Driving along Main Street in the eastern end of Kentville, it’s easy to miss the grave of one of Kentville’s distinguished citizens. A relatively modest stone in Oak Grove Cemetery marks the resting place of Dr. Arthur Wentworth Hamilton Eaton; it stands on a hill overlooking Main Street and few passersby realize it is there, or that Oak Grove is the resting place of an outstanding historian.

Dr. Eaton was laid to rest in Oak Grove Cemetery the summer of 1937; he had passed away in Boston on July 15, at age 87. At his request, little fuss was made over his funeral. He had made his own funeral arrangements years earlier and even had the stone in place awaiting the final dates. Only a few relatives and friends were present when his ashes were interred in Oak Grove near his brother, Frank.

His passing, while certainly newsworthy, was given little coverage by The Advertiser. “The ashes of Dr. Eaton buried at The Oaks,” ran a heading in the paper, followed by a few words on his death.

As we well know, Eaton compiled the History of Kings County. This was his greatest work. In a lifetime devoted to the church, to historical and religious writing, his research resulted in many books and essays. However, none came close to the depth and importance of his county history. Referring to this work and other books by Dr. Eaton, Acadia University Archivist Wendy G. Robicheau notes that they “have withstood the test of time and are an important resource for anyone studying local community and family history.”

Ms. Robicheau further assess Eaton’s Kings County history as a “monumental work,” a work that “continues to be on the ‘must consult list’ for genealogists and historians.”

This says it all and few will disagree with Robicheau’s assessment. Eaton’s Kings County history is indeed a monumental work and it happens that this is the centennial year of its publication.

Eaton’s history was first published in 1910. I mention this with the hope the year won’t pass with the anniversary unmarked, that the anniversary of the publication will be observed. Perhaps a plaque with a dedication to Dr. Eaton, placed on his grave site, is a suitable way to commemorate the anniversary.

Something should be done to mark the 100^th year of Eaton’s history. Hopefully, the various historical groups in Kings County will come up with at least a plaque that’s suitably inscribed. I volunteer my assistance to any group willing to take up this challenge. For starters, I can contact potential financing sources and see how thing go from there. Anyone wishing to donate to an Arthur W, H. Eaton centennial plaque fund should contact the Kings Historical Society.

In the autobiography of Robie Lewis Reid, a prominent British Columbia Lawyer who was born in Steam Mill in 1866, mention is made of a controversy involving a church minister, Rev. Benaiah Phelps. The farm of Reid’s father was once part of a 666 acre grant Phelps received in 1765 or 1766; hence, I suppose, Reid’s interest in the land’s history.

Reid writes that Phelps was given the grant as the “first Minister of Cornwallis (township).” Once he established the credentials of Rev. Phelps, Reid writes that he eventually departed Cornwallis under circumstances that left a bad taste in the mouths of the recently settled Planters. Looking at it a couple of centuries removed, the controversy Phelps stirred up in the 1760s appears to be a tempest in a teapot. Yet historians such as Arthur W. H. Eaton, the compiler of the Kings County history, and more recently Julian Gwyn, write about Phelps and the outrage his parishioners felt towards him.

Gwyn, in his recently published book on Cornwallis Township, mentions Phelps, noting only that he left “in a cloud of controversy.” Eaton, the other hand, goes into detail about Phelps and you can sense he didn’t approve of the good Minister’s actions when he sold his land and returned to New England.

Reid, Eaton and Gwyn write that when Phelps departed Cornwallis, he sold the land he had been granted and appropriated the money. The parishioners of Cornwallis were certain the grant to Phelps had been intended for “the continual benefit of the church” (Eaton) and it was morally wrong to keep the proceeds of the sale or sell the land.

Perhaps it was, but we learn from Eaton Phelps had legal right to the land since it had been granted in his name by the highest authority. However, there’s more to the tale. From the beginning of his ministry, Phelps apparently was disliked by Handley Chipman and Samuel Starr, two of the most prominent and influential men in Cornwallis township. Both men questioned his dedication to his calling and Chipman undoubtedly was instrumental in having Phelps put on probation his first year in Cornwallis.

