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The Miramichi Fire of 1825: Sifting through the Ashes at the National Library of CanadaTom Tytor, Research and Information Services
When Alan MacEachern of the University of Western Ontario’s Department of History first saw the footnote in George Perkins Marsh’s Man and Nature (New York: C. Scribner, 1864), his curiosity was piqued. The reference to the magnitude and intensity of the Miramichi fire prompted him to begin researching all aspects of the great fire. Dr. MacEachern set about discovering the cause(s) and effects of the conflagration, how colonists reacted, and why it has been forgotten. His search was hampered, however, by the paucity of pertinent literature, despite the fact that it was one of the largest forest fires in North American recorded history. The sources he consulted include early 19th century New Brunswick newspapers, modern New Brunswick local histories, 19th century travel and emigration literature, and Colonial Office records. Mr. MacEachern made specific mention of how useful he found Early Canadiana Online (www.canadiana.org), an online digital library of full texts produced by the Canadian Institute for Historical Microreproductions (CIHM) (www.nlc-bnc.ca/cihm). Alan MacEachern used a cartographic image to familiarize the sizeable and attentive audience with the Miramichi region of northeastern New Brunswick in the early 19th century. Two villages, Chatham and Newcastle, had been established in that locality. Prior to Britain’s need for shipbuilding lumber during the Napoleonic War, Europeans sparsely inhabited the area. Forests of white pine and red spruce, combined with access to the Atlantic Ocean, lured immigrants to the forestry industry. The first signs of the impending disaster occurred in the late afternoon of October 7, 1825; reports of a massive column of smoke rising above the woods were issued. By seven o’clock that evening, flaming debris had been observed. The reports disagreed on the direction in which the flames travelled, and there were varying descriptions concerning dimensions, speed and duration of the forest fire. In addition, there were accounts of fires on the periphery of the main fire. It is not known for certain how many fires there actually were nor the amount of land that was burned. For the first 25 years after the fire, reports were generally in agreement that the area encompassed by the inferno was approximately 6 000 square miles, roughly one fifth of the province. In contrast to the details contained in other accounts, the contents of a letter from Thomas Baillie, the Commissioner of Crown Lands for New Brunswick, dated October 31, 1825, downplayed the effects of the blaze on the timber, stating that merely a small proportion had been destroyed, that it was limited in size, and that the damage was trifling. It could be that Baillie, who had occupied the post of commissioner for less than a year, did not want to dissuade British lumbermen from travelling to northeastern New Brunswick. Baillie’s description was unique among the descriptions discovered by Dr. MacEachern, both those written at the time of the fire and during the next generation. There were various possible causes of the fire. Lumbermen were blamed: immediately after trees were cut down, they were debarked, trimmed and squared, in effect leaving behind approximately one third of the felled trees as flammable material. Settlers’ land-clearing involved rolling cut trees into piles, burning them, piling the remaining wood, burning it, and so on. Prior to the invention of the convenient matchstick, it was difficult to produce combustion. Consequently, it was common practice to have open flames present both indoors and outdoors, resulting in frequent accidental fires. Lightning is another possible cause. As a result of the fire, the village of Newcastle was destroyed; many thousands were left homeless or were drowned while attempting to escape the flames by rushing into the river. Shortly after the event, it was claimed that 160 died in the blaze; however, considering the fact there were an estimated 3000 lumbermen in the wilderness at the time, the actual number may have been higher. Despite the scale of destruction, there were indications that numerous trees remained unscathed. Newcastle was rebuilt, and Alexander Rankin, who had previously dominated the village’s economy, had re-established his timber business by 1829. An article in a Chatham newspaper that appeared in the summer of 1826 stated that major fires were burning in the area, implying that a considerable quantity of trees had been left standing. Thus the healthy, ecologically diverse and resilient forests of colonial New Brunswick were able to quickly re-establish themselves. The forestry industry had not been ruined, as was feared by many at the time. While the devastation, undoubtedly, had an economic effect on the Miramichi forestry industry, the exact impact would have been difficult to assess since Britain was in a recession at the time and, consequently, there was less demand for timber, the price for which was dropping. The situation was further affected by the British government’s informing the New Brunswick Legislative Assembly on October 8, 1825, that the colony would not receive financial aid. Moreover, during the post-1825 decades, the forestry industry in New Brunswick was concentrated in the north and west, away from the Miramichi region. According to a Chatham newspaper article, a church service was held in commemoration of the disaster on the first anniversary of the woodland blaze. With the forest’s resurgence and economic recovery, however, the church’s anniversary observance became increasingly neglected, an example that is indicative of how readily the events of 1825 could be forgotten. Alan MacEachern is currently working on a history of the Miramichi Fire, which he plans to have published. For more information on the Fire, contact Dr. Alan MacEachern
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