After the Uprising of 1745, the playing of the pipes was forbidden in Scotland.

I don’t know how many times I’ve heard and read this about the pipes. In fact, it’s one of the most prevalent legends about bagpipes – or bagpipe, which some say is more correct. A lot of mighty impressive scholars and historians have given credence to this legend and its a commonly accepted truth; even the Scots take it as gospel.

However, with St. Patrick’s Day upon us, I point out that the bagpipes were never, repeat never, banned in Scotland. Not after the uprising of 1745, not before the uprising and in fact, not ever. This is one of the myths about Scotland that has been perpetuated for centuries and it isn’t true in the least.

Now if you said the pipes were once banned in Ireland, you’d be speaking the truth; of which fact I’ve been reminded since we’re celebrating St. Patrick’s Day this month. But first, let’s look at the myth that pipes were banned in Scotland.

Although the Disarming Act of 1746 clearly bans “arms and warlike weapons” as well as any clan plaid, the bagpipe is never specifically mentioned. The Nova Scotian historian, John G. Gibson, makes this clear in his book on the history of piping, Traditional Gaelic Bagpiping, 1745-1945. Gibson gives the entire text of the Disarming Act and supports his claim with well-documented evidence. From his documentation, Gibson also proves that piping and dancing continued in Scottish culture throughout the 18th century and beyond.

The Irish, on the other hand, can claim with some justification that the bagpipe was banned in their country by the British. For centuries the bagpipe was used as an instrument of war in Ireland. Aware of the pipe’s ability to rouse men, the British banned its use in 1366 by the Statues of Kilkenny.

In the piping manual of the Royal Irish Rangers, the introduction reads that the Kilkenny Statues made it a “penal offence to have, play or entertain pipers in Ireland on the plea that they acted as ‘Irish agents or spies on the English, whereby great evils have often resulted’.” Thanks to the miracle of the Internet, I found the entire text of the Statues of Kilkenny and as well as banning the playing of pipes, it also bans “story-tellers, bablers, rimers (and) mowers.

It seems fitting to quote here another line from the Royal Irish Rangers piping manual: “The bagpipe is usually associated with Scotland, but in fact the instrument came originally from Ireland.”

True or not – how can it ever be proven? – the pipes are thought of today as being Scottish and not Irish. It was the hardy Highlanders who rebelled against the English who carried the bagpipe to the far reaches of the earth.

But again being reminded of the St. Patrick’s Day celebrations, I must point out that while the Scots popularised the bagpipe and claim it as their own, many of the traditional pipe tunes are Irish in origin. Countless pipe tunes thought to be of Scottish origin can found in old collections of Irish music.

Josh Hazel passed away some 45 years ago but he’s still remembered.

Hazel was a treasure hunter; he spent much of his life following up the legends about pirate gold on the Bay of Fundy, and it appears he may have been one of only two or three people who actually found any.

Last week’s regional magazine carried my story on the treasure hunter who lived most of his life at Black Hole on the Bay of Fundy. In the article, I noted that Mr. Hazel made at least two finds of gold coins; while they weren’t big finds, Hazel apparently discovered enough coins to finance more searching and to purchase several motor vehicles.

While Mr. Hazel was secretive about his finds, people noticed his sudden wealth and started to talk. Hazel was soon part of local folklore as the man who found buried treasure. Even today, nearly half a century after he died, people still talk about Hazel and his find of pirate gold.

While researching the Hazel story, I was given the name of another man said to have found treasure on the North Mountain. Like Hazel, this man suddenly was wealthy. He moved off the North Mountain after his find and purchased a large farm. I’m still looking into this; to date, I’ve been unable to find anyone acquainted with this successful treasure hunter.

In the Hazel article, I mentioned that Josh concentrated his search for a time around Black Hole. There was a good reason for this.

One of the persistent rumours on the Bay of Fundy is that pirates of Norwegian origin used Black Hole as a base and an area to bury their loot. This seems unlikely since Black Hole is a long way from the shipping lanes. But oddly enough, the coins Josh Hazel found were of Norwegian origin; this was confirmed by his son, Lewis Hazel, whom I interviewed for the story. Lewis Hazel examined the coins his father found and was able to give me the dates on them.

One item I didn’t mention in my article is the treasure story on the Mysteries of Canada website. This story, “The Treasure of Black Hole Harbour, is rather far-fetched but in essence, it says that Norwegian pirates used the area as a bank to hide their gold. The story describes various unusual markings on stones and a strange mound near tidewater.

