There was no possible escape by water, the St.John was covered by a thick winding sheet of ice, and the sloop was lying some miles away in an icy bed of a lake.

The history of early colonial life does not and cannot present a more affecting scene than that of the Godfrey family, as they stood alone on the banks of the river St.John in the midnight of a Nova Scotian winter.
All that was saved from the flames were several pieces of half-burnt pork, the two old muskets, a few half-burnt blankets, one hundred and forty pounds of beaver skin, between two and three hundred weight of gunpowder, the old family Bible and service book, and a trunk containing some papers and old clothes.

The above articles Captain Godfrey and his son, at the risk of their lives, saved from complete destruction.

In an hour the little band of early settlers was reduced from comfortable circumstances to a misery beyond the power of words to express.

Darkness would soon cover the spot of desolation.