These dry, dusty pages from our past are as exciting to read as a recipe for a mustard poultice.

Yet the journal and proceedings of the Nova Scotia House of Assembly, which mainly are column after column of expenditures on roads, bridges, wharves and so on, offer valuable clues about our past. I have before me, for example, copies of the House of Assembly lists for the years 1844, 1845, 1846 and 1847. Leon Barron found these records at Acadia University library and they have helped him with his research on the old Kingsport wharf.

As mentioned in last week’s column, Barron is building a miniature replica of the wharf which was first laid down over 130 years old. Before he could proceed Barron required answers to several questions. In what year did the Oakpoint Pier Co. lay the foundation for the wharf and open it for shipping? When was the wharf turned over to the province and/or the federal government? When were the various stages of the wharf – seven in all – constructed.

If one has the patience to pour over those tedious lists, the answers to these questions are in the journal and proceedings of the House of Assembly. There are other historical nuggets as well; which I suppose could be called mini-nuggets since they mostly fill in missing pieces of local history.

Where and when was the first bridge placed on the Cornwallis River? Port Williams, Kentville or another location? Tantalizing clues can be found in those old lists. In 1845 the provincial government granted the sum of 1,375 pounds “for the service of Roads and Bridges in Kings County” and there is the following entry: “To complete the Bridge over the Cornwallis River near Kentville and on the Road from thence northerly to Mrs. Silver’s, and to pay Wm. McKittrick two pounds, an over-expenditure on said Bridge, 1844 – 50 pounds.”

From this we known there was a public bridge over the Cornwallis, near Kentville, as early as 1844. An entry in the 1846 proceedings indicates there may also have been another bridge spanning the Cornwallis at that time. An entry reads that the sum of 12 pounds was allotted for work on the road from “John Parson’s to Annapolis Road, and to build a bridge over Cornwallis River (in addition to 11 pounds undrawn last year).”

Other interesting tidbits from the House of Assembly proceedings:

That mysterious, aloof Isle Haute in the Bay of Fundy once had a lighthouse. In 1847 the sum of 1,250 pounds was granted to build a lighthouse on the Isle.

Just over 150 years ago some enterprising Horton businessmen decided that a steamship service from the Minas Basin to New Brunswick would be feasible. The House of Assembly records show that a petition was presented for “John Fisher and others, of Horton, by Mr. DeWolf and read, praying aid in the erection of a Wharf or Pier at Blue Beach, on the Windsor (Avon) River for the accommodation of a Steam Boat plying between St. John, N.B. and Windsor.”

While that wharf was never built and the steam boat never ran from Blue Beach, we can see from the Assembly records that dyke and road repairs were an ongoing expense. In 1845: The dyke Gate on the new Road crossing the Grand Prairie (Grand Pre) – 15 pounds. “Little Island to Boot Island and to secure the embankment – 8 pounds.” And again in 1846: “Little Island to Boot Island and to secure the embankment – 10 pounds.” Most of the Sessional entries for 1844 to 1847 refer to the building of new roads or extension of existing ones. It’s speculation but perhaps many of our current roads came into existence in this period.

In the 100 plus years that it has existed the wharf at Kingsport has gone through numerous changes. Constructed sometime before 1865 by the Oakpoint Pier Co., the once busy wharf has been remodeled seven times, the last upgrading taking place in 1911.

Once an important terminus in the glory days of sailing ships and railroads, the Kingsport wharf is now a ragged shell. However, a project by Kentville amateur historian. Leon Barron, will give us a glimpse of what the wharf looked like in the various stages of its existence. Barron is currently building a wooden replica of the old wharf on a scale of one inch to 10 feet. His model should be complete sometime this summer, and will be on display locally. Mr. Barron has also unearthed a lot of historical data on the wharf and a capsule version of his findings should accompany the display.

Recently I received a call from a Wolfville reader who had some observations on the column about the non-existent Port Williams lighthouse. The reader said that in effect there actually was a lighthouse that served Port Williams.

When the reader attended Acadia University she said there was a lighthouse at the mouth of Wolfville harbor. The reader contends that since Wolfville harbor is at the mouth of the Cornwallis River, said lighthouse would be useful to ships navigating upriver and hence could be considered as serving Port Williams.

This sounds logical and to argue otherwise is pointless. However, the lighthouse in the harbor mouth, which I’ve been told was demolished or destroyed by fire in the 1960s, was known unofficially as the Wolfville light and was placed to serve Wolfville harbor. Large freighters navigating the Cornwallis River to Port Williams usually did so with the assistance of a pilot who resided locally. Apparently it was never considered necessary to have a lighthouse at Port Williams, perhaps because of the river pilot system or because there was a lighthouse marking the possibly treacherous sandbars off Wolfville harbor.

In December I ran Gordon Hansford’s story about the old Wolfville High School band’s Christmas concerts in the belfry of the Baptist Church. Here’s another Hansford tale about a “Royal Oak” that grows in Wolfville.

“There is an old gnarled oak tree to the west of the driveway of the Wolfville Post Office. Alfred Lake, who had been born in England was a veteran of WW1. He served with the 85th Nova Scotia Battalion and was badly wounded. Around 1947 he pointed this oak tree out and related this story to me.