“How soon after Mr. Phelps formal settlement as pastor of the church (that) strong opposition to him began to manifest itself we do not know,” writes Eaton. “Nor are we informed precisely what the grounds of the people’s dislike of him were.” After making this statement, Eaton notes that part of the problem with Phelps may have been his openly supporting the American Revolution. To quote Eaton again, “it is said that Mr. Phelps added somewhat to his unpopularity in Cornwallis by showing decided sympathy with the revolt against England on the part of his New England friend.”

Phelps ministered in Cornwallis about a decade, a long time to serve for an unpopular minister who was disliked immediately by the shakers and movers of Cornwallis Township. At the least, the Phelps controversy, minor as it may seem today, sheds some interesting light on religion at a time when the Planters were adjusting to life in Kings County. In that period it undoubtedly was a major disruption in the fledgling settlement.

(On his return to New England, Phelps assumed the pastorate of a church at Manchester where he served for some 15 years. His former congregation in Cornwallis appealed to church authorities in New England to have the money Phelps received for the land returned. Eaton writes that this appeal was disregarded.)

“It is not intended to be a scholarly work,” E. Marie Bickerton says of her book, Old Timers: Canning and Habitant.

Scholarly or not, this is a collection of historical information about Canning and the community of Habitant that would have been lost but for Bickerton compiling and publishing her book. Bickerton modestly adds that her book is “for information that can be added to at A later time.” Information, she tells us in an afterword, obtained from interviews, old newspapers, record books and by telephone.

In other words, some of what Bickerton included in her history was collected by talking with people. And what a chore this must have been, collecting oral history! I have no idea how long Bickerton worked on the book but from reading often intimate details about Canning, I would guess at least a couple of years. I as told Bickerton spent a lot of time talking with older residents of Canning and Habitant; in my opinion, preserving their recollection is what makes her work valuable.

When I decided to devote a column to Bickerton’s history I tried to find out something about her life. Contacting people with the same surname, a call to the Canning museum and telephone calls to a few Canning and Habitant residents went nowhere. Many people remember Bickerton but biographical information is scarce. I learned she was an artist and the Bickerton store that was once in Canning belonged to her family and that’s it. I’m hoping this column was prompt people to call and tell me all about a historian who should be recognized for her work.

As for her book, as well as describing the village’s older homes, it contains some delightful historical trivia about Canning. Three noontime whistles once blew in Canning, for example; in the shipyard, the axe factory and a mill. This alone illustrates that the village was once an important and thriving commercial centre – “the largest and mot prosperous village in Kings County,” Bickerton writes. How prosperous the village once was is also illustrated by the disastrous fire of 1866, Bickerton writing that it destroyed 40 buildings, of which 26 were stores.

Published in 1980, Bickerton’s work is out of print. The book is available at the Annapolis Valley Regional Library.

Canard Street, Elizabeth Rand writes in her book of the same name, runs from Porter’s Point on the Minas Basin to Upper Dyke. Along the street are more than 50 century homes which Rand describes in detail. Some of the oldest homes in Kings County are found on Canard Street; it’s unlikely that, kilometer for kilometer, any road in Kings County has as many century homes.

A close second for old houses along its length might be Main Street in Wolfville. Along with re-reading Canard Street, I just recently read a book, Wolfville’s Historic Homes by B. C. Silver and Watson Kirkconnell; it’s astounding how many fine old homes stand along the town’s main thoroughfare. Like Canard Street, Wolfville’s Main Street has an abundance of century homes; as Silver and Kirkconnell suggest in the title to their book, many of them are historic.

It’s interesting to see that neither Rand, nor Silver and Kirkconnell, argue that their street holds the oldest house in Kings County. That honor could belong to Wolfville. The so-called Kent Lodge at 654 Main Street, which is documented by Silver and Kirkconnell in their book, dates at least back to 1779. This date is suggested by a newspaper article from a November, 1896, issue of the Halifax Herald, which the authors quote.

However, another old house, which is near Canning (immediately west of Habitant’s western boundary) has been subjected to a lot of research and may be the oldest in Kings County. This is the Loomer-Goodwin house , a registered heritage property which in 1986 was the subject of a thorough investigation. Deed searches, mapping, probate records, genealogical records, and most important of all, architectural evidence, suggests that the Loomer-Goodwin house was probably built between the years 1761 and 1769; the house appears to be associated with Planter settlement in Nova Scotia write Daniel E. Norris who conducted the research into the house. His findings are published in the book, They Planted Well, a collection of Planter-theme articles published in 1988 and edited by Margaret Conrad.

