We also know that she left England with her lover, a man called Willisams, who was previously in the employ of her father’s household staff. But that is all we know about him.
Walker’s men, in particular Will MacCulloch, are fictional, inspired by tales of the real men who served in the Royal Marines and Royal Navy at that time.
As for Wioche, there are facts known about her bond with the Mi’kmaq. She was a midwife to the women; she trekked to Fredericton with an aboriginal man; when she died, the Mi’kmaq carried her to a canoe and paddled her to the cemetery in Tabusintac. But the story repeated by almost all of her descendants, about her lifelong relationship with a Mi’kmaq man, remained elusive despite my combing of record offices and searching for letters. To unravel this puzzle, I went to Gilbert Sewell, the Mi’kmaq storyteller in Big Cove, New Brunswick. He began at the end by telling me that if the Mi’kmaq took her to the burial ground, she would most certainly have held a special place in the band and would likely have been adopted by them. The question was when and why.
That required an examination of how Charlotte got to the Miramichi in the first place. Although there is no archival evidence documenting her arrival in the New World, there are two stories that circulate among her descendants. One has her landing at Miscou Island in northern New Brunswick, after her lover drowned in the sea when their landing craft tipped between the ship and the shore. The other is that she went to the West Indies and that her lover died of yellow fever shortly after they arrived. I chose the latter version, partly because it would have been unlikely for a British ship to make a landing at Miscou in 1775. But mostly because of the story—widely believed by her descendants but unproven—that Mr. Willisams was a black man whose ancestors came to England from the West Indies.
How she got to British North America from the West Indies was another puzzle. I chose her route by weighing the odds. John Blake plied the waters between the West Indies and the Miramichi and he worked with Commodore George Walker, who ran the only trading outpost in the vast northeast. Walker also sailed to the West Indies on trading missions. By examining the shipping schedules between May and October 1775, and the log of John Blake’s travels in the spring, summer and fall of that year—and then adding in the fact that Charlotte’s first child, Elizabeth, was born before that year was out—I surmised that her shepherd must have been George Walker. As a consequence, she would have begun her life in British North America at Alston Point. I also guessed that she would have sought the company of women for the birth of her child, and since there were no European women at Walker’s compound, the women she turned to would have been Mi’kmaq. Given her savvy about wilderness survival by the time she married Blake, I assumed she found shelter with the Mi’kmaq, who were friends of Walker’s and lived at a camp near Alston Point.
Was it possible that the Mi’kmaq man she trekked to Fredericton with was someone she met at Alston Point? Gilbert Sewell thinks so. He told me that the chief’s appointed traveller would have covered the Mi’kmaq district that included the Miramichi, and that his name would have been Wioche. The Wioche of this book, however, is a fictional character.
Charlotte’s progeny today—my generation of great-great-great-grandchildren—include writers and journalists, teachers and lawyers, doctors and farmers, bank executives and fishers, judges and Cabinet ministers, along with a few convicted felons. I imagine that Charlotte, the woman who turned her back on England at the tender age of twenty, would have been either proud of or intrigued by all of us, just as all of us are deeply intrigued by her.
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
WRITING THE STORY of Charlotte Taylor was a fascinating and frustrating voyage into archives, family stories and history books. I am indebted to many who assisted me in my quest to get as close as possible to the veritas in the life of this intrepid, wily woman.
First, my thanks to Anne Collins, editor, publisher and mentor, whose reputation for turning raw prose into readable story is unparalleled. And to my agent, Michael Levine, for making sure my manuscript landed in such capable hands.
Many of Charlotte’s descendants were helpful in this odyssey. From snowshoeing with me to try out the method Charlotte used in her 1776 trek, to taking me “up river” and “down shore” by boat to test drive her terrain, Mylie and Loraine Wishart and Bertha Wishart were wonderfully supportive and a fount of information. I am also grateful to Mary Lynn Smith, who is the keeper of the key to the Life and Times of Charlotte Taylor (www3.bc.sympatico.ca/charlotte_taylor). Her meticulous research was invaluable to me.
