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Kedgwick, N.B.
Yes, in 1837, by what the people told me and because I like to find out about all those things,is an army. They used to call them the Blue Jackets. They left Campbellton going up to the St. John River to fight for the land of the country there. They left Tide Head on the Upsalquitch River. They had two Indians with them guiding them. The first thing they know about, I would say a few weeks after they went in the woods, one of those Indians came back to Campbellton. He brought them papers for the journal of the regiment and everyone else thought that one of those days, we would find out where those people, those 800 men went because they never arrived to Saint John River. Nobody had ever heard about them where they went or how they died or whatsoever. That was curious for me and I says "well, my Lord, I've got to talk to the old timer tell me those story". "Well, they said, Maurice there was an army of 800 people. They left Campbellton. They probably had a fight with the Indian. One of them came back, bring the mail. You know what, maybe they fight, but they don't know, but they never got out of the woods". I said "where were they going?" Most of the old timer tell me they were going on the Upsalquitch River and the intent was to get the Big Twenty-Two River to go to River St. John, but since they had lost one of the Indian guide, maybe the other one, they knew no more where to go, they turned right on the Small 22 river and that's probably where they got lost. I was talking with the old timer. They always told "Maurice, they had three guns, three big guns there. Those canons there, cannons, we did find them when we were young. We sit on them bla-bla-bla-bla". I went to Saint-Arthur. I went to see some old timer. I brought them with me in the woods but then, they were, they had, let's say 20 years old, they got 90 years old now. They're trying to get the right road. Those years, there were two roads, now there's 20 roads. But they don't know where they are. We just couldn't find them. But anyway, one of those morning, a guy came to my place. He said "Maurice, I believe I got something for you". I said "what's this". He said "I went hunting, he said, about a mile from the road". He said "I found a hole about 10 feet square. There's water in there about 10 feet deep, a channel beside that, he says, 300 feet long with a bank only on one side". I said "my Lord what that could be now". I brought a small detector of metal I bought at Canadian Tire, not something expensive. In the hole, not in the big hole but in the land on 300 feet, at the beginning of that, I dig three feet deep. I found. I found a rack metal with a small bucket, but the bucket in piece there. I hope that next summer, in 2007 this summer, I'll be able to go and try to find something that would be a mark on it or let's say just as a joke, an hammer that would put the day, would be on or the crest of the army whatsoever.
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Title: Kedgwick, N.B.
Description: Maurice Babineau speaks about the Blue Jackets Army that left Campbellton in the 1830s and of his fascination with canons.
Subjects: villages
Source: Connections Productions
Language: English
Date: 2007-03-06
Creator: Connections Productions
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