THE KINGS COUNTY KARAKULE SHEEP COMPANY (July 16/12)

“I have a unique question,” wrote Kings County Museum curator Bria Stokesbury.  “Have either of you heard of the Evangeline Karakule Arabi Sheep & Fur Company?”

What prompted Stokesbury to contact Louis Comeau and I was an old stock certificate she recently had opportunity to examine.  The certificate was issued in Kentville, representing 4,200 shares in an unusual sheep ranch that just over a century ago attempted to set up in Kings County.

“I’ve never heard of this company,” Stokesbury said when she wrote us about the certificate Jim Noonan had brought into the Museum.  “Apparently it had assets of $84,000 at the time, a considerable amount for that period.”

I had to plead ignorance of the topic.  Until I received Stokesbury’s message I’d never heard of Karakule Arabi sheep or of the sheep company.  It was a different story for Kentville historian Louis Comeau.  Trivial or not, much of Kentville’s history, from at least day one of incorporation until the present, can be found in his data base.

As you’ll see, Comeau was familiar with efforts to raise Karakule sheep in Kings County, an attempt in the early 1900s to profit from of a world-wide market.  Later I’ll get back to what Comeau told Stokesbury about the sheep ranch, but some background info first.

Karakule sheep are interesting animals.  Apparently native to central Asia, these hardy sheep are noted for multiple uses, being raised for their milk, meat, pelts and wool.  Usually spelled Karakul, the Arabi in its name refers to its black color phase.  A 1920s report on the sheep says the animal produces so-called Persian Lamb and Astrakhan Fur when crossed with domestic coarse-wooled breeds; hence its one time popularity.

Wearing Persian Lamb or Astrakhan Fur on a variety of apparel – coats, collars, caps and muffs – was a high society trend in the early 1900s.  “We require $14,000,000 worth of such furs annually,” claims a 1920s U.S. agriculture report, explaining why around 1908 Karakule sheep were imported into Texas and ranches were established to supply this market.

The idea of raising Karakule sheep for profit eventually caught on in Canada.   We have this as evidence:  “The Alberta Karakule Arabi Sheep & Fur Company (was) recently formed to raise Karakule Arabi Sheep,” reads a report in the February 1915 issue of the Boston Evening Transcript.  “The Company secured its first stock from near Topeka, Kansas.”  At that time, the newspaper reported, two other Canadian farms besides the one in Alberta were devoted to raising these sheep – one in P.E.I., the other in Nova Scotia.

This takes us back to the stock certificate that intrigued Bria Stokesbury.  The certificate was rescued from a trip to the dump by Jim Noonan when Judge Roscoe’s old law office on Cornwallis Street, Kentville, was being cleaned out in 1978.

From the certificate we learn that the Evangeline Karakule-Arabi Sheep & Fur Co. Ltd was incorporated on July 15, 1915, with an authorized capital of $125,000.  The head office was in Kentville, the president H. K. MacDonald, the secretary-treasurer J. D. Spidell.  The stock certificate, representing some 4,200 shares in the company, was issued to one William B. Foster a few months after the company incorporated. Shares were valued at $20 each

The attempt to breed Karakule sheep here for their fur was short-lived.  In his reply to Bria Stokesbury, Louis Comeau said the venture only lasted a few years.  “The whole enterprise was unfortunate,” he said.  “As I understand it, they tried to breed for Persian Lamb but didn’t understand the genetics, with the result that the lambs and their skins were of no value.  The company failed quickly.”

In Louis Comeau’s files is a notice dated February 21, 1919, inviting shareholders of the sheep company to a “special general meeting.”  The notice appears to indicate the company is winding up business and the romance with Karakule sheep was over.   The purpose of the meeting as per the notice:  “Electing officers for the Company and considering what shall be done with the stock of sheep remaining on hand and for receiving a statement of the affairs of the Company and determining what action shall be taken in relation thereto.”

While the head office of the company was in Kentville, it isn’t known where the ranch or ranches were located.  Apparently there was at least one in Kings County.  Louis Comeau hints it may have been at Dempsey’s Corner near Aylesford, based on the possibility a company officer, A. E. McMahon, had a farm at this location.

