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All Our Born Days  - A Lively History of New Brunswick's Kingston Peninsula - by Doris Calder First published 1984. Many interesting stories of life in the twenty mile Kingston Peninsula that is tucked in between the Saint John and Kennebecasis Rivers can be found in this book. 223 pages 6 x 9.

Book  8014  $14.95  Shipping $10.00 within North America -  signed by Doris Calder.   223 pages with soft  pictoral cover with back cover having a photo of the author with Dr. A. T. Leatherbarrow of Hampton who had served the Peninsula for sixty years and was still practising then at 95. Appears to be first edition  of 1984. Spine has tear. Used book showing handling wear.

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SOME INFORMATION written by Ruby M. Cusack
Even though the temperature was way below zero, nothing was going to stop us from going skating on this Friday night. Through the field we trudged, with Cliff pulling the hand sled loaded with shovel, broom and  firewood while I carried the skates and newspapers. Upon reaching the pond, which was actually an overflowed ditch, we met our friends who had walked through the woods carrying their skates and shovels.

Many hands make light work and the snow was soon cleared from the patch of ice. The blazing fire warmed our fingers and toes as we laced our skates.

Now if we had only lived on the Kingston Peninsula, probably the adults would have been joining us. Although people had been skating on the rivers since the early 1800s, it was only after James A. Whelpley invented the "Long Reach Speed Skate" and introduced it on the Long Reach about 1870, that skating became a passion for young and old alike.

The "Long Reachers" skates were strapped onto a person's boots. Each skate had a long steel blade fitted into a wooden top like a bob skate, and a pair of leather straps to fasten to the wearer's boots. The skate was unlikely to cramp the ankles and, therefore in those days, 100-mile journeys on skates were common.

Hugh McCormick practised skating on the wide stretches of the Kennebecasis and the Saint John River.  On April 5, 1883, when Hugh was twenty-nine, he made his first visit to the Victoria Skating Rink in Saint John where one hundred costumed contestants were vying for money and fame. Hugh, dressed in a coon-skin hat, homespun trousers and white hand-knitted socks pulled up over his pantlegs, joined them at the starting line. He won the half-mile race and the next year went to New York and came out on top.  This is only one of the many stories in "All Our Born Days" by Doris Calder.

Some of the Chapter titles are: THE LOYALIST GENERATION:  Kingston Loyalists, The First Years, The Church & The Crown, The Black Loyalists, Early Schooldays, Getting Around, Early Industry, Crime & Punishment, The Mysterious Stranger. THE NEXT GENERATIONS: Changing Times, Thriving Industry, Irish Immigrants, The Pickett Tragedy, Sailors & Sea Stories, Country Doctors & Home Remedies, River Ice & Winter Fun, Steamboats & Hotels, Agriculture & Farm Life, Captain Pitt & The Ferries, The Three R's & More, The Mail & The Phones, Ghosts, Going Ons and Rainbow's End.

Some of the pictures included are: Zaidee Williams (1979); Rev. Wiliam Elias Scovil (1810-1876) - third rector of Trinity Church Kingston with his wife; Frances (Lee) Scovil (1822-1913); Bayswater School - Arbour Day - 1918 (Fenton Gibbons, Hazel Hall, Harold Baxter, Elsie Baxter, Arthur Linton, Edna Baxter and Vira Hall); Belles of Grey's Mills in 1909 (Agnes Johnston, Nellie Prince, Helen Johnston, Esther Pickett, Mildred MacDougall, Vara Lyon and Glady Seely); David W. Thompson (1967); Perkins Inn; Sam Foster's Store in early 1900s; Students from Macdonald Consolidated School on a trip to Saint John in 1925; Horse drawn school van; "Maggie Miller" in midstream; William Whelpley wearing "Long Reachers"; Eliza Bostwick (1899); Zetta Rodger's Model T Ford and the "Haymakers, Hog Island, Bellisle Bay, taken about 1912 with Shalor Cosman, Bill Cosman, Ike Humphries, Frank Cosman, Myrtle Shamper, Paul Whelpley, Emma Ferguson, Liddy Shamper, Hattie Puddington, Margaret Puddington, Grace Shamper. On top of hay stack - Nellie Prince, Mabel Sterrit, Olive Cosman and Ivory MacCleery. The back cover has a picture of the author with Dr. A. T. Leatherbarrow.

In preparation for writing this book, Doris Calder spent several years researching written material, interviewing older residents and visiting sites that were important to the early settlers. Her book is the story of the Kingston Peninsula - its hills, forests, fields and the waters that surround it, as well as the people who have lived on the Peninsula - Malecites, Acadians, early English-speaking settlers, Loyalists and their descendants, Irish immigrants and their offspring, and others who came to stay.

Many interesting stories of life in the twenty mile peninsula that is tucked in between the Saint John and Kennebecasis Rivers can be found in the 223 pages of "All Our Born Days" - A Lively History of New Brunswick's Kingston Peninsula - by Doris Calder. T