Sussex, New Brunswick
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Sussex is a town in Kings County, New Brunswick, Canada, located about seventy kilometers north-north-east of Saint John.
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History
In 1857 the European and North American Railway was opened, connecting the farming communities of the Kennebecasis River valley with Saint John and Moncton. Sussex was incorporated in 1895 but was only officially established as a town on April 30, 1904. The settlers were for the most part British Loyalists who had fled the American Revolution in 1776, with many Irish refugees of the potato famine from the mid-1800s settling in the nearby farming communities.
In 1885 the Sussex Military Camp was established on the eastern edge of the town. The facility was closed following the Second World War and the town purchased the land to expand the municipal boundaries. Today the agricultural exhibition and some areas remain as open land on the former site of Camp Sussex.
Sussex underwent several changes in the post-war period. In the early 1960s, several local roads were upgraded as part of the Trans-Canada Highway project which saw New Brunswick Highway 2 pass immediately north of the town between Fredericton and Moncton. At the same time, a series of local roads in the Kennebecasis River valley were designated as New Brunswick Highway 1, running from an interchange with the Trans-Canada at Sussex, southwest to Saint John.
The creation of Sussex as a highway interchange in this post-war period led to some transportation planners in New Brunswick calling for the consolidation or closure of the Fredericton, Saint John, and Moncton in lieu of a single airport located in Sussex to serve all three population centres of southern New Brunswick; this being in the late 1950s/early 1960s before these facilties underwent considerable expansion.
Potash was subsequently discovered in large quantities in the area surrounding Sussex, with the deposit being the second largest in the world after an area in Saskatchewan. Two mines were built near the town, one at Penobsquis 8 km east, and another at Cassidy Lake, 10 km southwest. CN Rail built trackage to serve both mines, which employed hundreds from the surrounding area.
Sussex also began to see a growing tourism trade, with many flocking to see the collection of wood-constructed covered bridges throughout the central area of Kings County. In addition, an annual agricultural fair drew visitors, as well as the establishment of southern New Brunswick's only alpine ski hill in the Caledonia Mountains southeast of the town at Poley Mountain.
Sussex entered economic difficulty during the late 1990s after the Cassidy Lake potash mine flooded, resulting in hundreds of lay-offs. Another less-signficant blow came in October 2002 with a realignment of the Trans-Canada Highway (New Brunswick Highway 2) between Fredericton and Moncton which no longer passed through Sussex, instead carrying the province's east-west interprovincial traffic 30 km north of the town. At the same time, New Brunswick Highway 1 was extended east on the old Trans-Canada alignment to an interchange at River Glade near Petitcodiac and New Brunswick Highway 10 was extended on the old Trans-Canada from an interchange with the new Highway 2 alignment at Young's Cove Road south to Sussex.
Today, Sussex is primarily a regional service centre for the surrounding agricultural communities of the upper Kennebecasis River valley, as well as a highway service centre on Highway 1, the primary highway between Moncton and Saint John, as well as being the most heavily travelled route in the Maritimes to the United States.
Demographics
Most people in Sussex have some Scottish, French, English, and Irish ancestry. There are smaller groups of German and Dutch lineage, and very few Mi'kmaq, East Europeans, Asians, and African-Canadians. The town is almost universally anglophone, being in the heart of English-speaking southern New Brunswick.
Trivia
The town is home to Sussex Golden Ginger Ale, and at one point it claimed to be the birthplace of the ice cream cone. The Kings County Record recently proved this claim to be false. Sussex titles itself as the Dairy Capital of New Brunswick.
External links
- Town website (http://www.townofsussex.com/)
- Local stories (http://new-brunswick.net/new-brunswick/sussex/stories.html)