OLDTIME FISHING, MI’KMAQ HARVESTING (July 9/12)

Occasionally readers tell me they enjoy my history articles, but never read the outdoors column, both of which run in the Kings County Advertiser and Kings County Register. Once in a while I have a crossover piece – an outdoors column that looks at the history of fishing and hunting. This is such an article, a look back at what fishing and the use of natural resources was like many generations ago around Kentville and along the Cornwallis River. Hope you enjoy it.

Starting in 1892, a prominent Kentville magistrate penned a series of articles on early days in the town. On March 19, 1892, E. J. Cogswell’s article in Kentville’s weekly newspaper revealed that the Cornwallis River once was a major salmon stream. All you anglers familiar with the Cornwallis River: Can you picture a time when salmon were so plentiful in the river people harvested them with pitchforks? Read what E. J. Cogswell had to say about this.

“Though salmon are scarcely found there (the Cornwallis) now they were formerly in great plenty. I remember some forty years ago I was with my father at George Webster’s mill at Coldbrook when at a time of freshet the salmon had so many of them come up the brook and had been left by the retreating waters, people had been down and thrown them out with pitch-forks.”

Cogswell writes that as well as the ford where the town bridge now is, the great salmon run in the Cornwallis was another reason “Kentville was a desirable villaging place” for the Mi’kmaq. “Another (reason) was the smelt brook “where in old times the smelts came in such immense quantities, just at springtime, when other food was hardly available.”

Cogswell refers to an area immediately west of Kentville, the Harrington Meadows, as a “great eel ground” of the Mi’kmaq. Natives also speared salmon on the meadow waters and could “often be seen in their canoes at night with torches and bows.” Harrington Meadows was also a “great rendezvous of the returning migrators of the wild ducks and geese,” Cogswell notes; from this I assume Harrington Meadows and today’s federal waterfowl sanctuary are one and the same.

Even in Cogswell’s day people were lamenting the loss of natural resources. The salmon as well as the Mi’kmaq have departed, Cogswell writes. “The screech of the locomotive has scared away what few of the ducks and geese remained unslaughtered by the gun of the sportsman. The salmon and the smelt has been destroyed by indiscriminate slaughter, mill dams and sawdust.”

Cogswell closes off his piece on a melancholy note. The campfires of the Mi’kmaq no longer gleam on the “rising grounds near the smelt brook nor at the old ford,” he writes. “We have killed the (Mi’kmaq’s) fish, shot his moose and caribou, cut down the woods and given him in turn Christianity, rum and the smallpox.”

HANGED FOR STEALING SACK OF POTATOES (July 3/12)

Are the courts today lenient with criminals?  This isn’t an appropriate forum to discuss this question, but I will say that in 18th and 19th century Nova Scotia, minor criminals were treated harshly, much more than harshly.  Historical records indicate offences, which today usually result in house arrest and a slap on the wrist, once were crimes calling for capital punishment.

This was pointed out when Ivan Smith sent me a government website listing all the known executions in Nova Scotia between 1749 and 1820.  “This morning, while poking into some dusty corners of the Internet,” wrote the creator of the Nova Scotia History Index, “I stumbled on a purported list of all known executions in Nova Scotia since 1749.  There might be something of interest.”

Indeed, there was.  Logging onto the website, I discovered that as well as being a dusty corner of the web – “dusty” meaning rarely visited – it was also a grisly, shocking site.  From the executions listed and the reasons why the hangings were carried out, it was obvious life throughout the period mentioned was harsh, and the punishment for relatively minor crimes harsher.  Misdemeanours, from theft to murder, were punished severely by the courts with no mercy shown; apparently theft, burglary and murder were lumped together as serious crimes.

Take the case of the man who was hanged in Halifax in 1785.  His crime, if you can believe it, was listed simply as “theft.”  What he stole was a bag of potatoes!  Similar fates were dealt out to seven men hanged in Halifax between 1752 and 1765.  And get this:  All were guilty of burglary.

