Armstrong's Corner, New Brunswick, Canada --
The Lyon Family Roots of Adelaide Lyon Boutelle Bissell
"Our children may find this overgrown path someday, And maybe they will want to know more.
Well, as luck would have it, There are a thousand stories to be told."
When Bissell 4th Great-grandparents Hepzibeth Betts Lyon and her husband John Lyon joined with the other British Loyalists in Connecticut at the outbreak of the American Revolution in 1775, they made a fateful decision. John had been a wealthy farmer in Redding, CT where he had been born in 1739. Hepzibeth was the daughter of Stephen Betts, the tavern keeper in Wilton, CT. In February of 1775, before the revolution began, the "Redding Loyalist Association" (which included John Lyon as Secretary) published the "Redding Resolves" in a British-controlled newspaper in New York City, for which John and other Tory's were mobbed. According to Bissell "Lyon" third cousin Stephen McDonald of Ontario, Candada, John joined the British Army in 1776 in the King's Rangers under Col. Robert Rogers, bringing 22 recruits with him. By joining on the Loyalist side (supporting the King of England and the British against the American revolutionaries), John and Hepzibeth lost all their property (valued at 1,790 Pounds) in 1777 and their links to their lives in Connecticut. Even John's widowed mother suffered adverse property tax consequences from the Town of Redding as the parent of "a son...gone over to the enemy of the United States."
When the British finally conceded defeat in 1783, John and Hepzibeth and their seven children got on the Union in New York harbor and sailed off to New Brunswick, Canada, where the British government re-located those Americans who had been loyal to the British during the revolution. Their ship Union arrived in Parrrtown harbor on 16 April 1783, at the mouth of the St. John River. They went up the St. John River and settled at Kingston, near the Winter Road on Portage (Kingston) Creek, on the east side of the river. John received a grant of 200 acres, Lot 5 on Portage Creek, on 14 July 1784.
This was the covered bridge across the Nerepis River in Armstrong's Corner, New Brunswick. This bridge was known as The Lyon Bridge.
John and Hepzibeth Lyons' son John built a house at Portage Creek in 1792. His son George ended up on the west side of the river in a small farming village that came to be called Armstrong's Corner. The first British Crown land grants in this area were to the Lyon family and George built a log house, where his son Philo -- Adelaide Bissell's grandfather -- was born. The landscape is a bit reminiscent of the scenes described in the "Anne of Green Gables" books -- gentle rolling green hills in that part of the St. John's River valley known as "the Rhine of North America," with rich farmland supporting families who tended orchards, raised sheep, ran dairy farms and worked at lumbering. The settlements along the Nerepis River (which runs into the St. John's River to the southeast) were developed mostly in the early and mid-1800s, with Armstrong's Corner being settled in that period. We know that Philo, who was born in 1824, was born in the log cabin that George built at Armstrong's Corner. The village had its own Post Office by 1866. By 1898, according to the history developed by the Canadian government, Armstrong's Corner was a prospering farming community. It eventually included a store, post office and telephone exchange; a grist mill, several sawmills and a blacksmith shop; a one-room school; a hall which was used for church services and for voting during elections as well as occasional concerts, recitations and games; and a former horse shed converted into a hall to accomodate community dances, as dancing was not permitted in the church hall.
The Armstrong's Corner Hall was situated on land that had originally been granted to William H. Lyon, in the Parish of Petersville, County of Queens, New Brunswick. Among other things, the building housed services for the Presbyterian and Methodist churches and the Church of England. The Lyons family was active in the Methodist church. The back of the hall had a small memorial to the two young men from the community who had died in World War I. Brass oil lamps hung from the ceiling and heat came from a wood burning stove.
John Lyon died 13 December 1812 in Kingston, New Brunswick. He and Hepzibeth are buried in Kingston. To the left is the grave, now in the side yard of a private home overlooking a conservation area called Shampers Bluff Natural Area, of their son, John Lyon, Jr.. The spectacular view above is from the gravesite overlooking the conservation area and the St. John River valley.
These pictures from the Armstrong's Corner history found on the website "Base Gagetown Community History Association" at http://www.bgcha.ca/index.html
This, then, is the small farming village where Eliza Jemimah Lyon, Adelaide Bissell's mother, was born 24 March 1862 and where she grew up. As noted on the map above from 1953, near the bottom of the map was the Lyon Cemetery and several houses of Lyon family members. I'm not sure which house was the one in which Eliza was raised, I think it's the one marked "Bill Lyon" across the road from the cemetery or may have been an older one next to it. I think this house, where Eliza was raised, is the one pictured here as the "Lyon Homestead."
