Tag Archives: history

EARLY HANTS AND KINGS NEWSPAPERS – HISTORY OF THEM INTERESTING AND COMPLICATED (January 9/24)

For the most part, earlier newspapers now out of print were compilations of dull advertisements and smatterings of what newspaper people today call news copy.

On the other hand, they’re goldmines of information, and little windows into the past. Simply fill in the blanks, read the ads, what there is of the stilted news reports, and you have inklings of what people did a century or more ago and what mattered most to them.

One of my pastimes is reading those old newspapers. Unfortunately, one of my regrets is that some of those old papers exist today only as archival copies, and while I have no choice and have to read them online, I don’t enjoy it. If that makes me a Luddite, then so be it. No apologies.

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WINDSOR CRIER LLOYD SMITH – CARRYING ON ANCIENT TRADITIONS (March 7/23)

Lloyd Smith’s role as a town crier began in Windsor in 1978 when he was with the CFAB radio station – a role he says began “accidentally” and not by his choice.

Smith was the manager and the on-air voice of CFAB when Windsor’s Sam Slick days were being organized. As a radio celebrity, he was a natural choice to play the role of Sam Slick. Then, in 1978, the provincial government attempted to re-introduce town crying by organizing an international competition.

“They’d hired a British crier to set it up,” Smith recalls. “At the last minute, town officials advised me that I was enrolled in the competition representing Windsor.”
Despite his total lack of experience – he had to ask what a town crier does – Smith went to the competition and figured he didn’t do badly at all. “Out of 13 criers I placed 12th,” he says, “so I wasn’t on the bottom.”

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EBENEZER COX WAS HAILED AS A MASTER SHIPBUILDER – HERE’S HIS RECORD (February 7/23)

In his day he was hailed as a master of his trade, designing and building some of the finest ships ever to slide down the ways at Kingsport – and in Canada as a matter of fact.

This was Ebenezer Cox (1828-1916) who in 1864 began shipbuilding with his brother, William. The Cox shipyard in Kingsport turned out some of the largest sailing vessels in Canada; one of these vessels, built in 1891 was the 2,137-ton Canada. The Kings County, hailed as one of only two four-masted vessels built in Canada, was launched in 1890.

The shipbuilding career of Ebenezer Cox has never been fully told. However, an attempt was made to tell his story in 1903 when Cox was interviewed and his record published in Middleton’s weekly newspaper, the Outlook – he was 75 at the time. In 1904, the article was reprinted in the Wolfville Acadian. I learned about this account of Cox’s career from the Windsor historian L. S. (Larry) Loomer. Mr. Loomer copied the account from the Acadian and sent it to me, along with an explanatory letter. That was 20 years ago.

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IRISH IN YOUR GENES? CHECK OUT THESE BOOKS AND ONLINE SITES (January 24, 2023)

In a census conducted by the province in 1766, Windsor’s population was 243, of which 60 were from Ireland.

So writes L. S. Loomer in his book on the history of Windsor, which in the index has at least 20 references to the Irish and Ireland.

Elsewhere, circa1860, the population of East and West Dalhousie was about 50 percent Irish. Near Kingston, between 1880 and 1920, there was an Irish community called Irishtown. In her writing, historical author Hazel Foote (the history of Woodville) refers to a substantial Irish settlement at Black Rock in Kings County. And as I mentioned in a recent column, Centreville and Atlanta, in Kings County, also had Irish settlements.

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IRISH IMMIGRANTS OFTEN FORCED TO SETTLE IN OUT-OF-THE-WAY COMMUNITIES (January 10, 2023)

As a historical writer, Mack Frail has done a considerable amount of research on the Irish that settled in Kings County, around Centreville, Sheffield Mills and Atlanta especially, and in a corridor under the north mountain above these communities.

Frail wrote me recently to comment on the November column about the Irish in Hants and Kings Counties, and to tell me about some of his findings.

His research indicates that beyond a doubt, the Irish somehow found their way to northern areas in Kings County towards the Bay of Fundy. Banes Road, which runs behind Centreville to Canning, has been of special interest to Frail. His research indicates that Atlanta, a little-known community along Banes Road, was the site of an Irish settlement. However, “settlement,” as used here, may be incorrect. Atlanta may have had no more than a few Irish families strung out along a community road. Which, until determined otherwise, most likely was the case.