Gilbert Sewell, the Mi’kmaq storyteller, was patient with my many questions and generous with his time. The braid of sweetgrass he gave me hung over my computer for the two years it took to shape the story I wanted to tell.
I am also indebted to Mary Wolfe, Donna Clinch and Margaret McKay, who despite hordes of mosquitoes and boggy terrain tramped through cemeteries with me searching for clues. And to Barry MacKenzie, for guiding me to the precise spot where Charlotte and John Blake lived on the Miramichi. He takes no credit for the bear we encountered on the way.
I also want to thank Doug Young, Mary Ann Rogers, Antony Marcil, Doady Armstrong and Susan Shalala, who works in the New Brunswick Archives in Fredericton, for their help with the research for this book.
My thanks go to botanist David Appleton for his advice on the survival rate of a packet of seeds tucked away in a trunk for decades, to sailing expert Peter Cowern, to food historian Liz Driver and to Pat Allen, whose careful reconstruction of the travels of Commodore George Walker was very useful. And I am grateful to Olga Davis, whose sharp eye deciphered the scrawl of Charlotte’s two-hundred-year-old letters.
In a special category of thanks all their own are those who encouraged me to take on this project and gave me their unwavering support: Cynthia Good, Ernest Hillen, W.J. Hogan and Charlotte’s great-great-great-great-grandchildren, my own three treasures, Heather, Peter and Anna. Thank you one and all.
SOURCES
BOOKS, PAPERS AND ARCHIVES
Allen, Patricia. “Commodore George Walker at Alston Point, Nepisiguit: 1768–1777” (New Brunswick Manuscripts in Archeology, 2003).
Arbuckle, Doreen Menzies. The Northwest Miramichi (Ottawa: Western Printers Ltd. 1978).
Biggar, Mitch. “The Revolutionary War” at www.geocities.com/Heartland/Ranch/9002/war.htm.
Branch, Kimberly. “Charlotte: Mother of Tabusintac” (University of New Brunswick, term paper, 1995).
Cooney, Robert. “A Comprehensive History of the Northern Part of the Province of New Brunswick” (Joseph Howe, 1832), found in Esther Clark Wright’s The Miramichi (Sackville: Tribune Press, 1945).
Daigle, Jean, ed., The Acadians of the Maritimes (Centre D’Etudes Acadiennes, Université de Moncton, 1982).
Denys, Nicolas. The Native People of Acadia (retold by Ian Maxwell, 1993) (Champlain Society, 1908).
______, The Description and Natural History of the Coasts of North America (retold by Ian Maxwell, 1993) (Champlain Society, 1908).
Foxe, John. Foxe’s Book of Martyrs. Edited by William Byron Forbush. Chapter 15 George Wishart at www.ccel.org/f/foxe/martyrs.
Fraser, James. By Favourable Winds: A History of Chatham, New Brunswick (Town of Chatham, 1975).
Fraser, James A. Loggieville: Child of Miramichi (Fredericton, 1973).
Frink, Tim. New Brunswick: A Short History (Stonington Books, 1997).
Ganong, William F. “The History of Caraquet and Pokemouche.” Reprinted from Acadiensis at http://ahcn.net?histoire/ganong/neguac-bc.htm.
________, “The History of Neguac and Burnt Church.” Reprinted from Acadiensis at http://ahcn.net?histoire/ganong/neguac-bc.htm.
________, “A Monograph of Historic Sites in the Province of New Brunswick” (Transactions of the Royal Society of Canada, Section 11, 1899).
______, “Gamaliel Smethurst’s Narrative of his Journey from Nepisiguit to Fort Cumberland” (New Brunswick Historical Society Collections, 1905).
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______, “The History of Tabusintac” (Acadiensis, vol. vii, no 4, October 1907, p. 314–331).———and Richard Denys. “Sieur de Fronsac and his settlement in Northern New Brunswick” (New Brunswick Historical Society Collection, no 7, 1907).
_______, “The Official Account of the Destruction of Burnt Church” (New Brunswick Historical Society Collections, no 9, 1914, p. 301–307).
_______, Ganong Papers (New Brunswick Museum).
Gibbon, Mary. Miscou Island: Vulnerability and the Generations (Mary Gibbon, 2001).
