Place:Debec, Carleton, New Brunswick, Canada

the text in this section is based on an article in Wikipedia

Debec is a community in Carleton County in the Canadian province of New Brunswick.

Debec was named after George De Beck who settled there in 1835. Before that it was known as Blairs Mills after Andrew Blair, surveyor and father of New Brunswick Premier Andrew George Blair. It is southwest of Woodstock, and close to the Maine border. It developed as a railway junction. Canadian Pacific Railway trains ran along the north-south tracks from Woodstock to McAdam, and Debec was a junction for trains running from Woodstock to Houlton, Maine. The border between Maine and New Brunswick was fluid in the late 19th and early 20th century - at least for people. Men followed the work to Maine, particularly for forestry and railroading. Many young men from Debec and the surrounding areas followed the jobs of the CPR to Brownville Junction, Maine, a midpoint in the CPR route across Maine to Québec and Montréal.

Debec was a prosperous community from the late 1870s through to the end of World War I. Farming declined after that period as the mechanization of farm operations gradually diminished the viability of farming - the cause - too high a rock content in the soil. Where the horse could prosper, the tractor of that day could not. However more recently farming has made a comeback in some parts of the community with several large operations now growing crops.

Debec once had a branch of the Bank of Nova Scotia. When it opened in November 1919, the village had 6 stores, a grist mill, several potato shipping operations and was one of the busiest points for freight on the CPR rail lines in Carleton County. The high hopes for success at Debec however were never fully realized. By 1922 the bank manager was reporting that "Low prices of farm produce and losses last season in potatoes are the chief causes of the large reduction in current account and savings balances. Farmers were obliged to borrow much more heavily this year than last." Another factor contributing to the poor showing of the branch was the competition from banks in Houlton, where interest rates of 4% were offered on deposits (compared with 3% offered by The Bank of Nova Scotia). Farmers of the area were depositing their money in Houlton banks and doing all their regular shopping there as well." The bank branch was closed in May 1925 and accounts were transferred to the Woodstock Branch. The great depression and tougher times still were just ahead.

Research Tips

• New Brunswick Provincial Archives. This is the introductory page. The tabs will lead you to more precise material.
• The FamilySearch wiki. This lists the availability of vital statistics indexes for New Brunswick.
• New Brunswick GenWeb. A round-up of a lot of genealogical information at the province, county and parish level. Lists of cemeteries and monumental inscriptions can be found here.
• The Provincial Archives website titled The Placenames of New Brunswick has maps of all of its parishes and descriptions of some communities within them. This site contains "cadastral" maps for each parish illustrating the grantee’s name for land granted by the province. These maps are cumulative, showing all grants regardless of date.
• Microfilm images of all Canadian censuses 1851-1911 are online at Library and Archives Canada, as well as at FamilySearch and Ancestry. The 1921 census appears to be available only at Ancestry.
• The CanGenealogy page for New Brunswick. An overview of available online sources with links written by Dave Obee.
• More possibilities can be found by googling "New Brunswick province family history" and investigating the results.
• The word "rencensement", found in Sources, is French for "census".