Sandy Cove: The History of a Nova Scotia Village by sandycove

Map drawn from “The County of Digby, N.S.”, published in the Atlas of the Maritime Provinces, by Roe Brothers, Saint John, 1881.

CONTENTS Preface Chapter One The Loyalists Chapter Two The Settlement 1788 - 1820 Chapter Three The Churches Chapter Four The Government Chapter Five Village Life 1860 — 70 Chapter Six The Sea Chapter Seven People And Places Remembered Chapter Eight Today Appendices I–VIII End Notes A Selected Bibliography Index

6 8 20 39 52 65 80 97 120 124 170 180 186

PREFACE The history of Sandy Cove, Digby County, Nova Scotia has been written in the hope that it will describe one strain of our Canadian nationality and be of value not only to the people who live there but also to all Canadians. Nova Scotians have gone from such places as Sandy Cove into all parts of the country taking their â&#x20AC;&#x153;distinctive characterâ&#x20AC;? with them. Thomas Chandler Haliburton described it well in the introduction to The Old Judge published in 1849.1 Some similarity there must necessarily be between all branches of the Anglo-Saxon family, speaking the same language, and living under modifications of the same form of government; but still, there are shades of difference, which, though not strongly marked, are plainly discernible to a practiced eye. The distinctive character is produced by the necessities and conditions of a new country, by the nature of the climate, by the want of an Established Church, hereditary rank, entailment of estates and the subdivision of labour on the one hand, and the absence of nationality, independence, and Republican institutions on the other. A picture of any one North American Province will not in all respects be a true representation of another. The Nova Scotian who is more particularly the subject of this work, is often found superintending the cultivation of a farm and building a vessel at the same time; is not only able to catch and cure a cargo of fish but to find his way with it to the West Indies or the Mediterranean. He is a man of all work but expert in nothing, knows a little of many things but nothing well, is a hardy, frank, good-natured, hospitable, manly fellow and, withal, quite as good looking as his air gives you to understand he thinks himself to be.

Almost everyone who lives at Sandy Cove has made a contribution to this history and the author would like to acknowledge their support and friendship. The late Dr. Fred Morehouse and his wife Inez first sparked an interest in the project and many others fed it with stories of the past: Lee Crowell, Ruth, Lena and Clare Eldridge, Lenika Ensor, Bert Morehouse, Ronald Morehouse, Hughie and Marion Morehouse, Marion and Mary Elizabeth MacKay and the late Sadie Saunders. Beyond the Cove invaluable guidance and assistance were provided by a number of archives and libraries. The Provincial Archives or Nova Scotia was particularly helpful and welcoming, also the Boston Athaneum, the Boston Public Library, the Halifax Public Library, the Metro Toronto Reference Library, the New Brunswick Museum, the Library of the Ontario Institute of Studies in Education, the John Robarts Library of the University of Toronto, the Archives of the Society for the Propagation of the Gospel in London, England and the Public Archives of Canada. Particular thanks are extended to Mrs. Lenika Ensor for the loan of Stephen Fountainâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s Account Book, to Miss Doris Scott Formerly of the Toronto Public Library for editing the draft manuscript, to Dr. Phyllis Blakeley, Assistant Archivist at the Public Archives of Nova Scolia for reading it for historical accuracy, to Mrs. Jane Deyman for basic instruction in historical research and help and support in ways too numerous to mention, and finally to Edgar Bull, Henry Bull the artist, Arthur, Charles and Stratton who all love Sandy Cove.

Sandy Cove from Mount David with Saint Maryâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s Bay and Weymouth in the background.

Chapter One

THE LOYALISTS

The Bay of Fundy shore of Nova Scotia is dominated by the North Mountain, which defines the Annapolis Basin on its southern slopes and forms Digby Neck and St. Maryâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s Bay. A vivid if somewhat strange description of the area is given in the Digby Courier of 1885: Will the reader pardon me if I liken this formation (the North Mountain) to a row of pancakes, the pan containing them the Bay of Fundy and the cakes, not made of butter, flour and water but of molten lava, not poured into the pan from above but forced up from below through a crack. All cooked and cooled where they are found to-day. As in making pancakes, sometimes they do not touch while often and almost always they do â&#x20AC;&#x201D; so these lava cakes of the North Mountain, while generally in contact with each other yet in a few instances do not touch. This is the secret of the Gap called Digby Gut. It is simply a case of two pancakes made of lava running towards each other and not touching. Long Island is a long oblong cake of melted rock. Brier Island is a smaller one. At Sandy Cove the batter just touched and that was all. A small amount of labour would put a passage or canal through the Neck at this point. Sandy Cove is one of the most beautiful and interesting places in Nova Scotia to visit and many fine people reside there.1

Digby Neck consists of two ridges with swamps and small lakes between them and is seldom more than a mile and a half wide. It extends thirty miles south-west from Point Prim on Digby Gut to East Ferry and is divided from its further extensions of Long Island and Brier Island by Petit Passage

and Grand Passage. Twenty miles from Digby the road which runs down the centre of the Neck drops steeply to a round cove with two wooded headlands through which can be glimpsed the south-west shore of Nova Scotia across St. Maryâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s Bay. On the north the ridge is cut sharply by a cliff, called Mount Shubel, and it rises again on the south-west to form the Church Hill and Mount David. Between these two heights is a small lake and, on the Bay of Fundy shore, a curved sand beach. The village of Sandy Cove grew around the Cove and along the main road and the cross road to the Bay of Fundy. It is not surprising that people decided to settle here. Micmac Indians camped beside the lake, where their arrow heads have been found,2 while they dug clams and caught fish to smoke for their winter camps in the forest inland. Settlers saw a safe harbour for boats, level land for cultivation, lumber for houses and ships and a waterfall for a mill. Besides all this there is a magic about Sandy Cove. Something about the open circle of the Cove invites a village to form around it; the closed circle of home when the tide is out and the vessels are stranded, and the welcome to the world as the waters of all the oceans pour in at high tide. Vikings were the first Europeans to sail along the Atlantic coast of North America, followed in the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries by Spaniards, Portuguese, Italians and Frenchmen looking for fishing grounds. Some of them made maps which show Digby Neck and the circle of Sandy Cove.3 They landed only for water and to dry fish or look for minerals, and made no attempt at colonization. In 1603 a party of French explorers under de Monts camped for the winter on an island in the St. Croix River on the western side of the Bay of Fundy and, in the spring of 1604, sailed across the Bay looking for a better place for a settlement, eventually deciding on the Annapolis Basin. Samuel de Champlain, the navigator of the expedition, made maps of the shoreline and kept a journal in which he named St. Maryâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s Bay, Petit Passage and Grand Passage. Going northeast two leagues from the passage of Long Island, one finds a cove where ships can anchor in safety.

Its bottom is mud and the land surrounding it is bordered with high rocks (Little River). Some leagues farther on there is a little river, called the Boulay where the tide comes half a league inland, at the entrance of which one can easily anchor ships of a hundred tons burden, A quarter of a league from this place is a good harbour for vessels (Sandy Cove) where we found an iron mine which the miner thought yielded a fifty percent.4

Champlain is the first recorded visitor to Sandy Cove. In 1610 the English colony of Virginia was founded and in 1620 the Pilgrim Fathers landed at Plymouth, These settlements grew quickly and soon challenged the French claim to North America. The long conflict between Britain and France ended in 1758 with the fall of Louisbourg in Cape Breton and the capture of Quebec the following year. The mainland of Nova Scotia had been British since 1710 but there was very little settlement until 1760 when the lands left by the expulsion of the Acadians were taken up by New England farmers. Halifax was founded in 1749 as a base from which to destroy Louisbourg and at the end of the conflict suffered from the withdrawal of war prosperity. In any case, it was a long way from the Bay of Fundy. A few people had settled along the shores of Annapolis Basin inside Digby Gut and had built log houses and a trading post, but there were still Indians in the area and fear of them prevented many from moving from the more settled areas of Annapolis and Granville.5 Almost the only description of the early days is found in The History and Geography of Digby County copyrighted in 1893 and published in 1900 by the author, Isaiah Wilson. He was a pedlar who sold Belcherâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s Almanac from house to house. Fishermen and others who went to sea depended on it for information about lighthouses, fog-horns and buoys. Everywhere he went he listened to the old folk and his interest was aroused in making a proper history of the County. He collected old records and even, according to the story, walked from Digby to Halifax three times to consult documents and books in the Library of the Provincial Legislature and the

