Built by lumbering king S. P. Benjamin prior to 1887, the grist mill served the people of the Gaspereau Valley for well over half a century. In 1887 the George Hunter family purchased the mill from Benjamin (or perhaps from the firm of Benjamin-Lockhart) operating it until 1933 when it was shut down. The mill still stands near the Gaspereau River on property owned by George McBay, a nephew of George Hunter.

While the original millstones have been removed, the mill itself is in excellent condition despite its age. Maintained by the McBay family over the years, the building is now used for storage and is weathertight. There has been some talk of converting the mill into a museum, a possibility George McBay looked into a few years ago.

Mr. McBay tells me that a history of the old grist mill exists in the family records. I hope to have a look at this history in the near future and with the permission of Mr. McBay, possibly devote a column to it.

In the meanwhile, thanks to Roscoe Potter of Wolfville, I recently had the pleasure of looking through several old ledgers connected with the Gaspereau Valley. The ledgers came from a general store in Gaspereau that opened for business under Edward Davidson at least 100 years ago. During its lifetime the store changed hands several times and burned down and was rebuilt at least twice. No longer standing, the store was located in the village near the Gaspereau River bridge.

The old ledgers from the store are dry and straightforward, but there are tales to be gleaned from the hand-written pages. In those simple business entries we catch glimpses of life in the Gaspereau Valley from roughly 100 years ago up to the period between the first and second world wars. We see at a glance that early on a barter system existed, that exchanges of goods for services was common and on occasion little money changed hands.

In 1895, for example, we find an entry concerning George Miner (a well-known Gaspereau-White Rock area surname). Miner purchased 250 pounds of hay and made a partial payment with services valued at $2.00, paying the balance of the account in cash. Similar entries are found throughout the ledgers and it appears that often the goods supplied by the general store were paid for by manual labour – wood cutting, haying, thrashing and so on.

Two recurring entries I found interesting were references to apples and the cost of manual labour. For a day’s work in 1896, for example, Robert Martin was paid one dollar. Was this a generous wage for the times? I suppose it would depend on how many hours were in a work day in 1896. We can speculate that the dollar went a lot farther in 1896, buying five bushels of potatoes, for example. On the other hand, the ledger indicates that the cost of flour was $5.50 a barrel, so Robert Martin had to work more than five days to purchase one.

Now to the apple varieties.

The old ledgers mention apples long gone or rare, and apple varieties that can still be found in Annapolis Valley orchards. There is the Nonpareil, said to have been started by one of the first Planters, Col. John Burbidge and the Golden Russet, also introduced by Burbidge. Mentioned are Spys, Baldwins, Kings, Spitz, Ben Davis, Gravensteins and Bishop Pippins, which appeared to be the most common varieties grown a century ago. There are apple varieties I never heard of before – Newton Pippins, Fallawaters and the Loyalist. Oddly, the price of apples varied; some varieties such as Gravensteins fetched higher prices per barrel than coarser apples such as the Bishop Pippin.

From an Internet contact that’s always sending me weird and wacky tidbits of information comes a study on ice cream called flavorology. Seems the ice cream flavour you prefer is based on your character; in other words, distinct personalities correspond with ice cream flavours.

But don’t take my word for this; try the ice cream test to see if the Smell and Taste Treatment and Research Foundation of Chicago is on to something. First, pick your favourite ice cream flavour from the following – vanilla, chocolate, butter pecan, banana, strawberry, chocolate chip – and read on to see if your selection accurately indicates your personality.

According to flavorology studies, if you like vanilla you are colourful, impulsive, a risk taker who sets high goals and has high expectations of yourself.

If you picked chocolate, you are lively, creative, dramatic, charming, enthusiastic, and the life of the party.

If you like butter pecan, you are orderly, perfectionistic, careful, detail-oriented, ethical and fiscally conservative.

If you like banana, you are easy-going, well-adjusted, generous, honest and empathetic.

If strawberry is your favourite flavour, you are shy, yet emotionally robust, sceptical, detail-oriented, opinionated, introverted and self-critical.

If you like chocolate chip, you are generous, accomplished and competitive. You are charming in social situations.

I should say “etcetera, etcetera” here since I’ve only skimmed over the personality sketches. The flavorology study goes into much more detail, such as which flavour personalities are compatible. If your favourite flavour is chocolate chip, for example, you will be compatible with someone who likes butter pecan and strawberry.

Since the study results read like a horoscope, you should be sceptical. Besides, the study ignored some of the flavours popular at local roadside stands. What about heavenly hash, or my favourite, blueberry? And what about ice cream addicts who enjoy any and all flavours – are they multiple personality people?

Super Eggs

World record eggs? “Not eggzactly, but close,” Centreville retiree Arnold Burbidge likes to say about the giant eggs the hens used to produce on his boyhood farm in Canard.

“They were large enough to make the newspapers, in fact several newspapers,” Burbidge said when boasting about the size of the eggs. “I saved all the newspaper clippings. If I can find them I’ll show you.”

I heard about the monster eggs off and on for several months while Burbidge searched in vain for “newspaper proof” they had existed. Then one morning he came into the coffee shop with copies of six newspaper stories from 1945. “Canard Hen Lays Super Eggs,” one story was headed. Another was titled “Five Super Eggs From One Flock At Canard.” One editor, tongue-in -cheek, headed his story with “It Was Bound To Happen.”