“He said that after leaving the hospital in England on convalescent leave in 1918 he went to Windsor to see the castle. On the grounds of the castle there was a large, very old oak tree, which was a descendant of the tree in which King Charles took refuge at the time of the English Civil War.

“It was called the Royal Oak and Alf picked up a few acorns from it. Upon returning home to Wolfville he planted these acorns. He became caretaker of the old sandstone Post Office and always kept the grounds in immaculate condition. He planted the oak tree and it still stands today.”

Some historical trivia from the Internet: The most numerous surnames in this area in 1881 were Newcomb, Eaton, Bishop, Borden, Harris, Caldwell. Ells, Ward and Davidson. In 1864 the most numerous surnames were Bishop, Porter, Parker, Newcomb, West, Harris, Eaton, Smith, Graves, Taylor and Tupper. Between 1864 and 1877 the most numerous surnames in Kings, Hants and Annapolis County were Smith, Parker, Sanford, Brown, Harvey Miller, Harris, Bishop, McDonald, Mosher, Burgess, Marshall, Foster, Morse, Porter, Chute, Newcomb, Caldwell, Patterson, Wallace, Taylor, Wilson, Whitman, Young and Johnston.

Before the telegraph reached Nova Scotia and railroad tracks were laid across the province there was news delivery by pony express.

In reality it was a horse express – the name “pony express” was borrowed from the Americans – and while it was a short-lived venture, it stirred the imagination of Nova Scotians. The pony express operated Between Halifax and Digby Gut in 1849 for a period of about nine months for the sole purpose of rushing European news to a group of newspapers in New York.

I have Ivan Smith, Canning, to thank for pointing out that February 21 is the anniversary date of the first running of this little-known enterprise. “This occasion deserves some media recognition,” Mr. Smith said recently via e-mail.

Mr. Smith forwarded an article on the pony express by John W. Regan which ran in the Collections of the Nova Scotia Historical Society in 1912. In a nutshell, the pony express was a relay service which met mail steamers from England and rushed dispatches to Digby Gut; from there the dispatches were ferried to the St. John telegraph office and wired to New York. The pony express, in other words, was simply an effort by the group of New York newspapers to be the first to print European news in America.

As mentioned, the pony express had a short life span. The telegraph lines were extended to Halifax in November, putting an end to the courier service. However, from February to November, Nova Scotians were treated to the dashing, often daily runs of the pony express. In his Historical Society article Regan said that at first there were “two rival expresses” and the competition between them “passing through a post-village caused as much excitement as a mail-steamer arriving in Halifax.”

According to Regan the “relays of galloping horses covered the 144 miles from Halifax to the Digby Gut ferry in an average time of eight hours or a mile in about 3.29 minutes.” The fastest time for the run may have been seven hours and 15 minutes according to a letter published in the Windsor Mail in 1879.

There is no doubt that these times were excellent compared to other means of relaying news in Nova Scotia in that period. In 1830, for example, the top time for a passenger coach running from Halifax to Annapolis was 18 hours, excluding the overnight stop in Kentville. (Source: Woodworth’s history of the Dominion Atlantic Railway.)

In his article Regan said that the journey from Halifax to the ferry was “performed by two riders who changed at Kentville and was divided into twelve stages with a fresh horse about every twelve miles.” Although it isn’t made clear in the article, relay stations may have been located in the Valley at Windsor, Kentville (and a point halfway between these towns), Berwick, near Kingston and so on down the line.

Another early means of communication in Nova Scotia was mentioned recently by Leon Barron. At one time there was a telegraph semaphore system linking Halifax with Annapolis. Apparently the semaphore stations were placed in sight of each other (obviously given the means of communication) on hills along the old Annapolis Road.

According to Ivan Smith, this system was in operation in the late 1790s or early 1800s. However, few details are available. Leon Barron says that years ago a history of this system was published in the newsletter of a provincial ham radio club – perhaps an Annapolis Valley club – and I’m trying to track it down.

I’m also looking for information on an old military road in Kings County – the Six Rod Road – and the so-called August Gale that created havoc in Nova Scotia in 1873. Can any readers help?

Every time a ferocious storm paralyzes an area someone always asks, “Are Canadian winters getting worse?”

You’d know the answer to this question if you had experienced past storms that literally brought the Annapolis Valley to a standstill. Ask some of our seniors about the great storm of 1905, for example. This storm made the history books and has been the topic of numerous magazine articles and historical talks.

My grandfather was in his late 30s and my father a teenager when this storm struck in late winter; both referred to the storm as the greatest catastrophe of their time and they had many tales of the hardships suffered. I’ve read the newspaper and magazine articles, heard the folktales and listened to discussions about the storm; and I’ve looked at those unbelievable photographs of Valley towns with snow tunnels up and down the main streets. There’s little doubt that the 1905 storm was a doozer.

