Crouseville

The Crouse Family Permanently Homestead

1850

Hepzibah Clark, or Hepsy as she was called, married Gould Crouse in 1829. Gould was born in a log cabin on the Madam Keswick River in the Parish of Queensbury (now Parish of Bright), York County, British Colony of New Brunswick. He was the ninth child of the eighteen children of Philip and Sarah (Burt) Crouse.

As Gould was growing up on his father's 400 acre British Crown land grant the emphasis on farming lessened, moving instead in favor of harvesting timber. Throughout the nineteenth century New Brunswick's east coast shipbuilding industry waxed and waned in accordance with England's needs and the varying ability of the province to compete with the United States in the lucrative West Indies market.[17]

In 1809, when Gould was a 7 year old, he witnessed the New Brunswick timber industry boom. Large numbers of people abandoned their farms in whole or in part to enter the timber trade, which promised a quick cash return as well as a life of adventure in the woods. Napoleon Bonaparte was trying to ruin Britain's commercial foundations by effectively sealing off Britain's trade with Europe. Britain retaliated with Parliamentary orders-in-council which virtually closed the European continent to neutral commerce, and the United States followed by forbidding American trade with foreign countries, in an effort to uphold the commercial rights of neutrals. The British government immediately raised the New Brunswick preference on timber and encouraged firms to trade with their British Colony. Suddenly the timber boom in New Brunswick was on.[18]

As prime timber became more scarce, timbermen traveled further into the wilderness to find prime stands. Often during the winter New Brunswick men would go up the St. John River to the Aroostook River and camp as they harvested timber along its shores, returning home in the spring. Gould was one of these timbermen.