History of Moncton - American Settlement

American Settlement

In June 1766, Captain John Hall arrived from Pennsylvania armed with a land grant and a charter from the Philadelphia Land Company (one of the principal investors of which was Benjamin Franklin) to establish Monckton Township on the site of the previous Acadian settlement of Le Coude. On Captain Hall's ship were eight immigrant Pennsylvania "Deutsch" families. The Settlers included Heinrick Stief (Steeves), Jacob Treitz (Trites), Matthias Somers, Jacob Reicker (Ricker), Charles Jones, George Wortman, Micheal Lutz (Lutes) and George Copple. There is a plaque dedicated in their honor at the mouth of Hall's Creek. They named their new settlement The Bend of the Petitcodiac, or simply The Bend. There is one surviving building in the city dating from this era; the "Treitz Haus", which has been dated by architectural styling and dendrochronology to have been built in the early 1770s. It has recently been renovated as a downtown tourist information centre.

The American Revolution had virtually no effect on The Bend. The Deutsch settlers were apolitical, mostly concerned with simply surviving in their new homeland and had no interest in the revolutionary cause. There was however an important rebel attack on nearby Fort Cumberland (the renamed Fort Beausejour) in 1776. This attack was led by the American sympathizer Jonathan Eddy and was supported by local Yankee settlers and some Acadians from the Memramcook Valley. The attack was intended to encourage Nova Scotia to join the revolution and although the fort was partially overrun by the rebels, the attack was ultimately unsuccessful due to the timely arrival of British reinforcement forces from Halifax.