Pointe-du-Chêne, New Brunswick

Pointe-du-Chêne is a small community in Westmorland County, New Brunswick. Located on Shediac Bay, an inlet of the Northumberland Strait, Pointe-du-Chêne, also called La Pointe, is the home of Parlee Beach Provincial Park. It was once the terminus of the European and North American Railway and was a key stopover for Pan-Am's Trans Atlantic air service inaugurated in 1939. Pointe-du-Chêne became a cottage resort area in the early 20th century. Summer excursion trains from Moncton brought day trippers to the seashore. The railway terminus and proximity to Parlee Beach (originally known as Gould's Beach and Belliveau's Beach, before being renamed in 1959), made it an ideal location for cottages.

Pointe-Du-Chêne has from the very beginning been closely related to the neighbouring community of Shediac; French cartographer Jumeau mapped the whole area along Shediac Bay as “Chedaik,” and Monsignor St. Valier, who was Bishop of Quebec, referred to the area as “Chedic” during a 1686 pastoral visit to Acadia. By 1815, the community was known as “Oak Point,” due to the abundance of oak trees that grew there. By 1862, the French variant of the name, Pointe-du-Chêne, was adopted.

Though Pointe-du-Chêne first began to be settled by English-speaking settlers as early as 1810, the community did not begin to prosper until 1853 when a new government wharf was constructed. Until that time, shipping, ferrying, and general trade were conducted from the Queen’s Wharf at Shediac Cape. Construction of the wharf coincided with the construction of the European and North American Railway, which chose Pointe-du-Chêne as its eastern terminus. This allowed strong potato, and industries to arise in the community. As yet there was no industry in all of Shediac Bay as strong as the community’s lumber industry, but as the forests of coastal Maine and England were close to depletion at this time, the abundance of oak trees in the area was considered a Godsend. By the 1840s, there were as many as twenty vessels waiting to load lumber at the wharf each day during the shipping season.

...
Wikipedia