is to constantly poke about in back lanes, vacant lots, railroad cuttings and ruined industrial sites looking for clues. He figures it's a niche that few others have the stamina or interest to fill. Richie just wants to know what once existed in the Valley and where he might disinter fresh evidence of our past:

"Since I was a little boy growing up in East SJ I was always drawn to places that had this look about them. Like something was there or was supposed to be there. The nail factory remains on Golden Grove Road I found when I was in Grade 2 in Forest Hills, out on a bike ride one Saturday morning. As I got older I always put off going adventuring, thinking that where I wanted to go and what I have always wanted to check out, would always be there. Sadly, that just doesn't happen in life."

One of Richie Ellis' mystery objects. He has gathered many such objects in a lifetime of scouring forgotten corners of Saint John and its environs. His special interest is probing abandoned industrial sites or locating spots where old Saint John industry once stood.

With old municipal maps in hand, Mr. Ellis enjoys spending his weekends "hunting down the factories that were here at one time." In the manner of the old-tyme pot hunters he turns curiosity into action - at a likely spot he bites the ground with his shovel and is sometimes rewarded with pay dirt. The find may be as common as a medicine bottle or a spoon, but because it was the property of one of our ancestors, it is valued by the finder.

The record of Richie's many walks and of his found objects will never be charted by a professional cartographer, but it is real and it is significant. Every LOST VALLEY reader who has written to me has described his or her own mental map. [If you are unfamiliar with the term, please read MENTAL MAPS by Peter Gould and Rodney White, Penguin, 1974. I read it in high school. The books' influence on me is obvious. I was equally impressed by Peter Fleming's lessons on Saint John's urban geography. He was my favorite teacher at S.J. High.

A wonderful example of a Mental Map put to paper - this one by a New York City artist is found HERE.] Some personal maps are as simple as a sketch on the back of a napkin, but others, including my own, are very detailed. Our memory maps are overlain with layers of experience and association, and populated by people we once knew or observed.

The working hypothesis of the Lost Valley project is that there are two existing realities which derive from the failed experiment with Urban Renewal in Saint John. Yes, North End and East End neighborhoods were knocked down, ridding the municipality of the hated tenements and redefining the commercial core. Yes, thousands of residents were made to choose between the highway or the suburbs. The irony is that the old neighborhoods still exist, because we preserve those streets in our heads. Only when we are dead will the Valley be permanently lost. If I can pull together enough of your memories, I may yet weave a coherent whole, a salvaged reality which will survive us and mark our place.

William Jones is a Saint Johner who is doing his Masters in History at U.N.B. Fredericton. He writes, "I had no idea there had ever been a community where the thruway now is. For people my age, it just seems that it was always that way. My family was also displaced by urban renewal, but they lived on Courtenay Street in the East End, a street that doesn't exist anymore."

William is busy researching his thesis and I must say that it is an original and interesting topic - "I'm researching the use of the Loyalist image to sell Saint John to tourists from 1883-1983ish. Especially the big (bi)centennials and the Loyalist Days of the 1970s." He mentioned in his first email that the thought occurred to him that the "Irish Revival in Saint John" in the 1980s was somehow a reaction to what was essentially an exclusionary festival. I have my own views on the Loyalist myth but I won't presume to cut another historian's grass. I too have researched the marginalization of the large Irish Catholic population, a community which organized its own celebrations, often scarcely noted by the wider populace. The Protestant-Catholic divide was a vestige of 19th century attitudes, and though it is gone now, it was not quite dead even as late as the 1970s.

My only boyhood participation in Loyalist Days was limited to watching the parade go by. With a grandfather who was a bandsman, from an early age I was a sucker for any parade which included marching bands. I wish Mr. Jones every success with this worthwhile project and look forward to reading some of his findings a year or two from now.

The Amazon 3G Kindle - now you can read THE LOST VALLEY Blog in bed

2011-02-05T23:06:00.000-08:00

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Until this week, the AmazonKindle book reader was not something I gave any thought to. I buy more books per month than anyone I've ever met, but I am not nearly as fond of acquiring electronic gadgets. I'm a hard sell at the local BEST BUY. Since my Grade 1 year, when I first gained access to a Public Library, my eyes have scanned the spines of so many shelved books, and so often, that I recognize many thousands of them from a distance. With the Kindle books no longer have spines, but our thumb still performs a service and we must adapt to pushing buttons to turn pages. Still, there is no denying that book publishers are offering us options that we should at least consider. This week I received the gift of a new, super light Amazon Kindle with 3G connectivity. I must admit it's a slick gadget. What's more, it might be something for you to consider.

The AmazonKindle isn't just a book reader. It also allows you to surf the Internet and read your favorite History Blog or newspaper in the warmth of bed. It uses the same 3G capability as your cell phone but you are not billed for downloading. You only pay for books you purchase, and usually at a fraction of the paper edition.

I'm told the Kindle doesn't have that nifty Net-surfing capability on the street. It's currently an "experimental" function. Many schools in B.C. are blocking cellular signals, although teens I know tell me they have mapped out the sweet spots the jammers don't reach. The Kindle probably will only perform the book download function at school and not allow them to access the Internet, unless the student set up the the appropriate account with their cellular provider. The Kindle screen is a marvel. There is no glare, and the flat B&W image is so clear that you can read it from an angle. In bed, lay it on your tummy and use your hands for toast and tea, if you wish. Fully charged the device will let you read for a month, worry free.

Those of us who wear prescription lenses can adjust the book reader to a larger or smaller page size. Here my AmazonKindle is adjusting a single LOST VALLEY blog article divided into book pages, rather than as a single scrollable page.

The Amazon Kindle has to be Web-capable because it downloads book selections from the Amazon store. I haven't done any shopping yet, or checked out the free titles, but I've had fun with the Kindle 3G's Internet browsing capability. For example while watching a German movie which is based on recent events in that country, questions came to mind and I was able to check with Wikipedia and IMDB from the couch, without having to go to my PC. There are several Bloggers I follow who publish very long articles. Now I can save that part of my daily reading for bedtime. It's an option you may want to consider, especially if you live in the colder parts of Canada or the U.S.

The OFFICIAL AmazonKindle site is here. There is a demonstration video.

THE VALLEY CAKE SHOPPE - (Part 2) Refuge for a liitle girl in 1949

2011-01-30T23:20:00.000-08:00

The response to Orin Manitt's story, Bakery Barrage, [January 20, 2011] was gratifying and I was especially pleased to hear from the Titus family. I now have some of their history on file for future use with LOST VALLEY projects. One boyhood memory shared by Murray Titus, was a detail I might have guessed. There were windows in the basement of the Valley Cake Shoppe which gave staff a view of Union Station. As they prepared the day's breads and pastries they could watch the morning trains arriving or pulling out. His Grandfather and namesake Murray S. Titus, was a true entrepreneur, opening his bakery in the middle of the Great Depression of the 1930s. The bakery always thrived with a walk-in trade, but by the 1950s many Saint Johners owned cars, and the supermarket bakeries cut into Mr. Titus' profits. By then the baker was doing most of the baking himself, with a lady named Doreen running the shop at street level. Doreen was popularly known as "Dot" by families in the Valley. It's a safe bet that Mr. Titus had his finest wares on view in the shop windows as the King and Queen drove by in June 1939. What a thrilling day the Royal Visit was for Valley residents.

The McCullum Grocery, holding down the corner of Wall Street and Paradise Row, operated for many years. The parade of 1970s vintage cars in these photos show just how busy the intersection was, right up to the time of the Urban Renewal demolitions.

My parents are wintering at Lake Havasu, Arizona, but my mother was so enthused when she read Orin's story that she phoned to remind me of her favorite story of the Valley Cake Shoppe. I agree that it is worth sharing.

"When I was in Grade 6 at Holy Trinity School [c1949] I had no bicycle, and took every chance to borrow one. I was very jealous of my older brother Gordon and my sister Mary. They had been given new CCM bikes for "grading" at Holy Trinity. One morning my mother wanted someone to take a bag of my father's shirts to CITY LAUNDRY on City Road. It was my chance to ride a bike. "I'll go." I took my time up Paradise Row, but after turning the corner I soon had to make an extra effort to get up over the hump of the Wall Street Bridge.

I was straining on the pedals and I forgot the white shopping bag. It got caught in the spokes."

The bicycle lurched and little Joyce Brown was thrown down onto the deck, falling hard on her chin. The impact knocked her out. When she regained consciousness, she was inside the VALLEY CAKE SHOPPE, laying on the floor with her feet against one of the glass display cabinets. Adults in the shop wiped away the blood from her chin and offered comforting words her until it was clear the shock and most of the pain was gone. When she left the bakery she made her way home to 92 Paradise Row.

"When I rounded the corner at McCullum's store I was walking the bike, and I still had the that bag of Daddy's dirty shirts under my arm. From McCullum's I bawled all the way home. I was pretty sure I was going to "get it". My mother heard my crying as I crunched up the gravel driveway, and met me at the backdoor. All I could get out was, "I broke three spokes out of Gordon's bike!" Momma didn't care about that. She lifted my chin to have a look. "Well, you don't need stitches."

Joyce Brown remembers the bakery as "Dot's". She was the tall, friendly , dark haired woman who was good to Valley kids. "Once in a while Dot would give you the extra donut, and announce cheerily... "There, the baker's dozen." That's how I learned that expression."

The favorite treat for families in the neighborhood was a dozen squares from the Valley Bake Shoppe. My mother made a nickel for every run up to the bakery for some of the childless older women who lived on lower Paradise Row, including "Maggie" who lived in an attic room. Murray Titus, who learned a few bakery skills from his grandad, including wrapping bread, says his favorite treats were the chocolate chip cookies and the Long Johns.

The last sign hung above McCullum's Grocery before its closing and demolition was a SPRITE, supplied by the local Saint John bottling company.

Bakery Barrage - Recalling the old Valley Cake Shoppe and the June 1939 Royal Visit

2011-01-20T09:00:00.000-08:00

A component of the Lost Valley project is recovering the experiences of children, decade by decade. I am working toward a profile of interesting Valley individuals and families, most of whom left Saint John years ago. It is possible for me to describe childhood in the Portland Valley from 1860 on, but it gets really interesting with my mother's generation, because I can collect eyewitness accounts. Orin Manitt, now living in Quebec, is a retired educator. In the early 1950s he lived at 166 Paradise Row, a few doors east of my mother's large family. In our correspondence he digs deep for memories, and puzzles over the instincts and motives of the Valley boy he once was. Here is an anecdote which recalls the VALLEY CAKE SHOPPE, a bakery which once flourished in the second last building before the Wall Street Bridge.

The Wall Street Bridge once allowed automobiles and streetcars to pass over the railway tracks leading into Union Station. During the 1939 Royal Visit the King and Queen drove along Paradise Row and over the bridge, waving to adoring subjects as their motorcade advanced uptown.

ORIN : "...Walk eastward on Paradise Row, to the corner and the J. & F. McCullum Grocery, turn right, pass the hardware store and the barber shop (first lady barber in Saint John) then enter the bakery. Perhaps you remember "Dot," the lady who always seemed to be on duty? She was quite thin, as I recall, and always friendly. And she loved to gossip with her customers.

Frankie O'Brien, a neighborhood boy, was returning home from the VALLEY CAKE SHOPPE with a bag in his hand. I saw him from a distance on Paradise Row. We met just about in front of his door, and I asked him what he had in the bag. Now, he and I were often involved in an altercation for one reason or another, and he may have made a provocative comment (nothing new in that neighborhood in those years!). But whoever said what, for whatever reason, made no difference at all. My immediate reaction was to grab the bag and open it. I could see at a glance that he had apple and raisin squares, six of each, twenty-five cents a dozen. And they were a good size too (at least to me then, when I was about nine years old).

Frankie was bigger than me, but a bit ungainly - and I have to admit that I rather enjoyed 'pushing his buttons', as we might say today. He lunged at me, but I dodged him and took one of the squares out of the bag. I'm certain that I was going to take a bite, but he lunged after me again, so I threw it at him. Rather than come after me yet again, when I would have given him back the bag, he ran to his doorway, yelling at me all the while.

And then I experienced an unholy epiphany. I remember putting my hand in the bag, pulling out a juicy square - apple, I think it was - and throwing it at him with all my might! He was agile enough to side-step the fast-approaching missile, and it splattered against his front door. Then it slid down the door, leaving an ungodly gooey mess in its path. Seeing that, and the shocked expression on Frankie's face, I was absolutely enthralled! So there's my hand, into the bag again, and I let fly another juicy square! He ran into the house, still yelling at me as he went, but he did not close the door all the way. I was still interested in getting a good one in on him, but there was an unexpected thrill seeing that door being splattered - so I continued throwing squares. He continued yelling at me from behind his door, and before I knew it, the bag was empty. But I was really in a state of excitement, enjoying every second.

I decided to head down Lombard Street, but when I finally went home to 166, I began to have grave second thoughts. I walked into the house, and my mother was in the kitchen. She turned around and stared at me. "Mrs. O'Brien just called. What have you done?" she asked quietly. In a shaky voice, I confessed. "I threw squares at Frankie." "In that case, you're going to the bakery," she said, without once raising her voice. "You will buy squares for Mrs. O'Brien. Then you'll go over, tell her you're sorry for the terrible thing you did, and give her the squares. Do you understand?" The question did not require an answer, nor was one expected. And my allowance for the week had just vanished.

On the way back from the bakery, I died a thousand deaths. The O'Brien's lived upstairs which meant that I would have to climb to the top. Mrs. O'Brien was staring down at me as her five children crowded along the upper railing. She was not above giving a swat to a misbehaving child, and I was not really sure she wouldn't come down on me with an almighty whack, given the circumstances. In a high voice, she hollered, "You bad, bad boy!" I cringed, in an effort not to get any closer to her, then handed her the squares and stammered an apology. I was already retreating down the stairs when she told me to go home and not come back.

All I can tell you, Ron, is that the compulsion to keep throwing those squares was totally overpowering, and a kind of lascivious pleasure that I had never felt before. But it was an ecstasy - and an agony - of my own making. The biggest surprise to me afterward was that I could derive pleasure from such an act, aware all the while that it was all very wrong."

My mother has many stories of going to the small groceries on Paradise Row and Main Street in the 1940s -50s, but never mentioned the VALLEY CAKE SHOPPE, closest to home. Asked about other bakeries in the immediate neighborhood, Orin adds, "There was Hart's Bakery, if memory serves, at the foot of Main Street, on the south side, at the corner of Long Wharf, but it was much too far away from Wall Street - Paradise Row.

The VALLEY CAKE SHOPPE survived until Urban Renewal. It was on the west side of Wall Street, just before the Bridge. In the photo we see surviving evidence of the old cobble stones and the streetcar tracks. The curved steel rails were removed from the Wall Street Bridge years before. The last streetcar ran in the Valley in 1948, when the system surrendered to competition from a new city wide bus service.

One of two handcrafted McLaughlin Buicks prepared for the Royal Visit to Canada in 1939. One limousine currently resides in Ottawa, and the other near Vancouver. The King and Queen rode through the Valley slowly and with the top down, confident that they were among loyal subjects and as such very, very safe.

Look into this 1939 McLaughlin Buick touring car and note its polished wood interior and the BIG radio. (There were glowing tubes in that radio as it predates transistors.) I cannot help picturing the nose of this gleaming beast as it rolls over the hump of the green painted Wall Street Bridge, giving the monarchs a momentary thrill. Then its engine growled and the car climbed out of the Valley.
The June 1939 Royal Visit to Saint John, N.B. Here King George VI and Queen Elizabeth paused for an event at Government House, near the corner of Coburg and Garden Street. This after having driven down Main Street, up Paradise Row and over the Wall Street Bridge.
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David Goss's Neighborhood - an uninspired rendition of Saint John's populous past

2011-01-06T11:43:00.001-08:00

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Over the holiday I made time for a few days of research and I did solve a few mysteries which had puzzled me. Some of these findings will appear as Blog articles over the coming months. ...Until today I refrained from reviewing Saint John history books because no writer has yet focused on the vanished people and culture of the Lost Valley. It is true that several Saint John collectors of photographs and postcards have published competing renditions of an "illustrated history" of their entire city, but it would cost you a few hundred dollars to buy them all, and in truth they can be repetitive.
I now draw your attention to one of these books, but only because it uses (misuses actually) the history of the old Portland Valley neighborhoods. It's astounding just how many contortions a modern Saint Johner will go through in order to conceal the fact that there was once existed a city called Portland, N.B., which was adjacent to Saint John. In my opinion, Portland N.B. and its marvelous valley had an extraordinary history which set it apart, and it is a legacy which must be celebrated. Until they were absorbed in a civic amalgamation, Portland citizens often exceeded what was being accomplished by neighboring Saint John.

