Occasionally readers will pose questions about local history that are difficult to answer without a lot of research. Recently, for example, Kentville reader John Cochrane asked me if we knew much about the history of the Cornwallis River, if it had Acadian, Planter or Mi’kmaq links, and so on.

Right off I can state that a comprehensive history of the river has never been penned. The late Esther Clark Wright, the author of Blomidon Rose, contemplated writing this history. I suggested in my column that while the Cornwallis isn’t historically significant, its story deserves to be written. To this end, about a decade ago I started a file on the river and occasionally I find things to add to it. Eventually, I might write this history but don’t take any bets on it happening.

In the meanwhile, spurred by John Cochrane’s query and the move afoot to remove Cornwallis from the river’s name, I took a look at my file. For starters, I found several proposals in the file (some of them bizarre) that would have altered the course of the river and changed several communities. Twice in the past, in 1865 and 1912, the government passed acts permitting private companies to place aboiteaus on the river at Port Williams. Nothing came of these schemes. And nothing came of a scheme, proposed circa 1818 to build a canal connecting the Cornwallis River with the Annapolis River.

The Cornwallis River is named after Edward Cornwallis who became governor of Nova Scotia in 1749. In the 17^th century, the Acadians called the river the Riviere St. Antoine and in the 18^th century the Riviere Des Habitation. For a short period, until Cornwallis was honoured by having it named after him, the Planters referred to the stream as the Horton River.

On what date was the name “Cornwallis” bestowed on the river? The best I can come up with is that it had to be between 1749 and 1761 since a map drawn in 1761 shows the Cornwallis River. Oddly, another map drawn by DesBarres in 1779 shows the Cornwallis River running almost side by side with the Horton River; yet historians tell us Horton was the Planter name for river before it became known as the Cornwallis.

When was the first bridge built on the Cornwallis River? A 19^th century Kentville historian, Edmond J. Cogswell, claims the Acadians built the first bridge, about where the current bridge spans the river in Kentville. In the history of Kings County Arthur W. H. Eaton writes that the first bridge on the Cornwallis was built “at least as early as 1780” at Port Williams but this is disputed. The Acadians apparently ran a ferry on the river just below Port Williams and the Planters followed suit. For a time there was a ferry as well as a bridge on the river.

Oddly, the Cornwallis River played a role in Kentville becoming a major commercial centre. Originally it was planned to run the railway north from Greenwich and across the river to Port Williams – and then head due west and northwest, bypassing Kentville. The tremendous cost of spanning the river at Port Williams, where the tides are treacherous, changed the railway’s mind. A more direct route up the Valley through Kentville was chosen and the town became a retail mecca.

Like most people of my generation, we had fathers and grandfathers who lived through prohibition in Kings County. From them we heard tales about rum running on the Bay of Fundy and Minas Basin, about bootlegging and North Mountain stills, about the lively cat and mouse games that often left the provincial police force red-faced and embarrassed and gave people a few things to laugh about

Many a tale of those times have been told and re-told around the kitchen table but few have been written down. Oral histories they remain but there are some exceptions. The late Alex Middleton (1915-1999) provided one of them. Middleton came here from Scotland in 1929, his family eventually settling in Steam Mill. In 1985 he decided to write a book (as yet unpublished) about growing up on a farm, so his descendants would have a record of what life was like in his time.

While prohibition ended about the time Middleton arrived here, he heard the stories and he recorded some of them in his book. During prohibition, rum running was a way of life for some people. It was often easy for rum runners to elude the police, Middleton writes, relating the time the police got a tip that a cargo of hard stuff was due to be unloaded at Scotts Bay on a certain day. “Of course the police all headed there in hope of a major haul at high tide. There was a boat out there all right, but it didn’t come in; it just stayed offshore long enough to hold the police there while the real load was unloaded in Canning. Such actions were very common and it was almost impossible to catch anyone with the goods.”

Bootlegging was a little more difficult, Middleton says, since there was a “greater risk of squealers,” people who would turn you in without a second thought. “The bootlegger that was most prosperous (i.e. successful) was the one that had his own trusted customers and refused to sell to anyone else.

“They had many elaborate ruses to protect themselves. I heard of one bootlegger in Canning that grew that grew a lot of vegetables to sell. He planted booze in the garden after dark; when his customers wanted a pint they had to buy vegetables for camouflage and go into the garden to pick them.

