In Hants County, writer Edith Mosher’s Family Book of Fact and Fiction is the story of the fatal crash of a Ventura bomber. The bomber went down in flames in Summerville on June 25, 1943, killing its four-man crew.

Ms. Mosher called me about the Ventura crash recently, remarking that as far as she knew, this is “the only wartime crash site that has no monument or marker.” Later Ms. Mosher wrote me about the incident. Two of the crew of the Ventura were New Zealanders, one was Australian, and these then were buried in Windsor.

It is these gravesites and the crash site that have Ms. Mosher concerned. She believes there has been neglect in that nothing has been done to mark the crash site (“We must be on the wrong side of the tracks.”)

Ms. Mosher writes that while the graves of the New Zealand pilot officers “have had visitors from their homeland,” the grave of the Royal Australian Air Force Sergeant Pilot Cornelius A. Mulcahy “has no one (and) we don’t know the reason.”

“I’m wondering if there is a place to which I could write to learn what part of Australia this young man… came from,” Mosher continued. “There must be some place where records are kept that would provide an address. I would like to try to contact relatives of Cornelius Mulcahy. If he has a brother or sister still living, I would send a picture of his stone and describe the lovely setting of his burial place. I would like them to know that someone here in Nova Scotia remembers too.”

Readers who may be able to assist Ms. Mosher in contacting relatives of Mulcahy can reach her on the Cheverie exchange or they can write to her at Summerville, Hants County, BON 2K0. If I can of assistance in passing information onto Ms. Mosher, I can be contacted through this newspaper.

Remembers Minards Treatment

My column on old-time medicine cabinets kindled a few memories for Madge Chase. Born in Hants County just after the turn of the century, Ms. Chase recalls working for $5 a month and taking molasses laced with Minards Liniment for sore throats. “There were no doctors handy in those days,” Ms. Chase said when she called from Kentville recently. “When we had a cold we drank ginger tea, and warm goose oil was rubbed on our chest.”

Ms. Chase remembers an unusual treatment for headaches. “My mother soaked a cloth in vinegar and held it to her forehead. Then she drank strong black tea at the same time.”

Still Uses Vinegar

“People probably laughed when you mentioned using vinegar and Epsom salts as medicines,” a caller said recently. “Please don’t use my name, but I find malt vinegar to be good for sore throats when I have a cold. The sore throat disappears after gargling with vinegar two or three times.”

The caller enlightened me about old-timers taking Epsom salts with water. “A teaspoon of Epsom salts mixed with warm water is great when constipated,” the called said. “Ask my pharmacist.”

Work began on the Windsor and Annapolis Railroad (the forerunner of the Dominion Atlantic Railway) in 1867. In less than a decade, the railroad was in difficulty. The financial problems of the old Windsor and Annapolis are detailed in an old newspaper clipping I found in the scrapbook of the late Jenny (Mrs. Walter) Young, New Minas. The financial manipulations and problems of a long-gone era are of little interest to casual readers today. Revealing, however, is some of the trivial information in the clipping. Although it was losing money, for example, passenger numbers and freight was increasing by at least five per cent annually and the railroad was being hailed for filling a “long-needed transportation want in the Valley region.”

Railroad and trivia buffs might like to add the following to their stock of interesting but useless information: between Kentville and Windsor, workers on the old railroad had laid down 20 miles of 67-pound iron rails and five miles of 50-pound rails. In 1873, the “rolling stock” included 10 cattle cars and five horse cars.

The first automobile to be owned in Kentville is said to be a Stanley Steamer. Purchased in 1898, the car was brought to Kentville by Robert Baker. A clipping in the young scrapbook has a photograph of the car with its second owner, William Yould and family. The William Yould shown in the photograph was undoubtedly the Englishman who was one of the builders and roadmaster of the Windsor and Annapolis Railroad and later a high-ranking official of the Dominion Atlantic Railway.

The yellowing pages of the Young scrapbook contain clippings marking a number of Valley firsts.

The first telephone line was strung in the Valley in 1893. The task of stringing the line between Hantsport and Annapolis Royal took seven men the entire summer to complete. The only equipment used was a horse-drawn wagon that carried the telephone cable and a few hand-held tools.

