No statue of him exists anywhere, and as far as I know, no plaque honoring him and his accomplishments exists anywhere either. Until the Internet came along, you had to dig into relatively obscure corners – the publications of the Nova Scotia Historical Society, for example – to find any mention of this gentleman.

Even today when information flows freely, little is known of the man who in the 19^th produced a groundbreaking series of maps of the counties of Nova Scotia. Ambrose Finson Church is virtually unknown, and he still remains a man of mystery; yet his masterpieces, the “Church maps,” are hailed as genealogical treasures and are unequaled as a genealogy tool.

In this area, for example, one of the first things most people consult when searching for their roots is the topographical map Church prepared of Kings County. There’s no better place to start actually. The Kings County map indicates the heads of households in each community, indicates approximately where households were situated along county roads, and as a bonus, lists tradesmen and prominent citizens.

Between 1865 and 1888, Church produced a series of county maps for the province, 18 in all. Church produced his first map, of Halifax County, in 1865; his last map, of Queens County, was made in 1888. Somewhere in between these dates the map of Kings County was produced; while this map is dated 1864, the Department of Natural Resources records indicate it was published in 1872. When Church actually surveyed householders and drew up the map of Kings County isn’t known but it must have been between 1865 and 1872.

As popular as the Church maps are with genealogists, professional and amateur alike, Church, as I said, is a relatively mysterious figure; he was an American citizen and may have been a deserter from the army. Around 1969, the provincial archivist Charles Bruce Fergusson made a determined effort to write the story of Ambrose Church and his maps. “Justice to his memory and a proper appreciation of his work seem to warrant at least a biographical sketch,” Fergusson wrote.

However, Fergusson quickly discovered that writing the biography would be difficult. “I was amazed at how little information was generally available,” he wrote after checking a variety of records. Extending his search to America and as far as Rio de Janeiro, Fergusson eventually determined that Church arrived in Nova Scotia in 1865. In the States he had been employed with a mapmaker, Jacob Chace Jr., who in 1862 had been dickering with the Nova Scotia government regarding the creation of county maps and had already surveyed portions of the province.

On the death of Chace in 1864, Church offered to furnish the maps that Chace proposed. As mentioned, Church produced the maps between 1865 and 1888, but only a few false starts and lengthy negotiations with the government, which Fergusson chronicles in detail.

As for the biographical sketch, the best Fergusson could come up with was a general description of Church – “a bearded, short, rather stout sort of man who always wore a beaver hat” – some general information on his immediate family, and the fact that while he was a “respected resident of Nova Scotia for many years,” he never relinquished his American citizenship. In the 1970 paper on Church in the publications of the Nova Scotia Historical Society, Fergusson writes that in addition to the county maps, Church produced a map of the Dominion of Canada in 1867 and in 1889, a mineral map of Nova Scotia.

Church left Nova Scotia for Rio de Janeiro around 1914; he died there of a stroke in 1920. Fergusson concluded his sketch of Church with the statement that “his maps, particularly his County Maps of Nova Scotia, are his memorial.” Copies of the Church county maps are available from the Department of Natural Resources.

“Perhaps it was 200 years ago the Acadians spied the advantage of the land, settled there, made some clearings and planted their orchards,” Dr. Benjamin Rand wrote in the 19^th century. Rand is quoted by provincial archivist W. C. Milner in his book, The Basin of Minas and Its Early Settlers. Published circa 1930 in Wolfville, the book contains some 70 historical articles, many on the early villages around the Minas Basin.

Dr. Rand is referring to the Acadian site that eventually would become the village of Canning. However, the Mi’kmaq were there first. Rand notes that it was the Mi’kmaq who found the location a “natural one, owing to the head of the river,” and established an encampment there well before the Acadians arrived. When the Acadians settled here, they, like the Mi’kmaq, “spied the advantage of the land …. made some clearings and planted their orchards.”

In Acadian times, Rand says, “apple trees grew down to the tideway of Canning and the shipping of the port consisted of shad boats that going out in the ebb, returned in the flood with their fares.” The Acadians remained at this site “until the ‘Grande Derangement’ of 1755, when harried and beaten they fled.”

This is one of the earliest glimpses we have of Canning, thanks to Milner who as provincial archivist, had access to many unpublished historical papers and compiled them in a book. Of course we owe a debt to Rand, as well. In his time he was a noted historian and genealogist. Rand is mentioned several times in Eaton’s Kings County history, and some of his research on Canning is included in this work.