“Another very prominent bootlegger in Aldershot fooled the police for years; they raided him countless time without discovering where he hid his booze. Years later, after the county had gone ‘wet,’ one of the police approached this man and asked him about the hideout. The cop was sitting at it right then; it was one of those old-fashioned dining room tables with five legs, and every one of them hollow and could hold four pint bottles of rum.”

As well as bootleggers who worked out of their homes, Middleton says that during prohibition there were many moonshine stills on the North Mountain, and out in isolated communities a lot of beer was made and sold during prohibition.

Where do you start when writing about the most definitive, most complex book ever compiled on the dykeland legacy of the Acadians?

J. Sherman Bleakney’s book is exactly that – definitive and complex. Sods, Soil, and Spades examines in detail the period from 1680 to 1755 when the Acadians created an unusual French subculture at Grand Pre. Bleakney wrote his book as a marine biologist looking at how the Acadians conquered the Minas Basin tides and how those tides created a unique people. His book isn’t a history, Bleakney forewarns us, but marine biology aside, historical it is since he creates a timeline that starts with the arrival of the Acadians at Grand Pre, a timeline carried on into the Planter period and beyond.

As a marine biologist, Bleakney spent more than 40 years investigating the biological aspects of the Minas Basin, often finding along the way intriguing remnants of Acadian dykeing. This led in turn to further investigation, in particular around Grand Pre, and the result is a book that tells us who the Acadians were and how they converted thousands of acres of tidal meadows, a unique marine environment, into fertile farmland that still serves us today.

As I asked at the beginning – where do I start? Perhaps in 1994 when beginning that year and over the next decade Bleakney accumulated a “treasure trove of artefacts, just plain facts, hypotheses and scenarios” about the Acadians, all dyke related and all found in “local muds, in local minds, in local museums and libraries, in maps, and at meetings.”

Bleakney consolidated this data into a series of chapters on Minas Basin geology, tides, grasses, dyke construction, rising sea levels, old maps and aerial photographs. Reading these chapters, you’ll learn about such things as dyke making and how it was done (and its ancient Roman connection) about historic Acadian roads, the Acadian/Wolfville connection, the grasses the Acadians favoured in dyke making and why.

There’s much, much more than this in Bleakney’s book, including Acadian farming firsts and numerous historical and geological asides that alone make the book a fascinating read. Bleakney tells us, for example, that a part of Nova Scotia originated in Morocco, Africa and another part in Europe, which I bet most of us didn’t know.

J. Sherman Bleakney is a retired professor of biology, Acadia University, and he lives in Wolfville. He has published several books on marine biology. Sods, Soil, and Spades, originally published in 2004, can be found in local bookstores and online.

We’re about to see it happen – the Bay of Fundy’s tidal power will soon be harnessed. And while there are legitimate environmental concerns that must first be addressed, the unlimited power offered by those awesome Fundy tides will trump everything.

This is a history column, however, and the last place to discuss the pros and cons of Fundy tidal power. However, the history behind early attempts to harness the Fundy tides is interesting. I started writing about those attempts in this and other newspapers over a decade ago and I’m still finding new things about them; some “attempts,” as I found, were mere dreams, some came close to fruition, and other grand schemes were just that – grand schemes that quietly faded away. (column 1, column 2, column3, column 4, column 5)

One of the most curious ideas for harnessing the Fundy involved building a combination of a monster bridge with tidal turbines across the upper Bay of Fundy. This was around 1908 and the plan was to run the bridge from the Cape Split side of the Fundy northward to Spencer’s Island, a distance of roughly five kilometres.

As mentioned in an earlier article on Fundy tidal power, this must have been a “paper plan.” That is, the idea for the bridge and turbines was conceived, drawn up on paper, floated (no pun intended) with various financial sources and then forgotten when no one was interested. The paper plan shows a bridge with turbines stashed below it, a bridge with a highway and train tracks.

A lot more is known about a 1916 plan to harness the Fundy tides. This came close to fruition but in the end, lack of financing killed it. A group called the Cape Split Development Company was formed in 1916 and the scheme in general was to pump sea water into 200-million-litre power generating holding tanks at the top of Cape Split. The seawater was to be pumped up to the tanks with generators powered by a series of motors placed on the sea bed. The motors were tide generated turbines invented by an Acadia University professor, Dr. Ralph Clarkson.

