New Brunswick

The Colony of New Brunswick was created on 18 June 1784, when Britain separated the territory north of the Bay of Fundy from Nova Scotia to provide land and government for Loyalists displaced by the American Revolution. The province was named in honour of George III, prince-elector of Brunswick-Lüneburg, and its first governor was Thomas Carleton. In 1785 Carleton chose the hamlet of Sainte-Anne on the Saint John River as the provincial capital; it was renamed Fredericton and developed as an administrative and military centre. Settlement spread along the Saint John River valley and the eastern coast, while timber, shipbuilding, farming and fishing sustained the economy. A boundary dispute with the United States over the Maine frontier was settled by the Webster–Ashburton Treaty of 1842, and the colony obtained responsible government in 1848. New Brunswick entered Confederation with Canada on 1 July 1867, becoming one of the four original provinces, and Fredericton remained its capital.