Sacred Site

The Saint Croix Courier
Saint Stephen, N.B.
Thursday June 16, 1892

GLIMPSES OF THE PAST: CONTRIBUTIONS TO THE HISTORY OF CHARLOTTE COUNTY AND THE BORDER TOWNS.

XXI – THE INDIANS AFTER THE COMING OF THE ENGLISH (CONTINUED).

BY REV. W.O. RAYMOND

The sworn testimony of John Curry, Esq., a magistrate and a man of excellent reputation, before the boundary commissioners states that Lord William Campbell, Governor of Nova Scotia, visited Campobello in August,1770.

He concludes his testimony as follows:

That in 1770, when this deponent first come to the country, there was an Indian place of Worship and a cross standing upon Saint Andrews or Indian Point, and a burying ground which he understood from them was consecrated Ground and that most of the Indians buried their dead there, That among others to this deponents knowledge, the Chief of the Passamaquoddy Tribe, John Neptune (Bungawarrawit) and one of the Chiefs of the Saint John’s Tribe known by the name of Pierre Toma were both of them buried there, and that they had likewise another burying ground at Indian Land so called, at Stillwater, up the Schoodic, another at Indian Island and another at Pleasant Point. That their cross was standing there till the Spring 1784, when Col. Loius Neptune came to this deponent at Campobello with a complaint that is was cut down by some of the refugees and their place of worship destroyed: upon which this deponents told him it was not the wish of the Government that any one should use them ill, and if the persons who were guilty of it could be brought to justice and their grievances redressed; but as the persons were not found out, a new cross was erected by the inhabitants of Saint Andrews in order to satisfy them which they paid but little regard to, and from thence forward discontinued their worship and burials at Saint Andrews and fixed the same at Pleasant Point.