Historic St Andrews

Richard Wilbur is the author of The Rise of French New Brunswick and
H.H. Stevens, 1878–1973, and the coauthor of Silver Harvest: The Fundy
Weirmen’s Story.

Ronald Rees has written about topics ranging from Prairie paintings to
geologists from his native Wales. Historic St. Andrews is his third
study based on the town that has been his home for nearly 20 years.
Scores of illustrations, many of which were found in the Charlotte
County Archives, are used to frame eight chapters: Houses and
Residential Streets, Water Street, The Waterfront, Men in Uniform,
Churches, Schools and Public Buildings, Bands and Parades, Summer Hotels
and Summer Homes. Rees also interviewed two St. Andrews senior citizens
for their (remarkably intact) memories of events and people in the first
half of the 20th century.

St. Andrews’ reputation is based on its famous summer residents, such
as Sir James Dunn and Sir William Van Horne. Through his choice of
historical photographs, Rees portrays the other residents—the
year-round kind—as they dress up for annual parades and march off to
war. Unfortunately, his history stops too soon. St. Andrews may be
entering its third century, but this account stops somewhere between
1890 and 1945, depending on which profusely illustrated chapter one is
perusing. Not included, then, are the arena complex (complete with
skating rink, bowling alley, and movie theatre, courtesy of the Dunn
Foundation), the spectacular fires such as the one at the Conley lobster
plant in the late 1940s, and the town wharf in the 1990s (since
rebuilt).

Had Rees spent some time with a few locals in their fifties, he might
have captured the socioeconomic impact of scores of American and
Canadian retirees buying up houses in St. Andrews and living in them
only during the short summer season, leaving a ghost village the other
10 months. Still, Historic St. Andrews provides many fascinating details
of how life was lived in this old shiretown in the southwest corner of
New Brunswick.