How severe the 1905 storm was may been seen in Marguerite Woodworth’s history of the Dominion Atlantic Railway. The storm totally disrupted operation of the railroad throughout Nova Scotia, closing it down in some areas for weeks and months. The Annapolis Valley may have been the hardest hit since, according to Woodworth, the rail line from Kentville to Yarmouth and from Halifax to Kentville was clogged for a lengthy period and all commerce depending on the railway ceased.

“Heavy snowfalls lasting for days, storms, thaws, then freezing temperatures that locked the line in a grip of snow and ice caused all operations to cease for weeks at a time,” is Woodworth’s summary of the 1905 storm’s effect on the railroad.

When the lines had been cleared – and it took hundreds of volunteers working with shovels to accomplish this since railroad snowplows were almost useless – the railroad had spent over $100,000 in snow clearance alone. Woodworth said it was a “severe financial setback” for the railway that curtailed expansion plans and “disposed of any immediate hope of paying dividends to the shareholders.”

One magazine article I read mentioned that hundreds of people nearly starved to death and many were without sufficient means of heat while the railway struggled to clear the lines. Several deaths were attributed to the storm.  Woodworth ignored the hardship and personal suffering, although there is an oblique reference, and instead wrings her hands over the railway’s financial losses.

During the winter of 1923/24 another severe storm struck this area and Leon Barron recently recalled the effect it had on the Dominion Atlantic Railway. While not as severe and persistent as the 1905 storm, the blizzard of 23/24 disrupted rail service for several days. In many areas the trains were unable to move, the snow piling up so deep on the tracks that railway plows couldn’t cope with it.

Hardest hit locally was the old Cornwallis Valley Railway (CVR) which ran from north from Kentville through Steam Mill and Centreville and then east to terminate in Kingsport. Leon Barron tells me that to clear the CVR line, the railway used two engines behind a plow with a third engine as backup. In some sections of the CVR even this wasn’t enough machinery to clear snow from the tracks and the railroad put out a call to communities along the line for help.

Answering the railroad’s call, men from Kingsport, Habitant, Canning, Pereau and other communities showed up on a Sunday morning with shovels to tackle the worst hit area between Pereau Road and the Jackson Barkhouse Road. In this half-mile stretch, known as the Kinsman Cutting, snowdrifts were as high as the locomotive’s smokestack and it took nine hours to clear the tracks.

The Federal Government’s Sessional Papers for 1906 records an expenditure of $260.00 for a lighthouse keeper, one Jno. (sic) Corbett, at Port Williams; an entry in the Papers for the same year indicates that under Wharf Work, a sum of money was authorized for repairs to the pier at Port Lorne.

It appears that these expenditures are in no way connected but when you finish this column you will see that they are. But let’s start with an earlier Sessional Paper, one dated 1883. Two years ago when Leon Barron was scanning this Paper for Kings County items he came across reference to payment of a salary to a lighthouse keeper (a man named Graves) at Port Williams.

This entry was puzzling because to the best of Leon’s knowledge there had never been a lighthouse at or near Port Williams. Since he is an avid marine history buff, Leon was fairly certain of this. But to be sure he searched for other references to the Port Williams lighthouse.

While Leon found no mention of a lighthouse at the Port in local history books he continued his search. A number of older Kings County residents were quizzed but none remembered a lighthouse; most were skeptical that one had ever existed.

Then in the Sessional Papers for 1871 Leon found a payment of $253.00 to one James Dunn for his services as lighthouse keeper at Port Williams. He was now partly convinced that the lighthouse had existed and he continued to look for more evidence. By chance he happened to mention his search to another marine history buff, Reg. Clarke of Walton. Mr. Clarke told Leon that the Port Williams lighthouse not only existed, he could provide a photograph of it from his collection.

Numerous references to the Port Williams lighthouse in Federal records and a photograph: This was enough evidence to suggest that the lighthouse existed even though no one could recall it and it was apparently ignored by historians. Eaton’s Kings County history mentions only one lighthouse, for example, and this was at Horton Bluff. The history of Port Williams (“The Port Remembers”) notes that the Cornwallis River channel was hazardous but there is no mention that a lighthouse was a necessity nor is there any inference that one was required.

Leon Barron had his photograph and the Sessional Paper references but he was still mystified by a lack of local knowledge of the lighthouse. He continued to ask around but was met with blank looks and chuckles. Then with the photograph in hand, he tried to pinpoint the exact location of the lighthouse which appeared to have been on a rise, possibly where a plant and warehouses are located today. The task proved impossible; there had been too many changes in the village of Port Williams over the years.

Two years went by and the location of the Port Williams lighthouse was still a mystery. And despite apparently concrete evidence that it once existed, Leon was still doubtful. Too many people were telling him otherwise.

Last December Leon Barron was again going through the onerous task of reading the Sessional Papers. The Papers number in the thousands and for the most part they are dull, dry, boring and difficult to read. After several hours of thumbing through the Papers Leon was half asleep and he almost missed the item that explained the references to the Port Williams lighthouse. The Paper was dated 1883 and under “Pier Work” was this enlightening entry: “Port Lorne, formerly Port Williams or Marshall’s Cover.”

The mystery of the Port Williams lighthouse was solved.