The purpose of this page is to explain exactly how and when the first counties and parishes of New Brunswick were created. The basic timeline is:
 
• 1784: New Brunswick established by the British Government. [See Birth of New Brunswick]
• 1785: Counties established by the Governor of New Brunswick, Thomas Carleton.
• 1786: Parishes established by an act of the General Assembly of New Brunswick. [See Act]

    The first Governor of New Brunswick, Thomas Carleton, arrived in the province on November 21, 1784 and took office the next day. Rather than hold elections for the Assembly immediately, Carleton ruled directly by order-in-council for the next year as he tried to establish a foundation for the new province.⁽¹⁾ It was during this period, in 1785, that Carleton established the original eight counties by letters patent. Saint John County, for example, was established on May 18 by a clause buried deep within the charter of the City of Saint John.⁽²⁾ The warrants for Charlotte County and Sunbury County were dated June 4 ⁽³⁾ and July 26 ⁽⁴⁾ respectively. They defined the counties' boundaries and appointed officials such as justices of the peace, sheriffs, and coroners.⁽⁵⁾

    I do not know the exact dates of the other counties but they had definitely all been created in time for the first election in the fall of 1785.⁽⁶⁾  I have occasionally seen claims - never with references - that all of the counties were created on May 18 but this contradicts the dates for Charlotte and Sunbury unless, say, there was a common order-in-council on May 18 that preceded the separately dated warrants. Alternatively, the belief in a common date may have arisen from the act of 1786 (see below). The act's preamble was phrased in such a way that it could easily be misinterpreted as saying that all the counties were created on May 18. In reality, it only said that Saint John County had been established on May 18 and it did not give specific dates for the other counties.⁽⁷⁾

    Carleton finally issued election writs on October 15, 1785 and the new Assembly first met on January 3, 1786 in Saint John.⁽⁸⁾ During this first session, the Assembly passed An Act for the better ascertaining and confirming the Boundaries of the several Counties within this Province, and for subdividing them into Towns or Parishes (26 Geo. III, c. 1), to which Carleton gave royal assent on March 15, 1786.⁽⁹⁾ For convenience I will call it the Territorial Division Act, 1786.

    The preamble of the act recited the boundaries of the existing eight counties and then declared:

. . . it is at present necessary that the said several Counties be subdivided into Towns or Parishes, for the more convenient and orderly distributions of the respective Inhabitants, to enable them in their respective districts to fulfil the several duties incumbent on them, and for the better administration of Justice through the same.

The act then confirmed the existing eight counties and proceeded to divide them into thirty six parishes, not including the City of Saint John.

    The act had several interesting features. First, it often used the term "Town or Parish" rather than town alone or parish alone. The word parish eventually came to predominate. Second, both the text of the preamble and the use of the word town show that the parishes were meant mainly for civil, not ecclesiastical purposes. If there was any intention of using them as Church of England parishes as well, then it was unwritten. Third, other than the preamble about "the better administration of Justice" and some brief remarks about court houses, the act only dealt with the names and boundaries of the parishes. Provisions for parish officers and local government were dealt with in other acts.

    No. The counties were created in 1785 by executive authority, although they did not receive legislative approval until the Assembly confirmed them in the act of 1786. There might be grounds to say that the counties weren't completely valid until 1786, but they did exist and had functioning justices of the peace before then. They had even been used as electoral districts in the election of 1785.

    Everything about the Territorial Division Act, 1786 implies that no parishes were created in 1785. The act clearly stated, "it is at present necessary that the said several Counties be subdivided into Towns or Parishes," and this would make no sense if the parishes already existed. The same is true for the act's title, An Act for the better ascertaining and confirming the Boundaries of the several Counties within this Province, and for subdividing them into Towns or Parishes. Furthermore, the preamble explicitly described how the counties had been created by letters patent in 1785, but it did not say this for the parishes; the parishes were treated as if they were new entities. The one partial exception was for Westmorland County, for which the act simply declared that the old Nova Scotia townships would continue as parishes under the New Brunswick regime; however, this is irrelevant to the question of whether the government of New Brunswick established any parishes in 1785. In addition, neither the charter of the City and County of Saint John nor the warrant for Sunbury County made any mention of parishes. Finally, the main secondary source on the topic, Ganong's monograph, does not mention any parishes being created in 1785.