The story was written by a man who apparently visited Black Hole. However, natives of the area scoff at his description of Black Hole and say that some of the geographical features he describes simply don’t exist.

True or not, I’ve been told that the website story has attracted the interest of a Japanese firm that makes television documentaries on mysteries. The word I have is that the firm will be visiting Black Hole this summer to investigate the treasure story and make a documentary.

Getting back to Lewis Hazel, he’s hoping to produce a book on his father’s life of treasuring hunting. Mr. Hazel tells me his father was investigating other possible treasure hoards in this area of the Valley. Josh Hazel had read and researched intensively, Lewis says, and found clues pointing to other possible treasure sites.

If you’re a history buff, you must be delighted with all the community and family histories that have been published. For some reason, this area seems to have people with a bent for writing history. Many communities have individuals and organisations who have produced not only histories of their area, but histories as well of prominent families, local industries and cemeteries.

In many cases these histories are researched and written with no commercial gain in mind. When Frances Taylor, Marie Bishop and Daphne Frazee wrote their histories of Cambridge, Canaan and Gaspereau, for example, I’m sure the selling price of these books in no way compensated them for countless hours of research.

I couldn’t even begin to list all the histories that have been locally written. However, I have several favourites, which are works that in my opinion best tell the history of this area.

Valley Gold is an example of a locally written book about industry. The title page says the book tells the story of the apple industry but Anne Hutten’s goes beyond this. You can’t write about Valley apples and orchards without including glimpses of the Loyalists, Planters and Acadians and Ms. Hutten does just this. Unfortunately, Ms. Hutten’s book is out of print and difficult to obtain. If you’d like to read this book, there’s one copy available in the local library system.

It doesn’t claim to be a history book in a sense that history is a narration of past events. However, A Natural History of Kings County is interspersed with many interesting nuggets of historical interest. There’s a history section in the book and in it you’ll find the various plants introduced by the Acadians, for example. You should be able to find this book in stores and libraries but if you can’t, contact the Blomidon Naturalists Society, the organisation that compiled and published the book.

A jewel in the local history crown: That’s Esther Clark Wright’s homey, and at times gossipy Blomidon Rose, which is perhaps one of the finest histories of this area ever written. I’ve read and re-read Wright’s book many times and I recommend it for a down-to-earth historical overview of this area of the Valley. Wright is an excellent writer and a good historian. Her book is still in print and is also available in local libraries.

It’s out of print but the local library has copies of Marguerite Woodworth’s history of the Dominion Atlantic Railway. Woodworth’s book tells of the long struggle to overcome savage natural forces, political forces and a wavering economy to establish the first rail line through the Annapolis Valley. While the main thrust of the book is about the building of the railway, Woodworth gives us glimpses of Valley life in the 19th century and tells us how the railway literally created the apple industry.

While its scope supposedly is limited to the town of Kentville, Mabel Nichols book, The Devil’s Half Acre, is really all about the early days in the Valley. While she writes about Kentville, Nichols’ sketches of the town’s early days tell us what life was like in this region a few generations ago. Read this book to get a general “feel” of early Valley times. Nichols’ book is out of print but copies are available at local libraries.

Among the first of the Planter families in this region were the Ells out of Connecticut. Eaton’s Kings County history notes that the Ells family in this area are descended from Joshua Ells, a Cornwallis Grantee.

Many of the descendants of Joshua can still found in Kings and Hants County today and some still live on the original grants. And fortunately for historians, some of the legal documents and other papers drawn up by Joshua’s immediate descendants are still extant; these documents give us a close look at early Planter days in the region.

I learned about the existence of the documents in a book on the history of homes on Canard Street. The book, Canard Street, compiled by Elizabeth Rand and published by the Kings Historical Society, is an unusual history that celebrates the Planters All the homes profiled in the book, some 50 of them, are at least 100 years old and most originated with Planter descendants.

One of the homes was built around 1824. When writing the history of this house, Elizabeth Rand said it was built by Lemuel Ells, a grandson of Joshua. Rand wrote that a descendant, David Ells of new Minas, has many of Lemuel’s original documents; one dated 1811 is a description of land purchased by Lemuel; an undated document was an agreement between Lemuel’s son, Joshua, and James M. Eaton.

Rand called the latter document unique, writing that it was a detailed description of how the house was to be constructed, possibly in 1824. The agreement between Ells and Eaton specified in detail the building materials to be used in every area of the house.