There is nothing wrong with simplifying history in order to make it accessible for a younger audience. Mr. Rogers did it. History is often packaged to serve the objective of promoting a needy city like Saint John, N.B., which wants those American tourists who cruise the coasts in floating buffet restaurants. Still, we have the right to expect more from a publication which is marketed as a history book.

SAINT JOHN 1877 - 1980 by David Goss. This is a 128 "scrapbook" [His characterization] printed in 2009 by Arcadia. A sneak peek which includes 37 photos, is possible via Google Books and Arcadia (PREVIEW). The book can be ordered online at the discounted price of $16.49 from Chapters/Indigo.

David Goss is not a trained historian, but years of exposure as a guest columnist for the TELEGRAPH JOURNAL built name recognition with Saint John residents. Marketing materials emphasize that he has assembled a score of these photo books, as well as several collections of stories. His readers trust him. I don't. I can''t. He is a dangerous popularizer, who should stick to his Walk N Talks for seniors and the unsuspecting American tourists who disembark from cruise ships for a few hectic hours of excursions around Saint John... before returning to eat.

What persuaded me to peruse SAINT JOHN 1877 - 1980 was its cover photograph. It is cut down from one of my favorite LOST VALLEY perspectives, a photograph made by Augustus Stoerger circa 1890. Even then the heavily industrialized, jobs rich Portland Valley received short shrift... Stoerger captioned his image "Mount Pleasant, Saint John, N.B." even though that swanky neighborhood is far distant. (Stoerger's un-cropped image I provide below for comparison purposes.)

Mr. Goss used only a few photographs of the Valley. That's O.K., but what annoys me is that he refused to acknowledge its existence as a geographic location and historical precinct. That part of the map is rendered "the central core" or "central Saint John" or "the central city core". Ludicrous. Mr. Goss is being willingly stupid or else he has an unstated agenda. It reminded me of an email exchange I had with a Saint John historian in 2007, shortly after launching the Lost Valley on Blogspot. He asked me to contribute to a project he was advancing, but I respectfully declined. Not long after he started his own heritage blog and whenever he had to refer to area destroyed by Urban Renewal in the 1970s, he wrote "the Valley" as if the term were somehow suspect. I wasn't wounded.

Mr. Goss is of the same mindset, although I can hope that on the day when the last tenement in the North End is quaking before the grinning blade of a CAT, he might find a tear for its fate. In referring to the bulldozing of decrepit housing on the north valley wall in the 1970s, Goss notes blandly, "They were removed. In the 1990s fine houses were built to take advantage of the great views of the harbour the area provides." It seems that Goss also subscribes to most of the myths which were propagated over the years and which were drilled into us in high school. "Advantages Saint John had have disappeared with Confederation favoring Central Canadian locations for factories and with changes in shipping trade due first to the construction of the St. Lawrence Seaway and later with globalization of trade."

Not really. Saint John was founded by refugees who made the best of a tough situation. Many returned to the U.S. as soon as it was safe and by the 1840s it was clear that Saint John would never rival Boston or New York. It galled, but we did have a very good run, and for over a hundred years at that! My ancestors, scurvy but proud Irish Catholics, were not wanted by the entrenched Protestant merchant class of Saint John. Undaunted, they made the Portland Valley their home, and as an historian and descendant I will never break faith with the many lifetimes of labour they contributed. All physical evidence of their presence was bulldozed away but their spirits live on. As Mr. Goss is an Anglican these sentiments may leave him cold. It's amazing how two men born on the same shore can view the past so differently. Perhaps distance gives me perspective.The Stoerger photo reappears on page 10 of the book. This is Dorchester Street looking down into the heart of the Portland Valley, and not "the central core" as Goss terms it. Moreover, when the railway "came to the valley" (oh, how thin and bereft of history is that phrase) it was the E.& N.A. R.W. - the European and North American Rail Way. The I.C.R.R., or Inter-Colonial Rail Road came later. What Mr. Goss fails to point out is the rich history of this now neglected piece of real estate. The original E & EA Station once stood on the spot which is the centre of this cropped image. Once, thousands of people gathered on this historic spot, to enjoy the spectacle of colourful parades which boiled out of the train station and up Dorchester Street into Saint John.

Looking down Dorchester Street, Saint John, into Portland Valley. This photo was made a few years after the old E. & N.A. train station was torn down. Mount Pleasant was part of the city of Portland, N.B. until it amalgamated with Saint John.

David Goss is a columnist for the TELEGRAPH JOURNAL of Saint John, N.B. He seems to produce one of these compact history books per year, each of which is promoted by the local newspaper. His next Arcadia book, EAST SAINT JOHN, appears in February.

Merry Christmas to Lost Valley families - world wide !

2010-12-15T11:14:00.000-08:00

The Lost Valley Blog has been published since 2007 and emails confirm these articles are read and reread by ex-Saint John families worldwide, including a dozen who live as far away as Australia and New Zealand. I am very grateful to all who share stories, photos and genealogy with me. In some cases I pursue research to confirm family lore, but equally true I am holding back the material for a larger project, as it very clear that Blog publishing has it's limitations. Nothing I have received from enthusiastic contributors will be wasted.

I have read many good books this year but alas, nothing fresh derived from Saint John in 2010. I have most Saint John history books published in my lifetime and a few offer a little help with Lost Valley research, but the problem is that most are heavy on photographs and light on human events and biography. The single best online research source continues to be the New Brunswick Provincial Archives in Fredericton. Many Lost Valley readers agree with me on this. Bravo N.B.P.A. !! Our biggest loss is that the Irving Empire cannot free up a little cash to put the backfiles of the EVENING TIMES GLOBE and the TELEGRAPH JOURNAL online for free use by all Canadians. Now that would be a Christmas present to write home about. For a long time the Telegraph Journal was a pay-site. It is now free to read online, but we've all left town. Expatriates want to be able to read the old editions, like we can for so many other cities.

To illustrate my Christmas card to Lost Valley readers, I offer this clipping from Saint John, published in December 1938. All through the bleak Depression of the 1930s the Mahaney Quadruplets gave Saint John something to boast about. Their father was a Newfie and their mother a Blue Nose, but the Mahaney children were born in Saint John, and the children of my mother's generation watched them grow up in annual Christmas reports. In 1939 Canada's King and Queen drove slowly through the Valley in an open limousine, giving everyone an equal chance to see them. The Mahaney Quads, Saint John royalty, got to meet the Monarchs in person, as did the Dionne Quintuplets when the King and Queen visited Toronto.

The MAHANEY QUADS (shown here on skis in December 1938) were a staple news item in Saint John every Christmas during the bleak 1930s. Born on December 25, 1923 they were also a national sensation until the DIONNE QUINTUPLETS were born May 28, 1934. In the 1940s-50s advances in fertility and obstetric technique resulted in a rash of Quads surviving in North America and the Mahaney's drifted into obscurity. The surviving Quad, Lyda Christine, now lives in Alberta.

A SPECIAL MERRY CHRISTMAS

Three readers were especially helpful to the LOST VALLEY BLOG in 2010. Jim who lives in the good 'ole U.S.A., Orin in Quebec, and Paul in Saint John's North End... to each of you and your families, my sincere best wishes for a happy and healthy 2011. We will soon continue our conversations and share in the process of discovery.

A Family Christmas in Saint John's North End - the Osborne's, 1952

2010-12-05T00:29:00.000-08:00

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Frank Osborne is the the son of Francis William Osborne, a veteran of WW2 and Edna Curtis, his wartime sweetheart. A boy of eight when this story unfolded, Frank is now living in retirement in British Columbia but he will be a Saint Johner until his last breath. His memories of the North End are precious to him... life on Main Street, Rockland Road and Pugsley Avenue. He began Grade 1 at DUFFERIN and continued his schooling at PRINCESS ELIZABETH. Several years ago he selected a chunk of rock at the base of Fort Howe and preserves it in his garden in B.C.

Frank Osborne does the photo-booth. He is about eight years old in this pose.

My parents had a rule. Breakfast must be eaten before any Christmas presents were opened. It was a hard rule to endure. At the table my older sister and younger brother were excitedly discussing what they might get. I kept my head down and methodically chewed my oatmeal. Even sugar could not jazz up oatmeal enough to make me like it.

My father seemed to be nursing his coffee but finally he stood up. "If everyone is finished I think we should all go into the living room and see what Santa has left for us! "

As we rushed into the room our mother admonished; "Look in your socks, before any gifts are opened!" Oh yes, the socks held goodies too. We didn't have a mantle so we had tied our Christmas socks to the wooden hat rack.

Mine was very heavy, so it had to have lots! I reached into my sock. Something very hard was in there. It was irregular in shape and resisted my pulling. Then suddenly it popped out. It was a big black lump of very black coal. Coal! No candy. No orange. Just coal. I looked at my family to see if they saw what I saw. Nobody was paying me the slightest attention. I couldn't believe it - just coal!

My father, only mildly curious, asked "What's wrong with you Frank?"

"I got... I just got coal." All eyes turned to me. My father sympathized, "Well Frank, I guess Santa believes that you were not totally good all year." My sister chose to recollect some minor incident which served to compound my distress.

My mother noticed my blackened hands. "Your hands are filthy, Frank. Go wash them." When I got back they were opening their presents. My little brother's face was all lit up. He had a shiny new fire engine, a new swirl top and a new wooden sled. He was already spinning the top. My sister had two new dolls (one with golden curls and eyes that closed when it was laid down), a new hat, scarf and coat. Also colouring books. My mother was admiring a new dress with matching shoes. My father got a new shirt and tie, as well as a pearl handled straight razor with shaving mug.

I looked under the tree. There was one lonely, skinny little present remaining. It had to be mine! My sister picked it up. "And this one's for Frank. It's from Grammy." I opened it slowly. I knew what it was because she always knitted me Argyle socks. And...it was...socks. Santa might not like me, and my family might not like me enough to give me a Christmas gift...but Grammy loved me!

My father got up off the sofa. "Well that's it. You children pick up all this wrapping paper. Take your gifts to your rooms and put them neatly away. I have to go out to shovel and your mother has a fine turkey to prepare." He noticed my little brother struggling to carry all his gifts. "Frank, help your little brother." I reached for my brother's new sled. "Gee...I wish I could get a gift as swell as this." It was a peach of a sled.

Father then went out to shovel snow and my mother busied herself in the kitchen. His return was punctuated by a great stomping of boots. "Frank," he called. "Yes?" "Not a very big Christmas for you, I guess?" I hung my head and mumbled, "It was O.K.". "Well, maybe next year you'll get more." He shucked out of his coat.

"Frank, I want you to look under that tree to see if any gifts got overlooked." I was dubious, but I did look. "Nope," I answered. "Well make sure you look behind those drapes back of the tree." I swept aside the drapes and there it was! Leaning against the window frame was a gift as tall as me. "I found one, I found a gift!" My father was insistent, "Frank, bring it out here. Let's find out who it's for."

I stood in the middle of the floor clutching at hope itself. "Well, can't you read?" The tag read, TO FRANK FROM HIS FAMILY. I started to tremble but my mother was encouraging. "It's for you Frank. Open it up." I ripped away the wrapping. Revealed for all to see was a long cardboard box illustrated with a cowboy on horseback.

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I slowly opened the box. It was... I couldn't believe it. A RED RYDER B.B. gun ! A REAL RED RYDER GUN !!! A real metal barrel and real wooden stock, with RED RYDER burned into the stock. Tears started to stream down my face. I tried to look at my family but couldn't rightly see them. All I could say was, "Gee! Gee! It's really mine?"

My father said, "It's all yours, kid." My mother added with emphasis, "It will be all yours if he shoots his eye out !"

For the rest of that happy day I kept repeating to myself, "Gee, this is the best Christmas ever!" And it was.

A CHRISTMAS STORY was filmed Toronto in 1983. In the movie, a little boy hungers to receive a RED RYDER BB gun from Santa. It is a film which enlivens the precious memories of Frank Osborne as he relives the morning of December 25, 1952 when his family played a Christmas prank on him.

Fort Howe and Frank O'Brien and North End Vandals

2010-11-25T20:05:00.000-08:00

FORT HOWE was built by Major Gilfred Studholme, and was fully operational by the time the Loyalist refugees arrived from New England.

There are a hundred topics I could write about tonight but a postcard of the I.O.D.E. blockhouse on Fort Howe put me in mind of an old Saint John friend, now gone. I was still a student at U.N.B. ( '77-81) when Frank O'Brien summoned me to his home to examine his private archives. Frank was one of those Reader's Digest "memorable character" types we sometimes encounter but rarely think to write up. He was easily three times my age, but age was no barrier to our shared passion for Saint John history. I have fond recollections of evenings spent in his cramped study, keeping up my end as he jumped from topic to topic. Usually I spoke to the side of his head as he was so often intent on rolling a cigarette. As he sucked on a nasty unfiltered coffin nail he became animated, sharing humorous personal stories about "the old days". He was often distracted by tiny bits of tobacco caught between gum and teeth or a sudden coughing jag, but he never lost track of the story.

Frank had some interesting material in his home. I recall old business ledgers from M.R.A. and other retail firms as well as large glass negatives made by professional photographers. I was bird-dogging for the N.B. Provincial Archives at the time, and I persuaded him to donate some of it to Fredericton. I still have a couple of Notman images of the harbour printed off the original glass. In spite of his charm Frank had a few bad habits that made me cringe. He was never one to pay for photocopies when he researched in the S.J. Public Library, and if he coveted some data or a display Advert in an old City Directory he would just tear out the page. I don't know how many books he mutilated, but I know he wasn't the only culprit. My impresson is that many collectors are not above pilfering, and even the N.B.M. had hundreds of artifacts "walk off" over the years. There was quite a scandal in the 1980s.

Frank loved old Saint John postcards more than any other artifact and his favorite word was "Deltiology". I couldn't pass an evening in the O'Brien home without being exposed to the word at least a half dozen times. He persuaded me to join the Saint John Postcard Collectors Club and when I moved to the West Coast in 1981 the newsletter followed me... a happy reminder of evenings with Frank. He had a relative living here in Vancouver and I have a dim recollection of a visit, but when I moved to Taiwan we lost touch. Years later I heard that he had a little show on Fundy Cable and had gained local celebrity. (If anyone has a VHS tape of his show I'd love to watch it. I would even digitize some of it to share on Youtube.)
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The structure on Fort Howe Hill was built in 1967 by enthusiasts attempting to evoke the British Colonial period, but it looks nothing like old FORT HOWE.

The story of Fort Howe is inextricably woven into the history of the Lost Valley. Supplies for the troops were landed on the Portland foreshore and British battalions once drilled in a field where where now CBC Radio broadcasts to listeners throughout southern New Brunswick. Probably the first masonry buildings constructed in the valley were barracks and stores buildings which still existed when my ancestors were living on Main Street and Paradise Row.

The cruise ship tourists are encouraged to photograph the weathered blockhouse on top of Fort Howe Hill, but I would just as soon see it disappear and be replaced with a solid viewing platform of some sort. The blockhouse was ordered and paid for by the Saint John I.O.D.E. in 1967, Canada's Centennial Year, and it has NO historical significance other than having stood there for over forty years. Frank told me that it was originally furnished with a display of period artifacts, gathered by the same folks who outfitted Barbour's General Store. The exhibit was very short lived. One night all of the artifacts were stolen, although the lock was not broken. Worse, it wasn't long before some vandals stuffed newspaper through a musket loophole and set the wooden structure on fire. When a colour postcard was published in the 1970s the repair to the blockhouse was clearly recorded - bright replacement timbers. As well, all the loopholes were boarded up from the inside. The simple sad fact is that anything of value left unguarded on Fort Howe Hill will be vandalized. My files tell me that North Enders began vandalizing military property on the hill as soon as the British departed, and passed the mania down to every generation since.

MARCO POLO MONTH IN SAINT JOHN - or Mr. Ogden loses a game of musical chairs

2010-11-06T13:59:00.000-07:00

I have written before of the family owned shipyards which lined the mudbanks of Marsh Creek in the 19th Century. They are the stuff of legend. New Brunswick school children enjoy the tale of how the clipper MARCO POLO was damaged in the creek at launching, and how that accident warped the hull. Somehow it made the clipper faster. It was the sort of twist-ending our ancestors loved. O. Henry couldn't have done better with it. Stories are great, but they don't fill hotel rooms, and Saint John has plenty of those. That said, I feel a little bad for High School teacher Barry Ogden who says that all he wanted to do was to give the tourists something to point cameras at. Twenty five years ago he conceived of building a scale model of the MARCO POLO... a really BIG model. He planned an exhibit with dimensions to rival the motorized floats in the Toronto Santa Claus Parade. The project got enough media support to fill a scrapbook, volunteers began to assemble, and cash donations started to fill his kettle. Then something happened. Choke, stumble... fizzle. The big boat never did float. Even though Saint John's waterfront got a glitzy makeover, the clipper ship MARCO POLO just didn't fit anyone's idea of a harbour-side prop, and his unfinished model began to gather dust in a West Saint John warehouse.