There is also evidence suggesting the house may have built in New England and moved to its current location. This was reported in Marie Bickerton’s book, Old Times: Canning and Habitant, published in 1980, but this is inconclusive and most likely incorrect.

Kent Lodge, on Main Street, Wolfville (Ed Coleman)

The Loomer-Goodwin House near Canning, (along with Kent Lodge above) may be two of the oldest houses in Kings County. (Ed Coleman)

Can you believe that at one time a federal license was required to own and operate an ordinary radio out of your household?

I was reminded of this fact recently when I was talking to Bev Eaton about the 1929 earthquake. Actually, Bev had called to ask if I was familiar with the license. He was trying to remember when the license was required and what the fee was. Bev believed the license was in effect when he was a boy (he was born in 1918) and the fee might have been a few dollars; but that was all he could recall.

I vaguely remember that when I was a boy, some sort of official looking sticker was pasted on the back of the radio we kept in the parlour. Was that the old radio license? I had to call on Canning historian Ivan Smith to answer this question.

“I remember those radio receiver licenses,” Ivan said. “They were legally required to be ‘affixed’ to each radio received in operation in Canada. I remember going to the post office in Chester, some time in the mid-1940s, to buy our radio license for the current year. I don’t recall the fee exactly, but three dollars comes to mind.

“These licenses were commonly known as ‘Radio Receiver Licenses.’ Every home that had a radio receiver was legally required to buy one of these licenses each year and keep it near the receiver at all times.”

Ivan said the federal government used the fee as a way to raise money for support of the CBC. He directed me to the wording that manufacturers printed on the back panel of each radio set. “Warning!” the message read in part: “Any person installing or operating this Receiving Set without having first obtained a license from the Minister of Transport of Canada is liable …. to a fine not exceeding twenty-five dollars, and the said Receiving Set may be forfeited to His Majesty by order of the Minister ….”

I was unable to determine the date the license was first required but it apparently was well before 1938. The license fee in 1929 was one dollar. The fee in 1936 was $2.00, which was raised to $2.50 the following year. The requirement of a radio license was discontinued in 1953.

Ivan Smith tells me that much later the radio license became a collector’s item. He saw several copies of the “Private Receiving Station License” at the Bayhead Radio Museum, operated by Ernest Yeaw in Colchester County, and was able to photograph several of them. You can take a look at the museum by keying in Bayhead Radio Museum on Google.

Born in 1918, Bev Eaton of New Minas clearly remembers the day in 1929 when an earthquake shook the ground, knocking down a woodpile on his father’s farm in Highbury.

“We had just finished stacking the winter wood when the ground began to shake,” Bev remembers. “It was a sort of quiver and it knocked over our winter wood just after we’d worked hard stacking it up.”

This would have been late in 1929 when Bev was 11. Around 4:30 in the afternoon of November 17 an earthquake under the Atlantic Ocean off Newfoundland was felt throughout Nova Scotia. The quake was severe enough to shake New Brunswick as well as parts of New England. Ivan Smith of Canning, on his History Index website, contains this note on the quake which I quote with his permission:

“It was felt throughout Nova Scotia, with shaking severe enough to throw goods off of store shelves and teacups off of kitchen shelves in Windsor and Chester.

“In Kentville and Annapolis Royal, bricks fell from chimneys and plaster was cracked in some houses.”

Bev Eaton recalls that locally the quake definitely was “severe enough” to cause a bit of damage in local stores. He remembers that the old Rockwell Hardware Store on Main Street in Kentville suffered some damage when the quake rattled it and knocked dishes off the shelves. There was damage in other stores as well, Bev recalls.

A few rattles, a few cracked walls and lost dishes pretty well sums up the 1929 earthquake’s effect locally. My father, who was in his late 20s at the time of the quake, recalled that it briefly shook his father’s farmhouse in Steam Mill and except for momentarily disrupting the butchering of pigs, that was it.