There was resistance to the stringing of the phone cable. The news clipping notes that farmers along the way objected strongly to “having the limbs of their tall and stately trees amputated to make way for a newfangled contraption.”

People still talk today about the time during the American prohibition when a rumrunner had to dump its cargo in the Bay of Fundy. For weeks after the dumping, casks of rum floated ashore along the Bay of Fundy, much to the joy of the locals, c1aims a clipping in the Young scrapbook. One Fundy village, claims the news story, had the biggest hangover in its history.

Designed by E. Cox, Kingsport, and built by C.R. Burgess of Wolfville, the square-rigger Kings County is said to be the last ship of its type to be built in the Minas Basin. Launched in 1890, the Kings County was the second largest Canadian ship of her day. “One larger ship in the nation at the time was the W.D. Lawrence, launched in Maitland in 1874,” says a news clipping in the Young scrapbook. The clipping told of the fate of the Kings County. In 1912, the ship ran aground in the River Plate and was later sold and dismantled.

Remember all the mysterious bottles, jars and tins that were in the medicine cabinet when you were growing up? How often we were warned that the various salves, ointments and liquids in the cabinet were poisonous. Yet, when we got sick, the first thing our parents did was to go to the cabinet and take out some foul-smelling concoction that was either daubed on us or we had to swallow.

Like me, you probably had some kind of medicine cabinet in the kitchen or bathroom of your old home. And no matter how much you were warned, you probably checked its contents at every opportunity. The various containers with their strange names and odd odours were an attraction no kid could resist.

Even today, nearly half a century later, I can remember some of the things that were in our cabinet. Minards Linament, extract of wild strawberry, castor oil, mineral oil, zinc ointment, Epsom salts…. I recall the size and shape of the jars and bottles and I remember their odours and how some of them tasted. I remember being curious about what everything was used for and there were times when I found out and was sorry I did.

Epsom salts was a real puzzler. I remember my father occasionally drinking Epsom salts dissolved in a glass of warm water and also putting the salts in a bucket of hot water and soaking his feet. A drink and a foot bath? Well, other items in our medicine cabinet serve dual purposes as well. When we had colds, Minards liniment was rubbed into our chests and throats. I also remember my father drinking Minards mixed with warm water, which took some doing since the liniment was strong stuff.

Vinegar was another substance that around our home was put to many uses besides those of the kitchen. Vinegar was used in our old home as a disinfectant, a mouthwash and throat gargle and on mosquito bites. Cider vinegar was combined with other ingredients to treat illness. When we had colds when we were kids, the treatment was a drink with a 50-50 mixture of vinegar and water that had been boiled with chopped onions and sugar.

Vinegar has been used for generations as a folk medicine and, oddly enough, it appears that old-timers may have been on to something. “Ancient healers knew thousands of years ago that vinegar is the wonder elixir for a healthier life,” claims an ad I saw recently in Health Watch Canada. The ad offered a book with folk remedies and listed over a dozen conditions that can be treated with vinegar.

While it pays to be sceptical of claims in paid advertisements, serious researchers are looking at vinegar and wondering if it really does have curative powers.

While we never kept vinegar in our old medicine cabinet, like Minards Liniment and Epsom salts, it was always nearby ready to be used when illness struck. Some ingredients from the medicine cabinet brought relief. Then there were concoctions such as mustard plasters and liniment that seemed to have no purpose other than torturing a boy down with a cold.

I wonder why there was so much controversy when a scientist recently announced his discovery that dogs are psychic.

The scepticism puzzled me. I could have told anyone who asked that several of my dogs possessed something which, for want of a better word, could be described as psychic. Any long-time dog owner can tell you the same thing. Work around dogs long enough and it becomes obvious they have a special rapport with you that borders on the uncanny.

I can give you dozens of examples that illustrate this rapport, but let’s start with the dog that knew he was going to die.

My old Chesapeake was sick. He was wasting away and the vet said nothing could be done to save him. I put off the decision to have the dog put asleep, but the day came when it was time.

I had hunted with the Chesapeake for 11 seasons and we had a routine; whenever I went to his pen with leash in hand, he greeted me at the door. I’m guessing, but I think the dog connected the leash with outings for hunting and exercise. On his last day, however, the dog crouched low when he saw me approach with the leash; with tail between his legs the dog slunk into his kennel and refused to come out. Somehow he has sensed something was different.