Public Archives of Nova Scotia. His book has no bibliography but he had obviously read earlier histories of Nova Scotia as well as books about the American Revolution and European history. Whenever he could he gave a source for his information but often he recorded a tale heard in some unnamed person’s kitchen.6 Someone in Sandy Cove no doubt told him this story of the first settlers: Mr. Thomas Hamilton and Mr. John Dickson, natives of Granville, Nova Scotia, having wandered down the northern Bay in search of the most promising location for prosecuting their fishing business decided to become founders of British tenure at Sandy Cove. Consequently Mr. Hamilton with his partner and three sons located near the shore on the farm lately owned by Mr. Thomaswestern side of the harbour. This occurred May 12, 1778. Although they neglected to apply immediately for grants, Mr. Botsford, agent for the Loyalists, recommended they be included in the second township grant which was cheerfully done.7

The settlers at Granville near Annapolis had come from New England in the early 1760’s to take up the good farms left by the expulsion of the Acadians. No one named Hamilton or Dickson is listed in the census of that community made in 1768 and 1770.8 Perhaps they were fishermen from Maine who, like those who settled on Brier Island, sailed north to find new fishing grounds and, in the end, brought their families and stayed. They cleared land and built cabins without the knowledge of local authorities and bought what they could not produce themselves by selling fish in New England. Tradition says that when the Loyalists came to Sandy Cove in 1783 to see their grants they found clearings and log cabins on the shore. If Isaiah Wilson’s most exact date is correct then the Hamiltons and Dicksons and perhaps others had been there for five years. These early settlers were later given grants of land which were not always in the place where they had first settled.9 The Dickson family stayed by the Cove but

Warrant to survey the lots to be, granted at Sandy Cove, April, 1788.

the Hamiltons moved to the Bay of Fundy shore south-west of the beach. The whole of Digby Neck had been granted to a group of Halifax officials in 1765 with certain conditions of settlement. These were never fulfilled and the final grant was not made, leaving the land free of encumbrance and available for granting.10 The real founders of the village of Sandy Cove were the Loyalists, the refugees of the American Revolution. The British Colonies of the Atlantic seaboard had developed a distinct life of their own in one hundred and fifty years of settlement. The people were British Americans and were more or less content to be so until the English Parliament tried to tax them without their consent. Then a fervour seized the Colonies to form a new and ideal government where power would reside in the people not in the King and Parliament. Most Americans were caught up in this idealism, but some were not. John Eardley-Wilmot, one of the Commissioners appointed by Parliament to enquire into the losses of Loyalists, wrote in 1805 that there were “a considerable number in each province who from various motives took part with the mother country in this contest, some from their natural attachment and what they thought their duty to their sovereign, others from official situations and many from the dread of civil war and its issue.”11 Some refused to join the rebels in the conviction voiced by a Loyalist clergyman, Joshua Wingate Weekes, who became rector of the parish of Annapolis, “that the British constitution was more beneficial to the rights of mankind than the Republican system of New England.”12 The Loyalists came from every level of society. British officials and soldiers formed part of their number but they were mostly native-born Americans. Many of those labelled as friends of the King did not leave their homes but rode out the storm and accommodated themselves to the new regime. Those who left probably took an active part in the British cause. Some served in British or Loyalist regiments or supplied food to British soldiers or ships. They were often treated with great harshness, their civil rights denied and their

property plundered and confiscated. The Loyalists all looked to the British to compensate them for their losses. They had upheld the established legal authority and had lost everything in their efforts to support it. They hoped, at first, to be able to go back to their old homes and have their confiscated lands returned to them, but feelings ran too high and the British were unable to negotiate any favourable treatment for them. They agreed instead to transport any who wished to go to a British country and to set up a court to hear claims for compensation.13 The thousands of supporters of the Crown who had sought the protection of the British Army in New York had to seek a future somewhere else. It was natural that some should go to England: those who had held government posts or had been members of British Regiments and those who, by education and affluence, were drawn to the Old World. Most Loyalists, however, had been born in America and looked naturally to the closest British lands. Many Tories made their way through Vermont, New Hampshire and New York to Quebec and Ontario but the most dramatic migration was in 1783 when nearly thirty thousand people left New York in the final evacuation and landed in the sparsely settled colony of Nova Scotia which then included the present provinces of New Brunswick, Prince Edward Island and Nova Scotia. The Tory refugees in New York had formed themselves into associations and had appointed agents to find them a place to go. One of these, Amos Botsford, led a party from New York to see if it were possible to arrange for land grants near Digby. He also visited the Saint John River Valley on the western side of the Bay of Fundy and returned to New York satisfied that these were both excellent places for settlement. The Americans were pressing for the evacuation of New York and plans were made to transport those who wished to go to Nova Scotia, as soon as the weather would permit it. Six ships arrived at Digby on and after June 1st, 1783 escorted by H.M.S. Atalanta from Admiral Digbyâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s fleet. In gratitude the settlers called their town Digby. Most of the people who were later to live at Sandy Cove came in these ships though a few

landed first in other places and later received a grant or bought land at the Cove. The Loyalists brought with them food and equipment to meet their immediate needs. As part compensation for their losses the King had ordered that they should be supplied with iron works for saw and grist mills as well as boats, tents and farm implements. Grain, seed, clothing and food was provided to tide them over the first year until they could harvest a crop.14 Some brought personal possessions, farm animals, and even frames for houses. By the spring of 1784 many were in dire need of help not only in Digby but in all the Loyalist settlements. A Memorial was presented to the Council at Halifax on their behalf asking the Crown for provisions. The Commissioner sent to investigate reported that â&#x20AC;&#x153;the Loyalists at Digby are extremely industrious. It is already in a flourishing condition.â&#x20AC;? Nevertheless assistance was granted to twelve hundred and ninety-five men, women, children and free Negroes. Five of the men who were later granted land at Sandy Cove were among them: William Saunders, Francis Harris, James Stanton, Martin Blackford and Stephen Fountain.15 The daily struggle of the men and women at Digby was for food and shelter but their preoccupation was with land. Grants could not be issued until a series of preliminary steps had been taken. First an unofficial survey was made of the township and land was assigned, usually by lot, to each applicant. Then a warrant to survey was issued and the official survey was made and approved. A certificate was required that 8 these lands were not reserved for the Crown. Finally, after all this, grants were made. It took a long time especially when there were thousands of people pressing their claims all over Nova Scotia. On February 20, 1784 several general grants were issued by Governor Parr to the Loyalists at Digby. One of these, for a thousand acres of Digby Township including Digby Neck and Long and Brier Islands, was issued to about four hundred men and women including the seventeen who later drew lots at Sandy Cove.16 Isaiah Wilson describes the scene that year:

When cheerful spring had gladdened by her kind return, the town assumed a most busy and enterprising aspect. All vied with each other in strenuous efforts to adorn and improve the landscape. As rural surveys from the township were completed, each settler drew his lot under supervision of Charles Morris Esq. Surveyor General… Though each applicant for land in the township was entitled to a town lot, yet all could not profitably remain in this small area. Upon receiving their farm tracts in 1784 those in each community decided to provide dwellings by mutual cooperation. Accordingly, they agreed to assist each other in clearing a site on every lot commencing at a given centre and labouring until the arduous task should be completed. Then, in like manner, the various buildings should be reared thereon.

