CHENEY ISLAND
Sunset on Cheney's Island
Cheney Island, commonly called Cheney's Island, was first settled in 1785 by William Cheney and his family. William Cheney and his wife, Elizabeth (Swett) came to New Brunswick from Newburyport, Massachusetts to Indian Island in the Bay of Fundy in the late 1760s. He later moved to St. Andrews, then to Grand Manan with the first group of settlers in May, 1784. He built a house on the small island between Ross Island and White Head Island and moved his family there. This island became known as Cheney's Island. William was both a fisherman and farmer, as was usual with most of the early settlers. He had thirteen children and the last two, Barbara and Moses, were born on Cheney's Island.
William was murdered in the spring of 1803. Af first it was reported that he drowned, but his bloodstained clothes and ox cart were found in the Passage later. On 31 March, 1900, his grandson, Simeon Frankland Cheney, said in a letter,
"I think the man that murdered G. Father should have been looked after, the word went drowned. Before G. Mother was able to tell the particulars of the death of Grand Father, the man left the island.
.....
Uncle Edmund and my father (Moses) took the island after Grand Father's death and father took G. Mother till death 31 years she lived after G. Father's death."
It is interesting to note that William's son Edmund and son-in-law Nathaniel Bancroft, lost their lives the year after Edmund's mother's death - they drowned 24 Jan. 1835 while crossing Cow Passage from Cheney's Island to White Head Island.
Today, in 1999, there are no Cheneys living on Cheney's Island. In fact, no one lives there. The island changed hands several times over the years. Houses were torn down- two were moved to White Head, until there was only one house left, a large farmhouse in the big field near the northern end of the island. In 1925, the Mourik family moved from Holland and settled on the island. Two of their children, Harry and Johanna, were born in the old house. The family remained there until 1947. There have been no permanent residents on the island since that time. There were a few hunting camps built but the island has been deserted for most of the year. In the early 1970s a family from Quebec purchased the island and built two houses, a large house with six bedrooms and a smaller three bedroom house for the caretaker.
Last year I learned that the family rented the houses in the summer and an idea formed to have a week's vacation on Cheney's Island this summer. My sisters and I decided it was a wonderful idea and we made reservations for the big house last fall. In a letter confirming our reservation, the owner said, "I hope you enjoy the island as much as we do."
The house in a field of daisies
Seven of us spent the second week of July on Cheney's Island and all agreed that it was the best vacation we had ever had. We had the island entirely to ourselves. It is about 200 acres, approximately 1 1/2 miles long, 1/4 to 1/2 mile wide. A main path runs from the wharf to the houses, then into the woods, eventually through the big field and on to the upper end of the island.
There are daisies everywhere - the front lawn and back lawn are covered, they fill the path and nearly everywhere one looks there is a field of daisies.
The front yard looking towards White Head
The weather was beautiful, except for an hour long torrential downpour just after we landed on the beach. In the mornings we sat on the back deck with coffee enjoying the early morning sun and in the afternoon on the front deck.
The back yard
One of my main objectives was to find the cemetery on Cheney's Island. About twenty-five years ago, a student told me he had seen a gravestone in a corner of the field- an Ingersoll, he said. Since I have been working on the genealogy of the Grand Manan Ingersolls for many years, I have always wanted to see that stone. Over the years the forest has grown up around the stone, so it was not quite so easy to find it as I had anticipated. In fact, it took three days of searching, in all the wrong places, to find it. By this time, we were told that there were three stones. We combed the edge of the woods all around the field, and finally, on the third day as we fanned out at the northeastern end and moved into the forest, it only took a few minutes when Sarah spotted something large and white glinting in the sunlight in a heavily wooded area.
The small cemetery in the forest
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