Four of my last five bird dogs always knew when it was time to go hunting. Don’t ask me how they knew, but there were totally different reactions from the dogs when I left the house for work and when I had hunting in mind. When I was dressed in work or casual attire and didn’t have hunting in mind, the dogs greeted me every morning with quiet, glad-to-see-you wags of the tail. When I dressed for hunting and had hunting in my mind they yelped and ran excitedly around the pen as soon as I was out of the door.

I know dogs aren’t supposed to reason, but I assumed that somehow they connected my clothing with the day’s activities. Work or casual clothes, I was going to the pen to feed them and they were staying in. Hunting clothes, they were going afield.

All logical, of course, if it’s possible for dogs to put two and two together. Then, one morning on a day off, I decided to put off hunting until mid-morning. I went out to the pen at daybreak dressed in non-hunting clothes and my dog went berserk. He had somehow sensed that I was taking him hunting that day.

Curious about how four different dogs could sense what I had in mind for them, I tried at times to disguise my intentions. Once, I went to the kennel in work clothes on a morning I planned to hunt and I got the whining, yelping run-around-the-pen excited welcome. I remember thinking that the darned dog must be reading my mind. It amazes me at times how my current bird dog reacts according to what I have in mind in the way of activities, but I’m used to it by now. The three dogs I hunted before him were able to figure out when they were going to chase birds or loll around the pen.

I’m sure that my experience with dogs is no different than countless other people and their dogs.

As I hoped would happen, the column two weeks ago on A.L. Hardy prompted a few readers to give me additional information on the Kentville photographer.

I’ve been told, for example, that like one of Kentville’s earlier police chiefs, Hardy used a bicycle as well as a horse and wagon on his photographic excursions around Kings County. The use of a bicycle seems unlikely since photographic equipment in Hardy’s day was heavy and unwieldy. As well as being interesting the tale about Hardy using a bike, if true, reveals something of his character.

I’ve been told, as well, that Mr. Hardy published one and perhaps two collections of his photographs in book form. I am aware of one collection that Hardy published, but I failed to mention it in the earlier column. For anyone interested in Hardy trivia, around 1902 the photographer privately published a collection he called The Evangeline Land. The collection contained about 100 photographs and most were Kings County scenes.

I have no information about a possible second collection other than that it may exist. However, The Evangeline Land was definitely published and if copies exist today, they would be valuable and of interest to collectors.

Another bit of trivia about Hardy: a reader tells me that so little of Hardy’s work exists today because shortly after his death his collection of prints and photographic plates were destroyed. This is one of those stories that have been passed from generation to generation and is accepted as gospel.

At one time, A.L. Hardy may have been the official photographer for the DAR. A number of tourist pieces promoting Nova Scotia were published by the railroad in Hardy’s day and many of his scenic photographs were used in them – usually without credit to Hardy. Evidence exists indicating Hardy was on the DAR payroll for a time.

A number of Hardy photographs were published in The Advertiser and other Valley newspapers when he was operating out of his Kentville studio. The earlier blossom festival issues of The Advertiser feature work by Hardy, in most cases without giving the photographer a credit line. Hardy’s photographs are believed to be the only pictorial records of Kentville’s centenary in 1926 and the town’s summer carnivals that before 1933 were forerunners of the apple blossom festival.

Of value to collectors and said to be rare are post cards from the 1920s featuring Hardy photographs. One of the most sought after postcards has a Hardy shot of Grand Pre at the turn of the century.

In existence is a splendid photograph of Nova Scotia’s famous bear hunter, Kings County’s David Costley, who was honoured by Queen Victoria for his hunting feats around the turn of the century. In the photograph, the “world champion bear killer” posed on a stump with a live bear in a trap in the foreground. The photograph, which has been published many times since it was taken in 1908, may be one of Hardy’s best known works. The story is that Queen Victoria was so taken by the photograph that she offered to trade Costley one of her pictures for it. Hardy’s photo of Costley is said to be hanging in Buckingham Palace today.

You’re first to say astrology is nonsense and you don’t believe in it. Yet you know the zodiac sign under which you were born.

