In 1881 the Nova Scotia Historical Society included in its publications the journal of an early Annapolis settler, John Witherspoon. The journal was tattered, incomplete and in places indecipherable. However, John Witherspoon lived through a turbulent period in our history and the Society believed his observations and impressions were worth preserving.

In the autumn of 1757, John Witherspoon had the misfortune to be cutting wood near the fort at Annapolis when a band of Micmacs raided the area. Taken prisoner, Witherspoon was sold to the French and carried to Quebec. Witherspoon spent two years in Quebec until he was liberated by Wolfe and his journal, written in tobacco juice, records that period.

On the journey to Quebec, there was a brief period of freedom when Witherspoon and several other prisoners seized a canoe and fled into the wilderness. Pursued by the Micmacs and the French, the escapees were taken only because Witherspoon’s companions found alcohol and drank themselves into a stupor. “How easy we might have got ofe (off) had it not been for strong drink,” Witherspoon lamented in his journal.

While his spelling in places was atrocious, Witherspoon’s journal tells us he was intelligent and a keen observer. He lived at a time when hunger and disease were rampant in village, town, and city, and Witherspoon often refers to the terrible living conditions. In an entry dated March 19 (1758) Witherspoon writes: “I understand the smallpox is in Canneday (Canada) of which a great number have died. This sore and contagious disease the French call pockot. As to the number of dead I do not rightly hear, but some say seven hundred. Here is three sore calamities on this people at once, the sword, famine and pestilence.”

Subjected to starvation rations in Quebec, Witherspoon’s health deteriorates rapidly. Oddly, he takes a friendly attitude towards his captors. Describing almost unbearable conditions, he sympathizes with the people who hold him since they seem to be suffering as much as he is. “One almost every day see’s men executed for deserting from their colours and, indeed, these men’s living is so mean I do not wonder at it; and their work very hard, their allowance is the same as the prisoners, one pound of bread and half of pork per day.”

Quebec is under siege during the latter part of Witherspoon’s internment and as the battle for Quebec culminates Witherspoon writes that “my flesh is clothed in worms and clods of dust, my skin is broken and becomes loathsome.” Witherspoon describes the various skirmishes which he can witness from a distance through the prison bars. Then came the news that Wolfe and Montcalm had been killed. “These two Generals fell near about one and the same time and died very near together,” Witherspoon wrote in his journal.

Soon after this entry, Witherspoon is released but we are unable to read of his rejoicing. The last pages of his journal are incomplete or missing.

John Witherspoon returned to Annapolis and to his farm. There he raised a family and apparently lived a long and happy life. This note by the Historical Society gives us an inkling of his life after his release from the dungeons of Quebec:

“In the census for 1769 he (Witherspoon) is enumerated, and in the census of 1770 as at Granville, the master of a family of eight persons, one man, three boys, one woman and three girls, all Protestant and Americans; had 2 oxens, 3 cows, 3 young cattle, 5 sheep and 2 swine.”

In the 70s my favourite newspaper columnist occasionally ran a piece with odd, interesting and little-known facts he said he had discovered by chance. The columnist usually explained that while researching he happened to find trivia he believed would be of interest to readers.

I mention this columnist because like him I occasionally come across interesting information unrelated to the topic I’m working on. Along with a bit of Internet humour, this column contains some of these discoveries – the trivia I found while looking up other things. But first some kooky English I discovered in my e-mail box recently.

“If lawyers are disbarred and clergymen defrocked, doesn’t it follow that electricians can be delighted, musicians denoted, cowboys deranged, models deposed and dry cleaners depressed?

“Even more, bedmakers will be debunked, baseball players debased, landscapers deflowered, bulldozer operators degraded, organ donors delivered, software engineers detested and musical composers will eventually decompose. On a more positive note, perhaps we can hope (some) politicians will be devoted.”

While looking up Nova Scotia history on the Internet I made note of this first for Kings County: “The earliest recorded attempt at organizing agriculture in Nova Scotia came in 1789, with the first farmers’ organization, the Colonial Societies, in Horton.” This tidbit from the Department of Agriculture and Marketing added that the purpose of the Societies included marketing of crops and maintaining a circulating library.

In a recent column on the Acadian expulsion I mentioned that Eaton’s History of Kings County may not be accurate regarding details of the Noble massacre. I based this comment on a discrepancy between Eaton’s description of the massacre and research work noted author Will R. Bird did for a provincial government publication called Historic Nova Scotia. Eaton Gives the number of New England militia killed as 100 with 15 wounded and 50 taken prisoner. Bird writes that the number killed was 75, with 60 wounded and 69 taken prisoner.