The Clarkson motor proved it could do the generating all right but few people were willing to put money up to finance the project. The estimated $2.2 million required couldn’t be raised and the company quietly folded.

Another scheme, in 1925, also apparently ended up a paper plan only. This time it was American engineers who decided they could harness the Fundy tides and generate enough electricity to power the entire State of Maine as far west as Boston and all of New Brunswick besides.

In a despatch from the Canadian Press, dated August 19, 1925, an announcement was made that American engineers believed it was feasible to harness the Fundy tides to “generate 500,000 to 700,000 electric horsepower.” This scheme would use two pools, an upper and a lower, on bays in Maine and New Brunswick to generate electricity. As one Dexter P. Cooper put it, the idea is “feasible from an engineering standpoint and the most promising development in the electric world in a decade.” Cooper was identified by the Canadian Press as the main promoter f the scheme.

According to the Canadian Press story, permission was being sought from the Canadian government and the province of New Brunswick to proceed with the project which involved Passamaquoddy Bay. Passamaquoddy lies mostly in Canada and was one of the bays to be gated to store up tidal water. When the story was released, the State of Maine hadn’t given its approval for the project and maybe it never did.

It isn’t known what happened to this plan to harness the Fundy tides. It sounded complicated and perhaps wasn’t as feasible as thought at the time. Or like the Cape Split project, it mostly likely fizzled out due to lack of financing.

(Thanks to Phil Vogler for a copy of the Canadian Press story on the tidal project.)

By “Royal instruction” to the Governor of Nova Scotia, the King of England declared that the French settlers (Acadians) would have peaceful possession of their land, provided they take the oath of allegiance to the Crown.

Ignoring the legalese, the “therefores,” “whereins” and the occasional “whereas,” this reference to the Acadian oath comes from an Act passed in 1759 by the Governor, Council and Assembly of Nova Scotia. The purpose of the Act appears to be manifold; but its main aim, eliminating any attempts by the Acadians to regain possession of land taken during the expulsion, was the main reason it was proclaimed.

At the same time, in the text of the Act, an obvious move was made to whitewash and excuse the expulsion of the Acadians. Hence the reference in the Act to the oath the Acadians were required to take.

The reason for proclaiming the 1759 Act is simply this: the Governor of Nova Scotia wanted to assure potential New England settlers that no legal actions by the Acadians to reclaim their land would be considered by the courts. In 1759 the province was ready and willing to receive thousands of settlers from New England and many concessions had been made – huge land grants and free transportation among them. The 1759 Act – an Act “for the quieting of possessions to the Protestant grantees of the lands formerly occupied by the French inhabitants, and for preventing vexations actions relating to the same” – was one more concession and an important one.

To further assure New Englanders contemplating settling here the Act proclaimed that “some doubts have arisen among the persons intending to settle the land concerning the title to said lands.” However, the Act concluded, the former French inhabitants “have not, nor ever had any legal right to the land” given to them by Crown of Great Britain and action to recover said lands will henceforth never be considered by the courts.

Baldly stated in the Act was the disputable claim that Nova Scotia had always belonged to the Crown of England, “both by priority of discovery, by ancient possession,” and by treaties between England and France. The ownership of Nova Scotia by priority of discovery and by ancient possession is nonsense. However, the treaty “concluded at Utrecht” with the French in 1713 did yield up the entire province to the Crown of Great Britain.

Another purpose of the 1759 Act was to explain why the expulsion took place; to whitewash the expulsion, in other words. According to the terms of the 1713 treaty, reads the Act, the Acadians were given 12 months to swear allegiance to the British Crown. That they did not and instead “began from time to time …. to aid and assist and support and join with His Majesty’s enemies,” justified their removal from the province.

This is an odd document. On one hand it is the Governor of Nova Scotia proclaiming an Act making it impossible for dispossessed Acadians to use legal means to regain land they once farmed. On the other hand it’s a history rewrite, a slanted, erroneous one at that, and an out-and-out smearing of the Acadians.