He goes on to say that in this way the farms of William Saunders at Sandy Cove and Joseph Denton at Little River were cleared.17 Three years later, on February 4th, 1787 two thousand seven hundred and ninety-seven acres were granted to Jacob Brewer, Josiah Burrell, James Stanton, Billey Saunders, Stephen Fountain, Matthew Stewart, Simeon Raymond, John Jones, Francis Harris, John Morehouse, Maurice Peters, Daniel Soulis, Martin Blackford, John Stewart, John, James, Jane and Margaret Dixon and William Kerr “according to the annexed plan.” This included the right to hunt and fish, to cut any lumber except white pine and the right to any minerals except gold, silver, copper, lead and coal. A rent of two shillings for every hundred acres was to be paid to the government starting ten years after this provisional grant was made and there were other conditions. The settler was required to clear land or drain swamps, or build a house or otherwise develop his land before the final grant would be issued. Each head of a household was also required to declare before a Magistrate that he would uphold the authority of the King in his Parliament as the supreme Legislature of the Province. The Government found it impossible to enforce

A copy of the map attached to the Grant for land Sandy Cove issued at Halifax on April 17th, 1788; drawn Dr. Ronald Morehouse. Lot No: 14 Jacob Brewer 15 Josiah Burrel 16 James Stanton 17 Billey Saunders 18 Stephen Fountain & Mathew Stewart 19 Simeon Raymond 20 Heirs of Robert Dixon 21 John Jones 22 Francis Harris 23 John Morehouse 24 Maurice Peters 25 Daniel Soules 26 Martin Blackford 27 Simeon Raymond 28 Mathew Stewart 29 Stephen Fountain 30 Billey Saunders 31 John Stewart 35 Heirs of Robert Dixon 36 William Kerr 37 Martin Blackford

Acres 100 100 151 150 100 100 100 100 100 263 250 100 143 392 120 102 Â˝ 108 108 100 54 56

these conditions and they are not mentioned in the final grant.18 By 1788 some of the settlers had been at Sandy Cove for four years and they wrote an official letter to the Governor describing their situation and pressing for some action. All those who had been promised land at Sandy Cove signed this petition. They appended a chart showing that there were seventeen men, eleven women and thirty children in the group. They reminded the Governor that they had “at the close of the late dissensions in America emigrated to his Majesty’s Province of Nova Scotia under the promise that they should have land granted to them to cultivate and improve,” that they had made application “for lands to settle at a place called Sandy Cove” and that Amos Botsford the Agent had “promised that they should obtain grants in order to secure them in the quiet profession of their labour and industry.” Many of them “have made repeated applications and are very unhappy to inform your excellency that their application hath hitherto proved fruitless.” They asked the Governor to take their case into his “humane consideration” and order that their grants be made. This Memorial was dated January 14th, 1788.19 It produced results. The warrant to survey was issued on April 17 20 and the official grants were made on June 5. Each settler received a copy of his grant with a map attached.21 Seven of the sixteen original grantees settled at the Cove. They were Billey Saunders, Stephen Fountain, Simeon Raymond, Francis Harris, John Morehouse, John Jones and Maurice Peters. Men and women whose lives had been upset for nearly twenty years could look forward to a settled future at last.22

Chapter Two

THE SETTLEMENT 1788 – 1820

When Stephen Fountain arrived in Digby in 1783 he carried with him his account book. It measured six by fifteen inches, had a brown leather cover, an indented index and one hundred and seventeen numbered doubled pages. He saved it through the turmoil of the Revolution in the hope that some day he would set up shop as a blacksmith again, Today the cover is warped and loose and the pages are yellow but his words and figures are as clear as when they were written. In the 1860’s a young woman of his family kept a day-by-day diary on the blank pages which further enhances its value.1 He was already a skilled blacksmith when he made the first entry. In December, 1762 he lists work done for Benjamin Waterbury, near Norwalk, Connecticut:

Dtr in York Money to put a handle to a pot to mending a gun to shoeing a horse to mending a chain to putting a handle to a teapot with brass to a day of yourself to your horse two times to town to a horse to Norwalk to a day at dressing flax

1 1 1 1

6 3 8 4 6

3 1

0 4

1 3

0 0

He shod horses and sharpened ploughshares, mended looms and pots and made nails, hinges, pitchforks and even sleeve, Caroline shoe and trouser buttons. He received payment in goods and services, with accounts added up periodically and settlement made in cash. He and his customer then signed the account and if he needed to start a new page he made careful note of it. He had more than seventy customers in the years he worked near Norwalk, the last one being in November, 1773. He became a strong supporter of the British cause and was well known for his activities. Three committees accused him of “taking up arms, corresponding with British ships and seducing many to join the British” and he was imprisoned and finally allowed to leave the country.2 He arrived in Saint John in 1783 on the ship Union. One of the other passengers was Seth Squires, a farmer from Stratford, Connecticut, who with his wife Sarah and six children settled in New Brunswick.3 Stephen and his wife adopted their three-year-old daughter Mary whom he referred to formally as “my adopted daughter, Mary Squires” and nicknamed Polly. They must have crossed the Bay of Fundy early in the next year since his name appears in the list of grantees in Digby in 1784 and the muster roll of those who were to receive provisions in July of the same year.4 He drew a lot in Digby and two lots in Sandy Cove where, in the fall of 1788, he opened his account book again after a break of fifteen years. At the age of forty-five he started to make a new life for himself, his wife and his daughter. He had a wood lot on St. Mary’s Bay above the Upper Mill Brook and a village lot running down to the north side of the Cove where he built a house, a barn and a shop.5 A road of sorts ran past his house on its way to Trout Cove and Digby before 1800, and his business flourished. The blacksmith played an important part in the new village, where cash was short and tools for farm and kitchen were made, not bought in a shop. Horse shoeing was only a small part of his business; in fact he shod no horses in the first ten years. In 1799 he was able to lease his first cabin and build a better house with the help of Simeon Raymond, one of his customers. There is no sign of his house today, though the

cellar was visible until recently below the house of Mary’s grandson, Stephen Fountain Eldridge. He used his account book to record Mary’s marriage and the birth of her first two children: A memorandum of the marriage of Matthew Eldridge and Mary Squires adopted daughter of mine August 21 day 1794 she being aged fourteen years eight months and one day the marriage being performed by Stephen Jones a Squire. July 5, 1795 at 2 o’clock poor Polly was put to bed with a fine son and that son was baptised Stephen Fountain by the Reverend Mr. Roger Viets, pastor of the church at Digby. Dec. 26, 1796 John Squires Eldridge was born and baptised 12 June, 1797.

On the last page of the account book, in a different handwriting, is this account: John Morehouse Sr. 31st Jan’y Paid to the Estate of the Late Stephen Fountain 4 0 0 Cash to the Judge of Probate To Samuel Morehouse for 17 0 Proving the Will To 18 yards of colleen at Mr. 2 0 6 Warwicks June 1819 to Sollother for a pair of 2 6 shoes June 1822 to one pound of raisons and a nutmeg 1 10½ For going to Digby to get the 1 10 0 Will proved and recorded For palings for the grave 5 0 4 0 0 For my trouble and expence

Stephen Fountain was buried, no doubt, in the Anglican cemetery. The grave palings have long since gone and there was no headstone but he has left a better memorial in his account book. People named Eldridge came to Yarmouth from Cape Cod in 1760 but Matthew may not have been of that family.6 A romantic story is told of his coming to Sandy Cove by one of his descendants, Lenika Eldridge Ensor:

It seems that this Slater came from England in a British man-of-war and he was a quick-tempered man. As they neared the port of Halifax one of the officers struck a young deckhand and knocked out his eye because he did not jump to a command. This Slater hit him and knocked him out. To hit an officer on a boat meant death. He got off the ship and ran through the woods till he came to a cabin where there was a woman weaving. Now he was a weaver by trade. She dressed him as a woman and he got in the loom sand was weaving when the officers came. The woman steered them off another direction and after a while, Slater came down here, and took up a tract of land, using his mother’s name, Eldridge, so they couldn’t find him.

