Artillery in Canada (7) New Brunswick: Allison, Bathurst, Campbellton, Cap Pelé, Caraquet, Centreville, and Chipman

Artillery preserved in New Brunswick

Artillerie préservée au Nouveau-Brunswick

Allison, Bathurst, Campbellton, Cap Pelé, Caraquet, Centreville, Chipman

The aim of this website is to locate, identify and document every historical piece of artillery preserved in Canada.  Many contributors have assisted in the hunt for these guns to provide and update the data found on these web pages.  Photos are by the author unless otherwise credited.  Any errors found here are by the author, and any additions, corrections or amendments to this list of Guns and Artillery in Canada would be most welcome and may be e-mailed to the author at hskaarup@rogers.com.

For all official data concerning the Royal Regiment of Canadian Artillery, please click on the link to their website:

Royal Regiment of Canadian Artillery Website

Note: Back in the day, artillery in Canada was referred to by its radio call sign "Sheldrake".  It is now referred to by its "Golf" call sign.  (Acorn sends)

Une traduction au français pour l'information technique présente serait grandement apprécié. Vos corrections, changements et suggestions sont les bienvenus, et peuvent être envoyés au hskaarup@rogers.com.

New Brunswick

Allison

Cast Iron 9-inch 12-ton Mk. V Muzzleloading Rifle, weight 12-14-0-0, (28,560 lbs), with Millar-pattern breeching ring,  (RGF No. 652, V, 1869), on left trunnion, (+) on right trunnion, Queen Victoria cypher.  This gun is resting on wood blocks in front of a trucking firm, facing the road across from Solomon Gardens, 1833 Salisbury Rd, Moncton, NB E1E 4P7.  It apparently came from Fort McNab, on McNab’s Island, Halifax, Nova Scotia.

Aroostook Post

This was the site of a British blockhouse (1839 - 1840's), located at the mouth of the Aroostook River, blocking the road to Fort Fairfield, Maine.

Aulac, Fort Beauséjour – Fort Cumberland National Historic Site of Canada, 111 Fort Beauséjour Road.

The web page has become to big for all of the guns in New Brunswick to be listed here.  The guns on display at Fofrt Beausejour near Aulac are listed on a separate web page on this website.

Bathurst

6-pounder 7-cwt QF Anti-Tank Gun, Herman J. Good VC, Branch No. 18, Royal Canadian Legion War Museum, 575 St. Peter Ave.

German First World War 7.92-mm Maxim Spandau MG 08/15 Machinegun, (Serial Nr. 2849), Gwf Spandau, 1918.  This weapon was captured ca 1918 by the 78th Battalion (Winnipeg Grenadiers), 12th Infantry Brigade, 4th Canadian Division, Canadian Expeditionary Force (CEF), South of Passchendaele, France.

Campbellton

Battle of the Restigouche, 1760

(ChristianT Photo)

Model of the French frigate Le Machault, Lieutenant Giraudais's flagship during the Battle of the Restigouche.  Model by Fred Werthman.

A pair of French smoothbore muzzle-loading guns was recovered from the 1760 wreck of the French Frigate Le Machault in the Restigouche River.  In the autumn of 1759 New France was on the verge of capitulation to the British.  Montreal, its morale at a low ebb owing to the recent surrender of Quebec City and Louisbourg, was rapidly running out of military supplies and funds and in desperate need of French assistance.  After prolonged haggling between civilian businessmen and the state, a six-ship fleet was hastily assembled at Bordeaux and outfitted to sail for Canada.  The flagship of the fleet was the Machault.  It had been built in Bayonne, France, in 1757 as a 550-tonneaux merchant frigate and later converted to a 500-tonneaux frigate-at-war (Beattie 1968: 53).  Initally pierced for 26 guns, it could have carried as many as 32 on its last voyage.  The original 1758 outfitting list (Compte de construction: 1758) includes, among other supplies, various weaponry items purchased for use by the ship and its company: 24 12-livre cannons for the deck, 2 six-livre cannons for the forecastle, 24 wooden gun carriages, 6 swivel guns, 800 12-livre cannonballs, and 120 hand grenades, as well as an unspecified number of muskets, pistols, sabres, boarding axes, and mitraille (the literal English translation of which is "shower"), which was small iron or lead balls for use in multiple-shot anti-personnel projectiles such as grape and cannister shot.  It is not known what, if any, guns were added at the time of re-outfitting, nor the exact nature of the munition supplies for Canada.

