In [a recent] column (Search turns up wrong Woodworth) I wrote that the Marguerite A. Woodworth buried in the St. John’s cemetery on Church Street may be the author of the D.A.R. history.

After the column appeared a reader called to confirm that St. John’s cemetery did indeed hold the remains of the author. The reader has a copy of Ms. Woodworth’s obituary from a provincial newspaper indicating she was buried there. To my surprise, the reader said a copy of the obituary was on file in the Kings County Museum. I had already looked at the Museum’s obituary records, some dozen books containing hundreds of obituaries, and had found nothing. However, a search by Museum curator Bria Stokesbury discovered the obituary in documents that hadn’t been catalogued.

I now have a copy of Ms. Woodworth’s obituary and the author of the D.A.R. history is no longer quite the mystery that she was. With the obituary in hand, I also had the names of Ms. Woodworth’s parents and quickly found their obituaries in the Museum files. Marguerite’s father, Dr. Percy C. Woodworth, was a distinguished gentleman in his own right and more on him later. Here is the gist of Marguerite’s obituary from a 1967 daily newspaper:

“Miss Marguerite A. Woodworth, 67, 77 Belcher Street, died at Blanchard Fraser Memorial Hospital after a brief illness.

“Daughter of the late Dr. Percy Woodworth and Carrie (O’Key) Woodworth, she was born in Kentville and educated at Acadia University. She studied music and art for ten years in France. In earlier life Miss Woodworth was purchasing agent for the Dominion Atlantic Railway and later was commissioned to write a history of the D.A.R. Prior to World War 11 she was a private secretary in Saint Joh, N.B. Retiring in 1953, she moved to Kentville.” Burial, the obituary concluded, was to be in the St. John’s Church cemetery.

The obituary stated that Marguerite was survived by only three cousins, all of whom resided in other countries. However, her father’s obituary gives the name of one of his cousins as a survivor, Ney A. Woodworth of Kentville, and this should have been included in Marguerite’s write-up. Dr. Woodworth’s obituary also tells us that Marguerite had a brother who was “killed while serving in the United States forces in Vera Cruz.”

Marguerite Woodworth’s long stay in France where she studied may be explained by a family connection. According to Dr. Woodworth’s obituary, Carrie Woodworth’s sister was married to “a famous French barrister.”

In 1911 Marguerite’s mother died in France. Dr. Woodworth died in 1927 in Kentville. In his day, Woodworth was a renowned athlete in his early days – “one of the best football players in the Maritimes and a speed skater of international fame” reads his obituary. Just after he graduated, Dr. Woodworth took part in an expedition to the Arctic.

In a paper read before the Nova Scotia Historical Society in 1888, D. Allison called it one of the “most important documents” ever prepared on the history of early Nova Scotia. The document he referred to is the “General Return of the Several Townships in the province.” In effect, this was a form of census and its value lies in it being prepared in 1767, just over a decade after the expulsion of the Acadians and less than a decade after the arrival of the Planters.

The years immediately following the expulsion of the Acadians was “one of the most formative epochs” in Nova Scotia history, Allison writes. The survey or general return for this period is important, he says, for the light it shed on those years, supplying “valuable information respecting the (Planters)” and “some light on the interesting question of Acadian repatriation.”

Students of early Nova Scotia history will find that the General Return contradicts historians such as Haliburton and Murdoch. At least this is what Allison implies. Apparently, the General Return was lost in government archives for a long period and was unknown to Haliburton and Murdoch when they wrote their histories of Nova Scotia – Haliburton in 1829 and Murdoch before 1895. Some of the statistics compiled in the return also contradict Acadian population numbers at the time of the expulsion.

According to the General Return, for example, the Acadians on the eve of expulsion “in the territories now comprising Nova Scotia, New Brunswick and Prince Edward Island certainly did not exceed 10,000.” Allison said that some authorities placed the number even lower than 10,000. He quotes other sources giving higher numbers but casts doubt on them, in summary concluding that the entire Acadian population in 1755 numbered 9,000.