Givan, Fredrica. “Breaux and Savoy, Acadian Settlers at Tabusintac” at http://archiver.rootsweb.com/th/read/Acadian-Cajun/1998–11/0911594515.
Gray, Charlotte. The Museum Called Canada: 25 Rooms of Wonder (Toronto: Random House Canada, 2004).
Klein, Kim. “A ‘Petticoat Polity’ Women Voters in New Brunswick Before Confederation” (Acadiensis, xxvi, Autumn, 1996, pp. 71–75).
Larracey, E.W. The First Hundred (Moncton Publishing Company, 1970).
Long, J. Voyages and Travels of an Indian Interpreter and Trader. Originally published in London, England, 1791. Reprinted by Coles Publishing Company Toronto, 1971.
LeClercq, Father Chrestien. New Relation of Gaspesia With the Customs and Religion of the Gaspesian Indians. Translated and edited by William F. Ganong (Toronto: Champlain Society, 1910).
Macmillan, Cyrus. Gloosekaps’s Country and other Indian Tales (Toronto: Oxford University Press, 1967).
MacNaughton, Katherine Flora Cameron. The Development of the Theory and Practice of Education in New Brunswick 1784–1900 (University of New Brunswick, 1947).
MacNutt, W.S. New Brunswick: A History: 1784–1867 (Toronto: Macmillan of Canada, 1963).
Maillet, Antonine. Pelagie: The Return to Acadie (Toronto: Doubleday, 1982).
Manny, Louise. “Scenes of an Earlier Day.” Records of Northumberland County New Brunswick, 1935.
Paul, Daniel N. We Were Not the Savages (Black Point, Nova Scotia: Fernwood Publishing, 2000).
Piesse, G.W.S. “The Art of Perfumery (1879)” at www.saponifier.com.
Provincial Archives of New Brunswick: Deeds, letters and petitions. Fredericton.
Rand, Rev. S.T. Micmac Grammar (Truro, Nova Scotia: Specialty Printers, 1999).
Raymond, W.O. The Marston Diaries: Benjamin Marston at Halifax, Shelburne and Miramichi at http://ultratext.hil.unb.ca/Texts/Marston/articles/Shelburne_notes.html.
Raymond, W.O. The North Shore: Incidents in the Early History of Eastern and Northern New Brunswick (New Brunswick Historical Society, Collections).
Robertson, J. Logie. The Poetical Works of Robert Burns (Toronto: Oxford University Press, 1896).
Running Wolf, Michael and Clark Smith, Patricia. On the Trail of Elder Brother: Glous’gap Stories of the Micmac Indians (New York: Persea Books, 2000).
Savoy, Gail. A History of Tabusintac, N.B. (Tabusintac: Tabusintac Centennial Memorial Library, 2005).
Stymiest, Carl. Down by the Old Mill Stream: A Stymiest Chronicle (Victoria: Trafford, 2001).
Taylor, Jonathan. “Light Fittings in Georgian and Early Victorian Interiors” (The Building Conservation Directory, 1998).
Theriault, Fidele. George Walker et son Etablissement a Nipisiguit (New Brunswick Archives, 1999).
The Canadian Indian: Quebec and Atlantic Provinces. Indian and Northern Affairs (Ottawa, 1973).
“The Church in New Brunswick: An Early History” at www.knightsofcolumbus-renous.ca/church_history/miramichi.html.
The Diary of Simeon Perkins (Toronto: Greenwood Press, reprint, 1969).
The Diary of Simeon Perkins, 1766–1780, 1797–1803, 1804–1812 (Champlain Society).
The Winslow Papers CD Archives, volume 1 at http://personal.nbnet.nb.ca/halew/Winslow.html.
Voices United: The Hymn and Worship Book of the United Church of Canada (The United Church Publishing House, 1996).
Waugh, Alec. The Sugar Islands (New York: Farrar Strauss, 1949).
_____, A Family of Islands: A History of the West Indies (New York: Doubleday, 1964).
Webster, J. Clarence. Historical Guide to New Brunswick (New Brunswick Government Bureau of Information and Tourist Travel, 1947).
