When a jury sat to consider a case in the summer of 1770 in Kings County, says a document in the Public Archives of Nova Scotia (PANS), they were served “considerable rum and ‘tody’.” The document, an account of what was served in the way of liquor, notes that it was for “entertainment of the jury.”

Another document in PANS is an order of the Grand Jury stating the four individuals in Kings County “be arrested and charged with racing horses in the public roads during the sitting of the court.”

And yet another document in PANS, dated 1764, is a petition with 25 signatures “witnessing to a charge of irregular living against Ezekial —— and Phoebe ——- (wife of Seth ——-) for taking each other as man and wife and co-habiting.”

Also in PANS are petitions, five dated 1778 and 15 dated 1783 requesting the right to sell “spirituous liquors” in Kings County.

An adulterous couple publicly denounced, charges of horse racing in public when court is in session, rum served to juries to smooth their deliberations, and the likelihood there were more taverns than stores in Kings County in the 18^th century. These are a few of the documents in PANS relating to everyday Planter life in Kings County, and you can see there was intolerance on one hand, and a liberal attitude when it came to alcohol.

Brief descriptions of these and other documents from the early Planter period can be found in a book called New England Planters in the Maritime Provinces. As mentioned, the documents are in PANS, and the book apparently was compiled to assist historical researchers.

If anyone would like to read it, the book can be found in the reference section of the Vaughan Memorial Library at Acadia. The one and two sentence description of each document are interesting since they reveal aspects of Planter life you don’t find in history books. Who would think, for example, that horse racing was an offence, or that alcohol consumption by juries was acceptable in those days, and paid for out of the public purse.

Admittedly, I’ve mentioned a few of the slightly scandalous documents found in PANS. After all, they’re more revealing and more interesting. My favorite, by the way, is a document from 1763. This is described as an “order that Supreme Court Judges should have priority on the ferry from Windsor to Partridge Island (then part of Kings County) and no other passengers would be taken on the same passage without the Judges written consent.”

Now is that using political clout or what?

Writing in the Seniors’ Advocate a few years ago, folklore researcher Clary Croft mentioned that Auction Forty-Fives is the most popular card game in the Maritimes.

This may be true. However, drop into any branch of the Royal Canadian Legion in Nova Scotia and you’ll find that cribbage boards are as common as the Legion logo. While Auction Forty-Five no doubt is popular, the card game of choice, the card game most often organized by the Legion into tournaments, is cribbage, or “crib,” which is what most of us call this centuries old pastime.

Cribbage is played big time by Legion branches across Canada and is well organized. Paul Justason, sports chairman of Kings Branch # 6 in Kentville, tells me that Legions across the country compete every year for the ultimate in cribbage competitions, the Canadian championship, which has been held annually since 1989 and involves some 400 branches.

Play starts at the branch level first, and then advances to the zone, Justason said. Each zone in the province – there are 16 – sends two teams to the Nova Scotia/Nunavut final, which will be held later this month in Fairview outside Halifax. The winning team there advances to the Dominion championship in Grand Bend, Ontario, where it will compete with teams from other Legion zones from across Canada.

I mentioned above that cribbage is a centuries old pastime. The game is well over 300 years old. Cribbage was invented by the Englishman John Suckling, a swashbuckling gambler who lived from 1609 to 1642. The game hasn’t changed a whole lot since Suckling created it and this may explain part of its charm. The game combines elements of skill and chance the game. Its relatively simple rules of play and the equipment required (cards and scoring boards) makes it easy to organize into tournaments, explaining perhaps why Legion sports committees keep the cribbage competitions alive.

But simple as the game appears to be, cribbage is deceptively complex and appeals to players who like card games requiring calculation and a few shifty moves now and then. Then there’s the Nova Scotia cribbage connection, which may also explain its popularity.

As far as I can determine, only one book has ever been published in Canada about cribbage. All About Cribbage was written by the late Douglas Anderson of Halifax and published in 1971 by Winchester Press. The book contains a wealth of historical data, rules and terminology and even has a Kentville connection. The chapter with tables showing scoring possibilities were prepared by The Advertiser’s former publisher, George Baker.