In contrast, current websites on the Acadian people give various population figures, one at 15,000 at the expulsion of which 12,000 were deported; another website said the Acadian population exceeded 10,000 of which just over 8,000 were deported. A Nova Scotia government publication on provincial history gives the number of Acadians deported as 6,000.

Oddly, another website sponsored by the provincial government says that by 1764 some 23,000 expelled Acadians had returned to Nova Scotia. Where did all the Acadians come from you may ask, since none of the figures quoted above re the expulsion came close to this number. Also, in Haliburton’s Nova Scotia history the entire population of the province, including Acadians, was estimated to be 19,120 in 1772.

In his report, Allison says that 12 years after the expulsion the Acadian population was estimated to be less than a thousand. The census of 1881 found this number reaching nearly 29,000; but, says Allison, this figure is “considerably too large (since) they include several thousands of French extraction, but not of Acadian descent.”

Her history of the Dominion Atlantic Railway is a monumental work, I stated in last week’s column when asking if anyone could help in my search for information on Marguerite Woodworth.

Calling this work “monumental” in my opinion is an understatement. Ms. Woodworth starts her history in the period well before Joseph Howe conceived the idea of a railway between Halifax and Windsor. From the stagecoach period to Howe’s crusade for a railway and the passing of the Railway Act in 1854, Woodworth details the trial and tribulations of getting a railway started. She ends her account in the early part of the 20th century, saluting along the way the many pioneers who made the railway possible.

This is the historian I said I’d like to know more about. To me, Woodworth is a bit of a mystery person, and this is why I asked readers for assistance.

Following my request for information, I received a telephone call from a reader who told me that Marguerite Woodworth was a Kings County native and had several surviving relatives in the Church Street and Port Williams area. I was given the names of two nieces and a nephew, two of whom I know. The caller gave me Woodworth’s birth and death date, 1899 – 1967, and told me she was buried at the Chipman Corner cemetery.

From the nephew, I learned that Ms. Woodworth had been a school teacher in Kings and Digby County, had married late in her senior years and had been interested in local history. Woodworth had done a lot of research on various old homes on Church Street and in Port Williams, I was told.

At this point I was delighted. Finally a picture of Woodworth the historian was emerging. It was only after I stopped at the Chipman Corner cemetery to look at Woodworth’s tombstone that some doubts crept in. The cemetery stone read “Margaret E. Woodworth, 1899 – 1967, and gave her married surname. This was either the historian with the first name misspelled or someone other than the author.

After leaving the cemetery I talked with Margaret E. Woodworth’s niece. She confirmed that her aunt wasn’t the author of the railway history. Later a review of burial records at the Kings County Museum revealed an unusual coincidence. A Marguerite E. Woodworth rests in the St. John’s cemetery a few miles east of the Chipman Corner cemetery. Like Margaret E. Woodworth, Marguerite E. Woodworth was born in 1899 and died in 1967.

I have yet to confirm that the Woodworth is the St. John’s cemetery is the author of the railway history. However, I have a few more leads to follow and eventually I hope to have a biographical sketch of Marguerite Woodworth.

One of the reasons for “Nova Scotia’s past prominence in… shipbuilding lies in her geographical position,” and in upheaval in the North American political scene, Gordon Hansford said in a paper he wrote as his Masters thesis.

Mr. Hansford’s thesis is a history of shipbuilding in Nova Scotia in the period from 1800 to 1900. In his introduction, he says that the province’s lengthy coastline and its great tracts of timber contributed to it becoming a leader in both marine commerce and shipbuilding. Hansford points out that Nova Scotia’s rise to prominence was aided by the American Revolution which led to “withdrawal of the New England States from the West Indies trade.”

I had the privilege of reading Hansford’s 1953 thesis, and I found its exploration of Nova Scotia’s rise to shipbuilding and seafaring fame an excellent historical overview. Of particular interest was the section on shipbuilding in Kings County. It’s amazing how involved this area was in shipbuilding. As I observed in a recent column, it’s a shame that our local museum doesn’t have a permanent exhibit on shipbuilding, celebrating, for example, the famed shipyards of Canning and Kingsport; both shipyards turned out world class craft including some of the largest tonnage sailing ships in Canada.