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And then, (as Salieri gushed in Peter Shaffer's AMADEUS), "A miracle!" Local culture bugs in Saint John announced that MARCO POLO: The Musical had received generous government funding and would debut on October 23, 2010. The venue was to be Harbour Station, the giant ice hockey rink which now squats beside the throughway, where our lost Union Station once greeted transcontinental rail passengers. Mr. Ogden offered his giant scale model as a backdrop for the musical. A perfect fit, and what more appropriate way to get out from under the 25 year old elephant!!? Much relieved, Ogden announced that he had arranged for a free tractor trailer lift across the harbour bridge to the rink site in the Valley.

Saint John high school teacher Barry Ogden poses in front of the freshly painted model of the famous tall ship MARCO POLO. This photo accompanied an article in the TELEGRAPH JOURNAL on October 18. At the time, Mr. Ogden had reason to believe he would be relieved of his decades old burden of a project that had run out of steam.

Unfortunately the scale model MARCO POLO missed the tide, or at least its first casting call. The producers of the musical waved off the hull (I'm not sure if masts and sails exist) in the eleventh hour. Mr. Ogden, very desperate no doubt, offered to offload the behemoth in the parking lot of the hockey rink, for static display. The ref blew his whistle and no truck rolled. Not to be rebuffed, Mr. Ogden continues to insist that his scale replica will one day become a lucrative water front attraction. "It's going to be the most photographed site and probably the greatest icon we have." Once suspects the S.J.H.S. teacher will be taking his pension before very long, and the hulk will find a home in somebody's rose garden.

Where have all the shipwrights gone? Long time passing?.....In a single productive day in April, 1880 the NELLIE G. TROOP and the PAROLE were launched in Portland and the MELLO and HARVESTER were launched in Carlton. After 25 years a team of volunteers in Saint John has yet to finish a scale replica of the city's darling tall ship MARCO POLO.

STEALING ANVILS ON PARADISE ROW

I have a thick file of stories of the people who lived and worked on Paradise Row, one of my favorite streets in the LOST VALLEY. Recently I was sorting the file and one absurdity from 1880 caught my attention. I was reminded of an old German proverb, and I soon located it in a book published in 1857. My ancestors in Saint John would have known it, I think. "Every beginning is hard, said the thief, when he began by stealing an anvil."

In the case at hand the thief was Alexander Hamilton, age unknown but obviously very fit, who stole two anvils from the McDonald & Walsh stoneyard on Paradise Row. Taken into custody, he finally bolted when he reached the city jail. Though policeman McFadden got in a stunning blow with his baton, Hamilton escaped.

The mind conjures a startling picture. Alex. Hamilton had his pick of businesses in the Valley, so why a stonecutters yard? He would have to own, hire or borrow a horse and wagon or at minimum a hand cart, to escape with dead weight. One does wonder if the fellow had a future in crime.

THE BLUENOSE II - Jobs for the Boatyard Boys in 2011

So what does happen when an Maritime government gets behind a nautical history project - be it a salvage, a reconstruction, a replica or a scale model? Money flows ! Have a look at a recent CBC News story which discusses a make work project underway on the "iconic" BLUENOSE II. The Nova Scotia government is paying out $14,800,000 for a rebuild of the tiny schooner. It's a reconstruction of the replica of the original using better materials. [Article]

HALLOWEEN BONFIRES IN SAINT JOHN - A TRADITION OLDER THAN THE CITY CHARTER

2010-10-24T18:36:00.000-07:00

Christians have long held mixed feelings about Halloween. To allow their boys and girls to impersonate witches as devils for just one night of the year was often beyond the toleration of an olde tyme minister. This year the happy challenge of "Trick of Treat," a thrill which my family still enjoys, will be thin as a vaporous spectre in Saint John's North End. Few churches and few families remain in the denuded Lost Valley. The earliest citizens of Saint John were careful to distinguish their play from their beliefs, but only two things could moderate the fiery spirit kindled on October 31st - very bad weather or the calendar cutting the celebrants short. The greatest pleasure of Saint Johners revellers since the founding of their city in 1783, was the annual lighting of bonfires. It is a tradition stamped out during the period of tragic tenement fires in the 1940s -50s. The oldest tradition for October 31st, or HALLOWEEN in Saint John, was the lighting of bonfires. The practice was also a ritual which marked the feast day of St. John the Baptist, the Christian namesake of a city founded by the British Loyalists in 1783. The French, the Scots and the Irish all venerated their Saint with massive annual bonfires.

While few modern residents of Saint John have any patience for the past, they should not deny that traditions coloured the lives of their ancestors. Political correctness aside, Saint John was a Christian community until very recently, and it was named for St. John the Baptist. It was on the feast day of St. John that Samuel de Champlain located the mouth of a great river which he named Fleuve Saint-John. He mapped the hills and islands at the mouth of the river and though men have reshaped the contours of that harbour, the great name persists. But surely not for another 400 years!

If truth be told, Saint John men and boys needed scant encouragement to light bonfires in open spaces or on Fort Howe hill. They gathered logs and debris at Halloween, they gathered wood for St. John the Baptist, they lit pyres to illuminate election nights and frequently to celebrate Kings, Queens and lesser nobility. In my youth they created the fresh ritual of gathering and burning Christmas trees, as a fire prevention measure.

As this Blog concerns itself chiefly with the old North End, I should quote the Statutes of the Portland Police, which were intended to prevent conflagrations among in the wooden city: "Any person who shall make a bonfire, or set off any rocket, squib, cracker, or any species of fire work in any public street, throughfare, alley, road, or bye road..." was subject to a fine of a few shillings. Of course the police walking their beat in the 1850s rarely caught offenders and could do little more than extinguish the flames.

In the 1880s it was the fashion for bands of youths on all three sides of the harbour to parade through the dark streets and hills for an hour or two, brandishing torches and blowing horns to rouse the spirits. When a desired spot was located, one with a ready supply of fuel, the excited celebrants would have a bonfire piled and lit with only a few minutes of effort. Occasionally the 31st fell on a Sunday and that cruel blow sucked much of the fun out of the cool night air, and confined many families to home and parlor games.

This cute pair of devils went to a studio to be photographed. Their photo was taken in 1915 but it closely resembles a costume my mother described wearing in the North End in the late 1940s.

By 1900 Saint Johners had begun hosting "elaborate entertainments," by which was meant costume balls and lesser events like house parties and Halloween dances. A local paper noted that sometimes "Men disguised themselves as women, and women as men." Progress toward women's equality included many milestones, not least of which were the vote and access to the industrial wage during World War 1. It is clear that Halloween in Saint John played a part in of trimming back decades of Victorian constraint. Well before WW1 young girls took advantage of the "licence" issued on October 31st which allowed them to play rough. On Halloween night many girls became bold in the darkened streets. One attraction was the chance to be a little "forward" with male strangers on a sidewalk, but there were also instances when police recorded girls in the North End throwing burning newspapers into buildings, tipping over outhouses or rolling heavy barrels down into city streets.

This is a rare night photograph of a public bonfire in Saint John. It was not a celebration of Halloween but rather it marked the of the Succession of King George VI in 1935. There were several notable bonfires in town during the Depression era, and I may describe a few of them in a future Blog article.

Halloween Bombings : Mayor Bob Lockhart examines debris outside the City Jail, November 1, 1971. It was one 0f two Halloween night bombs detonated in Saint John. Compare this photo to the shot of the V.W. Beetle (Police Bug) taken in front of the jail.

Some Lost Valley readers may recall when a new Saint John tradition of sorts, trumped the venerable Halloween bonfire. In the early 1970s there were a series of bombings in the city which were dismissed as "vandalism" because unlike FLQ bombings in Quebec, they were not accompanied by the release of a p0litical manifesto. Similar stunts are today considered a big deal. I recall that one Halloween bomb punched a hole through the wall of a Legion building uptown, just after a dance had let out. The more brazen attack was the planting of a bomb on the steps outside the Saint John City Jail on October 31, 1971. The Mayor at the time was Bob Lockhart, (see photo) one of those who presided over the "urban renewal" bulldozing of the valley neighborhoods. Lockhart was a Militia officer at Barrack Green Armoury, and I always had a sneaking suspicion that local militiamen planted the explosive devices, just to get a rise out of Lockhart. [I did some research and found that two men had been arrested at the time. For that jail bombing they used a stick of stolen dynamite and cap, a length of cable, and a car battery.]
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UPDATE OCT. 28, 2010 - The Telegraph Journal has a short HALLOWEEN commentary today by retired editor Fred Hazel. In the short column Fred admits that he doesn't even really like Halloween, allowing "it's probably my least favorite," time of the year, but he does wax historical and offers some Irish tradition that might be worth a jump over to the article. Give it your usual two minutes. The fact that the newspaper chose to illustrate Fred's piece with a photo taken in Quispamsis says a lot about how depopulated Saint John is today. I grew up in Saint John and "went out to" Quispamsis perhaps three or four times. Nothing odd about that. No, really! When I was making my first attempts at disinterring local history back in the mid-1970s I met an elderly gent on City Road who had lived in Saint John his entire life without owning an automobile. He had never been "over to" the West Side and he saw no need.

LAST WORD NOV. 1, 2010 - I must admit that the prime benefit to producing the LOST VALLEY Blog are the friendly and informative contacts I've made since 2007. Some of you have become friends from afar whom I have exchanged many emails with. The most recent contact is a gentleman living in Quebec who responded after I posted the Halloween article. He turns out to have been a teenage chum of my late uncle Gordon Brown. My uncle was laid out at Brenan's Funeral Parlour on Halloween night 2007 and it's a spooky coincidence that my Halloween article prompted a family specific contact. This new friend of the Blog has offered to answer any question I care to put to him about life in the Valley 50-60 years ago.

OLD PHOTOGRAPHS OF SAINT JOHN - TIME TRAVEL WITHOUT A TUTOR

2010-10-21T21:57:00.000-07:00

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Modern wonders never cease. FACEBOOK is a prime example. It's the social network which promises to connect folks to interesting strangers or to lost acquaintances. (Friends I'm sure we can find ourselves.) The social utility is user friendly, empowering and, most important, when you join FACEBOOK there is no obligation to do anything more than sit and gawk. A case very much to the point is FACEBOOK - OLD PICTURES OF SAINT JOHN, which as of Oct. 21, 2010 boasts 3,988 "members".
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The record shows that these are 3,988 of the least articulate of any special interest group on the continent. Membership in OPSJ is definitely pointless as these folks have nothing to say. It is sufficient to surf across their bow every few weeks to peruse the photos. The "Discussions" board shows that since May of 2007 there were only eleven attempts at triggering a chat with fellow birds on the wire, with most drawing not a single response. I've scraped a few useful photos from OLD PICTURES, which is public content, but it certainly is not worth my time to join that silent site.
.. The problems of locating and interpreting vintage photography of Saint John are many, and go far beyond the silliness of the FACEBOOK fad. My own search for history in pictures began in the 1970s while I was a student at Saint John High School. Even then I was aware of the visual cliches and the stench of boosterism which permeated much of the visual heritage of my native city. (I could paper a wall of my house with images of the old Public Library building, Market Slip, Trinity Church, the harbour and King Square!) Perhaps you could too.

Those who use old postcards of Saint John as their primary means of understanding city history do themselves a great disservice. (Postcards are, by far, the most common Saint John artifact sold on eBay.) I still have an instructive article on methods which I read in 1976. It was written by an Ottawa archivist who warned that sloppy use of images distorts the historical record, burying the knowable truth beneath layers of idle speculation or shallow history telling. He wrote that it was up to the experts to "moderate the undiscriminating attitude with which many [archival] patrons are approaching photographs." I've seen no evidence that the well paid custodians of the public record in Saint John or Fredericton have ever taken up that 34 year old challenge. That in spite of the huge amount of Federal stimulus dollars which have been showered on UNBSJ and the NBM over the past ten years, in vain attempt to initiate sustainable heritage projects. There are a rash of FACEBOOK sites administered from Saint John homes which deal in local history, and no recipient of federal largess - staff at the NBM, UNBSJ or the SJFPL, seems ever to have been motivated to provide some guidance to these thousands of nostalgia buffs who are practicing time travel without a tutor. So very sad.
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If you check Wikipedia today for the page put up for Saint John, N.B. you will see exactly the sort of neglect I mean. Here is a stereo view of a child sitting at the muzzle of a gun on Fort Howe, which was published by Keystone in 1903. The Wicki page compositor(s) simply copied the original and erroneous caption printed on the stereo card placing the gun in Rockwood Park. Nobody in Saint John has bothered to correct that caption. Sadder still.
.As it happens I have a history of KEYSTONE in my reference library. The Keystone View Company was founded in Meadville, Pennsylvania in 1891. Pennysylvania is known as the "Keystone" state.

Update OCT. 25- It seems I shouldn't pick on the team who have compiled that page on Wikipedia. I just checked the web site of the venerable New Brunswick Museum, and I find the experts also erred on this stereoview by copying the original Keystone information. Not only is this photo taken on Fort Howe but I believe this is the gun which gunners of the 3rd N.B. Regiment of Artillery remounted specifically to fire a salute during the 1901 Royal Visit. This vintage gun would not have been no use had a German armoured cruiser mounted a sortie against Saint John. The worse error, I think, is NBM's attempt to claim copyright on the image. They can't. Further, the NBM received a fortune in Federal funding to scan and publish these images online, but they actually display them smaller than life size. That's really mean. N.B.M. should share them at 300 dpi so that some of the details of the past emerge from the image. Even eBay dealers who sell Saint John stereoviews are kinder. They regularly provide larger and sharper scans to potential buyers AND don't attempt to claim Copyright.

As shallow as Wikipedia articles can be, there are even thinner products offered to those who are a little curious about history. A case in point - I read (looked at!?) a recent copy of the the BBC HISTORY MAGAZINE. This is a publication which sells for $11.25 on Canadian display racks and has a quarter the heft and content of a PLAYBOY magazine. The issue I have at hand doesn't even provide the month or year publication date on the cover -January 2010. Come to think of it, dates are rather scarce in the interior text. Part of the dumbing down process I guess. Like changing "Polling Place" to "Vote here". The lengthiest article is about 1000 words and most of the content is colour photographs and captions... the depth of information you get on most Blog sites. Once upon a time if you wanted to put down a piece of light reading for the masses you would dismiss it as "HiLo," or high interest - low vocabulary. I am at a loss for words when confronted by this BBC product and others like it.

Our earliest view - The Lost Valley in 1809

2010-08-23T12:05:00.000-07:00

It's no secret that I put great value on the fabulous water colour Comingo produced of Saint John in 1814 (above). Back in 2007 when I started the Lost Valley Blog, I chose it for the Masthead. I think we all agree it's a special painting. Sure it's not photo accurate and the composition is a little bit corny, but it does contain so much that we need to know about those early decades. I have been collecting the finest images of the Valley and the North End available, for use in a documentary film, and what you see in the Blog is just a sampling. Truth be told I have little time to write, and as I'm not on Academic Welfare, my productive labour is interest driven. Many articles are started but get side tracked because of time constraints. For example, last year I got over stimulated and began writing an article entitled "The Valley from the Air - what 1870s photography can reveal" but then I realized those images would work better in a film. Photo reproduction in this Blog is just too restrictive (read - small) to illustrate what I want to explain, and I don't like hosting Blog photos on another server.
.A few months ago I found another water colour even older than the Comingo painting. Rather than post the entire painting, which shows Saint John viewed from above the Reversing Falls gorge, I have cut into the image and show you just the upper left corner. Point #1 is Fort Howe, point #2 is the harbour signal mast on Fort Howe, and point #3 indicates the valley itself. Photography of Portland, N.B. and the Valley of the 1870s shows the valley floor largely cleared of brush. That was done very deliberately to reduce the risk of open fires catching and spreading to houses, warehouses and wharves in Portland. Fire was the bitter enemy of folks in Portland and Saint John and the homes down in the valley.

