“I surmise that Frank Burns – ‘Mr. Festival’ – being a newspaper man, would have many connections across North America,” Kentville historian Louis Comeau writes. Comeau was commenting on my recent column about the origin of the apple blossom festival. Frank Burns played a prominent role in organising the first festival and was one of the founders.

“Also,” Comeau surmises, “local farmers here were in touch with state-of-the-art farming practices across the continent. These contacts would have exposed them to other communities and the fact that they had festivals of their own.”

Comeau said that a long time ago he became interested in discovering where the idea for our apple blossom festival originated. His research lead to a couple of interesting discoveries. “Firstly, there were many, many other apple blossom festivals (at one time I counted 31 of them). Secondly, several of them were much older than ours.”

And, said Comeau, the format for our festival “was very near exact” to the festivals his research turned up. This was “maybe just a coincidence but it’s an interesting similarity,” he concludes, suggesting that our festival fathers may have been aware of these earlier blossom celebrations.

While our apple blossom festival has the distinction of being the first in Canada, it can’t claim North American honours. Louis Comeau discovered that the earliest festival in North America “seems to be the Washington State apple blossom festival.” This event was founded in 1919.

The Washington State festival website, which Comeau suggested I check, mentions their festival was the brainchild of a Mrs. E. Wagner, a native of New Zealand. Wagner “enjoyed the festivals of her childhood so much,” reads the website, “that she suggested beginning a similar festival in the Wenatchee Valley.”

Now it might be a bit of a stretch to link a New Zealand apple blossom festival with the Valley event. There could be a connection, of course. As Louis Comeau suggested, Frank Burns would have connections across North America and may have heard of the Washington State festival through the newspaper grapevine. Then there’s the apple growers grapevine to be considered. Word could have filtered down from other growers about the blossom celebration in the States that was so popular and so appropriate.

Bottom line, it seems that the idea of an apple blossom celebration isn’t original to the Annapolis Valley. As I mentioned in a previous column, it may not have even been an original idea with Kentville’s Board of Trade, the group that got the ball rolling with the first Valley festival in 1933.

In 2003, Advertiser/Register columnist Annie Bird interviewed Evelyn Tatterie Armstrong for an article in the Hants Journal. Ms. Armstrong recalled participating in an apple blossom festival in Hantsport circa 1931. Armstrong said that the Hantsport celebration began with an apple blossom dance sponsored by a prominent orchardist Laurie Sanford.

The site for the dance was Sanford’s warehouse along the railway track. Armstrong recalled that a blossom queen was selected and she was runner-up.

In the article Annie Bird writes that the blossom dance and the festivities “got so big” Mr. Sanford and other orchardists throughout the Valley met and decided to hold the “Queen’s Ball in the Cornwallis Inn.” Bird mentions as well that later, when Hantport’s mayor B. T. Smith was chairman of the Apple Blossom Festival Committee, he noted that his town had originated the festival. Perhaps he wasn’t aware of the Washington/New Zealand connection.

Okay, who came up with the original idea of holding a Valley-wide pageant with an apple blossom the theme?

We don’t know for sure.  What we do know is that 80 some years ago the first apple blossom festival was held in Kentville and various Valley towns participated.   We also know a successful format used in summer carnivals hosted in Kentville (1926 and 1928) was adopted by the festival fathers.  But the identity of the individual – if it was an individual – who first promoted the blossom festival idea has been lost, due mainly due to the passage of time.

However, there are clues to who this far-sighted person might be.  One of the candidates is Frank J. Burns.  He often spoke of the festival as if it was his baby and he told me on more than one occasion he started it.  Burns played a prominent role on the committee organizing the first festival and definitely was a founding father.

As the general manager of Kentville Publishing, Burns played a key role in keeping the festival alive and flourishing.   In his book on the blossom festival, Harold Woodman called Burns “Mr. Festival,” noting he served for 10 years as festival president beginning in 1938 and was honorary president until his death in 1977.  Burns is credited with bringing the blossom festival to the attention of newsmakers across Canada and the U.S.

Perhaps it may be Clifford Baker, publisher of The Advertiser, who deserves credit for conceiving the blossom festival.  “No one can say today who first mentioned the idea out loud, but it very well could have been Clifford L. Baker,” writes Harold Woodman in his festival history.  Woodman mentions a letter published in the Chronicle-Herald by G. M. Masters, who apparently was involved with the early festivals.  Masters declared in the letter that Clifford Baker had been the first to suggest an apple blossom festival.

Baker was prominent in the summer carnivals that preceded the first festival.  In the Kentville history (The Devils Half Acre) Mabel Nichols notes that in the finale of the 1928 carnival, all the performers who were in a musical united to sing a hymn of praise called Hymn to Nova Scotia.  The hymn was written especially for the carnival, by Clifford Baker, writes Nichols.

