Saint John: Nothing Happened Here

In this episode, we discuss the Fenian movement of the 1860s and its effects on Saint John during security scares in late 1865 and the spring of 1866, including its political impacts in the latter year and beyond. Founded on both sides of the Atlantic by former members of the Young Ireland movement of the late 1840s, the Irish Republican Brotherhood was dedicated to the liberation of Ireland from British rule and the establishment ...

This episode, released close to International Women’s Day (March 8), recalls an important political reform cause in Saint John’s past that was part of a national and international movement: the fight for women’s voting rights. Starting in the late 1800s, the Saint John Women’s Enfranchisement Organization, which was a spinoff from a national organization, worked tirelessly for the provincial franchise for New Brunswick women as a c...

Two weeks before Great Britain declared war on Germany in 1914, the Saint John central business district was the site of another type of conflict, a labour struggle that pitted more than 100 members of the street railway union against the unpopular streetcar company. The three-day strike drew thousands of onlookers and supporters to the uptown area and produced the most iconic image from early 20th-century Saint John, two tram cars...

In this episode, we return to Sept. 11 1968 and the early moments of the first skyjacking in Canadian history on board Air Canada Flight 303. The flight had arrived from Moncton, New Brunswick to pick up passengers at Saint John with a final destination of Toronto. In addition to pilot, Ronald Hollett, and second officer, Robert Bromley, the crew consisted of flight attendants Christine Waud and Beverley Atkinson. Christine and Bev...

In 1968, Saint John made aviation history as the starting point for Canada’s first skyjacking: an Air Canada Vickers Viscount passenger plane headed for Toronto. This was the first of several acts of air piracy during the golden age of skyjacking in Canada. We begin our episode by discussing the golden age of commercial aviation in Canada, when passenger travel was associated with glamour, passenger comfort and convenience. Relativ...

In Saint John, as in other cities, residents’ sense of geography is based on streets and neighbourhoods, but few stop to ponder why streets were given certain names or, in some cases, re-named. It turns out that many of the names of the city’s thoroughfares are a direct link to the colonial past and reflect the priorities of Saint John’s elite, as well as reflecting the power structure at the time. Simply put, the names of streets,...

In this last episode of 2024, we explore how Christmas was celebrated in Saint John in during the Victorian era (1837-1901). In this episode, we are honoured to include a discussion with Saint John’s “Mr. Christmas,” local author David Goss, who has published more than twenty books on Saint John and New Brunswick history.

As residents of a British colony, Saint Johners avidly followed trends from the ‘Mother county’, but because of ...

This episode examines Arnold’s attempts to set up a business empire in the pioneer colony of New Brunswick, based in the struggling and divided Loyalist town of Saint John from 1785 to 1791. As one of the few prominent residents with money, he bought and sold land, leased or purchased sailing vessels and established trading establishments in Saint John, Fredericton and on Campobello Island. He also advanced credit to customers and ...

Little remains to show that the controversial American military leader, Benedict Arnold (1741-1801), lived in Saint John for several years after the American Revolution, except for a plaque on a building in the uptown area of the city. His name became synonymous with treason because of his involvement in an unsuccessful plot to turn over the Continental army’s fortifications at West Point on the Hudson River to the British in 1780,...

In this episode, Mark and Greg have a conversation with Saint John author, Heather McBriarty, on underaged soldiers in the First World War. As in other cities in Canada , Saint John was swept by a wave of patriotism that encouraged many young men to volunteer for the Canadian Expeditionary Force.  Much of this patriotism was channeled into support for Great Britain, which most Canadians viewed as the ‘mother country’. More than 600...

In early Saint John, most years saw an equal number of Protestants and Catholics coming to the city. In the second half of the 1840s, increasing numbers of Catholic immigrants, fleeing the Famine in Ireland, arrived in distress. During ‘Black 47,’ more than 100 vessels brought Irish emigrants to New Brunswick.  A record number died at sea enroute to Saint John, in quarantine on Partridge Island, in the alms house, or at an emigrant...

This episode examines one of the darker chapters in the history of New Brunswick and what would become Canada - social violence in Saint John in 1849 that took up to a dozen lives. Join us to hear about what happened on July 12, 1849, when several hundred Orangemen from Saint John, Portland, Carleton and as far away as Woodstock, began to parade towards the Irish Catholic immigrant ghetto of York Point. The marchers, led by a membe...

In the summer of 1854, Saint John and the neighbouring town of Portland were hit by cholera, which killed between 1100 and 1500 people. The highest death tolls were among poor and immigrant populations who lived in low-lying tenement districts with poor drainage, limited access to clean drinking water, and primitive methods for disposing of human waste. Although the elderly and very young of the working class were most vulnerable, ...

Join us on September 17, 2024 for the first episode of Saint John - Nothing Happened Here.

Many people think that nothing significant ever really happened in Saint John, New Brunswick. This history podcast challenges those thoughts by uncovering little known tales from the city and providing fresh perspectives on the people, places and events of the past.

Mark Allan Greene is a history enthusiast who loves a good ...