Excerpts from a letter written to his son in January 1976 by: William (Willis) Henry Crocker 1892 – 1988. He was the son of H. Weston and Margaret (Carnwath) Crocker of Hopewell Cape, NB.

“Father went to sea and became a Captain in the days of sailing vessels. He had his rough times. He sailed mostly to Boston and New York and points in between on the Atlantic seaboard. They carried lumber, gypsum, and other cargo from near home. I can remember when I was very young the activity in ship building and loading of ships at Hopewell Cape and other points in Albert County. There were several boats being built at the same time. Large ships could not tie up as there were no facilities for them to do so. They lay at anchor in the “Stream”, a spot in the Petitcodiac River, and scows were used to take lumber to be loaded on them. Also at that time, three masted schooners loaded with hogsheads of molasses used to sail to Moncton.

Father was Captain of the schooner “Fraulein” which was launched in 1889. After he stopped going to sea, he operated a small schooner in which water tanks were installed. It was used to take water to the ships which were anchored in the “Stream” as they had no other way of getting it. I remember going with him on several trips…..at night time it was pitch dark….I guess he sailed by the stars.

After we moved from the Cape to Riverside, about 10 miles away, Father became Captain of a steamer, the “Wilfred C.” It carried freight and passengers from Moncton to various small places on the coast. It was not a very big boat. I went with him on one trip across the Bay of Fundy to a place near Wolfville, Nova Scotia for a load of apples. The barrels were stacked on the deck and on the way home we ran into heavy sea and lost some of our deck load!”

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“In the latter days of his life, Father became Customs Agent for the Port of Albert. This is a place about the size of Riverside. It necessitated our moving to Albert.

My father’s people were strong Conservatives and mother’s people were strong Liberals. Sometimes during elections there were quite a lot of feelings!”

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“The village of Hopewell Cape was situated between the river and the forest and I remember when there was a forest fire that burned several houses and also several boats that were being built. I guess I was about six or seven (about 1900) and we had to pump water to keep the roof of our house wet. We could see the flames rising over houses close to the forest. Our barn was burned. I remember seeing squirrels and rabbits running by us away from the fire.”

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“As an active youngster I got myself into various scrapes….one being the sheriff walked some of us kids to the jail door one day because we had made his cows swim across a creek! The old jail at the Cape is now a museum. There is a post card size picture of school kids there. In it are myself and two other members of our family.”

………………. Submitted by: Betty (Crocker) Lumsden