Four of these men, who were sailors, had conspired to break into the home of one Adam Prester of Dartmouth; they stole “20 pounds worth of gold and silver and some linen.”  By today’s standards this obviously isn’t a capitol offense but keep in mind Halifax was a British port at the time and it was dominated by the military; which could explain the harshness of the penalty.  The burglary occurred in April, 1865, and the culprits were quickly caught and hanged the following May.

Three of the seven hanged for burglary were soldiers, again perhaps explaining why they were dealt with so harshly, Halifax being a military town. No details on their crimes are given but my guess is the culprits were dealt with summarily.

Then there’s the interesting case of one John Oliver Tibo, who when hankering for a feed of cabbage in the summer of 1911 decided to steal rather than buy them.  This led to his being hanged for murder.  Tibo was caught when Edward McGregor came upon him cleaning the cabbage.  In the notes it’s explained that Tibo “killed Edward McGregor with an ax while cleaning stolen cabbage.”

Even more interesting is the case of Jenkin Ratford, who in 1807 was hanged in Halifax for the multiple offences of “desertion, mutiny and contempt.”   Ratford became a footnote in events leading up to the War of 1812.  He was a crewman on the American frigate Chesapeake when it was intercepted by a British warship, the frigate Leopard, on June 22, 1807.

Ratford, a deserter from the Royal Navy, was one of four sailors taken from the Chesapeake and tried in Halifax for desertion.  While he was enjoying his freedom in an American port, Ratford had brazenly paraded around under an American flag as part of an enlistment party; hence the additional charge of contempt.

At the time, the British Navy insisted it had the right to board any American ship and remove deserters.  This was one of many minor irritants that led to war in 1812.  Poor old Ratford was one of the victims of an ongoing feud between America and Great Britain and he paid the price in Halifax.

THE MIGHTY TICK MIGRATION (June 25/12)

A while back I devoted a column to what insect experts called a great dog tick migration eastward along the coastline from south-western Nova Scotia. In other words, all those pesky ticks aggravating people in the counties of Queens, Yarmouth and so on were migrating along or near the coast and eventually would establish here in the Annapolis Valley.

Well friends that was decades ago and it’s no news to anyone the migration has been successfully; thanks in part to a moderating climate, say biologists. However they do it, migrate along the coast that is, I suspect ticks had some help from humans and our canine buddies.

At a community supper in Kings County this spring, for example, a friend walked up and showed me a tick he’d just picked off his jacket. “I got several of them on me in Dalhousie this afternoon,” he said. “I’m going outside and get rid of it.”

I complained to the guy that he was helping the spread of ticks but he simply shrugged. “They’re already here,” he said.

He’s right, of course. While not plentiful up and down the entire Valley, they’re now well established and have infesting some areas for decades. Also, I saw a report that wood ticks have been found in Halifax County but that may already be old news.

The Department of Natural Resources say wood or dog ticks are harmless. The Department suggests that to cope with ticks it helps to pull socks up over pant legs and tuck in shirts while in the woods. It also helps to spray clothing and exposed skin with an insect repellent. Outdoor writer Reg Baird of Clementsvale tells me he copes with ticks while fishing by wearing hip boots or chest waders. “This keeps them pretty much in check,” Reg says. He also suggests you examine your clothing and body regularly when fishing in tick country.

Friends who’ve had ticks latch on to various parts of their body tell me they’re the devil to remove. I’ve heard of several weird tick removal methods – dabbing them with kerosene or applying heat, for example – but most sources say it’s best to use tweezers, removing the tick carefully so as not to leave its head embedded in the skin.

I can’t vouch for the following removal method a friend sent me recently, but it’s worth keeping in mind if you have a tick attack. Apply liquid soap to a cotton ball and press it on the embedded tick for 15 to 20 seconds. The tick is supposed to come out on its own and be stuck to the cotton ball.