Eliza's parents, Philo Lyon and Elizabeth Pender Lyon, had seven children who lived to be adults, including four sisters: Matilda, Mary, Eliza and Adelaide. Eliza's middle name Jemimah is from Hebrew in the Old Testament, meaning "dove." Jemimah was the daughter of Job. The name was popular among Puritans in the 1600s and popular in the early 1800s. As described more in Betsy Bissell Parker's story about The Sisters' Blankets below, Eliza and two of her sisters left Armstrong's Corner as young women, with Eliza ending up in West Groton, Massachusetts and marrying Clinton Boutelle. Armstrong's Corner School records online from 1880 and 1881 suggest that Eliza finished up her education at age 18, half way through the 1881-82 school year, and that Adelaide finished the following year.
In 2003, Betsy Bissell Parker, Gwendolyn Boutelle Bissell Kimball and Carolyn Bissell (with Craig Parker driving) took a trip to New Brunswick in search of Armstrong's Corner (more on that below). What we discovered was that Armstrong's Corner is no longer on the map ... because it no longer exists.
In fact, in 1953 the Canadian military took Armstrong's Corner and nearly 20 other small towns in Queen's County, New Brunswick to establish "Canadian Forces Base Gagetown." According to Wikipedia, as a result of the Cold War with Russia after World War II and escalating into the 1950s, the Canadian Forces needed a large area close to all-season Canadian Atlantic Ocean ports to train division-sized armoured, infantry and artillery forces that might have to go to Europe. The taking away of lands from these communities and the nearly 1,000 families who were residents was a complete surprise to those families, finding out about it from the newspapers. The expropriation of land took an area up to 37 miles long and 25 miles wide, totaling more than 500 square miles, at the time the largest military base in Canada. Looking at the sketched map of Armstrong's Corner above, note that the expropriation also took each of the communities listed as neighboring to Armstrong's Corner, including Coote Hill, Jerusalem, Olinville, Petersville, Clones and many others. The Lyon family was there sometime before 1824, when Philo Lyon was born, and lived there for at least 5 generations (for example, George Lyon, who had Philo Lyon, who had William B. Lyon (Eliza's brother), who had Ethel (Lyon) Nickerson, who had second cousin Stirling Nickerson.
The Canadian military removed every sign of habitation in the villages it took, except for the cemeteries. All homes were destroyed, all farm buildings, the orchards, the fields, the covered bridges, and in Armstrong's Corner the store, the post office, the mills, the school, the church hall, the dance hall. Everything. The residents were re-located to other parts of Canada and provided with work. Eventually, they would be allowed to go back to visit the cemeteries.
Bissell second-cousin Sterling Nickerson from New Brunswick was born in Armstrong's Corner. Here he's standing across the road from the Lyon Cemetery looking out over the woods and brush where there were once orchards, fields and the village of Armstrong's Corner by the Nerepis River -- along with his family's home, pictured to the left.
Bissell 3G Generation second Great-grandparents Elizabeth and Philo Lyon (and other family ancestors) are buried in the Lyon Cemetery. The cemeteries in the communities eliminated by Base Gagetown were the only thing that was not removed from those communities.
The Story of the Sisters' Wool Blankets
Betsy Bissell Parker wrote the following about some wool blankets that her mother, Adelaide Lyon Boutelle Bissell, had:
"The blankets were coarse and old and not much to look at, not the kind of luxury that I wanted to snuggle down under. I was helping Mom make the beds and asked why she was using these old things. That is when I became interested in the grandmother that none of us ever knew. While continuing to make the bed, at least 80 years since her mother had died, Mom told me the story of her blankets.
Mom's mother was Eliza Lyon, who grew up on a farm in Armstrong's Corner, New Brunswick, Canada. Mom's Aunt Mary, Eliza's oldest sister, had made the blankets. There were not many prospects for the off-spring of Philo and Elizabeth Lyon. Alonzo Lyon, one of Eliza's relatives near to her age, moved to Australia (dying there in 1941) but where his descendants still live. [The editor of this page is unsure exactly where this "Alonzo Philo Lyon" fits on the Lyon family tree but is confident he was from Armstrong's Corner, as that fact was confirmed by Stirling Nickerson.]
