As noted in a column last September, bayshore spruce and hardwoods from Nova Scotia’s windswept shoreline were often used in the construction of sailing ships in the old days. Toughened by marine elements, especially the salt-laden onshore winds, these woods are hardy and long-lasting; durable enough, in other words, to withstand the grinding, ever corrosive forces of the sea.

After this column appeared I received a note from Maritime Museum of the Atlantic curator, Dan Conlin, about an article in an 1874 newspaper that mentioned bayshore spruce. Mr. Conlin sent me a copy and I found that as well as discussing the merits of Nova Scotia bayshore spruce and other provincial woods, the article provides some insight into shipbuilding on the Minas Basin. Excerpts from the St. John Daily Telegraph article follow. I hope readers will find it as interesting as I did.

“The largest and probably the best vessel ever built on the Parrsboro shore will be launched… from the yard of Messrs. D. R. and C. F. Eaton at Three Sisters, Cumberland County. She is appropriately named Chignecto after the famous cape near which she was built, and which divides the waters of the Bay of Fundy at the junction of the Cobequid and Cumberland Bays… The Chignecto is barque rigged and has three decks; here extreme length on the upper deck is 175 feet; breadth from outside to outside 36 feet; depth of hold at midships to upper deck 23 feet, 10 inches and registers 1,032.11 tons.

“She is principally constructed of spruce grown at Cape Chignecto. It is known as ‘Bay Shore Spruce’ and valued for its great durability, far exceeding that of spruce grown elsewhere.

“The Chignecto is iron-kneed, copper-fastened and substantially built in every respect. Her bowsprits, lower masts, rails and staunchions are of imported pitch pine and a large quantity of southern oak is put into her. She is owned by the above named firm and others, and is the first of a number of vessels to be built by Messrs. Eaton in the same yard.

“In the immediate vicinity there is a great abundance of ship timber (birch and spruce) of superior quality, all owned by the Messrs. Eaton. The birch on the Parrsboro and Chignecto shores is also distinguished, like spruce, for great hardness and value, bringing the highest price of any birch taken to the English market.

“The Messrs. Eaton have now in their yard at Three Sisters, and prepared in their woods ready for teaming, the principal part of the timber required to build two vessels of about 500 tons each, register tonnage. The keel of one is to be laid immediately, the other in the spring, and both are to be launched next summer.

“Isaac James Olive, Jr., an experienced shipwright from St. John, N. B., was the master builder of the Chignecto, and her model, workmanship and finish do him much credit. She will be commanded by Charles W. Shaw, of Hantsport. Soon as launched she will be towed to St. John where her rigging and equipments will be completed. These are now on the way from England. From St. John the barque expects to go to a southern port for a cargo of oil or cotton, to be conveyed to a European market.”

(A word on shipbuilders D. R. and C. F. Eaton: Leon Barron tells me they farmed in Lower Canard and before moving to the Parrsboro area had commissioned the building of ships in a yard near Blomidon. Eatonville, near Parrsboro, is named after the brothers.)

What did kids do for recreation and relaxation in the pre-radio, pre-television, pre-computer and pre-electronic gadgets age? Leslie Eugene Dennison’s detailed essay on this area in the 19th century, in the period around the 1870s, provides some surprising answers.

Serialised in this paper in the 1930s, Dennison’s article tells us there were numerous ways boys and girls amused themselves in our great-grandparent’s day by playing games. For the most part, recreation in this period involved physical activity. On activities at school, for example, Dennison writes that the younger boys often engaged in a “race around the (Kentville town) square” at recess time and it was an “event of much importance” that was supervised by the older boys.

This we can assume was a spring and autumn activity. In the summer, as they do now, boys played ball. This was in the early days of baseball and while Dennison says it was similar to the modern game, the equipment and method of play were primitive.

“The bats were homemade, sometimes soft, sometimes hard wood; the balls generally had a rubber core the size of a walnut for bounce, yarn wound, the covering being scraps from the shoemakers or harness shops, sewn with waxed ends. Sometimes a solid rubber ball, laboriously cut and filed from an old rubber car spring was used.”

An unusual aspect of this early baseball was the use of a floating or extra player. After the boys picked sides and there was an odd player, “he batted, ran and fetched on both sides,” Dennison said.

The girls played a similar game “with a soft rubber ball and a flat bat,” and it was a great honour, Dennison said, for “preferred boys” to be invited to join in.

There were at least two cricket fields or “creases” in this area when Dennison was a boy and it was a popular game. Dennison names other summer games that probably were still being played when many of our current seniors were young: “High spy, puss in the corner, chase (through the woods) duck on the rock, all had a certain timely vogue.”

Of course, there was swimming and fishing. And an unusual ball game, barn ball, in which only a few players at a time participated. “Barn ball was also played by two or more. The batter took his position in front of a barn wall. The pitcher, who was also the catcher, threw the ball on the roof or against the side wall. The batter had to make it to a nearby base and return.”

As it is now, skating was a popular winter activity in the 1870s, and an outdoor activity at that since there were no arenas. “Margeson’s or Redden’s millpond on the mill Brook, the meadow and the lake on my grandmother’s… property were alive with skaters on fine afternoons and moonlight nights,” Dennison reminisced. The “lake” he mentions is probably the pond near the Cornwallis River in west end Kentville. The skates were made of wood with “steel runners and straps.”

Kids in the 1870s and kids today both enjoyed another winter ancient pastime, coasting or sledding. “I must not forget the handsleds in the winter,” Dennison writes. “And… coming down schoolhouse hill ‘belly-flounder’ and across Main Street to the Lombardy poplars in front of Judge Stephen Moore’s house.

“The town boys had long, narrow sleds with solid iron or steel, fastened to the runner only at the ends. The farm-raised boys had to be content with sleds made as the large ox or horse sleds, with runners sawn from wood with a natural crook in it.”