RICHARD SKINNER: A FASCINATION FOR OLD ROADS (June 18/12)

Drive out Kentville’s west Main Street and continue along it past the point where Park Street branches off; continue on behind the new Kentville school and past the oil company, which would now be on your left.  On your right you’ll see high, sandy banks, remnants of long ago glaciers; motor on and you’ll quickly run out of a navigable road.

Main Street appears to terminate here but it doesn’t; on foot you can explore it along on remnants of an old road; this road, which is actually a trail, runs westerly towards what was once called Moccasin or Bloody Hollow.  Here says folklore, ghosts abound from an 18th century skirmish between British troops and the French and their Mi’kmaq allies.

The old road appears to vanish here, succumbing its seems to a railroad bed laid down in the 19th century.   However, Richard Skinner of Coldbrook, a man whose hobby is researching county cemeteries and studying old county maps, says the old road doesn’t end there and is still traceable.

“Roads have always fascinated me,” Skinner says, and to find where some of them once existed he diligently studies land grants, deed and maps.  After a lot of searching and a bit of guesswork, Skinner figures he knows the direction the old road took after Main Street vanishes near Moccasin Hollow just west of the town.

Once you leave downtown Kentville and go out west Main Street, Skinner says, the old road would have continued on past where Evergreen Home is, passing north of it.  Here the old road turned south, crossing highway #1 and eventually reaching the area where Access Nova Scotia now stands.

His study of land grants and deeds tells Skinner the old road then ran westward passing through the Toyota dealership.  At this point Skinner found the old road was untraceable for a bit but he assumes it ran west, passing just south of the Pineview Inn.  Continuing westerly, the old road likely passed behind Tim Horton’s and McDonalds and eventually crossed Lockhart Road.

In places the old road ran parallel to highway #1 and traces are visible here and there.  But Skinner admits that some of what he postulates re the places the old road ran might not be entirely correct.  Some of it is definitely guesswork, he says.

Skinner figures the old road continued west, passing through Sherwood camp ground, passing south of the Coldbrook cemetery before moving through Hayes subdivision.  Skinner says the old road ran west again, and then apparently north until it eventually connected with the highway #1.

Not once when we were talking about the old road did Skinner speculate on its origin.  However, he believes much of the old road and sections of highway #1 originally were Mi’kmaq trails.  Later, the Acadians used the Mi’kmaq trails.  Some sources say the Acadians had a main track that much of highway #1 now follows.

Anyway, speculation or not, guesswork or not, Richard Skinner continues looking for evidence of the old road.  I’ve only mentioned a few of the sections of old road that he’s found.

So many new roads have sprung up since the time the Mi’kmaq created various trails through Kings County it seems impossible today to determine exactly where they ran.  But I may be wrong.  Richard Skinner is one persistent man when it comes to digging out old maps and old records.  He may eventually have many of the old roads, and especially the old road that’s part of Main Street Kernville, completely mapped out.

A FEW NOTES ON SHAD ANGLING (June 11/12)

I like to think of shad angling as an interlude, a pleasant interruption in the serious pursuit of trout, I wrote in this column about a decade ago.

I haven’t changed my mind since then. Shad are a great sports fish and like many anglers I welcome the spring run. Compared to trout, especially brown trout, they’re relatively easy to catch. At most times, I hasten to add. There are periods during the spring run that shad stop hitting and it takes some hard earned expertise to catch them.

Most of the time, however, shad are obliging. You can take someone new to shad angling to the Annapolis River, give them a few shad darts, and they’re on the way. Noting again there are exceptions, catching shad is often as simple as casting out a shad dart and reeling it slowly in. One of the exceptions is fly fishing. Catching shad consistently with flies isn’t easy to learn and I’d say it’s almost an art.

One thing I like about shad – besides the enjoyment of catching them – is that they’re a great starter fish for young anglers. Introducing a young angler to shad fishing is easy. I started a grandson, for example, simply by showing him how to cast out and retrieve a spinning lure. In no time he was catching shad. There’s more to shad fishing than this, of course. The times when the shad are picky and slow hitting require a lot more expertise than what the grandson learned his first day on the Annapolis River.

