Sackville | |
|---|---|
 Sackville on the Tantramar Marshes | |
 Seal | |
| Motto: A different kind of small town | |
  Sackville | |
| Coordinates:45°53′53″N64°22′06″W / 45.89792°N 64.36834°W /45.89792; -64.36834 | |
| Country | Canada |
| Province | New Brunswick |
| County | Westmorland |
| Parish | Sackville Parish |
| Town | Tantramar |
| Established | 1762 |
| Incorporated | January 4, 1903 (as Town of Sackville) |
| Amalgamated | January 1, 2023 (into Town ofTantramar) |
| Federal electoral district | Beauséjour |
| Provincial electoral district | Memramcook-Tantramar |
| Government | |
| • MLA | Megan MittonGreen Party of New Brunswick |
| • MP | Dominic LeBlanc(L) |
| Area | |
| • Land | 73.91 km2 (28.54 sq mi) |
| Highest elevation | 32 m (105 ft) |
| Lowest elevation | 0 m (0 ft) |
| Population (2021)[1] | |
• Total | 6,099 |
| • Density | 82.5/km2 (214/sq mi) |
| • Change (2016–21) |  14.4% |
| Demonym | Sackvillian |
| Time zone | UTC-4 (Atlantic (AST)) |
| • Summer (DST) | UTC-3 (ADT) |
| Canadian Postal code | E4L |
| Area code | 506 |
| Telephone Exchange | 360, 364, 536, 540, 939, 940 |
| NTS Map | 21H16Amherst |
| GNBC Code | DAEAM |
| Website | www |
Sackville is a former town in southeasternNew Brunswick, Canada. It held town status prior to 2023 and is now part of the town ofTantramar.
Sackville is home toMount Allison University, a primarily undergraduateliberal arts university. The university welcomes roughly 2200 students per academic year.[2] Historically based on agriculture, shipbuilding, and manufacturing, the economy is now driven by the university and tourism. Initially part of the French colony ofAcadia, the settlement became part of the British colony ofNova Scotia in 1755 following theExpulsion of the Acadians.
Present-day Sackville is in theMi’kmaq district of Siknikt (to which the place name Chignecto may be traced), which roughly comprisedCumberland,Westmorland and part ofAlbert counties. The Mi’kmaq settlement, Goesomaligeg, was on Fort Beausejour Ridge and Tatamalg or Tantama, on the Sackville Ridge. Many regional toponyms are Mi’kmaq includingTidnish,Minudie,Missaguash River, Aboushagan Road,Midgic,Memramcook andShemogue. A portage connectedBeaubassin by way ofWestcock and the valley now known as Frosty Hollow with the Memramcook and Petitcodiac rivers and was an important link in the communications system between Acadia and Quebec.[3]
The firstAcadians arrived in the early 1670s, as the French colony expanded from its base atPort Royal. Many of the Acadians came from the west of France and were experienced in reclaiming from the sea lowlands that might be made arable. TheTantramar Marshes were well suited to this, and the Acadians built a system ofdykes andsluices that allowed them to cultivate the marshes. SurveyorCharles Morris visited in 1748, and reported Acadian settlements at Westcock; Pré des Bourgs, (Sackville); Pré des Richards, (Middle Sackville); Tintamare, (Upper Sackville); La Butte, Le Coup,Le Lac (Aulac); Portage, at the head of theMissaguash River;Beaubassin (adjacent to Beausejour); Jolicoeur, (Jolicure) andPont à Buot, (Point de Bute). Farther afield, there were settlements atLa Planche (Amherst) andBaie Verte for a total population of about 3,000.[4] Settlements were connected by trails and separated by marsh. A seaport at Westcock provided a link to Port Royal.
TheTreaty of Utrecht in 1713 had ceded Acadia to England, but without specifying where the boundary was between Acadia and what remained ofNew France. This led to ongoing skirmishes until June 1755 when, as part of a wider struggle of the British and French of North American colonies, the French were defeated at theBattle of Beausejour. This led to the removal of most of the French military from Acadia.[5] Six weeks later, GovernorCharles Lawrence, without distinguishing between neutral Acadians and those who had resisted the British, wrote that the Acadians "shall be removed out of the country as soon as possible, and as to those about the isthmus who were in arms and therefore entitled to no favour from the government it is determined to begin with them first".[6] This marked the beginning of theexpulsion of the Acadians. They were only allowed to take with them their ready money and household furniture, and their buildings were burned to the ground.