Looking farther afield in our search for whoever first suggested an apple blossom festival, we turn to the book Mud Creek, the Wolfville history compiled by James Doyle Davison.  In the book Davison refers to an editorial appearing in the Wolfville weekly newspaper, the Acadian.  Early in 1932, Davison writes, the editor of the Acadian suggested an apple blossom festival for the Valley.  The editor (Paul Davidson?) may not have been the first to suggest a blossom festival since the editorial mentions it was an idea proposed years before.

Getting back to Harold Woodman and his festival history, he writes that one of the founders was Bob Palmeter, a Kentville retailer who created the famous pattern for Apple Blossom China.  When the Kentville Board of Trade was exploring the possibility of a springtime celebration, Woodman says, it was Palmeter “who brought matters to a head” by suggesting an apple blossom festival.

Finally, we have to look at the town of Hantsport when discussing the festival’s roots.  There are claims that before Kentville hosted the first blossom festival, Hantsport held several similar celebrations and should be recognized as the home of the event.  I was told by a long-time resident of the town that Hantsport’s blossom celebration began in the 1920s and featured a blossom queen and blossom ball.

Harold Woodman mentions the Hantsport celebration in his book on the apple blossom festival.  Woodman said he was unable to discover “a direct connection” between the Hantsport celebration and the Valley’s apple blossom festival.

From Canard Street north of the Canard River system and from Church Street on the south side, you can look upon hundreds of acres of farm fields with ricks, aboiteaux, farm roads, cross dykes, running dykes and well travelled highways.

This varied series of dyked fields, which start in Steam Mill Village and run down to Lower Canard, didn’t exist at one time.  Former dyke warden Jim Borden points out that when the Acadians arrived in Kings County, all of this land was flooded twice daily by the Minas Basin tides.

“Before the Acadians started dykeing on the Canard River,” Borden said, “the tides pushed up right to North Aldershot Road.”  In effect, twice a day the Canard dykes became a massive tidal lake that ocean going ships could easily sail into, he said.  If you’re familiar with the dykes at all this is difficult to perceive.  But this is the picture Borden painted in a recent lecture (March 26) at the Kings County Museum.  Not only that, Borden said, by the time the Acadians arrived, aeons of twice daily tides had left a flood plain covered in rich soil “with no stones in most places for a depth of at least 25 feet.”

The Acadians arrived in Kings County around 1680, a few families moving up from Port Royal to settle at Grand Pre and along the Canard River.  The Acadians immediately recognised the agricultural potential of  the floodplain, Borden said, and soon after they arrived here, dyking began along the Canard River.

“The first dykes were started on a stream running into the Canard River from the area behind Blueberry Acres,” Borden said in effect.   “Then the Acadians began dyking right on the Canard River, starting in Steam Mill.  They then moved downstream, constructing a dyke and aboiteau where Middle Dyke Road now crosses the Canard River.   The next major dyke was built on the river just below Jawbone Corner, about where the highway crosses the Canard.”

The Acadians likely intended to dyke the entire Canard River system, Borden said, but their work ended with the expulsion of 1755.  However, dyking continued after the Planters and other settlers arrived in this area, culminating after many stops and starts with completion of the Wellington Dyke in 1825.  Borden noted that 44,000 acres are protected by dykes in the province, much of it started by the Acadians; of this about 9,200 acres of dyked land exist in Kings County, a heritage he said that can be traced back to the Acadians.

The sites of the early dyking in Kings County are well known, Borden said.  He lamented that “no markers have ever been posted to identify these historical sites and this should be done.”   No comprehensive history of the Canard dykes existed either until Borden and former dyke warden Charlie Eaves promoted the idea of producing one around 1970.   This eventually was produced and published in 1985. Borden credited former Advertiser editor Brent Fox for completing the huge task of researching and writing the history.  At the time Fox was majoring in history at Acadia University and working as a summer student at the Kings County Museum.

Summing up his talk on the Canard River dykes, Borden said that early on they were used by the Acadians and Planters to pasture cattle and grow a few crops.  “Nowadays the dykes are not used as pasture and all types of crops are grown there,” he said.  “Many of the old dykes are now highways.”

This is the third column on the old plant that once bottled Pepsi Cola and Morris soft drinks literally in downtown Kentville (first column, second column).  And thanks to various readers, I’m able to somewhat flesh out the story of the bottling plant operating in Kentville over half a century ago.

I mentioned in the second column on the Morris plant that the proprietor was W. E. Morris.  A reader called to tell me it was Bill Morris and his brother Jack who had operated the plant.  And, the reader informed me, Bill’s son, Dr. Donald Morris, resides in the Halifax area.  The reader also gave me Dr. Morris’ telephone number.  I’m delighted to report that on contacting him, Dr. Morris provided background on the bottling plant and how it got started.  Here’s what Dr. Morris recalled about the bottling plant his father and uncle set up Kentville.

