Two-hundred years ago, the voyage across the Atlantic Ocean came with no guarantee of safety or survival. Families travelling from Scotland and Ireland to North America in the 1800s had to be prepared for the fact not all of them would make it.
Some of those fractured families landed in New Brunswick and wound their way across the rough landscape to reach Fredericton. They often arrived with no support, little money and possibly the grief of a recent loss.
A group of citizens in the capital city wanted to help those immigrants, eventually forming a society that is celebrating two centuries of activism and tradition this year.
“Many benevolent societies developed in the colony at that time because people were arriving in such destitute states,” said Cynthia Wallace-Casey, president of the Fredericton Society of Saint Andrew. “It was founded by a group of concerned citizens who wanted to help people who were arriving with …