You belong to a group of people who claim astrology is bunkum, but when no one’s watching, you read your horoscope in the paper. Every day, horoscopes are published in hundreds of newspapers, but you claim only the gullible read them and they’re printed because they make neat fillers.

The odd thing about astrology is that it has millions of followers, but few people admit they are believers. However, if you secretly follow astrology and would like to come out of the zodiac closet, I have interesting news.

For starters, let’s take the belief that intelligent people never take astrology and horoscope forecasts serious. The mathematical genius Albert Einstein refused to condemn astrology. Einstein said that while astrology was an “unrefined art”, it should not be dismissed without examination.

During World War II, a group with better than average intelligence used astrology to fight the Germans. During the war, British Intelligence – with the blessing of Winston Churchill – created the Psychological Research Bureau which, despite its important sounding title, was concerned exclusively with astrology and was headed by an astrologer.

In effect, British authorities used an astrologer to fight fire with fire. When it became known in 1949 that Hitler and his cronies were employing an astrologer to help them with war plans, it was decided it would be wise for Britain to do the same. The idea was that the bureau would “predict the predictions” of the Nazi astrologer and possibly anticipate Hitler’s moves. Silly as it may sound, Hitler and his aides often consulted their astrologer to see if zodiac signs favoured their war plans.

In the past, astrology attracted some of the world’s greatest thinkers besides the likes of Einstein. You’ve heard of Plato, Ptolemy, Johannes Kepler and Isaac Newton. These earth-shakers dabbled in astrology and were convinced it could play a role in everyday life.

The world-famous Dr. C.G. Jung, who was considered by many to be the greatest psychologist of the 20th century, was a believer in astrology. Outspoken in his admiration for astrology, Jung had horoscopes made for his patients. Jung claimed that one day astrology would be recognised as a science.

But despite having the approval of thinkers ancient and modern, the majority of scientists believe astrology is an occult fad. On the other hand, it is those sceptical scientists who provided evidence that astrology may have some validity. In the ’50s, for example, an American engineer discovered a link between mysterious radio static and the position of the planets. In 1960, an American scientist found there was a direct link between irrational human behaviour and the moon.

None of this has a thing to do with the general predictions of newspaper horoscopes. Modern day astrologers say that genuine astrology is about the possible cosmic influence of the elements, the sun,. moon, planets and stars. The new age name for astrology is – are you ready for it – “cosmobiology.”

Over a fireplace in an older Upper Canard home is a striking view of Hall’s Harbour half a century ago. On a wall in a Windsor residence are several stark views of this town after the devastating fire of 1897. In the rec room of a Kentville home the team photograph of the 1920 Kings County hockey champions stands beside several time worn trophies. And down the Valley in a farmhouse near Middleton, four photographs in a maplewood frame depict apple harvesting in the days when horses were still used.

Other than showing Valley scenes of an earlier era and past generations of Valley people at work and play, these unsigned photographs have no apparent theme and, to the untrained eye, no obvious connection.

There is a connection, however. The photographs are the work of a man who spent most of his life recording similar Valley scenes and events. For over four decades Amos Lawson Hardy worked out of his studio in Kentville and everything was grist for the eye of his camera. From 1892 until 1935, A.L. Hardy photographed the comings and goings of Valley people and their surroundings. Landscapes, seascapes, village and town streets, apple harvesting, calamities of nature, festivals, church groups, prominent Valley families, dyke building, young men and women in party attire, children, cyclists, athletes, hunters, anglers – these and countless other subjects were the photographic legacy that Hardy left.

At the time of his death in 1935, newspapers said that Hardy was one of the outstanding photographers in Nova Scotia. His work was recognised in 1900 when he was one of three photographers chosen Canada-wide to contribute to a magazine series advertised as “Canada’s scenic splendours.” During his career hundreds of his photographs were published in tourist books, magazines and newspapers. And, at one time, literally hundreds of his portraits and still life’s graced the living rooms of Valley homes.

A.L. Hardy photographed life in a bygone era, and without his work we wouldn’t have these records. But despite leaving an important and lasting legacy of his 40 some years in Kings County, Hardy’s work is virtually unknown today. Even more tragic is the estimate that of the countless photographs made of Nova Scotia, only a few hundred survive.