    That said, I have seen several websites claim that some parishes were created in 1785; however, these claims are always vague and lack references. If someone could actually produce letters patent or orders-in-council from 1785 whereby parishes were created, it would be greatly appreciated.

    Curiously, MacNutt was ambiguous on this point:⁽¹⁰⁾

    During the year in which he governed untrammelled by legislative obstruction, Thomas Carleton established the rudiments of a system of local government that derived its authority directly from governor and council. His principal impulse was to avoid a replica of democratic New England . . . The word "parish" was perhaps suggestive of the urbane manner in which the villages of England had been governed since the days of Queen Elizabeth, and reminiscent of the English villagers' obedience to the government. Seven [sic] counties were marked off on the map, and parishes created for areas where settlement had taken place.

This passage comes from the 1785 section of MacNutt's book and implies that the counties and parishes had been created together that year. However, the paragraph and its surrounding text do not seem to be concerned with establishing a precise timeline for the counties and parishes, so perhaps the implication was unintentional. It is also possible that the parishes had been proposed in 1785 but not formally established, although this is pure speculation on my part.

   Although it was natural for Carleton and the Assembly to establish a system of local government - a basic need in any state - they also had some specific directions from the British government on the matter. Carleton had been issued a standard set of detailed royal instructions on August 18, 1784 ⁽¹¹⁾ and several of the clauses dealt with the creation of counties, parishes, and townships. For example, Clause 15 directed that the province be divided into counties and parishes for use as electoral districts:

    15. And in order that the Election of the Members of the Assemblies to be held in Our said Province of New Brunswick may be in future settled upon a fixed and permanent footing; it is Our Will and Pleasure that during the first Session of the first Assembly to be by you called by virtue of these Our Instructions, you do propose to the said Assembly the Framing a Bill for ascertaining the qualifications of the Electors, and Persons to be elected Members, the Number of Representatives to be allowed for each County or Parish in Our said province and the mode of electing such Representatives, for which purpose, It is Our Will and Pleasure, that the same be divided into such Parishes and Counties as shall be thought expedient by any necessary Act or Acts of Assembly, a Draught of which Bill you shall transmit to Us, by One of Our Principal Secretaries of State, for Our Pleasure therein, or otherwise your assent may be given thereunto, provided the same contains a clause suspending the operation thereof until our Pleasure thereupon shall be signified.

    There were also several clauses dealing with townships. These included Clauses 43 and 44, which stated:

    43. And whereas it has been found by experience that the settling Planters in Townships, hath very much redounded to their Advantage, not only with respect to the assistance they have been able to afford each other in their Civil Concerns, but likewise with regard to the security they have already acquired against the insults, and Insurrections of neighbouring Indians; you are therefore to lay out Townships of a convenient size and extent, in such places as you in your discretion shall judge most proper: And it is Our Will and Pleasure that each Township do consist of about One hundred thousand Acres having as far as may be natural boundaries, extending up into the Country and comprehending a necessary part of the sea Coast, where it can be conveniently had.

    44. You are also to cause a proper place in the most convenient part of each Township, to be marked out for the building of a Town sufficient to contain such a number of Families as you shall judge proper to settle there, with Town and pasture lots convenient to each Tenement, taking care that the said Town be laid out upon, or as near as conveniently may be, to some Navigable River, or the Sea Coast, and you are also to reserve to Us proper Quantities of Land in each Township for the following purposes, viz:- For erecting Fortifications and Barracks, or for other Military or Naval Services, and more particularly for the Growth and production of Naval Timber, if there are any Wood Lands fit for that purpose.

    It is interesting that the instructions mentioned three different sub-county units, namely parishes, townships, and towns. Of these, only parish gained any currency. Ganong made the following interesting observation on the topic:⁽¹²⁾

In actual practice the word parish only is used for these divisions in New Brunswick, town having in this sense only an official use, and being restricted in practice to the eight [in 1901] incorporated towns. It is the English custom to use parish and the American to use town, and the fact that New Brunswick uses parish while most of the other Canadian provinces use town or township is due no doubt, as Mr. George Johnson has pointed out (Place-names of Canada, Ottawa, 1897) to the strong English sympathies of New Brunswick, resulting from the strong Loyalist element in her population. In many respects New Brunswick is the most English of the Canadian Provinces.