Matthew and Mary Eldridge had seven sons and seven daughters: Stephen, John, George, Shubel, Squires, William and Charles, Harriet, Cynthia, Sally, Jane, Eliza, Lucinda and Adelaide.7 The houses built by John and Squires still stand close to the village crossroads on the road to the Bay of Fundy. John Morehouse was a member of a family who had lived in Connecticut since 1640.8 At the time of the signing of the Declaration of Independence in 1776 he was sixteen. He and one of his brothers, Jonathan, along with ninety other men of the district formed the Reading Association and pledged themselves “to defend, maintain and preserve at the risk of their lives and property the prerogatives of the Crown and the privileges of the subject from the attacks of any rebellious body of men or committee of inspection.” The Morehouses, like many other families were divided by the conflict. His father’s cousin Gershom Morehouse served on a committee to raise money to support six soldiers in the rebel army.9 His brother, Daniel, became an officer in the Queen’s Rangers and later settled in New Brunswick where he drew half-pay all his life. James and Jonathan, his other brothers, received grants on Digby Neck, the former at Trout Cove or Centreville where his descendants still live, and the latter at Gulliver’s Cove.10 John was married in New York in 1778 to Mary Jones and sailed to Digby with her, their infant son John and her father, John Jones

Sandy Cove, from the New Road Hill, with the Post Office on the left, the store on the right and the churohes and the school in the background.

in the summer of 1783. John and Mary Morehouse and John Jones probably came to Sandy Cove in the summer of 1784. Johnâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s grant, lot 23, ran from the eastern head of the Cove two miles or so along St. Maryâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s Bay. Their first cabin was built near the mouth of what was later known as Lower Mill Brook. A short distance inland it drops over a precipice in a waterfall which must have been even more dramatic in the days before it was stopped by the beaver dam. Their first real house was built above the Falls where a bridle road to Trout Cove passed the door.11 Mary had three children by 1788 when the grants were made and at least six others were born in their house up the Old Road. Two of them, John and Jones, are the ancestors of the Sandy Cove Morehouses of today. In 1789 John Morehouse and Peter Harris, son of Francis Harris, built a saw mill on the Lower Mill Brook. The heavy equipment for it was probably provided by the British as part of the settlement of Loyalist claims but the local blacksmith, Stephen Fountain, made spikes and cogs and

repaired saws for it and even spent three days working on the mill dam. He also records the rafting of logs and boards, perhaps going to and from the mill on Sl. Mary’s Bay. Here is part of John Morehouse’s account between 1798 and 1803:

to putting a leg to a cooking pot

for the saw mill to mending a dogg

s 4

to a key to a double spring lock

to putting a tongue to a bell

to mending a pann and a saw

to a set of rudder irons

to mending a warming pan to shoeing a horse by 600 feet boards

by 100 feet pine boards

by 800 feet boards

to a day at plowing

by a barrel of rye flour

by 800 ft. boards

by stacking wood a day

0 5

0 6 6 6 0 0 0 0 0

10 0

to an old boat

to a barrel of potatoes

d 6

0 6

0 3

12 6 5

In 1794 John Morehouse sold to his partner, Peter Harris, the land lying on the north-east side of the brook “except half of the iron ore with the privilege of passing and repassing to and from the ore.”12 This deposit had been mentioned by

Champlain and was milled off and on for many years. The diggings can still be seen beyond the mouth of the Lower Mill Brook, now called T R Brook. John was a man of enterprise who became the leader of the village. As well as the saw mill he owned sailing vessels and a store. He took his place in the larger community, also helping to found an agricultural society in Digby13 and serving for many years as a Justice of the Peace.14 Francis Harris came to Digby with the Loyalists and was granted a lot which bordered on the Morehouse land above the Brook. His son Peter was a weaver and a shoemaker. He and his brother John grew flax as well as the usual crops and prepared it for spinning by breaking and dressing it. He wove linen and woollen materials to trade for goods and services he needed. Careful accounts were kept of these transactions. The man who could make something that was needed in the village prospered. Soon the brothers were able to buy land and the family moved to the south side of the Cove near Mink Cove. Billey Saunders was probably the oldest of the Loyalists who came to Sandy Cove. Within ten years of clearing land for his first cabin he and his wife Ruth with their five children had made a settled and prosperous farm. On October 9th, 1794 he sold to John Saunders and Peter Harris, described in the deed as farmers, his original grant, lot 30, with his house and barn for forty-five pounds described as follows: house, barn, and farm to wit one yoke oxen, 3 cows, 2 2 year old past, 3 yew lambs, 2 calfs, 23 sheep, 7 swine, cart and plough, yoke with irons of the same and chain axis, horse and all his farming tooIs together with his household furniture, beds and bedding, bedsteads and all the copper and earthenware pots and kettles and peel and tongs and chests and tables and chairs and loom reeds and gears and all the crop on the farm and all the wheat, hay, oats and flax belonging to Billey Saunders.15 He was by trade a weaver and a shoemaker. As well as “flannel”, “striped”, and “corse woolling”, he wove a

coverlet which could only be done by a professional weaver. He also made and mended shoes for everyone in the village and beyond. These special skills no doubt contributed to his prosperity. His sons William, Lemuel and John continued to farm at the Cove but the latter two also went to sea and died as Captains. William, his grandson, became a Justice of the Peace.16 Joseph Gidney emigrated from New York with the Loyalists who settled at Shelburne In the South Shore of Nova Scotia. This colony was too large to prosper and in 1789 he applied for and received a grant at Mink Cove, the village south-west of Sandy Cove.17 He had had an excellent farm near White Plains, New York. His hundred acres included orchards, wheat and corn fields and a salt meadow. Unfortunately, it was at one time between the American and British lines and was probably plundered by both sides. He steadfastly refused to join the American forces and finally had to seek refuge with the British.18 By 1790 the family was operating a saw mill at Mink Cove and later a grist mill and a store. Isaac Titus was also a prosperous farmer. As well as a house and farm on Long Island he owned a new ship. He was compelled to join the American Militia against his will but escaped to join the British. He became a captain, was wounded and carried to Bedford Gaol in Westchester, New York, where he was imprisoned for twelve months. Eventually, he too was allowed to leave and joined the other Loyalists in New York.19 He came to Digby and settled at Trout Cove which â&#x20AC;&#x153;was a forest when settled by the Loyalists.â&#x20AC;?20 The Eldridges, Morehouse, Harrises and Saunders cleared the land around Sandy Cove; nearby at Little River the Tidds, Dentons and Frosts, at Mink Cove the Gidneys, and at Trout Cove the Tituses, Dakins, Grahams, Morehouses and Westcotts were becoming established. The people of these villages knew each other well and often travelled back and forth to trade, work, visit and even to marry. Other families came to Sandy Cove and bought partly cleared farms early in the nineteenth century. John Merritt was a customer of the blacksmiths in 1810. He came in that

year with his son, Gilbert, from near Annapolis where the family had settled before the Loyalists came. He settled first at Mink Cove but later the family moved to Sandy Cove to build ships with the Morehouses. James Carty with his sons, Silas and Stephen, also came from Annapolis and bought land in 1815 on the south side of the Cove running through to the Bay of Fundy.21 Another of his sons, Elijah, was a passenger on the Packet Caroline when she foundered in the Bay of Fundy in 1831.22 David, Thomas and William Carty sons of James also owned land in Sandy Cove, some of which is still owned by members of the Carty family. Thomas West Crowell was the third generation in Nova Scotia of a family who had come from Chatham, Massachusetts in 1760 and settled at Barrington.23 He came to Sandy Cove in 1818 with his wife, Sarah, and several children and with money in his pocket for he was able to purchase four hundred acres of the best land in the Cove.24 After he died at sea in 1823 his sons Thomas West Jr., George Nelson and Reuben, continued to farm though the latter two became sea captains. The sites of the first cabins are hard to find. They were replaced as soon as possible with houses of sawn timber built in the style of the ones they had left behind in New England. Their foundations were often used for new houses or sometimes for barns which were allowed to fall down when no longer needed. Cellars on the Old Road, by the Cove or on the road to the Bay of Fundy are now, in most cases, only memories. Stephen Fountain provided the iron work needed to build the houses which followed, spikes and nails, hinges and door fittings. He also mended the saws, hammers and adzes used in their construction. He joined with the men of the village in helping the mason who came to build the foundation, in framing the house, in building the rafters and raising the roof. Barns were built before the first winter to protect the stock which the settlers brought with them. Planks for the floors were sometimes sawn by hand probably with a pit saw. Cows, beef cattle, sheep and pigs were owned by almost everybody as well as oxen which did the heavy work. The bow yoke which sat behind the oxenâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s head was used by the early

