An account of the wreck of a ship in 1826, in the Gulf of St. Lawrence,
is yet told by the descendants of some of those who were coming as
settlers to Richibucto.

In the spring of 1826 a lumber vessel bound for Richibucto, N.B.,
carried a number of passengers for that part. When off the Magdalen
Islands the vessel was stove in with the ice, and the crew and
passengers had to take to the boats. There was no time to secure any
provisions, and a little package of potato starch that a lady passenger
had been using at the time of the accident, and carried with her, was
the only thing eatable in the boats. Among the passengers was James
Johnstone, of Dumfries, Scotland, and his daughter Jean, sixteen years
old. For three days and nights the boats drifted. Mr. Johnstone, who
was an old man, died from the cold and exposure, and at the time of his
death his daughter was lying apparently unconscious in the bottom of
one of the boats. On the morning of the fourth day a vessel bound for
Miramichi discovered them and took all on board. After landing safely
at Miramichi they took passage for Richibucto. Miss Johnstone married
John Main of Richibucto, and was the mother of a large family. Mrs.
Main was never able to overcome her dread of the sea after this
dreadful experience.

The last immigrants who came to the vicinity of the Isthmus were from
Ireland. They arrived in the decade between 1830 and 1840, and settled
in a district now called Melrose. Until recently their settlement was
known as the Emigrant Road. Some of the names of this immigration were:
Lane, Carroll, Sweeney, Barry, Noonen, Mahoney and Hennessy. They
proved good settlers, industrious and saving, and many of the second
generation are filling prominent positions in the country. Ex-Warden
Mahoney, of Melrose, and lawyers Sweeney and Riley, of Moncton, and Dr.