Campobello Island (, also ) is the largest and only inhabited island in Campobello Parish in Charlotte County in southwestern New Brunswick, Canada, near the border with Maine, United States. It is the site of the Roosevelt Campobello International Park, Head Harbour Lighthouse, and of Herring Cove Provincial Park.
It has been an incorporated rural community since 2010 and is a member of the Southwest New Brunswick Service Commission (SNBSC).
In 1770, the island was granted to Capt. William Owen, who named it in honour of Lord William Campbell, who was governor of Nova Scotia, and noting "Campo Bello" meant "Beautiful Field" in Italian.
History
History prior to Owens There are no traces of settlement by the Passamaquoddy or Norsemen who may have visited the island.https://www.canadiana.ca/view/oocihm.8_01391_2/60 The first Europeans in the region were Pierre Dugua de Mons and Samuel de Champlain, who founded the nearby 1604 Saint Croix Island settlement.Pedersen, Mark. "Islands Rich in History", Leader-Post, April 13, 1974
In 1684, Jean Serreau di St Aubin was granted the seigniory of "Passamaquoddie". It has been speculated Serreau's fort, known to have been built somewhere in the Passamaquoddy Bay, may have been situated on Campobello. The 1689 the island was listed in the census s housing four men, four women, eight boys, five girls, four horses and seven cattle. In 1692 Jacques Petipas and the son of Serreau were taken prisoner by the British and sent to Boston. The 1693 census shows only three adults and four children on Campobello. In 1703, a penniless Serreau left the island with British permission to return to France, but by 1705 had been taken in as a charity case by a household in Port Royal, where he died.
The fort was vacated in the years surrounding King William's War and Benjamin Church's 1704 expulsion of the French from the Bay.
In 1713, the Treaty of Utrecht (1713) made the island part of British Nova Scotia. Campobello continued to be inhabited by the French family Dambois, and in 1722 Hibbert Newton Binney visited the island with Master James Blinn of the Ipswich, and the pair were beset by a dozen natives with axes and knives who demanded their ship, but accepted corn, gunpowder and ammunition as ransom.
The first known settler from the British Isles was James Boud of Kilmarnock, who settled in 1760.
Owens' era
In 1765 Robert Wilson "and his strong-willed and fiery-tempered wife" Mary moved to Campobello as squatters, leading Owen to point out that only his Lancashire indentured servants had right to live on Campobello as he'd been drawing up designs for its settlement - though he tolerated the Wilsons.
On Sept 30, 1767 Lord William Campbell kept his promise to repay Owen, by arranging to have him granted Campobello Island; however since Owen's rank only entitled him to a much smaller estate, Campbell intentionally mis-reported the island as only containing 4000 acres rather than the correct 12,000 - and still needed to include Owen's three nephews as joint grantees in order to take control of the entire island.
In 1765, both Campobello and Deer Island were granted by the Crown to the Canada Company.DENOMINATIONALISM IN A LOYALIST COUNTY: "' A SOCIAL HISTORY OF CHARLOTTE 1783 - 1940· . by Thomas William Acheson B.A., U.N.B., 1962 By 1766, several families had taken up fishing on the northern part of the island.- \ 1. Guy Murchie, St. Croix: The Sentinel River (New York: 1947), P• 131.
Its first post office opened in 1795.
In 1770, the island was granted to Captain Owen who dubbed it "my island", and "just as a ship's master at-sea was the ultimate authority...Owen decided the best system for Campobello would be for the island to consider itself at-sea".True man, Stuart, "An Intimate History of New Brunswick", 1970 Owen immediately set to work building a town he dubbed New Warrington (Wilson's Beach, today) but after only a year on the island in June 1771, Owen was recalled to active military service; he never returned to Campobello Island although still advertising for industrious farmers to help settle it before his 1778 death in Madras, India. His one year on the island "launched a feudal dynasty that was to reign well over a century".
In 1772, Plato Denny, of the original proprietors whom Owen had left behind to "direct, conduct and superintend the affairs of the island", quit his 3/16ths stake on Campobello in 1772 and declared that 27 indentured servants' longing for England was reason enough to return with a number of discontented early colonists.James Bird, “William Owen, Lord of Campobello,” Courier Weekend, St. Stephen, NN, 18 January 2002Ganong, ed., “Documents and Notes Relating to the History of Campobello,” Collections of the New Brunswick Historical Society, 214. An award-winning study published by the National Genealogical Society suggests the alleged sinking of the ship with the death of all aboard was not truthful, but that with Owen's departure it was intended for all settlers to soon abandon the island, and that Denney himself later became a prolific slave trader based in Liverpool, England.
With the departure of the Snow Owen, only nine of the original British settlers remained on Campobello - and seen of them migrated to the mainland, leaving only Andrew Lloyd (grandfather of William Lloyd Garrison) and Mary Lawless - alongside newly-appointed magistrates of the Campobello Company Benjamin Yoxhall and John Moreau, and a host of New Englander settlers. Andrew Lloyd was the only Campobello resident to take up arms in the American Revolution, joining Joseph Gorham's loyalist Royal American Fencibles. Meanwhile the squatter Robert Wilson petitioned the magistrates to honour Owen's contract for 1000 tonnes of cut timber and title to his land, a squabble broke out, and in 1795 Wilson was appointed magistrate to replace Yoxhall - despite the resentment that Wilson had stoked concerns of Maritime Canada becoming the 14th colony to rebel against the Crown as he hoisted the American flag on Campobello at the outset of hostilities, noting his expectation the island would be seized by Americans. Wilson ultimately secured title to the 2,570 acres he claimed, with his widow later selling it and ultimately landing in the possession of Gillam Butler.