The eggs were super indeed, the largest measuring just over nine inches around and close to eleven inches long, while the balance were slightly smaller in size. Burbidge thinks the eggs are records that still stand and he could be right.

Boot Island and the narrow channel that separates it from the mainland near Evangeline Beach has many attractions for nature lovers and naturalists. The island is a nesting site for cormorants, gulls and Blue Herons and was once a major roost for thousands of crows. In the channel, which is known locally as “the guzzle,” are remnants of ancient forests some four to five thousand years old.

Boot Island is also of interest to people who delve in local history. As mentioned before in this column, several families have farmed the Boot over the last 150 years. The best known may be the Leon Card family.

According to Marion Schofield, David and Abigail Hutchinson farmed on Boot Island prior to 1870. David and Abigail ran a sheep farm, one of several that may have been on the island over the years.

One of the tales circulating about Boot Island is that a commercial fox farm was once located there. Gordon Hansford remembers hearing about the fox farm when he was growing up in Wolfville. Hansford told me that Leon Card may have been associated with the farm in some capacity, perhaps as manager or overseer.

While looking for information on the fox farm I checked the Kirkconnell Room at Acadia University, the Courthouse Museum in Kentville and several books on local history. Several; people that I talked with remembered there was a “fox ranch” on the Boot but I couldn’t paper evidence of its existence.

Then came a discovery by Avon port resident Lolita Crosby: Documentation that a Boot Island fox farm had once been in operation and was a commercial enterprise incorporated under the Nova Scotia Companies Act.

In her late parent’s papers Ms. Crosby discovered a share certificate for the”Bout Island Fox Company.” The certificate had been issued to her uncle Emerson Coldwell and is dated December 3, 1914. The certificate reads in part: This certifies that Emerson Coldwell is the owner of 30 shares of the Capital Stock of the Bout Island Fox Company Limited. The document uses the old spelling for Boot Island, which in various historical documents has also been spelled Boute and Beaute.

Besides providing proof that Boot Island was once the site of a fox farm, the certificate offers valuable clues to its period of operation. The date of incorporation is given, which was March 25, 1912; from the date of the shares issued to Emerson Coldwell, we can see that the Fox Company was in operation for at least two years.

A prominent Valley figure, the historical writer and researcher John Frederick Herbin, has his signature on the certificate; Herbin was secretary-treasurer of the Company and signing as president was R. W. (or R. N) Ford.

The Boot Island Fox Company began operation with authorized capital of $100,000, no mean sum by turn-of-the-century dollar standards. The question now is how long was the Company in operation and what happened to it?

As I pointed out in [a recent] column, the Melansons were a prominent family in the Acadian period. In the column, I referred to two sources – Herbin and Brebner – that suggested Melanson was Scottish and not Acadian in origin.

Thanks to a reader, E. Roger MacLellan of Kentville, some of what I called the mystery surrounding the Melanson surname has been cleared up. Mr. MacLellan has done some research on the Melanson’s Scottish connection, which he kindly left at this newspaper office for me to read. Since his material expands on the Melanson/Acadian connection and will be of interest to history buffs, I’ve taken the liberty of quoting and paraphrasing portions of it in this column.

The following is taken from historical data in the Public Archives of Canada, the Nova Scotia Archives and Acadian Archives at the University of Moncton:

The Melanson family, Pierre and Priscilla, came from Scotland as settlers for the English in 1657 with their three sons, all born in Scotland, Pierre, Charles and John. The Melansons settled on the north side of the Annapolis River; the area they settled was called Melanson Village and it was located a short distance to the east of the old Scottish fort.

One of the sons, Charles, remained on the farm after his father’s death. The oldest son, Pierre, moved to Grand Pre with his wife and children when the Acadians settled this area. Pierre is mentioned numerous times in Acadian documents and he may have given his name to the community of Melanson in the Gaspereau Valley.

The above supports historian John F. Herbin’s contention that the Melansons were of Scottish origin. The following quotes (from the archival material Mr. MacLellan left for me to read) offer additional evidence that the Melansons were Gaelic.

“Until de la Tour died in 1666, Acadian was a remarkable place for that era with authority divided between two French administrators, one of whom was beholden to Scotland and who received support from New England. In these circumstances, the remaining Scots settlers seemed to have been content to integrate themselves into the local Acadian French society. One source gives the names of those Scots who stayed as the Paisleys, Collesons, Melansons, Peters and Kesseys.”

MacLellan/Melanson

“Over time they (the Scots settlers) became assimilated into French society and are now dispersed throughout North America with other Acadians, often with a name change. One such large group is the Melanson family, recorded in the census of 1671 and 1688, whose name is now spelled in a number of ways. In Stanford Reed’s book, The Scottish Tradition in Canada, (1976) it is suggested that the Melanson name may be a Frenchified version of MacMillan but the tradition within the Melanson family is that they were originally named MacLellan.

“Apparently relying on the 1671 census, some writers on early Acadian settlement conjecture that the Melansons are of Scottish origin but may have arrived with the early English settlers … However, there is an apparent absence of the surname Melanson in Scotland.

“Another Acadian source supports the Melanson family tradition of a name change from a MacLellan ancestor. They contend that Peter and Charles MacLellan emigrated from… Scotland to Boston. They later moved to Port Royal in 1657 where they settled, eventually changing their name to Melancon (sic).”