If you stop at the T-junction where Scott Drive meets Middle Dyke Road north of Kentville and look southeast, you can see remnants of the famous Hillcrest Orchards, which at one time were renowned across Canada.

Arthur W. H. Eaton salutes these orchards in his history of Kings County (page 196) noting the fruit grown there, “apples, pears, plums quinces and cherries are known to fruit raisers all over the continent.” Eaton mentions the orchards again on page 203, referring to Ralph Samuel Eaton and his “famous Cornwallis (township) ‘Hillcrest Orchards’ not far from the county town (of Kentville).”

One of my friends, Jerry Bishop of Coldbrook, is an avid collector of coins and postcards. One of the most remarkable and rarest postcards in his collection has a beautiful color photograph of an orchard in full bloom. This photograph will be recognised by anyone familiar with the orchard pictured on Royal Albert Blossom Time China.

In other words, the orchard on the postcard and the orchard captured on Blossom Time China are one and the same – the famed Hillcrest Orchards of Ralph Samuel Eaton. The year the postcard was printed and released isn’t certain but it’s generally believed that it was circa 1933 or 1934 that Blossom Time China came into existence. Since then the china has been hailed as the most prized and most enduring Apple Blossom Festival keepsake ever.

In 1933, with two successful summer festivals under their collective belts, the Kentville Board of Trade was firming up plans for another event, the first apple blossom festival. On the organizing committee was Kentville jeweller Robert Palmeter. Festival lore has it that Palmeter made a motion at a Board of Trade meeting to hold a festival with an apple blossom theme. Whether this is true or not, it’s a fact that around this time Palmeter submitted a design to Royal Albert China of England that resulted in the manufacture of Blossom Time China.

It likely was 1934 before Blossom Time China was available in retail stores, but that’s only my guess; some sources say the china was available in 1933. Whatever the year, the pattern was popular for decades and was sold worldwide. Eric Lockhart, of R. D. Chisholm Ltd. in Kentville, tells me his store sold the china almost from the day it was first available until it was discontinued in 1991. “It was a good seller,” Lockhart said, even though Royal Albert kept jacking the price up year after year.

Since its “retirement,” Blossom Time China has become a hot collectible. It’s rather pricey today, however, compared to what it sold for when it first came out. At a giant “yard sale” this spring at the Kentville arena, for example, the asking price for a Blossom time cup and saucer was $45.00. In 1936, Robert Palmeter offered the cup and saucer at his Kentville jewellery store for a mere 90 cents!

It may interest readers that Palmeter’s Blossom Time isn’t the only china with an apple blossom theme. There are at least two more with apple blossom themes but these haven’t been as popular as Palmeter’s design. Readers may also be interested in knowing that Palmeter designed another china pattern. In 1953 he submitted a design for a “new, original and ornamental design for a cup or similar article” to the United States Patent Office. Palmeter called this china Evangeline’s Acadian Gardens. The pattern application was approved and Palmeter later advertised the china in his Kentville shop.

As for the photograph of Hillcrest Orchards used in the design of Blossom Time China, I always wondered if it had been taken by A. L. Hardy. Photography expert Larry Keddy says it’s a possibility. “Hardy was the only professional photographer in this area at the time that was capable of doing that kind of work,” Keddy says.

One of the earliest advertisements in which Bob Palmeter featured his Blossom Time China (Courtesy of the Kings County Museum.)

In a note I received from Louis Comeau, he mentions an interesting aside on construction in 1930 of the Cornwallis Inn. To make way for the Inn, two houses on the site were removed – “the ‘Chestnuts’ owned by Deaconess Alice Webster #156 and the ‘Birches’ owned by Judge Barclay Webster #157.” And possibly the law offices of Webster and Robertson #72, Comeau said, noting the numbers quoted are from the Price map of 1894.

As I’ve mentioned before, the Cornwallis Inn replaced what in their time were two of the finest houses in Kentville. In the note, Comeau referred to the houses in a detailed list of what went into construction of the Inn. This list, all the facts and figures, must have been newsworthy in 1930. At least the editor of The Advertiser felt it was. The list was published in The Advertiser, the paper devoting its entire 38-page early December edition to the Inn’s opening.

The current renovations ongoing now at the Cornwallis Inn reminded me of Louis Comeau’s note. From curiosity I dug it out of my files, checking to see what the Cornwallis Inn was like originally and who the suppliers were. What amenities were offered when the Inn officially opened on December 8? Was there local input in the furnishing of the Inn? Was it a fact that all those tons of stone used in construction were quarried locally?

