me of these people
almost exceed belief. Frequently, in the piercing cold of winter, a
part of the family had to remain up during the night to keep fire in
their huts to prevent the other part from freezing. Some very
destitute families made use of boards to supply the want of bedding;
the father or some of the elder children remaining up by turns, and
warming two suitable pieces of boards, which they applied alternately
to the smaller children to keep them warm; with many similar
expedients."

The awfulness of their situation may be readily imagined. Women,
delicately reared, cared for their infants beneath canvas tents,
rendered habitable only by the banks of snow which lay six feet deep
in the open spaces of the forest. Men, unaccustomed to toil, looked
with dismay at the prospect before them. The non-arrival of supplies
expected before the close of navigation, added to their dire
forebodings. At one time during the winter, starvation stared them in
the face, and one who passed through the sorrowful experience of that
time says: "Strong proud men wept like children, and, exhausted by
cold and famine, lay down in their snow bound tents to die." The poor
settlers had to make frequent trips of from fifty to one hundred miles
with hand-sleds or toboggans, through the wild woods and on the ice,
to procure a precarious supply of food for their famishing families.

Among those who settled at St. Anns at this time was Lodewick Fisher,
who had seen nearly seven years service in Col. Van Buskirk's
battalion of the New Jersey Volunteers. This brave old Loyalist came
to St. John in the Ship "Esther," accompanied by his wife Mary, and
three children, Eliza, Henry and Peter, all of whom were born on
Staten Island during the war. Peter, the youngest of the trio, was
only 16 months old at the time of his arrival and of course had no
personal recollection of the experience of the first winter, but in
his little history he has given some of the recollections of his
elders which are of great interest. (It may be noted, in passing, that
the eldest son of Peter Fisher, the Hon. Charles Fisher, was attorney
general of the province and later a judge of the supreme court; he was
one of the fathers of Responsible Government and left his impress in
the pages of our history.)

Much that is of great interest concerning the founders of Fredericton
has been gleaned from the reminiscences of Mrs. Lodewick Fisher,
which she used to relate in th