Also odd is that in all the documents and articles I’ve read on the Planters and Acadians, no mention is made of this Act. Maybe I somehow missed it along the way.

In a prospectus for a proposed fox farm, dated December 31, 1914, Boot Island is described as a “300 acre island in Minas Basin” that is “isolated, yet accessible.”

Writing about the few Acadian place names remaining in Kings County, Dr. Watson Kirkconnell mentions that Boot Island is erroneously named due to some unknown New England Planter not understanding French. “Warped out of the original French,” says Kirkconnell, “is todays ‘Boot Island,’ for the Acadian L’Isle au Bout, i.e. the island at the end (of Long Island, in the Grand Pre area.)”

In Sods, Soil and Spades, an examination of the Acadians of Grand Pre and their dykeing legacy by J. Sherman Bleakney, Boot Island is referred to several times. In the book is a 1946 photograph of Boot Island showing old dyke walls of Acadian origin. Dr. Bleakney notes that Boot Island is now (in 2004) half the size it was in 1760. Another map, reproduced in A Natural History of Kings County, show that around the year 1780 Boot Island was still attached to the mainland.

One of the interesting things about Boot Island, I wrote in a 2005 column, is that various families lived and farmed there. In interviews conducted when I wrote the column several surnames were mentioned as being associated with the island; these were the Cards, Allens, Biggs, McGregors and Hutchinsons. In his book, Dr. Bleakney refers to the island having several resident families: A severe storm in 1913 “provided impetus for the families residing there to move to the mainland,” Bleakney writes.

You now have a historical overview of sorts on Boot Island: Dyked and farmed by the Acadians when it was attached to the mainland; shrinking in size due to being ripped and ravaged by destructive storms and ceaselessly battered by the tides; mistakenly believed to be referred to by the Acadians as boot shaped; touted as an ideal area for a fox farm (which never really got going, by the way); and farmed until fairly recent modern times until (possibly) the ongoing shrinking of the island made agriculture difficult.

Then there’s another side of Boot Island, a side little known. In a paper written in the 1730s, and published in Great Britain in 1748, Boot Island was recommended as an excellent site for a British 200 man fort, a fort suitably situated to defend the entire region against potential French threats. Titled the State of Trade in the Northern Colonies Considered (subtitle With An Account of their Produce and a particular Description of Nova Scotia) the paper examines the potential of the Minas area, actually takes a benevolent tone discussing the Acadians settlements, and ultimately suggests that fortifying this area would be of considerable benefit in protecting the province. “Minas is so situated as to have a short and easy communication with the extreme parts of the province, being within a days march of Chebucto (Halifax) …. and not much farther by land from Annapolis.”

As we know, a British fort was never built on Boot Island. It was given careful consideration at the time, however. The paper describes Boot Island as perfect for a fortress, noting that it is the “most proper place, if not the finest in the world, on account of its natural situation, an island about a quarter of a mile long, that commands the mouth of the (Gaspereau) river.”

Further, says the study, the island has no firm land “within a mile of it,” making a fort there difficult to attack; and as well, a fort on Boot Island would “command the prospect of Minas Basin so that no (enemy) vessel can come and go undiscovered; and if it is regularly fortified, might be defended by 200 men against the whole force of Canada and the Nova Scotians.”

What eventually transpired was fortification on a major scale at Halifax instead of Boot Island and elimination of the French threat to Nova Scotia by the capture and eventual destruction of the fort at Louisbourg. This removed any need for a fort in the Minas Basin at Boot Island.

Today the Boot is designated as a National Wildlife Area and is a major nesting area for several varieties of birds. Looking at it nestled in the mud flats of Minas Basin, it’s difficult to believe it was once farmed by the Acadians or that any consideration was given to building a military fortress there.

When Arthur S. Davison, the first publisher of Wolfville’s The Acadian died in 1889, his brother Benjamin O. Davison took over the paper. Benjamin is saluted in the Wolfville history as a man of varied interests. Among those interests, which I discovered reading Mud Creek, was local history. Benjamin was a history buff (as well as one of the town’s leading citizen) so it was natural that old time Wolfville was his main interest.

Apparently Davison delved deeply into the history of Wolfville’s early days, especially the origin of its streets and houses. As a result of this research, he was inspired to write a series covering a period from about 1869 until 1930. The series, which he titled Wolfville in 1869, ran in The Acadian beginning late in 1945.