farmers and the head yoke became common only in later years. Stephen made bells for all the animals and branding irons in the shape of an initial. Horses were used for drawing wagons and sleighs and for riding to town. Clearing land is still hard work but when one thinks of doing it with only oxen and man power it seems an almost impossible task. A little was done each year until there were fields all around the Cove, over to the Bay of Fundy and up the Old Road. Woods beyond the fields were cleared more gradually and used as pasture. The blacksmith speaks of cutting logs and hauling them away, of hauling stones, of ploughing, harrowing and finally planting the new land. Iron ploughshares were quickly dulled and frequently taken to the forge to be sharpened and mended. The oxen lost shoes in the stony ground and also went to be shod. Wheat, oats, buckwheat, rye and hay were grown as well as potatoes, turnips and flax. The building of fences was important. A crop ruined by straying animals could mean short rations the following winter. Fence posts were carted and brush and stone fences built. Piles of stones can still be found on land long reverted to alders or spruce forests testifying to the efforts of early farmers to clear land for crops and cattle. Life for the women and children of the community was as hard as for the men. Kitchen equipment included kettles, pie pans, bread peels, tongs, tea kettles, milk pans and wash tubs. The pots and buckets were copper, iron or wood hooped with metal. The cows had to be brought home from the pasture and milked, the cream skimmed and the butter and cheese made. The skim milk and whey were fed to the pigs and when these were slaughtered they were smoked and enjoyed in the winter as bacon and ham. Salt pork was important, too, in many recipes such as baked beans and fish chowder. A dairy and wash-house were usually built as extensions to the house and an outhouse and smoke-house were a little distance a way. Fish was smoked: the tradition of kippers, Digby chicks and finnan-haddie goes a long way back. When a steer was slaughtered it was shared among neighbours and careful accounts were kept. Here is one from the flyleaf of the account book:

House built by John Eldridge, 1797â&#x20AC;&#x201C;1894, wiht Mount Shubel in the background.

A Memorandum of the Beef John Morehouse and Thomas Westcott had of me Nov. 1791 a quarter of beef and was to pay Capt. Moody each quarter 86 wt. at 2Âź. This account paid to Capt. Moody and all settled by me Stephen Fountain.

Captain Moody was a famous Tory fighter who had settled at Weymouth. The carcass was, no doubt, delivered by boat. The family dinner usually consisted of a stew of mutton, beef, ham or fish cooked in an iron pot over the fire, with potatoes, turnips and sometimes peas added. Onions, chickens and eggs are not mentioned in the book perhaps because they were so common. Geese, ducks and large pieces of fresh meat were roasted on spits for special occasions. Almost every man had a gun and traps were used for small animals. Moose meat, partridge and rabbit varied the diet in the hunting season. In cold weather fresh meat could be kept frozen in the barn or in a special place hollowed out of the snow. Everyone had a root cellar, too, for storing the vegetables. An oven built into the side of the fireplace was used for bread and cakes made from the wheat, rye and buckwheat flour and

corn meal gound in the mill at Little River from their own grains. Molasses was the common sweetener though sugar and honey was also used. These came from the shop as well as salt, oil raisins, currants, and spices for baking. All through the summer the children were kept busy picking berries: wild strawberries and raspberries in July followed by blueberries in August and blackberries in September. The “pye pans” and kettles must have been in frequent use for making jams, jellies and preserves to store in earthenware crocks. Many apple trees were planted as well as cherry trees and currant bushes. John Morehouse harvested apples up the Old Road in 1804. Tea and coffee were drunk as well as a great deal of rum and spirits. John Morehouse and later his son, John, Lemuel Saunders and Matthew Eldridge all ran stores at one time or another. Matthew paid the blacksmith for the work he did on his house in 1802 by trading goods. Here in part is his account between 1802 and 1809:

to making a chain

to making a steel trap to mending a gun

14 0 12 6

to a pye pan & pot bail to a ring and staple

to rudder irons

to mending a dog

cash paid to Henry Hamilton

0 0

10 0

by 6 wt of sugar

10 0

by half wt of tea

by 8 bushels of potatoes

12 0 £

d 31

on account of housework by half a bushel of salt

by a gallon rum

by a gallon of molasses

by a gallon of rum at Gidney’s

two quintle of cod fish

by carting hay half day by six wt of tallow

5 2 6

9 9 0 8

Some of Matthew’s supplies came from the Gidney’s store in Mink Cove which was operating in 1790 and sold rye flour, buckwheat, cornmeal, butter, cheese, hay and flax seed and tobacco as well as rum, molasses, salt and sugar. Most important, Stephen was able to buy from them the iron he needed in his business. Fourteen weight of iron cost four shillings sixpence and three weights of bar iron cost ten shillings. The iron ore from the diggings up the Old Road was of poor quality and was smelted at the forge for anchors and weights. Hardwood was burned in kilns to make charcoal for the heating of the forge. The blacksmith was often paid by a day’s work “stoking the coal kiln.” Clothing was simple and well cared for because so much trouble was required to make it. Washing in tubs using homemade soap and ironing with flat irons heated 20 by the fire was one of the hardest jobs, and materials had to be hardy to stand it. Every household had a great wheel for spinning wool and many also had a small wheel for flax. The job of shearing the sheep belonged to the men but washing the fleece, picking and carding and finally spinning the wool were an important part of the work of the women and girls. Flax was grown from the early days and its seed, used as a source of oil, was one of the crops harvested to be sold. The weaving was done by professional weavers. Billey Saunders, his son Lemuel, Joseph Denton and Henry Coggins all wove in Sandy Cove or Little River in the period 1788 – 1820 covered by the account book. Lemuel Saunders’ account between 1789 and 1803 gives a glimpse of life at the turn of the century. 32

to mending a gun lock to a grate wheel spindle to iron to a neck yoke

1 1 5

0 3 0

to a broad hoe

to mending a fire shovel

ÂŁ

to make bigger your cart to making a pair of fire tongs

to hooping a cooking pot for your mama to shoeing a horse

to making a pair of plough irons to weaving a blanket

by weaving petticoats

by a day at covering kiln

by weaving a gown for my wife by cash

by a one horse slay by two milk pans

by Â˝ day at mowing

by carting coal wood

Oct. 8, 1803 then settled with Lemuel Saunders and to balance all accounts due to him the sum of 11s as witness our hand Stephen Fountain, Lemuel Saunders.

