They dispersed and hunted inland in the winter; in the summer, they gathered more closely together on the coast and islands, and primarily harvested seafood, including porpoise.

From the Raid on Castine, Church learned that Michel Chartier was granted the land of present-day St. Stephen and was building a fort at Passamaquoddy Bay.

[5] Church travelled up the St. Croix River to St. Stephen and, on 7 June 1704, took Chartier by surprise and his family fled into the woods.

In 1870, the Legislature of New Brunswick passed an Act, which authorized Charlotte County to issue debentures to pay a bonus of $15,000 to the HBRC in order to encourage it to complete the railway.

Some residents of St. Stephen who opposed the measure challenged the tax assessment in the Supreme Court of New Brunswick, arguing that the provincial Legislature lacked the constitutional authority to authorise a tax to support the building of an international railway, as that would intrude on the exclusive legislative authority of the Parliament of Canada.

In 1873, the Supreme Court of New Brunswick ruled that the provincial taxation statute was unconstitutional, because it intruded on federal jurisdiction over inter-jurisdictional railways.

[10] The supporters of the railway measure appealed the case to the Judicial Committee of the Privy Council, at that time the court of last resort for Canada within the British Empire.

The Judicial Committee, in the case of Dow v Black, allowed the appeal and held that the taxation statute was within provincial authority.

[12] Prior to World War II, St. Stephen's local economy was heavily based in the lumber and ship building industry.

Prominent families in the area, such as the Merchies and the Todds, ran much of the town's economy due to the monopoly they had on the St. Croix River system.

Lumbering companies were located along both the Canadian and American sides of the river, each branding its logs with a unique symbol.

[13] However, by the end of World War II the town's main employers were Ganong Bros. Limited, Canada's oldest candy company, established 1873, and the St. Croix Cotton Mill, Canada's second largest textile mill, with 20,000 spindles, opening its doors in June 1882 and operating its own hydro-electric generating station, the Milltown Dam.

With two storeys of the original factory now in use, they acquired the buildings of the Bug Death Chemical Co. On 29 January 1915, the St. Croix Water Power Company and the Sprague's Falls Manufacturing Company Limited petitioned for approval of a dam and power canal and the obstruction, diversion, and use of the waters of the St. Croix River at Grand Falls.

The Bay is a cool body of water which acts as an air conditioner in the summer and diverts major snow storms in the winter.

Environment Canada maintains a testing program for water quality at the Milltown Dam generating station.

[26] The government dock, which is more like a small pier, is subject to a 6.7-metre (22 ft) tide, and the marine trade is minute for this reason.

The building is now home to the 5 Kings Picaroon's Brew Pub and the spur line was decommissioned and turned into the Riverfront Walking Trail.

CHTD-FM, known as "98.1 Charlotte FM", plays adult contemporary music and offers regular news updates.

CJRI-FM broadcasts from Fredericton studios and operates a St. Stephen transmitter at 99.9 on the FM dial, offering a southern gospel music format along with Canadian news, weather and sports.

Basketball appeared in St. Stephen in 1891, introduced by Lyman Archibald at the local Young Men's Christian Association, and continued by J. Howard Crocker.

In 1939, the local baseball team won its ninth consecutive New Brunswick senior championship, topping off a decade of dominance in the sport at both the provincial and Maritime levels.