28 TOURING QUEBEC AND THE MARITIMES

and hay country, and some fine apple orchards. The red, sandy soil is not suited to crops of wheat, oats and barley. The overflow from the rivers every spring produces fertile soil. The absence of bank barns. in this section is due to the fact that the farmers grow small crops.

We passed through Maugerville, the oldest English settlement on the St. John River. It was settled by colon- ists from Massachusetts in 1763, twenty years before the arrival of the Loyalists. Naturally the sympathy of these people was anti-British during the Revolutionary War.

The water marks on the houses along the St. John River showed to what extent the river had overflowed.

As we drove along, we saw the soldiers on their way to camp at Sussex.

On the Sheffield Church site a gray granite monument, erected in 1926, appealed forcibly to us. The following is the inscription thereon :—“Sheffield Church Covenant, 1763. We, whose names are hereto subscribed, apprehend- ' ing ourselves called of God, combine and embody our- selves into a distinct church society. It is our purpose to discharge the duties of Christian love and brotherly watch- fulness, and to join together in setting up and maintaining the public worship of God, and we earnestly pray that God will be pleased to smile upon this our undertaking for His Glory.” Signed: Jonathan Burper, Elisha Nevers, Rich— ard Estey, Daniel Palmer, Gervas Say, Edward Coy, Jona- than Smith, Jacob Barker and Humphrey Pickard, clerk. As I was writing these names in my notebook, an elderly man, by name Daniel Palmer, approached us and proudly said that his great-great-grandfather’s name was inscribed on this monument. He said that his great-great-grand- father, discouraged by the floods in the Sheffield district, moved 20 miles back to the higher lands.

We walked through the old cemetery on the opposite