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Only top-level descriptions Kings County WWI & WWII Thematic Guide
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Voluntary enlistment register, Charlotte County

  • CA PANB MC3148
  • Item
  • 27 September 1915-30 August 1917

This register records the voluntary recruitment of 553 men in Charlotte County, New Brunswick, for service overseas during the First World War, dating from 27 September 1915, when a major recruiting drive was underway in the province, until 30 August 1917, the day after Prime Minister Robert Borden's Military Service Act became law. It may be a manuscript copy of the enlistment register in which names of volunteers were recorded initially during or immediately after recruitment rallies.

Each entry provides the recruit's name, place of residence, age at recruitment, marital status, date of enlistment, nationality, and the unit to which he was assigned. Most of the men were Canadians, natives of Charlotte County, N.B. Other places of residence include Albert, Charlotte, St. John, York, Carleton, and Kings counties in N.B.; Nova Scotia; Prince Edward Island; Ontario; United States of America (Maine); England; Ireland; Scotland; Newfoundland; Denmark; and Romania. A very few gave their nationality as Italian, Danish, Norwegian, Russian, or Syrian.

A few notations, such as "stopped by mother," "discharged," "wife objected" or "rejected," are recorded in the margins. Occasionally, the name of the recruiter -- H. V. Dewar, Herman G. Smith, or ? McDowell -- and the place of recuitment -- St. George, St. Andrews, Castalia -- are given. The entries are in several different hands.

On the record book's cover is printed "Hospital Admission & Discharge Book". The recruitment entries begin at the back of the book.

Volunteer Enlistment Register

Muriel Edwards letter

  • CA PANB MC2770
  • Item
  • 14 January 1916

This letter is representative of hundreds of such thank-you letters written by Canadian soldiers serving overseas during the First World War to New Brunswick school children. Here Staff Sargeant V. A. Giles, of the 1st Canadian Division, thanks Muriel Edwards, then a girl of 11-years-old, for her letter and an "awfully nice bag of candy" he received in the post. He comments that "you cannot tell what great pleasure it gave all the Canadian Soldiers to receive them and knowing that all our dear little Girls at home are working for us."

Edwards, Muriel Erma