This is an excerpt from a handwritten manuscript of reminiscences prepared in 1966-67 by John Donald Bedell (1904-1988). "Gaga" is his grandfather John Jarvis Bedell who had married Maria Carman (Nana) in 1873, died in 1908:

"I can remember going up to Carman's on Christmas Day for supper shortly after Gaga's death.  There was Uncle Sam who had recently taken to his bed at the age of [age missing in original], long white whiskers, large, bony, trembling hands, which would reach out for a bag of hard, white peppermints one of which he would cut in two with the biggest bone-handled jackknife you ever saw, and give half to me.

He had worked in the Carman mill at Maugerville, had tied down the safety valve to get more steam pressure while sawing and then had forgotten to untie it when they stopped for dinner. Watching the gauge, he could keep the pressure within limits, but with no steam used, the pressure built up and the boiler burst, killing the millwright, who was filing the saws.  That put the Carmans out of the lumber business at Maugerville and they moved to Woodstock, where they bought a farm from an ex-soldier of DeLancey's Brigade. The farm was the same size as ours was originally, 36 rods wide and in length three miles, three-quarters and half-a-quarter.

Uncle Sam, a lifelong bachelor (and unsuccessful participant in the California gold rush of 49), cleared the rear end of it, where the big Peabody back field is now rapidly going back to woods, and lived out there, afterwards moving in to the top of the hill where the orchard is.  The cellar of the house can still be seen and the lilacs, waxberry bushes, oak tree and grapevine are still there.

Great Grandmother Carman was "chair-bound" and could move only with difficulty but dressed in the style of the late Queen Victoria, a white lace cap, dresses trimmed with beads and braiding, and jet jewelry.  She was very clear in her mind and made the most wonderful lace and embroidery, as well as crochet, knitting and tatting.

Charles Carman ran the farm and if ever there was a born loser, he was it. Tried to be a gentleman farmer and raise race horses, but had no talent for either.  He ran a milk and vegetable cart as did C.L. Smith, Lee and Arthur Raymond, Charles Peabody, Jim & Sterl Peabody, the Bedells and the Davidsons.  Soloman Tomah, one of the most faithful Indians, kept the place running, or at least from going down hill too rapidly.  One example of the things that happened to Uncle Charlie; he bought a stud horse, racing thorough-bred type. After he brought it home, Daddy and I went up to see it with several of the neighbours; he turned it loose in the barnyard, where it immediately ran full speed into the "bridge" going up to the barn floor and killed itself!

Aunt Hattie kept the whole place going inside the house, and the flower garden outside, but the work she did, much of it unnecessary by today's standards, was astounding.

None of the old "Codfish Aristocracy" - the Dibblees, Bournes, Beardsleys, Bedells, Raymonds and Carmans - ever ate - they dined - in the dining room, collar and tie and always a coat, no matter what the weather nor how busy farming.  Hattie, like the rest, set a full dress table, complete with the proper silver, two sets of knives and forks and three spoons.  The butter was chilled, formed in decorated round balls with two carved paddles, and had its own small individual butter dishes.  On this Christmas there was choice of chicken or spiced beef (I don't know how it was prepared but it was quite dry, glazed on the outside and stuck full of cloves. Sliced thin, it was delicious). Julian Bourne was also there; his mother had been Julia Carman, married to Harry Bourne of Saint John, but died at his birth so he had always been brought up at the Carmans. He learned the trade of machinist at Dunbar's Foundry, went to the Yukon as engineer on a river boat and rose to be Chief Superintendent Engineer of the line.  He was just Daddy's age. He and his wife took up land in the Okanagan Valley when it was first settled, and lived there during the winter.

Goiter was prevalent there due to lack of iodine in the water, even new-born pigs and lambs had swellings. Bessie Bourne had a very bad case so she finally came east to the Mayo Clinic, where they performed one of the first operations of that nature and successfully removed part of it.  I can remember goiter being rather common in our part of the country, several women having large ones.

