Wolfville in the 1930s – what was it like growing up there at that time, just before World War 2 erupted and took so many young men off to the battlefield?  Here are glimpses of that period, as remembered by Gordon Hansford, and the role music played.

A retired Kentville school teach and veteran of WW2 remembers that time well.  Hansford grew up in Wolfville where his father, Cecil, had been a barber for some 40 years.  Gordon reminisces about this period in a story he recently wrote, “for my own satisfaction,” he says, describing a Wolfville where kids generally were left to find their own amusement.

“There was not much young people could do to amuse themselves then.  Only the wealthy had cars and even bicycles were scarce,” Hansford writes.  But a saving grace was there and it was music in its many forms.

“There was always music,” Hansford says of Wolfville in the period running up to World War 2.  “Both boys and girls had access to some kind of musical instruments and many had good singing voices.  A group of high school students, including myself, started a band we called ‘The Old-timers.’  Don Carver bought a guitar with the money he got for selling eggs from his father’s flock of hens.  Lawrence Henderson was given a guitar by a relative.  Eugene Burgher taught himself to play the mouth organ and I did the same.  We had only one trained musician in the band, Rudy Scherer, who had taken violin lessons in his home town of Munich, Germany.”

This was Hansford’s old-time band in pre-war Wolfville – a fiddler, two guitar players and two mouth organ players.  All were high school students and they must have been good since Hanford remembers them playing many times at barn dances around the county – “at Gaspereau, Melanson, White Rock and other local communities and we really enjoyed ourselves.  Usually a friendly farmer would haul us to a dance.  We were seldom paid in money, but in big lunches instead.  We played tunes such as Silver and Gold, Maple Sugar, Ragtime Annie and our favourite, Little Burnt Potato.”  (All which are traditional tunes in the repertoire of fiddlers today).

Eventually the band broke up.  And when World War 2 started all the members of the band were caught up in it.  “As our band members came of age they joined the service.  Rudy Scherer was the first to go.  Don and Eugene joined the Coast Artillery at Halifax, later transferring to a parachute battalion.  Lawrence spent the war years working at a shipyard in Pictou, building ship sunk by the Germans in the north Atlantic.”

Hansford himself went on to serve overseas with the army in the European theatre.  Today he’s the sole survivor of the old-time band he and his friends formed in Wolfville.

In her book on Kentville, Mabel Nichols writes that the town was once known as Horton Corner – and by the roustabouts and others frequenting its taverns as the Devil’s Half Acre; hence the name for her town history.

As most people know, and as Nichols mentions in her book’s introduction, the town was named in honour of Edward the Duke of Kent.  The town’s website notes  this as well, adding that Prince Edward visited here while travelling from Halifax to Annapolis in 1794, staying overnight at the Oak Inn or tavern.  Some sources give that year of the Duke’s visit as 1806 followed by a question mark.

Except for Charles Bruce Fergusson writing in Place-Name and Places of Nova Scotia that the “original English name” of Kentville was Horton Corner, I’ve yet to find other documentation that this was once was the official name for the town.  In fact from what I’ve read, the epithet “Horton Corner” was looked upon unfavourably by residents of the hamlet, as you will see in the quote below from an 1826 newspaper.

That esteemed county historian, Arthur W. H. Eaton, gives credibility to Nichols and Fergusson’s claim about Horton Corner.  “The hamlet was first known as Horton Corner,” Eaton writes.  No less an authority than onetime provincial archivist W. C. Milner – in his book The Basin of Minas and its Early Settlers – saw fit to quote  (and not contradict) a Kentville historian who in 1895 wrote that Horton Corner – unofficially or otherwise – was the hamlet’s name.  However, a couple of sources mention that “Pineo Place” was an accepted early name for what eventually was to become Kentville.