Thanks to David Ells, I’ve been given the opportunity to read this and other documents handed down through the Ells family for generations. There’s a baker’s dozen in all, one of them nearly 180 years old. Not one of the 13 documents is less than 100 years old, and most were written in the early 19th century.

For the most part, the documents deal with land purchases but there is an 1846 deed and a quit claim dated 1830. In 1825 one Joseph Prescott of Halifax sold land to Lemuel Ells. The document covering this transaction begins, “Know all men by these presents that I, Joseph Prescott of Halifax and Province of Nova Scotia, Surgeon, for and in consideration of the sum of two hundred and fifty pounds currency in hand well and truly paid by Lemuel Ells of Cornwallis…Yeoman, have bargained and sold unto the said Lemuel Ells a certain lot of land….”

Like several of the documents this particular paper gives property boundaries and mentions roads by name, Canard Street for example, making these records invaluable for future historical researchers.

The document describing the house to be built by James Eaton begins, “Specifications of house for Josy Ells, said house to be framed 36 x 28 …” etc. The details of construction, right down to the type of sealing, are amazing and for architectural historians are priceless.

Around 1919, W. C. Milner wrote a history called The Basin of Minas and It’s Early Settlers. As I mentioned here, the history was published in serial form in the Wolfville newspaper, the Acadian, and later bound as a paperback.

Milner’s work, to use a book dealer’s phrase, was a limited edition and is “very scarce;” however, followers of this column will be familiar with the work. I’ve quoted Milner here numerous times in recent years as my source of historical information.

At one time Milner was chief archivists for the province; as such he had access to documents that dabblers in history can only dream of perusing. Thus his work is literally a historical goldmine that contains facts about early day and extracts from various original documents not published elsewhere.

Until recently I quoted Milner from photocopies I obtained decades ago. Last autumn a reader in British Columbia alerted me that a bookdealer in Ottawa was offering a copy of Milner’s work in the estate sale of the Dr. Franklyn Hicks collection. I am happy to report that I have retired my much-thumbed photocopy of Milner’s work; his book now stands beside other treasured works, such Eaton’s Kings County history, Hutchinson’s Nova Scotia Directory for 1864, Woodworth’s D.A.R history and Esther Clark Wright’s book, Blomidon Rose.

From time to time I plan to run excerpts from Milner’s book in the column. Starting off, here’s what Milner wrote about Pierre Melonson (Melanson) the man of Scottish origin who led the first Acadians to settle in Kings County.

“The pioneer Acadian settler at Grand Pre was Pierre Melonson, a resident of Port Royal. He was both a farmer and a tailor. He was not noted for his courtly manners.

“When Father Laurent Molin of Port Royal was taking up the census of 1671, (Melonson) gruffly refused to answer questions. He was then 47 years of age. He had seven children, the oldest being 16 years of age. He was the owner of a herd of horned cattle. He was also a land owner at Port Royal, according to the statement made by Notary Courant at Port Royal.

“Melonson was well connected. He had a brother Charles, a well-to-do man; Mires d’Entremont, seigneur of Pobimcoup (Pubnico), was a brother-in-law; Jacques de Latour had married his daughter. These connections did not attract settlers with him to Grand Pre; he seemed to favor an isolated life. He was, however, a very successful farmer and he started a colony, one of the richest in French Canada.

“He was undoubtedly a descendant of Mr. Melonson, who was among the settlers introduced at the Scottish fort at Annapolis by Sir William Alexander half a century previously, and who remained in the country when that settlement was withdrawn.”

Undoubtedly there are many of Pierre’s descendants now living here; and while he founded Grand Pre, undoubtedly the village of Melanson received its name from this pioneer settler.

In his Kings County history, Arthur W. H. Eaton recognised Melonson’s role in founding Grand Pre, adding however that another settler from Port Royal, Pierre Terriau, moved to this area at the same time.

Grand Pre will be a focal point during upcoming Acadian celebrations and undoubtedly Pierre Melonson will be saluted as the first settler there. Let’s hope his Scottish origin will be noted.

While the Acadians of the Minas Basin weren’t aware that alignment of the sun, moon and earth is called a perigean syzygy, their dykes apparently felt the force of this turbulent combination on more than one occasion.

As Ivan Smith pointed out in a letter to this paper last September, there are often disastrous effects when a perigean syzygy coincides with a coastal storm; the damage on these occasions can be far-reaching and devastating.