Wilson, James. “Narrative of a Voyage from Dublin to Quebec, In North America” at http://ist.uwaterloo.ca/~marj/genealogy/voyages/dublin1817.html.
WEB SITES
Acadian History Time Line
http://users.andara.com/-grose/acadianh.html
Cargo Ship Mayflower
www.americanrevolution.org/may4.html
Chronology of the Abolition of Slavery
www.blackhistoricalmuseum.com/chronology.htm
Food Time Line
www.foodtimeline.org/foodpuddings.html
Hearth to Hearth: Hunting the Welsh Rabbit
www.iournalojantiqu.es.com/hearthmay.htm
Order in Council Establishing New Brunswick
http://webhome.idirea.com/-cpwalsh/nb/aas/ukoic1y84.htm
The Importance of Food in Eighteenth-Century Louisbourg
http://fortress.uccb.ns.ca/behind/food.html.
The Life and Times of Charlotte Taylor by Mary Lynn Smith
www3.bc.sympatico.ca/charlotte_taylor
The Micmac Creation Story
www.indigenouspeople.net/crmicmac.htm
The Mi’kmaq. Nova Scotia Museum
http://museum.giv.ns.ca/arch/infos/mikmaqi.htm
The Stymiest Family History
www.wizardsrealmcentral.com/stymiest/id20.html
SALLY ARMSTRONG is an Amnesty International award-winner, a member of the Order of Canada, a documentary filmmaker, teacher, author, human rights activist and contributing editor at Maclean’s. She has covered stories in conflict zones from Bosnia and Somalia to Rwanda and Afghanistan. She lives in Ontario.
The Nine Lives of Charlotte Taylor
SPECIAL FEATURES
More on Charlotte Taylor by Sally Armstrong
The Look of the Book
More on Charlotte Taylor by Sally Armstrong
One of the things I learned after The Nine Lives of Charlotte Taylor was published is that book clubs ought to occupy some official status in this country—the keepers of the realm, perhaps. Maybe they should hold a collective seat in the Senate. They certainly are the sober second thinkers on literature published in Canada. Since the book has come out, I have been invited to spend many an evening filled with lively discussion, surprising analysis, fascinating deductions and usually delicious blueberry (or strawberry, saskatoon berry or rhubarb) pie that comes with coffee when the wine bottles are empty. I have had the pleasure of dissecting The Nine Lives of Charlotte Taylor with book clubs large and small, in places from downtown Toronto, to Burnt Church, New Brunswick, on the banks of the Miramichi. The questions the members asked, the threads they picked up in the book and the conclusions they drew made me wish I could write a sequel. The first question was usually a personal one. “What’s an investigative journalist who covers conflict in places like Afghanistan doing in New Brunswick chasing down the life of a woman who arrived there more than 230 years ago?” The short answer is—having a wonderful time. Doing the research for this book was a pleasure. There are no rocket-propelled grenades in New Brunswick and if there are warlords, I’m probably related to them.
Then there was the probe into what’s fact and what’s fiction in the narrative. Charlotte’s letters to the government come straight from the New Brunswick archives. The diary, alas, is my creation: what I imagined her thoughts might have been at the time. The assumptions I made where necessary in her story didn’t come from whole cloth. If the facts eluded me and I couldn’t discover what happened to Charlotte, I looked at what happened around her—the Miramichi Fire for example—and tried to imagine how those events would have affected her. But my goal in recreating this settler’s life was to take the reader to the front row of Canadian history and find out what it was really like to be a woman living the New World at that time.
Invariably, somewhere between the wine and the pie, there were questions about whether I was drawn to Charlotte because her story resonates with the articles I have written for over two decades about women who dared to take on the culture and religion of their time and seek emancipation. Pieces on the veiled woman in Afghanistan who thumbed their noses at the misogynist Taliban; on the entire village of women in Senegal who said, “Never again, not my daughter” and ended female genital mutilation; and on the women who wrote sections 15 and 28 of the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms to attempt to ensure that the lives of women and girls would be fair and just.
The Nine Lives of Charlotte Taylor Page 35