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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