Three of the four Lyon sisters -- Matilda, Adelaide and Eliza -- came south to Lowell, Massachusetts to work in the factories.
Washing wool in Queen's County, New Brunswick, about 1910.
Before they left home, their oldest sister Mary made each of them a blanket. They raised the sheep on the farm and Mary spun the wool into yarn and wove the yarn on the family loom. On each blanket she had embroidered her sister's initials. Suddenly the blankets seemed softer. Mom described each step of the process as if I had never heard that we get wool from sheep. I realized that she was not thinking about what I knew or didn't know, she was thinking about people, her family, her grandparents who raised sheep and lots of children, her aunt who lovingly made her sisters blankets -- and her own mother, who didn't live long enough to help her make her bed. She continued to straighten the blankets smoother and smoother. They were becoming more luxurious by the minute.
After Mom died, I came across a 1949 letter from Ivan Crowell of Fredericton, New Brunswick. Mr. Crowell [a New Brunswick Government Employee] had written to William Lyon, Mom's uncle, thanking him for donating Elizabeth Pender Lyon's loom, spinning wheel, warping frame, portrait, sampler and two coverlets to the Department of Industry and Reconstruction. He spoke of plans to create a display, the "Elizabeth Lyon Weaving Room," presumably as part of an attempt to keep the art of weaving popular. I had the notion that if there were such a place it would be fun to see. Also if there were such a place, it would be a good place to take Mom's blankets.
In 2003, more than 100 years after the blankets were made, Gwen, Carolyn, Craig and I went to New Brunswick in search of the loom and in search of a home for the blankets. We didnt' find the loom [see note below] but we found some relatives and a whole lot of stories. We left one blanket with Sterling Nickerson, William Lyon's grandson and Mom's first cousin once removed.
(Note: At the New Brunswick government offices in Fredericton, New Brunswick we learned that Mr. Crowell had worked hard to support the continuation of the weaving arts in New Brunswick. As a result, he sometimes did not keep the items he collected for the government's museum but instead "recycled," giving them to young women in rural New Brunswick who he hoped might use them to continue the weaving arts. The government has no record of the Lyon family donations ever being received by the government.)
Elizabeth Pender Lyon, 31 July 1828 -- 26 Feb 1897 Philo Lyon, 12 Dec 1824 -- 12 Jan 1896
Matilda M. Lyon, 28 Apr 1854 -- 2 July 1923
Eliza Jemimah Lyon, 29 Mar 1862 -- 14 Aug 1915.
This is Adelaide Bissell's mother.
Adelaide A. Lyon (Left), 1863--1952
and Eliza J. Lyon
In a 2003 CD performed by Sterling Nickerson as part of the Queenston Trio called "The Hills That We Call Home," there is the song titled Farewell To An Old Friend, written by Lloyd Mullin.
Farewell To An Old Friend
It's a busy world we live in, None will argue that.
With many thoughts to fill up our minds,
So, perhaps it's good sometimes to sit back and think of our past,
And trace the paths that have lead us here.
For each of us has an interesting history, full of stories.
My path was shared by many hundreds of people 50 years back.
It leads to a dusty country road, And an old farm on the hill.
A patchwork of roads took you past fields, farms, churches, schools and stores.
These were not easy times, just after World War II and all,
But most got by all right.
There were lots of dances, church picnics, family gatherings and work parties
To help one another raise a barn or cut the winter's wood.
Then, all of a sudden,
A great tidal wave swept over the community.
A tidal wave of rumor and uncertainty.
Everyone held their breath,
Unsure of what to believe.
Unsure of what to do.
Finally we were told.
Over 700 families would have to move.
To make way for the new training area of Base Gagetown.
Well, it was a bitter pill to swallow.
To have to leave a place so familiar,
To settle among strangers and start over.
Two years later, it was all done, And we could never go back.
Many of the old folks were broken hearted
For they had helped to build the life we knew then,
And the heritage that was ours.
Oh, there were jobs created; life went on.
And, for good or bad, We are left with the memories.
Our children may find this overgrown path someday,
And maybe they will want to know more.
Well, as luck would have it,
There are a thousand stories to be told.
A hayfield near Gagetown, New Brunswick, on the east side of Route 102 from Fredicton down to St. John, near Sterling Nickerson's home, looking across a farm to the St. John River. Base Gagetown is nearby, on the west side of the highway.