I suspect merchants and the hamlet’s citizens detested the undignified Horton Corner epithet.  By 1826, and well before the railroad arrived, Kentville was a bustling commercial center, possibly the largest, most prominent town in the county, with Wolfville close behind in second place and either Canning or Berwick a distant third.  Kentville may have owed its prominence to the presence of Henry Magee’s store, established circa 1788, that in its time was the equivalent of today’s Wal-Mart, Sobeys and Target stores combined.

In April of 1826 the Acadian Recorder (a weekly newspaper published in Halifax) carried a notice advising the public that the village known informally as Horton Corner would henceforth be known as Kentville.  Here’s the notice in part in which you’ll see that Horton Corner was not the generally accepted name for the hamlet:

“At a meeting lately held here by the subscribers towards building a central schoolhouse for Kings County, upon an extended plan, in that part of Horton which, being at one extremity of the township, and having no distinguishing name formally bestowed upon it, has of late generally received the absurd epithet of Horton Corner; it was unanimously agreed by those present (being the most of the principal inhabitants of the place) the High Sheriff of the County in the chair, that in honor of the memory of his late Royal Highness the Duke of Kent, so generally esteemed in this colony, their increasing village should be called ‘Kentville’.”

The newspaper notice concluded with:  “We hope that the voluntary tribute of gratitude from this portion of the country …. will not be lost sight of, and that the village, in which stands the Court House of Kings County will, in future, be known by the name of Kentville.”

It is often overlooked that a stretch of Elderkin Brook, which flows out of the Kentville Ravine is tidal.  All that stops the daily tides from flowing into the lower part of the ravine, besides the banked up shoulder of the highway and the railway bed which slows it, is a well-placed sluiceway with a clapper valve.

In one sense this is a miniature aboiteau, identical to what the Acadians used when they dyked along the Canard River; the aboiteau allows Elderkin Brook to flow freely into the Cornwallis River but stops tidal waters from flooding the streamside meadow.   This has been inadequate at times.  More than once in recent years high spring tides rose over the highway, flooding the meadow and impeding traffic.

If you’re been following the news, you’re aware that the Kentville Ravine and Elderkin Brook have recently been the focus of environmental concerns.  After a major retail development was announced above the ravine, the Friends of the Kentville Ravine society was formed, mainly as they say on their website to protect a unique, ecologically sensitive area.

This is a worth aim and is to be commended.  However, I point out to you and the Friends of the Kentville Ravine that there is also an interesting  historical aspect to the ravine and Elderkin Brook that has been little explored.

While it has never been proven, it has been long believed that the Acadians dammed up Elderkin Brook and placed a mill on it.  I suspect this is a fact but admittedly, this is speculation on my part.

However, after carefully looking for possible Acadian mill sites and homesteads in Kings County, especially around New Minas, an eminent researcher and biologist concluded that an Acadian mill likely was located about where Elderkin Brook runs under the highway.  The research was conducted by the late John Erskine (1900-1981) who says that while the evidence is feeble, seven species of trees usually found on Acadian sites can be found where he believes the mill was located.  “Millers needed to live near their mills,” Erskine says, “and usually they left some of the Acadian flora behind.”

Now, keep in mind that during the Acadian period there was no railway bed and no highway and the tides had free rein in flooding well up the Elderkin Brook hollow.  There were no tidal restrictions, in other words, and roughly where Erskine believes there may have been a tidal mill there was an unrestricted twice daily flow of water.  This seems to have been a natural site for the Acadians to place a mill, either there or farther down the brook nearer the Cornwallis River.  But, as I said, this is all speculation.

There is one tangible, tantalizing bit of evidence that suggests something was constructed on Elderkin brook a long time ago, but whether it was of Acadian or Planter origin is open to question.  At the bottom of the brook, just below the highway, I discovered cribwork that had been recently exposed by erosion.  The cribwork is tucked under a high bank which would indicate it was placed there a long time ago.  Its placement indicates it plays no role in controlling water erosion, which was something the builder of the railway would have had to contend with.