Many of the villages W. C. Milner profiled in his book were in Kings County, and many of his historical sketches centered around the County as well. Also, the fact that he published his entire book in installments in the Wolfville Acadian leads me to believe he favored this area and had a Kings County connection. This may have been through marriage since there’s no record of a Milner family in the Wolfville history, Mud Creek.

By the way, here’s an aside from the Milner book. Port Williams, says Milner, was almost named Bestville, apparently because most of the land in the village was once owned by Elisha Best. “But patriotic sentiment prevailed,” Milner writes, to call it Port Williams “to perpetuate the name of General Williams who came from Halifax to inspect the little garrison at Town Plot.”

The story of the War of 1812 has been told and retold by historians from almost every possible viewpoint and it’s beyond the scope of this column to rehash this conflict.

However, if you’re one of the countless walkers who enjoy the hiking path that begins on Cornwallis Street in Kentville and runs eastward towards New Minas, you have to pass the north side of Oak Grove Cemetery. In doing so, you have strolled near a Kentville connection with the War of 1812. Obviously, the connection must be something in the cemetery. But before I tell you more about this, let’s look at some early Kentville history and the story of Oak Grove Cemetery.

The cemetery officially came in to existence in 1817 and was part of the farm of Benjamin Peck Jr., a second generation Planter. Three writers on Kentville’s early days, Mabel G. Nichols, E. J. Cogswell and Leslie Eugene Dennison, mention that the half acre of hill that became Oak Grove

Cemetery was used as a burial ground before 1817; Cogswell refers to it as “the old oak burial ground,” Dennison says it was called “The Oaks,” and Nichols says it was once known as Oakhill Cemetery and some headstones there date from 1774.

It’s recorded in Eaton’s Kings County history that when Benjamin Peck Jr. sold his farm in 1817, his parents and several other persons were buried there. It was the half acre, a knoll where his parents were buried, that Peck reserved as a public burial ground when the farm was sold.

Now we come to the gentleman who purchased the farm and the connection with the War of 1812. He was none other than one of the most famous privateers in Nova Scotia history, Capt. Joseph Barss Jr. of Liverpool. Barss was one of many Nova Scotia privateers that harassed American shipping on the Atlantic during the war and he was one of the most successful. Commanding the schooner Liverpool Packet, in one year Barss captured 33 American vessels, becoming famous – and rich – in the process.

Barss’ luck as a privateer ran out on June 11, 1812, when he was forced to surrender the Liverpool Packet to a much larger and better armed schooner out of New Hampshire. Barss was imprisoned along with his crew; he was set free, says one source, during a prisoner exchange. Another source, a Queens County website, says Barss was set free on condition that he not return to privateering.

Several years after being released, in 1817, Barss and his family moved to Kentville and purchased the farm of Benjamin Peck Jr. Why Kentville? you may ask. This may be explained by Barss’ marriage in 1804 to Olivia DeWolf. In a way, the move to Kentville was a homecoming for Olivia. She was the daughter of one of Wolfville’s most prestigious natives, Judge Elisha DeWolf. Mud Creek, the Wolfville history, notes that DeWolf held public office for 53 years; he served as High Sheriff of Kings County, as a postmaster, excise collector, Justice of the Peace and was elected to the provincial legislature on three occasions.

Barss raised a large family after he settled on his farm in Kentville, says one source, but his stay would be a short one. Less than a decade after buying the Peck farm, in 1824, Barss died; he was in his 49^th year. Barss was buried in Oak Grove Cemetery, and his headstone still stands there.

Now you know about Kentville’s War of 1812 connection and the famous privateer buried in the town.

“I know where New Minas is, but where’s old Minas?” a friend asked when I mentioned the village is celebrating its incorporation.

It wasn’t a serious question, but it’s difficult to answer. While there obviously was an area once known as Minas (otherwise there couldn’t be a “new” one) historians aren’t sure exactly what area it comprised. Two historians, Arthur W. H. Eaton (History of Kings County) and John F. Herbin (History of Grand Pre) say that the exact limits of Minas are difficult to define.

