The area of Kings County in which Sussex Corner and Sussex are situated was originally called Pleasant Valley by the United Empire Loyalists in 1786, when they began settlement of this upper stretch of the Kennebecasis River. Pleasant Valley encompassed the general area between present-day Apohaqui (pronounced AH-po-hawk) on the west to present-day Penobsquis on the east; and from the Kennebecasis River valley on the north to the Trout Creek valley on the south.

By 1792, a section of Pleasant Valley was referred to as Sussex Vale and its lands encompassed what is today called the Village of Sussex Comer as well as the easternmost portion of today’s Town of Sussex. The name of Sussex Vale derived from Sussex Parish, which had been established by royal authority in 1786 and was the parish within which Sussex Vale lay; the origin of the name of the parish itself is obscured in the mists of time. (Rayburn, in Geographic Place Names of New Brunswick [Ottawa, 1975], speculated that Sussex Parish was named for Prince Augustus Frederick, Duke of Sussex, a son of King George III and Queen Charlotte, the reigning monarchs. But the dukedom of Sussex was not established until 1801, and Augustus Frederick did not become duke until that year. When Augustus Frederick died without issue in 1843, the title and dukedom became extinct.)

Sussex Vale lay on the transportation route that carried traffic between Nova Scotia and Saint John and thence to the "Boston States" as New England was then referred to. At the point where Trout Creek crossed the route in the Vale, two land routes to Saint John diverged, one paralleling the Kennebecasis River (the Great Road, surveyed in 1786) and the other running tortuously over hills and through woods several miles east of the Kennebecasis (the Cumberland Road, surveyed in 1787). This latter road still exists in discrete sections (both paved and unpaved) in various parts of the county; the one-mile section that leads south from the village limits of Sussex Comer and which dead-ends at the Tabor farm is still called the Cumberland Road today. The point of divergence of the two land routes was the intersection which later gave the name to Sussex Corner.

In the early 1850s, the European and North American Railway proposed to build a route from Moncton to Saint John and to pass through Sussex Vale, where it would have a station. But several landowners in the Vale who did not wish to be disturbed by the noise and black billowing smoke of the train refused to sell the required land. As a result the rail line was built further north and in 1859 the station which would have been built in Sussex Vale was constructed instead where the railroad crossed the Great Road. Railway authorities cal1ed this station Sussex, and a community built up around the station which soon outnumbered the population of the little settlement at Sussex Vale. In 1860 the Post Office changed the name of Sussex Vale to Sussex Comer. The Town of Sussex was incorporated in 1904, and the Village of Sussex Corner was incorporated in 1966.

Researchers of the history of Kings County would do well to consult The Story of Sussex and Vicinity by Grace Aiton, published by the Kings County Historical Society in 1967. A copy may be purchased online at http:www.rubycusack.com/Bookshelf.html or a free look-up may be requested from the Village of Sussex Corner's resident historian at the e-mail address for the Village Office given elsewhere on this site. Put ATTENTION: RESIDENT HISTORIAN in the subject line.

Genealogy

The only cemetery within the limits of the Village of Sussex Corner is properly called Holy Trinity Cemetery but is more often referred to as "the Sussex Comer cemetery" or "Spicer's Field." Situated at the intersection of Route 111 and Dutch Valley Road (which leads from Sussex Corner to Waterford), “Spicer’s Field” was part of a larger property owned at the turn of the nineteenth century by Ebenezer Spicer, a Connecticut Loyalist who had moved to Sussex Vale in the mid-1790s. Prior to Spicer’s purchase of the land (it is believed that Spicer purchased the property from the Crown) a one-acre parcel had been set aside for the burial of the dead, and Spicer continued to allow this arrangement. The earliest burial on the property took place in 1789 and the earliest surviving tombstone is dated 1801.

All of the tombstones in Sussex Corner cemetery have been described and recorded in a 1997 book by John R. Elliott, CG (C), entitled Gone But Not Forgotten: Cemetery Inscriptions of Kings County, New Brunswick, Volume 2: Sussex Parish. This book is the second volume in a four-volume series documenting the inscriptions, decorations, and markings of the extant gravestones in all of the parishes of Kings County. The volumes are available for viewing at the Sussex Regional Library in Sussex, or they may be ordered from John Elliott at elliojo@nb.sympatico.ca. A free look-up for researchers seeking ancestors in the Sussex Corner cemetery may be requested from the Village of Sussex Corner's resident genealogist at the e-mail address for the Village Office given elsewhere on this site. Put ATTENTION: RESIDENT GENEALOGIST in the subject line. No photographs will accompany the e-mail response.