Actually, to me the cribwork looks like the sort of logwork you’d place when constructing a wharf or some kind of boat landing.  But again, as with the Acadian mill’s location, this is pure speculation.

Relatively isolated even by today’s standards, the farm Granny grew up on was at least half a day’s drive by horse and wagon from the nearest town.  The farm stood on what her father and others called the New Road.  Why “new” she doesn’t know.  The White Rock farm had been there for at least two generations, maybe even longer, so the road probably wasn’t all that new at the time she was born.

Perhaps we can surmise that the road was the last to be roughed out in the area, the closest road, the one running up White Rock Mountain towards Black River being the older of the two.  Whatever the explanation the farm on the New Road (called Sunken Lake Road today) was out in the bushes a bit and when Granny was growing up she had none of the conveniences we have today.

However, relatively isolated as it was, modern day treats often found their way to her farmhouse.  One of them was Kool-Ade, a soft drink mix still popular today.  Kool-Aid, as it later came to be known, was invented by Edwin Perkins in 1927.  By the 1930s Kool-Aid was being sold across Canada and had even reached out-of the-way farm areas such as White Rock.

Granny isn’t sure how Kool-Aid found its way to her father’s farm but she recalls that it sold for five cents a package.  Perkins first marketed Kool-Aid for 10 cents a package but with arrival of the Depression he halved the price just to stay in business.  Kool-Aid was meant to be served cold – it’s rather blah served warm – and was marketed as such.  So with electric power several years away and with no refrigeration, the spring back of the farm supplied the cold water to make Kool-Aid enjoyable on hot summer days.  Granny remembers that the drink came in at least six flavours – which agrees with Kool-Aid history since Edwin Perkins original beverage came in six varieties.

Now, if you’re wondering how American refreshments made it to the sparsely settled community of White Rock only a few years after coming on the market, Granny remembers it was sold door to door by a family from Black River.  At the same time, says Granny, Regal products were being sold door to door by school kids and perhaps they also offered the American beverage.

This is possible.  At one time Regal catalogues were as ubiquitous in Canadian homes as the T. Eaton catalogue.  Regal was established years before Granny was born – in 1928 in Canada by William McCartney – and early on schools were encouraged to sell their products as fund raisers for sports teams.  Then again, it might have been people selling Watkins products, founded in the States in 1868, who went door to door in places like White Rock selling spices and other condiments.

This is immaterial, of course, and is only one of many things Granny remembers about life in the 1930s, a time before electricity, radio, telephones that reached beyond the immediate area, and all the other conveniences we take for granted today.

Like many people interested in local history, I’ve often wondered about the origin of Kings County road and street names.  Why, for example, was Brooklyn Street so named, and even more puzzling, why was it once called Shadow Street?  And when and why was the street’s name changed?

Brooklyn/Shadow Street is but one example of county roads and streets with names of obscure, mysterious origin.  However, the origin of some road and street names are relatively easy to determine – Belcher Street, Church Street and Middle Dyke Road are three examples and there are many others.

While the origin of county road and street names around Kentville, may be difficult to determine (especially along the northern border of the town) they may not remain a mystery for long. I was recently contacted by a former Kentville resident whose research into various thoroughfares immediately north of Kentville may determine how their names originated.  For starters, by researching deeds and records of land transactions, Gary Young discovered the earlier names of various roads in a huge block roughly comprising Exhibition Street, Campbell Road, Oakdene Avenue, Lanzie Road, Scott Drive, McKittrick Road, Cornwallis Street, Nichols Avenue and Aldershot Road.

Some of these roads and streets start in the town of Kentville and run into the county.  Mr. Young believes all or most of this area was once called the Pine Woods and was part of a Planter land grant given to the Chipmans.  Eaton, in his Kings County history, appears to indicate that the Pine Woods was a much smaller area well north and northwest of Kentville, an area once occupied seasonally by Mi’kmaqs and settled by in several places by Blacks.  Based on what Mr. Young told me, I believe he is correct about Pine Woods being a much larger area than Eaton indicates.