Actually, Eaton quotes Herbin in noting that Minas, or Mines as the French are said to have called it, may have included all the lands bordering the counties four rivers – Pereau, Canning (Habitant) Cornwallis (Grand Habitant) and Gaspereau. Eaton adds that Minas may have at one time also included the Acadian settlements around Windsor and what is now the town of Kentville.

We’ll leave it up to professional historians, the people with history degrees, to determine the old-time boundaries of Minas. In the meanwhile, since the village is celebrating its 40^th anniversary, here from a variety of sources are some folklore and facts about New Minas.

Most historians agree that it was the French who first referred to this general area as Mines (les Mines). However, Charles G. D. Roberts, in a tourist and sportsman’s guidebook he wrote in 1891, says Portuguese explorers left their mark on this area in such names as Blomidon, Bay of Fundy and Minas. (Quoted in Ivan Smith’s Nova Scotia History Index website). The inference is that Minas is of Portuguese rather than French origin, which is doubtful.

In Hutchinson’s Nova Scotia Directory for 1864-65, the entry for New Minas shows the village then had 68 residents, 21 with the Bishop surname. The majority of residents were listed as farmers. At the time, New Minas had two blacksmiths, a shoemaker, a marblecutter, a tanner, a millwright, a tanner, a carriagemaker, a watchmaker and a couple of carpenters. Henry Strong is listed as merchant in the village and there was also a way office with Abraham Seaman as the keeper. (Sources: Milner’s The Basin of Minas and Its Early Settlers and the Ambrose Church map of Kings County).

“The Mines is a settlement about four or five years old,” M. Gargas wrote in 1787; this must be an error in the year since most historian state that the settlement began “about 1680.” The quote is from Milner’s book mentioned above and he gives his source as Canadian historian Dr. W. Inglis Morse who studied “national records in France.” Milner follows up with a Gargas census of Mines in 1687-88, which shows that the area then had 163 residents with one priest, a church and a mill.

According to Gargas, Mines was then comprised of 26 houses. Livestock numbered 130 cattle, 70 sheep and 40 geese. At the time, some 45 acres of marshland was under cultivation.

In contrast to Hutchinson’s Directory, quoted above, the business directory in the Ambrose Church map, dated 1864, only lists 14 New Minas residents. Ambrose Church charged a fee for listings in his directory, which probably explains the huge difference in his and the Hutchinson figures.

“About an hour ago I went (to your railway website) and just kept on reading and reading,” I wrote Internet historian Ivan Smith when we were “chatting” back and forth via e-mail recently.

The local train schedules posted on Smith’s website brought back memories of the time some 60 years ago when I had a newspaper route that involved trains. My route consisted of picking up a bundle of daily newspapers from the morning train from Halifax, then taking the train to Camp Aldershot to hawk them.

I wrote Ivan Smith that I was mixed up about how I could pick up newspapers from one train and then immediately after, take the train to Camp Aldershot. “Surely,” I wrote, “the train that came up from Halifax didn’t make the run north to Aldershot, Steam Mill, Centreville, and so on, but it’s confused in my mind. I was just a kid then, not in my teens. As I recall, there was little time between picking up my papers and jumping on the train to Aldershot Camp.”

I was in a sort of unique situation, but I didn’t know it at the time. I had a wartime newspaper route requiring two railway lines to make it work. I didn’t realize this until Ivan Smith explained how the railway was operating two lines.

“The train from Halifax did not go northward to Aldershot, Steam Mill, Canning and Kingsport. The train from Halifax continued westward along the Valley, toward Yarmouth. There was a separate train from Kentville northward to Kingsport. The Kentville, Aldershot, Steam Mill Canning, Kingsport train ran on the Cornwallis Valley Railway, which was owned by the D.A.R. The C.V.R. trains were scheduled to connect closely with the D.A.R. trains. When a D.A.R. passenger train arrived at Kentville, a C.V.R. train was ready, standing at the station on a separate parallel track, about 20 feet north of the D.A.R. main line.

“Passengers could get off the just-arrived D.A.R. train, walk across the platform and get on the waiting C.V.R. train. Meanwhile, the D.A.R. conductor would be keeping a close eye on his train, which was scheduled to hold at Kentville for 15 minutes, so there was lots of time for arriving passengers to get off and departing passengers to get on. There would even have been time for a passenger to get off and buy a sandwich at the station restaurant.