What I like about this painting, in addition to its vintage (1809) is the fact that it shows the Valley green and almost pristine. Don't get me wrong... I much prefer images of the Valley filled from wall to wall with commerce and industry and families, as it was in my youth. But the 'City Fathers,' in their infinite wisdom, chose to denude the Valley and let Saint John become all sprawl and Mall.

Level Crossing Operations at Union Station - adding names to the story

2010-07-13T19:57:00.001-07:00

The Mill Street Viaduct as it appeared from the air in the 1950s. [the red X marks the pre-viaduct intersection of Main St., Paradise Row and Mill St.] Proposed and accepted during WW1, actual construction was delayed for 35 years. In 1950 my mother and her twelve brothers and sisters were living at 92 Paradise Row (red arrow above) when suddenly the grey concrete viaduct appeared like some colossal goalie stick dropped across the Valley floor. For nearly three decades a generation of North End kids would walk around or under, but rarely over it.

Union Station, Saint John, May 1950. The red X indicates the platform used by the operator in charge of supervising the level crossing on Mill Street, before the Viaduct was built.

My mother, who was Joyce Brown before marriage, has plenty of memories of Union Station during WW2 and later. After all, the Brown residence was at 92 Paradise Row, and the wooden fence did little to keep kids out of the station yard. Indeed many children in the neighborhood considered railway property fair territory in their after school and weekend rambling. Accidents could and did happen.

The Viaduct photo series (below) triggered specific memories, and I thought I would share what she recalls of the level crossing. The red "X" indicates a two story wooden structure directly in front of Union Station. It was an observation platform used by the level crossing operator on duty. The operator had the printed schedule for trains but was always watching for stalled vehicles or indeed kids playing on the tracks. I mentioned in an earlier Blog article the death of a boy a few hundred feet down the track from the platform.

When my mother was attending Holy Trinity School one of her girlfriends in Grades 5,6,and 7 was Rose Marie Rogers. Her father "Joe" Rogers was the level crossing operator who manned the platform afternoons and evenings. It was the custom at the time to take a working man a hot plate, (never sandwiches) and Joyce would accompany Rose Marie when she took her father his plate - it might be a stew or perhaps corned beef and cabbage. My mother's father was also a CPR employee working nearby.

The Rogers family rented a house owned by the CPR. It was located very near the station on the corner of Paradise Row and Southwark. After completing school Rose Marie moved away to Montreal and the girls lost touch. One of Mr. Rogers' sons fell in with a bad bunch and was involved in a major robbery in Saint John. That's a story I may touch upon another time.

Compare the 1950 photo series of the intersection of Mill Street and Main Street with this recent aerial shot . The Valley floor today is 50% covered by the asphalt of roads and events parking. UNION STATION is long gone. The entire Main Street commercial corridor is long gone. Mill Street and most of the infrastructure which serviced the port is gone. And of course almost 100 % of the families who lived in the Valley are gone. The name I chose for this Blog, "THE LOST VALLEY", is very appropriate.

THE CONSTRUCTION OF THE MILL STREET VIADUCT IN 1950 - 51 - IT RID THE VALLEY OF ITS MOST DANGEROUS LEVEL CROSSING

2010-07-13T17:36:00.000-07:00

As any older Saint Johner can tell you, our Lost Valley was once so densely packed with housing, industry and retail stores that planning for automobile traffic was something of an afterthought. One of the worst bottlenecks was on Mill Street - the wide level crossing in front of Union Station. Though the old cobblestones had been covered with asphalt in the 1940s (a blessing for car and truck suspensions) that did not stop bitching over delays caused by the frequency the crossing gates came down as trains arrived and departed the station. This fabulous set of seven colour slides was provided by "Ralph" and I hope you take as much delight in them as I do. They are a valuable historical record, and I must admit to being emotionally attached to their contents. The slides were taken a half block from my family home - 92 Paradise Row. This is Ground Zero for my deepest, most permanent feelings for the urban culture which formed my character and nurtured me during an uneasy boyhood. Sure it was a gritty cityscape but it thrived for 130 years, only to be scattered carelessly by civic leaders who could not see even a decade ahead of their nose. The photos below show a pivotal moment when the old Valley was coping with change, a full twenty years before the City gave up on the Valley neighborhoods and their hard working residents.

It's May 1950. A Saint John policeman here directs traffic at the intersection of Mill Street, Main Street and Paradise Row. The traffic on Mill Street, looking "Up Town" is moderate.

Having driven to the opposite end of Mill Street, the photographer looks back down slope toward Union Station. The tenements on the north wall of the Valley loom in the background.

Standing next to the policeman, the photographer pointed his camera up Main Street. The New Brunswick Cold Storage building is on the left. We observe the very first work related to the construction of the Mill Street Viaduct - forms are in place for pouring a concrete traffic divider at "the foot of Main" as it was known.

Main Street looking East, May 1950. An interesting shot containing a wealth of detail. Just visible behind the truck is Mission Church. In the middle of the frame is Willett Fruit Company

where my mother and other teens were working part-time when this photo was taken.

This is a neat photo for a number of reasons. We can see that the crossing gates are up, but there is one locomotive idling on the track which was clearly making the pedestrians nervous. Under magnification we can see men taking very large strides to get across. Those GMC buses were still in service when I was a kid in the North End.

The half completed Mill Street Viaduct in May 1951. The photographer has returned with another roll of Kodachrome to make comparison slides. I was not born yet but in the 1970s I spent many happy hours watching workmen tear down this viaduct, and then watching them pour its replacement overpass. Many adults I knew could not readily drop Valley terminology which they had grown accustomed to.... more than a few called the 1970s structure "the new viaduct".

And finally, a slide showing the half completed Viaduct in May 1951. When that monolithic grey structure was built many Saint John residents thought it surely would last a century or more. Roughly 25 years later it was all being demolished - the Viaduct, the Union Station, the old railsheds and of course we lost the rest to "Urban Renewal".

SAINT JOHN POLICE HISTORY - That VW Bug

2010-03-28T17:47:00.001-07:00

In the early 1970s I went along on a hunting trip somewhere between Hampton and Norton. I recall that we overnighted in a camp owned by a Saint John police sergeant. I soon forgot his name, but I never forgot the photo he had pinned to the cottage wall. The photo was of city policemen posed with a VW Beetle and I believe he is in the picture. I knew it was cut from either a WEEKEND magazine (a weekly supplement distributed with the Telegraph Journal), or from the STAR WEEKLY. Just today I found the interesting photo online, and I see that it was taken in the parking lot behind the old City Jail.

POLICE BUG - the 1963 VW Beetle once used by the Saint John Police Department, fitted with a Municipal door stencil, a siren and a rotating roof light.

I would be grateful if someone would identify the three policemen for me. I have been doing some writing which will be enhanced by the photo, and the names would be a plus. I know that the VW Bug was driven in parades in the 1960s, but I don't recall ever seeing it in those Loyalist Days Parades we attended in the 1970s.

UPDATE: I am grateful to Alex who sent in the names. Left to right the officers are Sgt. Ken Trainer, Sgt. Morris and Inspector McGrath.

This snapshot of the Saint John Police V.W. Bug was taken in the summer of 1961. The decal or painted logo on the door panel seems more appropriate than the Municipal Crest.

Battered in a Bug (Sept. 27) - The S.J. Police Beetle was a staple of civic parades in Saint John, but longtime Blog reader Paul Cusack has written to point out that it was also a working bug. Paul's uncle Greg Cusack (1923 - 2002) was a police officer in the 1950s and 60s. In the fifties he enjoyed a stint on mounted patrol, and Paul provided a photo taken in Rockwood Park in 1955. At the time of Greg's death the Saint John paper reprised the story of how Officer Cusack was wounded in the line of duty, while using the Police Beetle on shift. As Paul tells it: "Greg was assaulted by a prisoner who managed to get out of the back seat and hit my uncle with tire chains." The snow chains had lain on the floor, forgotten. The assailant was a "drunken dock worker" Cusack had arrested for stealing. The blows from the chains destroyed the bones in Cusack's hand and he took early retirement with the injury. He chose to wear a glove to conceal the wounds for the rest of his life.

S.J. Police Officer Greg Cusack and Digger at Rockwood Park, 1953.

Paul Cusack, who still lives in the North End, describes his uncle as "a slight man about 6' tall" with a pleasant disposition. He was known to pull stakeout duty and Paul recalls, "Greg even dressed up as a lady to catch a purse snatcher in Rockwood Park! High heals and all !" I don't know if Cusack and the VW beetle are covered in the final volume of The Saint John Police Story. Perhaps a reader can fill me in.

The Lost Valley - in 1956 - Ground Zero for an Urban Renewal Disaster in the 1970s

2010-03-20T18:20:00.000-07:00

Union Station and freight sheds as they looked from the NBTEL building in 1956.

Stone Church in foreground - the industrial valley as it appeared in 1956 - looking N.E.

The Viaduct free of traffic, Union Station, and old tenements clinging to the bare rock of the North Valley wall. Today a wide "throughway" allows humanity to speed across the city with few reminders of a glorious industrial past, and a dozen neighborhoods torn asunder.

Another shot looking East over the Stone Church. The church remains but the urban-industrial valley was scraped clean by Urban Renewal decades ago. Many of the displayed residents or their children now live as far away as Toronto, Vancouver, Boston, California and Australia.

Everything in this photo is now gone. Even the postwar YMCA building in the foreground. In the far, far distance are the (then) new housing units in the Rifle Range. Even many of those were

torn down in 2008. Another lost valley, another vanished working class neighborhood.

eBay Still A Poor Man's Treasurehouse

2010-03-18T18:32:00.000-07:00

SJ Ex 4 - Enlarging a square inch or two of an old photograph may create an ugly, unbalanced image, but sometimes it's the best way to point out detail of interest, such as lost signage

I feel guilty that Saint John history has fallen on my list of priorities, but it can't be helped. Yet while LOST VALLEY articles don't get written so frequently, they are still being researched and are waiting in the wings. Research is the easy part. I know twenty researchers for every writer and what is so sad is that over the years I have acquired parts of collections put together by men who never wrote more than display cards or photo captions. Their knowledge died with them.

My S.J. database is now supported with about 2000 images and I constantly "weed" as sharper views are found. For example, years ago I downloaded from the New Brunswick Museum website all those images which were of interest to me. Since the Grinches at the N.B.M. chooses to tease the public with low resolution scans (scanning paid for with your Federal $Tax$ Dollars, by the way) I discard muddy scans as quickly as I can. Last year Harold Wright kindly sent me some of his scans of 19th Century stereo views to replace N.B.M. exhibits which are so poor they only frustrate rather than inform. Most vintage Saint John photography and certainly the old postcards are in the Public Domain, and if you're patient, cheap duplicates will turn up. I've been at it since my Saint John High years in the 1970s, so it takes a lot to get me excited.

Often 'breakthrough' images do appear, and on eBay of all places. These are photographs which are so unique that they throw light into the shadows of the past, offering up details which our ancestors took for granted, but now are essential for our reconstructing their world. Since January at least thirty significant Saint John photographs have been sold on EBay. Most have been repatriated to Saint John by collectors. Two of the buyers are also writers, so the public may get to their trophies in illustrated books of tomorrow. I was content to just download the Ebay JPEGS to my PC. I don't need to "own" history. I just need to work with the raw material as it turns up.

My favorite eBay Treasure of the last few months was a set of seventeen private photographs printed on postcard paper, but which were never mailed - so called "REAL PHOTO" cards. These cards were never mailed, and there may be no other copies. The negatives would have been discarded. Somehow they ended up in the hands of a dealer in Ashland, Massachusetts, and though a few bidders tried to cherry pick the best, I was pleased that one collector was forceful and scooped up the entire set. He paid US$273 and costs. His high was $26 each for several cards and a low of $6.99 for a rather poor image, which proves he did want a set.

There were a few excellent views of Marble Cove documenting the log booms which often choked the cove. Also interesting are the houses on shore and MC 3 is a blowup of one square inch, which is sharp enough to reveal this old property in detail.

Another great shot was made beside the tracks which serviced the old docks on the West Side. A dramatic image is made when the centre foreground is enlarged SJ W 3 to make the Saint John waterfront loom over two men walking north, and as you pan right you get:

A view of a shack which probably sheltered the operator of the rail track switching gear. SJ W 5 Almost certainly this is at the foot of Rodney Street, near the Ferry Dock.

I am always on the lookout for better images of the bandstand at King Square because my grandfather often played there with the City Cornet Band. My mother hangs a framed photo of the old iron and tin gazebo in her home, for the same reason. K Sq 3 is detail I've not seen so clearly before - the original ladder in place to receive the bandsmen.

I hope the buyer has as much fun with these photos as I have. There are even a few of the Portland foreshore, photographed from the West Side, but none directly applicable to the LOST VALLEY theme of these Blog. Still it is such an interesting trove that I thought I would share my thoughts here. I have recently had some interesting email exchanges with more Saint John expatriates, and I will try to share their stories here soon.

Runagate Pictures

2010-01-31T09:05:00.000-08:00

This morning I visited one of my favourite Blogs and found that its host had posted a number of photos with an apology attached. He has been too busy of late to write articles. I sympathize. There are just not enough hours in the day to accomplish all we desire, and as much as I would like to write Lost Valley articles more frequently, it's just not the best use of my time. Thousands of PCs have accessed these Saint John articles, but very few of the readers have bothered to comment or encourage. A few have scraped photos and posted used them to enhance their own online efforts. That said, as I have only posted a fraction of what I have gathered on the people who once populated the Lost Valley, I will add material in future. But it is not a priority with me. This week a reporter dug a little deeper into my past than any have before, and since she mentioned my Saint John roots, I'll provide a link to her article. She picked up on my comment about digging objects out the ground when I was a boy. Memory being a resilient faculty, I still remember every site in the North End where I poked or dug, and recall most of the objects I found. A few of the intact Saint John bottles I kept and have with me here in B.C.

The Two Solitudes - Catholic and Protestant

2010-01-21T10:24:00.000-08:00

St. Peters' Boys School from the air, 1959. The last Catholic Sisters who taught classes retired in the late 1960s. (Click on photo to enlarge)

I wasn't planning to post any further photos of St. Peters, but Tuesday's article stirred old memories from a Saint Johner living in Louisiana. Jim Welsh, who lived on Main Street beside the old Public Stairs, attended Dufferin School in the 1930s. He informed me that his school shared a playground with the St. Peters boys and though he recalls no particular animosity, he does recall the schoolyard chant: "Mickey, Mickey Ring the Bell. Proddy, Proddy go to Hell ! " His neighbor and best friend was Art Gatien, who was Catholic and attended St. Peters.

The 1974 B&W photos published with the previous Blog article were taken in Fred O'Brien's classroom in the newer St. Peters' annex. That red brick structure was built in the 1950s, probably by the same contractor who built the conjoined Catholic/Protestant St. Pius X and Crescent Valley elementary schools down in the Rifle Range. The school buildings in the photo (above) were knocked down just a few years ago.

The school site now hosts a cluster of condominiums which should keep the ground warm for 35-40 years. In the 19th Century the land was used as the site of St. Peters' Catholic Cemetery. My grandfather attended the boys school in the 1920s and told the story of pulling a human skull from the soil where the Annex was later built. When the cemetery was cleared a century ago, there must have been a few graves which were missed.

Jim Welsh has particularly fond memories of his principal at DUFFERIN SCHOOL. Teaching was one of the few reliable jobs in Saint John during the Depression, and by 1939 Paul H. Prebble was earning the princely sum of $2000 per year while teachers on his staff averaged $1500. "We all loved him for instituting a class "amateur show" the last hour of the last Friday of the month, He played violin for us. 'Don't know how many times I duetted "Red River Valley" on the mouth-organ with Gordon MacAuley!"

Here is a photo of Mr. Prebble taken from a book of essays he edited for the Central United Baptist Church in Saint John. I have no photo of his colleagues, the principals at St. Peters Boys' and St. Peters' Girls.

WILL YOU HELP?

WELFARE RECIPIENTS IN SAINT JOHN 1960s - Asking is probably a waste of effort, but this space doesn't cost me anything, and there might be one person out there who gives a shit... (Past Blog appeals usually fell on deaf ears, with a few notable exceptions.) I've been working on a project which requires specific reference to Welfare payments in Saint John in the 1960s - It would help to acquire samples of the envelopes the cheques were mailed in, any type of return address letterhead paper, Welfare food, clothing or fuel vouchers, etc. This may be "junk drawer" litter to you, but I would put it to good use.