Following the expulsion of the Acadians the British needed to repopulate the colony. The first wave of immigration was theNew England Planters who were invited and encouraged with land grants. The Sackville area was abandoned for six years after the expulsion of the Acadians until 1761 when 25 families fromRhode Island settled on the vacated Acadian farms, followed in 1763 by a group of 13 fromSwansea, Massachusetts, who formed the firstBaptist church in Canada, but subsequently returned to New England. In 1763 the population was 20 families on 200 acres of cleared (probably by the Acadians) upland, and also marshlands. A 1767 census gives the population as 349, of which 343 were Americans. The Sackville Township, named afterViscount Sackville, was formally created in 1765 and by 1772 was sufficiently populated to send a representative to theNova Scotia House of Assembly.[7]
TheYorkshire Emigration started in 1772 and lasted about three years.[8] They arrived too late to occupy the vacated Acadian farms which had already been granted to the New Englanders. However many New Englanders did not stay, and sold the land on to the British immigrants.[9]
When theAmerican War of Independence broke out in 1775, many of the American settlers in the area were sympathetic with the Americans, and rebels led byJonathan Eddylaid siege to Fort Cumberland. However the rebels were repelled by soldiers, with help from the Yorkshire settlers who remained loyal to the crown.[10] When the war was over,United Empire Loyalists, emigrated north, some to the Sackville area.[9] By 1786 there were 60 families in the township.
By the 1830stanneries, leather goods factories, carriage factories andblacksmith shops were active around Morice Mill Pond (renamed recently to Silver Lake) a few kilometres north of the current town centre. The centre of activity started to shift to the present downtown area when in 1836William Crane moved his business to the site of the former town hall, and built his house across the street. He also donated land for a smallMethodist chapel that was built in 1838 and later evolved into the much largerSackville Methodist/United Church. In 1839,Charles Frederick Allison donated money and land to establish the Mount Allison Wesleyan Academy, which becameMount Allison University.[11] This was followed by the development of shipyards on the Tantramar River. Official records for shipbuilding in New Brunswick began in 1824, but by that time shipbuilding was already well under way with several ships of over 100tons having been built.[12]
In 1862 there was a shipyard at the site of the current railway station, and another to the east at Dixon's Landing at the end of Landing Road. A public wharf was built there by local merchants in 1840–41. The shopkeepers were looking to import products and export staples such as lumber, grindstones and building stones. In the 1870s, aspur line connecting theIntercolonial Railway to the wharf was built.[13]
Shipbuilding and coastal trading thrived between 1824 and 1872. The last was built in 1896. The largest was the Sarah Dixon, built by Charles Dixon in 1856 at 1465 tons.[12] That same year, Christopher Boultenhouse launched the 192 ton steamship The Westmorland, which carried passengers, mail and freight betweenShediac,Summerside,Charlottetown, andPictou from 1857 to 1863 for the governments of New Brunswick, Nova Scotia and Prince Edward Island.[14]
By the 1870s the wharf was inadequate since vessels over 200 tons had only the end berth. A new wharf was added in 1911, but much shipping business had already been lost because of the lack of proper wharf. Local folklore reports that a ship never tied up at the new wharf. The wharf and the end of Landing Road was on ameander of the Tantramar River, but in the 1920s the meander wascut off due to erosion and silting, leaving the site without access to the sea.[13]
In 1872 theIntercolonial Railway project changed the Sackville area forever. This line was to follow the shortest route between Truro and Moncton, but political interference byEdward Barron Chandler and other politicians in nearbyDorchester saw the route for the railway altered to run through their community. It had been intended that the original route for the line would run north across the Tantramar Marshes from Fort Beauséjour to what is currently Middle Sackville and then on through the lowlands toScoudouc and Moncton. The Dorchester diversion had the railway skirt the western edge of the marsh to the area near the public wharf and shipyards on the lower Tantramar River before continuing on to Frosty Hollow, Dorchester and the Memramcook Valley.
The new location of the Intercolonial Railway resulted in the commercial and business centre of Sackville being relocated from the mill district at Silver Lake to the current town centre, closer to the railway line. TheNew Brunswick and Prince Edward Island Railway was constructed a decade later to connectCape Tormentine, the closest point of mainland North America toPrince Edward Island, with the Intercolonial's main line. Sackville had been vying with nearby Amherst to be the junction point for the line to Cape Tormentine; local shipbuilder and industrialist entrepreneurJosiah Wood ensured that Sackville was chosen as the junction.
TheNational Policy of Prime Minister SirJohn A. Macdonald's administration in the 1870s-1880s saw various industries cluster along the Intercolonial Railway in Amherst and Sackville. Sackville became home to two independent foundries; the Enterprise Foundry, and the Fawcett Foundry. Both produced stoves and related products with both businesses operating for more than a century. These competitors eventually merged and the Fawcett Foundry was closed and the foundry demolished in the 1980s; thisbrownfield site at the corner of Main and King streets was purchased by Mount Allison University for campus expansion. The remaining Enterprise-Fawcett Foundry was still operational and employed roughly 60 people near the railway station. It was one of the few remaining stove foundries in the world until it suffered a fire in January 2012.[15] As of 2018 the foundry still had not been rebuilt.
