Readers of this paper who follow my column will recall the name of Keith Barry of Edmonton, whom I’ve mentioned numerous times; especially Barry’s connection with the noted Canard horticulturist and historical writer, the late Ernest L. Eaton.  Mr. Barry created and maintains a website on Eaton with many of the latter’s historical sketches on […]

The Cogswell family of Kings County has always “ranked among the county’s foremost families,” writes Arthur W. H. Eaton.  Eaton’s Kings County history gives one Hezekiah Cogswell as the founder of the family here.  Hezekiah was a Cornwallis grantee; when he arrived here in 1761, writes Eaton, he received a land grant of one and […]

I’ve mentioned Kentville magistrate Edmund J. Cogswell numerous times in this column, quoting from an essay he wrote on Kentville as it was through the 19th century. I’m indebted to Rev. Malcolm Cogswell, Quebec, who wrote recently with biographical information on Edmund John Cogswell and with a correction on his age. “My cousin’s wife… sent […]

“In the Pine Woods and at other spots near Kentville, for many years there were… small, picturesque Micmac encampments,” Eaton writes condescendingly in the History of Kings County. This quote is found in the section Eaton devoted to the town of Kentville – and it is absolutely incorrect in its inference. Going from boundary to […]

It would likely take years of research to dig up and document the historical connections of a unique confluence of roads in Kings County. At this confluence, Upper Church Street, Lanzy Road, Campbell Road, and Oakdene Avenue converge on Highway 341 just north of Kentville. At that point, if two vehicles were driving from the […]

While reading early deeds on property in Kings County, historian Gary Young discovered that road names sometimes originated with the prominent people who lived on them. Take Oakdene Avenue in north Kentville, for example. In his research, Young learned that the avenue once was referred to as Barnaby Road simply because only Barnabys lived on […]

Writing about the old Halifax-Annapolis Road in the Collections of the Nova Scotia Historical Society some 50 years ago, Mrs. G. R. Evans points out errors that were made when it was “relocated and marked” by officer cadets from CFB Cornwallis in 1967. This was a commendable effort Evans wrote, but she doubted that even […]

On the Cornwallis River, near the Silver Link Bridge in Kentville, lays “Mrs. Lyon’s dike,” writes Edmond Cogswell in an 1895 review of the town.  Referring to the dike by that name in the review, Cogswell places it near the “old ford.”  On that dike, and well within the town limits, once stood an Acadian […]

In 1759 Major Samuel Starr was one of five agents who toured this area, checking out land that the government offered to prospective New England settlers. On a solo venture, Starr was ferried across the Cornwallis River at Town Plot (below Port Williams) and went to the Look Off. On his return, notes a 1914 […]

What was it like about 120 years ago, in the 1890s, along the old military road between Kentville and Wolfville, the section of highway designated today as Highway 1? Well, with thanks to Edmond J. Cogswell, we do have some idea of what it was like then on that stretch of road, much of which […]