Davison’s articles were among several works that were referenced when the Mud Creek history was compiled. Early in the series he described Wolfville as it was when he was a schoolboy roaming up and down its streets and byways. This was around the time the railway arrived, a time when the muddy creek that ran up to where the duck pond is today was spanned by a trestle bridge.

Davison wrote that the Wolfville he knew in his boyhood days – he first saw the town in 1869 – “was very different than that of today.” One of the most important differences pertained to the railway, which at that time had its headquarters in Wolfville before moving to Kentville. That move came about due to a “lack of cooperation on the part of owners of land,” Davison wrote. I assume Davison meant that Wolfville landowners refused to part with land the railway required to construct roundhouses, machine shops, freights sheds, administrative buildings and so on.

In those early days Wolfville, along with Kingsport, was a busy harbour, according to Davison. “Many a noon hour I spent watching the vessels dock and sail and load and unload their cargoes. At one time I counted sixteen of these vessels at their moorings. In early days many vessels were built here at shipyards on both sides of the creek.” Later Mr. Davison writes that in the fall and spring the surrounding farmers “brought their potatoes for shipment (from the port) and the roads and wharves presented a busy scene. Ox-teams were parked by the roadside for a considerable distance in all directions waiting their chance to unload.”

Wolfville in those late 19^th century days possessed a “furniture factory, a shoe factory, several carriage factories, two blacksmith shops, several shoemaking and harness shops and similar industries,” writes Davison. It also possessed what Davison called slums. “Mud bridge (the railway trestle bridge?) was the slum district of that day, in striking contrast with present conditions. The roadway was crooked and narrow (early east Main Street?) lined on one side by a row of decrepit tenements and one the other by the waterfront. As a boy I recall when I had occasion to pass that way keeping to the center of the road.”

Further summing up Wolfville as he first saw it in October, 1869, (and obviously ignoring “Mud bridge”) Davison observes that while it had “no paved streets or sidewalks, no street lights, no town government,” it was a “pretty well kept country village with many commodious homes.”

The first Nova Scotia newspaper was published in Halifax in the spring of 1752. Just over a century later, in 1859, the first publication in Kings County that might or might not be called a newspaper appeared in Wolfville. In the History of Kings County, Eaton said this publication (A Small Sheet) was “not more than prospectus;” in other words probably a printed document advertising a commercial enterprise.

Since 1859 year, a number of county newspapers have sprung up, flourishing briefly and vanishing; this had made it a bit confusing trying to time line these papers and achieve a reasonable idea of how long they lasted, who published them and where. I’ll give one example of what I mean. Between 1866 to about 1880 a newspaper called The Star was first published in Berwick, and then moved back and forth between Berwick, Kentville and Wolfville. The Star had a grand total of six different publishers while moving from town to town. Other early county newspapers have similar histories.

Except for a short stay in New Minas, this newspaper, The Kings County Advertiser, has been published in Kentville since 1892, and there’s no confusion about it lineage. This makes The Advertiser one of the longest continuously running papers in the county. The Advertiser had its origin in Wolfville as The New Star (not to be confused with The Star) and it started circa 1884. When The New Star was purchased in 1892 by Dr. Frank Herbert Eaton and moved to Kentville, the name was changed to The Advertiser.

Along with The Advertiser, The Western Chronicle is perhaps one of the best know of the Kings County newspapers that have come and gone. Like other county papers, it had a series of owners since it was first published in Kentville in 1873. The Western Chronicle was published until the early 1930s. In other words, Kentville was served by two weekly newspapers for several decades. Competition must have been hot for a time between The Western Chronicle and The Advertiser. This changed when in 1930 The Advertiser’s parent company, Kentville Publishing Co., purchased The Western Chronicle. A few years later The Western Chronicle was amalgamated with The Advertiser.

Competing with The Advertiser and The Western Chronicle for about three years was a newspaper called The Wedge. First a weekly and then a semi-weekly, The Wedge began running in Kentville in 1898, apparently ceasing publication in 1901. “Apparently” is used here since two sources, Eaton’s Kings County history and an article on Nova Scotia newspapers published in a Halifax County magazine in 1904 note that The Wedge may have been published for a while after 1901.