Mr. Smith had done a bit of meteorological detective work when he wrote about perigean syzygies. In my September 20 column last year I mentioned the great damage to the Acadian dyke system by an autumn storm in 1759, and Mr. Smith wondered if a syzygy was involved.

“Sure enough,” he wrote this paper. “There was a Full Moon syzygy on November 4th, 1759.” The storm practically coinciding with the perigean syzygy created “astronomical forces (and tides) that were exceptionally strong,” Smith said.

I had written in the September column that the 1759 storm had raised sea levels almost two meters higher than usual and a combination of gale winds and high tides smashed Minas Basin dykes. The dykes had been left largely unattended since the expulsion of the Acadians and were in a “state of disrepair.” The state of the dykes, and the storm accompanying the perigean syzygy flooded land the Acadians had farmed for generations and left the Kings and Hants County Planters in a sad state.

Mr. Smith pointed out that another perigean syzygy combined with a storm just over a century later, again creating havoc on the dykelands. This was the so-called Saxby Gale.

Over the centuries the dyked land along the Minas Basin has been at the mercy of the wind and tides. In a paper on the Acadians, Ernest Eaton wrote that “even with the best of care, severe storm action in summer or drifting ice in winter could damage the face of the dykes.” Continual attention was required, Eaton said, to keep the dykes in repair. Eaton noted that on many occasions, a combination of winds and high tides had opened the Acadian dykes; some of those destructive storms no doubt coincided with a perigean syzygy.

Bad luck with the dykes plagued the Planters long after the Acadians had been expelled, and as mentioned the 1759 storm was one of the worst. Almost two years after the great storm of 1759 the dykes were still in disrepair, mainly because the government stalled on paying for repairs.

When first completed the Wellington Dyke was wrecked by a combination of wind and high tides that, which from Ernest Eaton’s description of this storm, may have been the dreaded perigean syzygy. “The last gap was closed in 1832,” Eaton said. “This was the signal for a general celebration but that night a severe storm and high tide washed out the new work and daylight saw the sea again in possession.”

According to Ivan Smith the combination of elements called the perigian syzygy will occur several times in the next decade, and at least five times this year. “None of these is dangerous by itself,” Smith writes. But beware the perigean syzygy if an intense storm arrives at high tide time. Serious damage can then be expected, Smith says.

Perigean syzygies will occur in this region in mid-April and mid-May and in the last three months of the year. Let’s hope no great storms rumble down the Fundy shoreline at this time.

“This paper was digested in July, 1755, at the period when the measure was first proposed, probably before it was sanctioned,” reads the introduction to a document titled “Judge Morris’ Remarks Concerning the Removal of the Acadians.”

Published in the collections of the Nova Scotia Historical Society in 1881, the document describes Acadian settlements in Kings and Hants County, suggesting how troops best be deployed so no one escaped the expulsion.

This papers assesses the military action necessary to complete the expulsion, and confirms that it indeed was a heartless, inhumane, cold-blooded affair. However, while it wasn’t Morris’ intent, his paper is a review of Acadian settlements here in the pre-expulsion period. You may be as surprised as I was to find that several flourishing Acadians settlements were within or close to Kentville, New Minas, Wolfville and Windsor. Here is Morris’ review of Acadian settlements as he saw them about 250 years ago:

“The greatest district and that which comprehends the most families is that of Minas, to whom belong the inhabitants of the Gaspero. In 1748 they were reported to be in number, upwards of 200 families, of which 180 families live in Minas, 30 on the Gaspero, and about 16 in two small villages on the River Habitants.

“These all dwell within the compass of six miles and occupy for their livelihood and subsistence these marshes which are situated on the Basin of Minas called Grand Pre, on the north of the River Habitants and on the River Gaspero.

“The River Canard settlement lies to the south west. and contains about 150 families, of whom 50 live on a point of land lying between the River Habitants and the River Canard; 60 live on the west side of the river in a compact village about two miles from its mouth, and 25 more up the river along the banks on both sides (for the convenience of the marsh) to Penus Mills, which are near the road coming from Annapolis to Minas; and distant from Grand Pre nine miles from the mouth of the Canard to the River of the Neiux Habitants, are settled 10 families and 4 or 5 families more at the River Pero. All these inhabitants have by rivers aforesaid a communication by water with the Basin of Minas and some live contiguous to it.

“Pezaquid is a settlement north-easterly of Minas; they are scattered in many small villages, the principal of which are settled on the River Pezaquid, above the confluence of the River St. Croix. On the River St. Croix these are situated between Fort Edward and the district of Minas and southerly towards the road to Halifax.