St. Peter's Intermediate (a.k.a. St. Peter's Junior High)

2010-01-18T14:04:00.000-08:00

I still don't have time to write new articles for THE LOST VALLEY, but Google Analytics keeps me abreast of visitors who still surf in daily, and I've seen some of my photos scraped and posted on other websites.
A few months ago I bought a new scanner to copy photos for a prison documentary. I also made up digital files of a few personal photos. I didn't own a camera in my teens and when I joined the Camera Club at Saint John High I was still using a German camera with an awkward large square negative roll. My first attempts in 1974 were disastrous. I couldn't get used to winding the roll tight. Invariably the first 3-5 photos were ruined on each roll I had processed. A case in point... this series I took of my classmates at St. Peters' Intermediate. I am nostalgic about my old Catholic junior high in the Saint John's North End but sadly, I will never see it again. The three buildings were bulldozed and the land sold for condominiums. It's a pattern across Canada, with Catholic Separate schools disappearing. St Pete's was made redundant and the Church sold the property.

A photo scraped from FACEBOOK (tit for tat) - shows Dufferin kids on the paved exercise yard between St. Peter's Intermediate and Dufferin School. I recall not only leaning against this fence but also a vivid daydream about directing a movie in which an old car would smash through the chainlink and drop down onto Elm Street. Yes, I not only recall St. Peters' teachers and events, but also my adolescent daydreaming!

The Grade 9 classroom of Mr. Fred O'Brien. Row 1, seat 1 by the door was mine. In seat 2 sits my good friend John McCrossin, who not only shared my passion for reading but joined me in the Book of the Month Club. (Wed. June 5, 1974) The fellow sitting in 2nd desk, 2nd row, I believe to be Jerry Frigault. My memory of him was that at lunchtime he would shoftlift small items at Fairview Plaza and then give them away just before first class in the afternoon. I recall thanking him for a paperback he had filched - Xaviera Hollander's book THE HAPPY HOOKER. At that age I was starving for sexual knowledge and I read it from cover to cover!

St. Peters did not take student photos and did not publish a yearbook, so all of the names are lost to me though I remember the faces. I learned that Mr. O'Brien died a few years back. He was an icon in the school and gave me shit when I deserved it. (June 1974)

Rows 4 and5 by the windows. I have no idea what became of any of these young people but I assume that after 36 years most are beginning life as grandparents, (June 1974)

Three of my teachers on the sidewalk in front of St. Peters Intermediate. - Mr. Mathew's, Mr. Martin and Mr. Howard, in 1979, By then I was attending university. [I admit I scraped this image. "Jocelyn" posted it on Facebook.] Fort Howe looms in the background. These men were probably pensioned off long ago. Can anyone provide their full names?

And here is proof that the entire June 1974 roll of film was not spoiled: Later I climbed Fort Howe hill and got a shot of HMS HERMES in Saint John harbour. The carriers HERMES and ALBION visited port a few years in a row to offload British Commandos and their vehicles, which were deployed to CFB Gagetown for joint exercises with Canadians. I got a tour of ALBION when I was a sea cadet with HMCS BRUNSWICKER.

One of many books which made an impression on me while attending Junior High was Alvin Toffler's FUTURE SHOCK which predicted dire effects from exposure to constant change at an ever accelerating pace. (A filmed version, shown on TV, and cheesy by today's production standards, is now on YouTube.) By 1974 I had witnessed most of our beloved North End smashed and bulldozed by contractors working for the Urban Renewal bureaucrats. Somehow I imagined that my school, set one street back from the swathe of destruction, would avoid being ground up like the apartment buildings and old businesses along Main Street. I recorded my grandfathers memories of attending St. Pete's in the 1920s and it was comforting to live in a world with that kind of physical connection between the generations.
In June of 1974 Fred O'Brien had lectured us on the sacrifices and accomplishments of "the Old Catholics" and insisted that we respect them by choosing to attend the local Catholic High Schools - St. Malachy's (male) and St. Vincent's (female). I assume that most of the kids in my three photos listened to him. John McCrossin and I chose to enroll in Saint John High.

UPDATED - April 30, 2010. I received an email yesterday from a Grade 9 classmate KEVIN LASKEY, who surfed in and added more names to these photos.

"Hello Ron - This evening I was randomly searching the internet for memories of Saint John when I stumbled upon this article. What caught my eye were the pictures of the late Fred O'Brien's June 1974 class and the reference to John McCrossin. After a double take, I said to myself that's my grade 9 homeroom class. Looking closer at the three pictures, I realized I was there as well. I remember you sitting in row 1, seat 1 and John sitting behind you. I sat in the last seat of row three. Pam Davis sat immediately in front of me and Shirley Alexander sat to my left. I recognize other classmates such as Mark Boyle, standing at the back of row 5 against the window and Tammy McClary sitting in row 5, seat 1.
I can remember our English teacher, Mr. Mathews, commenting on your book report saying it was comparable to a book review that could be found in TIME magazine. I remember him commenting that he presented your report to Mr. Morris. That memory of you has always stayed with me. I am glad to see you are well and doing fine. Thanks for the memories. Best regards, Kevin Laskey."

Thanks very much Kevin. We haven't seen each other since June 1974 so it's a great pleasure to hear from you. I am posting your letter with the names in the hope that other classmates might find their way to this article. Am I correct that the fellow sitting in Row 2, seat 2 is Gerry (or Jerry) Frigeault ? By the way, our old principal Mr. Morris is still living in the North End. A regular LOST VALLEY reader informed me that he is still to be seen regularly attending mass at St. Peter's Church.

Charles Gorman - Burial by N.W. Brenan of Paradise Row

2009-08-18T21:33:00.000-07:00

I'm still very busy working on a documentary film but my conscience tells me I shouldn't totally neglect my blogs and websites. Google Analytics tells me who visits and from where, but not much more. As 99 percent of you lurk but don't leave a message, I can only guess at your interests.

I still have no time time to write Saint John history articles, but I did want to add a bit to the last piece on Brenan's Funeral Home. As I have written in previous articles, our family has hired Brenan's on Paradise Row several times over the years. My mother and her twelve brothers and sisters lived at 92 Paradise Row, opposite to Brenan's, and on cold winter days they sometimes slipped into the funeral parlor to get warm.

In this photo, taken in February 1940, the funeral prossession for Charles Gorman is passing our house ay 92 Paradise Row. It's a sad occaision but I like the photograph because it helps me establish another scene in my head. Only a few months earlier Paradise Row had been lined with throngs of happy, cheering North Enders who had lined up to wave at the limousine carrying their King and Queen. I would love to have a photo of that great event from precisely the same angle.

Funeral for Charles Gorman, Feb. 1940. The funeral car and procession were photographed on Paradise Row, moving West. The author's family lived at 92 Paradise Row, indicated in red on the photo.

In my earlier piece, "DEATH IN THE VALLEY", I discussed the records of Brenan Funeral Home which have been made available by the N.B. Provincial Archive. I have extracted the personal information for Charles Gorman, Saint John's champion speedskater, from the Brenan file. It adds much to our appreciation of this great photo, and will (I hope) encourage you to do your own history sleuthing. Mike Mullen wrote an interesting story about Charles Gorman, not long ago. You can read it here.

BRENAN'S FUNERAL HOME

Date 1940.02.11
Name of deceased Gorman, Charles I.
Age 41
Sex Male
Marital status - Single

Residence - 34 Sydney St.
Place of Death - S.J. General Hospital
Place of Birth - Saint John, N.B.

Mother - Ingraham, Mary Ann
Place of Birth -Saint John, N.B.
Father - Gorman, William John
Place of Birth - Saint John, N.B.

Interred - Cedar Hill Cemetery
Physician - Emerson, Dr.
Clergy - Filer, Rev.
Comment - Ord. by brother-in-law H. Drinan for Estate.

I could make a request for similar LOST VALLEY funeral photos to share here, but I rarely got a response when I have asked before. Sooner or later I find what I need. It's just a matter of persistence. The Lost Valley collection is now approximately 2000 images, which combine to help me piece together the heritage which has been lost.

Death in the Valley - N.W. Brenan Funeral Records

2009-07-13T09:08:00.000-07:00

I'm rather busy this week filming a documentary film on the history of the Oakalla prison, but sometimes a guy just needs a break. On Sunday I decided to treat myself to an easy two hour zip through the N.W. Brenan Funeral Home database. As you Blog lurkers know, I consider Brenan's to be the "official" funeral director for the Lost Valley. I mention Brenan's often because many of my ancestors were laid out at Brenan's, including recently two of my uncles.

To save the genealogy bugs some time, (they hunger for data, not stories) you can skitter directly over to the Provincial Archives and use the Alphabetized Search Index by clicking this link: N.W. Brenan

This is a sample of a N.W. Brenan client record, from 1903, which illustrates the makeup of the original source material from which the digital record was compiled. The good folks at the N.B.P.A. chose wisely, because this entry reveals a great deal - not only about the death of Catherine Daley, and her family, but of the reliability of the records compiled by Brenan staff of that era. We need to compare it very carefully to the extracted information which is provided by Provincial Archives staff. The record tells us that Catherine was 69 years old at death, died at her residence - 69 Dorchester Street, Saint John, and was born in Dorchester, N.B. I for one would need to cross-index Catherine with other sources, to verify all that. It's neat to see Dr. McInerny show up... good old Mac! He was an indispensable gift to the poor folks of the Lost Valley. And what to make of the pencil scrawl "Warddon", which the Archives has rendered "Widow". Which newspaper should we check for Catherine's death and funeral notice? The SUN was scratched out, and what remains is rendered "Gazette". (Perhaps someone in S.J. could check for us?)

Now here is the extracted information for Catherine Daley. Not bad, but note that her husband, Peter Daley, gets left out. The original entry did not say that her mother was born in England, nor did it indicate that the son ordered the funeral. That must derive from a further record. All in all though, an N.W. Brenan search is a boon to quick searching Saint John families and it will become a very active meeting place on the N.B. Archives website.

Pony Tales - An itinerent photographer was a summer tradition

2009-05-31T13:24:00.001-07:00

Wow! The weeks are zipping by and I have had no time to post new stories. My excuse is that I am taking a documentary film production course. It's full time, and my assignments leave me with very few hours to spare.
A few months ago I shared a photo of my mother which was made during WW2 beside the family residence on Paradise Row. (below) The story was that there was an itinerant photographer who spent summers wandering Saint John streets with a saddled pony, inviting parents to have photos made of their children. To date I have received no information to add to my story, but today I was browsing a Saint John FACEBOOK site and found two photos which are definitely related.

My mother, Joyce Brown, was one of the thirteen Brown siblings living at 92 Paradise Row, during WW2. Why only she was favored with a pony picture, is lost to memory.

Frankie and Marleen (Grass) Walsh in 1959. The photo was taken on Britain Street in the South End. It's a different pony but almost the same dress !, just 15 years later.

This is definitely the same pony, saddle and tack. Betty (Ekstrom) Dupree used a digital camera to copy her childhood photo. On FACEBOOK she says this pony picture was taken on Barker Street, circa 1947-48. Because Betty didn't take the old photo out of the frame she is ghosted by the reflecting glass.

Mystery photo from N.Y. Public Library

2009-04-22T21:42:00.000-07:00

I am sorry for the long hiatus from Blog writing, but it cannot be helped. I work seven days a week at my business, and have done for years now. The only way for me to find time for new writing projects is simply to stop work on others, such as this history Blog. Though living on the opposite coast I can put more reliable content online than some others who lack a work ethic ... they who sit on public collections but spend their days counting N.B. government pension points... so I guess I needn't apologize too profusely. That said, I have longer term projects in process which will interest the Saint John history crowd, and I will share details toward the end of the year.

Today's brief topic, let's call it a mystery photo, is not "Lost Valley" material, as such, but it does relate to work I've done on some Portland, New Brunswick families who out-migrated to Australia and New Zealand.

Photo of timber ships at anchor off the Straight Shore, Portland N.B. c.1870. The "X" marks

the smokestack of a steam sawmill, possibly the historic Otty-Crookshank sawmill of 1822.

A few Lost Valley readers will recognize this great photo. I added it to my own research file in 2004 when the N.Y. Public Library put it on the web, and I've watched a couple of history buffs add it to their websites. The N.Y.P.L. copy has no other attribution than the penned identification: "First Steam Saw-Mill in New Brunswick, 1822." It would be wonderful to have Saint John photographs as old as that, but no such thing! The steam sawmill referred to was the Otty-Crookshank mill, which began production in 1822 but I assume was sold to other interests within a decade or two. Here is an extract from the Lawrence book, published in Saint John in 1883.

Now I cannot pinpoint the Otty-Crookshank mill site on Straight Shore with maps on hand, and we have very few clear images of Straight Shore prior to the 1890s. Can anyone identify the three story building dead centre, between the vessels? I would welcome any comments or thoughts on the photograph.

I used to think the photograph was made around 1860, but I have had other thoughts. For example, a Boston photographer, Charles E. Cook, visited St. John in 1874 on assignment to the Jewett Brothers and photographed five saw mills in the St. John area which the Jewett's managed. (See G. Schuyler p. 58, for one of Cook's photos, which are now in the Public Domain. NBM has a copy print.) It stands to reason that Cook might have made other photos when he toured the city, especially if someone pointed to the site of the first steam sawmill in the old colony of New Brunswick.

AND STRICTLY FOR FUN ... because I assume history buffs cannot live on a diet of Lost Valley alone - here are three images which were sold a few hours ago on EBAY by a dealer registered in New Hampshire. Each photo is 3 1/2 x 4 1/2 inches, or slightly smaller than they appear on your PC monitor. The trio of prints went for US $21.53 (or Cdn $26.53) , which is fair because they are scuffed and mildewed. I must assume the men out on a skirmishing exercise are St. John Fusiliers, although I haven't yet checked my files.

Is Saint John "The Lost City" ?

2009-01-08T14:10:00.000-08:00

Today I would like to widen my focus and discuss events which have developed beyond the confines of the weathered limestone walls of the old valley. I do occasionally scan the Saint John paper online, and I am not unmoved by the stories I read. There have been a few recently which address the problem of poverty and urban decline, issues with deep historical roots which I suggest belong here in the Blog. John Chilibeck, the Telegraph Journal editor, wrote an interesting piece just before Christmas which essentially laid the blame for local decline on political mismanagement. The article, "WHY NO-ONE WANTS SAINT JOHN", Dccember 20, discusses the relectance to buying into Saint John's proposal for amalgamation of city and prosperous suburban communities. Chilibeck probably made an enemy or two at City Hall with his pointed views, but he has broad shoulders.

The Editor's salient point is that decades of bad municipal management and unreliable infrastructure drove thousands of families to distant suburban communities which keep them beyond the clutches of city tax men. I have argued in this Blog that much of the current malaise stems from the legacy of those who adopted Urban Renewal demolition policies as an engine of growth. They were the leaders of our parents generation. Their policies gutted the centre of Saint John and were hand maiden to the devil of steady population decline. Similar urban projects have been discredited in cities across North America, but Saint John seems to have had a Stalin-like belief in the infallibility of its decision making.

Chilibeck wrote that in "an estimated 120 boarded-up buildings blemish the city". That's a huge problem in a small city like Saint John, yet the City staff do not seem overly concerned. Last November a Vancouver reader of this Blog sent me fresh photos he had made on a trip back to Saint John. They were all unflattering, but then the Telegraph Journal has published several like them.

A common juxtaposition in North End Saint John - a 110 year old tenement, unpainted and unloved... with three new satellite TV dishes bolted to its face and a mini-van out front. A nostalgic Vancouver reader visited the old home town in November and sent me photos. His uncharitable summation of the North End streetscapes? - "What a dump."

Chilibeck reports that Saint John's population "has steadily dropped to 68,043 in the latest count two years ago from 89,039 in the 1971 census. That's a loss of nearly 21,000 people over 35 years." I am beginning to consider the idea of starting a sister Blog to "The Lost Valley" and I would have to call it "The Lost City".

The unpardonable fate of Centenary-Queen Square United Church

The faux-festive interior of Centenary-Queen Square Church - a photo lifted from the owner's Dec. 29, 2008 advert on Kijiji. The owner calls his property GOTHIC ARCHES and for a decade it stumbled along booking small music and community events. Currently he is offering unheated warehouse monthly storage on the main floor for $150 per month.

On December 29, 2008 The Telegraph Journal ran a local interest story with the cute headline: "Gothic arches could become condo heaven". "Gothic Arches" is the corny name appended to the old Methodist built Centenary-Queen Square Church. Since 1999, when its "United Church" owners sold the historic property, Gothic Arches has been a venue for rock concerts and any other event the owner could attract to help cover his bills. The owner now wants the building off his back, and recently dropped his asking price from $649,000 to $495,000. That's incredibly cheap, but his ludicrous suggestion that it will be converted to condos, will not earn him a sale. After trying to sell Gothic Arches on his own for a full year, the owner has at last turned to a professional realtor who might put a development deal together. That realtor, we learn, is "also president of the city's heritage board". Now that is smile worthy.