From Hansford’s thesis we see that shipbuilding in Kings County began as early as 1786 when William Baxter came to Cornwallis. “He was a Doctor of Medicine and later something of a shipbuilder,” Hansford writes. Baxter built a small vessel at Canning and some time after, Joseph Northup, Edward Lockwood, Edward Pineo and Ebenezer Bigelow formed a partnership there and built a 200-ton vessel dubbed the “Sam Slick.”

Hansford’s paper then takes us to 1847 when a shipyard known as the “Wash Bowl” was opened in Canning by Elias and Arnold Burbidge and C. R. Northup. Later, in 1867, Ebenezer Bigelow began building in earnest, becoming perhaps the most productive and best-known shipbuilder and designer of ships on the Minas Basin shore.

When you think of shipbuilding in Kings County usually Ebenezer Bigelow and Ebenezer Cox come to mind. However, Hansford tells us there many other builders, who perhaps while not as well-known as Cox and Bigelow, produced first-rate sailing ships. Among them were W. R. Huntley, C. Lockhart, and D. R. and C. F. Eaton.

Even unlikely shipbuilding areas, such as Kentville were active. Hansford records at least two ships being built inside the Kentville town limits, “near the bridge” in 1813 and 1846. Wolfville had its share of shipbuilders as well, Hansford naming W. D. DeWolfe, W. A. Cox and J. E. Harris among them. Even the tiny port of Hall’s Harbour had a shipyard, turning out several ships including the barque Ella Moore in 1869, which made a record-breaking run from Belfast to Nova Scotia in 1893.

Coast to Coast, a board game with a railway theme, was copyrighted in 1922 by the Canadian Games Company of Ontario.

Using dice and discs as markers, the object of the game was to move across the board from one end of Canada to the other, stopping off at various railway stations along the way. One of the stops in the old game was the Dominion Atlantic Railway station in Kentville.

Marie Bishop, New Minas, has the game (on loan from a friend) and as a lady with a historical bent – she’s authored a couple of local history books – she’d like to know more about it.

As mentioned the object of the game was to travel from point to point across Canada starting in Nova Scotia and traversing the board to British Columbia, or vice versa. Besides the Kentville railway station the board has other starting points or stations in Nova Scotia, at New Glasgow and Halifax, for example.

Obviously, the game never caught on or they’d still be selling it in stores today. Marie has already done some research on the game and the company that made it but to date hasn’t had much luck in finding anything. I’ve conducted an internet search but there’s nothing on the ‘net on the company or the game [update: Coast to Coast, Canadian Games Company]. Obviously, the game is a “collector’s item.” So as a long shot I contacted an association in the States that has antique and board game collectors under its umbrella. No luck there yet but the association passed my query along to its members and I’m waiting to hear back.

Why the interest in the old game? Let’s just say that it’s unusual and why not dig into its history. If a reader – perhaps a railway buff – has any information about the game we’d like to hear from you. Maybe there’s a Kentville or Kings County connection with the game’s creator.

I’m still looking for information on Marguerite Woodworth, the author of the history of the Dominion Atlantic Railway, which was published in 1936. I’d like to salute Ms. Woodworth and prepare a biography as a permanent record of her historical accomplishments. Her D.A.R. history is a monumental work and is perhaps the only detailed history of the railway in Nova Scotia. Recognition of Ms. Woodworth as a historical writer is long overdue.

I believe there are readers out there who can tell me about Ms. Woodworth. Even the most trivial facts about her life would be welcome. As it stands now, Woodworth is a bit of a mystery, to me at least, and I’d like to know more about her. Readers who have any information are urged to contact me. You can reach me at 902-678-4591; my e-mail address is edwingcoleman@gmail.com. You can also write me care of this newspaper.

Another writer I’d like to know more about is Clara Dennis, so if you have any info please call. In the 1930s Dennis wrote several books and was a combination travel writer, explorer and historian. Clara Dennis, 1881-1958, travelled from one end of Nova Scotia to the other, exploring out-of-the-way places, interviewing their residents and offering up historical tidbits.

