Saint Andrews, New Brunswick

For the parish in New Brunswick with the same name, see St. Andrews, New Brunswick (parish). St. Andrews, commonly referred to as St. Andrews-By-The-Sea, is a town in southwestern New Brunswick, Canada. As of 2001, the population was 1,869. The area of the town is 8.35 kilometres.

Geography

St. Andrews is located 30 km from St. Stephen, New Brunswick and the Canada/USA border with Maine. It is a small coastal town situated at the end of a peninsula jutting out into the Passamaquoddy Bay, off the Bay of Fundy.

History

St. Andrews was founded in 1783 by United Empire Loyalists and named in honour of St Andrews, Scotland. The town is well preserved, with many original buildings still in place (some of which were floated to the town on barges from Castine, Maine at the end of the Revolutionary War). There are many layers of history visible starting from the late 1700s, including the town's well-known formal grid street layout and many historic buildings. Many of the commercial buildings on Water Street date from the 1800s, including The Algonquin, a resort that was built on a hill overlooking the town in 1889, making St. Andrews Canada's first seaside resort community.

Attractions

Important attractions include The Fairmont Algonquin Hotel, Kingsbrae Horticultural Garden, The Ross Memorial Museum, the St. Andrews Biological Station, the Huntsman Marine Aquarium, The Sheriff Andrew's House, Ministers Island (the summer home of Cornelius Van Horne), whale watching, many shops, restaurants and small inns and the charming seaside setting.

St. Andrews is the birthplace of Thomas Storrow Brown, a businessman, journalist, and an officer of the 1837 Rebellion and Victorian artist Edward Mitchell Bannister. The town was, and continues to be a home to noted summer citizens, including steel magnate Sir James Dunn, Fathers of Confederation Samuel Leonard Tilley and Charles Tupper, and William Cornelius Van Horne, General Manager and later, President of the Canadian Pacific Railway.

Minister's Island

The island is about a five minute drive from downtown St. Andrews. At low tide it is possible to walk or drive across Bar Road (along the ocean floor) all the way out to the island. It is named after a loyalist Anglican minister, Rev. Samuel Andrews, who settled the island in 1786. There are guided tours available May through October, which allow you to see the stone house where Rev. Andrews and his family lived, and also Covenhoven (the summer cottage of Sir William Cornelius Van Horne), one of the largest livestock barns in North America, and the old windmill that used to power the island.

The Huntsman Aquarium

The aquarium has various exhibits, including a touch pool with sea urchins, seastars, and sea anemones, among others. There are also a pair of harbour seals, Buddy and Chelsea, and usually one pup each year. The seals are fed at 11 a.m. and 4 p.m. each day.

The Charlotte County Courthouse and Gaol

The Charlotte County Courthouse, built in 1840, is a National Historic Site and one of the longest operating courthouses in Canada, as it continues to be used in special cases. It is a beautiful example of period St. Andrews architecture and is available for touring Monday through Friday, 9 am to 5 pm through the Charlotte County Gaol (pronounced "jail"), situated next to the courthouse. The Gaol was built in 1832 and continued to be used as such until 1979, despite its archaic construction. It currently is home to the Charlotte County Archives, which boasts a large collection of historical papers, photographs, microfilms and research materials for historians and genealogists alike. Tours are available at the gaol from 9-5, Mondays to Fridays. The gaol is supposedly haunted and was the site of the sixth last hanging in Canada in 1942.

The Ross Memorial Museum

The Ross Memorial Museum displays a large collection of furnishings collected by the Ross family, and donated, along with the building itself and the Ross Memorial Library next door. A large part of the Ross’ collection is displayed, along with information on what the various rooms would have been used for, specific to the time to which the furniture dates.

The Sheriff Andrews House

The Sheriff Andrews House was built by Elisha Shelton Andrews, sheriff for Charlotte County, in 1820. It is now a public museum, with rooms displaying furniture from the 1820s, and costumed guides giving tours and telling stories about family life at the time. There is also an example of open-hearth cooking and, if booked in advance, families can spend a few hours preparing a lunch in the style of the 1820s, churning their own butter and cooking over an open hearth with the help of costumed guides.

The St. Andrews Blockhouse

The blockhouse was built as a coastal defense structure in the War of 1812 between the United States and the British Empire, but never saw action. Twelve similar structures were built, and only the St. Andrews blockhouse still stands. Guided tours are conducted during tourist season.

Kingsbrae Garden

Kingsbrae Garden has over 50,000 different plants on display. There are edible gardens, a maze, an ornamental grass garden, rose gardens, a forest trail, streams, an old windmill, and even a garden called the ‘Scents and Sensitivity Garden’; built with advice from the Canadian National Institute for the Blind, and designed for the visually impaired, with all plants chosen because they have an interesting smell or texture, and all with names for the plants written in English, Latin, and Braille. There are goats and a Children's Fantasy Garden where at 10:30 every morning in the summer children can release ladybugs. There are also free childrens' activities in the Fantasy Garden at 1:30 every day in July and August. Treasure Hunts, croquet and bocce ball are other free activities available daily, 9 to 6, mid-May to mid-October, for Garden visitors and members. The Garden Café, Gift Shop & Art Gallery add to the enjoyment of this magnificent 27-acre public garden, and the Kingsbrae Plant Centre offers unusual and hard-to-find perennials, shrubs and trees. Kingsbrae Horticultural Garden is located just a few blocks up the hill from the St Andrews Water Street business district and wharf; also just steps from the historic Fairmont Algonquin hotel. In April 2006 Kingsbrae announced it would be the first public garden in Canada to display the rare Australian Wollemi Pine, discovered in 1994 though thought to have been extinct for two million years (CanWest News Service).

The Farmers' Market

On every Thursday morning during the summer months, there is a local Farmers’ Market in the town square. Indian food, Middle Eastern food, Mexican food, fresh organic produce and meat, plants, herbal soap, teddy bears, crepes filled with all kinds of fruit and melted chocolate, and homemade chocolate fudge are amongst the items for sale. There is usually music, played on guitar by one of the local highschoolers, or fiddle music (there are several different violinists who come on different days), or hammered dulcimer played by Ruth Dunfield, who also plays guitar and lives in St. Andrews.

Media

A local community channel, CHCT, serves the St. Andrews and Charlotte County area. The station launched in 1993 on cable television, and began broadcasting over the air in 2006.

External links

Town of St. Andrews Website
New Brunswick Lighthouses
Minister's Island
Huntsman Marine Science Centre
The Ross Memorial Museum
The Sheriff Andrews House
Charlotte County Archives and Gaol
The St. Andrews Blockhouse
Kingsbrae Garden A magnificent 27-acre national award winning public garden, in scenic St Andrews by-the-Sea, New Brunswick.

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