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About GenCircles
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| Marty Lund |     |
| Cookville Settlers |
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AN HISTORICAL ACCOUNT OF COOKVILLE IN THE PARISH OF SACKVILLE, N.B.by R. Ernest Estabrooks (delivered at the Cookville Baptist Church, November 4th 1951) Cookville is a community in the Parish of Sackville lying some 12 miles north of the Town of Sackville, and at the head of the Tantramar Marshes. It was at one time a very prosperous farming community with saw-mills in addition to its well-tilled farms. As most of the early settlers of Cookville were from the Township of Sackville it will be necessary to review briefly the history of Sackville. And by Sackville I do not mean just what is known as the Town of Sackville, but all that scope lying to the east of the Aulac River which was organized into the Township of Sackville in 1759. As you all know, that locality was settled by the French in the seventeenth century, and a roughly semi-circular strip of upland between Westcock and Upper Sackville, or Tantramar, as it was then called, cleared, and some of the marshland drained and enclosed. After the fall of Beausejour in 1755 the French inhabitants were expelled, and distributed along the New England coast. Upon their expulsion, the Nova Scotia government advertised for settlers to take up the land left vacant, and a number of new settlers from Massachusetts, Rhode Island, and Connecticut in 1762-3 settled here. Many of the new settlers wanted to locate as near to the pond as possible, as this was the only source of mechanical power known to them at this period. This is what is known as Morice's Pond, or more euphoniously as Silver Lake. This had evidently been a source of power for the French inhabitants also...references in French documents to the Old Mill Dam there show must have been a mill operated there before the expulsion. In order that a few of the settlers should not monopolize all the cleared land and leave the next lot to make their homes in the virgin forest, the committee in charge divided the cleared land into lots of from 7 to 14 acres, and each settler was allotted one lot of cleared land, one or more small lots of marshland, and the balance of his grant of 500 acres in woodland between Sackville and Dorchester. This, I think, is why the Sackville farms are so small. The English immigration began in 1761-2. As most of the incoming settlers were from Massachusetts, Rhode Island and Connecticut, and as Rhode Island was, at that time the center of Baptist sentiment in America, this probably explains why this section has always been a center of Baptist Sentiment. In 1763, a Baptist Church was organized in Swansea, Mass and the members, in a body, 13 families in number, moved to Sackville. The organization has existed to the present time. The Main St. Baptist Church in the Town of Sackville, and the Middle Sackville Baptist Church continue to exist as the original organization, the oldest British Baptist Church in Canada. In a grant of land made on the 18th day of October, 1765, appear the names of Valentine Easterbrooks, Israel Thornton, James Easterbrooks, Josiah Tingley and Axel Carpenter, all connected in some way with the history of Cookville. In another grant made on the 25th day of January, 1775, appear the names of Nicholas Cook, Joseph Cook, Jesse Cook, Eliphlet Read, Joseph and Samuel Hicks. I have reason to believe that these men came from the same locality as the first English settlers, as, in 1759, a John Hicks from Rhode Island was in Halifax looking for land for settlers from that state. In 1786, a memorial to Governor Thomas Carleton, the first Governor of New Brunswick, asking that their lands be not escheated, appear the names of Andrew Kinnear, Valentine Easter-brooks, Daniel Tingley, Josiah Tingley, Eliphlet Read, Samuel Hicks, Irey Hicks, Joseph/Josiah Hicks, and Angus McFee. It is quite possible that the Easterbrooks, Tingleys, Reads, Hicks, and McFees of this locality can all trace their ancestry back to these pioneers. In the spring of 1830, a small boat, propelled by a husky young man, might have been seen going up the North Lake at the head of the Tantramar marshes. It entered a stream entering the lake, pushed onward under over-hanging trees, and finally came to rest at a spot not far removed from where the Cookville Baptist Church now stands. This young man was David Cook, the first settler in Cookville, and he might well have made use of the words, afterwards used by Longfellow; "This is the forest primeval; the murmuring pines and the hemlocks, bearded with moss and in garlands green, indistinct in the twilight, stand like druids of old with voices sad and prophetic; stand like harpers hoar with beards that rest on their bosoms." David Cook had come to carve out, for himself, a home in the wilderness; and besides bone and brawn he brought with him a vision of the future which buoyed him up amid all the hardships and discouragements. He was the first settler and the locality was named after him. The nearest house was that of *John Towse on the Aboushagan Road. In a short time he had a trail blazed to Towse's Corner, and as he soon after married Miss Charlotte Towse, I presume we may think of this as his "sparking trail". Later, he trimmed this into a bridal path and his wife frequently took her young child in her arms and rode on horseback to her father's residence. This trail was later made passable for ox-carts and was the first road to Cookville. Later a road was made to Harper's Brook, and another, less used, the Terris Road to Centrevillage. David Cook had seven sons: John, George, Christopher, James, William, Isaac, and Charles, and two daughters, Elizabeth and Mary. The second settler was Angus McFee. He settled just above what is known as "The Polly Place". He married a Miss Thornton, probably a daughter of Israel Thornton, one of the first settlers in Letter "C" division of Sackville. Isaac and his wife had three sons; Stewart, Isaac and George, and four daughters; Jane, Rebessa, Olive and another whose name escapes me. Stewart married a Miss Leake and lived where his son, Cyrus afterwards lived. Cyrus learned the Carriage trade with David Estabrooks of Middle Sackville. Later he worked as a carpenter for the Intercolonial Railway before he settled down as a farmer. Other early settlers were Gideon Estabrooks, John Wheaton, William O'Brien, Isaac Tingley and George Lund. Gideon Estabrooks married Hannah, daughter of Tolar Thompson, one of the most progressive farmers of Upper Sackville; a man whose recognition of the value of the marshlands was far in advance of his time. Gideon's first son was named Thompson. Other sons were John, Allen, Hazen, William and Jeffery. He also had two daughters: Jane and Mary. John Wheaton married Zilpha Cole and had four sons: Andrew, Edward, William and Howard, and three daughters: Margaret, Jane, and Charity who married Robert Kay of Centrevillage. William O'Brien married Lucy, daughter of Frederick Sears of Upper Sackville. This was the "Brother Sears", who, in 1823 was "voted", by the Baptist Church of Sackville; "To have an eye on the misdemeaners in the time preaching, and to publicly expose such persons." Edward O'Brien and his wife had 4 sons; Edward, Fred, Watson and Milton; seven daughters; Mary, Eunice, Prudence, Any, Judith who married Lennox Kinnear, Zillah, Fanny and Ann. Isaac Tingley married Caroline Anderson of Midgic and had four sons; Job, Ami, John and James, and two daughters; Annie and Victoria. George Lund, whose wife was an Ibbitson, had one son, George and two daughters; Fanny and Ann. He also had a stepson, John, who had a large family, namely Daniel, Wesley, George, Charles, Gilford, Blair, Mary Jane, Isabel, and Ellen. This list of early settlers I gleaned from notes by the late George Cook, M.D., and as we took his pills and powders without question, so, I also shall have to take this list. There are many names I remember of about 75 years that are not included in this list, and I should like to know when and whence they came to this community. I recall James Distant, William Kinnear, J.P., and his son Boyd, Lennox and Horatio Kinnear, Joseph Hicks, Charles Robinson, and James Hargraves, Douglas Polly, Chapman, William Polly, Ephriam Murray, and a Mr. Read. There are probably many other names that have escaped me.
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