About a year ago I devoted two columns (column1, column2) to the career of William H. Chase (1851-1933) and called him the apple king of Nova Scotia.  At the time, the editor of the Kings County Register questioned this.  “I always thought the title of apple king belonged to Berwick’s Sam Chute,” Sara Keddy said.

Of course I had heard of Sam Chute.  Who hasn’t if they live in the Valley.  His name is synonymous with apple growing and with Berwick, where he was one of the town’s leading citizens.   But as for him being the apple king, well I was dubious about that.  William H. Chase’s impact on the apple industry in Nova Scotia was unrivalled, as far as I was concerned, and he’s regarded as one of the men who brokered the apple industry into national prominence.

However, the possibility that others regarded Sam Chute as the apple king intrigued me.  What was Chute’s claim to fame?  Looking for an answer to this question, I learned that first of all, that comparing Chute to Chase was, well, like comparing apples to oranges, if you’ll pardon the cliché.   While Chase owned orchards, for example, he flourished more as an apple broker, a major exporter, a builder of warehouses and ports, a pioneer in turning the growing and selling of apples into a major business that put Nova Scotia on the world map.

Sam Chute, on the other hand, was an apple pioneer, one of the men who led the way into making the Valley a flourishing fruit belt, a fruit belt which astute businessmen like Chase turned into a financial empire.  Comparing Chute with Chase was, in other words, comparing growers with an exporter, a man who bought and sold apples, and this was wrong.

I have Berwick historian Pat Hampsey to thank for setting me straight on this.   Pat gave me several newspapers clipping on Chute from the Berwick Register, one detailing the life of the grower when he died in 1941 at age 74.  The Register hailed Chute as a pioneer of the apple industry.  In addition to turning out record crops and operating some of the largest orchards in the Valley, the Register said, Chute had also established international business connections with the fruit trade, and had “large fruit interests” in the States.

Sam Chute’s prominent role in the apple industry is brought into perspective by Anne Hutten in her book, Valley Gold.  “S. B. ‘Sam’ Chute of Berwick is known to have pioneered in the extensive use of commercial fertilizers during the 1890s, while increasing his acreage of orchards at a steady pace,” Hutten writes.  “By 1909 he was producing 4,000 barrels of apples, the largest crop ever grown by a single farmer up to that time.”

Elsewhere, Hutten tells us that when Apple growers banded together to form the United Fruit Companies of Nova Scotia, the new organization looked for the best men available to manage it and build warehouses.  “S. B. Chute of Berwick was an acknowledged expert on the growing, buying and shipping of apples, and he was hired as the first general manager.  That he continued to operate his own private business did not yet bother growers.  They needed a man who knew the business, and Sam Chute, without any doubt, knew it.”

Hutten includes other tributes to Chute in the book, verifying that beyond a doubt, he was in his time a leader in the apple industry.  That in one sense he was worthy of being dubbed the apple king cannot be disputed.  He was certainly acknowledged in his day as the apple king; the Register clippings from Pat Hampsey’s file never fail to refer to him as such whenever his name came up.

The little rail line that operated between Kingsport and Kentville beginning in 1890 was incorporated as the Cornwallis Valley Railway. Marguerite Woodworth, in her Dominion Atlantic Railway history, refers to the line as the Cornwallis Valley Railway. Internet historian Ivan Smith, Canning, also calls it the Cornwallis Valley Railway, as do numerous historical sources, so it appears that this is the correct name for the line.

However, the dean of Kings County historical writers, Arthur W. H. Eaton in his county history, calls the little railroad the Central Valley Railway, inferring that it was incorporated as such.

Possibly this was an error by Eaton and I mention it because it’s interesting historical trivia. I often find odd things like this in historical books and documents and I collect them. I call this stuff historical trivia, or things I found while looking up something else. Here are a few from my file.

