Unlike Canard and Grand Pre, Kentville and New Minas are usually overlooked when it comes to discussing Acadian settlements in Kings County.

Yet as Grand Pre curator Susan Surette-Draper points out, while New Minas wasn’t a major settlement, numerous Acadian homesteads have been identified in the village. In a historical talk on New Minas, Maynard Stephens also refers to various homestead sites – as well as an Acadian cemetery and mill, of which more later.

As for Kentville, I’m aware of only one Acadian homestead site that has been positively identified. Undoubtedly there are more, but the Cornwallis River isn’t very “dykeable” in the town limits, which may explain the lack of Acadian homesteads.

Getting back to Stephens, several years ago he conducted a verbal tour of New Minas at the Kings County Museum, starting with the intersection of Jones Road and Lockhart Drive. “Over 200 years ago the landscape here would have been very different,” he said. “There would have been numerous Acadian homes… all around us. They would have dotted both sides of Jones Road and stretched along Lockhart Drive.

“In this area not that long ago, there were at least three, if not more, visible remains of Acadian cellars. These have been plotted on maps. Sadly, the cellars have been filled in over the years.”

There were at least two Acadian mills in New Minas. Stephens identified one as located on a stream that runs behind the elementary school. He noted that the Planters used the site for a mill as well, and it is marked as such on the A. F. Church map of 1864.

There may have been an Acadian church/chapel in New Minas. In his talk, Stephens identified two known Acadian sites located just off Lockhart Drive. “One site, by tradition, is known as the location of an Acadian chapel and the other, it is suggested, was the priest’s house.”

Continuing his tour, Stephens pointed out an area near the Cornwallis River where there are “remains of an orchard that dates back to the time of the Acadians.” He said he hasn’t been to this site, but he’s been assured by researchers that it existed – or did exist a few decades ago, but like Acadian homestead/cellar sites it likely has vanished.

On the running walls along the New Minas section of the Cornwallis River, Stephens said that “the Acadians would have had dykes there too. If you examine aerial photos of these lowlands… you can make out the rough outline of where the Acadian dykes would have been.”

Now, about the Acadian cemetery. Near what is identified locally as Oak Island is a knoll “that by tradition has been identified, for as long as anyone can remember, as an Acadian burial site.” Stephens said, noting that there once was a lot of interest in it.

As I recall, the site Stephens refers to was cleaned up by the Burial Grounds Care Society over two decades ago, and a sign was posted. The sign disappeared years ago, and the area is now overgrown.

I know this is repetitious, but so much of New Minas that once was Acadian is, for want of a better phrase, ignored by the powers that be. Little effort has been made to mark Acadian sites. There is no documentation of these sites even though maps exist that pinpoint where they are.