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KELLY BOURASSA ON THE RESTORING AND PRESERVATION OF HISTORICAL ARTIFACTS (October 18/22)

On the screen is a slide with photographs of a padlock that has seen much better days.

“This padlock was found at the railway roundhouse in Kentville,” Kelly Bourassa said. “As you can see, the photograph on the left shows a heavy layer of rust, sand and soil. The photograph on the right shows the same face with all this material removed.”

At the monthly meeting of the Kentville Historical Society, Bourassa was using slides to illustrate how conservators work to restore and preserve artifacts that otherwise might have been lost. The lock was one of some 40 items dug up at the roundhouse site in Kentville when it was torn down in 2007.

“Once the lock was cleaned, we could see CPR initials,” Bourassa said. “This helped to date the lock since we know that the Dominion Atlantic Railway was taken over by the Canadian Pacific in 1917.”

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WRITERS AND HISTORIANS HAVE CONTRASTING VIEWS ON ACADIANS AND THE DYKELANDS (September 20/22)

In an unpublished paper about building the Wellington Dyke on the Canard River, Brent Fox speculates that the dyke-building expertise of the Acadians possibly could have Dutch origins.

“The people of the Netherlands have been noted for [dyke-building] for many centuries,” Fox wrote. “In an indirect manner, it is possible that [centuries ago] the Dutch provided the special knowledge that helped convert the marsh and tidal lake areas of present-day Kings County into… valuable agricultural land.”

 In various papers I’ve read on the Acadians and dyke-building I’ve never found any references to historic Dutch connections. We could assume that Fox was speculating about this connection, but he may not have been. Further on he writes that in the 16th century, “Dutch engineers were brought into France to oversee massive dyking projects.”

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BLOODY HOLLOW – AN 1890s ACCOUNT OF A MASSACRE IN WEST END KENTVILLE (September 6/22)

Dates vary and there are several tales about a skirmish that took place in west-end Kentville in the 18th century.

It may have been more than a skirmish. Some historical writers say that a massacre actually took place in Kentville involving the Mi’kmaq and French on one hand, and British troops or militia forces out of New England on the other. This occurred at a place known in folklore by various names – Bloody Hollow and Moccasin Hollow, for example.

But did it really happen? Was there a massacre or nothing more than a minor fracas that never made the military records? Further, did historians who wrote about the event base it on folklore or facts?

The answer is that it depends on what or who you believe.

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Louis Comeau – The Man Who Saved Kentville (August 23/22)

A comprehensive history of Kentville has never been written. Much of what is documented on the town exists in fragments, in folklore and historical glimpses.

You won’t find documented anywhere, for example, that Kentville was a quiet village in a corner of Horton township when the railway arrived.

It isn’t written anywhere that Kentville boomed, more than doubling in size a few years after the railway arrived. You won’t find it recorded that the NS Sanatorium and Camp Aldershot added extra spurts to the town’s growth.

You can find plenty of Kentville trivia – such as the folktale that the town owes its location to a Mi’kmaq/Acadian crossing on the Cornwallis River, or that the Duke of Kent passed by, circa 1794, to give the town its name.

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EARLY RAILWAY MISHAPS – NO GORY DETAILS SPARED IN NEWSPAPER REPORTS (August 9/22)

In the history of Windsor, published in 1996, L.S. Loomer writes that there were accidents on the railway almost from the first day. In 1855, two years before the projected line from Halifax was supposed to reach Windsor, a locomotive named the Mayflower went off the track. The damage was minimal but it was the first recorded incident and one of many that would plague the railway as the line was extended to Windsor and west through the Annapolis Valley.

Some of the early accidents on the line, written about by Loomer, were fatal. Three, possibly four brakemen were killed in separate accidents, Loomer said, when their heads struck a footbridge the railway built over Wentworth Road in Windsor. The footbridge eventually was replaced by a standard crossing, but too late to save the lives of the brakemen.

Like Loomer, Marguerite Woodworth records various accidents in her history of the Dominion Atlantic Railway. All the incidents made the news, even the trivial accidents, and usually with plenty of detail by the newspapers of the day.

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