In a journal entry dated February 28, 1871, Henry Alline rails against horse racing in Horton. “This day I went from Cornwallis to Horton, and O how I was grieved to see a vast crowd of people at horse-racing.” (From The Journal of Henry Alline, 1982 Lancelot Press edition edited by James Beverley and Barry Moody). Alline doesn’t indicate where in Horton Township the racing took place, but possibly it was in or near present day Wolfville.

The Markland Sagas, a book examining the Viking presence in Nova Scotia, and the possibility they may have landed in several parts of the province, was written by C. H. L. Jones and Thomas H. Raddall, and privately published in the early 1930s. (Mentioned in the book To Nova Scotia written in 1934 by T. Morris Longstreth.) In this connection, Longstreth mentions the so-called Runic Stone with its mysterious inscriptions that was found in Yarmouth.

Now here’s an aside our folks with Scottish ancestors will appreciate. Quoting from Norse documents, the authors of The Markland Sagas write that when Vikings explored what may have been Nova Scotia, they sent “Scottish slaves” ashore to check out the land. Does this raise the possibility that the Scots were the first people to set foot in North America?

On the early name for Kingsport, folklore has it that it was Indian Point. For anyone wondering if this is fact or fiction, here’s a quote from an unpublished paper on the Planters written in 1961 by Ernest Eaton: “Indian Point, an old name for Kingsport, is mentioned as the location of Lot 16, granted to Benjamin Newcomb.”

Many towns, villages and county communities were known by different names in earlier times. In his papers, for example, Ernest Eaton writes that the community adjacent to Kentville, South Alton, was once known as Moores Mills.

From Ernest Eaton as well, I found that Saxon Street, near Canning, was once called Washington Street. I’ve found Saxon Street designated as Washington Street on older maps. I’ve never found Bently Path on old maps, but Ernest Eaton says this was an even earlier name for Saxon Street/Washington Street.

Anyone interested in knowing where the first court house was built in Kings County? “I preached this day at the court-house in Horton,” Henry Alline wrote in his Journal on May 5, 1781. In a footnote, the editors say Alline preached at the “Meeting house in Horton, built in 1763, (which) was also the court house.” This was located at “what is now the Old Baptist Burying Ground, Wolfville.”

Later, in 1767, a meeting house or church was built at Chipman’s Corner (Arthur W. H. Eaton) and Alline would have preached there as well. Eaton says that nearby, close to where Middle Dyke road meets Church Street, an Acadian church once stood. I find it odd that the Acadians and Planters selected Chipman Corner as the site for a church.

In a column nearly a decade ago I asked how many of the roads in use today in Kings County follow ancient trails of the Mi’kmaq. I suggested that many of the pathways used countless generations by the Mi’kmaq were utilized by the Acadians and undoubtedly improved on and expanded here and there. In turn, as well as laying out new roads, the Planters found many of the Acadian trails convenient and some became permanent fixtures in the countryside.

Consider, for example, two major highways just outside Kentville, Belcher and Church Street. Since they follow the high ground, skirting two rivers as they wind towards Minas Basin, I assume these streets first were Mi’kmaq trails and then Acadian roads. Belcher Street winds through the high ground north of Kentville to a crossing place (now a bridge) known to have been used by the Mi’kmaq and Acadians. Both streets offer access to the shad fishery in the Cornwallis River and the Canard River, which were of vital importance, especially in the early days, to the Planter settlements in Kings County.

However, if we need solid evidence that early pathways and trails eventually became common roads, all we need do is consult historians such as Arthur W. H. Eaton and Ernest Eaton. The latter’s work is not as well known as the man who wrote the History of Kings County, but Ernest Eaton produced many well-documented historical articles on early times in Kings County. Some of these articles can be found in the Nova Scotia Historical Quarterly, some are unpublished; while the articles are mainly about dykes and early farm holdings, Eaton occasionally refers to old Acadian and Planter roads that remain today as well used highways.