Hopefully Mr. Young plans will publish his findings.  For one thing they’d be a welcome supplement to Eaton’s county history, which was researched and published over 100 years ago and could stand some updating – the history of towns like Kentville, Wolfville and Berwick and the villages, for example, definitely need updating.

In searching through deeds, Mr. Young has discovered some interesting, little known history about roads and streets in and around Kentville, especially when it comes to Lanzie Road and Brooklyn Street.  Here’s one example of what he’s found and I quote from a recent note he sent me via email:

“My efforts over the last couple of years have revealed several things from deed searches,” he wrote.  “Lanzie Road was most certainly called after a Landsey, Samuel Landsey.  The new Cornwallis Road passed through his land connecting at the top to Oakdene Avenue, named in other deeds (as) Boyle Road, Barnaby Road, Middle Road and Wolcott Road, Campbell Road (East Road) Shadow Street …. and Church Street.  He was deeded this land in 1848 by William Chipman.

“Samuel Landsey’s land mostly was on the corner of Nichols Avenue (the proposed new road to Kentville in 1846) and Shadow Street. With a portion on the other side of Nichols Avenue at the tip of what today is Merle Daniel’s land and was (once) Carl Barnaby’s ….  Another interesting fact is that Scott Drive and McKittrick Road were called Pinewood Road in several deeds in the 1880s.”

Another interested tidbit found by Mr. Young is that Samuel Landsey may have been the slave of William Chipman, whose land holdings were part of the original grant to Handley Chipman, said grant including the Pine Woods.  Young found records indicating William Chipman had deeded land in the Brooklyn/Shadow Street area to the Landseys; perhaps, we may speculate, after the manumission of the Landseys.

This year, as we mark the anniversary of World War One, you’ll hear many stories passed down to us by veterans of this conflict.  One of my favourite war stories was told to me by World War Two veteran Gordon Hansford of Kentville, who in turn heard the story from his father, a World War One veteran.  The story involves a musical instrument I favour more than any other, the bagpipe.

But first, so you will see how and why the pipes were involved in World War One, here’s a bit of history.  The bagpipe was always an instrument of war.  Well, not quite “always” but for a long time anyway.  According to medieval records, as early as the 13^th century the Scots and the Irish were being led by the pipes into battles against the British.  The pipes were so successful in rousing and encouraging Irish soldiers that the British banned them in Ireland by the Statue of Kilkenny in 1366.

Despite the ban, despite the fact pipes were discouraged in Scotland (but not officially banned, as you often read) the British were always ready to recruit pipers for military units serving outside Ireland and Scotland.  Pipers had become entrenched in Irish and Scottish regiments by the time World War One began and the tradition of pipers leading troops into battle was firmly established.

This piping of troops into battle not only was foolhardy but disastrous as well.   Charging out of the trenches into nests of German machine guns quickly decimated the ranks of pipers.  Gordon Hansford tells me that during World War One some 500 pipers of the British Empire were killed, a statistic rarely if ever quoted in war losses.

Scottish pipers from a British Regiment were with Canadian troops at Vimy Ridge; and when the battle for Vimy began two of them piped our boys over the top.  Their story is an interesting aspect of World War One you never read about in history books.  I’ll let Gordon Hansford tell you about them.

“My father, Cecil, served with the 25^th Nova Scotia Infantry Battalion inWW1 and was wounded twice.  He told me that at Vimy Ridge two pipers came up top the front line and led the Canadians into the attack.  They were father and son and both were wounded, one losing a leg.  They both received the military medal for bravery.  The tune they played was ‘Bonnie Dundee.’

“It wasn’t until a couple of years ago, when I received the history of the 25^th Battalion, that I was able to find their names.  They were Walter James Telfer and his son.  He was born in Scotland and immigrated to Boston, later coming to Nova Scotia to join the 25^th band.”