Writing on Hardy’s work in a 1985 Dalhousie University publication, Graeme Wynn noted that the Public Archives of Canada hold about 50 Hardy prints and the Public Archives of Nova Scotia identifies only four or five Hardy originals in its collection. Acadia University has about two dozen Hardy prints and the Court House Museum in Kentville has approximately 20. Wynn estimates that around 100 Hardy photographs are held privately, but there may be more than that since Hardy once ranged from Halifax to Yarmouth with his camera on the old Dominion Atlantic Railway.

Hardy’s legacy of photographs from the late 19th and early 20th century is little appreciated today, but the importance of his work cannot be stressed enough. The work of a man contemporaries described as unrivalled for scope, quality and genius deserves more prominence. As Graeme Wynn put it, “Both Amos Lawson Hardy and his work warrant rescue from… obscurity.”

I’ve mentioned Kentville collector and history buff Louis Comeau in this column on a couple of occasions. Mr. Comeau specializes in collecting old items pertaining to Kentville and the mini-museum in his home covers over 100 years of the town’s history.

Mr. Comeau’s collection was started by his late father, Dr. Lin Comeau, who practiced in Kentville for about a quarter-century, until the early ’70s. In the collection are several scrapbooks with newspaper clippings on Kentville and area dating back over a century. I recently spent several hours reading the clippings in one of the books. I believe the news items will be of interest to readers who like local history and local trivia, and I pass some of these along.

Died in 1940 at age 94, J.R. Lyon who, just before his death, was said to be the oldest active postmaster in Canada and the oldest native citizen of Kentville. Mr. Lyon was said to be a descendant of one of Kings County’s pioneer families. Lyon’s father operated a stagecoach inn on east Main Street. The Duke of Kent, who gave the town its name, stayed at this inn when touring the province in 1794.

Kentville’s “Grand Old Man”, George E. Calkin, is saluted on his 90th birthday. Mr. Calkin was one of Kentville’s business pioneers and one of the founders of the Blanchard Fraser Memorial Hospital.

Failed in 1920 and sold under Sheriff Sale, the Union Printing Co., which published the Western Chronicle, an early (and possibly first) Kentville-based newspaper.

Kentville and its immediate area in 1826 contained “two grist mills, two manufactories for fulling and dyeing cloth and two buildings containing machines for carding wool, besides a flax mill nearly completed.”

A first for Kentville: the first Junior High in Nova Scotia was officially opened in 1933.

The Kings county agricultural and industrial exhibition opened Oct. 7, 1878, at Kentville. Reading these news items I found that the exhibition was similar in format to today’s agricultural fairs, with displays of fruit and vegetables, farm machinery and livestock. The exhibition president is John E. Starr (a Planter descendant?); the vice-president, E.M. Jordan, is from an early Kentville family.

A news item dated early October gave populations figures for various Valley towns in 1922; Kentville 2,390; Wolfville 1,536; Windsor 3,590.

An advertisement from a 1932 issue of The Advertiser informs readers that a Kentville manufacturer – the McNeil Liquid Wax Company – has been offering its products to householders since 1900. An accompanying news story informs the public that the miracle wax produced by McNeils was discovered by accident.

In an 1887 issue of the Western Chronicle, Kentville dentist J.E. Mulloney offers artificial teeth “without plates and without extracting teeth – the latest and most artistic thing in dentistry.”

Kentville streets being numbered is the heading of a news item in a 1936 issue of The Advertiser.

Unless you play the bagpipes or enjoy hearing the mystical, stirring music produced on this archaic instrument, you may never have heard of the Ontario town of Maxville.

Maxville has only one claim to fame but it is enough to endear it to Canadians with Gaelic blood in their veins. Nestled in Glengarry County, an agricultural area long steeped in Gaelic tradition, Maxville is the home of the largest highland games in North America. Since 1947 the town has hosted an annual one-day piping competition that is the mecca of North America pipers and lovers of pipe music. It is more of an understatement than an exaggeration to state that the aspiration of most Canadian pipers is to compete at Maxville.

Nova Scotia has annual piping competitions that are similar to Maxville’s. At Antigonish, Halifax, St. Anne’s and Pugwash for example. These are nearly identical in format but lack the scope and caliber of the Maxville games.