On 11 April 1760, one day after leaving port, the fleet was scattered by two British ships, and only three ships, the Machault, Marquis de Malauze and Bienfaisant, were able to make contact and continue their journey.  By mid-May the French had reached the Gulf of St. Lawrence, where they captured a British ship and learned that the British. had preceded them downriver.  The decision was made to head for the safety of the Bay of Chaleur, where they arrived with a number of British ships they had captured en route.  The French set up camp on the bank of the Restigouche River and dispatched a messenger to Montreal for instructions . The British response to news of their presence was decisive.  A fleet commanded by Captain Byron, that included the Fame, 74 guns, the Dorsetshire, 70 guns, the Achilles, 60 guns, and the frigates Repulse, 32 guns, and Scarborough, 20 guns, quickly set sail with orders to find and destroy the French ships.  On 22 June the British contacted the enemy fleet.  The French, retreating upriver, attempted to prevent the British ships from following by sinking small boats across the channel, and at strategic points set up shore batteries with weapons removed from their ships.

After approximately two weeks of manoeuvring and sporadic fighting, the final engagement occurred on 8 July 1760.  When surrender became inevitable, Captain Giraudais of the Machault ordered all hands to remove as much cargo from the ships as possible.  With a dwindling powder supply and with water in its hold, the Machault was defenceless and the order was given to abandon and scuttle it. The Bienfaisant suffered the same fate and later in the day the British boarded and burned the abandoned Marquis de Malauze.  The Battle of Restigouche was a turning point in Canadian history.  Montreal, denied its much-needed supplies and morale booster, now had neither the means nor the will to attempt to re-take Quebec City or properly defend itself.  In short, the loss of the fleet contributed to the British conquest of New France (Beattie and Pothier 1977: 6). During the summer of 1967 a brief survey of the Machault was carried out by the Archaeological Research Division of Parks Canada.  In the winter of 1968-69 a comprehensive magnetometer survey preceded an extensive three-year underwater project lasting from the 1969 through the 1971 field seasons, which yielded the vast majority of recovered artifacts.  The cutting and raising of some of the ship's timber occurred in 1972, along with minor artifact recovery (see Zacharchuk and Waddell 1984).   ("Artillery from the Machault, an 18th Century French Frigate", by Douglas Bryce, Studies in Archaeology, Architecture and History, National Historic Parks and Sites Branch, Parks Canada, Environment Canada, 1984, Ottawa)

French Cast Iron 12-livre Smoothbore Muzzleloading Gun, salvaged from the Machault with fleur-de-lys on the barrel and a large letter P on the cascable, mounted on a British 24-pounder iron garrison carriage, in the No. 1 position (far right as you stand behind the guns).  5-inch bore (12.6-cm).

French Cast Iron 12-livre smoothbore muzzleloading cannon, 5-1/2-inch bore (14-cm), with anchors on the barrel, F on both trunnions, mounted on a British 24-pounder iron carriage, in the No. 3 position.

The two French cannon in Riverside Park in Campbellton were taken from a former battery at Battery Point on the Quebec side, I understand. Just going by memory I think the Battle of the Restigouche museum said they had been taken from one of the French ships for the purpose of making the battery to try to stop the advance of the British ships up the river. This did not succeed, as the British silenced this battery, apparently spiking the guns, and also silenced another battery which would have been at about the corner of Ramsay and Water Streets in modern Campbellton when you look at the map drawn.

The Busteed family, which also owned Bordeaux House on the Quebec side, later owned Battery Point. The two cannon were given to their relatives by marriage the Fergusons on the New Brunswick side, at Athol House, which stood just behind where the AV Cell mill now stands. These guns seem to have been made functional somehow, as there are accounts of them being fired on ceremonial, usually Scottish, occasions throughout the 19th century. They were even brought on a barge or scow to Dalhousie, it seems, to fire a salute when Princess Louise and her husband the Marquess of Lorne came for a brief visit there, and are mentioned in her diary.  

My suspicion had been the guns were hauled up to act as protection against privateers during the war of 1812, since during the American Revolutionary War a trading post on the site of Athol House, pre-Ferguson days, had been raided, something I'm sure the Fergusons knew. There were certainly cannonballs enough in the river to stuff into them. But there is no record going back that far...it just struck me as a lot of effort to go to for no practical purpose, and the Scots are a practical people.

Athol House burned in the late 19th century, and the guns were given to Campbellton in 1898 or 1897, I can't remember which, to place outside the new Grammar School. They show up on postcards of that school, properly mounted. The school burned in the fire of 1910, and the two cannon seem to have disappeared, probably into storage, until Riverside Park was opened in the 1920s. They were then mounted on the current metal mounts, which I think are called garrison mounts, donated by the federal government if memory serves me correctly. And there they have been ever since. The insides seem to have been ruined by cement or something of that nature.

I had an account of the guns from a 19th century newspaper, which unfortunately I returned to the owner without making a copy. This account says one of the cannon was taken from the battery site and one from the river, but Bill Busteed, the last occupant of Bordeaux House, told me his family tradition was they both came from Battery Point.  I have the account of when they were donated to Campbellton for the school however.

