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Running Northeast into the Northumberland Strait and sheltering the waters of Tatamagouche Harbour on the North and Northwest, in the Malagash Peninsula, a most conspicuous physical feature which the Indians noted and gave the name, Malagash, meaning "the end of smooth water". It is rather strange that the French cartographers did not have it marked on their charts or maps. However, when Wallace was laid out as a Loyalist settlement in 1785, and the whole Peninsula accurately surveyed, the name, Malagash, was retained, though spelled as Maligash. Cape John to the Northeast of the Harbour had, however, been noted by the early French explorers. As Cap Jean it is to be found on French maps as early, at least, as 1745. DesBarres in his Atlantic Neptune about 1774 merely used its Anglicized form, Cape John. Its origin is obscure, while its original Indian name, if any, has been lost. A rather odd name, erroneously supposed to be of French origin and now commonly spelled "Gousar" has long been used to designate the basin at the head of the Harbour enclosed by Clark’s Point and Shipyard Island. It occurs in varied spelling as early as 1785. It is definitely not of either Micmac or French origin. Probably an early settler brought by DesBarres to Tatamagouche from Lunenburg about 1770, was one Frederick Gogel, a miller from Mountbeliard. While his name does not appear among those who held land at Tatamagouche under DesBarres there is a tradition that at one time he occupied Clark’s Point as a tenant of DesBarres and built a mill nearby. By the beginning of the Nineteenth Century, Clark’s Point was commonly called point Gouga and the farm, which had been improved at the personal expense of DesBarres, Point Gouga Farm. As originally spelled the word is so close to the spelling of Gogel as to suggest that the tradition that Gogel gave his name to the nearby waters had a factual basis. The prevalent idea that the name arose from the fact that these waters were a favorite haunt for wild geese arose out of a comparatively modern invention. Back |