Its sister paper, The Kings County Register, has been published in the county for almost as long as The Kings County Advertiser. Berwick’s first newspaper was The Star, which as mentioned above moved around from town to town under various publishers between 1866 and until 1879 when it apparently ran out of steam or out of publishers. The next Berwick paper, The Berwick News, began publishing in 1888 and only lasted a few years. In 1891 an experienced newspaper man, John E. Woodworth, took over where The Berwick News left off and began publishing The Register. This paper has been published every year since 1891 and along with The Kings County Advertiser is the longest running newspaper in the county.

One of the earliest newspapers published in the county was Wolfville’s The Acadian and if it hadn’t been merged with The Advertiser in the 1970s it would be in the same class as The Kings County Advertiser and The Kings County Register for longevity.

If you discount A Small Sheet, the honour of being the first newspaper in the county belongs to The Kings County Gazette. This paper was established in Canning in 1864 by H. A. Borden for two years and then by Major Theakson until 1866 when it folded. Theakson then moved to Wolfville where he published another short-lived newspaper he called The Acadian until 1869.

The Acadian was brought to life again in 1883 by Arthur S. Davison and his brother, Benjamin O. Davison, who first called their newspaper The Young Acadian. Following Arthur’s premature death in 1899, B. O. Davison and his heirs published the paper until 1965 when it was sold to Lancelot Press Ltd and then to a Truro firm. The Kentville Publishing Company purchased the paper in 1968, eventually printing it as a section of The Advertiser.

The wheels have been set in motion to change street and road names in the county where there is duplication.

This may appear to be a simple task but as noted in this paper, there will be more than a few problems.  For one thing, what will be the criteria for deciding which streets and roads will keep the names they now have?  Will it be historical precedence?  That is, will streets and roads first named have the option of remaining the same and the duplicates re-named?

I’ll give odds that the use of the surname Cornwallis in several places in the county will be a candidate for change – and not only for its connection with a long ago scalping proclamation levelled at the Mi’kmaq.  I can think of a couple of Cornwallis Avenues in Kentville and New Minas, for example, and a couple of Highland Avenues (Kentville and Wolfville).  However these might not be candidates for change if only duplicate streets and roads in areas outside of towns and villages are being looked at.

Many of the street and road names in Kings County are of comparatively recent vintage and have little or no historical significance; in other words, no Planter, Loyalist or Acadian connotations or connections.  Two streets in the county of historical significance are Church Street and Belcher Street, both of which terminate in the village of Port Williams and have no duplication that I’m aware of.

Church Street is Planter and Acadian connected.  While it hasn’t been confirmed, most historians claim that an Acadian church, the Church of St. Joseph, once stood at Chipman Corner.  Another “first church” in Chipman Corner was the Congregationalist Church, which according to Arthur W. H. Eaton in his Kings County history was started by Planter settlers in 1767 and completed in 1768.

Church Street’s other historical connection with the Planters and other early settlers is the St. John’s Anglican Church.  According to Eaton, the first Anglican Church building was erected on Church Street in 1770 (roughly a decade after the Planters arrived) but it remained unfinished until 1776.  The construction of the present church was started in 1804 and when still incomplete, was opened for service in 1810.

If we agree that the Acadian church of St. Joseph once stood on the street, then Church Street and its three churches is aptly named and certainly is of historical significance.  We could even say there were four churches on Church Street – if we count the first version of the St. John’s Anglican Church, the 1770 building Eaton mentions that was constructed near Fox Hill east of the present church.

Belcher Street, which has its beginning in Kentville, definitely has its historical connections.  The street was named after the Belcher family, in particular Benjamin Belcher, the founder of the family here who received a grant in Cornwallis in 1797.  Belcher, whose grant lay along the road that would be named after him, was a prominent trader and ship owner out of Port Williams and he served in the Nova Scotia Legislature from 1785 until 1799.   Belcher’s descendant, Stephen, was High Sheriff of Kings County from 1881 to 1905. The Sherman Belcher Road near Centreville possibly may be named after another of Benjamin’s descendants, a prominent farmer.