In his county history, in the chapter on roads, traveling and dykes, Arthur W. H. Eaton writes that the Acadians cleared a “road eighteen feet wide all that way from Minas to Halifax.” The Acadians also began a major road from Minas to Port Royal, which was never completed. We can speculate that both roads were eventually part of #1 highway, which served the province so well before the 101 was opened.

The well traveled Middle dyke road, the highways running north from Greenwich to Canning, and north from Kentville towards the Bay of Fundy, are other example of roads that originated with the Acadians and Planters. In fact, Kings County has numerous roads that began as Mi’kmaq footpaths and became head-of-the-tide trails from one Acadian settlement to the other. Most of us drive over these roads today and don’t realize we’re following ancient pathways.

Historian Ivan smith of Canning writes that my January 8 column on the once common use of kerosene in the household “brought up an ancient memory.”

He has some interesting revelations about the use of kerosene, writing that when he was growing up in Lunenburg County in the 1930s and 1940s, his mother regularly used it as a cleanser. “For the kerosene she had a rectangular metal can with a small opening in the top with a screw cap,” he writes. “I clearly recall being sent with the empty can to the local garage to buy a refill (for) fifteen cents. This quantity, about a pint, would last two or three months. The can was kept on a shelf in the kitchen. It was always there during the time I lived at home.

“I do not recall it being used to clean glass surfaces, windows or mirrors. She used it for cleaning the glazed kitchen and bathroom sinks. I remember that after I was big enough to reach across the bathtub, one of my chores was sometimes to remove the ring around the bathtub after the Saturday evening baths.”

A wet cloth daubed with kerosene was used to clean the sink and tub, Smith writes, and for this “the kerosene was very effective. It left a clean surface that needed only a rinse with warm water.” After 1948, he concluded, his mother stopped using kerosene for cleaning and switched to Bon Ami, a powder cleanser that has been around for over 100 years.

History Preview

I reported in last week’s column that Mack Frail is busy researching and writing a history of Centreville. Mack recently sent me an excerpt from his upcoming work, with permission to reprint it here. In it he looks back on winter in Centreville some 50 years ago.

“The Centreville meadows would flood during January thaws and when they froze over, there was skating from highway 359 to beyond the railway bridge in Billtown. The large bon fires we had near the ice could be seen for a long distance. Clearing the snow off the ice and setting up for a game of hockey require some effort by the children. A pair of lumberman’s rubbers …. provided excellent goal markers.

“Without a net to stop the shots on goal, there were interruptions in the game to retrieve the puck. It required some nerve to be a goal tender considering that we wore little or no pads for protection. Our equipment was crude by today’s standard. Magazines or catalogues were attached to the legs as shin pads. A curved alder branch could be used as a hockey stick. The broken sticks that were discarded at the rink were in demand by us boys to be repaired and put back into service.”

It’s no surprise to me that many of the family names Mack Frail gleaned from an old Centreville store ledger are Irish. While researching, I discovered that Irish families often settled together in various outlying Kings County communities and Centreville was no exception.

Mack Frail is writing a history of Centreville, a task he’s been working on for several years. He recently compiled a list of families that shopped at a Centreville general store in the late 19^th century. The list was compiled from a ledger Ron and Bernice Ward found when they took over the general store in 1983. The store has been open in Centreville for well over a century. Frail tells me this is only one of several of the store ledgers that exist, and he hopes to include their records in his Centreville history.

While copying the ledger accounts, Frail found that some 397 families were shopping at the general store. The first entry in the ledger is dated January 2, 1878, the final entry June 16, 1879. At the time the store was operated by Reuben Thorpe. While entries consists solely of items purchased and their prices, one of those dry, boring account books in other words, Frail says it “is wonderful document and for me a step back in the past.” The ledger shows, for example, that the barter system was alive and well at the time in Kings County. As Frail says, “a great deal of the transactions (at the store) were by barter, that is, when no cash exchanged hands.” The ledger indicates that “cord wood” was often exchanged for groceries, for example.

