“Gather around, my gentle friends … I shall give an accurate, warm account of our voyage … in the pleasant, remarkable Albion,” is the innocent opening of a remarkable travelogue recounting the beginning of what Acadiensis called “almost certainly the first Welsh settlement in Canada” — Cardigan, New Brunswick.
This is part of a trilogy on the Great Fire of Miramichi:
The Albion set sail in 1819, early among the wave of immigrants that eventually saw millions arrive in Canada.
Perhaps the most surprising thing is how spontaneous their decision to move to New Brunswick seems. Some 180 Welsh people uprooted themselves with shockingly little planning:
“On the ninth day of April, a large crowd gathered where a meeting had been called at Castle Pool in the open air. … There were large crowds of people, as you know, all around. Many wanted to hear. Many were fearless. After the worship was over, they made their way to Pwllcam without ever expecting to see again, [their] brothers, sisters, fathers, nor mothers.”
In reality, this had been building for some time. Napoleon’s defeat at Waterloo had left a widespread restlessness across Britain. People had been promised that after the war’s end, life would get better. Instead, 1816 had brought “The Year Without A Summer,” which sparked a wave of bankruptcy and starvation across Wales. By 1819, many people were ready to immigrate, but couldn't. These Welsh people just happened to be lucky enough to know a ship that had a Welsh captain who’d agreed to take them over at a discounted price.
It’s not clear how much they knew about their destination. One remarked they were moving to “the Brittanick States of America.” Historian Peter Thomas, in his book ‘Strangers In A Secret Land,’ wryly noted this “suggests a rather hazy idea of the political boundaries between Canada and the United States.”
At Pwllcam harbour, the immigrants bid farewell to their loved ones and prepared to leave their homes, writing “On Monday at nine in the morning we set out … at ten o’clock the following morning we were moving on the blue ocean.”
They didn’t get far. The winds faltered near Ireland, and after drifting for days, they ended up right back off the Welsh coast. Friends and family gathered onshore, “watching and praying” for them. After three days floating helplessly, the wind picked up, and they were finally away.
“I can’t think of anything unusual which took place on those days,” the document jauntily declared. A modern traveller would beg to differ.
During the six-week voyage, disease swept the ship, several children died, and “great rainstorms [raged] day and night.” For no apparent reason beyond cruel sport, a passing Dutch warship even fired a single cannonball at them.
“We were six long weeks on those waters without seeing land,” they wrote, until Nova Scotia came into sight. About thirty settlers disembarked at Shelburn, while the rest pressed on to Saint John.
“We dressed our very best,” they wrote as the Albion sailed into the Port City’s harbour. Saint Johners warmly greeted the new immigrants, “bearing many gifts.”
“I can tell you about New Brunswick,” declared a ballad composed by the Welsh settlers. “I don’t think there is anywhere in the whole world a better district be found. You may have told us there were poor people here, but I can contradict this utterly: if they were here, we would have seen them.”
The Welsh were directed to settle land along the Royal Road between Fredericton and Stanley. They would call their hometown Cardigan.
But as they tromped through Fredericton, their romantic vision they had of themselves as intrepid pioneers finally clashed with harsh reality. Frederictonians were horrified by what they were seeing: the Welsh immigrants were “destitute,” they had no food or clothing. It was autumn, and winter was coming.
“Empty wishes clothe not the naked nor fill the hungry,” the Royal Gazette ominously warned.
Frederictonians rallied, founding the Emigrant Society, which vowed to support all immigrants arriving in New Brunswick.
By October 19th, the Gazette reported “upwards of twenty men have been employed at the Cardigan settlement constructing houses” and that the Welsh had been supplied with “potatoes, grain and clothing.”
Still, by late November, Sir Robert Le Poer Trench reported the immigrants were “[still] uncomfortably lodged and by no means prepared to meet the approaching winter.” That meeting ended in a shouting match.
Not everyone was happy with immigration to New Brunswick. In both Fredericton and Saint John, there was a vicious backlash “against contributing to the relief of Emigrants.”
One Emigrant Society meeting that winter was overrun by anti-immigration activists who variously denounced the Welsh as “petulant,” “avaricious,” “sluggish,” “beggarly,” “helpless,” and “inert.” Supporters defended the people of Cardigan, declaring they were “without one exception a quiet, inoffensive, moral people.” The meeting had to be broken up.
Tradesmen refused to teach them skills like cutting firewood for fear of competition. “Their slow method is detrimental to themselves only,” the Society pleaded, “the price is established.”
“Luckily, however, for the Emigrants,” the Society’s leadership committee reported, “there are a number of persons in [Fredericton and Saint John] who can get over such difficulties.” In a defiant move, donors even published their names in the newspaper.
With the help of New Brunswickers, the Welsh immigrants endured that brutal first winter.
And endure they did. Cardigan flourished, much like the settlers had written of the ship that carried them: “The brave Albion withstood it all, despite the frequent assault on her.”
Three years later, a Saint John newspaper asked one Welsh immigrant what he thought of New Brunswick. His answer was memorable: “It is a Heaven for women, a Correction for men, and a Hell for horses.”
Only six years after they arrived, in late 1825, a brand new Welsh-language song made its way from New Brunswick to Wales.
Its title was admittedly rather clunky: “A New Song Giving The Story Of The Destructive Fire in North America.” Its lyrics, however, demanded attention — literally — opening with the line: “Inhabitants of all countries, listen all of you.”
It told how Cardigan had fallen victim to the Great Fire of Mramichi — the inferno that, 200 years ago on October 7th, 1825, swept across New Brunswick:
“Every person sought survival,
Some in flight and bitter sorrow,
Hasty from their beds departed
From the flaming fire’s wrath.
…
Death clung to them in the valley,
Drove them to seek the waters deep
Seeking ceaselessly a departure,
From the fire’s fierce heat.”
Next week: How the Great Fire of Miramichi destroyed one-third of Fredericton.