The German Krupp 77 mm artillery piece was given to Campbellton as a trophy in the 1920s, apparently in recognition of effort during the war, and probably when the park opened, but we have never found an account of when the park formally opened or exactly when the gun arrived. We think in 1927 to celebrate the 60th of Confederation, but surprisingly there is no mention in the local newspapers or in city council records of an opening ceremony, except mention that a town councillor, a Mr. Wallace who was a WWI veteran, spearheaded the effort to create the park on the site of hotel that burned in the fire of 1910.

(Timothy Jaques, Editor, The Tribune)

German First World War 7.7-cm FK 96 captured by Canadians, Battle of Amiens, Aug 1918.  (Library and Archives Canada Photo, MIKAN No. 3397896)

German First World War 7.7-cm Feldkanone 96 neuer Art (7.7-cm FK 96 n.A.), (Serial Nr. 2402), no data, No. 2 position.  This FK 96 was likely captured ca 1918 by a Battalion of an Infantry Brigade in a Canadian Division, Canadian Expeditionary Force (CEF), in France.

The 7.7 cm Feldkanone 96 neuer Art (7.7 cm FK 96 n.A.) is a German field gun.  The gun combined the barrel of the earlier 7.7 cm FK 96 with a recoil system, a new breech and a new carriage. Existing FK 96s were upgraded over time.  The FK 96 n.A. was shorter-ranged, but lighter than the French Canon de 75 modèle 1897 or the British Ordnance QF 18 pounder gun; the Germans placed a premium on mobility, which served them well during the early stages of the First World War. However, once the front had become static, the greater rate of fire of the French gun and the heavier shells fired by the British gun put the Germans at a disadvantage. The Germans remedied this by developing the longer-ranged, but heavier 7.7 cm FK 16.  As with most guns of its era, the FK 96 n.A. had seats for two crewmen mounted on its splinter shield.

(Timothy Jacques Photos)

Cast iron possibly 6-pounder gunnade unmounted.

This gun was donated to the city of Campbellton to mount at the waterfront. It had been donated to the local Caledonian Society by a lady who said it had belonged to her great-grandfather. She did not know where he got it, although apparently there were two similar guns used as bollards outside a post office in nearby Dalhousie (a port town which in the 19th century was occasionally visited by the Royal Navy) which existed from the 1880s to the mid-1950s. This gun does not give any appearance of having been half-buried all those years though.

A larger version of the "gunnade", is the 12-pounder, which was used in the War of 1812 era, ca 1800 to 1820, early 19th century.  It would have been used as a garrison gun for defence. If it is unmarked it may be American (most British guns have weight markings, sometimes a royal cypher).  The Blomefield pattern breeching ring appears to be intact - it must have been indoors to be in such great shape! The gunnade was an offshoot of the carronade, which was developed in the 1770s as a short-barreled naval cannon.  Gunades appeared in the late 1790s with conventional trunnions that enabled it to be used on conventional gun carriages.

Gunnades are commercial guns made for merchant ships and civil communities. They go on being cast into the 1860s. Made in the United Kingdom and Sweden. There may be engraved marks on the barrel between the trunnions and touchhole- try looking with a slanting light. (Ruth Rhynas Brown)

Cap Pelé

105-mm C1A1 M2A2 Howitzer, CDN 129 AKA CFR 56- 34228, No. 1 of 2.  This gun was in the Central Command Militia Pool.  It  is located beside the town cenotaph near the intersection of Ch Acadie and Ch Saint Andre.  Beside the municipal building.

105-mm C1A1 M2A2 Howitzer, CDN 5 AKA CFR 55-34110, No. 2 of 2.  This guns served with 4 RCHA.  It is located beside the town cenotaph near the intersection of Ch Acadie and Ch Saint Andre.  Beside the municipal building.

Caraquet

(Photo courtesy of Nelopics)

American 90-mm M1A1 Anti-Aircraft Gun on display in a memorial park facing the Bay of Chaleur.

Centreville

155-mm M109 Self-Propelled Howitzer, CFR 85-77237, No.1, right side of the Memorial Park.

155-mm M109 Self-Propelled Howitzer, CFR 68-34821, No. 2, left side of the Memorial Park.

