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226 UPPER KENT RD |
New Brunswick Tourism Region : St. John River Valley
Description From Owner:
- The community was first called McDougall Settlement and had a post office from 1908 to 1951. Moose Mountain is first noted on a plan of this region of NB by George Sproule in 1799.
- In his 1847 Notes for Emigrants, Abraham Gesner describes the mountain as 'a perfect resemblance to the body and hornless head of a moose.'
- Dr. Abraham Gesner (1797-1864) was born at Cornwallis NS, but leaves a major legacy in New Brunswick.
- His interests were nature, geology, mineralogy and chemistry and he published many reports on the geology of the Maritime provinces. Despite a lack of financial support from the provincial government he developed a New Brunswick museum, first in his home
- He found space in the Mechanics Institute in Saint John and donated 2,173 objects for display which became the basis for the Provincial Museum.
- In 1846 he discovered kerosene by extracting oil from New Brunswick albertite. The clear, oily liquid had better illuminating properties than gases then in use.
- He derived the original name keroselain from two Greek words meaning wax and oil. He first formed a company in Halifax to produce kerosene and in 1853 moved to New York and set up two large factories for its production.
- He took out patent rights and sold them to the New York Kerosene Oil Works. The factories were soon overshadowed by E. L. Drake's discovery of large oil fields at Titusville, PA.
- Gesner's patent rights were challenged in the courts where he lost in biased judgements that ruled albertite was coal and his challengers had the licences to mine coal and its minerals.
- He returned to Halifax to take the Chair of Natural History at Dalhousie University but died before he could fill the post, having received none of the financial rewards of his invention.
- With permission from 'New Brunswick Place Names' David E. Scott 2009
Address of this page: http://nb.ruralroutes.com/MooseMountain