Ever wonder how the four card suits – hearts, spades, clubs and diamonds, got their name? Here’s what I discovered while looking up a non-related topic in reference books at Acadia University:

Some 600 years ago card makers in France decided to design cards to represent the four classes of people in French society. Hearts, represented the heart of the community, the clergy; spades, the points of spears, represented the military class (it was the English who later called this suit “spades”); clubs has its roots in the picture of a clover leaf representing farmers and peasants; the diamond was chosen to represent the middle class, mostly made up of merchants who in that period used diamond-shaped tiles as exchange.

Re the “Mac” and “Mc” discussion in a recent column, a reader, Lad Javorek, has thrown a different light on the topic. Lad tells me that when his wife was growing up in Sydney, Cape Breton, she was under the impression that “Mac” in a surname usually meant the person was Protestant, while the “Mc” surname was Catholic. The Javoreks tell me this wasn’t a hard and fast rule, however.

Welch’s grape juice concentrate (red not white) has been moving fast from grocery store shelves lately after the announcement that it’s high in flavonoids, a substance that supposedly helps ward off heart disease. While flavonoids may prove to be another of those miracle substances that fizzle out, there’s no need to buy expensive grape juice concentrate if you want to be on the safe side and take a daily dose. A local pharmacist tells me that plain old tea is also a good source of flavonoids.

When I was a youth several friends were trapped by the tide at Blomidon and clung to the side of a cliff all night. Stranded by swift moving tides, I spent a cold, stormy night on Boot Island some years ago with two companions. On a lesser scale, a miniature tidal bore on a stream feeding the Cornwallis River once caught me on a sand bar and in an instant the water was over my boots.

While these were minor calamities – more tragic tales can be told – these incidents taught me to respect the waters of Minas Basin. Rising 10 and more meters in the space of an afternoon, the tides of the Minas Basin are swift and relentless. Those tides have been called “spectacular.” “awesome” and even “treacherous,” but Avonport astronomer Dr. Roy Bishop may have provided the most fitting description.

In a recent talk at the Kings Historical Society Dr. Bishop remarked that the Minas Basin tides are “literally the eighth wonder of the world” and should be better publicized. “We have a tourist attract, the highest tides in the world,” Dr. Bishop said in effect, “and no one talks about it.

“Most of the time we take the tides for granted,” Bishop added, (an observation the majority of us Minas Basin dwellers will have to agree with). “The only time we really take notice is when something spectacular happens, such as an exceptionally high tide or when a dike floods.”

It’s impossible to discuss the gravitational effect of the moon on the ocean without using the arcane language of science. But while he used illustrations and a smattering of math and physics (of which I understood nothing) in his talk on the Minas Basin, Dr. Bishop explained in layman’s terms what has always been a mystery to me – why some tides are higher than others and what caused some disastrous tides in the past.

Dr. Bishop likened the Gulf of Maine and the Bay of Fundy to a giant bath tub from which water sloshes into the Minas Basin. And “slosh” it certainly does. In it journey up the Bay the tide passes Cape Split at a speed of 94 miles per hour. The volume of water that moves up the Bay is massive. Dr. Bishop said that the water flowing past Cape Split at tide time is equal to the volume of water in all the rivers of the world.

Cape Split is well-known for its tremendous rips and whirlpools and it’s a popular local attraction. But one doesn’t have to venture over the trail to the Cape to witness the awesome tides. The government wharf at Hantsport has the “most spectacular tides,” Dr. Bishop says, and is the best area to view the daily rise and fall of the Minas Basin. At times the tides at the wharf reach 15 meters.

As for what causes extremely high tides, Dr. Bishop explained that several factors must coincide or combine. Low barometric pressure, the moon being at its closest point to the earth, and strong southerly winds can combine to produce tides that break over the dyke walls, which happened as recently as 1977. When the south winds are extremely high during this combination of meteorological factors, the result can be disastrous. The famous Saxby Gale of 1869, which flooded hundreds of acres of dykelands, destroyed homes, railways tracks and bridges, and set back the development of this area for years is a prime example.

If it hadn’t been for the massacre of Lieutenant Colonel Arthur Noble and his troops, the Acadian deportation never would have taken place, writes retired Kentville teacher, Gordon Hansford.

While much has been written about the expulsion of the Acadian in 1755, Mr. Hansford said in a letter to this columnist, “little mention has been made about one of the events that led to this deportation, which was the massacre of New England troops at Grand Pre in the winter of 1747.”

In my column on March 27 I suggested that the main reason for the expulsion were the farm lands the Acadians had wrested from the sea and the wilderness. Mr. Hansford disagrees. “I feel that although there are always those who seek to profit from political events, the (expulsion) was not planned as a ‘land grab’ by the English from Massachusetts,” Hansford says. Following the Noble massacre, the “commander of the Halifax garrison could not allow a hostile element to exist in his rear,” Hansford continued. “Regardless of the details of the taking of the oath of allegiance, there was a definite hostile element in existence at Grand Pre.”