“You would have got your newspapers from the baggage car, and walked across to the waiting C.V.R. train. There was no fear the train would leave without you. If the incoming train from Halifax happened to be late for any reason, the C.V.R. train would wait until it arrived so that passengers could make the connection. The train crews in those days were careful that nobody was left behind.”

Isn’t it odd how you suddenly remember things clearly, once someone tells you what you should remember? In other words, once Ivan Smith told me how the wartime trains ran north from Kentville, I recalled doing exactly what he said. I paid the princely sum of 10 cents for the train ride north to Camp Aldershot. Not a lot maybe, but it cut into the 70 or 80 cents I generally made every day if I sold all my papers.

In the Kentville history she wrote in 1979 for the Board of Trade, Heather Davidson says that when the railway arrived in the town, a resident on hearing the shriek of the engine exclaimed, “O, Lord, have mercy! I hear Gabriel’s horn.”

Ms. Davidson gives her source for the quote as Clarke’s History of the Earliest Railway in Nova Scotia. Sure enough, this story is there and the author of the railway history, W. W. Clarke, tells it this way:

“An amusing incident is told concerning the appearance of the first engine on the D.A.R. which landed at Elderkin Creek (immediately east of Kentville). A …. citizen hearing the shriek of the engine whistle was seized with fear and fell into the culvert near the jail, shrieking “Oh Lord, have mercy! I hear Gabriel’s horn.”

Possibly one of the first history books on the Dominion Atlantic Railway (predating Marguerite Woodworth’s D.A.R. history by about a decade) Clarke’s book is a chatty work which along with railway history, includes various humorous events in the D.A.R.’s early days. My favorite story is the tale about how a railway manager dealt with the countless people who besieged him, seeking free passes on the train. Clarke says the manager made up a card he passed out to anyone mooching for a free ride. The card read: “Bible against Free Passes – Thou shalt not pass. – Num. 20:18; None shall ever pass. – Isaiah 34: 10; Suffer not a man to pass. – Judges 3 28; The wicked shall no more pass. – Nahum. 1:15; This generation shall not pass. – Mark 13; Though they roar they cannot pass. – Jer. 5: 22.”

Older Valley residents have heard of the “Blueberry Special,” a D.A.R. train said to move so slowly you could get out along the way, pick blueberries and hop back on again.

There may be a kernel of truth to this – if Clarke’s story about a passenger who had time to get off the train and milk a cow is true. The way Clarke tells it, a passenger was “moved to pity by the incessant wail of a baby” whose mother had forgotten a supply of milk. At a stop, the passenger hopped off the train and “vaulting a fence proceeded to milk a cow grazing in a neighboring pasture.” He returned to the train with a “generous drink” for the baby.

And finally, Clarke says the railway wasn’t strict on who or what boarded the train in the early days. He writes, “Oldtime travelers recall the days when the trains stopping at Windsor Junction would be boarded by the goats which provided milk for a number of the Junction homes. Walking through the cars, the goats would visit the passengers in the quest of something to eat.”

What’s interesting about an old, tattered, ink stained country store ledger that’s little more than a list of almost 400 customers and their mundane, long ago purchases?

Well, if you were Mack Frail and working on a history of Centreville, it would be a whole lot interesting. “It’s a wonderful document,” says Frail, “and for me a step back into the past.” The ledger came from Ron and Bernice Ward’s General Store in Centreville and is over 150 years old. The account book was kept by Reuben Thorpe, one of the store’s early proprietors.

Mack Frail has been poring over the ledger and for starters, he’s made a list of every person who shopped at Thorpe’s store in 1878. Frail tells me the customer list he’s compiled has made his research on Centreville history easier. From the genealogical side, it’s also helpful for anyone who wants to check on long ago Centreville and area residents.

The old ledger is interesting in other ways as well. Actually it provides glimpses of everyday living in Centreville, and by extension, in Kings County in the late part of the 19^th century. For one thing, the various necessities people purchased in those days is revealing. Mack Frail has compiled a list of what some of Reuben Thorpe’s customers bought at his store and they reflect living conditions at the time. Bottles of ink, snuff, milk pails, chimney lamps, and flour by the barrel, for example, are only a few of the things Thorpe’s customers required in 1878.

