Saint John

Variant name of place

St. Johns

Geographic position

45.2796° N, 66.0628°

Sources

"Local History." Saint John, New Brunswick. http://new-brunswick.net/Saint_John/history.html. Geo coordinates at https://www.google.com/#q=geographic+coordinates+of+saint+john+new+brunswick.

General note

Saint John is the largest city in New Brunswick, Canada, located on the mouth of the Saint John River on the Bay of Fundy. While several Europeans entered the harbor in the 16th century, it was French explorers who arrived there on the feast day of St. John the Baptist in 1604 and named the river after the saint. The first permanent French settlement began on the east side of the harbor, now Portland Point. It was fortified in the 1630s and became a trading post with the Wolastoqiyik Tribe (also called Maliseets and the St. John Tribe). In 1758, the settlement was occupied by the British and renamed Fort Hendrick, which was destroyed by American revolutionaries in 1775, then replaced by Fort Howe. Settlement began to expand in 1783 when British loyalists established Parr Town and Carleton around the harbor. These two communities joined in 1785 to become Saint John, named after the river, Canada's first incorporated city. After a religious revival among the Indians was reported there in 1767, Wheelock solicited the help of New Hampshire governor John Wentworth to recruit Native students from the area to replace the Oneidas, who left his school en masse in 1769.