5 5 1 2

0 0 0 6

10 0 5

3 5 5 0 3 2 8

9 0 0 0 0 6 0

Overcoats, trousers, petticoats and gowns were usually made at home though sometimes a neighbour undertook the job. Surplus wool and flax could be traded with friends or at the store for the few things that could not be made at home. Stockings, socks and mitts were knitted for home use and for

trading. There were no idle hands. Even the little girls and boys were expected to do their part. When clothing wore out it was cut down for the children and eventually made into patchwork quilts and braided and hooked rugs. As early as 1790 a passable road to Mink Cove and Little River in one direction and to Trout Cove in the other was in regular use.27 The main road crossed a stream in the middle of the village on a “high bridge” mentioned in a deed in 1819 as formerly standing there.28 This stream, now a mere trickle, flowed down from Mount Shubel on the north side of the village and was navigable for some distance above the shore. A “bridle road” led from the village to the Bay of Fundy shore.29 Wagons, carts and sleighs served for short distances and small sailing vessels took travellers on longer journeys. Ship-building requires exact skills and local tradition has it that one of the early schoolmasters helped with the mathematics required to design a small ship. In 1808 this note was made on the fly leaf of the account book: “A page for the extra work for the schooner Mary abuilding for Squire John Morehouse and Mr. James Titus and Loce and Jacob Titus.” The items mentioned in the account that followed testify to the jobs involved in ship-building: augers, bolts, burrs, spikes, rudder irons, thimbles, rimming irons, iron wedges. chains, hasps and staples for the cabin door. In 1808 the Mary was cast away at Grand Passage. It required considerable work including a new rudder to float her again. These small vessels took dried fish, lumber and local produce to the ports of the Bay of Fundy, St Mary’s Bay and the Annapolis Basin and even to New England, returning with the goods that could not be made locally. Pioneer life often implies isolation but this was never true in the Maritime Provinces. Goods and passengers moved easily around the coast and it was possible to buy cups and saucers, handkerchiefs and caps, souchong tea, and snuff even in Sandy Cove. Little boats were owned by almost everyone. These were made in the village from local spruce wood “lapwork”. In the 1780’s and 1790’s Stephen Fountain helped Maurice Blackford build a boat, made a “goose neck” for Billey Saunders’ boat, rudder irons for Matthew Eldridge and a “ring

bolt and thimble” for Alexander Hamilton’s boat. A small mast was set up when the wind was right for sailing and taken down and used for a sitting rail when the boat was rowed. These boats were too small to go through the swift eddies of Petit or Grand Passage; Simeon Raymond’s son had been drowned in the latter place in 1802. The current was so strong that the ferries were only able to operate for two hours before

The outhouse behind Captain Wint Dakin’s house. The walls are plastered and it has a high seal for an aduIt and a low seat for a child.

and after high and low water. When boats were needed on the other side of the Neck they were beached on the shore, a board was placed under the spine and they were hauled across to the other shore by oxen with men walking on either side to keep the boats upright. Cod, haddock, pollock and halibut were caught by hand lines and trawling. Gill nets and weirs were used for catching herring.30 In 1826 most of the residents of Sandy Cove together bought half an acre of land “at the foot of the hill on the beach” which gave them a common place to pull up their boats on the Bay of Fundy shore. Matthew, John and Stephen Eldridge, Sarah Fountain, William and Lemuel Saunders, Peter Harris, John, John Jr. and Jones Morehouse, Thomas, James and Silas Carty owned shares in this land.31 Digby was a flourishing settlement almost from the beginning with most of the amenities of New England town life. Doctors, lawyers and clergymen could be consulted there as well as skilled tradesmen. The shortage of cash was a deterrent to using their services when your neighbour could be bartered with to do the same job. It was easy to go to Weymouth across St. Mary’s Bay where a settlement of Loyalists and emigrants from Scotland was fast becoming prosperous. On the western side of the Bay of Fundy Saint John was an even larger town which was connected to Digby by weekly packet right from the earliest days. The Captain of one of these, the Sally, was John Beyea who later settled in Sandy Cove.32 People sometimes visited Boston in spite of recent bad feelings and it, not Halifax or Montreal, became the big city for Maritimers. From the time when Nova Scotia became a colony of England in 1710 the Governor’s first duty was to defend it. After 1776 many New Englanders made a private war against their brothers who chose to remain British. No shipping was safe from privateers and there were constant alarms all around the coast but especially in the Bay of Fundy which was close to the new Republic. The Atalanta, from Admiral Digby’s fleet, was stationed in the Bay of Fundy and as long as she cruised there privateers were kept out. This situation continued until 1814 when the hostilities between Britain and the United States

which were part of the Napoleonic struggle, formally ended. Reverend Roger Viets, the Rector of Digby, complained in 1794 that the books he had requested from the SPG had not arrived and probably had been taken by the French.33 In 1793 the Governor appointed the member of the Legislative Assembly for Annapolis to organize a volunteer Militia regiment, using halfpay officers, to defend Digby Gut and to contribute if 34 necessary to the defence of Halifax. The sense of uncertainty was felt even in this remote corner. During this struggle much of the crop in Nova Scotia was bought by the Royal Navy and prices were high. The ending of the war, followed by a crop failure, caused a scarcity of food and very high prices. Mr. Viets reported in 1800 that costs had doubled in the previous ten years. In Sandy Cove the value of a day’s work rose from two pence to four pence for harvesting, breaking flax or plaiting bells and from three pence to seven or eight pence for a day’s work with oxen at carting dung or potatoes or ploughing. The Sandy Covers, however, were protected from the hardships which followed this inflation in the towns as there was little exchange of actual money. In New England they had used York currency which was in pounds, shillings and pence the value of which was set by the colony of New York at less than the British pound. In Nova Scotia Halifax currency was used, also in pounds, but the Spanish dollars which were the currency of the West Indies began to be spoken of as a standard as soon as regular trading began with the Islands. Stephen Fountain speaks of “a dollar’s worth of rum” in 1810. The English money was used until 1861 when Nova Scotia adopted the decimal system. In 1820 Sandy Cove was nearly a self-supporting community. Shelter, food and clothing all came from the neighbourhood. Commercial links existed by sea with Westport, Weymouth, Digby, Annapolis and Saint John. Roads and ferries were much improved on the Neck and mail was carried on a regular schedule from Digby by Lemuel Morehouse of Trout Cove.35 Digby Neck was the larger community within the world of township, county and province. In 1808 twenty-seven men from the Neck, including John Saunders, Stephen Westcott, Stephen Fountain, John

Jones, John Sr., John Jr., and Jones Morehouse, and Henry Hamilton of Sandy Cove, signed a petition against the granting of the marsh land at the head of St. Mary’s Bay to Captain Fred Williams. It states that “the benefits received already by Captain Williams far outweigh the improvements made.” The petitioners recommended that the Scottish immigrants, William McKay, Angus Ross, Donald Ross, William Urquhart and Alex Mcintosh, recently settled in the vicinity receive the grant with the reservation that other inhabitants could pass there. Captain Williams did not get the land and the settlement of this valuable pasture land was not made until 1816. It was granted in 475 shares with 10 shares going to the Rector and Wardens of Trinity Parish Digby and one share each to the others. Many families on the Neck are in this list along with others from Plympton, Marshalltown and Digby. From Sandy Cove Matthew Eldridge, Stephen Fountain, Francis and Stephen Harris, John Morehouse Sr. and Jr., John, Lemuel and Ruth Saunders, and Thomas Westcott participated in the grant. This has remained common land.36 In 1974 a provincial grant was made to repair the dykes so crops could again be grown there. The first settlers could look back to thirty-five years of hard work and forward to a life that was secure and prosperous.

Chapter Three

THE CHURCHES

The New England colonies were settled by Puritans from England who hoped to make communities where people could live according to God’s law of righteousness. By 1776 this ideal had expressed itself in many different forms but it still influenced the whole society.1 The refugees of the American Revolution carried with them the strong religious and moral sense of their ancestors. For many of them their first duty was to worship God and they gathered together in each new community without buildings, and usually without clergy, to praise Him in the various ways familiar to them. Many of the Loyalists were Episcopalians, as members of the Church of England in New England were called, and the British Government decided to help them hoping by this means to strengthen the loyalty of the remaining Atlantic colony. The Society for the Propagation of the Gospel which had supported the Episcopal Church in America turned its attention to Nova Scotia and with money from the British government built churches, provided Prayer Books and Bibles and paid clergy salaries. Charles Inglis, who had been rector of Trinity Parish New York, was consecrated Bishop of Nova Scotia in 1787 in London, and an academy to educate local clergy was established in 1788 at Windsor. Rigorous rules were laid down by the Society in the hope that “enthusiastic religion” could be kept in its place. In their view the independent mind of New England had been encouraged by its Congregational religion and the British government hoped it could prevent this happening again. Judgements made by clerics in England who were unfamiliar with the North American spirit were often wrong, as Bishop Inglis recognized. He struggled for fifteen years with the Society on the one hand and the sects on the other and finally withdrew from the fight to live in retirement, leaving his diocese virtually without a Bishop.2