I’m often amazed when I discovered that some trout and salmon anglers never fish for shad. One of my friends is a dedicated fly fisherman; dedicated that is to pursuing salmon, sea-run brookies and brown trout all over the province with his fly rod. Yet he’s never cast a fly for shad. I often tell him about the challenge and thrill of taking shad with a fly rod but I haven’t been convincing enough. A lot of fishermen are like him and I don’t understand why.

I suspect anglers like the friend look on the shad for what it is, or what they think it is – a brawny, coarse, hardly edible non-game fish that (on salmon rivers especially) gets in the way of “real fishing.” I guarantee a couple of afternoons on the Annapolis River during the shad run will quickly change this trout and salmon fishing only attitude.

And by the way, while June is almost over, along with the peak shad angling period, it isn’t too late to hit the Annapolis River. I’ve caught shad in the Annapolis in early July. The drawback is that late in the run shad are “soft” from being in fresh water and not as edible as the early fish. However, early July angling is different in an interesting way. With spawning over and shad preparing to return to salt water, they often school close to the surface and you can see countless fish as they move in slow circles. A friend called this “shad watching.”

To close off, here’s a shad recipe from a friend. He called to note my column on cooking shad ignored a proven method. After the shad is cleaned and scaled, he said, place it on a cedar shingle in an extremely hot oven. Once the shad is cooked, throw it away and eat the shingle.

BOOK ON GYPSUM SCHOONERS ON WAY (June 11/12)

Speaking at the monthly meeting of the Kings Historical Society recently, Joey St. Clair Patterson said in effect he’s been working for about 20 years on a book about gypsum schooners.   This will be the Hantport native’s second book on the wooden ships that sailed out of ports in Kings and Hants County.

Patterson’s first book, Hantsport Shipping, was published in 2008 and it dealt mainly with shipbuilders in the Hantsport area. While working on the book, Patterson simultaneously collected information on the scores of tiny schooners transporting gypsum from the quarries of Hants County to ports in the Maritimes and the United States.

While a lot has been written about the gypsum industry, which began in Nova Scotia so far back it’s difficult to say with certainty when it started, Patterson says there are few records on the all important sailing ships that serviced it.  The earliest mention of gypsum in this area was made in 1606 by Champlain.  The great explorer sailed up the Minas Basin in that year and in his journal he mentioned the “certain white stones suitable for making lime” that he found there.  By 1867 gypsum was being transported from at least 25 different ports in Nova Scotia, the bulk of it quarried in Hants County.

However, while the gypsum industry has its chroniclers (among them Gwendolyn Vaughan Shand in her 1979 book Historic Hants County) Patterson notes that the schooners and the men sailing them haven’t been given their due. He hopes to rectify this in his book.  “Mainly,” he says, “the book will be stories about these vessels, a record of the vessels hauling gypsum from Nova Scotia, the men who sailed in them, the tragedies and so on.”   Roughly, the book will cover the period from 1892 to the present.

It hasn’t been easy collecting these stories, Patterson says.  The records of these gypsum schooners are buried in the Nova Scotia archives and in museums in Kings and Hants County.  Patterson spent three years looking through archive files, especially the ship registry records.  He had a lot of assistance, he says, from local historians such as Larry Loomer and John Duncanson.  “Whenever these guys found anything about the gypsum schooners they put it aside for me.  They were a great help.”

Being a member of the Hants Historical Society for some 31 years also was a help to Patterson in accumulating schooner records.  “People would often bring material into the Society,” Patterson says, “and once in a while there would be something I could add to my gypsum schooner file.”

As a Navy veteran, Patterson notes that it was second nature for him to write about gypsum shipping in the Hantsport, Windsor area.  “My grandfather sailed on a gypsum schooner,” he says, “and this started my interest in them.”  His tribute to the gypsum schooners and the men that sailed on them will have a feature that should interest historians, amateur and professional.  “There will many photographs of the old-time gypsum schooners,” Patterson says.

BOB PALMETER’S BLOSSOM TIME CHINA (May 28/12)

If you stop at the T-junction where Scott Drive meets Middle Dyke Road north of Kentville and look southeast, you can see remnants of the famous Hillcrest Orchards, which at one time were renowned across Canada.