(Author Photo)

Family names on the Centreville cenotaph include those who served, not just those who passed. They include the names of the following members of the author's family:

Walter R. Estabrooks, Royal Canadian Artillery, First World War**

Fred Estabrooks, Canadian Provost Corps, Second World War

Bernard Estabrooks, Canadian Provost Corps, Cold War

Frederick C. Skaarup, Artillery, First World War

Harold J. Skaarup, 5th Armoured Regiment (8th Princess Louise's (New Brunswick) Hussars, CAC, CASF, buried at Monteccio, Italy, 1944

Aage C. Skaarup, Royal Canadian Air Force, Cold War

Carl Skaarup, Royal Canadian Electrical Mechanical Engineers, Cold War

Fred Skaarup, Royal Canadian Artillery, Cold War

Harold A. Skaarup, Canadian Intelligence Corps, Cold War

Dale R. Skaarup, Royal Canadian Navy, Cold War

Christopher L. Skaarup, Royal Canadian Artillery, Cold War

Sean J. Skaarup, Royal Canadian Artillery, Cold War

Wilhelmine I. Estabrooks, Canadian Women's Army Corps, Cold War (name not on the memorial)

**Walter had joined the Royal Canadian Artillery in Woodstock, New Brunswick, and served with the 10th Battery, 4th Brigade in 1912 and 1913 during exercises in Petawawa.  (The 10th Battery was formed in 1892 and given its number in 1895).  He went overseas and served with the 32nd Field Battery, 8th Army Brigade (HQ in Ottawa), Canadian Field Artillery, on 24 December 1916.

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Centreville, Fort Presqu' Île

This was the site of a  British blockhouse located at the mouth of the Presqu' Île River (1791 - 1824, 1837 - 1840's), near Simonds.  The post occupied five acres, with barracks, Officers' quarters, a guardhouse, stables and stores.  During the Maine/New Brunswick border dispute the post was repaired and used as an observation post, depot and rallying point for the local militia.  The only evidence remaining is the post cemetery. There is a provincial historic marker on the side of the road at the foot of the height of land upon which stood the blockhouse.

Chipman

German First World War 17-cm mittlerer Minenwerfer (17-cm mMW), trench mortars, 9.15-cm leichtes Minenwerfer System Lanz, 7.68-cm trench mortar, and spigot mortars captured by Canadians, Apr 1917.  (Library and Archives Canada Photo, MIKAN No. 3521871)

German First World War 17-cm mittlerer Minenwerfer (17-cm mMW), trench mortar captured by Canadians, Apr 1917.  (Library and Archives Canada Photo, MIKAN No. 3521845)

German First World War 17-cm mittlerer Minenwerfer (17-cm mMW), (Serial Nr. 7095), H, 2, 1918.  This trench mortar was captured on 8 Aug 1918 by the 13th Battalion (Royal Highlanders of Canada), 3rd Infantry Brigade, 1st Canadian Division, Canadian Expeditionary Force (CEF), near Aubercourt, France.  The weapon is mounted on an iron-wheeled carriage in the Community Park on Main Street.

The 17 cm mittlerer Minenwerfer (17 cm mMW).  This mortar was useful in destroying bunkers and field fortifications otherwise immune to normal artillery.  It was a muzzle-loading, rifled mortar that had a standard hydro-spring recoil system. It fired 50 kilogram (110 lb) HE shells, which contained far more explosive filler than ordinary artillery shells of the same calibre.  The low muzzle velocity allowed for thinner shell walls, hence more space for filler. Furthermore, the low velocity allowed for the use of explosives like Ammonium Nitrate-Carbon that were less shock-resistant than TNT, which was in short supply.  This caused a large number of premature detonations that made crewing the minenwerfer riskier than normal artillery pieces.  A new version of the weapon, with a longer barrel, was put into production at some point during the war.  It was called the 17 cm mMW n/A (neuer Art) or new pattern, while the older model was termed the a/A (alter Art) or old pattern.  In action the mMW was emplaced in a pit, after its wheels were removed, not less than 1.5 meters deep to protect it and its crew.  It could be towed short distances by four men or carried by 17.  Despite its extremely short range, the mMW proved to be very effective at destroying bunkers and other field fortifications. Consequently its numbers went from 116 in service when the war broke out to some 2,361 in 1918.

Edmundston, Fort Madawaska

A stockaded blockhouse constructed during the border crisis with the United States.  Also known as the Petit Sault Blockhouse.  It had a stone foundation with two upper floors made with cut logs.  The P’tit Sault Blockhouse consists of a strategic site on a rocky hillock, overlooking the confluence of the Saint John and the Madawaska Rivers in the City of Edmundston, crowned by the reconstructed P’tit Sault Blockhouse.  Constructed on this strategic hillock in 1841, the P’tit Sault Blockhouse Provincial Historic Site was one of a number of blockhouses, also referred to as forts, the original blockhouse was built as part of the British line of defence during the bloodless Aroostook War.  This conflict was the result of disputes over the border between the New Brunswick and the State of Maine in the early 1800’s. The war is referred to as ‘bloodless’ because of the lack of casualties on either the British or American sides.  It ended with the signing of the Webster-Ashburton Treaty in 1842.  The treaty settled the border conflict and divided the population of the Madawaska region between New Brunswick and the State of Maine.  The original fort was destroyed by lightning in August 1855.  A reproduction was built on site in 2001, located at 10-14 St-Jean Avenue.

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