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NOTE: This page has been adapted for the Website from Donald Coburn’s My Line. Use of the first person is in relation to Donald and not the webmaster/author of the site. Subscript index numbers (ex. Moses4) refer to generations after the family’s arrival in North America. Edward Colborne being generation 1.

PHOEBE6 COBURN

PHOEBE6 COBURN (David5, Moses4, Moses3, Joseph2, Edward1) b. 1800 d. 22 May 1856 dau. of David5 and Elizabeth (Tyler) Coburn m. David Pickard b. Sheffield 25 Mar. 1796 d. 10 July 1874 son of Moses and Eleanor (Brill) Pickard.

At this distance in time we cannot tell whether Phoebe was born in Keswick Ridge or in Sheffield. We are quite sure the David5 Coburn family was in Keswick Ridge before 1803 and perhaps David5 came to Keswick Ridge with the earliest ex-patriots from Maugerville. David Pickard came to Keswick Ridge at age ten when his father Moses moved there in 1806. In 1813 David Pickard was granted the 235 acres Lot #5 in nearby Scotch Settlement, recently known as the Amos Mitchell farm.

The 1851 census lists the family of eight children: Jane 28, Elizabeth 26, William 24, Deborah 22, Martha 19, Feeby 16, Sarah Ann 14, David 7, a-nephew David Clark 12 and niece Lydia Hagerman 10.

Some of my neighbours are descendants of the David Pickard whose eldest son William, who married Lavina Perkins whose eldest daughter Annie Oredna married Richard Springfield Reed. Richard Reed b. 1846 was the first born in Springfield, York Co., N.B. and hence the name. The Reed children were Lena (Mrs. Havelock Gordon),Laura (Mrs. Hatfield), William and Leonard. Two of Annie and Richard’s grandchildren live nearby. They are Evelyn (Mrs. Gordon Grant) daughter of Havelock and Lena (Reed)Gordon, and Gerald Reed son of William and Alice (Wiggins) Reed. A great grandson also lives at Keswick Ridge -Murray Gordon son of Douglas and Clara ( Palmer) Gordon. Douglas died quite young. Douglas was indeed a prince among men!

As older settlements such as Keswick Ridge filled up, people moved out and cleared farms from the wild, including the Springfield area, up the Macnaquac Stream.

An interesting story has been passed down through the generations. Miss Mary N. Love told me her version of how the road through Springfield came to be straight when most pioneer roads in New Brunswick tended to follow the line of least resistance. Mary had in her possession a conch shell that was used as a tool in that usual feat.

James son of Alexander Love, an itinerant shoemaker of nearby Scotch Settlement and Joseph Reed of Keswick Ridge used to hunt in the Springfield area. It was all forest. They liked the place and decided to settle there. In order to make a trail James took a conch shell and Joseph took his gun. When they got beyond the south branch of the Macnaquac, James went on. He carried his conch to the top of a rise now called Meeting House Hill. He sounded his horn. Joseph fired his gun and they started to blaze a trail toward each other. They repeated to blow, bang and blaze until they met. That happy reunion of friends long ago gave Springfield a straight road now called Number One.

Phoebe’s headstone is in the Pickard-Merrithew Cemetery along side that of her husband David and daughter Deborah Pickard. They are buried in that part of the Pickard farm that David’s father Moses set aside as a burying ground. The current resident descendant of that Moses is Charles Pickard, who has generously donated more adjoining land.