So, what is the Drawlyn anyway?

The Drawlyn is a mountain (more of a hill, really) in rural New Brunswick, Canada. It's where my family (the Tottens) hail from. There are various spellings of the name, but we've settled on this one for our blog and web site.

The nearest "community" to my family property would be Hardingville. According to the "Community Place Names in New Brunswick, Canada: Robert F. Fellows", it is a:

Settlement, 5 mi. S of Upham and 4 mi. SE of Barnesville, on road to Barnesville: Saint Martins Parish, Saint John County: first called Ryan Settlement for John, Thomas and Michael Ryan who were settlers: renamed when post office was created: PO Hardingville 1878-1909 with V. Harding as postmaster: in 1898 Hardingville was a farming and lumbering settlement with 1 post office, 1 store, 2 sawmills, 1 church and a population of 150: today it is a dispersed community.

Note the "dispersed community" comment. There's pretty much nothing there now.

If you use Google Earth (extremely cool program, by the way), then you can load this KMZ file. It will show you were Hardingville, the Red Bridge and the ruins of the Hardingville church are. Unfortunately it's in a low-resolution area, but at least it gives you a basic idea of where the property is.

There used to be a railway called the St Martins and Upham railway. It ran until 1940. I emailed with someone a couple of years ago who had made a scale model train setup that preserved that piece of history. I can't find him online, but I suspect he's a member of the Saint John Society of Model Railroaders. Note: If this describes you, please get in touch with me -- I'd like to meet up with you and take a look at your layout!

We've been into researching family history for quite a while. Laura has even put up a Tottens On The Drawlyn family-history site. Feel free to check it out.

I'll save the question of "Why do we want to get back to the Drawlyn?" for another posting.