Moncton: History
Acadians settled the head of the Bay of Fundy in the 1670s. The first reference to the "Petcoucoyer River" was on the De Meulles map of 1686. Settlement of the Petitcodiac and Memramcook river valleys began about 1700, gradually extending inland and reaching the site of present-day Moncton in 1733. The first Acadian settlers in the Moncton area established a marshland farming community and chose to name their settlement Le Coude ("The Elbow"), an allusion to the 90° bend in the river near the site of the settlement.
In 1755, nearby Fort Beauséjour was captured by British forces under the command of Lt. Col. Robert Monckton. The Beaubassin region including the Memramcook and Petitcodiac river valleys subsequently fell under English control. Later that year, Governor Charles Lawrence issued a decree ordering the expulsion of the Acadian population from Nova Scotia (including recently captured areas of Acadia such as Le Coude). This action came to be known as the "Great Upheaval".
The reaches of the upper Petitcodiac River valley then came under the control of the Philadelphia Land Company (one of the principals of which was Benjamin Franklin). In 1766, Pennsylvania German settlers arrived to reestablish the preexisting farming community at Le Coude. The Settlers consisted of eight families: Heinrich Stief (Steeves), Jacob Treitz (Trites), Matthias Sommer (Somers), Jacob Reicker (Ricker), Charles Jones (Schantz), George Wortmann (Wortman), Michael Lutz (Lutes), and George Koppel (Copple). There is a plaque dedicated in their honour at the mouth of Hall's Creek.
They renamed the settlement "The Bend". The Bend remained an agricultural settlement for nearly 80 more years. Even by 1836, there were only 20 households in the community. At that time, the Westmorland Road became open to year-round travel and a regular mail coach service was established between Saint John and Halifax. The Bend became an important transfer and rest station along the route. Over the next decade, lumbering and then shipbuilding became important industries in the area.
The community's turning point came when Joseph Salter took over and expanded a shipyard at the Bend in 1847. The shipyard grew to employ about 400 workers. The Bend developed a service-based economy to support the shipyard and gradually began to acquire all the amenities of a growing town. The prosperity engendered by the wooden shipbuilding industry allowed The Bend to incorporate as the town of Moncton in 1855. Although the town was named for Monckton, a clerical error at the time the town was incorporated resulted in the misspelling of its name, which has remained to the present day. Moncton's first mayor was the shipbuilder Joseph Salter.
In 1857, the European and North American Railway opened its line from Moncton to nearby Shediac. This was followed in 1859 by a line from Moncton to Saint John. At about the time of the railway's arrival, the popularity of steam-powered ships forced an end to the era of wooden shipbuilding. The Salter shipyard closed in 1858. The resulting industrial collapse caused Moncton to surrender its civic charter in 1862. …