So many pipers were killed during the war that word came down from headquarters to keep them off the front line.  The pipers were then employed for the most part as stretcher bearers but even this was hazardous, as Gordon Hansford points out:  “Another famous Nova Scotia unit was the 85^th Nova Scotia Highlanders, who also fought at Vimy.  Later, at Caix, their entire pipe band was killed or wounded while acting as stretcher bearers.”

Isaac De Razilly (1587-1635) is known as the founder of LaHave.  De Razilly led the first successful attempt to establish French settlements in Nova Scotia, first in La Have and later at Port Royal.  It was from Port Royal that the people we know as Acadians moved eastward to establish settlements in Kings County.

In Kings County the dykelands are often spoken of as an Acadian heritage, and properly so.  The Acadians built aboiteaux, running dykes and crossdykes here, a work that beat back the sea, creating a wealth of fields and meadows that still exist today; and, of course, inspiring the Planters to continue the work.

This creating of the dykes may have been the Acadians undoing, but that’s another tale.  However, we can speculate that the conquering of the sea and the rich farmlands the Acadians created were the envy of land hungry New Englanders and was a major factor spurring the expulsion.

In one sense, the dykes of Kings County and the Acadians are synonymous. However, I bet you didn’t know this about them:  When De Razilly was setting up the French colony here, salt was nearly as valuable as gold, almost as scarce and so heavily taxed ordinary people couldn’t afford it.  So, De Razilly thought, why not use the tides to raise salt water into dyked salt pans where it could be dried, creating a tax free surplus of this precious commodity.

Acting on his inspiration, De Razilly brought out experienced salters from France, men who were accustomed to dykeing.  It was these men who convinced De Razilly valuable land could be wrested from the sea by dykeing rather than the current method of clearing land by hacking away at the forest.  De Razilly’s salt industry was a failure but dykeing began here as a result of the salter’s arrival; you could say they came to make salt and stayed to build dykes, and we’re all the richer for it.

One of the oldest native Indian settlements in eastern Canada can be found in Debert, Colchester County.  Based on radiocarbon dating, the area is believed to have been settled by Paleo-Indians (“Paleo” meaning old) well over 10,000 years ago.  These early settlers may have crossed the Bering Strait from Asia into North America on a land and ice bridge, which some sources say existed anywhere from 14,000 to 47,000 years ago.

Eventually, many of the Paleo-Indians drifted in the Maritimes and down into Nova Scotia.  The discovery of their settlement at Debert and the dating of artefacts found was an archaeological event of major significance, indicating man occupied Nova Scotia thousands of years before Europeans arrived.  The explorations and discoveries of Champlain and De Monts almost pale in significance.

I’m sure you’ve heard about the ancient native site in Debert but I bet you didn’t know this about it:  There’s a Kings County connection with its discovery

A native son of Kings County, Ernest Steckle Eaton, discovered the Debert site 1948.  Born in Canning in 1923, he was the son of Ernest L. and Ellen S. Eaton of Upper Canard.  Ernest Steckle Eaton attended school in Kentville, earned a degree in Arts from the University of Western Ontario and attended the NSAC and Prince of Wales College in Charlottetown.

It was while he was on the staff of the Agricultural College in Truro that Eaton discovered the native site.  The artefacts he collected wound up in Kentville, in the hands of a collector who donated them to a Halifax university.  The collector, W. A. Dennis, wrote about the artefacts and the native site in an American publication and this caught the attention of archaeologists here; a full scale investigation of the site was mounted and it was only then that the antiquity of the native settlement was realized.

As I said, this was a magnificent find.  However, Ernest Steckle Eaton’s role in discovering the site has never been fully recognised.  Perhaps one day he will be properly saluted for his find.

My father was one of some 10,000 Canadian soldiers who were either killed or wounded in the taking of Vimy Ridge, a battle said by historians to be a defining moment for Canada.