One of Dennis’ books, Down in Nova Scotia, was published in 1934 with a foreword by Robert Laird Borden. Every little “nook and cranny” in the province was explored and the work apparently was so popular that some 25 years later its style was imitated in travel books by Will R. Bird.

Kings County has a few place names of Irish origin and perhaps a couple of famous sons with Irish surnames. If you look in the telephone directory under Kentville, Wolfville, New Minas and so on, you’ll find more than a handful of surnames that are Irish in origin. Take my surname, for example. There are a lot of Coleman’s in the Kentville section of the telephone book, most of whom have a common ancestor, a man who came from the County of Cork, Ireland, in the 18th century.

However, when compared to other nationalities, the Irish presence in Kings County is minuscule. You won’t find the word “Irish” in the index of Eaton’s Kings County history, for example. Eaton dwells mainly on the New England Planter, and to some extent the Acadian element in Kings County. He does acknowledge the Irish origin of some early Kings County families, however, among them Sommerville, Manning and Allison.

While there is no concrete historical evidence to confirm this, folklore has it that there were pockets of Irish settlements in several areas of Kings County. These apparently consisted of a few families of Irish origin who landed first in New Brunswick. According to folklore, Black Rock, and the general area around Atlanta and Hillaton once were tiny bastions of the Irish. Because of their Catholic faith, so the tales go, Irishmen were unwelcome on the Valley floor and had to settle away from the main towns and villages and on the North Mountain.

Watson Kirkconnell acknowledges some but not much Irish presence in Kings County in his booklet on place names. From Kirkconnell we find that Paddy’s Island near Medford was part of the farm of one Patrick Barnes who came to Nova Scotia from Ireland during the potato famine. Kirkconnell doesn’t have much more to say about Irish place names. About Irish surnames in the county Kirkconnell writes in effect that there is almost a complete lack. “From Halifax and Colchester counties,” Kirkconnell says “we have repaired our almost complete lack of Irish surnames.”

From Charles Bruce Ferguson’s Place Names and Places of Nova Scotia we learn that the southern end of Kings County has a community with an Irish name. This is the community of New Ross Road, the name undoubtedly taken from the nearby Lunenburg County village of New Ross. Ferguson writes that New Ross was derived from an Irish town of the same name. Dempsey Corner at the west end of the county is listed in Ferguson’s book but he fails to mention that it is named after Roger Dempsey, a native of Ireland.

Turning to Mabel Nichols book, The Devil’s Half Acre, we find that a number of Irish sons were prominent in Kentville’s early days. A native of Ireland, Henry Magee, was one of Kentville’s earliest large scale entrepreneurs. Magee is said to have built the first store in Kentville and had several mills in the county.

Late last year the county lost another of its railway veterans and the passing of John DeWolfe, a former engineer on the D.A.R., brings a question to mind. Kentville at one time was the hub of the Dominion Atlantic Railway and due to the railroad, the town attained great prominence in the Valley. Kentville may owe its existence to a ford on the Cornwallis River, as E. J. Cogswell wrote in 1895, but there’s little doubt that the railway built the town and made it prosperous.

Given the important role the railway played in Kentville’s existence, and the fact that the Valley’s past prosperity was due to the railway, why is there no permanent exhibition recognising this at the Kings County Museum? From what I’ve seen of the various souvenirs, artefacts, photographs and written material stored at the Museum, such an exhibit could easily be put together.

Along the same line, Kings County at one time was a major shipbuilding area. The shipyards of Canning and Kingsport, along with smaller county yards, once turned out sailing ships that were among the best in Canada. In fact, Nova Scotia was famed for its shipbuilding and for its seafaring men who ventured worldwide, and this area, Kings County, in particular, led the way.

We have a great shipbuilding and seafaring tradition and there should be a permanent exhibit celebrating this fact. The Kings County Museum is the logical place for such an exhibit, which perhaps could be at the very least be a photo display along with a short history of our shipbuilding industry.

It was described as a 148-page book containing 158,000 words; and according to a news story in The Advertiser‘s 1937 issue of February 25, it was supposed to have been published on this date. The book was called The Romance of Railroading in the Land of Evangeline.

