In a census conducted by the province in 1766, Windsor’s population was 243, of which 60 were from Ireland.
So writes L. S. Loomer in his book on the history of Windsor, which in the index has at least 20 references to the Irish and Ireland.
Elsewhere, circa1860, the population of East and West Dalhousie was about 50 percent Irish. Near Kingston, between 1880 and 1920, there was an Irish community called Irishtown. In her writing, historical author Hazel Foote (the history of Woodville) refers to a substantial Irish settlement at Black Rock in Kings County. And as I mentioned in a recent column, Centreville and Atlanta, in Kings County, also had Irish settlements.
Continue readingAs a historical writer, Mack Frail has done a considerable amount of research on the Irish that settled in Kings County, around Centreville, Sheffield Mills and Atlanta especially, and in a corridor under the north mountain above these communities.
Frail wrote me recently to comment on the November column about the Irish in Hants and Kings Counties, and to tell me about some of his findings.
His research indicates that beyond a doubt, the Irish somehow found their way to northern areas in Kings County towards the Bay of Fundy. Banes Road, which runs behind Centreville to Canning, has been of special interest to Frail. His research indicates that Atlanta, a little-known community along Banes Road, was the site of an Irish settlement. However, “settlement,” as used here, may be incorrect. Atlanta may have had no more than a few Irish families strung out along a community road. Which, until determined otherwise, most likely was the case.
Continue readingReferences to the Mi’kmaq fishing and hunting in earlier times on our rivers can be found in various historical documents. In this area, two of our largest rivers, the Avon and the Cornwallis, were recorded as major sources of fish, fowl, and game for the Mi’kmaq.
Both rivers also were tremendous sources of wild foods for the Acadians. Later settlers, the Planters and Loyalists, harvested fish and fowl on these rivers as well.
A major resource for fish, fowl, and game is only one characteristic the Avon River and the Cornwallis River have in common. Both are tidal, of course, and flow into the Minas Basin. As the crow flies, to use an old cliche, their estuaries are relatively close.
Continue readingTo use cliches, it was a no-holds-barred battle to the finish between Irish Catholic and Protestant labourers when work was beginning on the railway in Hants County midway through the 1800s.
Writing about the incident in the history of the Dominion Atlantic Railway, Marguerite Woodworth mentions the “railway riots of 1856,” hinting there may have been a religious element – Protestants versus Catholics.
To get the real story about why the riots occurred, however, you have to turn to the historian, L. S. Loomer. In his book on Windsor, Loomer suggests that jobs and wages, not religion, likely was the cause of the riots.
Continue readingFor anyone living in Windsor, say around 1887, a five-minute telephone call to Hantsport or Brooklyn would have cost them 20 cents. On the other hand, if one had lived in Falmouth and called Windsor or Hantsport, the charge for five minutes was 15 cents.
According to the Hants and Halifax Telephone Company, these calls were considered long-distance. The Company’s rate sheet, published by Ivan Smith in his Nova Scotia History Index (now inactive) noted also that telegraph service was available, at a charge of 15 cents per 10 words.
In contrast, with my smartphone and for about 20 odd dollars a month, I have unlimited calling anywhere in Canada, and no time limit on the calls.
But I digress. The point is that by today’s standards, the cost of telephone calls in the 1880s was expensive – if you consider that making a dollar or so a day in that period was excellent pay.
Continue readingEvery Saturday morning in the early 1950s, radio stations CKAB Windsor and CKEN Kentville aired some of the finest old-time fiddle music ever played in the Annapolis Valley by local musicians.
Out of Hants County came the down east fiddling of Hantsport-based Roddy Dorman from Kings County came the medleys of Kingsport’s Ron Goodwin and Kentville’s Kenny Meisner.
Aired on the stations on Saturday mornings as well, recorded live when he performed in Kentville and Canning, were the fiddling concerts of J.B. Hamm, a roaming player who along with Dorman, Goodwin and Meisner was among the best known, most influential musicians in the Annapolis Valley.
Continue readingOn the screen is a slide with photographs of a padlock that has seen much better days.
“This padlock was found at the railway roundhouse in Kentville,” Kelly Bourassa said. “As you can see, the photograph on the left shows a heavy layer of rust, sand and soil. The photograph on the right shows the same face with all this material removed.”
At the monthly meeting of the Kentville Historical Society, Bourassa was using slides to illustrate how conservators work to restore and preserve artifacts that otherwise might have been lost. The lock was one of some 40 items dug up at the roundhouse site in Kentville when it was torn down in 2007.
“Once the lock was cleaned, we could see CPR initials,” Bourassa said. “This helped to date the lock since we know that the Dominion Atlantic Railway was taken over by the Canadian Pacific in 1917.”
Continue readingIn this column, I recently covered the contrasting views historians have on the Acadians and the dykelands, quoting, in turn, Brent Fox, J. Sherman Bleakney and L.S. Loomer.
The column should have included quotes by Arthur W. H. Eaton, the author of History of Kings County, John Mack Faragher and Esther Clark Wright. Eaton wrote about the “important work of dyking the marshes, that the Acadians had long pursued,” and he described the various problems the Planters faced in maintaining the dyke system.
Faragher devoted several pages to the origin of dyking in Nova Scotia: “In one of the most remarkable developments of 17th century North America,” he observed, “French settlers in l’Acadie developed a distinctive agricultural economy based on the farming of reclaimed marshland, diked in from the tides.”
Continue readingIn an unpublished paper about building the Wellington Dyke on the Canard River, Brent Fox speculates that the dyke-building expertise of the Acadians possibly could have Dutch origins.
“The people of the Netherlands have been noted for [dyke-building] for many centuries,” Fox wrote. “In an indirect manner, it is possible that [centuries ago] the Dutch provided the special knowledge that helped convert the marsh and tidal lake areas of present-day Kings County into… valuable agricultural land.”
In various papers I’ve read on the Acadians and dyke-building I’ve never found any references to historic Dutch connections. We could assume that Fox was speculating about this connection, but he may not have been. Further on he writes that in the 16th century, “Dutch engineers were brought into France to oversee massive dyking projects.”
Continue readingDates vary and there are several tales about a skirmish that took place in west-end Kentville in the 18th century.
It may have been more than a skirmish. Some historical writers say that a massacre actually took place in Kentville involving the Mi’kmaq and French on one hand, and British troops or militia forces out of New England on the other. This occurred at a place known in folklore by various names – Bloody Hollow and Moccasin Hollow, for example.
But did it really happen? Was there a massacre or nothing more than a minor fracas that never made the military records? Further, did historians who wrote about the event base it on folklore or facts?
The answer is that it depends on what or who you believe.
Continue reading
Ed Coleman 