Charlie Carman wasted most of the lumber on the place by poor management and took the contract to unload all the rails for the Valley Railroad in the winter of 1917. He had no idea of how to go about it and the first thing he did was to break his leg! As there was a penalty clause in the contract, poor Daddy had to take it on to save him from ruin and all that winter - one of the worst in years - got up before five o'clock, milking seven or eight cows (the milk delivery business he had sold to Davidsons), and took Bet, one of the team, up to the railway spur line between the Valley and the C.P.R. to get the crew of Indians to work by 7 A.M. by lantern-light. It was all brute labour - human except for the horse.  Fred Cronk, Mrs. Sandy Pert's father, had his left arm off between the elbow and the shoulder, but could and did do more work with one arm than most men with two.  He stayed inside the box car and, with a long lever and a chain lifted the end of a rail in line with a small door in the end of the car. Daddy reached in, hooked on to it and pulled it out with the horse onto two heavy benches chained to the track. From there, the Indians took over, pushed it down the greased skids and piled it on a cross-tie foundation just off the track.  It snowed and blew about three times a week all that winter and often it took till noon to shovel away the snow and get to work at the rails, Dad came through that winter looking like a ghost but figured he had made three dollars a day but of course had no firewood ahead for the next winter.  Uncle Charlie then lost the farm when the mortgage was foreclosed. 

Uncle Sam and Great Grandmother Carman were dead, Hattie had gone to live with Victor and Jen in Kansas City, so he made a small payment on the farm just below the Beardsley Road, where Fulton Smith now lives. He started a small house back of Fred Cronk's (his neighbour to the north) who let him get fairly well along with it and then told him he didn't own that [...line missing...] mortgage there was foreclosed and to keep the place from being auctioned off for next to nothing, Daddy bid it in, worked it for two years and finally got rid of it.  Meanwhile Julian Bourne sent for Uncle Carlie to come out to B.C. and live with him so Dad got a boxcar, loaded all his furniture and belongings in, made stalls for his cow and horse, set up his stove and away he went and died a few years later.  Aunt Hattie went to California where she kept house for the poet, Bliss Carman, a cousin, for some time; she finally ended in a nursing home where for years Daddy and Munnie had to scrape up $25 a month for their share of her maintenance.  This was about all that could be saved in a good month when the cows were milking well - (Dad had given up the milk business after about three years or it would have killed him) and meant that for the years this amount had to be contributed there was no surplus for saving, and sufficient wood and logs had to be cut to pay the taxes and insurance."

Background and commentary by George Peabody, great-grandson of Maria Carman and John Jarvis Bedell who so graciously provided this information.

There are no Carmans of the name left in this part of New Brunswick. The house which JD Bedell visited has long since vanished, although potsherds and bits of metal and brick can be found when the field where it must have stood is ploughed.

One local memorial to the Carmans remains: a large solitary oak stands in the field near the location of the house in Lower Woodstock. It is believed to have grown from an acorn brought back by Uncle Sam Carman from his trip to the California gold fields in 1849. The waxberry bushes, grapevine and oak tree referred to in the excerpt still survive, although the lilacs have given out, the cellar is indistinguishable from any rockpile, and the orchard planted by Uncle Sam, which still produced usable apples into the mid 1970s, has been overrun by returning forest.

The New Brunswick Carmans - like the other Codfish Aristocracy families - were Loyalists, refugees who fled to New Brunswick in 1783-84 after having backed the losing side in the American Revolution. Delanceys Brigade was a Loyalist regiment. 

Maugerville - pronounced majorville - is located in the St. John River valley not far from Fredericton.

"Uncle Sam" is Samuel John Carman, younger brother of Odber and son of Samuel and Maria Moore. Hattie is Harriet Louisa, and Cousin Charlie (Charles Carman appears as both Uncle Charlie and Uncle Carlie in the manuscript. I prefer the latter, as somehow more suggestive of the hapless character depicted) is Charles Raymond Carman, both children of Odber and Mary Raymond (who is, I assume, "Great-grandmother Carman")... You may or may not know or care that William Odber Raymond, son of Mary Carman and Charles Raymond, was a prolific and respected historian (W.O. Raymond), who did a great deal of genealogical research on his ancestry. His papers are, I think, held by the University of Toronto.

Thanks again to George Peabody