Mouth of Cathance Salmon Pool, Dennys River
When Colonel Aaron Hobart purchased the Township X, which later became Edmunds, following the American Revolution, he found several others settled there. James O'Neil was an Irishman who had left the British Army and built a log house in 1776. Widow Oliver and her family occupied an old Acadian house upstream on the Dennys River, which had burned in 1785. Elijah Ayers Sr., and Capt. Elijah Ayers, Jr., and their families had arrived. Samuel Scott from Machias with his family were located on the point of land across the river from Dock Brook. There was one sawmill on Cathance Stream, several hundred yards upstream from its confluence with the Dennys which had been destroyed by fire, and another one was being built on the Dennys River by Col. John Allan and Capt. Elijah Ayers. When the settlers arrived from Massachusetts in 1786, they were greeted by a band of Passamaquoddy Indians who were fishing for salmon with nets at the mouth of the Cathance Stream. Their spokesman identified himself as John, or Johnot, Denny, so they called the river "Dennys River". The Dennys has attracted fishermen throughout the nineteenth and twentieth centuries, being noted as one of the few rivers in Washington County where it was still possible to catch a salmon with a fly. The Dennys River Salmon Club was created in 1936 to preserve the sport of fly-fishing and protect the habitat of the Atlantic salmon in the Dennys River for future generations.
