Relations among the settlers reach a new low, as land greed works on friends and even family like a horrible yeast. To qualify for the land grant, each settler has to make a set number of improvements to his lot, knowing that his vigilant neighbours may challenge his claim if he fails, in their view, to meet the requirements. David Savoy tries to get title to a lot surveyed for his cousin Charles Breaux. Two of Charlotte’s sons sign Savoy’s petition and vouch for his claim that no improvements have been made on the lot in question. He isn’t successful, and relations are ruined with his friend. Charlotte is shocked by such behaviour, but scandalizes her neighbours when she makes a case for her ownership of the glebe, a lot the land grant has set aside for a church. She’s been growing hay for her animals on that lot, a claim better than any other as far as she is concerned. But she too loses.
The Point and surrounding area is also unsettled by rumours of a new war between America and England. The Americans make several sorties into both Upper and Lower Canada and, though they are thwarted, there’s talk that the Indians are helping the Yankees, and tensions between the settlers and the Mi’kmaq camps also rise.
And there are changes brewing in Charlotte’s house. Eleanor marries the disputatious David Savoy on November 11, 1810, and moves down shore. Then Charlotte Mary, only fourteen, marries Benjamin Stymiest Jr., and together they move to a lot farther up the Tabisintack River. They name the place Stymiest Millstream, and Benjamin starts a small sawmill. Charlotte’s two-storey house now feels empty, with only herself and Honnor rattling around in it. Unmarried, William, who lives in his own tiny cabin some hundreds of yards away from the main house, is there every night at the supper table.
ON NIGHTS when she finds herself lying sleepless and lonely in the pre-dawn hours, the one thing Charlotte has always been able to find comfort in is her sense that she’s been a good mother, and grandmother too. She knows that her outspokenness has sometimes made it difficult for her children, her boys in particular, who have had to defend her to the point of fistfights in the taverns. And that others look askance at the amount of land her family has accumulated, and the fact that Charlotte is a woman who never scruples to fight for her property rights. But the fact that a state of peace mostly reigns in a clan with children from four fathers, and that many days more than one of her adult children come to call, she regards as the pinnacle achievement of her life.
It’s a nasty shock to Charlotte when her oldest son upsets her sense of family solidarity, first by selling half his share of Lot Eight on the Miramichi, the lot he inherited from his father, to his brother Robert without mentioning the plan to her. When she tries to bring it up with him, after finding the news out from Robert, he refuses to be repentant. “The land is still in the family, Mother. What’s your concern? In my view, Robert needed a toehold on the river.”
But then, after a lengthy stay on the Miramichi, he returns to The Point to “inform” her, as he puts it, that he has been married to Catherine Doe, the settler’s daughter, for two years now.
Charlotte can’t take it in. Why hadn’t he told her? Had he kept it a secret from them all, and why did he feel the need?
“I’m telling you now, because Catherine has just made me a father. We have a baby girl.”
This is too much for his mother, who embarrasses herself by bursting into tears at this news.
“Why in heaven’s name wouldn’t you let me know such news in advance, John?”
All he will say is that he has his own life to live, and he wants the freedom to make his own choices. They part on uneasy terms, Charlotte deeply, desperately hurt, though her tears soon dry and her blunt tongue lets him know how he has disappointed her.
Six months later, on September 18, 1811, the five Hierlihy offspring suddenly sell Lot Nine, the land that was granted to their father under the auspices of the province of New Brunswick in 1798. Charlotte is truly stunned. She’d worked so hard to get that land and saw it as part of the family’s collective holdings. Worse, she knows her children know her wishes in this matter. It’s within their rights to sell the lot, but why would they do it without at least consulting her? What’s going on among these grown children of hers?