The Noble massacre is usually ignored when the plight of the Acadians is discussed, and as Hansford points out, it was evidence of a “hostile element.” which if anything is putting it mildly. In his letter Hansford gave a brief account of events leading to the Noble massacre:

“Lieutenant Governor Mascarene …. appealed to Governor Shirley of Massachusetts to send 500 volunteers to Nova Scotia to help the small garrison here. Noble lead these troops to Annapolis and marched them to Grand Pre, with the intention of building a blockhouse there. Some of the troops sailed up the Bay of Fundy, landing at what is now Morden, and then marched over the mountain to Grand Pre under conditions of severe hardship since winter had descended in all its severity.

“Because of the winter conditions, the proposed blockhouse was not built and the troops were billeted out in 24 civilian houses in the Grand Pre area. An Acadian from Grand Pre made his way to Beaubassin (near Amherst) and reported the presence of the New Englanders to the commander of the French garrison there, an officer named Ramesay. He proposed to attack the English as soon as possible.

“Marching on snowshoes, the French troops arrived in the dead of night during a snowstorm. They immediately attacked the farm houses where the New England troops were billeted, killing Colonel Noble, his brother, and 100 others, according to Eaton’s History of Kings County. Fifty English were captured and 15 were wounded.”

While Eaton’s History isn’t accurate regarding details of the Noble massacre, there is little doubt that some of the Grand Pre Acadians participated in the attack. The slaughter may have been avoided, however. Acadians friendly to the New Englanders warned Noble that a French attack was coming but the Colonel ignored them. On page 131 of Calnek’s Annapolis County History we find the following: “They (the Acadians) warned Noble of a probable attack on him at Grand Pre, but he, deeming it impossible for an enemy to reach him during the deep snow, treated their apprehensions with levity.” Murdoch’s History of Nova Scotia, volume 2, page 106, confirms that Noble was warned by the Acadians of an imminent attack.

“Are you a Mac or a Mc?” a friend asked an acquaintance when I introduced them recently; he explained unnecessarily that “Mac” meant his surname was of Scottish origin, while “Mc” (he pronounced it “Mick”) was Irish.

We’ve all heard this nonsense before about “Mac” and “Mc” being Scottish and Irish and it isn’t 100 percent true. My acquaintance pointed out, for example, that he was a “Mac” but he traced his Irish ancestry back at least 12 generations. As far as he could tell, he said, his ancestors were of good Irish stock “and always had been no matter how we spell our name.”

If I threw the surname “Svensen” at you and asked its origin, you’d probably say Swedish or perhaps Norwegian. However, I once met a Newfoundlander named Shaun Svensen who swore that his great grandfather came from Cork and he had a genealogy going back to 10th century Ireland. George had that wonderful Newfoundland Irish accent and the whimsical Irish sense of humor; despite his name, he was more Irish than some of the natives I met when touring Ireland a few years ago.

The study of surnames and their origin, whether Irish, Scottish or otherwise, is a fascinating pastime. While they can be misleading, as in the case of Shaun Svensen, surnames often indicate racial origin and in some cases pinpoint our ancestor’s occupation and the area in which they once lived.

I find it strange that like some once common words, surnames will sometimes fall out of usage. Old time accounts – journals, diaries, histories, etc. – often mention family names that have either totally disappeared or are uncommon today.

The explanation for some disappearing surnames can be found in the obituaries. Occasionally the obituary of a departed soul explains that he or she was the last “immediate member” of the family. On his or her death, in other words, there were no related survivors carrying on with the family name.

Attrition certainly explains why some surnames vanish. And people have been known to stop using surnames that have racial, religious and demeaning connotations. A book I read recently about Irish immigrants in Canada and the United States noted that some families changed their names after they arrived so they wouldn’t be mistaken for “the poor trash from across the water.”

Recently I was reading Hutchinson’s Nova Scotia Directory for 1864-65 and I discovered a number of surnames that seem to have disappeared – or at least are so uncommon that I’m not familiar with them. Names such as Sofield and Outher, for example, are found in the Kings County section; as is Neiley, which today is more common as Neily or Neilly. Are members of the Moune family, who farmed in Kings County in the mid-19th century, still found here? Where are the descendants of James and David Whelply, 19th century coopers?

Hants County had its share of uncommon surnames in the 19th century as well – Hanel, Coalfleet, Redon, Sherar, Drillio, Hilsher, Kissock and Beaddo, for example. Some of the surnames once common in the Valley may have disappeared because people changed the spelling. Redon may have been a misspelling of Redden, for example. Other once common Kings and Hants County names that may have had their spelling changed (or corrected) are Hanes, Bordon, Lutes, Read, Legg, Goold and Kinnie. Could these surnames be the older version of Haines, Borden, Lutz, Reid, Legge, Gould and Kennie or Kenny?