Property of U F El.

EARLY HISTORY

The Micmac Indians must have often traversed the area of Stanhope and Covehead as they moved from known camping grounds at what are today the areas of Grand Tracadie and Brackley Point. These people lived close to nature and left no lasting scar upon the gentle, forested landscape

of the North Shore of the Island which they called Abegweit.

In 1534, the French explorer, Jacques Cartier, sighted the fair shores of this island and noted it as follows:

"All the said land is low and plaine and fairest that may possibly be seen, full of goodly medowes and trees." (Haklyut's translation) Despite this favourable description, there was little activity in the area on the part of Europeans for many years. While French fishermen may have visited the shores to dry their fish as they worked from the Grand Banks of Newfoundland into the Gulf of St. Lawrence, it would remain until the early years of the seventeenth century for Champlain

to give the Island the name of Isle Saint Jean.

As the French population of Acadia grew, communities were established around the shores of Isle Saint Jean. Along the North Shore of the Island, substantial settlements were located at St. Peters, Tracadie, Grand Hostice (Rustico) and Malpeque. The first account of settlement in the Stanhope - Covehead area by people of European des-

cent is contained in the 1752 census of Sieur de la Rogue.