What I also found amusing was that on the same day Gothic Arches got free play in the Telegraph Journal, he took out a Free Ad on Kijiji. (Here in Vancouver some newspaper reporters sell advertising on the side, and you can guarantee a bigger story by buying expensive Ad space.) All kidding aside, I would really hope to see the Church saved. We cannot entirely major trouble keeping parishioners. It has a bitter history of faction fighting over the perpetual drift into Liberation Theology and gender politics. It's in trouble all over the map, including here in B.C.

Oddly, the Journal reporter refers to the property as the "former church". Therein may lie part of the problem. In my view, if the Soviets chose to warehouse truck parts in Jewish synagogues as they once did, the structures were still synagogues. It only remains for a newer , more responsible generation to do right by a nation's heritage buildings and reclaim what was allowed to fall into decline. Centenary-Queen Square is much more worthy than say, the twenty year old Marco Polo II project, which has been a fiasco since inception. With Polo II the goal is create an object of very limited utility which will require expensive monitoring and maintenance from the moment the last daub of paint dries. ... Well at least we know a place where they can store it under roof for $150 per month! It would be a bit tricky hoisting it through a stained glass window, but it can be done.

We Remember what we choose to Remember, and we Honour who we choose to Honour.

After learning the awful fate of another historic Saint John landmark I spent some time going through its history. Milestones in Methodism: A History of Centenary-Queen Square, was published in 1967 and it's the standard reference. One passage, on p.79, creates some resonance for me.

"On November 12, 1939, the congregation celebrated the 100th Anniversary of Centenary and the 148th Anniversary of Queen Square. The morning service was broadcast over CHSJ. [radio] This was Armistice Sunday and the congregation stood while the Rolls of Honour of World War 1 were read and then observed a period of silence." The roll is two pages long and includes six nursing sisters overseas in WW1.

I was immediately reminded of the Remembrance Service our family attended recently at Christ Church Cathedral in downtown Vancouver. Our son performs in a professional choir called Chor Leoni, and we attended a performance on a cold rainy night. Since the deployment of the Canadian Forces to Afghanistan the choir has revived the old tradition of calling out the names of our fallen. The choir disperses in a ring of voices which embraces the audience, and proceeds to pronounce each of the names of our war dead. The effect upon the audience is electrifying, as it must have been at Centenary-Queen Church in 1939, at the beginning of another World War. The tragedy of this act of remembrance was that as of November 2008 each member of Chor Leoni had two names to proclaim fallen, and they will certainly have occasion to make it three.

Afterthought: Since I began surfing the Internet about fifteen years ago, I've encountered material which is not available in any other form - which I why I maintain a list of approximately 300 bookmarks for S.J. material online. One of the funniest descriptions I've ever collected of Saint John as something of a 21st Century ghost town, was written by an American named Jim Leff. Jim wrote, two years ago: "I woke up in Saint John, which turned out to be a small, wind-swept, deserted city. It was very post-apocalyptic, very Twilight Zone. There were buildings, restaurants, parking lots, etc., but I felt as if I were on the steppes of Mongolia." You can read his entire column at http://www.chow.com/tour/1805

Now, before you blow a gasket and assemble a posse to ride across the border to lynch poor Jim... please take the time to listen to a recording he made in S.J.s downtown at 4pm. His point is well made with humour.

Lost Valley Article Number 50 - a Main Street murder in 1938 still haunts a B.C. family

2009-01-03T17:06:00.000-08:00

I had an interesting challenge presented to me last evening. Could I help with researching the murder of a young woman killed on Main Street in 1938? The query came from a B.C. resident who had done some family genealogy and had acquired a Death Certificate which verified his Mom's recollection of a horrible tragedy which shook her family when she was a school girl.
As Frank Osborne told it, his aunt was murdered on the sidewalk in front of her apartment, "in broad daylight" in the summer of 1938. He knew that time had dimmed his Mom's memory a bit, because she recalled that her older sister Bessie had been struck by "a hatchet" wielded by a jealous boyfriend. The N.B. Death Certificate records that the murder weapon was a hammer. Frank added that his mother was a witness to the killing of her sister, so there must have been some commotion which drew the family down to the sidewalk entrance.

That was enough information to fire my interest, and this afternoon I decided to learn more. The first order of business was to prepare a photograph of the scene. This image is from the 1970s, but with the exception of the store name "Fransblow's", this is the scene of the 1938 murder. It was on Main Street, on the Fort Howe (North) side of the street.

Bessie was slain on the sidewalk in 1938, at the spot indicated. The stair entrance up to her family's apartment at 683 Main Street was between two stores. The building, 681 - 689 Main Street, was demolished during the Urban Renewal phase of city history.

I am fortunate to have information on a few dozen Saint John murders, although in this case not as detailed as Frank might like.

Bessie Alexandra CURTIS, just 21 years old, was slain on Tuesday, July 17, 1938. She had been living in a Common Law marriage, and when it failed she separated. Her estranged husband, John NETCOFF, was an older man of 43 years who had immigrated to Canada from Bulgaria. Hot tempered, he made it clear that he was unwilling to accept her decision.

When Netcoff turned up at 683 Main Street he was armed with a hammer to batter Bessie Curtis with. John picks up the story: "My Mother said that Bessie broke off with the boy because he was so possessive. She always said he struck her repeatedly with a hatchet; but the death certificate says it was a hammer. She said he was yelling over and over again, while he was striking Bessie's head: " If I can't have you---nobody else will ever have you! " John added, "My Mother used to have nightmares about it years afterward."

Netcoff's murder trial spanned four days in September 1938. He was tried in the New Brunswick Supreme Court, before Mr. Justice J.H. Fairweather. The murder was clearly premeditated and the motive was established as "jealousy". Netcoff was found guilty and sentenced to die on December 14, 1938. But he was not hanged. The accused must have made a very convincing display of his emotion, because his Sentence was accompanied by a recommendation for mercy. In the end his Death Sentence was commuted to Life Imprisonment and Netcoff was shipped off to the federal penitentiary in Dorchester, New Brunswick.

I haven't found out yet when Netcoff was released from prison, but they do say that criminals return to the scene of their crimes. I have to wonder if Netcoff was able to stand in front of 683 Main Street one last time and relive what he did there, before the urgent bulldozers of Urban Renewal erased all evidence of his hateful act. Frank Osborne is certainly sentimental about the old Lost Valley neighborhoods. Here in B.C. he maintains a garden with palm trees which hosts a small chunk of limestone collected from the base of Fort Howe - a literal touchstone of his youth.
Edna May Curtis lived her entire life with the memory of her big sister being murdered on the Main Street sidewalk. During WW2 she met Frank Osborne, who did much to make her happy and help her heal. Frank Osborne Jr sent this photo of his parents, but unfortunately has no photo of Bessie Curtis to share. Perhaps a Lost Valley reader may uncover Bessie Curtis' photo in an old school yearbook or news clipping. She arrived in Saint John at the age of five, and so all of her schooling was in the North End.

Holy Trinity Catholic Church - once a host to thriving Catholic life in the Valley

2008-12-30T15:44:00.000-08:00

I see that December has slipped by without my attending to the Blog, so I do apologize to those readers who have encouraged me to write more articles. In truth some rather startling new material has come to light concerning earlier articles posted, but I'm just too busy to put it all together. Rather than let our Lost Valley year end with a blank page I thought I might put something together about Holy Trinity, the Catholic church where my mother and her twelve brothers and sisters learned their prayers in the 1930s and 1940s.

Holy Trinity Catholic Church in 1890. The entrance doors face Wall Street and in the photo we can see that as yet no sidewalks existed. The Valley Catholics of my mother's generation attended Holy Trinity or trudged up Main Street to attend St. Peters Church. 118 years later the church still stands, virtually unchanged, although the parishioners have dwindled.

Holy Trinity Church was painted by Marjory Rogers Donaldson. In her picture we are looking west along Canon Street and a heavy crust of old snow contrasts with the brilliant red bricks of the church. Donaldson, a Fredericton artist, probably painted this picture in the 1950s. The oil painting goes to auction in Saint John next week.

Though I have heard several anecdotes about "the Sisters," those stern taskmasters who taught the Catholic kids in the Valley, I have no photographs of them or any record of my mother, aunts and uncles attending Holy Trinity School. The family didn't keep report cards. I suspect that group photos of kids parading for their First Communion at the church, or yearly photos of Holy Trinity schoolkids were taken, but I have not seen any. As a substitute I finish up with a photo of my mother, Joyce Marie Brown, sitting on a photographers' pony outside the family residence on Paradise Row.
Joyce Brown poses in the saddle, excited to be sitting on a photographer's pony. The wall is her home at 92 Paradise Row and I guess the year is 1943. It's entirely possible that a reader may recognize the pony from a similar image in their family album. If anyone knows the name of the itinerant photographer, please share it. Joyce was a bit of a terror, who could give some of the teaching Sisters at Holy Trinity a hard time.

January 4/09 - Here is a nice coincidence. I haven't looked at Ebay for a month, and this morning I find a postcard to compliment this article.

Posted in 1906, this postcard shows the five largest Roman Catholic Churches in Saint John, N.B., including Holy Trinity. The message from Kitty to Walter, with three kisses "XXX", is a bonus.

Dangerous strike on the Saint John waterfront in 1949

2008-11-25T14:04:00.000-08:00

Although business is keeping me very busy this month, a friendly email today reminded me that I have been neglecting Lost Valley readers. So in addition to today's article I updated the July 23rd article which included an interesting old photograph of Saint John longshoremen on parade.

THE 1949 SEAMEN'S STRIKE:
While I do have additional information on the infamous Seamen's Strike of 1949 I did not plan to revisit the topic unless I had some reader feedback. Labour historian and former Labour Council president George Vair has responded, providing details on the how longshoremen attempted to prevent ships from taking on crews of strike breakers. I am pleased to share George's contribution.

This was the photo originally discussed in my blog of July 23, 2008 - entitled "Mystery Photo - Saint John Port Strike" (archived here). In the foreground is Frank Crilley, whose story is told below by George Vair.

"Hi Ron: The picture of the Longshoremen is the 1949 Seamen's strike, with Frank Crilley standing with one hand in his pocket and his hat in the other hand. The Canadian Seamen's Union went on strike to protest their deplorable working conditions. The strike spread across the world. Scabs were brought in and the longshoremen refused to load the ships. Hundreds of unions supported the strikers and sixty percent of worldwide shipping was affected. The Canadian government supported the ship owners and brought in the Seamen's International Union (SIU) to break the strike. Hard-core gangster Hal Banks led the American Union. Aided by the police, truckloads of armed scabs invaded the ships with guns, bicycle chains and baseball bats. In Saint John, the longshoremen refused to load three vessels that had been taken over by the scabs. However, the International Longshoremen's Union supported the SIU and ordered the men to load the ships. After three days, the Local 273 president, Edward Charlton, led a group of longshoremen over the picket line and loaded the ships. Frank Crilley and others refused to report to work and continued the picket line. Crilley was a checker and secretary of ILA Local 1571. The International Union ordered the local to expel Crilley from membership. When the local refused to expel Crilley, the International Union revoked their charter. The International then issued a new charter for the checkers, Local 1764, and refused membership to Crilley and some other members who continued to support the CSU. Crilley was then blackballed on the waterfront. The ship owners and the government labelled the CSU union leaders as communists and were successful in destroying the CSU.

I am attaching another picture taken on the Saint John waterfront at the same time. It shows brave members of the CSU setting up a picket line while police get ready to escort scabs onto the ships. The scabs are in the transport truck in the left of the picture."

A photo taken on Pier 9 in West Saint John, April 28, 1949 during the bitter Seamen's strike which created havoc in U.S. , British and Canadian ports. Here we see CSU pickets trying to prevent SIU strike-breakers from servicing three vessels in port - the COTTRELL, the FEDERAL TRADER and the OTTAWA VALLEY. Upwards of fifty policemen can be counted in this photo, the RCMP contingent wearing Canadian army helmets. Force was deployed to protect a shift of SIU "scabs" who were concealed in the truck moving across the tracks from the left. Nine CSU members were injured in the ensuing clash, but no policemen. The scabs had been flown in, landing at Pennfield Ridge, the former RCAF airstrip and transported in four yellow moving vans leased from a local company. [George Vair photo]

Steel helmeted Mounties on the Saint John waterfront, April 28, 1949. A closeup made from George's photo.

"With regards to books on Saint John labour history, I authored a book on Saint John unions during the 1975-76 wage control period. The title of the book is The Struggle Against Wage Controls -The Saint John Story I have attached a notice on where the book can be purchased. All the best, and keep up the good work. George Vair

P.S. I will try to get more info on the picture eg: who is the guy in the cowboy boots?"

AGAINST THE TIDE - ISBN 0-919396-49-6 was published in 1986 by Progress Books, Toronto. ("Progress Books" was the publishing arm of the Communist Party of Canada.)The book has a few pages detailing the violent labour confrontation in Saint John which played out in Apr.-May, 1949, and also has two photos of pickets in Halifax. Green has a labour background and was a civic politician here in Vancouver. His book cites the "St. John Telegram Journal" [sic] as a news source.

What would have happened in the event of a riot or even a charge against police lines? In 1949 the Saint John Police Department had no special training in riot control, which necessitated calling in the RCMP. As local constables had no tear gas they were issued only hardwood axe handles which caused injuries. Fortunately the actual casualties were kept to nine beaten port workers. I am reminded that the S.J. police did possess a small number of Lanchester submachineguns, (above) the gift of a British vessel which refitted in the port during WW2. In 1981, if memory serves, I lent a hand to Bob Elliott of the N.B.M in setting up a display of small arms at the museum. My reward was a chance to closely examine one of those ex-SJPD Lanchester's, as well as common arms like the MP40 and BREN.

The port strike was an important event which impacted the lives of many families in the North End. One figure whom I have always been interested in was Comrade Eddie Reid, the Business Agent for the Canadian Seamen's Union in Saint John. Mr. Reid was an underground member of the Communist Party in an era (the Cold War was beginning) when C.P. membership could be dangerous to your health. If any older Saint John resident has preserved material on Reid's life, I would be interested in doing an article on him.

URBAN RENEWAL SAINT JOHN - raw material for a fresh perspective

2008-11-06T09:14:00.000-08:00

For a few years ELLEN DREWERY was the compassionate face of the resettlement initiative during Saint John's Urban Renewal

I first wrote about Ellen Drewery in December of last year. It was a pleasure to share a few memories of a U.N.B. Sociology teacher who left a lasting impression on her students. Some of her words have stuck with me over the years, and it is not hyperbole when I say that I have quoted one of her most forceful lines to hundreds of students in my turn. On the subject of human sexuality I can still hear Ellen's simple (I think Steinbeckian) explanation for homosexuality, incest and a host of sexual fetishes: "People have sex with the people they're with." You can read my initial comments about Prof. Drewery, posted November 25, 2007, here.

I never borrowed $$ for university tuition but to stay within my comfort zone I did my first two years at U.N.B.S.J. That's where I encountered Prof. Drewery. Then. when I moved on to U.N.B. Fredericton to finish a history major I lost track of her. If she had mentioned in class her experience of working with displaced Urban Renewal families, I forgot about it. Only two years ago, I learned she had in fact been an important voice in dealing with the displaced during the forced evictions and demolitions which removed whole neighborhoods from Saint John's landscape.

Below I am sharing a news story from 1968 which introduced Drewery to the Saint John public. Like any introduction it is polite in tone. In a future blog article I will discuss the rockier side to Ellen Drewery's tenure with the City of Saint John.

The Urban Renewal Field Office at 509 Main Street, near the foot of Elm Street. To the left was the Main Brace Naval Veteran's club, which still exists. Ellen Drewery began work at the Field Office in August of 1968.

The Evening Times-Globe, October 3, 1968
“Personal Touch’ For Urban Renewal

The Saint John Urban Redevelopment Office has added the “personal touch” in carrying out its massive north end renewal scheme. Miss Ellen Drewery, a full time, on-the-job sociologist, has been dealing first-hand with the problems facing families affected by the project since August.

“The trend today is toward more and more emphasis on the personal touch, rather than just the bricks and mortar aspect of urban redevelopment,” says Assistant Redevelopment Officer Guy Spencer. “There has been a growing awareness that the technical people can’t do a sociologist’s job, a vital part of any renewal project.”