It should also be noted that Church Street and Belcher Street likely are ancient Mi’kmaq trails; both run parallel to rivers, the Cornwallis and Canard, and terminate on the Minas Basin which the Mi’kmaq frequented in the spring and summer.  The Acadians probably found these old trails convenient as well and we can speculate that they were well trodden thoroughfares by the time the Planters arrived.

No thoroughfare in Kings County has more history attached to it than Gaspereau Avenue in Wolfville.  The avenue leads to the Gaspereau Valley, to the village of Gaspereau, and to the Gaspereau River with its great spring run of the fish the Acadians called the Gaspereau.   What we have is a name for a road, a valley, a village and a fish that’s of Acadian origin.  Then we have what Esther Clarke Wright (in Blomidon Rose) called the “Gaspereau state of mind,” a tribute to the independent, hard-working people who for generations farmed in near isolation in the Gaspereau Valley.

These are just a few of the thoroughfares in Kings County with historical connections.  There’s also Kars Street in Port Williams, Canard Street (of Acadian origin) in the northern section of Kings County  and Borden Street to name a few.  Kars Street comes from the “hero of Kars,” Sir William Fenwick Williams in whose honour Port Williams was named in 1856.  Then there’s the Terry’s Creek Road in Port Williams, so named because Terry’s Creek was an early name for Port Williams.

On the Cornwallis River, near the Silver Link Bridge in Kentville, lays “Mrs. Lyon’s dike,” writes Edmond Cogswell in an 1895 review of the town.  Referring to the dike by that name in the review, Cogswell places it near the “old ford.”  On that dike, and well within the town limits, once stood an Acadian mill, says Cogswell, noting in the review that the “old race (mill channel) can still be traced.”

Not only that, but Cogswell says an Acadian village was situated at the old fording place, which is about where the bridge is now.  He also says the Acadians built a bridge over the Cornwallis near the present structure.  This, he says, was the first Acadian bridge over the Cornwallis, imply that the Acadians built more than one bridge on the river.

To date no one has disputed Cogwell’s claim of a solid Acadian presence in Kentville.  Actually, no one but Cogswell says the Acadians had a village in what is now the town.  Eaton, the dean of county historians, implies for example that little if any of the land in and around the town was taken up by the Acadians.  Eaton does mention one possible Acadian homestead in the town limits, which I mention farther on, but that’s it.

However, Cogswell and Eaton are not the only historical writers/researchers to place the Acadians in the area comprising the town of Kentville; or to be exact, in what was the town area when its northern border was the Cornwallis River.  There are various claims regarding an Acadian presence in Kentville, which are for the most part speculation since no documentation is provided. Here are some of them:

In a treatise released in 1975 (The French Period in Nova Scotia) John Erskine writes that on Elderkin Brook at the eastern edge of Kentville there was a tidal mill he speculates might have been Acadian.  We cannot be sure it was Acadian, Erskine says, but species of trees and shrubs associated with and introduced by the Acadians have been found on the site.

Erskine was careful about claiming the mill definitely was Acadian, but not so the editors of A Natural History of Kings County.  Mentioned in the chapter on the Acadians is a plant they introduced, the Red Fly Honeysuckle, which occurs at the site of a tidal mill “on Elderkin Brook in Kentville.”  The editors don’t say outright that the mill was Acadian but to me at least that implication is there.  In this case, Erskine may have been their source of information and he’s noted as a contributor to the book.

In the Kings County history Eaton writes that the Acadian settlement of Minas extended as far west as Kentville, “the site of which town it included.”  Eaton adds that it is “doubtful if beyond Kentville there were ever any French houses or farms.”  The implication here, of course, is that the area comprising present day Kentville held Acadian homesteads.

The exception to unsubstantiated claims about an Acadian settlement, or at least a few Acadian farms in Kentville, is found in Eaton’s Kings County history.  The dean himself notes that a Kentville dwelling, the Terry-Young house, was built on what is believed to be an Acadian cellar.  This house still stands at 229 Main Street and has been declared a heritage property; there’s little doubt that its Acadian roots are authentic.

It is also doubtful that the Terry-Young house is the site of the only Acadian homestead in the town.  Nearby to the north and northeast, on both sides of the Cornwallis River, are tidal flats ideal for diking.  Diking has been done on these flats for generations and I believe archaeological surveys will reveal that some of them originated with the Acadians.