I remember Vimy for reasons other than Canada’s coming of age; and like countless Canadians of my generation, I have my own war memories and a few war stories.  As we mark the Great War’s anniversary I’m reminded, for example, that I wouldn’t be here today if the Vimy Ridge battle hadn’t taken place.  My father was shot at Vimy.  My mother to be was a volunteer at the field station where he was treated.  As they say, romance blossomed and she became a war bride.  This is why the First World War and the battle of Vimy Ridge are of significance to me.

Like many veterans of the Great War and of World War 11, my father was reluctant to talk about what happened over there. But sometimes a few cups of cider on a Saturday afternoon loosened his tongue.  Then he would tell us about the souvenirs he brought home, about German snipers and a blood-stained German knapsack, why he treasured a broken cavalry regiment sabre, what it was like to participate in a cavalry charge in the face of machine guns.

As I said, everyone of my generation has a war story, a war memory; mostly because everyone of my generation – today’s seniors – had fathers and grandfathers who served in the first world war; and brothers, sisters, uncles, friends and neighbours who served in the second world war.  Most of us grew up hearing firsthand about trench warfare in the First World War, about the deprivation, the rats in the trenches, the ever prevalent diseases.  As teenagers we witnessed firsthand how the Second World War tore communities apart and disrupted family life.

The current marking of the 100^th anniversary of the Great War rekindles many of those memories.  The souvenirs my father brought back from the war are still here to remind of us what took place then.  Among them are the stirrups, spurs and bit from the last horse he rode with the Lord Strathcona’s and the remains of the sabre he carried on a cavalry charge.

Why he kept a broken sabre is another story.  Ordered to clear a strip of woods, his regiment charged with sabres out.  Half way into the charge a German soldier stepped out from behind a tree and levelled a handgun at my father.  “He had me,” my father said but his gun misfired. “My sabre snapped off near the hilt when it caught him in the chest.  That’s why I kept it.”

Looking at the early history of Kings County, one thing appears  obvious – early on, wherever there were crossroads, ports and river crossings such as fords and bridges, villages often sprung up; villages that in more than a few cases evolved into towns that still thrive today.

This is true of Kentville, which according to the dean of county historians Arthur W. H. Eaton, owes its location to a narrow area, a ford on the Cornwallis River where a bridge eventually was constructed.  Would Kentville have evolved into a town if the river wasn’t narrow and fordable  at low tide and was an ideal place to have a bridge? My guess is, most likely not.

Many of the crossroads existing today were trails laid down over the centuries by the Mi’kmaq and Acadians.  For example, an early Acadian road running north from downtown Kentville, now Cornwallis Street creates a crossroads with the Cornwallis River, which was a waterway for Mi’kmaqs and Acadians.  Another old Acadian trail running east and west, now Main Street, creates a T-junction with Cornwallis Street and this is another factor contributing to the town’s prosperity, a prosperity accelerated by arrival of the railway.

This is also true of Wolfville where a port spurred early commercial development.  It is true also of Centreville where ancient Mi’kmaq/Acadian trails running east and west crossed well used Mi’kmaq/Acadian roads running north and south.   Near this crossroads, and no doubt because of it, a large general store servicing the area was built circa 1850 and Centreville for a time was one of the most prosperous villages in the county.

Canning also owes its development into a major commercial and shipbuilding center to its natural port.  At one time, thanks mainly to shipbuilding, Canning was the most prominent village in Kings County, outshining for a long-time the sleepy village of Horton Corner, which eventually became Kentville.  Because of the port, it was natural for Canning to become a major shipbuilding area and that it did in spades.

The potato market was another factor in making Canning thrive.  In his county history, Arthur W. H. Eaton writes that “modern Canning owes its existence largely to the potato industry of Cornwallis.”