The prices Thorpe’s customers paid for the necessities of life in 1878 are also interesting. At the time you had to lay out 55 cents for a gallon of molasses, six cents for a pound of codfish, 18 cents for a pound of butter, and 10 cents for a can of mustard. Frail tells me the barter system was used at the time as well and Thorpe’s ledger indicates his customers exchanged cords of wood and eggs for groceries, clothing and so on.

Undoubtedly, many of the 397 patrons of Thorpe’s store in 1878 were Centreville residents. Thus the customer list complained by Mack Frail reinforces a belief that Centreville once was a dominantly Irish settlement; or to put it another way, that Centreville had a pocket of Irish immigrants in the early days. We can find Kellys, Brenans, Colemans, Kavanaghs, Haggertys, Lynch, Sullivans, Magees, Foleys and other Irish surnames in Thorpe’s ledger.

Of course, the Bishops, Rockwells, Bills, Bests, Bordens, Chipmans, Rands, Woodworths and other family names from the early days in Kings County, of which many are descended from the Planters, are represented in the old ledger as well.

In his book on building the Wellington Dyke (published in 1990) The Advertiser’s Associate Editor Brent Fox writes that as well as colossal amounts of soil, stone and wood, some 4,260 loads of brush was part of the construction material that was required.

While this is speculation, the odds are that while some of this brush was spruce boughs, much of it was the speckled alder. It’s a well known fact that in their early years in Kings and Hants County, the Planters, having problems with the dykes and aboiteaux, eventually turned to the Acadians for guidance. And surely the Acadians would have passed on what they had discovered in generations of dyke building: That one of the most suitable and hardiest of materials for dyke building was abundant and was close at hand – the alder tree.

For most people the alder is an insignificant bush that grows in damp areas, old fields and on the edges of dykelands. Yet few trees have played as varied a role, albeit a minor one, in colonial and farm life as the alder. From the day the Acadians arrived in Kings County, and possibly even before that with the Mi’kmaq, many uses were found for the alder, an amazing variety of uses, in fact, and it seems the alder may have been indispensable.

I’ve been collecting information on alders for years and my “alder file” is bulging with facts and folklore on the tree. Here’s some of the more interesting stuff (with sources given were possible):

Because alder roots bear nitrogen-rich nodules, drained alder flats can be quite fertile and suitable for raising leafy vegetables. It is said that the best way to clear an alder-bed is to fence it, let one or two pigs root about it for a summer, and then remove the dead stems. Department of Lands and Forests bulletin #37. Trees of Nova Scotia, by Gary Saunders.

The Acadians, our first good farmers, made sabots for their feet out of alder wood. Alder wood does not warp. French people, back home, have been wearing them for years … Acadians in Nova Scotia were uniquely adept at constructing dykes, strong enough to withstand the Fundy tides, the highest and mightiest in the world. Acadian dykes are banks of clay and mud, reinforced with stones and alder trees. Elsie Churchill Tolson, Nova Scotia Historical Quarterly.

The preferred wood for producing the charcoal used in making gunpowder in the old days was alder. The History of Guns and Gunpowder by George J. Cleveland, 1960.

Alder is popular as a material for electric guitar bodies. It is used by many guitar makers, notably the Fender Guitar Company, who use it on top quality instruments. Wikipedia.

Historical writers Marguerite Woodworth (History of the D.A.R) and Hattie Chittick (Hantsport history) both tell the story about the problems the railway had in 1869 when attempting to build a causeway between Hantsport and Mount Denson. When the causeway was destroyed again and again by the Minas Basin tides, the railway finally turned to “descendants of Acadians” who built a causeway that stood. The causeway was constructed of Avon River clay, stones and alder bushes.

The smoking of gaspereaux, or alewives if you wish, has been a tradition in the Gaspereau Valley for generations. One of the most popular woods used in the smoking process are green alder boughs. Article in The Advertiser, 1968, by Ed Coleman.

A valuable quality of alder wood is that it is excellent for making such things as are kept constantly in water …. An example cited is piles for piers. Hard to imagine, since alders are spindly, but since the wood is capable of withstanding long immersion in water, wharves have been built on alder woodpiles. Elsie Churchill Tolson.

In Place Names and Places of Nova Scotia, Charles Bruce Fergusson gives one of the early names of Berwick as Congdon’s Settlement. In the history of Kings County, Arthur W. H Eaton writes that Berwick’s early name was Congdon’s Corner. A map of Cornwallis Township, prepared in 1818-19 by the Surveyor General, shows the place where Berwick is located as Condon’s Corner, which was likely a misspelling of Congdon.

