Place:Baker Brook, Madawaska (county), New Brunswick, Canada

Baker Brook is located on east side of the St. John River, 5.36 km east-northeast of Caron Brook in Baker Brook Parish, Madawaska County.

It was named for John Baker (1796-1868) who in 1837 proclaimed the area to be American territory during the New Brunswick-Maine boundary dispute; he was arrested, tried and sentenced to two months in jail.

The historian Ganong identified the Maliseet name for Baker Brook as "Hamaleekeenoktay'cook". It was first called Chatauqua then Sainte Emelie. Baker's Creek 1848-1851: The post office Baker's Brook 1851-1882. In 1866 Baker's Brook was a farming community with about 11 families. The spelling of the post office name changed to Baker Brook from 1893. In 1898 Baker Brook was a flag station on the Témiscouata Railway and a settlement with 1 post office, 1 store, 1 hotel, 1 sawmill and a population of 200: It included the community of Gagnon which had a post office 1882-1893 with Jean Gagnon as first postmaster. Baker Brook was incorporated as a village in 1967. (Source:Place Names of New Brunswick)

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".