The missionaries of the SPG differed greatly. Some regarded their appointments as licences to act as indolent, though poor, country squires while others saw themselves as pastors to all who lived in their parishes. The Reverend Roger Viets was one of the latter. He had been educated at Yale, and ordained in London in 1763. He served in the parish of Simsbury, Connecticut where he was imprisoned during the Revolution briefly for his Tory sentiments and became Rector of Trinity Parish, Digby in 1787. He loved his people and he did many things for their temporal as well as spiritual wellbeing. The Society paid him a salary of fifty pounds per annum and also granted money to the parish to build a church and to supply Bibles, Prayer Books and a parish library. They also paid the salaries of two school masters, one for a school in Digby and the other for the black Loyalists who had settled there as free men.3 By 1805 Mr. Viets reported “that the people of the Mission are generally poor and not able to do anything more than maintain their own families, that the congregation has the greatest difficulty in raising money to keep the Church and Church yard in repair.”4 Stephen Fountain records the payment of “church rates” by Joseph Gidney and himself in 1799 and a subscription paid to the Reverend Charles Weekes in Weymouth in 1804 so there was some attempt to organize regular support for the Church. In his annual letter to the Society in 1791 Mr. Viets wrote: I have travelled the whole length of the peninsula betwixt St. Mary’s Bay and the Bay of Fundy, then crossed Petit Passage to Long Island, then over Grand Passage to Brier Island and returned by the south side of St. Mary’s Bay. In which tour I preached at seven different places and baptised 51 including 5 adults. Upon the peninsula and two islands are sixty families chiefly refugees and professors of the Church many of whom have not heard a sermon since they have been in Nova Scotia. I promised them another visit next spring. Being in a scattered location and having such little opportunity of hearing the Gospel they beg the

Sandy Cove Baptist Church built in 1849.

The Church of the Nativity built in 1844 and Zion United Church built in 1857.

Society to send them some Prayer Books and New Testaments with some Primers and second books to preserve their children from total ignorance.5

Mr. Viets made trips down Digby Neck at least once a year and came to Sandy Cove, a shorter distance, more often. Services were held in the homes of members of the congregation, Stephen Fountain, John Morehouse and Joseph Gidney. In 1794 he reported: There has been established a communion at Prince William Henry Cove (later Sandy Cove) at the north side of St. Mary’s Bay. The Methodists and New Lights are asserting themselves with uncommon vigor and industry.6

This is the first mention of Sandy Cove under the name of Prince William Cove. The first settlers called their village after the younger brother of the Prince Regent, later William IV. He was in the Navy and cruised off Nova Scotia while he was stationed in Halifax in 1787. This narne was used on ships’ registers, deeds and other official documents but in common parlance it was probably always Sandy Cove and it became so officially in 1864 when the Compulsory Education Act named each school section. In 1800 William Wilson of Digby who had bought lot 37 from Martin Blackford gave “part of lot 37 on the west side of the road to Joseph Gidney, Stephen Fountain, John Morehouse and all the inhabitants of Great Neck and their successors for an episcopal Church and burying ground.”7 This land was soon in use as a burial ground but they could not yet afford to build a church. Early burials had been in unmarked graves on a man’s own land. Unmarked graves were discovered when land was being leveled behind the present Village Hall. In 1818 when Henry Hamilton sold his grant to Thomas West Crowell he made exception of “ten feet square lot adjacent to the grave of Archibald Hamilton, father of Henry,”8 Services continued to be held in houses and marriages and baptisms often took place in Digby as the Trinity Parish records testify.

Mr. Viets was not a young man when he came to Digby and it was impossible for him to minister regularly to all the villages of his parish. He confidently expected that a missionary would be appointed by the SPG to develop the work in the places where he had started it. Lay leadership was not encouraged and without clergy Anglican congregations gained no new members. Mr. Viets was followed by his son, also Roger, who became the second rector in 1825. He does not seem to have been as vigorous as his father. In 1841 the Reverend William Bullock, who is remembered as the author of the hymn â&#x20AC;&#x153;We love the place O Godâ&#x20AC;?, became Rector and proceeded to stir things up again. He had been a missionary of the SPG in Newfoundland and was used to rough travel. In 1842 he visited his whole parish and wrote this report to the Bishop:9 For twenty miles along Digby Neck the whole country is thickly populated by descendants of English churchmen many of whom have never heard the Book of Common Prayer. At Sandy Cove many of the inhabitants are nominal churchmen. While on a visit to this place I accidentally discovered a deed of gift to this church made in the year 1804 by which we shall be put in possession of a most desirable plot of land for the church and burial ground.

On June I, 1843, he was able to report considerable progress: At Brier Island I have encouraged the erection of a small church and have realized for the purpose a considerable sum. I promised to be with them as soon as the frame is ready for raising. This can easily be accomplished as the steamer makes a trip every week. The people themselves would readily supply the expense. At Sandy Cove I have done almost the same thing. In this beautiful settlement there are several churchmen and no place of worship. I hope however that the frame work of one will be prepared by the time I am called to the island. At both places I am encouraging Sunday schools and am supplying them with books. I crossed from this place to Weymouth in a

small boat in 40 minutes. In good weather the clergyman at Weymouth could visit it frequently without inconvenience if placed in charge. In the absence of a clergyman we might find some religious gentleman to read the services both here and at Brier Island.10

The Church of the Nativity was consecrated on Aug. 7, 1844 by Bishop John Inglis but he did not take Mr. Bullock’s excellent advice and an independent parish of Digby Neck never developed. The church on Brier Island was closed and later sold to the Baptists. The church built at Rossway in 1817 and the Sandy Cove church continue Anglican worship on the Neck today. The Loyalists arrived in Nova Scotia in the last days of a great religious revival. Many of the pre-Loyalist settlers had been Congregationalists from New England and they had responded with enthusiasm to a gospel of personal piety and freedom to interpret the scriptures offered by one of their number, Henry Alline and his followers,the New Lights.11 In the 1760’s and 1770’s great crowds gathered in fields and barns in every settlement in Nova Scotia to hear a gospel of repentance now and rewards later which warmed the bleakness of their pioneer lives. Baptisms in streams and coves provided religious and social excitement for converted and unconverted alike. The Congregational Church was split apart by this revival and Methodist and Baptist Churches gradually took its place. Those who were becoming prosperous disliked the excessive emotion often displayed by the New Lights; speaking with tongues, shouting and moaning seemed undignified behaviour for merchants and shipowners. Alline spoke often of “the crying out of the spirit” in his meetings but seldom of what was to follow. Some of the New Lights lived scandalous lives because they believed that they were saved and their behaviour no longer counted against them. Both Methodists and Baptists reacted strongly against this and laid down strict rules for their own members and also for the whole community. The temperance movement and Sunday observance became the marks of virtue for eveyone.