Now, determining if Condon’s Corner, Congdon’s Corner, Congdon’s Settlement and Berwick are various names for the same place may not seem important. However, on the map of Cornwallis Township dated December 1818, January 1819, is reference to a scheme to physically connect the Cornwallis River with the Annapolis River, and determining if Condon’s Corner and Berwick are one and the same is relevant.

If you accept the Surveyor General’s map as accurate, it indicates that a scheme was proposed in 1818 or earlier to build a canal connecting the Cornwallis River and the Annapolis River. The Township map clearly shows the route the canal would take and indicates it would start close to Condon’s Corner; inscribed on the map is a line reading, “Proposed canal from Annapolis River to Cornwallis River.”

Richard Skinner pointed out the reference to the canal when I was talking with him recently about the old Cornwallis Township map. I must admit that this was the first I’d heard of the canal and my first thought was that it was strange. Why a canal connecting the two rivers? Of what use would it be – military, commercial, for transportation of people and farm goods or what?

The old map indicates the canal would run from the Cornwallis River, then head in a westerly direction and pass north of the “Great Caraboo Bog,” which is near Aylesford. Once it passed the bog, the canal was supposed to head southwest into Aylesford Township and eventually connect with the upper part of the Annapolis River.

Connecting the Cornwallis River with the Annapolis Rover via a canal would be a costly undertaking, even in the early 19^th century. Such a canal would connect Minas Basin with the Annapolis Basin and perhaps this is why it was proposed. Of what benefit such a connection would be is a mystery to me. However, digging such a canal must have considered, else it would not have shown up on the Surveyor General’s map of Kings County.

Since it was included in the official Township map, can we assume the proposed canal had the blessing of the provincial government? Was it a government project that was briefly considered and then forgotten? And one more question: Why, in all that has been written on the history of Kings County, has no mention been made of a proposed canal connecting the two rivers? After all, it would’ve been a major project for its time.

The answers to these questions may lie in a dusty file somewhere in the provincial archives. Meanwhile, if anyone has information on the canal, something in family lore for example, I’d like to hear from you.

Hundreds, possibly even thousands of ships may have been built along the Bay of Fundy and around the Minas Basin shore during the age of sail. Many of those ships were registered and can be found in marine archives, but there was a period when marine registries such as the one at Windsor didn’t exist. In other words, there may be no official records of some of ships that were built in tiny, now forgotten ports and many are remembered only in family records and folklore.

Given the time frame when these ships were being built – the early Planter period to the first decade of the 20th century – researching and compiling records would be a difficult, time consuming task requiring dedication, perseverance, and a lot of detective work

Obviously, Hantsport marine historian Joey St. Clair Patterson has that dedication and perseverance in abundance. Next month, Patterson will release Hantsport Shipbuilding 1849-1893, a book he wrote after nearly a quarter century of research into shipping and genealogy records. Patterson began working on his book after he moved to Hantsport in 1985.

The title of Patterson’s book is a bit misleading, but that’s to the reader’s gain. Yes, the book is all about Hantsport shipbuilding, with particular emphasis on the renowned shipyards of the Churchill family. But before getting into the shipbuilding, Patterson covers the early history of Hantsport in detail with biographies of its founding families, many of whom were seafarers as well as shipbuilders of renown.

Patterson’s book is also a record of shipbuilders outside of the Hantsport area. While telling the story of Hantsport shipbuilding, he writes about the shipyards of Kingsport, Canning, and the shipyards great and small in other seaside communities around the Minas Basin and Fundy shore that turned out more than a few famous sailing crafts.

Nova Scotia was once known world wide as a country of hardy seafarers and shipbuilders. I never understood how Nova Scotia earned this reputation, but Patterson’s work explains it to some extent. Those hardy seafarers and the wooden ships that carried them around the world are brought to life by Joey Patterson. Page after page of seafaring lore, the stories of the men behind Nova Scotia’s shipbuilding era, make up a book that marine history buffs will cherish.

As I intimated, this is really two books in one: A history book, about Hantsport and its founders, and a book about marine lore and sailing ships. You’ll enjoy both aspects of the book.

(Patterson’s book launching will take place on August 13 from 2 to 4 p.m. in the Hantsport Memorial Community Centre.)