Saint John, New Brunswick - Notable Firsts

Notable Firsts

• 1785 – First quarantine station in North America, Partridge Island, established by the city's charter. In the early 19th century, it greeted sick and dying Irish emigrants arriving to the New World with inhospitable conditions.
• 1830 – The first chartered bank in Canada, the Bank of New Brunswick.
• Canada's oldest publicly funded high school, Saint John High School
• 1838 – First penny newspaper in the Empire, the tri-weekly Saint John News, established by George E Fenety.
• 1842 – Canada's first public museum, originally known as the Gesner Museum, named after its Nova Scotian founder Abraham Gesner, the inventor of kerosene. The museum is now known as the New Brunswick Museum.
• 1854 – The world's first automated steam foghorn was invented by Robert Foulis.
• 1870 – Canada's first Y.W.C.A. established by Mrs. Agnes A. Blizzard in a house on Germain Street.
• 1870 – First Knights of Pythias in British Empire.
• 1872 – First monitor top railroad cars in the world invented by James Ferguson. The original model is in the New Brunswick Museum in Saint John.
• 1880 – First clockwork time bomb developed in 1880.
• 1906 – First public playground in Canada which was started by Miss Mabel Peters. This playground is known as the Allison Ground Playground in Rockwood Court. On July 16, 2009, 103 years after its opening, Allison Ground Playground is the first playground, that Mabel Peters encouraged, to be renamed in her honour as Mabel Peters Playground.
• 1907 – First orchestra to accompany a silent moving picture on the North American continent was by Walter Golding in the old nickel theater, May 1907.
• 1918 – First Minister of Health of the British Empire, W. F. Roberts, M.D.
• 1918 – One of the first police unions in Canada, the Saint John Police Protective Association, was formed in Saint John.
• 1923 – First Miss Canada Mrs. Harold Drummie (née Winnie Blair).