ame referred to in the following paragraph in the Courier of
January 6, 1841:[113]

"Friday last, being New Years day, a large body of the Milicete
tribe of Indians including a considerable number of well dressed
squaws, headed by their old-old-chief Thoma, appeared at
Government House to pay their annual compliments to the
representative of their Sovereign, and were received by His
Excellency with great kindness. His Excellency availed himself of
the occasion publicly to decorate the worthy old chief with a
splendid silver medallion suspended by a blue ribbon, exhibiting a
beautiful effigy of our gracious sovereign on one side, with the
Royal Arms on the reverse."

[112] Frederick Dibblee was a Loyalist, a graduate of Columbia College
(N.Y.); afterwards rector of Woodstock, N. B. He went to
Medoctec as a lay missionary teacher to the Indians under an
arrangement with an English Society for the propagation of the
Gospel amongst the Indians. There were at Medoctec in 1788
about seventy Indian families including 98 men, 74 women, 165
children; total, 337 souls.

[113] The author is indebted for the above extract to the kindness of
Mr. Ward.

Many of the Thoma family were remarkable for their longevity. When the
writer of this history was a boy there lived at the Indian village,
three miles below the Town of Woodstock, a very intelligent and
industrious Indian, whose bent, spare figure was a familiar object to
travellers along the country roads. It would be hard to count the
number of baskets and moccasins the old man carried on his back to
town for sale. He was born at Medoctec in 1789 and died at Woodstock
not long ago at the age of nearly one hundred years. The old fellow
was famous for his knowledge of herbs, which he was wont to administer
to the Indians in case of sickness; indeed it was not an uncommon
thing for the white people to consult "Doctor Tomer" as to their
ailments. In the year 1877 "Tomer" came to pay a friendly visit to
Charles Raymond, the author's grandfather, who was then in his 90th
year and confined to his room with what proved to be his first and
last illness. The pleasure of meeting seemed to be mutual. The two had
known one another for many years and were accustomed from time to time
to compare ages. "Tomer" was always one year younger, showing that the
old Indian kept his notch-stick well. He is believed to have