Arthur W. H. Eaton salutes these orchards in his history of Kings County (page 196) noting the fruit grown there, “apples, pears, plums quinces and cherries are known to fruit raisers all over the continent.” Eaton mentions the orchards again on page 203, referring to Ralph Samuel Eaton and his “famous Cornwallis (township) ‘Hillcrest Orchards’ not far from the county town (of Kentville).”

One of my friends, Jerry Bishop of Coldbrook, is an avid collector of coins and postcards. One of the most remarkable and rarest postcards in his collection has a beautiful color photograph of an orchard in full bloom. This photograph will be recognised by anyone familiar with the orchard pictured on Royal Albert Blossom Time China.

In other words, the orchard on the postcard and the orchard captured on Blossom Time China are one and the same – the famed Hillcrest Orchards of Ralph Samuel Eaton. The year the postcard was printed and released isn’t certain but it’s generally believed that it was circa 1933 or 1934 that Blossom Time China came into existence. Since then the china has been hailed as the most prized and most enduring Apple Blossom Festival keepsake ever.

In 1933, with two successful summer festivals under their collective belts, the Kentville Board of Trade was firming up plans for another event, the first apple blossom festival. On the organizing committee was Kentville jeweller Robert Palmeter. Festival lore has it that Palmeter made a motion at a Board of Trade meeting to hold a festival with an apple blossom theme. Whether this is true or not, it’s a fact that around this time Palmeter submitted a design to Royal Albert China of England that resulted in the manufacture of Blossom Time China.

It likely was 1934 before Blossom Time China was available in retail stores, but that’s only my guess; some sources say the china was available in 1933. Whatever the year, the pattern was popular for decades and was sold worldwide. Eric Lockhart, of R. D. Chisholm Ltd. in Kentville, tells me his store sold the china almost from the day it was first available until it was discontinued in 1991. “It was a good seller,” Lockhart said, even though Royal Albert kept jacking the price up year after year.

Since its “retirement,” Blossom Time China has become a hot collectible. It’s rather pricey today, however, compared to what it sold for when it first came out. At a giant “yard sale” this spring at the Kentville arena, for example, the asking price for a Blossom time cup and saucer was $45.00. In 1936, Robert Palmeter offered the cup and saucer at his Kentville jewellery store for a mere 90 cents!

It may interest readers that Palmeter’s Blossom Time isn’t the only china with an apple blossom theme. There are at least two more with apple blossom themes but these haven’t been as popular as Palmeter’s design. Readers may also be interested in knowing that Palmeter designed another china pattern. In 1953 he submitted a design for a “new, original and ornamental design for a cup or similar article” to the United States Patent Office. Palmeter called this china Evangeline’s Acadian Gardens. The pattern application was approved and Palmeter later advertised the china in his Kentville shop.

As for the photograph of Hillcrest Orchards used in the design of Blossom Time China, I always wondered if it had been taken by A. L. Hardy. Photography expert Larry Keddy says it’s a possibility. “Hardy was the only professional photographer in this area at the time that was capable of doing that kind of work,” Keddy says.

The Valley's Springtime Beauty

One of the earliest advertisements in which Bob Palmeter featured his Blossom Time China (Courtesy of the Kings County Museum.)

 

SOME NOTES ON EATING SHAD (May 28/12)

“I know I cursed getting them on me, but what’s a few ticks when you’re catching shad,” a friend said after spending an afternoon on the Annapolis River near Middleton.

The friend has been angling for shad over 30 years and only recently started mentioning wood ticks. “I won’t let a little thing like this stop me from fishing when the shad are running good,” he said. “You know how much I like eating shad roe.”

I got the friend hooked (no pun intended) on roe when we first started fly fishing for shad away back in the 1970s. I wish I hadn’t. Once he developed a taste for them I had to fight for my fair share. Pan fried, they’re a delicacy, especially as a side dish along with baked shad.

