| St. Stephen | |
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| — Town — | |
| Motto: Canada's Chocolate Town | |
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St. Stephen
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| Coordinates: | |
| Country | Canada |
| Province | New Brunswick |
| County | Charlotte |
| Founded | 1604 |
| Town | 1871 |
| Government | |
| • Type | Town Council |
| • Mayor | Jed Purcell |
| • Deputy Mayor | James Maxwell |
| Area | |
| • Total | 12.43 km2 (4.8 sq mi) |
| Population (2006)[1] | |
| • Total | 4,780 |
| • Density | 384.7/km2 (996.4/sq mi) |
| Time zone | AST (UTC-4) |
| • Summer (DST) | ADT (UTC-3) |
| Canadian Postal code | E3L |
| Area code(s) | 506 |
| Telephone Exchanges | 466, 465, 467 |
| NTS Map | 021G03 |
| GNBC Code | DAZBZ |
| Website | http://www.town.ststephen.nb.ca |
St. Stephen (2006 population: 4,780)[1] is a Canadian town in Charlotte County, New Brunswick, situated on the east bank of the St. Croix River at .
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The climate is temperate but greatly affected by the Bay of Fundy. The bay is a cool body of water which acts as a natural air conditioner in the summer and diverts major snow storms in the winter. The bay never freezes. The average summer temperature is 22 degrees Celsius with the average winter temperature being -3.9 degrees Celsius.
The Passamaquoddy people were the first to make their home along the St. Croix River. They dispersed and hunted inland in the winter; in the summer, they gathered more closely together on the coast and islands, and primarily harvested seafood, including porpoise.[2] In 1604, French explorer Samuel de Champlain and his men spent a winter here. The Passamaquoddy were moved off their original lands repeatedly by European settlers since that time.
During Queen Anne's War, in response to the French Raid on Deerfield, New Englander Major Benjamin Church (military officer) raided the Acadian villages of Castine, Maine (then known as Penobscot). From the Raid on Castine, Maine, Church learned that Michel Chartier, who was granted the land of present-day St. Stephen, was building a fort at Passamaquoddy Bay. Church and his men arrived at the Passamaquoddy Bay on board the Province Galley, Gosport and Fearly and several other vessels.[3] Church travelled up the St. Croix River to St. Stephen and, on June 7, 1704, took Chartier by surprise and his family fled into the woods.[4] On June 13, Church reported they were destroying the crops of the Acadians and the Acadians and Natives fired upon Church’s troops and a three hour exchange ensued. Church killed and imprisoned Acadians and Natives, with the total number being 35. One of Church’s men was wounded. They pillaged and plundered the community.[5]
After the Raid on St. Stephen, Church moved on to raid other Acadian villages in the Raid on Grand Pré, the Raid on Piziquid, and the Raid on Chignecto. [6]
At the time of Confederation, there was a proposal to build a railway connecting St. Stephen to Houlton, Maine, along the St. Croix River. In 1870, the Legislature of New Brunswick passed an Act, authorising the County of Charlotte to issue debentures to pay a bonus of $15,000 to the Houlton Branch Railway Company, to encourage it to build the railway. The debenture could only be issued if authorised by a public meeting of the ratepayers of St. Stephen, who would assume the obligation of paying for the interest and principal of the debenture. A majority of the ratepayers of St. Stephen duly passed the necessary vote and the County issued the debenture. Some residents of St. Stephen who opposed the measure challenged the tax assessment in the Supreme Court of New Brunswick, arguing that the provincial Legislature lacked the constitutional authority to authorise a tax to support the building of an international railway, as that would intrude on the exclusive legislative authority of the Parliament of Canada.
In 1873, the Supreme Court of New Brunswick ruled that the provincial taxation statute was unconstitutional, because it intruded on federal jurisdiciton over inter-jurisdictional railways. [7] The supporters of the railway measure appealed the case to the Judicial Committee of the Privy Council, at that time the court of last resort for Canada within the British Empire. The Judicial Committee, in the case of Dow v. Black, allowed the appeal and held that the taxation statute was within provincial authority.[8]
Officially incorporated as a town in 1871, five years later St. Stephen's business district was almost destroyed by fire when eighty buildings and 13 wharves burned.
In the 1970s, the municipalities of St. Stephen and Milltown joined together to become what is now simply known as St. Stephen.
Historically a lumber and ship building economy until the early part of the 1900s, by the end of World War II the town's main employers were the Ganong Bros. Limited chocolate company (established 1873, Canada's oldest candy company), and the second largest textile mill in Canada built in 1882 on the river where it operated with its own hydro-electric generating station, the Milltown Dam. In 1957, the textile mill closed but the confectionery maker remains a key employer.
Every August since 1985, the town plays host to the week-long Chocolate Fest, celebrating their rich and delicious heritage. That spotlight on the wonder of chocolate resulted in the opening of the Chocolate Museum in 1999 and its expansion as a Chocolate Discovery Centre in 2009.
In 2000 St. Stephen was given the title of "Canada's Chocolate Town."
The St. Croix River marks a section of the international boundary between the United States and Canada, forming a natural border between the towns on either side of the river bank. Calais is connected to St. Stephen by the Ferry Point International Bridge and the Milltown International Bridge.
Residents of St. Stephen and Calais often regard their community as one place, cooperating in their fire departments and other community projects.[9] As evidence of the longtime friendship between the towns, during the War of 1812, the British military provided St. Stephen with a large supply of gunpowder for protection against the enemy Americans in Calais, but the town elders gave the gunpowder to Calais for its Fourth of July celebrations.[10]
For much of their history, both towns' fire departments have responded in tandem to any fire call on either side of the border.[11]
Construction began in 2008 on a third bridge connecting the two communities. The new International Avenue Bridge, which was officially opened in January 2010, will serve primarily commercial trucking traffic, while the two older bridges will remain in use for passenger vehicles.[12]
Every year, the town co-hosts a weeklong International Festival with the neighbouring town of Calais, Maine.
St. Stephen, being a small town, has only two media organizations: a radio station and weekly newspaper.
Radio station CHTD-FM, known as "The Tide", plays country music and offers regular news updates.
Founded in 1865, the Saint Croix Courier is the town's weekly newspaper, and also publishes a weekend edition, the Courier Weekend. The Courier is one of the few papers in New Brunswick that is not owned by the Irving family.
The town is home to St. Stephen's University, a small private Christian university.
A hotbed of baseball interest, in 1934 the Boston Braves of baseball's National League played an exhibition game in St. Stephen against the local "Kiwanis" team. The enthusiastic fans in attendance numbered more than half the town's population. In 1939, the local baseball team won its ninth consecutive New Brunswick senior championship, topping off a decade of dominance in the sport at both the provincial and Maritime levels.
A building which housed the former Parsons Printing business suffered fire damage in May 2010. This building housed the first basketball court in Canada. [13]
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