“A few small villages belonging to this district are to the east and northward of Fort Edward, and a few families at Cape Fondu, which makes the east head of the great river of Pezaquid. These have all communications by water with the Basin of Minas and are in the whole, upwards of 150 families.”

The point made over and over in this document is that the Acadians depended upon their rivers for transportation and these are “the passages by which they may desert the Colony and the means of blocking them up.” It strikes me as odd that the government is considering the removal of the Acadians, and yet wants to prevent them from leaving on their own.

It’s possible that Judge Morris’ paper hastened the expulsion. Inadvertently perhaps, the document pointed out that the Acadians thrived on vast farms acreage ripe for the taking.

It was a grand plan, a 100-foot wide, magnificent highway that like the 101 would connect Halifax with the western end of the province. However, the so-called Annapolis Road, first schemed up in 1796, wasn’t the only early super highway proposed for the province

Right here in Kings County, in the late 1800s, another great highway to run from Minas Basin westward to Annapolis was envisioned. Like the Annapolis Road, it too would be 100 feet wide; and like the Annapolis Road, it existed mostly on paper. Some of this great road would be surveyed, and sections would be laid out and worked on, but for the most part, it would exist only on survey maps and in boundary descriptions.

This was the Six Rod Road, a highway that was supposed to connect the port of Kingsport with the entire western area of the province and possibly the Bay of Fundy. The road was so named because, like the Annapolis Road, it was to be laid out six rods, or about 100 feet wide.

Unlike the Annapolis Road, on which much has been written, little is know of the Six Rod Road. Local researchers have scoured government papers without finding written records of the road. However, while details are sketchy and there’s no evidence the road was ever put out for public tender, sections of it were constructed and can be pinpointed today. And if local folklore is accurate, some of the existing highways in Kings County incorporate the few stretches of the Six Rod Road that were constructed.

I first heard about the Six Rod Road four years ago from history buff Leon Barron. Leon told me what he’d heard about the road from people of his father’s generation. That the terminal for the road was Kingsport and the road was intended for military and commercial use; upon completion, the road would connect the Minas Basin with the Bay of Fundy. The Rabbit Square road north-west of Canning is part of the Six Rod Road, Leon said.

Mention of the Six Rod Road in this column several years ago resulted in a call from Mildred Elliott, Canning, who told me the deed to their property mentions the road in the description of its boundaries. The driveway of Blaine North’s property near Canning is a piece of the Six Rod Road; Mr. North tells me the road ran through his property and traces are still visible.

Bains Road resident Lewis Hazel may know more about the Six Rod Road than any man in the county. Hazel, who operated a bulldozer on the highways in the Valley for 40 years, tells me the road was laid out by the government and there were plans to make the terminal, Kingsport, a major shipping outlet. From Kingsport, the road was supposed to run north and then west parallel to Bains Road, then to Lakeville and eventually to the Annapolis Basin.

Sections of the road can be seen in Kings County, Hazel said. The Dill Branch and Rabbit Square road are part of the Six Rod Road, for example. When working in Annapolis County he came across an old road that residents said has been known for generations as a section of the Six Rod Road. In one part of Kings County, the Six Rod Road was laid out through a swamp. “You can see the corduroy road,” Hazel said.

So little information exists about it that the Six Rod Road is a bit of a mystery. Folklore has it that the road was a federal government project and it would mainly be used for military purpose. Why was road never completed? The answer may be the demise of Kingsport as a major outlet to the sea as the age of sailing ships ended and the railway loomed on the horizon.

“You seem to be very interested in the Acadian history of the area,” Melissa Dimock wrote via e-mail from Ottawa. “Have you ever heard about the Dimock House?”

I hadn’t and it turned out that the Dimock house is one of the oldest standing dwelling in this region and may be Acadian in origin. I learned this when I asked Ms. Dimock for more information about the house.

Dimock house, which is located in Pereau about three miles north-east of Canning, is the “family homestead,” Ms. Dimock wrote. “It’s a tiny little thing and has no proper plumbing. It has been gutted for the last 10 years or so in an attempt to save it from the ravages of time.”

Ms. Dimock’s family has lived in Pereau for almost 200 years and have owned the Dimock house since 1873. The dwelling’s origin was suggested when Ms. Dimock’s father, Ron Dimock, noticed features about the house similar to Acadian construction. “A family trip to Louisbourg happened to coincide with my Dad’s repair work on the old house,” Ms. Dimock said. “While we were at the fort my Dad noticed striking similarities in the method of construction between some of the wooden buildings and our little house.”

