Street, Samuel Denny

  • DICTIONARY OF CANADIAN BIOGRAPHY ARTICLE: Thomas B. Vincent, “STREET, SAMUEL DENNY,” in Dictionary of Canadian Biography, vol. 6, University of Toronto/Université Laval, 2003–. https://www.biographi.ca/en/bio/street_samuel_denny_6E.html
  • DCB profile notes:
    • Army officer, lawyer, politician, office holder, and poet; b. 16 May 1752 in Southwark (London), England, son of Thomas Street and Ann Lee; d. 11 Dec. 1830 in Fredericton.
    • Samuel Denny Street was apprenticed to a London attorney in 1766 and subsequently practised law briefly before joining the Royal Navy in the early 1770s. In 1775 he went to Boston on the Merlin and served under Lieutenant-General Thomas Gage. After his discharge in Nova Scotia in 1776, he enlisted in Joseph Goreham’s Royal Fencible Americans and arrived in Halifax with Captain Gilfred Studholme.
    • By 1780 Street had been transferred to Fort Howe, and in November of that year he set out by boat with six men on a secret mission to the rebel port of Machias (Maine) under orders from Brigadier Francis McLean. His adventures among the rebels in 1780–81 are described by him in a remarkable and exciting narrative that at times seems more like fiction than fact. Yet there is no reason to doubt its veracity, judging from the carefulness of detail that characterizes the story.
    • Throughout his political life, in spite of the often partisan nature of his activities, Street appears to have had a clear and consistent political philosophy. At a time when many New Brunswickers were prepared to invest almost all political power in the governor and his council, Street agitated for a responsible role for the elected assembly, a role which would reflect the rights and privileges accorded parliament within the British constitution, in particular its control over appropriations. But in the wake of the American and French revolutions and in the face of the Napoleonic threat, New Brunswick opted in 1802 for the apparent security of a paternalistic, hierarchical form of authority with power clearly concentrated in the representatives of the crown. To most New Brunswickers, it was a question of loyalty, plain and simple; any distribution of authority smacked of republicanism. It would be another generation before Maritimers developed a desire for responsible government.
    • One of Street’s greatest contributions to New Brunswick was his children. Of the 12, George Frederick became a judge of the Supreme Court of New Brunswick, William Henry and John Ambrose Sharman were elected to the assembly, Samuel Denny Lee was Anglican rector of Woodstock for 40 years, and daughter Ann Frances married George Duncan Berton, sheriff of York County. In addition to their own offspring, the Streets raised the three orphan children of Dr Ambrose Sharman, who had served with Street in the Royal Fencible Americans and who drowned at Burton in 1793. His daughter Ann married William Carman and was the grandmother of William Bliss Carman, the poet.
  • United Empire Loyalist listed in Loyalist Directory: https://uelac.ca/loyalist-directory/detail/?wpda_search_column_id=8194
  • Find A Grave: https://www.findagrave.com/memorial/61844141/samuel-denny-street