Little did she realize that one of them was about to declare open war directly upon her. On February 19, 1812—without even trying to raise the issue with his mother—John Blake writes to the Honourable Martin Hunter, president of His Majesty’s Council and commander in chief of the province of New Brunswick, and claims that Lot Ten on the Miramichi is rightfully his. His father, John Blake Sr., was the first settler on the Miramichi, he writes, and had a quantity of land to the extent of 550 acres. In his view, he has been defrauded of the land owing to the remarriages of his mother, Charlotte Blake-Wishart-Hierlihy. He makes a pointed argument that women do not hold title to land in New Brunswick. If widowed, they are allowed one-third of the property. Everything else is to be granted to the sons. “The sons of John Blake have been deprived of what is their right.”
In closing he writes, “By way of making up for the loss which your Memorialist has sustained in consequence of this transaction of the said Mother’s and for his assistance in support of a wife and children, your Memorialist would beg leave to apply for a portion of the vacant lands on the River Nappin.”
There’s no way his mother won’t find out about this, and though John tries to paint his letter in the best light when next he sees her—simply as a lever he was trying to exert to get the land he has his eye upon—Charlotte will have none of it. “What do you really aim for,” she demands. “You sold your father’s Lot Eight. The other on Lot Ten is none of your inheritance, and by using me in your games, you may undo my ownership, John. What is it that you have against me?”
This is too much for John, who explodes. “Mother, you want everything your way. You want to know everything. You want to direct everything, as if all of us must dance to the plans you have in your head forever. I want to stand on my own feet, as the son of John Blake, who was on the Miramichi before you were even in this country. Sometimes I get sick of having to carry the weight of you around, Mother, you and your contrary ways and your softness for Indians and your constant planning and scheming.”
When he storms out of her house at The Point to head back to the river, Charlotte is not entirely certain whether she will see him again—or even whether she wants to.
THE FRACTURE in her family hurts her bitterly, try as she might to hide it. When the long winter of 1812 starts to ease in March, she desperately needs a break from her brooding. And she decides that she will ask Wioche to take her back to Baie de Chaleur, which she has not seen since the day she climbed into Blake’s canoe carrying Elizabeth and paddled away from George Walker’s trading post.
She keeps a watch on the Indian camp for Wioche’s return: most winters he stays in other camps of the People. Then one morning, standing in the snow-covered garden, she sees him across the water. But what is he doing? He’s got a toboggan with some great item loaded onto it. As he draws near to her shore, she is utterly amazed to see her old trunk. Hauling it up the bank, Wioche explains. “Marie left it with me when she and André moved to Caraquet. I kept it for many years at the Baie, and this trip I thought I would bring it back to you.”
The plaque with the name Charlotte Howe Taylor, which gave her identity away to Commodore Walker, is still in place. The pale lining has survived the decades untouched, a poignant reminder of the silk dresses and embroidered bodices that once filled it. She stoops to idly run her hands through the pockets along the side of the chest, and her fingers encounter a little packet, wrapped in a bit of cloth—a tiny package of seeds, forgotten all these years. She stares at them, then looks up at Wioche. “These are seeds Pad and I brought from the garden in England to scatter about the home we thought we would have. I wonder if they will still grow.”
They carry the trunk to the house, where Charlotte finds a place for it in her bedchamber. In it, she decides, she will store her family’s history: the deeds
, her diary, the records of the house, the children, the men she has married—the chest will tell the story of this New World, good and bad.
And then she asks Wioche if he will take her to the Baie.
“We should wait till the ice breaks up, and we could paddle there,” he replies.
But Charlotte can’t bear to wait that long.
TWO WEEKS LATER, they set out along the still-frozen river, Honnor waving from the landing, maybe a little worried that her mother is setting off on such a long jaunt with an Indian man. She and Wioche have stolen many half-days together over the years but have never repeated a journey the like of their trip to Frederick Town, through the bush and under the stars. She’s fifty-seven years old now, her red hair streaked with grey and her face lined, the once-girlish freckles paler now. But her sea-blue eyes still sparkle. In the presence of Wioche, she does not feel her age.
He falls silent as she tells him about John Blake’s letter, then comments soberly, “What would make John behave this way? There must be something more to it than greed for land.”