“Our house was built in such a way that it could be taken apart and moved to another site quite easily – even transported by boat if need be. The whole house more or less rested on four huge cornerposts and was put together with pins. Since we knew our house predated 1800 – I don’t recall the exact date but I think we were able to trace ownership of the house back to around 1770 – (and) this is where things got interesting.

“A team of archaeologists came out and did a dig… but couldn’t find anything conclusive. A number of experts thought there was a good possibility that this was a pre-expulsion Acadian home that was somehow missed during the destruction of the settlements. The results of the dig were published in a curatorial report.”

The curatorial report Ms. Dimock referred to is on file at Acadia University and was published in 1991. The archaeological survey of Dimock House was done in 1988 and as Ms. Dimock mentioned, no definite conclusion were reached re its Acadian origin. In its conclusions the report said that there was “an apparent conflict between the architectural elements, which appear to be of a style associated with the Acadian period, and the ownership history which can only be traced into the late 18th century.”

While the report stated that excavations did not produce clear evidence of an Acadian occupation, it didn’t rule out this possibility. The report suggested several possibilities on the origin of the house; one is that Dimock House is Acadian, was overlooked during the general destruction of Acadian property during the expulsion, and was moved to its present location some time after 1755.

Given the fact that many Acadians “escaped the expulsion decree in the Minas area and were later used as labourers by the Planters,” it’s possible that Dimock House was built by Acadians and occupied by New Englanders.

Another possibility suggested in the curatorial report is that Dimock House was built by Acadians who returned to the Minas area after the expulsion. A search of deeds by Ron Dimock found that in 1796 the house was owned by a man with an Acadian surname, Dan Pineo.

The curatorial report suggests that further research is needed to determine the origin of Dimock House, but nothing has been done since the 1998 survey.

“According to notice, a meeting of physicians of Kings County was held in the Court House at Kentville on Saturday the 21st. inst. to organize a Medical Society. The following were in attendance viz. Drs. Brown, C. C. Hamilton, McLatchy, Dodge, Balcom, Shaw, Fitch, Payzant, Sheffield, C. W. F. Hamilton, Dennison, Struthers, Dickey and Outhet.”

This first meeting of the Kings County Medical Society was held in December, 1867; readers will recognise among the participants names of families long associated with this region, some of which either came from Planter stock or have roots going back a century and more. Dr. C. C. Hamilton is mentioned in Eaton’s Kings County history as a pioneer in the formation of an early agricultural society, for example; Eaton refers to the Den(n)ison family, and he calls its founder one of “the most important of the Kings County grantees.”

The Kings Medical Society existed until 1907 when it merged with a similar body in Annapolis County. The minutes of the inaugural meeting of the Society, recorded in a ledger now on file at the Kings County Museum, states the reasons for forming this body. The first resolution passed by the Society – we’d probably call it a mission statement today – states its main object to be “the advancement of medical science,” and the examination of all subjects pertaining to the medical profession. It is the “bounden right of every physician to do his utmost to advance the interests of medical science,” the new Society states in its first resolution.

The Society was also concerned with protecting the rights of members of the medical profession. Why this would be an issue is puzzling but there must have been some concern since the “protection of the rights of its members” is the third stated aim of the Society.

Article eight of the Society’s constitution offers a clue to its concern about physician rights. This article states that a “managing committee shall examine the qualifications of all new candidates for membership (and) shall adjudicate upon all disputed questions of a professional nature.”

We can assume from this article that as well as aiming to advancing medical science, the Society was set up to police itself and to deal with false claims made by the purveyors of patent medicines. Read any newspaper from the period the Society was formed and you’ll find advertisements on every page claiming miraculous cures for every illness known to man simply by taking a pill or slathering the body with salves and liniments

A clue to the fact that the medical profession was organising to fight folk medicine quackery and general ignorance about bodily ills is found early on in the Society minutes. Only a few months after it was formed, Society members passed a motion that one of its members, Dr. Borden, “read a Public Lecture on Patent Medicines at the next meeting.”

Section five of the Society’s mission statement comes to the point on this, reading in part that members will “endeavor by all possible means to promote harmony in the profession and to suppress the baneful influence of quackery.”

As noted, the Society merged in 1907 with a similar group in Annapolis County, becoming the Annapolis and Kings Medical Society. This was followed by the Valley Medical Society which existed from 1910 into the 1920s.