Oddly, as good as the roe is, I rarely ever hear other anglers mention they eat it. I rarely ever have anglers tell me they like shad either. Most anglers say they’re much too boney and hardly worth all the effort of scaling and cleaning them. They’d change their mind if they tried the stuffed baked shad my wife puts on the table. Sure you have to pick out a few bones but the delicately flavoured flesh of baked shad with a celery based dressing is worth it.

Have you ever tried smoked shad? I have and it’s excellent. At one time a couple of anglers in my neighbourhood experimented with cooking shad by smoking them. I’m not familiar with the process they used but I was given a few samples and as I said, it was good. It’s been a few years since I’ve had smoked shad – the nearest neighbour who smoked them passed on – but I recall the process removed many of those pesky bones; it was a lot like eating properly smoked gaspereaux, another spring delicacy few people are aware of.

Since shad have the reputation of not being good table food – and it’s undeserved as I said – a lot of anglers catch and release them for the sport. Shad are tremendous battlers, especially when taken on a fly rod and a lot of fun to catch, so this is understandable.

However, I hope some of you catch-and-release anglers will forget the mindset that shad are not all that edible. Try one this spring. Take a shad home. Have the chief cook at your house look up shad preparation in one of your cookbooks. Guaranteed you’ll be just as hooked on them at the table as you are on the stream.

CORNWALLIS INN TRIVIA (May 14/12)

In a note I received from Louis Comeau, he mentions an interesting aside on construction in 1930 of the Cornwallis Inn. To make way for the Inn, two houses on the site were removed – “the ‘Chestnuts’ owned by Deaconess Alice Webster #156 and the ‘Birches’ owned by Judge Barclay Webster #157.” And possibly the law offices of Webster and Robertson #72, Comeau said, noting the numbers quoted are from the Price map of 1894.

As I’ve mentioned before, the Cornwallis Inn replaced what in their time were two of the finest houses in Kentville. In the note, Comeau referred to the houses in a detailed list of what went into construction of the Inn. This list, all the facts and figures, must have been newsworthy in 1930. At least the editor of The Advertiser felt it was. The list was published in The Advertiser, the paper devoting its entire 38-page early December edition to the Inn’s opening.

The current renovations ongoing now at the Cornwallis Inn reminded me of Louis Comeau’s note. From curiosity I dug it out of my files, checking to see what the Cornwallis Inn was like originally and who the suppliers were. What amenities were offered when the Inn officially opened on December 8? Was there local input in the furnishing of the Inn? Was it a fact that all those tons of stone used in construction were quarried locally?

Answering the last question first, I see the Inn’s exterior consists of stone with an interesting name, New Minas quartzite. This material apparently came from rock formations, part of the so-called Wolfville Ridge, south of and immediately behind the village of New Minas. The stone is also called pink quartzite (for obvious reasons if you look at the various light shades of red in the exterior walls of the Cornwallis Inn). The quartzite from the New Minas formation was also used in buildings at Acadia University, by the way.

As for the amenities, each guest room in the Cornwallis Inn – there were 100 in all – featured a telephone, bath and radio, which may have been a hotel first for the Annapolis Valley. A formal dining room seating 200, a magnificent ballroom that would be the site of many Apple Blossom Festival dances in the future, and a barbershop, beauty salon and games room were among the other amenities. In addition, there were 10 sample rooms and several salons for meetings.

Work started on the Cornwallis Inn on March 15th and was completed 208 working days, on November 9th. From start to finish, total cost of constructing the Cornwallis Inn was $1,000,000. The Inn officially opened on December 8th with a banquet hosted by the Board of Trade.

Looking at the list provided by Louis Comeau, I see that only a few local retail stores were suppliers. Imagine all the furniture, carpeting, towels, soaps, etc., that was required to set up a spanking new hotel the size of the Cornwallis Inn. Most of this stuff came from provincial businesses but a few outside suppliers were also used.

One of the local suppliers of building material was L. E. Shaw Ltd. of Avonport. Shaw supplied the bricks, all 1200 tons of them. You didn’t need to know this but its interesting trivia.