Frail tells me he has a lot of work ahead of him before the history will be finished. Folklore says there is an Acadian connection with the village, for example, and chronicling this phase of the village’s history may be difficult. Centreville could owe its origin to the fact that the Acadian roads met in the area. It’s possible also that these roads originally were Mi’kmaq trails, but that may be difficult to determine.

Pinning down records of the old Centreville lands grants has been difficult, Frail says. “I have always heard of the Bowles land grant, for example,” he said in effect, “but I haven’t located any documentation concerning it.” One Thadius Bowles operated what may have been the first mill in Centreville. A barn that’s some 150 years old and was part of the Bowles’ mill is still standing on Frail’s property.

Frail will also have to delve into Centreville’s Irish connection. Centreville has a Catholic cemetery with many old Irish headstones. I have no record of the Irish names on the tombstones, but Reuben Thorpe’s accounts ledger suggests some of them could be Haggertys, Magees, Murphys, Colemans, Sullivans or Mahaneys, to list a few of the Irish families that shopped at the store a century ago.

Little is known about the Acadians and the Irish in and around Centreville, and I’m looking forward to seeing what Frail comes up with regarding them. While Centreville undoubtedly grew rapidly after the railway arrived in 1890, the most interesting eras in Centreville’s history – and in any community’s history, in fact – should be the Acadian and post Acadian period immediately after the Planters arrived.

In 1896 the Yarmouth Steamship Company of Boston published a tourist guide aimed at enticing American visitors to Nova Scotia. Steamship and rail travel was in its heyday at the time and the Yarmouth Steamship Company had close ties with the Dominion Atlantic Railway. Tourists could take a steamer out of Boston to Yarmouth, and then tour the province via convenient railway connections, stopping it was hoped at various inns and hotels promoted in the tourist publication.

Written by the poet Charles G. D. Roberts (before he was dubbed Sir Charles and was teaching in Windsor, Hants County) the tourist publication mentions various hotels and inns found along the rail route. Roberts apparently toured the province by rail, visiting major town and villages, staying overnight at some of the hostelries the railway wanted to promote. Thus we find Roberts mentioning “good Uncle Baxter,” who might be waiting for visitors when the train with tourists aboard arrived in Canning.

“Good Uncle Baxter” was Amos B. Baxter, who along with “Gram” Baxter, were proprietors of Waverley House, which in the late 19^th century, and for over 30 years, was apparently the place to stay in Canning. In fact, Waverly House is singled out as the only place to stay around Canning in the tourist publication. There is a prominent advertisement in the publication, advertising rooms available in the Waverly for $1.50 per day. The advertisement, signed by A. B. Baxter as proprietor, dwells on all the natural attractions tourists might find interesting around Canning, at Blomidon and the Look-Off.

There is mention of Mrs. Baxter in a write-up I have describing older Canning homes (source unknown) and I’m interested in it because it tells me Gram is a relative. She must have been quite the gal, this lady who possibly was my great aunt, since for three decades she ran the Waverly with Amos Baxter, and after his death continued to operate it for several more years.

Mrs. Baxter was born in 1837, and she lived to be 97, reads the write-up. “She was born at Baxter’s Harbour, a daughter of David Coleman. She married Amos Baxter in 1857. She and her husband opened the Waverley Hotel (sic) of which she was the proprietress for 30 years. After Mr. Baxter’s death, she carried on alone for three years.”

Since the write-up mentions that my great grandfather’s son, John Coleman, the county jailer, was her brother, I assume but question whether Gram was a relative. In two different census reports, no record exists of David Coleman having a daughter that was born in 1837. However, this may mean nothing. My grandfather, Joseph, isn’t listed in these census records either, and David is shown as his father in a couple of official documents. Gram Baxter had three children and relatives of her son, George, still live in Kings County.

I’ve been unable to determine what happened to Canning’s Waverley House after Gram passed away. I turned up a Waverley House operating in Kentville in 1890 but the Baxter name isn’t associated with it in late 19^th century newspaper advertisements.