As I mentioned above regarding the crossroads, keep in mind that many of them originally were ancient pathways, created with centuries of use by native people and adopted by the Acadians.  Seasonal roads to and from summer and winter fishing and hunting grounds of the Mi’kmaq are today main thoroughfares throughout Kings County.  If a road runs roughly parallel to a river on its course to the ocean – Belcher Street, Brooklyn Street, Canard Street and Commercial Street, for example – you can almost be sure it was first a main Mi’kmaq route and later an Acadian trail.

While the province calls it highway 341, the route that runs from Upper Dyke to Porter’s Point, about 12 kilometres in all, is known locally as Canard Street.  The area from Upper Dyke down to where Canard Street meets highway 358 has traditionally known as the community of Upper Canard.  The area Canard Street runs through, east from highway 358 to Porters Point, makes up the community of Lower Canard.

I’ve given you this little geography lesson, which is well known to long- time Canard residents, to establish the location of Jaw Bone Corner.  The corner is the junction where highway 341 meets highway 358 and it about is the halfway point between Upper and Lower Canard.

Of course, anyone living here any length of time knows exactly where Jaw Bone Corner is.  However, there are no signposts and Jaw Bone Corner won’t be found on county maps – and the fact is the corner’s name is a colloquialism based on folklore often mentioned in tourist literature and county history books.

If seems that if we wanted to be correct, Jaw Bone Corner really could be known as Hamilton’s Corner.  You will find Hamilton’s Corner indexed in Eaton’s Kings County history, with the historian noting the general area was once an Acadian community.  But if you made the assumption that Hamilton’s Corner is correct and Jaw Bone Corner isn’t, you might be wrong.   Eaton also points out that what was known in his time as Hamilton’s Corner “at first and for a long time (was) known as ‘Jaw Bone Corner’, or more simply ‘The Whalebone’.”

Before getting into the folklore about the origin of Jaw bone Corner, let’s first see why Eaton also calls it Hamilton’s Corner.  Immediately to the northwest of Jaw Bone Corner stands the former residence of Planter descendant Dr. Charles Cottnam Hamilton.  The grandson of a Horton Township grantee, Dr. Hamilton (1813-1880) was for a time one of the most prominent citizens of Kings County.   As well as carrying on a medical practice for over 40 years, Dr.  Hamilton was the first president of the Nova Scotia Fruit Growers Association when it was formed in 1863, a position he held for 17 years.  He served in the provincial Legislature and was president of the Provincial Medical Board.

In the yard of Dr. Hamilton’s old residence, one either side of the driveway, once rested the huge jawbones of a whale; said whale,  believed to have been a blue whale according to one area resident, was beached along the Canard River.  This was “sometime in the late 1880s,” according to Zeke Eaton who grew up in Canard.  “After the carcass rotted away,” Eaton says, “the jawbones were salvaged and set up as gateposts at the property at the northwest angle of the crossroads.”  The jawbones remained there until “the early 30s, at which time they were removed to a location in a fence row on the north side of Church Street, about a mile east of Chipman’s Corner.”

Now you know why Hamilton’s Corner is called Jaw Bone Corner.  Also, a long-time resident of Canard tells the area is known as Canard Corner to many people and I’ve heard this reference more than a few times. Summing everything up, you could say that Hamilton’s Corner as a designation for the crossroads has been forgotten, Canard Corner is rarely used to refer to the area, and long-time residents of Kings County mostly know it as Jaw Bone Corner.

Writing about travelling through the province in 1933, Clara Dennis, in Down in Nova Scotia, mentions Jaw Bone Corner.  Dennis confirms this is what residents called the crossroads, which was some 80 years ago.  Writing in Blomidon Rose, published in 1957, Esther Clarke Wright also confirms the crossroads was known then as Jaw Bone Corner.

Finally, to read more about this topic, go to Google and search for “A mini-history of Jawbone Corner.”  You’ll find one of my columns from 2006 on the Nova News Now website.  Featured is an interview with a former residence of the Hamilton house and some general history of the immediate area around the corner.