In 1785, the first recorded murder on Campobello occurred when John Dunbar killed his wife in a drunken rage after she stole his gold and buried it at DUnbar's Hill. He hid her body in a pork barrel and was ultimately hanged in St Andrews.
In 1796, judge David Owen drew a map of the Passamaquoddy Bay, identifying French settlements including one at Wilson's Beach.:Image:Sketch_of_Passamaquoddy_by_David_Owen_page-0001.jpg
During the War of 1812 the British Navy seized coastal lands in Maine as far south as the Penobscot River but returned them following the war, except for offshore islands. Capt. Owen wrote to the Prince Regent, noting that if the Crown insisted on ordering Campobello residents to perform military drills on the mainland as he had cautioned against, the Crown may find Campobello fighting against it, and stating "the Crown alone, without our consent, has no right to tax us", following on David Owen's 1796 entreaties to legislature that "the Crown had neither the right to tax the island nor to call up its men for military duty".
In 1817, the United States relinquished its claim to Campobello, Deer, and Grand Manan islands, in exchange for islands in Cobscook Bay. The provincial government of New Brunswick funded the construction of Head Harbour Lighthouse, or East Quoddy Head Light, in 1829; this light station would be a counterpart to West Quoddy Head Light which the United States built in the previous decades. As of 1842, Thomas Wyer was one of three commissioners of the lighthouses on Machias Seal Island, Campobello and at Saint Andrews.
From 1827-1835, "the history of the island is almost a blank...an agent was placed in charge of the island but it was not profitably managed.". In 1835, the illegitimate son of Captain Owen, Vice-Admiral William Fitzwilliam Owen, became sole proprietor of the island and took great interest in his advanced years in building the island community but struggled with an "addiction" to local women. He formed the Campobello Mill and Manufacturing Company to further development.
In 1866, a band of more than 700 members of the Fenian Brotherhood arrived at the Maine shore opposite the island with the intention of seizing Campobello but were dispersed by British warships from Halifax.Buescher, John. "What Happened to the Fenians After 1866?" Teachinghistory.org, accessed 8 October 2011
British naval officer John James Robinson became owner of the island in 1857 by virtue of having married Owen's daughter.Lorimer, John G. "History of Islands and Islets in the Bay of Fundy, Charlotte County, New Brunswick", Archive.org copy, 1876
In 1867, Captain Robinson Owen was staunchly against Canadian Confederation. In 1881, the widow of Capt. Robinson Owen sold 1,200 acres of the island to a group of American businessmen including James Roosevelt and the island was developed as a resort summer colony, which ended "the dynasty" of Owens ruling the island.
In 1872, Captain Robinson-Owen began trying to sell the island but died two years later - and his widow administered the island until 1881 with the help of his bailiff John Farmer - and alcohol smuggling became a large part of island economy.Nowlan, Alden. "Campobello, the Outer Island", 1975 The Owens' share of the island was sold to developers.
Post Owens period Between 1881-1883, the new Campobello Company erected three luxury hotels on the island, the Tyn-e-Coed, the Tyn-e-Maes and The Owen, at the same time The Algonquin and Bar Harbor resorts were being developed on the mainland. Campobello became home to a smaller and more exclusive development by several private American investors. A luxurious resort hotel was built and the island became a popular summer colony for wealthy Canadians and Americans, many of whom built grand estates there. One of the tacit purposes of the hotel business, was to offer a place where eligible unmarried women could meet and be paired with eligible unmarried men. Beginning in 1883, the Roosevelt family made Campobello Island their summer home. As of 1898, the island's businesses were listed as general shops run by Guilford Babcock, Alva Brown, Jackson Howard, Lissie Kelly, WE Ludlow and Lincoln Parker - as well as "Trader" JA Calder, fish merchant CH Basson and JA Sherlock's hotel.
Among those who built large new estates were Sara Ann Delano and her husband James Roosevelt Sr. from New York City. Sara Delano had a number of Delano cousins living in Maine, and Campobello offered a beautiful summer retreat where their family members could easily visit. From 1883 onward, the Roosevelt family made Campobello Island their summer home. Their son, Franklin D. Roosevelt, would spend his summers on Campobello from the age of one until, as an adult, he acquired a larger property — a 34-room "cottage" – which he used as a summer retreat until 1939.
It was at Campobello, in August 1921, that the future president fell ill and was diagnosed with polio, which resulted in his total and permanent paralysis from the waist down. Roosevelt did strive to regain use of his legs but never again stood or walked unassisted. His visits were mostly as a child, only staying overnight once while president. Franklin Delano Roosevelt Jr., the fifth of six children born to Franklin D. Roosevelt and Eleanor Roosevelt, was born on the island in August 1914.
By 1910, the island's three luxury hotels were waning in popularity.
History of religion