Place:Saint Léonard, Madawaska (county), New Brunswick, Canada

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

Saint Léonard is located on the east bank of the Saint John River opposite Van Buren, Maine, to which it is connected via the Saint Leonard-Van Buren Bridge. The town was first settled by the Acadians in 1789 and received town status in 1920. In the 2011 census of Canada it had a population of 987.

The town's economy is driven by potato farming and a sawmill. Saint-Léonard is officially bilingual but it is predominantly a Francophone community.

Saint Léonard was a popular town during Prohibition in the United States as it was easy to smuggle alcohol to Van Buren.

end of Wikipedia contribution

Saint Léonard is located on the east side of the St. John River at the mouth of the Grand River opposite Van Buren, Maine in Saint Léonard in Madawaska County, New Brunswick. It was first settled by Acadians in 1789. It was originally known as Grand River and had a post office by that name 1847-1897. In 1871 Grand River had a population of 200: in 1898 Grand River was a siding on the Canadian Pacific Railway and a "settlement". In 1866 it was a farming community with approximately 35 families, and in 1871 it had a population of 300. It became St. Leonard Station 1883-1925. In 1898 St. Leonard Station was a station on the Canadian Pacific Railway and a settlement with 1 post office, 4 stores, 2 hotels, 1 church and a population of 350. It was renamed St-Léonard Post Office from 1925: SaintLéonard was incorporated as a town in 1920. (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".