{"id":1424,"date":"2021-09-29T09:59:56","date_gmt":"2021-09-29T12:59:56","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/projects.upei.ca\/geolab\/?p=1424"},"modified":"2022-03-09T11:36:13","modified_gmt":"2022-03-09T15:36:13","slug":"energy-on-the-wilford-vanwart-farm-and-hampstead-queens-county-new-brunswick","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/projects.upei.ca\/geolab\/2021\/09\/29\/energy-on-the-wilford-vanwart-farm-and-hampstead-queens-county-new-brunswick\/","title":{"rendered":"Energy on the Wilford VanWart Farm and Hampstead, Queens County, New Brunswick"},"content":{"rendered":"\n
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Figure 1a. Wilford VanWart\u2019s barn in Hampstead, New Brunswick, Canada with the St. John River in the distance. This photograph, and those that follow, are used with permission of Margot Stafford, a descendant of Wilford VanWart.<\/figcaption><\/figure><\/div>\n\n\n\n
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Figure 1b. Wilford VanWart.<\/figcaption><\/figure><\/div>\n\n\n\n

The VanWart Farm in New Brunswick\u2019s Queens County is an example of a mixed farm with an emphasis on dairy, fodder, and other riverine resources found in the Acadian Forest agroecosystem. The VanWart family farm was 260 acres in size, or 105.2 hectares, and was situated on the St. John River which provided the possibility of riverine transportation for products both arriving at and leaving the farm. The VanWart farm was greater than twice the size of the average farm in the Hampstead census subdivision (CSD), the average size being 46.1 ha. Wilford VanWart (b. 1849\/d. 1920) was 22 years old in 1871.[1]<\/sup><\/a> His father, Jacob VanWart, had died in 1861.[2]<\/sup><\/a> Therefore, in 1871, the VanWart family farm was run by Wilford\u2019s mother Catherine, his uncle John VanWart (his father\u2019s younger brother) plus Wilfred and his siblings–his older brother Abner who was 31 in 1871, and his sisters Matilda, age 26, Bethiah, age 23, and Eliza, age 14.[3]<\/sup><\/a> The family also had a hired farm labourer in 1871, John G. Holy, who was the same age as Abner, 31. Abner died in 1877 at the age of 37, leaving Wilford to inherit the farm.[4]<\/sup><\/a> By 1881, Wilford\u2019s uncle John and his mother Catherine were still living with the family, but his three sisters were not. Wilford married Elvira Jane Fox of Lower Gagetown.[5]<\/sup><\/a> When the census was taken in 1881, the couple had two children, Arthur, aged one, and Mabel, just five months old.[6]<\/sup><\/a> Ten years later, in 1891, Wilford was the head of the household, and he and Jane had five children, one son, Jacob, and four daughters, Mabel, Nellie, Ida, and Jesse.[7]<\/sup><\/a><\/p>\n\n\n\n

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