Malobianah, or Malabeam.

In the early days of the settlement at St. Ann's, some fellows that
had come from the States used to disturb the other settlers. They
procured liquor at Vanhorne's tavern and drank heavily. They lived
in a log cabin which soon became a resort for bad characters. They
formed a plot to go up the river and plunder the
settlers--provisions being their chief object. They agreed that if
any of their party were killed in the expedition they should
prevent discovery of their identity by putting him into a hole cut
in the ice. While they were endeavoring to effect an entrance into
a settler's house, a shot, fired out of a window, wounded a young
man in the leg. The others then desisted from their attempt, but
cut a hole in the ice and thrust the poor fellow in, who had been
shot, although he begged to be allowed to die in the woods, and
promised, if found alive not to betray them, but they would not
trust him.

Here the story of the old grandmother comes abruptly to an end. Enough,
however, is preserved in these extracts to indicate the source of a
good deal of the very valuable information concerning the early
experience of the Loyalists in the New Brunswick wilderness, which
appears in Mr. Fisher's "Sketches of New-Brunswick." Doubtless what he
has related on this topic in his little book is based upon what he
learned from the lips of his mother. To her care and devotion, in all
human probability, he owed his preservation during the first eventful
winter spent under canvas on the old St. Ann's plain.

Peter Fisher acquired a pretty good education, for those days. A _fac
simile_ of his signature is here given, which shows that his penmanship
was excellent, and compared more than favorably with that of his son
and name-sake, Lewis Peter Fisher, who was for some thirty odd years
mayor of Woodstock, and the leading barrister of that place, and whose
signature is also here given for comparison.

[Illustration: Signature of Peter Fisher
Signature of Lewis Peter Fisher]

The advantages of education were not great in the elder Peter Fisher's
day, but he had a pretty competent instructor in an English school
master, Bealing Stephens Williams, who was born in Cornwall in 1754,
and came to Nova-Scotia, a clerk in the navy in 1779. He settled in
Cumberland, N.S., where he taught school and was married, removing to
Fredericton in