Tag Archives: history

W & A RAILWAY’S FIRST YEAR – DISCOURAGEMENT AND SUCCESS (July 23/24)

“The first anniversary of the opening of the Windsor and Annapolis Railway was celebrated on Thursday last in Waterville,” reported the Daily British Colonist in its issue of August 23, 1870.

Upward of 400 employees and guests participated in the celebration in Waterville, the paper reported, the “demonstration” culminating in a supper at the Kentville Hotel where general manager Vernon Smith “entertained a number of gentlemen.”

“The Kentville Star contains an interesting description of the (railway) buildings and equipment,” the Colonist further reported, “which we shall publish in our next issue.”

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ANGLICAN STAINED GLASS WINDOWS – A STORY IN EVERY PANEL (July 9/24)

Between 1843 and 1846, a parish of the Anglican persuasion was opened in Kentville on Church Street (now Aberdeen Street) “not far from the present post office.”

This was the original location of the St. James Anglican Church. In 1883, a move was made to its present location on Prospect Avenue. Louis Comeau said that “the whole church, minus its steeple and powered by several teams of oxen, was hauled around the corner of Main Street, hoofing their way to their future home.”

I’m quoting from a talk and tour Comeau emceed in June on the stained glass windows at the Anglican Church. The move, by oxen power, was one of his interesting asides. In another aside, Comeau said the church, in its original location, “contained three (possibly four) stained glass windows” that went along on an ox team to the new premises. These windows can be seen in the church today at the rear of the pulpit.

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KENTVILLE’S FIRST NEWSPAPERS – FOLKSY NEWS, INFORMAL ADVERTISING WAS COMMON (June 11/24)

On this date about 130 years ago, Leander Eaton, Esq., of Canard was busy building an addition “to his already large and first-class barn.”

At the same time, E. and O. Chase of nearby Church Street were making extensive repairs on their farm where an “old barn is being raised to the same level as the new one.”

This informal, folksy news was reported in the June 10, 1891, issue of Kentville’s weekly newspaper, the Western Chronicle. In the same issue, the paper reported that horse racing would resume at the Kentville Driving Park, that there have been “fine catches of salmon” in weirs at Halls Harbour, where coincidentally, J. W. Thorpe is “making extensive repairs in his house.”

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RAILWAY LINES, MILITARY CAMPS – WAS THERE LAND SPECULATION? (April 16/24)

Was it a coincidence that Sir Frederick Borden (Minister of Militia and Defence) prepared a Bill late in 1910 proposing the construction of a railway to Cape Split, where a major power project was being considered?

The railway, if constructed, would have its terminal at Cape Split, reaching it in a roundabout way.

Borden’s proposal had the rail line starting in his riding in Canning. After running northward to Pereau, Delhaven, Blomidon, and Scott’s Bay, the line would turn eastward and run to Cape Split. Various branches running off the main line also were proposed. Borden and his business partners in Canning and Kentville were believed to hold land at the time in areas the proposed rail line skirted.

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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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