They trek a little farther, Charlotte for the very first time mulling her innocence in the matter.
Then Wioche says, “My people, too, feel cheated. Ten years have passed since land was granted to Mi’kmaq, but we still have no rights to own our lands. And with the way the world is now, I fear that we have no choice but to own our land, or lose everything.”
The provincial authorities reserved fourteen tracts of land for the People, but kept the title with the Crown, which means that the Indians can live on their lands but cannot own them. What’s more, the tracts have never been surveyed, so the Indians have no official means to prevent encroachments. Some Indian lands have already been put up for public auction. And her own lot, as described on the deed, actually contains a small portion of Indian land. She is not blameless, not in the least.
Wioche says what is obvious to both of them. “The People cannot survive with no land, no hunting, no fishing.” Then, as they stop to rest a little, the harmony of these virgin woods soothes both their souls, and he lets the matter drop. After a while of sitting companionably, watching sun sparkle on the ice, as the breeze ruffles the branches over their heads, she asks, “Do you notice the wind? Even during the calm of a summer day it’s always blowing. When we moved to The Point, there were so many trees around, it felt to me like the wind was sneaking through them, trying to blow us away. Now that The Point is bare, the wind blows incessantly over the shore and the meadow. Even when it is a sweet wind, I notice it. Do you?”
“Charlotte, these are messages to you from the Great Spirit. Mother Earth takes care of you because you pay attention to them.”
“To my mind, the messages are not always all that kind,” Charlotte laughs. Then she ventures what she is really trying to ask. “William Wishart died near The Point, I’m certain of that. Is it his spirit in that wind? Or is it truly something else?”
Wioche lets the question drift. He sees her in a light others don’t, but still wonders what it is she seeks. “Charlotte, don’t worry about your quarrel with John. I’m sure it will come right with time. You must be patient.”
The tramp through the woods is easy on this centuries-old Indian trail. When the sun drops behind the trees, Wioche says, “There’s a Mi’kmaq camp nearby. We can stay there.”
Charlotte looks at him, much the same man he was when she was twenty. “Let’s make camp right here,” she suggests, pointing to a patch of high ground where the snow has already melted, a clearing in a stand of towering pines.
Spruce boughs for their bed, wood for a fire, pine branches for shelter. A fish cooked over the fire for their supper, tea in companionable silence. She is the one to take him by the hand and lead him to their shelter. And as they embrace, she feels she has known no greater peace that lying with this man under the fading light of day, and then again as the stars come out.
Before noon the next day, they walk out of the tunnel that is the Nepisiguit River, onto the shores of the harbour that opens out into the Baie de Chaleur. The salt water is flash-frozen in icy green waves, and the view takes her breath away. Except for the trees and the bay itself, the place is entirely changed. There are cabins all along the shore, as well as large two-storey houses that sit in cleared farm fields.
“I don’t think we should trust the ice to carry us, Charlotte,” Wioche says, and so she impatiently trudges beside him as they snowshoe around the bay.
At Alston Point, there’s hardly a trace of Walker’s old compound, and the local settlement is already encroaching on the land where his fishery once stood. The land is marked for lots all the way from the old Mi’kmaq camp to here. Long docks have been constructed in the harbour to accommodate the ships that arrive for the lumber. They aren’t alone on the beach, and the sound of hammers and sawing and the clip-clop of horses on the nearby path all speak of the changes thirty-six years have wrought.
Turning to look out to sea, Charlotte surveys giant icebergs, some of them pushed up by the tide that still ebbs and flows under the frozen surface, and strands them like great white palaces next to the shore.