Mr. Spencer said the move to broaden the scope of what he calls “people planning” within the project started last year with the hiring of a relocation officer.
“Now the picture has been rounded out with a highly trained person to deal sympathetically and understandingly with the sociological aspects.”

Miss Drewery, who has had wide and varied experience in dealing with people, both before and during her studies at the University of Western Ontario in London, arrived here in August.

Meeting Families

Now, from her office at 509 Main Street, she is meeting with members of relocated families, helping them adjust to new conditions, assisting those uncertain about an upcoming move and dealing with those already moved but unhappy in a new setting.

“Saint John has, I think, a very advanced urban renewal program – forward-looking enough to want a sociologist,” says Miss Drewery. “To many of these people life has always been a struggle. They lack knowledge of approaching and dealing with authorities. They have been more dealt with, than dealing.”

Mr. Spencer said problems of a business nature will continue to be handled by Redevelopment Officer Donald Buck. Miss Drewery will be the “ear” to hear personally the problems of the bewildered and uncertain.

Not all the problems they bring to the office are within her field. But since her arrival she has established herself as a co-ordinator with various agencies in the city and is prepared to refer people to specialized help for full discussion of their special difficulty.”

By the late 1970s the Urban Renewal Field Office had itself been torn down, exposing the red brick wall of the old bank building next door. See the red (X) above. The bank still enjoys a second life as the HQ of the Main Brace Naval Veterans club. It was my grandfathers daily hangout.

ANNOUNCEMENT - Due to the fact that some visitors (most of them academics or students of urban planning) are interested in Saint John as an examples of a city which underwent Urban Renewal, but are not interested in the broader history, I have created a separate blog to collect S.J.U.R. articles in one place. That mirror site is SAINTJOHNURBANRENEWAL.blogspot.com/ and I have added it to the list of resources in "Links to Discovery". I am enthused by the fact that much "raw material" about U.R.- S.J. has recently surfaced, and feeling better armed as an historian to support my thesis that too much was destroyed, and far too quickly. There are many ghosts in all that rubble, and I enjoy searching for their stories.

URBAN RENEWAL - 1979 Project Compiled an inventory of historic Saint John structures, and updated the 1970 survey of 1,041 buildings

2008-11-03T21:26:00.000-08:00

The legacy of Urban Renewal in Saint John is a hot topic these days. To feed that interest I will post more photos and data, as well as reviewing a new book of photographs which documents some of the old neighborhoods we have lost. I will receive the book this week and I expect it to make me rather sad. My own interest in Saint John Urban Renewal goes way back to grade school memories, some of which I have shared with Lost Valley readers. On a professional note, I would mention one of the Saint John history projects I managed in my youth. It was a survey conducted for the Canadian Inventory of Historic Building, in 1979. This is the first I have written of that experience.

The genesis of our project was an earlier effort. In 1970 a team from National Historic Sites Branch in Ottawa rushed in and photographed 1,041 buildings in Saint John, many of which later fell to the phased demolitions in the North End. They worked fast and as a result there were errors to be corrected. In 1979 the Feds found it more cost effective to train local university students to do a second survey. My own family had a home expropriated in the valley (purchased in 1903, it had three flats), so I was keen to take on the C.I.H.B. project. Our sponsor was David Ross, then Director of the N.B.M., and something of a mentor to me.

I kept my office set of the file cards for the 1970 Saint John survey and also a duplicate set of our 1979 findings. In 1970 each home was recorded with three 35mm B&W images, but in 1979 we sometimes recorded additional features. One of our goals was to determine how much of 19th Century construction incorporated mass produced elements and what percentage was custom work - such as intricate brickwork or scroll work. In a future blog I will publish an example of a typical recording done in 1970 - 3 photo and card, resurrecting a house fallen to the bulldozers.

For now I am posting an old story, originally published July 4, 1979 to describe our work. Local media coverage essential as we had constantly to encroach on private property. CBC Radio for example did two segments, explaining the importance of the project to Saint John residents. As you read it, note in particular Mike Murphy's comment about home owner fear of further property expropriation by the City.

The Evening Times Globe, Wed. July 4, 1979
[no Byline]

"STUDENTS LOOK AT OLD CITY STRUCTURES

If you own an old home in the Saint John area, chances are that you will be paid a visit by a group of students who are doing a survey of historical structures in the area.
Seven university students have been hired for the summer by the Canadian Inventory of Historic Building to locate and record all of the historic structures in the city that were built in the 1800’s or early 1900’s.
The students locate and map each building, record all of the structures exterior features and then photograph the building from all angles. The material is then categorized and sent to Ottawa to be placed in a computer bank. Once there, the data can be retrieved in printout and catalogue form.
Ronald Jack, a second year major at the University of New Brunswick is the project co-ordinator for the group. He said that a similar survey was conducted in the Saint John area in 1970 by the National Historic Sites Service. At that time only 1041 houses were recorded for Saint John, but Mr. Jack is optimistic that his group will be able to double the previous findings.
“The first thing we are doing is to verify all of the information from the previous study: that is we will verify existing structures, correct any mistakes in addresses and ownership and make note of any structures that have been demolished.”
So far the students have located 250 buildings in the last two weeks. Mr. Jack said that each team, which is made up of two students – one recorder and one photographer, records approximately ten buildings per day.
The job of the recorder is to fill in a 75-point questionnaire about each structure. The obvious geographical information is noted along with the date it was built; the original owner, if available; the current owner; and the name of the architect who built the house.
“We try to answer most of these questions, but in a lot of cases, like the original owner and the architect, the information is just not available,” said Mr. Jack.
He guessed that most of the older houses in Saint John were built sometime between 1850 – 1860, although there are a few that are even older. “Most of the older ones have been demolished for urban expansion.”
And the fact that Saint John had so many fires in its past shows that a great number of historic houses would have been destroyed.
Mike Murphy is one member of the survey group. His job is to photograph the buildings they locate. He said that so far most of the people they have talked to have been very co-operative, but some people chase them away.
“I guess some people think we are asking questions about their homes for the city. They’re afraid that their houses will be torn down.”
“But most of the people I talk to are very friendly. We get some people who love to talk and will tell you their family history. Others say this is a waste of government money”, he said.
Eva Weeks is another member of the survey team. She has no complaints about citizen co-operation in the area.

“I find that when you get involved with houses you meet a lot of very nice people who will take you inside to show you their houses. Some people have beautiful bottle collections,” she said.
Mr. Jack said that some of the other things his group looks for include the material the roof is made of, the type of front door and the type of glass in the windows.
But besides houses, the group is also interested in any historic structure. They will be photographing the original foundations of the reversing Falls Bridge and three existing horse troughs that have remained in the city since the 19th century.
One interesting thing that Mr. Jack has noted from talking with his survey teams is that everyone in Indian Town in the north end of the city can tell you in which house actor Walter Pidgeon grew up.
By the end of this week, Mr. Jack said he hopes to have his group working in the North End. Mr. Jack and his group have offices located at the New Brunswick Museum. Further information can be obtained by calling them at 603-1196 Extension 61.
The other members of the survey team include: John Cooper, Ping Chow, Caryn Thompson and Faith Jennings."

Photo of one of the recording team's on my crew in May - September 1979. C.I.H.B. staff from Ottawa trained us to sleuth out interesting structures in Saint John, and how to record the wealth of detail required for the national inventory. I interviewed many students before choosing the six whom I felt had the appropriate skills. Three had to have sufficient photography experience to make a reliable permanent record of the heritage that was disappearing all around us.

Hidden trove of Saint John Urban Renewal photos suddenly available

2008-10-31T13:09:00.000-07:00

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There is good news for the thousands of Lost Valley residents who are scattered throughout Canada, or overseas. Many have longed to see a photo of the street (maybe the actual house) they grew up on. Very recently I learned what became of the many thousands of Official Photographs which were taken of the the old Valley neighborhoods just before they were bulldozed. Yes the photographs do exist and 900 of them have just been printed and bound in a coffee table book which has been released for Christmas sale in Saint John.

At $50 plus mailing costs, the new photo album is rather costly and many senior citizens will find it a prohibitively expensive purchase. Not to worry. I have a friend in S.J. who offered to help buy a reference copy for the Lost Valley blog and I should have it from him in less than two weeks. When the photo compilation arrives I will take "look up" requests - find your old street and house - and post the photo here for you to enjoy.

You can start sending requests to me now. If you can't remember the old address, it's a great opportunity to make a phone call to a family member who might recall it.

Urban Renewal in Saint John involved the expropriation of property and forced eviction of tenants on an unprededented scale. Many families were relocated but an uncounted number of residents left Saint John permanently. THE LOST VALLEY blog is an attempt to reach those families through the Internet, four decades after the Valley neighborhoods were bulldozed. (The photo shows two visiting foreign sailors walking past demolition rubble on Mill Street. The photograph was composed by Ian MacEachern, a former Saint John resident now living in Ontario.)

Saint John Urban Renewal - Energy dollars may validate the original vision of 1960s urban planners

2008-10-27T20:55:00.000-07:00

All of the urban planners who participated in Saint John's massive urban renewal scheme in the 1960s are now retired or dead. The city is suddenly the focus of important new development, some of which will utilize valuable property which has been neglected for decades. The current slump in energy prices will probably fail to slow projects now underway, but some Saint John business owners are nervous. This aerial photo (above) is a good reminder that most of the natural contours of Saint John's harbour were lost to the massive developments on the West Side. (X) shows the site of the new Irving Oil World Headquarters. Just look at the length of the old grain conveyor system! One of the more interesting natural features lost to the city was Navy Island which had a fascinating and unique history. It's hard to believe, but once a pulp mill was planned for Navy Island, placing it where the harbour bridge is today.

This slide, made by a train buff in 1967, records the moment in time when Saint John's Urban Renewal program was catching its breath. The Portland foreshore was partially cleared, and new construction was underway. Much of this land was built up with trucked in fill, covering the old tidal mud flats and rotted piers, hence the need to drive pilings (the activity on the left). Nowadays old creosoted pilings and harbour muck are remediated, but in the 1960s it was still the practice to entomb the great mess under a mattress of gravel.

A few years later we see the Workmen's Compensation building nearly completed and the Portland United Church being prepped for demolition. Note Long Wharf in the background, with two cargo vessels berthed.

Irving Oil's new World Headquarters is the complex shown (upper right). It will cover the open wharf which was built over the rotting remains of the original Long Wharf. This overlay demonstrates rather nicely the current constricted condition of Saint John's port, which has lost half of its original 19th Century width. Where once a half dozen freighters could maneuver and still leave room for fishing weirs and skiffs, newer and larger vessels are gingerly positioned one at a time.

UPDATE ON AN EARLIER POST

Please note that the article McCready's Limited - Pickles in Portland
published December 5, 2007, has been upgraded with extra photos and information. I did so because that article has been one of the most popular Lost Valley stories.

Rare Salvation Army Album on EBAY - a window into Saint John's soul

2008-10-22T11:36:00.000-07:00

The Gilded Age in Saint John :

Part Two - The saving of lost souls

In keeping with my current theme, I thought it only fair and appropriate to offer a "heads up" to my fellow collectors of Saint John photography and devotee's of local history. Anyone who might wish to sneer at the Sally Ann folks or their memorabilia risks missing out on a rich vein of social history. This photo collection is worth at least $500., so if you can scoop it up for as little as $200-300 you will have reason to crow.

This album, currently offered by an EBAY dealer in Ottawa, contains the best collection I have seen documenting the early SALVATION ARMY members in Saint John, N.B. All images are 100 - 110 years old and there are 22 of them including unidentified tintypes. Have a look at the collection description on EBay here.

Three ladies of the Salvation Army who sat for studio portraits. On the left is an Isaac Erb photo and on the right Lugrin Studio, 38 Charlotte Street.

This St. John lady, photographed at the Lugrin Studio, wears a sailor suit with her Salvation Army cap. See photo below right.

St. John Salvationists pose for Lugrin Studio on Charlotte Street.

This little gem is the Salvation Army Band in Saint John, circa 1905. Though deteriorated the image is easy to recapture and improve digitally.

Individual portraits of the young couple we see above, to the left. There are photo portraits identified to four Saint John studios: Lugrin, Climo, Stoerger and Erb.

UPDATE OCT. 27th (Result of eBay Auction)

I was pleased to see that this family collection will be repatriated to Saint John, but startled that only a single collector showed interest. His was the initial, and only bid. True, the winner is also eBay's most voracious buyer of Saint John material, but that fact is not revealed during the bidding process, so there was nothing to dissuade others from trying. It seems Saint Johners do not feel Sally Ann material has any allure. As Job Hawks used to encourage Freshman at UNB, "I have learned something."

The Gilded Age in Saint John - Life for girls was hazardous.

2008-10-05T23:03:00.000-07:00

Part 1: Protecting the little girls of the tenements

Until the Sexual Revolution finally liberated Saint John in the 1970s, stories of the sex trade or of deviant behavior were kept private, save for what made it into the paper. Perhaps the city patricians found fulfilment in loftier pursuits - art, music and literature, but truth be told, the wage-earning class had much earthier tastes. In my youth I often heard stories recounting the darker side of life in the North End of Saint John - whispered memories of this or that miscreant. There was inter-generational prostitution, plenty of perverts, assorted Peeping Toms and a few abortionists. Even more lurid stories I heard directly from the Saint John cops who enlivened seminars at U.N.B. in the 1970s. I won't publish such goings on here on the Family Channel, but one day I must get around to doing a book on the Lost Valley. Books are the ideal refuge for the naughtier bits of history that are enjoyed in private.

Old research files remind me that much of the city once seemed populated by a legion of sexually frustrated or maladjusted males. True, North End kids were often killed while at rough play, but for girls life held special dangers. On occasion my own ancestors were drawn into specific incidents. I could sample a year from any decade, but a series of molestations and assaults in 1901 illustrate modes of predatory behavior known to vigilant parents of the tenements. Sexual crime overshot the bounds of what could be set to type by the Newsies, so if you read the old clippings what you notice most was the exaggerated discomfort of some lawyers. Their circumlocutions got more ink than did the sworn testimony. Too bad that.

On June 6, 1901 jurors assembled in County Court saw two cases involving sexual assaults on young St. John girls.** In the first trial a man named William Rourke was charged with criminal assault on a youngster. Seven year old Violet Golding was required to take the stand and describe what had been done to her. The jurors were first cautioned not to prejudge the accused by "other incidents which have happened in the city". As Violet's testimony was compelling and there were corroborating witnesses, Rourke was convicted. [**Paul O'Neil, an old school chum from the Rifle Range, asked why I used "St. John" here. In 1901 the vast majority of Saint John businesses, schools and citizens used the spelling "St. John". The notable exception was THE SAINT JOHN GLOBE, the newspaper which employed my great-grandfather his entire career. As a purist I am often tempted to revert to "St." when quoting period material, but know I risk the objections of readers.]

The second case involved two charges against William Myshrall. (Myshrall was an uncommon name in Saint John in 1901, and the only other Myshrall I collected was an inmate of the Provincial Asylum at the time.) The charges were serious - indecent assault and attempted rape. His young victim was Beulah Bell Brayley and her alleged assault was said to have occurred between 2:30 and 5 PM on Saturday, on May 25th. It was typical in such cases that an outraged parent had heard or seen something suspicious, and put the police onto the alleged criminal. Beulah and a friend, Pearl Blizard positively identified Myshrall and a father, Mr. Blizard, claimed to have seen him skulking about the Brayley residence on Elm Street. (Elm St. bounded the west shoulder of Fort Howe).

Now what interested me were the witnesses called in Myshrall's defence. His council was non other than John B.M. Baxter, a well known city lawyer and Militia officer. According to THE DAILY SUN Baxter called "three little girls" to testify on Myshrall's behalf. Ella Ritchie, Edna Ryder and Lucy Ritchie. The girls "were equally positive that the prisoner spent from 2 to 5 o'clock of the day in question with them on Fort Howe. They were corroborated by a little boy, Herman Komiensky." As it happens the Ritchie girls occupy a branch of our our family tree.

I note that the reporter used "little" twice to describe the defence witnesses. I know that Ella Ritchie was only a month shy of her 15th birthday but Lucy was certainly just 11 years old. I did find it odd that Myshrall's only defence against being with Brayley was that he had actually spent the afternoon with three other girls. He admitted skulking about Elm Street but positively denied peeking in any windows. He did not speak well for himself.

This is one of the best postcards ever published of Fort Howe because it records its function in the simple life of common people. The hill was a spectacular lookout for local kids who scrambled all over it on the weekends. Note the three girls huddled on the grass in the centre of the image. Note also the little girl leaning on the gun at left. They have climbed up from the tenements in the valley, away from the noise and the coal smoke. From the crest of Fort Howe a ferry steam whistle or a sea gull's cry could replace the clattering din of the crowded streets.

