SCRAPS OF LOCAL HISTORY. 45 



Cunard, they thought, almost owned them. Cunard was closely 

 ])ressed by the clamorous crowd. He put spurs to his horse and 

 drove him through the crowd. Those that did not get out of his 

 way were run over. Galloping to the mill, then back to the ofl&ce, 

 paying no regard to those that threatened his life. The crowd 

 threatened to break open the stores and help themselves. Cunard 

 was unarmed at this time. Suddenly he wheeled and called me, 

 who was standing on a packing case in front of Wm. J. Eraser's 

 store, where Hoffman's is now. He then eame over to me and 

 told me to run n-p to my father s and tell him to load the pistols 

 and bring them down, which I did, running up the back street. 

 When I returned, he rode up to me, and, us I gave him the pistols, 

 lie put one in each boot leg, and turning said : "Now let me see 

 the man that will shoot Cunard. " Then he galloijed down to the 

 mill and returned, no one molesting. Towards evening the crowd 

 scattered. 



After that the cry was, 'To the West,'' and whole schooner 

 loads of men, packed as close as they could crowd, left for 

 Quebec during the winter of '48 and the year 1849. 



W, WYSE. 



A. D. Shirreff, father of the late A. D. Shirreff, merchant, of 

 Chatham, and John Shirreff, late Sheriff of Northumberland 

 County, lived and kept a brewery on the bank of the little stream 

 where the Miramichi Pulp Co's dam is, a little behind the late 

 Wm. England's house. It was he who first obtained Middle Island 

 from the Government and started the mackerel and gaspereaux 

 fishing there. He became involved in some way with the Cunards, 

 who seized and appropriated the island and the fisheries. Shirreff 

 claimed to have been wronged in some way, and when on his death- 

 bed he vowed vengeance. Wm Wyse's father was a great friend 

 of his, and called to see him in his last sickness He noticed a 

 couple of pistol barrels sticking out from under his pillow, and 

 asked him what these were for, and he said, "For Cunard. I'll 

 shoot him yet.'' Wyse remonstrated and urged the impropriety 

 of such thoughts and him on a sick and jierhaps deathbed, and 

 coaxed him to make him (Wyse) a present of the pistols, which he 

 eventually did. These were the very pistols that Cunard had in 

 his bootlegs when galloping up and down town. 



Daniel Fergusoa, late of H. M. Customs, thinks the failure occur- 