1. MacNutt, pp. 53, 55.

 
2. The charter has been reprinted in the Revised Statutes, 1786 - 1836 and in Canada's First City: Saint John. The county clause appears on p. 18, Appendix 2 of the former and pp. 32-33 of the latter. The date of May 18, 1785 for Saint John County is also reported in the preamble to the Territorial Division Act, 1786.

 
3. The warrant creating Charlotte County and appointing its first officials was dated June 4, 1785 and has been reprinted as No. 126 (CXXVI) of the "Vroom Series" in the Saint Croix Courier, July 11, 1895. Davis, p. 56n, incorrectly gave June 11 for the date of the paper.

 
4. The warrant creating Sunbury County and appointing its first officials was dated July 26, 1785 and has been reprinted as Appendix 2 in the Local and Private Statutes of New Brunswick. It also appears as Appendix 3 in the Revised Statutes, 1786 - 1836.

 
5. Ganong, p. 417, quoted a letter from Governor Carleton to the British Secretary of State dated June 28, 1785 in which Carleton wrote, "The province will soon be divided into eight counties, three along the Bay of Fundy, four up the St. John River, and one at Miramichi."  This is strange because the letter was dated after Saint John and Charlotte had already been established.

 
6. All eight counties were listed as electoral districts in the election noticed printed in the Royal Gazette of October 18, 1785.

 
7. In 1850 the county and parish boundaries were consolidated by An Act to consolidate all the Laws now in force for the division of the Province into Counties, Towns and Parishes (13 Vict., c. 51). The preamble to this act said that all the counties had been created on May 18, 1785, but I suspect this was an error on the part of whoever drafted the bill.

 
8. MacNutt, p. 59. Pincombe, p. 20. The date of the first Assembly comes from the preamble to the acts of 1786.

 
9. The date of assent is taken from the Royal Gazette of March 21, 1786.

 
10. MacNutt, p. 56.

 
11. The Instructions were reprinted in Jarvis. Carleton's commission as Governor had been issued a few days earlier, on August 16.

 
12. Ganong, p. 429n.

• Davis, Harold A. An International Community on the St. Croix (1604-1930). University of Maine Studies, Second Series, No. 64. Orono: University of Maine at Orono. 1950, reprinted 1974.

 
• Ganong, W. F. "A Monograph of the Evolution of the Boundaries of the Province of New Brunswick." Proceedings and Transactions of the Royal Society of Canada. Vol. VII (1901) Section II. pp. 139 - 449.

 
• Jarvis, W. M. "Royal Commission and Instructions to Governor Thomas Carleton, August, 1784". Collections of the New Brunswick Historical Society. No. 6 (1905). pp. 391 - 438.

 
• MacNutt, W. S. New Brunswick: A History, 1784 - 1867. Toronto: Macmillan of Canada. 1963.

 
• Pincombe, C. Alexander. The Birth of a Province: Pertinent Historic Dates in the Bicentennial Year: 1984. Fredericton: New Brunswick Bicentennial Office. 1980, reprinted 1981.

 
• New Brunswick. (Revised Statutes, 1786 - 1836) Acts of the General Assembly of Her Majesty's Province of New Brunswick from the Twenty Sixth Year of the Reign of King George the Third to the Sixth Year of the Reign of King William the Fourth. George F. S. Berton, Editor. Fredericton: John Simpson, Queen's Printer. 1838.

 
• New Brunswick. Local and Private Statutes of New Brunswick. (Volume III of the Revised Statutes of 1854-55). Fredericton: J. Simpson, Queen's Printer. 1855.

 
• Saint John. Canada's First City: Saint John. The Charter of 1785 and Common Council Proceedings Under Mayor G. G. Ludlow, 1785 - 1795. Saint John: Lingley Printing Co. Ltd. 1962.