Answering the last question first, I see the Inn’s exterior consists of stone with an interesting name, New Minas quartzite. This material apparently came from rock formations, part of the so-called Wolfville Ridge, south of and immediately behind the village of New Minas. The stone is also called pink quartzite (for obvious reasons if you look at the various light shades of red in the exterior walls of the Cornwallis Inn). The quartzite from the New Minas formation was also used in buildings at Acadia University, by the way.

As for the amenities, each guest room in the Cornwallis Inn – there were 100 in all – featured a telephone, bath and radio, which may have been a hotel first for the Annapolis Valley. A formal dining room seating 200, a magnificent ballroom that would be the site of many Apple Blossom Festival dances in the future, and a barbershop, beauty salon and games room were among the other amenities. In addition, there were 10 sample rooms and several salons for meetings.

Work started on the Cornwallis Inn on March 15^th and was completed 208 working days, on November 9^th. From start to finish, total cost of constructing the Cornwallis Inn was $1,000,000. The Inn officially opened on December 8^th with a banquet hosted by the Board of Trade.

Looking at the list provided by Louis Comeau, I see that only a few local retail stores were suppliers. Imagine all the furniture, carpeting, towels, soaps, etc., that was required to set up a spanking new hotel the size of the Cornwallis Inn. Most of this stuff came from provincial businesses but a few outside suppliers were also used.

One of the local suppliers of building material was L. E. Shaw Ltd. of Avonport. Shaw supplied the bricks, all 1200 tons of them. You didn’t need to know this but its interesting trivia.

“I surmise that Frank Burns – ‘Mr. Festival’ – being a newspaper man, would have many connections across North America,” Kentville historian Louis Comeau writes. Comeau was commenting on my recent column about the origin of the apple blossom festival. Frank Burns played a prominent role in organising the first festival and was one of the founders.

“Also,” Comeau surmises, “local farmers here were in touch with state-of-the-art farming practices across the continent. These contacts would have exposed them to other communities and the fact that they had festivals of their own.”

Comeau said that a long time ago he became interested in discovering where the idea for our apple blossom festival originated. His research lead to a couple of interesting discoveries. “Firstly, there were many, many other apple blossom festivals (at one time I counted 31 of them). Secondly, several of them were much older than ours.”

And, said Comeau, the format for our festival “was very near exact” to the festivals his research turned up. This was “maybe just a coincidence but it’s an interesting similarity,” he concludes, suggesting that our festival fathers may have been aware of these earlier blossom celebrations.

While our apple blossom festival has the distinction of being the first in Canada, it can’t claim North American honours. Louis Comeau discovered that the earliest festival in North America “seems to be the Washington State apple blossom festival.” This event was founded in 1919.

The Washington State festival website, which Comeau suggested I check, mentions their festival was the brainchild of a Mrs. E. Wagner, a native of New Zealand. Wagner “enjoyed the festivals of her childhood so much,” reads the website, “that she suggested beginning a similar festival in the Wenatchee Valley.”

Now it might be a bit of a stretch to link a New Zealand apple blossom festival with the Valley event. There could be a connection, of course. As Louis Comeau suggested, Frank Burns would have connections across North America and may have heard of the Washington State festival through the newspaper grapevine. Then there’s the apple growers grapevine to be considered. Word could have filtered down from other growers about the blossom celebration in the States that was so popular and so appropriate.

Bottom line, it seems that the idea of an apple blossom celebration isn’t original to the Annapolis Valley. As I mentioned in a previous column, it may not have even been an original idea with Kentville’s Board of Trade, the group that got the ball rolling with the first Valley festival in 1933.

In 2003, Advertiser/Register columnist Annie Bird interviewed Evelyn Tatterie Armstrong for an article in the Hants Journal. Ms. Armstrong recalled participating in an apple blossom festival in Hantsport circa 1931. Armstrong said that the Hantsport celebration began with an apple blossom dance sponsored by a prominent orchardist Laurie Sanford.

The site for the dance was Sanford’s warehouse along the railway track. Armstrong recalled that a blossom queen was selected and she was runner-up.

In the article Annie Bird writes that the blossom dance and the festivities “got so big” Mr. Sanford and other orchardists throughout the Valley met and decided to hold the “Queen’s Ball in the Cornwallis Inn.” Bird mentions as well that later, when Hantport’s mayor B. T. Smith was chairman of the Apple Blossom Festival Committee, he noted that his town had originated the festival. Perhaps he wasn’t aware of the Washington/New Zealand connection.