I mention this book in the hopes that a reader may have some knowledge of it. The railway buff who told me about The Advertiser news story wasn’t familiar with the book, and perhaps it never saw print. If it was published and you know something about it, please give me or Leon Barron a call.

With the new year underway, I’d like to recognise and thank the many people who contributed historical information for this column. I’m especially indebted to Leon Barron for some of the more interesting columns on the railway and shipbuilding that have appeared in recent years. Bria Stokesbury and Cathy Margeson of the Kings County Museum were especially helpful in digging out pertinent information when I was working on special projects. Frankly, without the assistance of Leon, Bria and Cathy it would have been impossible for me to report on some of the more interesting aspects of county history.

My thanks as well to the many readers who called and wrote me last year. Many of my historical columns resulted from readers taking the time to provide me with interesting information on local history. Your input was appreciated and I hope to hear from all of you again.

Reader response to my column on cellars and roads of Acadian origin in the village of New Minas has been tremendous and also educational. As the result of telephone calls, for example, I’ve learned that the site of an Acadian cemetery, homestead sites and an Acadian mill in the village have been roughly pinpointed.

By “roughly pinpointed” I mean that the approximate but not the exact location of these sites is known. During the upcoming Acadian celebrations, some of these sites will be identified on a pamphlet currently being put together. The pamphlet will be distributed during the celebration and will contain a map indicating areas where Acadians may have worked, lived and were buried in and around New Minas.

It would seem from information I received recently that New Minas was much more important as an Acadian settlement than historians realise. Grand Pre as an important Acadian centre has been heavily promoted over the years and rightly so. However, not enough attention has been paid the settlements on the Canard and Cornwallis River. The Canard area was a major settlement area replete with a church, at least one mill and possibly even some minor shipbuilding; New Minas may have had a church and a mill as well.

The Acadian presence on the Cornwallis River at Port Williams, New Minas, Kentville and as far as upriver as Coldbrook, while not entirely ignored, has never been promoted as much as Grand Pre has Eaton’s Kings County history skims over the Acadian presence around Canard, New Minas and Kentville. Oddly, a history of the old burial ground in Windsor has more about Acadian settlements in this area than Eaton’s work.

Getting back to responses from readers about the Acadian presence in New Minas, I’ve been told that an Acadian cemetery may have been located at the bottom of Jones Road. A couple of readers told me there were Acadian homestead sites near the elementary school. There is a mini park in the hollow behind the elementary school and there may have been an Acadian mill on the stream there. This may also have been the site of a Planter mill. In more recent times, the brook in the hollow was the site of a fish hatchery dam.

There may have been an Acadian mill on the border between New Minas and Kentville. At the mouth of the research station ravine, a mini aboiteau controls the tidal flow of the small stream that runs into the Cornwallis River. The mill may have been located there or just upstream in the ravine and it may have been powered by the tidal waters.

Thanks to leads from readers, I’ll have more later on the Acadian presence in New Minas. In the meanwhile, my thanks to Sam Milne who called to fill me in on the rink once located in New Minas. Sam tells me he worked as a rink rat there. As mentioned in an earlier column, the rink was located near the senior citizen’s complex. Sam said the rink was relocated to a site near Vail’s Laundry and was closed in the late 1940s or early 1950s.

The handwriting is faint but if you hold the old fiddle up to the light in the right way you can read the inscription: “Bought October 16, 1916, in London, England, by John A. Campbell, 185th Battalion. Price 15 pounds.”

Bill Tupper told me about his much-prized fiddle recently and as they used to say in old adventure books, therein lies a tale. Tupper would like to know more about John A. Campbell and he’s interested in tracing the history of the fiddle, learning exactly how old it is, for example. But first, let’s start with how the fiddle first came into Tupper’s possession.

Tupper saw the fiddle at an estate auction and decided to add it his collection of musical instruments. The auctioneer, who had purchased the fiddle as part of a house lot, didn’t know anything about it or its previous owner; about all he could tell Tupper was that the fiddle may have belonged to a Halifax family. Tupper purchased the fiddle and took it home. There he refurbished the old instrument, making a few minor repairs.