This is not meant to denigrate Nova Scotia pipe bands or pipers but to point out that provincial competitions such as ours are stepping-stones to Maxville. The level of piping in Nova Scotia is actually quite high. Several years ago, for example, the Halifax Police Pipe Band swept away all competition here, won at Maxville against the best bands in North America and only missed taking the world championship in Scotland by a whisker. Recently a junior band from the Gaelic College at St. Anne’s won in Nova Scotia, won at Maxville and in Scotland, prevailing over the top pipe bands in the world.

It’s a given that only the best bands compete at Maxville. Or to put it another way, the level of playing is so high at Maxville that unless a band has been shining at regional or provincial competitions it doesn’t have much chance. Pipers speak of Maxville as the ultimate piping competition and, true or not, as the unofficial Canadian championship of pipe bands.

This year Nova Scotia was represented at Maxville by the Halifax Police Pipe band and a junior band from Dartmouth. Some 65 bands from Canada and the United States competed at four levels (grades one to four). Since it is a one-day competition the grades are judged simultaneously, which means that in an area not much bigger than two football fields there is ongoing piping for the better part of a day.

I was at Maxville this year, the first time I’ve attended a piping competition of this magnitude. Someone told me it would be wall to wall piping and total confusion with so much happening at the same time. Like many pipers, however, I’ve dreamed for years of going to Maxville and listening to the best bands in Canada and I expected that the positives would outweigh the negatives.

Did Maxville live up to my expectations? Imagine, hockey fans, being on the ice with Howe, Orr, Gretzky, Hull, Belliveau and Richard. Picture being on the basketball court with Jordan, Bird, Magic Johnson, Chamberlain and Kareem Abdul Jabbar.

Imagine that you…. Well, you get the picture. As well as being a great cultural Canadian tradition, Maxville is a pipers and pipe music lover’s paradise. What more can be said?

The three men who drove by when my grandson and I were launching a kite in a dykeland field must have seen something humorous. “Grow up, man,” one shouted, laughing. “You’re to old for kid’s stuff,” another taunted with a cackle.

Their actions weren’t surprising. Most people associate kite flying with kids and look on the kite as a toy.

However, people with this mindset and the bumpkins who found me amusing would change their minds about kites if they were familiar with the experiments of Alexander Graham Bell. Or if they happened to be in Japan or Korea when the centuries-old kite fighting competitions are taking place.

People have been flying kites for over 2,000 years. Beginning with the Chinese, who are believed to have flown kites as early as 400 BC, kites spread through the Pacific region, reaching Europe just before the Middle Ages.

Over the centuries the kite has been used in warfare, in religious ceremonies and in scientific experiments, which included investigation of the kite’s potential for transportation on land and sea. The Chinese were the first to put manned kites into the sky. Several years ago I discovered a fascinating book on ancient Chinese inventions, which included the parachute and kerosene, by the way. This book (The Genius of China) revealed that writings from the fourth century described manned kites that ascended thousands of feet into the air.

In warfare the ancient Chinese used kites to rocket bomb opposing armies and even to brainwash them. In the battle a Chinese general dropped kites with messages on Mongol soldiers. Later attempts by the Romans to gain advantage by flying kites over opposing armies seem mild compared to Chinese tactics. However, the Romans may also have used fire spitting kites in warfare, an idea perfected first by the Chinese.

After the kite reached Europe experimenters built models capable of transporting people. An Englishman, George Pocock, devised kite-drawn carriages early in the 19th century that carried five people and reached a speed of 30 km/hr. Alexander Graham Bell experimented with a series of kites while investigating manned flight, inventing the tetrahedral kite in the process. And as recently as World War Two, Germany experimented with manned kites as submarine spotters.

In other words, even though there’s a childlike pleasure in flying a kite, it isn’t a toy – even though the only place reasonably priced kites can be found is department store toy sections.

I knew nothing about man’s long involvement and deep passion for kite flying when I decided to introduce my grandson to it last summer. Our first experiments were disastrous; so disastrous that I scoured stores and libraries for books on kites, discovering the fascinating history of kite flying in the process.

I also quickly learned that cheap kites crash often and don’t fly all that well. Beware the one- and two-dollar bargain basement models if you’re ever tempted to try kite flying. You are better off to build your own kite, which I’m currently attempting to do even though I’m as good handyman as my dog is a house painter.