Loyalist House is a museum and National Historic Site located in uptown

Saint John, New Brunswick, Canada Saint John is a seaport city of the Atlantic Ocean located on the Bay of Fundy in the province of New Brunswick, Canada. Saint John is the oldest incorporated city in Canada, established by royal charter on May 18, 1785, during the reign of Ki ...

. It was the home of the prosperous Merritt family, who occupied it from its completion in 1817 until 1958. It was taken over by the New Brunswick Historical Society in 1961. Its address is 120 Union Street.

History

The Merritt family were

United Empire Loyalist United Empire Loyalists (or simply Loyalists) is an honorific title which was first given by the 1st Lord Dorchester, the Governor of Quebec, and Governor General of The Canadas, to American Loyalists who resettled in British North America duri ...

s, originally from

Rye, New York Rye is a coastal suburb of New York City in Westchester County, New York, United States. It is separate from the Town of Rye, which has more land area than the city. The City of Rye, formerly the Village of Rye, was part of the Town until it r ...

. In May 1783, along with approximately 6,000 other loyalists, they landed at Parrtown, New Brunswick (what is now the south end of the City of Saint John), having fled the

American Revolution The American Revolution was an ideological and political revolution that occurred in British America between 1765 and 1791. The Americans in the Thirteen Colonies formed independent states that defeated the British in the American Revolut ...

. The patriarch of the Saint John Merritts, Thomas Merritt (1729–1821), lived with his wife and seven children in Parrtown. Despite being initially of "modest circumstances," the family soon became prominent in the city, with the second generation amassing great wealth. David Daniel Merritt, the third of Thomas' sons and a wealthy shop keeper, purchased the Loyalist House property, on which construction began in 1810. The house took until 1817 to complete, likely due to the

War of 1812 The War of 1812 (18 June 1812 – 17 February 1815) was fought by the United States of America and its indigenous allies against the United Kingdom and its allies in British North America, with limited participation by Spain in Florida. It bega ...

. The property was, at that time, just within the city limits, Union street being the city's northern border until 1889. As a consequence, the area surrounding the property was sparsely populated, allowing the Merritts to keep livestock well into the later half of the century. While the house was originally at street level, as the city expanded the streets were dug down to lessen the strain on the

draught horse A draft horse (US), draught horse (UK) or dray horse (from the Old English ''dragan'' meaning "to draw or haul"; compare Dutch ''dragen'' and German ''tragen'' meaning "to carry" and Danish ''drage'' meaning "to draw" or "to fare"), less often ...

s coming up Germain Street. This created the elevated look of the house, which can be seen in the above photo. The family owned the house until 1961, and lived in it on and off until the death of Louis Merritt Harrison, in 1958. The house was then occupied by Mr. Harrison's housekeeper until the sale of the property to K C Irving and an associate, in 1961, at which point the New Brunswick Historical Society opened the house as a museum.

Architecture

Loyalist House is often claimed to be the oldest structurally unaltered building in Saint John; most of its contemporaries having been destroyed in the Great Fire of 1877. The house was built in the New England Federalist style, in keeping with the cultural background of its owners. The structure consists of two-and-a-half storeys, with the western half having been built on a stone and mortar cellar. The two main floors, which comprised the family living quarters, are identical in layout and almost completely symmetrical. They contained the living and dining rooms, the kitchen, the study, four bedrooms and numerous family and servant halls. The features of the living area include a main and servants' staircase, centralized bell system, four chimneys with two fireplaces each, and thirty one large windows. It was fitted with gas lighting, though the system was later disabled by the family and there is little that remains of it today. The top floor was used as servants' quarters, containing five rooms. There is speculation that one of these rooms was a servants' dining room and lounge. The adjacent room, which is small and houses numerous shelves, is joined to it by a window as if it were a bar. While this floor features numerous skylights added by the later Merritts, originally it would have had no windows. Also on the property is a

carriage house A carriage house, also called a remise or coach house, is an outbuilding which was originally built to house horse-drawn carriages and the related tack. In Great Britain the farm building was called a cart shed. These typically were open f ...

. Originally double its current length, it housed the Merritt's carriage, sleigh, and livestock. The Loyalists used a heated frying pan to keep them warm in the night. In 2017, Loyalist House underwent a $600,000 refurbishment.

Museum

The Loyalist House museum comprises most of the two main floors of the house, with other areas used as office space and storage. It is furnished with multiple examples of high quality Georgian and Victorian furniture, supplied from the collections of the New Brunswick Historical Society, the

New Brunswick Museum The New Brunswick Museum, located in Saint John, New Brunswick, is Canada's oldest continuing museum. The New Brunswick Museum was incorporated as the "Provincial Museum" in 1929 and received its current name in 1930, but its history goes back muc ...

, and

Kings Landing Historical Settlement Kings Landing is a New Brunswick living history museum with original buildings from the period of 1820-1920. It was created around buildings that were saved and moved to make way for the headpond for the Mactaquac Dam. Although Kings Landing i ...

. It is open during regular business hours from Loyalist Day, on May 18, until the beginning of September, though it opens for cruise ships well into autumn. Guided tours of the house are available at all times, with particular emphasis being placed on the Merritt family and the lives of wealthy Saint Johners during the 19th century.

Affiliations

Loyalist House is affiliated with numerous heritage organization throughout

New Brunswick New Brunswick (french: Nouveau-Brunswick, , locally ) is one of the thirteen provinces and territories of Canada. It is one of the three Maritime provinces and one of the four Atlantic provinces. It is the only province with both English and ...

, such as the Fundy Heritage Zone, as well as the

federal Federal or foederal (archaic) may refer to: Politics General *Federal monarchy, a federation of monarchies *Federation, or ''Federal state'' (federal system), a type of government characterized by both a central (federal) government and states or ...

and

provincial Provincial may refer to: Government & Administration * Provincial capitals, an administrative sub-national capital of a country * Provincial city (disambiguation) * Provincial minister (disambiguation) * Provincial Secretary, a position in Can ...

governments.

References

External links