Loyalists
of Little River
by
J. Clifford Campbell
In the excitement of watching the new litter of pigs,
I forgot to watch where I was stepping until the feel of a nail puncturing
my foot sent me howling with pain. Dad quickly picked me up and placed me
on an overturned crate. He pulled the piece of rotten board with the nail
from the sole of my rubber boot. I think Mum heard my crying as she was waiting
at the kitchen door when Dad carried me into the house. She quickly placed
my foot in a basin of warm water for a soaking in epsom salts.
Gram insisted Cliff go back to the barn and bring her the rusty nail so
she could throw it in the stove to burn, as this would prevent my getting
blood poisoning.
In the meantime, Gramp came in from the back pantry carrying a freshly
cut piece of salt pork which Mum placed over the wound and held it in place
with a strip of white cotton wrapped tightly around my foot.
J. Clifford Campbell’s grandmother also applied a piece of salt pork to
draw out the poison from a puncture by a rusty nail and burned the nail
in order for the cure to work.
In his publication, “
Loyalists of Little River”, Clifford
gives several home remedies that were used when he was growing up in Ripples.
By the way the name change from Little River to Ripples came about in 1912
-1914 when the CPR line was established and a name was required for the station
house that would also house the post office.
The book is introduced with several pages on the author’s ancestors -
the Ackerman, Campbell, McLaughlin and Young families. James Ackerman and
his twenty year old bride, Jane were Loyalists who left their home in New
Jersey and sailed on the “Esther’ to the present day New Brunswick. James
died in 1820. It was told that Jane died a violent death at age 95 in 1858.
Samuel Campbell came from County Tyrone in 1819. His first grant was at
Musquash. He later moved to Little River with his Irish born wife, Nancy
Ann Smyth.
Thomas McLaughlin and his wife Esther came from Londonderry in 1823 and
settled at Tay Creek.
The 286 page book contains intimate stories of
several generations
of the ancestors of the eighty-eight year-old author, who came
to settle Little River and how they coped with the situations as they found
them. It will take you on a journey through memories of the stream drives,
building a log church, weather woes, internment camps, prohibition, transportation,
wart charming, crop growing, muzzle loaders, peddlers, school days, gypsies,
fishing experiences, hungry thirties, taxes, working on the road, food preservation,
self sufficiency, old time tools and many other experiences related to growing
up in the country plus stories that were handed down.
In the appendix, you will find a listing for the cemetery in Ripples and
ancestor charts of John Clifford Campbell, Annie Sinnott McLaughlin and of
Lilla Belle Young.
The picturesque details of daily life in the community and the people
who lived there, combined with meticulous research provide the reader with
an opportunity to look back, thus keeping alive the memories of the folk
whose lives touched Ripples in one way or another.
"
Loyalists of Little River”
by J. Clifford Campbell, was published in 2003.