The sun is plunging toward the treetops, painting those palaces with brilliant orange streaks, by the time they walk up the hill to the old Mi’kmaq camp. There’s hardly a sign that anyone ever lived here. The bush has reclaimed the site; even the fire pit has given its ashes back to the earth. A few dilapidated wooden structures are still standing, including her old tilt. They have to dislodge the door from the turf where it has sunk and tear back the branches that have grown across the threshold to get inside. Charlotte is overwhelmed with memories: her first nights staying with the Indians she’d been taught to fear, her labour with Elizabeth, learning to dry fish, gather berries and herbs … all the ways of the People that have protected her ever since. The faint scent of soot fills her nostrils, bringing back the inferno she created in the midst of a blizzard. She can think of no place she would rather be at this moment as together they sweep out dead leaves and branches, lay a new bed of spruce boughs and lie down for the night.
On the return tramp to Tabisintack, Charlotte is acutely aware of the contradictions stalking her. The land she covets is the land the Mi’kmaq have lost. The settlers, who came with hope for a new life, now live with the versions of the propriety at least some of them fled. The province makes progress for white settlers, with crushing consequences for the original inhabitants. Even the lots her family own at The Point encroach on reserved Indian land. But she decides to set the remorse that pricks her conscience aside for another time and take what pleasure this day still offers.
It’s turned into April, the month the Mi’kmaq call “Unadumooe-goos,” egg-laying month, when the birds return to nest and hatch their young. Charlotte decides it’s time for her to hatch some new plans of her own. When she and Wioche sleep together for a last time under the heavens that night, she has decided on a course of action that will either settle the quarrelling in her family or send an arrow into the heart of the clan.
When she arrives home, she immediately writes to the governor in Frederick Town:
To all people to whom these presents shall come, I Charlotte Hierlihy do send greeting. Know ye, That I, said Charlotte Hierlihy, widow of Tabisintack in the county of Northumberland and Province of New Brunswick for and in consideration of the love and good will and affection and also five shillings to me in hand Paid the receipt whereof I hereby acknowledge, which I have and do bear towards my loving son William Wishart of the same parish and county, have given and granted unto the same William Wishart, his heirs, executors or Administrators all that tract or parcel of land laying on the south side of the river Miramichi (being Lot No. Ten) county and province aforesaid of which (before the signing of these presents) I have delivered him the said William Wishart the aforesaid land, to have and to hold, in Fee simple to his heirs, executors or administrators from henceforth as his and their proper right, absolutely without any manner of condition.
In witness whereof I have hereunto put my hand and seal the Sixth day of April 1812.
The next day she hitches up the wagon and rides with Honnor into Newcastle to have the letter witnessed by the Justice of the Peace.
In the presence of Alexr. Allan, Northumberland County. Be it remembered that on the Sixth Day of April in the year of our Lord 1812, Personally appeared before me Alexr. Allan Esquire one of his Majesty’s Justices of the Peace in and for the said county. Charlotte Hierlihy the within named Grantor who declared that she signed, sealed and delivered the within written instrument for the purposes therein mentioned. Alexr. Allan J.P. Newcastle (to wit).
When they get back to The Point, she sends for John Blake before she tells her other sons and daughters, or even the intended recipient, what she has decided.
It’s awkward between them, but she is glad when he comes.
“I want to talk to you about Lot Ten, John.”
He makes as though to rise from her table, but she reaches for his arm and holds him still.
“That lot was cleared by William Wishart, John. It rightfully belongs not to you, or even to me, but to your half-brother William. I’ve deeded it over to him. If you have quarrel with this decision, make it known to me now. Otherwise, I won’t hear another word of it.”
He stares at the table a long time, before he lifts his head to meet her eye. “No, Mother. You’ll hear no complaint from me.”
And Charlotte is pleased in the weeks and months that follow to see that the jealousy and resentments that had been brewing among her children seem to have eased. That fall, John Blake, his wife, Catherine, and their three children move permanently to his lot on The Point, and most Sundays the young Blake family joins Charlotte for dinner.
CHAPTER 13
The Point
1814
Two years pass, peacefully, after Charlotte’s fight with her oldest son. Though the renewed war with the United States rages in Upper and Lower Canada, none of its guns are fired on the Miramichi or at Tabisintack.
The Nine Lives of Charlotte Taylor Page 32