Tag Archives: history

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In an unpublished paper about building the Wellington Dyke on the Canard River, Brent Fox speculates that the dyke-building expertise of the Acadians possibly could have Dutch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