For years Tupper played the fiddle at musical gatherings. Then in a weak moment, he sold it. “I regretted it the moment the fiddle left my hands but the money I was offered was too much temptation at the time,” Tupper said in effect. Years later he had the opportunity to trade one of his hand-crafted guitars for the fiddle and it was back in his hands once more.

It isn’t likely that Bill Tupper will part with the fiddle again but as I said, he’s curious about John A. Campbell and the instrument’s history. When Bill told me the story about the fiddle I went to the Internet to see if Campbell was on the federal government website which lists the soldiers who served with the Canadian Expeditionary Force during the first world war. I discovered that there were over 100 John Campbells serving in the Canadian army in this war; some 30 of these were John A. Campbells.

The John A. Campbell who purchased the fiddle in London undoubtedly is one of these 30 John A’s listed in the website. However, it’s difficult to know for sure. One candidate is John Angus Campbell, from Grand Mira, Cape Breton. Another is John Alex Campbell who was born in Halifax.

The John A. Campbell who left the inscription on the old fiddle may never have returned to Nova Scotia. Military buff Gordon Hansford believes Campbell was killed at Vimy Ridge. The inscription indicates that Campbell joined the 185th battalion, which after being shipped overseas was broken up and the soldiers transferred to other regiments. Hansford said that the 185th was the Cape Breton Highlanders, which was part of the Nova Scotia Highland Brigade.

If the John A. Campbell whose name is on the fiddle was killed at Vimy, how did the instrument get back to Nova Scotia? Bill Tupper may never know. However, the old fiddle is now a cherished part of his musical collection and there it will remain. Gordon Hansford, who is a fiddler, told me that the instrument is “nice sounding and a beautiful thing. It’s not a flashy looking fiddle but by gosh it’s got a lot of music in it.”

“I was in Wolfville on November 11th and I went down to the monument along with the rest of the guys from the (Wolfville) Legion branch,” Gordon Hansford said when we were talking recently. “While we were there, I pointed out an oak tree on the right-hand side of the (post office) driveway and asked a companion to look at the leaves.”

“He said, ‘gosh, it looks different from any oak tree I ever saw. Where did it come from’?”

“I replied that it’s a royal oak,” Hansford said, “and I told him how it got there.”

Gordon Hansford is a talented storyteller and he has many fascinating tales to tell of wars, warriors and his boyhood hometown of Wolfville. One of these stories is about the royal oak which he pointed out to his companion on Remembrance Day. The story begins, Gordon said, during the reign of the British monarch, King Charles II.

Most of us known the story of how King Charles, pursued by Cromwell’s army after the defeat of loyalists forces in the Battle of Worcester in 1651, hid for 40 days in a huge oak tree at Boscobol. When Charles regained his crown an oak was planted at Windsor Castle to commemorate his escape and the role the tree played in it.

During World War One, Wolfville resident Alfred Lake was stationed in Great Britain for a time with the 85th Battalion. During leave, Lake visited Windsor Castle, where he must have heard the tale of how King Charles hid in an oak to elude Cromwell. While at the Castle, Lake picked up an acorn from a royal oak, put it in his pack, and promptly forgot it.

Gordon tells me that Lake was momentarily puzzled when he discovered the acorn in his pack after he was shipped home. “He asked himself, ‘where did this come from’?” Gordon said. “When he recalled that he had picked up an acorn from a royal oak, he went out and planted it on the post office grounds.”

The acorn Lake planted thrived and a descendant of King Charles’ royal oak now stand tall on the post office grounds in Wolfville. “It stands out from the native oaks growing there since its leaves are different,” Hansford said.

Gordon tells me that Lake was the caretaker and gardener at the Wolfville post office for many years and the caretaker at the curling club, which was also used for a time as the Wolfville armouries. “Lake told me the whole story about the royal oak and the acorn one night at the armouries,” Gordon said.

Lake was a native of Great Britain who had emigrated to Wolfville with his family before the first world war. Hansford describes him a great gardener and handyman who could make anything. Lake is mentioned in the Wolfville history, Mud Creek, as playing an important role when in 1938 the garden club landscaped the post office grounds and planted memorial trees. Lake passed away a decade ago.