“In 1939 my father (Bill) who was living in Montreal and his older brother Jack, who was living in Boston, acquired a Pepsi-Cola franchise for the Valley area.  They bought a truck, drove to NS, and chose Kentville.

“Neither of them had any experience in the pop business. Somehow they thought that the old vacant church could become a bottling plant. (I was somewhat surprised when I arrived a month or two later at age 12).  Luckily the Pepsi-Cola people were very helpful.  Somehow they got the place fixed up and started producing Pepsi,

“Jack was in charge of production and Bill was in charge of sales. Shortly after they got started war was declared and sugar rationing was brought in.  The production of soda pop starts with the syrup which comes in large barrels (like wine casks) from some top secret place.  At the local plant a large amount of sugar and water are added.  The rationing of sugar could have been a great problem, but extra sugar rations were allowed for pop sold to army camps, so with the help of Aldershot and Greenwood they were able to keep busy during the war years.

“After the war the business continued to grow.  Jack had gone back to Boston after the first year.  Dave Belcher was hired to run the plant and he was Bill’s right hand man for many years.  In 1949 the Pepsi people asked Bill to take the Pepsi franchise in Halifax.  This was a difficult decision for him but he decided to do it, building a new plant in Dartmouth which became very successful.  They continued to supply Pepsi to the Valley from the Dartmouth plant.”

Dr. Morris added that it wasn’t long after they were in business that his father began to experiment “with his own brand of flavours and they continued to be constantly changing.”  The company name was changed from Morris Bros to Morris Beverages.  According to Dr. Morris, after the move to Dartmouth, the Morris brand soft drinks were “distributed in the Halifax- Dartmouth area, down the east shore as far as Sheet Harbour, as well as the Valley.”

Morris soft drink bottles are treasured by collectors today, by the way.  The Morris bottles are likely all that remains as reminders of the time unique soft drinks were produced in Kentville.

Did Francis O’Neill, an Irish police Captain out of Boston, visit Kings County in the early 1900s to collect music and visit relatives?

My father Carl believes that such a man came here, an O’Neill who said he had Irish relatives in Kings County.  “He said he collected music for a book,” I remember my father saying and he had served as a policeman in Boston.   “He told us he was from the same area in Cork as my grandfather and he wondered why we had dropped the ‘O’ from our name,” my father said. “He didn’t get much music from here though, just a little.”

If it was the same Francis O’Neill who published several large collections of Irish music, then perhaps a few tunes in his books did come from the Kings County Irish.  O’Neill was cut from the same cloth as the Carter family who spent a lifetime collecting and recording the folk music of  the Appalachian Mountains.  Only O’Neill’s forte was Irish music.  Like the Carters he spent decades collecting Irish music and it can truly be said that without him, much Irish folk music might have been lost for all time.

So who was this the same Francis O’Neill and did he really come to Kings County to visit and collect music?  Possibly he did. Many years ago, in an Antigonish book store, I found a collection of music called O’Neill’s Music of Ireland.  The cover boasted that the book contained 1,850 melodies;  in it were airs, jigs, reels, hornpipes, long dances and marches, collected “from all available sources” by Capt. Francis O’Neill and arranged by James O’Neill.

Later I discovered a second collection of Irish music – The Dance Music of Ireland – also by Capt. Francis O’Neil, with arrangements by James O’Neill.  This was another massive collection of over one thousand Irish tunes containing jigs, reels, hornpipes and dance pieces.  Both books had the names of the tunes in Gaelic and in English.

It was only speculation on my part but it seemed too much of a coincidence that there were two Irish policemen Captains by the name of Francis O’Neil’s collecting music to put in a collection.  It was after I showed my father my find in Antigonish that he recalled the Irish policeman who visited here.  This would have been circa 1908, he said, when he was in his teens.

With St. Patrick’s Day upon us I thought I’d mention O’Neill, his collections of Irish music and the possibility he visited here more than a century ago.  Then came Christmas last and the gift of a book on the history of Irish music.  Capt. Francis O’Neill (1848-1936) was written up in the book and I learned as mentioned above that his lifetime hobby was collecting and publishing books of Irish music.  The article on O’Neill said he travelled extensively (after he left the Boston police force) to pursue his hobby and he is saluted as the man who saved Irish folk music.

Perhaps he did visit Nova Scotia and saw his Irish relatives here in Kings County; and perhaps a tune or two from some of the Kings County Irish did end up in one of his collections.  I have this in mind and wonder which ones they might be every time I play one of the many Irish tunes from his books.

O’Neill’s book. Were Kings County tunes published in this collection of Irish music?