For the most part there was only minor damage in Nova Scotia but as history buffs will recall, the quake created a huge tsunami that devastated the coast of Newfoundland. Of the 21 submarine cables linking Europe to North America, 16 were broken by the earthquake, most of the damage caused by undersea landslides.

“As all who have gathered here are aware, a soldier cannot leave his post without being properly relieved. Pvt. Tupper you are now relieved.”

So spoke Capt. Bruce Barber, of the 20^th Maine Volunteer Infantry Regiment, at the graveside service of Ardent Tupper. It was a touching, impressive ceremony at the Scots Bay cemetery on June 12, and was one of several grave marker ceremonies honoring Kings County veterans of the American Civil War. As a piper, I participated in two of them, Ardent Tuppers and that of Centerville native William Kinsman at the Chipman Corner cemetery.

In a May 18 column I covered Ardent Tupper’s service in the Civil War. Thanks to Sara Keddy, this paper’s editor, I was given the opportunity to expand not only on Tupper’s service in the Union Army, but that of other Kings County men who left here to fight in the Civil War. Readers who read my article in the June 8 issue of the Regional will know that in addition to Tupper and Kinsman, I’m referring to Dr. Frederic Burgess and Ben Jackson.

While it wasn’t publicized in advance, a Hantsport native who served in the Civil War was also recognized at the June 12 ceremonies. This was Thomas Patten who is buried in Riverside Cemetery in Hantsport. Patten enlisted in the 3rd Maine Volunteer Infantry, later transferring to an artillery corp. He suffered a gunshot wound to his hip during the war.

I found Thomas Patten’s name on a website while searching for information on Canadians who served in the Civil War. Several other Kings County natives who served in the Civil War are listed on the website as well. I mention these vets with the hope they have relatives here; relatives who may not be aware of their Civil War service and may wish to do further research.

First, there is John Carter, Canning, who suffered a gunshot wound in the war. Leander W. Kimball, Wolfville, was another Civil War veteran. Margaret Murphy, Wolfville, was listed on the website as the mother of a war vet who apparently was killed in action. Similarly listed are Caroline Leland, Melvern Square, and Usly (sic) Jane Tupper, Avonport, both of whom apparently lost sons in the war and like Margaret Murphy, received their sons’ pensions.

“There must be some element, social or otherwise, that lends itself to history writing in Kings County. There’s a lot of them,” James Doyle Davison said when he spoke at the Kings County Historical Society a few years ago.

Mr. Davison was referring to the history books that have been published on Kings County families and communities. Most of the towns and villages in Kings County have published histories (Canning and New Minas are exceptions) and numerous books have been written on long established families such as Bishops and Eatons.

Many of these town and village histories are long out of print; the histories of Port Williams, Sheffield Mills and Greenwich come to mind immediately, to give a few examples. The latter two are almost impossible to find today. It was only recently, after years of Internet and yard sale searching for example, that I found the Greenwich history by Edythe Quinn.

At times difficult to find as well are three excellent little books that should be in every history buff’s library. These were written or co-authored by Dr. Watson Kirkconnell, who was president of Acadia University from 1948 to 1964. Dr. Kirkconnell published Place-Names in Kings County in 1971 and it’s an excellent supplement to Fergusson’s Place-Names and Places of Nova Scotia. In this book (or booklet, to be exact) Kirkconnell delves deeper into the origin of Kings County place names than Fergusson does in his work.

Two other little known books by Kirkconnell are Wolfville’s Historic Homes, published in 1967, co-authored with B. C. Silver and The Streets of Wolfville, published in 1970.

The latter is one of my favorite history books since it delves into the Mi’kmaq/Acadian origin of some of our roads, a topic I’ve written about in several columns. If you’ve ever wondered how towns such as Wolfville and Kentville originated and eventually became prominent, you’ll find an explanation in this book. Most interesting as well is Kirkconnell’s main theme, the origin of street names in Wolfville.

The Streets of Wolfville, and Wolfville’s Historic Homes, both in paperback, are available at Randall House Museum in Wolfville. Kirkconnell’s paperback on county place names is much more difficult to find.