Acadia Street (indicated in photo) was directly below Fort Howe. Over the years several boys drowned on the tidal mud flat bounded by Mill Street, Camden, Chapel and Acadia streets. In 1904 the City promised to put in barriers and signs, but never did. Girls from the tenements looked for safe playing areas such as the long, bare table of Fort Howe. Danger was lurking below in the garages, stables or alleys behind Main Street - where many sexual assaults took place.

I have discussed the Ritchie family here once before. Lucy (Ritchie) Brown was a life long Valley resident and I wrote a few lines about the shame she endured after a mixed Protestant- Catholic marriage . Saint Johners today have no idea of how intense the divide once was between Catholics and Protestants. [Mill Street - Down in the Lost Valley (read article)]

What I found intriguing about the Myshrall case was mention of Herman Komiensky. The Komiensky's were not paragons of virtue, but they had to be tough to live in the neighborhood. They were naturalized Jews, just one of dozens of Jewish families clustered about the Ritchie's who in 1901, were living on Acadia Street. These folks were not Jewish gentry by any means. Their successes and failures (including run-ins with the police) mirrored the experience of many other families in the old Lost Valley neighborhoods.
At one time there were more Jewish families on Acadia St. than there were gentiles. The Ritchie's were neighbors with families like the Meyer's, the Jacobson's, the Dallon's and the Bragget's. (Many had adopted Anglicized names.) Some families boarded transient Jews who were not recorded in the published Directory. For years I heard throwaway boasts about some long forgotten connection between the Ritchie's and Louis B. Mayer, but I always discounted it. Well it turned out to be true. Some day I simply must correct some of the baloney that been written about the Mayer family in Saint John. "Louis B." was a fantastic liar and I know from decades of researching past lives that a lie always conceals a fact.

This mill pond, actually a tidal mud flat hemmed in by the CPR trestle, was both front and back yard for hundreds of kids on the Portland foreshore. Acadia Street was the crush of tenements to the right, on water's edge. For little girls seeking sunshine and love, it was a place to wander away from as often as you could. NOTE: the new Irving Oil World Headquarters will rise on this site which was once tidal mud. Saint John harbour is today less than half of what it was when the Loyalist's arrived.

With regard to the Myshrall trial, my suspicion is that there was lying on both sides and I actually don't know if he was convicted. The anxiety of parents of can well be appreciated. Most worked desperately long hours and had no means of communication with their children through the day. All the more reason for poor families to resort to the courts as the best way to keep predatory males from the doorstep.

No doubt plenty of girls were just as curious about sex as were the boys. In addition there was an intense pressure on young people to find their own way out of the rickity, overcrowded tenements. (The Ritchie family were nine souls jammed into one cold water flat on Acadia Street.) Of course my Great Grandmother was only eleven at the time of the incident, but the fact that several years later later she "got herself pregnant" before marriage, attests to the fact that social and religious conventions could not possibly dictate all behavior in the thousands of day-to-day encounters of the working poor in the North End.

In that decade the Saint John County Court still maintained a "Bastardy Docket" but it never saw any of our family. Lucy Ritchie did marry her boyfriend and together they raised their son, who in turn gave her thirteen grandchildren. Both Lucy and Ella became residents of Paradise Row and, in a twist that illustrates the complexity of Valley life, one of Ella's grandson's married one of Lucy's granddaughters. That union required some rather urgent consultation with the parish priest because Lucy's grandchildren were raised as staunch Catholics.

John Steinbeck's lapsed pastor in The Grapes of Wrath said it best: "There ain't no sin and there ain't no virtue. There's just stuff people do."

The Portland N.B. Library - few traces remain of an historic institution

2008-09-20T01:10:00.000-07:00

Saint John used to be a great book town, a city of prodigious readers. If you think I'm exaggerating pick up a copy of George Stewart's The Story of the Great Fire in St. John, N.B. and you will discover the whole of Chapter XIX is devoted to the unique private libraries and art collections consumed by the conflagration of June 20, 1877. Stewart wrote, “Though in St. John we had no public library, there were many private collections of books in the city. Some of them were very large and well selected,” and he proceeded to describe over a dozen of those collections in detail. Compare Stewart’s mournful lament for “those precious books we all loved so dearly” to the reportage of any of the great calamities of our own time. Libraries no longer make anyone’s list.

The Town of Portland was spared by Saint John's fire but nevertheless it was first to take up the challenge of establishing a public library and to invest in purchasing a comprehensive collection suitable for a modern readership. I do not know an earlier address for the library but when UNION HALL was built at 361 Main Street, by the Women's Christian Temperance Union, their library opened in one large room on the second floor. The Carnegie Library in Saint John gets all the glory, but the Portland Library was established first.

I do not know if construction of the W.C.T.U. meeting hall preceded the amalgamation of the Town of Portland and the City of Saint John. Originally the service was jointly managed by the Directors of Union Hall and the W.C.T.U. It was called the TOWN OF PORTLAND - FREE PUBLIC LIBRARY. In time the "North End Union" assumed full responsibility and employed a full-time librarian. Although I have not seen a copy, I know that the W.C.T.U. had the entire library catalog printed in book form and distributed to subscribers. Subscribers paid $1 per year for the right to borrow books and the general public was permitted to step in from the street to read in the periodical section.

After Portland was absorbed, residents of the North End constituted a full third of Saint John's tax base, but the North End Library received only 1/4 of the annual Library appropriation. It was a situation resented by North Enders. I have only a few statistics at hand but I do know that in 1897 the Portland Library had 657 paid subscribers, some from as far as Millidgeville and Pokiok, who did not wish to cross over the valley for reading material.

UNION HALL, 361 Main Street: In this photo made in August of 1912, we can see the "Public Library" above the entrance to the STAR Nickelodeon. Just for fun, note the street mailbox and the fire hydrant. Compare these sidewalk artifacts to those in the colour photo supplied by H.E. Wright

The bookplate pasted into the library's copy of UNDERGROUND RUSSIA by "Stepniak" , Charles Scribner's Sons, New York 1883.

Cataloging for the Portland N.B. Library copy of THE LITTLE REGIMENT by Stephen Crane, D. Appleton and Company, N.Y., 1896.

I have two books which were once part of the Portland collection and I reproduce a catalog label. Harold Wright tells me he has seen a very elaborate label, and if one turns up I will add it to this article. If these two book titles are representative, then I think the Portland Public Library must have been a rather robust collection. I believe I purchased them at The Book Broker on Union Street in the 1970s. I confess I have always had some interest in the Russian Anarchists so "Stepniak" was an easy choice for me. His real name was Serge M. Kravchinski, and there is a Stepniak Wiki page here. Stephen Crane is also an old interest, and he had a Saint John connection which I might write about here in future. It's quite possible that one of the Saint John newspapers mentioned it at the time of Crane's death in 1900.

In October of 2007 I contacted the reference desk of the Saint John Free Public Library, hoping to locate a photo of the Portland Library for use in a Blog article. I was very surprised to learn they do not have one. It's taken me eleven months but I now have enough images to share an article with Lost Valley readers.

This image, c.1958, shows a corner of Union Hall and facade of the old BANK OF NEW BRUNSWICK building. Forward thinking administrators would never have allowed the bank's demolition. The "Public Library" entrance sign is still visible at 361 Main Street.

This is a photo taken by H.E. Wright just before the demolition of Union Hall. Of course by then it was popularly know as Welsford's. Note the tiny Bank of Nova Scotia building that replaced the wonderful old Bank of New Brunswick building. Also, for fun, compare this picture to the 1912 image. The fire plug is in exactly the same spot but a red Canada Post street box replaced the Royal Mail box which once was fifty feet further up slope.

P.S. - I see that Google Blogger greatly reduced the size of these photos. That takes much of the fun out of making comparisons.

My 40th LOST VALLEY article - Searching Facebook for Fragments of the Past

2008-09-08T21:11:00.000-07:00

The preparation for launching The Lost Valley Blog in 2007 included building a reference set of Google bookmarks. [I guess the Blog is more of an online magazine.] At last count that file contains over 500 URLs which allow me to quickly fact check specific details in the photos and maps I use with the articles or to double check dates and spellings. After 24 years absence from the North End, the names of some Saint John streets eluded me. Nineteen of the bookmark URLs are in FACEBOOK, the social networking site developed at Harvard University, and which is incredibly simple to use.

Actually I never use Facebook in my personal life. I subscribed simply to access these Saint John sites, in the hope of "striking gold". That hasn't happened yet, but I have found silver. I equate site searching to the pop bottle collecting I did in my early childhood. Each Saturday my goal was to build a dollar, two cents at a time.
I did find some useful photos in "Old Pictures of Saint John" and some interesting anecdotes in a couple of the school alumni groups. I was especially interested in "St. Peter's Elementary - Junior High School" because I attended in the 1970s. I wrote about St. Pete's in previous Blogs.

One of the gallery screens in OLD PICTURES OF SAINT JOHN. Unfortunately some contributors have had a change of heart and deleted photos from the set. Several photos have been scraped from this site and pasted in other Saint John sites on my list.

Some of the Saint John Facebooks sites are fraught with problems. For example I wanted to share photos and information with the "Old Pictures" group but because I am registered in Vancouver and am not in the New Brunswick regional network I can view their site but not submit anything. I was able to contribute a little enthusiastic commentary on just a few S.J. sites but in most cases there was no reply or comment to what I had to say. The language in a few sites can get rather salty or coded. The South Enders group is probably the most entertaining. They include a few "characters". Some pages are patrolled by protective owners who may delete whole pages of submissions for reasons of their own. The CHSJ Television site is an example of that. Another is the Aberdeen School site. That one has rather good photos of a few Lost Valley streets before the demolitions, but unfortunately the "owner" contributor defaced them all by scrawling his own name in large script. It doesn't matter now because public access is has been blocked.

Here is a shot of the Valley which you will find in the "North of Union" FACEBOOK site. Holy Trinity Church is on the north valley wall. I wasn't a big fan of the North of Union lobby group, largely because a few heritage consultants were paid $$thousands for little or no real effort, while everyone else contributed without expectation of compensation.
These are the nineteen Saint John, N.B. sites I scoured on FACEBOOK for trace info useful in preparing articles for The Lost Valley history Blog.

Another shot of the old Valley, this time looking east, which can be viewed in the gallery offered on the "North of Union" FACEBOOK site.

Some of the Saint John FACEBOOK sites never really took off and will no doubt be deleted sometime soon. New ones may continue to be announced in the SAINT JOHN, N.B. topics page. Many older topics have already been deleted. FACEBOOK itself will ultimately be sold. There have already been stupendous offers, and when ownership changes the database will be heavily weeded. In the meantime you might check out the site which matches your own Saint John experience.

St. Paul's (Valley) Church - Never Forgotten

2008-08-22T23:20:00.000-07:00

When we were kids scrambling about the North End of Saint John our world was still crowded from east to west with sagging grey tenements and brooding business blocks. You had your pick of aging architectural landmarks but few of them pertained to the almost forgotten city of Portland which our ancestors had once called home. One prized jewel of that lost world was a well maintained church standing near the corner of Rockland Road and Paradise Row. Its name was St. Paul's Valley Church.

I have read that Christian worship in the Portland Point area traces as far back as 1769 when a visiting missionary provided separate services in English, French and Micmac. The original St. Luke’s Church (on Main St.) was constructed on the Indiantown Road in 1838 and its prosperous congregation soon decided to build a chapel down in the valley. The church which opened in 1842 was variously known as “St. Paul’s Chapel” or “Portland Valley Church” or simply “Valley Church”. About the time of Canadian Confederation church parishioners decided to build something splendid and local architect Matthew Stead was commissioned to design a grand edifice to replace their crowded chapel. On September 2, 1869 the cornerstone was laid and the grand new St. Paul’s Valley Church opened for worship in 1870.

St. Paul's Valley Church, circa 1875. This wonderful photo, provided by Harold Wright, was a carefully composed stereo image. Zion Church and St. Paul's are shown at mid-level but equal recognition is given to the important industrial development demanding its share of the valley floor. The stone structure on the right housed the business offices of the first train station in Saint John.

I have photographs of the original St. Paul's Valley Church, and will use them another time. For now I ask you to look once more on the photograph above. Let the rail tracks and boxcars blur in your vision and cast your mind back a further twenty years. "On a bright September day in 1853... 5,000 tradesmen and citizens paraded through the streets of Saint John to celebrate the beginning of construction on the European and North American Railway to Shediac. The procession stretched for over 1.5 miles. With banners flying and floats that included a full-rigged clipper ship drawn by horses, the procession wound its way to a special pavilion erected in the "Valley" near St. Paul's Church. There in the early afternoon, accompanied by a 70- gun salute, Lady Head, wife of Lieutenant Governor Edmund Head, turned the first sod."

You will note that George Schuyler isolated the word "Valley" in quotation marks, by which I assume he wished to indicate it was somehow a questionable or non-official geographic location. It's my hope that the Lost Valley Blog is already starting to convince readers that the Valley was not only a distinct residential-commercial-industrial mix, but a unique heritage zone which made a significant contribution to Canadian history. The prime reason it was allowed to be completely scraped away is that generations of politicians and planners chased after juicy federal and provincial infrastructure funding which was only available to those municipalities willing to sacrifice their urban cores to mega projects - grand designs which created or enlarged transportation corridors and modernized national ports but turned families into migrants. That's not sour grapes, it's just history.

I've written here before about the religious divide in old Saint John and the fact that my family were all descended from Irish Catholics. Well into the 1970s we were still attending separate schools. My proud ancestors by their dozens had walked by or driven past St. Paul's almost daily for over a century, but I doubt if even one of them ever stepped through those solid "Protestant" doors. I certainly never had that opportunity. The only exposure to non-Catholic venue that I can recall from my boyhood was a visit to a Boy Scout troop in a church basement. It didn't work out for me. Hard religious views were certainly not confined to Saint John. Consider that as late as September 1947, with the Cold War just beginning to threaten North American security, The Presbyterian Record told its readers "that both communism and Roman Catholicism were generally held to be but forms of totalitarianism."

The spire of St. Paul's (Valley) Church became the predominant landmark after urban renewal raised the valley neighborhoods in the 1970s. To the left is the spire of the neighborhood Catholic church which my relatives attended - Holy Trinity. I took this photo for my family history file shortly before leaving Saint John.

The fiery destruction of St. Paul's Church in July 1981 was reported across Canada. I clipped the news from the Vancouver PROVINCE. It was the first "home" news I had read since leaving Saint John three months before. What urban renewal had spared, careless workmen destroyed.

Deborah Irvine Anderson is with CBC Radio in Saint John. Her family contributed much to the business and social life of the old North End. She writes: "As for my memories of the fire... I would have been just 4 years old when St. Paul's burned. It was the church where I was baptized as an infant (less than 8 weeks old) when my father was the assistant there. [Canon Jim Irvine contributed the Mission Church Christmas Story found here. And I recently added a great photo to that story.] When I was 8 weeks old my father took on a new church (St. Jude's on the lower West Side) I remember sitting in the backseat of our car at the top of Garden Street watching St. Paul's burn. It's a very vivid memory for me. I remember driving by when it was still standing and being told "That's where you were baptized."... so seeing it burn was quite dramatic to a four year old! I can remember my parents discussing the work that was being done to it that started the fire and I remember hearing my parents speak to their friends afterwards of how quickly things happened that day.
I can't believe where a church once stood, there will soon be a hotel.... seems like the kind of thing they do in big cities like Toronto.

A construction crane arrived at the Rockland Road site August 13, 2008. The old location of the St. Paul's (Valley) Church has been barren since the 1981 fire although a small modern church was built on an adjacent lot. In this photo we can see the red brick Holy Trinity Catholic School higher up the valley wall.

THE E-MAIL BAG - Sept. 23
This piece triggered a few boyhood memories for Wayne D. McKay. He wrote, "I painted the steeple of St. Paul's once, a very scary venture."
In the 1960's Wayne's grandfather, Thomas Mitchell, was hired to paint the church. (Mr. Mitchell was a Saint John painting contractor who clocked 50+ years in the business before his retirement.)
Wayne, who grew up in the North End, worked on many painting jobs but the spire in the Valley proved too much for him. "I was only 15 and too scared to look around, we (two of us, my uncle and I) were hanging by ropes strung from above us and sitting in bosun chairs. Sadly, I was replaced and put on ground duty after about 2 hours ... I was just too slow."

Horrible death of a Baseball Hero - 1892

2008-08-10T21:20:00.000-07:00