Sackville grew in importance as a railway junction afterCanadian National Railways established a dedicated railcar ferry service at Cape Tormentine in 1917. The Sackville railway yard and station were constantly busy until the opening of publicly funded highways followingWorld War II started a slow decline. The abandonment of thePrince Edward Island Railway in 1989 saw the line to Cape Tormentine removed at the same time as theTrans-Canada Highway was being expanded to a 4-lane freeway. As the railway consolidated to a single mainline running through town, businesses left, including offices ofAtlantic Wholesalers.
On 1 January 2023, Sackville amalgamated with the village ofDorchester and parts of threelocal service districts to form the new town ofTantramar.[16][17] The community's name remains in official use.[18]
In November 2022, Sackville received the accreditation of being named aninternational wetland city[19] under theRamsar Convention, the first in North America.
Sackville is on theIsthmus of Chignecto, which connects theNova Scotia peninsula withNorth America. It is on the Tantramar River, which empties into Cumberland Basin which then joinsChignecto Bay, a sub-basin of theBay of Fundy. Sackville is at a low elevation above sea level. Prominent ridges rise above the marshes, namely the Fort Lawrence Ridge, the Aulac Ridge, the Sackville Ridge, and the Memramcook Ridge. Sackville is surrounded by theTantramar Marshes, once a tidal saltmarsh. The marshes are an important stopover formigrating birds. The marsh soil consists ofsilts deposited by centuries of tidal flooding. Drainage is poor and there are slow-movingmeandering rivers, shallow lakes,bogs, andintertidal zones.
The earliestpost road followed the route of the present day High Marsh Road.[11] The Trans-Canada Highway (as it is now known) ran straight through the town until a bypass was built in 1962. The provincial border at theMissaguash River bridge is the dividing line betweenNova Scotia Highway 104-Nova Scotia Trunk 2 andNew Brunswick Highway 2. This highway forms one of the two main surface transportation links between the two provinces. The Mount Whatley Road runs betweenMt. Whatley, New Brunswick andFort Lawrence, Nova Scotia.CN Rail's mainline betweenHalifax andMontreal runs through Sackville, parallel to the Trans-Canada Highway. TheSackville railway station, still in active use withVia Rail, is designated a national historic place.
TheSackville Memorial Hospital serves the region, as well as the Community Health Centre which houses several physicians, an optometrist, a dentist, and a pharmacy. It is one of the few that are not government-run.[20]
TheTantramar Veterans Memorial Civic Centre, a recreational facility and arena, opened in 2003.[21] The arena can seat over 750 spectators[22] and is the home rink for theMount Allison University women's hockey team.
In the2021 Census of Population conducted byStatistics Canada, Sackville had a population of6,099 living in2,689 of its3,047 total private dwellings, a change of14.4% from its 2016 population of5,331. With a land area of 73.91 km2 (28.54 sq mi), it had a population density of82.5/km2 (213.7/sq mi) in 2021.[1]
| Year | Pop. | ±% |
|---|---|---|
| 1901 | 1,444 | — |
| 1911 | 2,309 | +59.9% |
| 1921 | 2,173 | −5.9% |
| 1931 | 2,234 | +2.8% |
| 1941 | 2,489 | +11.4% |
| 1951 | 2,873 | +15.4% |
| 1961 | 4,612 | +60.5% |
| 1981 | 5,635 | +22.2% |
| 1986 | 5,470 | −2.9% |
| 1991 | 5,494 | +0.4% |
| 1996 | 5,393 | −1.8% |
| 2001 | 5,361 | −0.6% |
| 2006 | 5,411 | +0.9% |
| 2011 | 5,558 | +2.7% |
| 2016 | 5,331 | −4.1% |
| 2021 | 6,099 | +14.4% |
| [1] | ||
As of the 2016 Canada Census, the median age was 47.9. Mother tongue was reported as English by 4,980 people, and French by 180.[23]
The main employers are aMoneris Solutions call centre,Russel Metals, Sackville Memorial Hospital, andMount Allison University.
Public schooling, run byAnglophone East School District, includes a pre-school, the Salem Elementary School, Marshview Middle School, andTantramar Regional High School. Sackville is also home toMount Allison University.
Sackville opened a public library in 1984 which has since been accessible to the entire town of Tantramar. Located on 66 Main Street, in the centre of downtown Sackville the library opens its doors to all demographics of the population. The library is a part of the system of New Brunswick Public Libraries.[42]
Source:[44]
{{cite book}}:ISBN / Date incompatibility (help){{cite book}}:ISBN / Date incompatibility (help){{cite book}}:ISBN / Date incompatibility (help)
Subdivisions ofNew Brunswick | |
|---|---|
| Cities | |
| Towns |
|
| Villages | |
| Regional municipality | |
| Rural communities | |
| Rural districts |
|
| Regional service commissions | |
| School districts | |
| Indian reserves |
|
| Non-administrative divisions | |
| International | |
|---|---|
| National | |
| Geographic | |
| Other | |
45°54′N64°22′W / 45.900°N 64.367°W /45.900; -64.367 (Sackville)
.svg)