Many Canadians fought in the American Civil War from 1861 to 1865; exactly how many will never be known. The same can be said of Nova Scotians who served in regiments of the North and South. Nova Scotians definitely fought in the Civil War, but historians are unable to determine exact numbers. However, I’ve been told that 138 Civil War participants were born in Nova Scotia.

Some of those Civil War veterans are Kings County natives. Most of them fought on the side of the North in regiments formed in Maine.

In fact, representatives of a Civil War Regiment, the 20th Maine, will recognize these Kings County veterans in June with graveside services. This has stirred a lot of local interest, especially among military collectors whose chief interest is the Civil War. One of those Civil War buffs is Kentville businessman Cyril White; he tells me he started studying and reading about the Civil War some 30 years ago and has collected a number of related books.

White says it’s good to see Kings County veterans of the Civil War being remembered. His interest is such that his firm, the White Family Funeral Home, will place a monument at the grave of Civil War veteran, Ardent Calvin Tupper of Scots Bay. The monument will be unveiled in Scots Bay on June 12; at the time, representatives of the 20^th Maine Re-enactment Regiment, dressed in uniforms of the Civil War, will perform the graveside memorial service that was held originally for Union soldiers.

Besides Tupper, similar services will be conducted on the same day for three other Kings County natives who served in the Civil War: These are William Kinsman, who is buried at Chipman Corner, Dr. Frederic Burgess, Hantsport, and Ben Jackson, Lockhartville. The best known of these is Ben Jackson whose long lost grave recently was located in Lockhartville.

Thanks to Bill Tupper and his wife Olee Goodwin Tupper, I learned that Ardent Calvin Tupper joined the 20th Maine when he was 19 and saw action at Gettysburg, one of the most famous battles and bloodiest battles of the Civil War. He was also at Appomattox with the 20^th Maine when the South’s surrender was received. Bill told me that Ardent kept a diary on his war experiences, which the Tupper family still has, and in it he writes about being at Gettysburg.

Ardent, who is Bill’s great great uncle, was born in 1844 and died in 1917. He returned to Scots Bay after the war where the house he lived in still stands.

“At the junction of these two roads (Church Street and Middle Dyke Road) the old township government had laid out a piece of land for militia purposes, which was called the Parade Ground” wrote Robie Lewis Reid (1866-1945) in a memoir about his early life in and around Steam Mill. The area around junction became known as “Chipman’s Corner,” named SAYS Reid after one of the families who were early settlers here.

“At Chipman’s Corner,” writes Reid, “lived the patriarch of the Chipman family, Hon. Samuel Chipman. He was born October 18, 1790, and died November 10, 1891.” Reid was acquainted with the Hon. Samuel Chipman, in his memoir mentioning a talk he had with him when the latter was 100 years old. In his memoir he offers a not unflattering description of Samuel, listing his accomplishments, all of which I’ll quote later.

If we look at history books we’ll find that the Hon. Samuel Chipman was a third generation Planter. His grandfather, Handley Chipman, was a Cornwallis township grantee. Eaton in his history of Kings County writes about the Chipman family in detail. Another excellent source of material on the Chipman family is James Fry’s Sketch of “Chipman Corner,” published by the Kings Historical Society and available at the Kings County Museum.

The late James Doyle Davison wrote several books that offer glimpses of the Chipman family; one of these books – Handley Chipman, Kings County Planter – is an excellent source for anyone interested in the Chipmans and early Planter life in Kings County. Fergusson’s Place-Names and Places of Nova Scotia also contains a description of “Chipmans Corner,” mentioning Handley Chipman as a grantee in the area.

Getting back to Robie Reid, he writes that the Hon. Samuel Chipman was a distinguished public servant (as were many of his immediate relatives). “He represented the County of Kings in the Provincial Legislature from 1830 to 1844 and from 1851 to 1860. From 1855 to 1857 he was a member of the Provincial Government. He was Registrar of Deeds from 1870 to 1887.”

Eaton, in his county history, adds additional information on Samuel’s career, noting that he represented several areas of Kings County from 1830 to 1863. Samuel also held at least two prominent positions with the provincial government. He apparently was interested in local history as well Robie Reid noting that he obtained from Samuel “many bits of (local) history only he remembered.”