"Mr. Wood has a number of interesting documents of ancient date, among them two grants of land from the King to Robert Thompson, the great-great-grandfather of Senator Wood. The earliest, dated 1759 (in the reign of George II), was for 750 acres, one and a half shares of the original grant of the township of Cornwallis. The later document attests that in 1763 Robert Thompson was granted 500 acres more, individually by George III.
"Mr. Thompson does not appear to have gone into possession, and some forty years later his widowed daughter, ambitious for the welfare of her fatherless family, set out from Lebanon, Conn., with her son Josiah to find this lost heritage.
"They appear to have come to Dorchester, N.B., by a schooner commanded by one 'Lige Ayre, so called. Why they should have gone first to Westmoreland's shire town, instead of direct to the Eldorado of their dreams is one of the unknowable things, but presumably the exigencies of travel in those days had something to do with it. Both passengers and mail matter went by dead reckoning, so to speak, and could seldom get direct conveyance to their destination.
"In the yellowed leaves of a century old diary, penned by the hand of Senator Wood's grandfather, and also from letters, we find quaint comments and an interesting insight into the lives of the early settlers.
"The journal was begun in October, 1800, when Josiah Wood was twenty-four years old. He and his mother, after visiting in Canard, appear to have made their home for the time being in Newport, N.S., where in the cloth mill of Alexander Lockhart Josiah found employment. The young man seems to have had all the business acumen and habits of industry that distinguish his posterity. When work in the mill was slack he taught school, beginning with four scholars. Evening amusements consisted of husking parties, etc., where Mr. Wood contributed to the festivities by flute playing and songs. His idea of a vacation was taking a load of cabbages to sell in Windsor, where his sole extravagance was buying a bandana handkerchief.
"Mrs. Wood filled in her time, though hardly profitably, by having smallpox. This dread disease did not seem to cause any dismay in those days. The neighbors came and went with kindly ministrations to the sick woman, and the son pursued his work in the mill, quite unconscious that according to modern science he was weaving the death-producing microbe into every yard of cloth.
"In February, 1801, Mrs. Wood and Josiah went to Halifax, where they put up the sign 'The Bunch of Grapes.' The diary speaks of their visiting 'Mr. Robie, Mr. Blowers, the Chief Justice and the governor,'with regard to their land, but to no purpose, their claim being considered invalid.
"In the fall of the same year they returned to Dorchester, where Josiah not long after married Miss Ayre. He died in his early thirties, leaving two young children, Mariner and Ann. The widow married Philip Palmer and afterwards went to live in Sackville, N.B. They had eight children, Martin, who settled in Hopewell Cape; Dr. Rufus Palmer, of Albert; Stephen Palmer, of Dorchester; Charles Jabez, and the Misses Palmer, of Sackville, and Judge Palmer, of St. John.
"Miss Ann Wood went to live with her grandmother at Fort Lawrence, while Mariner continued with his stepfather, commencing business in a small way on his own account at an early age. He purchased in course of time the property adjoining Mr. Palmer's, in Sackville, where he built a store and dwelling which is known as "The Farm," and continued his ever growing business at the same stand till his death, in 1875. In 1871 the firm assumed its present name of M. Wood & Sons.
"During his genealogical research Senator Wood has found relatives whom his branch of the family had lost sight of for a century. The Senator's grandfather had a brother, Charles Thompson Wood, born at Lebanon, Conn., October, 1779. He married Elizabeth Tracy, and pursued the trade of hatter in Norwich, Conn. He died in 1807, leaving two children, Charles Joseph and Rachel Tracey, both of whom married and in 1830moved to Kinsman, Ohio.
"The children of this Charles J. Wood are living at Kinsman, and Senator Wood visited his long lost relatives this autumn. The pleasure was mutual, and while the Senator would tell of many years' patient seeking for his father's kindred, they related the story which had been told them by their father of his uncle, who had gone to the wilds of Canada and never been heard of more."--MISS COGSWELL IN ST. JOHN DAILY