There’s nothing new under the sun goes an old cliché, and it certainly applies to the current plans to harness the Fundy tides.

In fact, on at least two occasions in the past that I know of, attempts have been made to harness the powerful tides of the Bay of Fundy at Cape Split to generate electricity. Apparently it was the dream two respected members of Acadia University, one of them its president. This was in 1916, and it was a grand scheme that almost got off the ground, failing possibly because it was simply ahead of its time.

In 1916 the Cape Split Development Company was formed; an announcement followed that the problem of harnessing the Fundy tides had been solved. The CSDC said that once their project was completed, cheap, unlimited electric power would be available immediately to Kings County, and in the future to the entire Maritimes.

From what I’ve read in documents available at Acadia University and in newspaper accounts, the project was the brainchild of Acadia University president George Barton Cutten and University professor of engineering, R. P. Clarkson. A prospectus released by the CSDC announced that at the core of the plan was the Clarkson Current Motor, which Professor Clarkson had invented and patented.

Basically, the project involved using the Clarkson Motor to pump seawater from the base of Cape Split into reservoirs in the cliffs some 300 feet above; from the reservoirs, water would then be dropped down chutes to turbines in the powerhouse at the base of the cliffs.

According to the prospectus, a charter had been granted, land had been acquired and some preliminary work had been done. Public shares were offered by the Company but despite the fact that some prominent local businessmen were involved, a drive to raise the necessary financing fizzled out. After a few years in existence, and undoubtedly after a few more unsuccessful funding drives, the CSDC quietly folded.

Earlier, coincidentally just 100 years ago, another grand scheme was proposed to build a causeway from Cape Split across to the shore near Spencer’s Island, a distance of about five kilometers.

Little is known about this plan or how much groundwork was done, but diagrams found at Acadia University years ago indicate the causeway would hold turbines to generate electricity. This may simply have been some engineer’s dream, but it tells us the current plan to harness Fundy tides is not a new idea.

With a hint that they couldn’t be “responsible for recipes” calling for flour unless their products were used, the Ogilvie Flour Mills Co. of Montreal released the first of a series of cook books in 1907. A century later, some of those first editions can still be found in Nova Scotia kitchens. We have one in our kitchen, a still handy book used by at least three generations of homemakers.

Oddly, in a book stuffed with recipes, Ogilvie claimed they weren’t offering a “general cook book,” but simply a “help to the average housekeeper.” However, while they called the publication a “book for a cook,” it did stray from being just that. Various household hints are offered, some sensible, some bizarre, the latter hinting at how much different household life was 100 years ago.

Rats must have been common around the home in 1907, for example. Else why, in the section on household hints, would Ogilvie suggest a way to great way to get rid of rats – “besides using traps, cats or dogs” – was to spread chloride of lime, which was probably common in 1907 households where it was used as a bleaching agent and disinfectant. “It is said they (rats) never come where that is placed.”

I was surprised that besides heating and lighting, kerosene oil was used as a cleanser in households a century ago. Ogilvie’s book advises housewives that a spoonful of kerosene oil, added to a kettle of hot water, will make “windows, looking glasses and picture glasses bright and clear.”

Ogilvie claimed that kerosene would accomplish other little miracles around the house as well. For example: “When your kitchen sink is rusty, rub it over with kerosene.” “Kerosene will clean your hands better than anything else.” “Squeaky shoes are cured by dipping the soles in kerosene.” “The white spots appearing in the spring on the lining of your refrigerator will disappear if you rub the zinc with kerosene.”

Maybe kerosene was as useful around the house as Ogilvie indicates. Folk medicine has it that kerosene mixed with molasses was once used to treat coughs in Newfoundland. Other folk medicine says kerosene was an excellent bedbug wash and a rub for rheumatism. In a century old outdoors book, there’s a recipe that says one can make cough drops by boiling a mixture of molasses, kerosene oil and ginger , letting it cool until it solidifies and cutting it into candies.