DUTCH FAMILIES ON THE PETITCODIAC. 109 



whom an instructed priest will find more opportunity of 

 promoting the material as well as spiritual good of his 

 flock, than among the French Acadians, all the way 

 from Montreal in Canada to Yarmouth in Nova Scotia. 



The French on the Petitcodiac were succeeded by 

 Dutch from Pennsylvania ; and among the marsh-lands 

 of this river, and its estuary, this people found as 

 congenial a settlement as my Aberdeen friend on 

 the rocky shore of the Bay de Chaleur, or the veteran 

 Sullivan beside his black bog in Caraquet. And though 

 intermarriages, indiscretion, and misfortune have now 

 removed many of the best farms from the possession of 

 the families of pure Dutch descent, yet the features and 

 the prevailing names Steeves, Trites, Sherman, Lutz, 

 Eecker, Beck tell how much of the blood of Holland 

 flows in the veins of these Hillsborough farmers. The 

 name of Steeves predominates in the churchyard. A 

 union of the Steeves clan can still carry the day in 

 contested affairs, local or political 5 and the name is 

 represented in the Provincial Legislature by the head of 

 one of its oldest houses. I had the pleasure of his 

 society yesterday, on my visit to Cape Enrage, and I 

 am sorry to say that I found reason to suspect that my 

 hospitable friend was a rank Annexationist. 



To the lot of the poor Irish who have come without 

 capital, and have located themselves in this county, poorer 

 land has fallen. The New Ireland Settlement, which my 

 friend Mr Brown visited yesterday, is generally on the 

 poor grey-sandstone soil, with here and there a patch of 

 the good red loam. They do not appear so prosperous, 

 therefore, as many other settlements we have seen. 



From Hillsborough we were accompanied by five 

 miles of good red loams, which used to be good wheat- 

 land, producing twenty to forty bushels an acre. A 

 poorer grey sandstone and gradually rising country then 

 commenced, after which the road ran much through the 