Methodism had been brought to Cumberland County on the New Brunswick border by people from Yorkshire who had heard John Wesley preach and the movement was strengthened by Loyalists who had come under its influence in New England. In 1781 William Black, a settler in Cumberland county, was converted by reading Wesley’s sermons and he travelled in the following year throughout Nova Scotia preaching an evangelical gospel of sin, repentance and amendment of life. Many Methodist Societies came together for prayer and Bible reading. At first they belonged to the American Conference but, in 1800, they joined the English Conference. Only a few missionaries had come from New England and these had often been unwelcome because of the strong antiRevolutionary feeling of the Loyalists. English missionaries followed but there were never enough and small places had to depend on themselves with only the occasional visit from a travelling preacher. At Trout Cove James Morehouse and Samuel Cornwell organized a Methodist Society before the turn of the century.12 James’ brother John was upset about his lack of loyalty to the Church of England and a rift developed between the two families which took many years to heal. The average person did not distinguish between the Methodist revival and that of Henry Alline and for a time they were both called New Lights. Adult baptism had been common in Nova Scotia before the Revolution and this practice was strengthened by the coming of Baptist people among the Loyalists. As communities became more settled, however, differences arose between them. Infant baptism and open communion practised by the Methodists was bitterly opposed by the Baptists for whom adult baptism by immersion was the only door to church membership. Henry Alline’s emphasis had been on sin and repentance and not on denominational rules. In a letter in 1780 he laments “O that Christians would bear and forbear!”, a motto that was embroidered and hung in the parlour long after its origin was forgotten.13 Digby Neck was greatly influenced by these stirrings of the spirit. By boat it was within easy reach of Yarmouth, one

Embroidered motto quoting Henry Alline “O that Christians would bear and forbear”.

of the great centres of Alline’s preaching, though the Acadian Catholic settlements of Clare divided them on the land. Four miles across St. Mary’s Bay from Sandy Cove in the prosperous settlement of Weymouth many had seen the light of Henry Alline. Enoch Towner, a Loyalist who had been an Episcopalian became the leader of the group. Several families from Sandy Cove joined this congregation and helped to build the first church which was erected in 1792. Stephen Westcott, Maurice Peters, Martin Blackford and Peter Harris were all New Light Baptists.14 Stephen Fountain who was an Episcopalian and did not join the new congregation nevertheless made a contribution to it, which he recorded in his account book: July 3rd 1792 began to work with Thomas Westcott at the church at Sissaboo this being Wednesday and wrought 3 days and a half this week to the 23rd of July I wrought at the Church for Westcott ten days in all. July 23 from that day till Saturday I wrought 8 and a half days. In all I wrought at the Church 19 days and a half for nothing. – Stephen Fountain

In 1799 Peters, Blackford and Harris went to a meeting at Horton at which the Baptist Association of Nova Scotia was formed. The delegates from Sandy Cove with Enoch Towner and three others were constituted the Sissaboo Baptist Church which included Digby Neck and the Islands in its field.15 The second pastorate in the county, known as Digby Neck First Church, was organized in 1809 with Peter Crandall as Minister, Joseph Denton Sr. as Deacon and nineteen charter members. In 1825 seventy·five members on the islands withdrew leaving sixty-eight members with preaching stations at Gulliver’s Cove, Trout Cove, Sandy Cove and Little River. This congregation, the Second Digby Neck Baptist Church, built a Meeting House at Little River in 1839. In 1841 John Chipman Morse became pastor and settled down to live at Sandy Cove.16 John Morse was a remarkable man who baptised 185 persons during the 63 years of his pastorate. According to the Christian Messenger17 he had “the temperament of a poet, the prescience of a philosopher, the keenness of a logician and the eloquence of an orator”. Tradition says that he personally built the Baptist Church and later his own house which still stands across from the church. The steeple of the church was decorated with a large wooden hand with a finger pointing to heaven which was carved by Capt. Robert Bishop. Through his encouragement the cause of temperance flourished but it is reported that he also liked to drive a fast horse and hated to be passed on the road. He had had little education but taught himself Greek so that he was able to pass the examinations at Acadia and become an ordained Baptist Minister; and in his latter days Acadia conferred an honorary degree on him.18 The Sandy Cove congregation became a separate pastorate in 1883 called the Third Digby Neck Baptist Church. William Burns, John Wright and Lemuel J. Saunders were the Deacons with sixteen charter members.19 The Methodists were part of a pastorate which extended from Berwick to Sandy Cove and were visited only occasionally by the Rev. Sampson Busby, a Yorkshireman.20 In 1850, Rev. A. McNutt reported that “he could not but

observe the improvements which had taken place” since his former visit 15 years earlier: “a number of respectable dwellings and two places of worship have been erected”. He travelled to the islands and on returning held “two services which were well attended.” After the evening service Mr. Smith addressed the meeting on the subject of the Bible and was most cordially assisted by Mr. Morse, the Baptist minister, “thus delightfully proving that not withstanding the old differences of opinion on some subjects we can and will rally round the Bible and advocate its claims”.21 The service was held in the new Union Meeting House and signalled the beginning, not the end, of controversy. In 1853 there was a great row between the Methodists and the Baptists in Sandy Cove.22 Maurice Peters, who was a Baptist, had given the settlement an acre of land, on the hill overlooking the Cove, to be used as a burying ground in 1802. In 1828 John Eldridge gave the Methodist Society land adjoining the Anglican cemetery and the frame of a chapel was raised. This first attempt to build a church in the Cove was never completed and it eventually blew down. It was not until 1849 that one was finally built by the Methodists and Baptists together on the Peters land. This building is referred to in the following description of its opening as the “Baptist Meeting House” but is called the Union Meeting House in its deed: The new Baptist Meeting House at Prince William was opened on the sabbath the 22nd inst. Our esteemed brother C. Randall preached the opening sermon from Exodus XX the close of the 24th verse. “In all places where I record my name I will come unto thee and bless thee.” The Lord was with his people and sinners were moved to tears. May God carry on His glorious work and the people be all brought to the knowledge of His truth. The dimensions of our New House are 32 x 42 feet with galleries. It is completely finished and clear of debt. Yours in Christian love John C. Morse Prince William, Digby Neck, July 26, 1849 23

Later, John Eldridge wrote this account of the controversy to the Attorney Gereral of Nova Scotia: The Baptists enjoyed the sole use of this building or nearly so until 1851 when a Wesleyan Methodist Minister was stationed at Digby and his visits became frequent. Mr. Morse the Baptist Minister procured a deed24 from the heirs of Maurice Peters and proceeded to incorporate the Union Meeting House as a Baptist Church thus wedging the other parties out. The aggrieved parties were forced to reoccupy the school house which Mr. Gidney, (the teacher) and Mr. Morse, (the School Commissioner) resisted. [This school house had been built on the Methodist land in 1842 and the Methodists had formerly held services there.] A meeting was called and an agreement entered into that it should be occupied both as a place of preaching and as a school house until the Methodists should request its removal. A short time after, finding the School House too small, it was determined to build a chapel and an application was made to Capt. Elkanah Trask for the deed which could not be found. Mr. Taylor, the Wesleyan Methodist Minister called on me and requested a new deed. I consider myself honour bound to give him one as an upright man of high standing in the community. Mr. Gidney was notified that they would not prevent his school more than 2 days.

This outraged Angus Gidney who believed that John Eldridge had already given the site to the community for a school and was now taking it from them to give to the Methodists. He refused to close his school. The Methodists, already sorely tried, became angry. Mr. Gidney continues the story from his point of view in a letter to the Attorney- General in April 1853: Some time during the month of March 1853 a number of persons met while your petitioner was engaged in the school and built a high fence around the school house

and when he dismissed his pupils they, as well as himself, were obliged to climb over the fence in order to reach the road. More than once afterwards he similarly was fenced in and out by the same parties. On one occasion the lock was broken and on another all the books of your petitioner and pupils were carried out of the House. About 6 weeks ago it was rumoured that your Petitioner would be forceably driven from the school and the School House broken up. On March 24th the said parties met as your Petitioner was about to open his school and proceeded to carry the previous threats into execution. Your Petitioner applied to William Saunders J.P. demanding a warrant against them.25 They refused to go before a magistrate saying they would â&#x20AC;&#x153;finish the jobâ&#x20AC;?. Two days later they gave themselves up and insisted on being taken before John Eldridge, J.P. who told them my complaint was groundless and dismissed them. They were advised to move the school to a plot of land nearby, owned by him.

The Attorney-General upheld the action of John Eldridge in giving the Methodists a new deed and he refused to support the complaint of Angus Gidney saying that he could charge those who had injured him in the courts if he wished to. The school was moved to a new site halfway down the Church Hill and in 1860 a new school was opened.26 The wounds inflicted by this unhappy misunderstanding took many years to heal. Angus Gidney resigned as School Master and applied for the job of Postmaster in June 1853. The men of the village sent a petition to the Lieutenant- Governor objecting to his appointment: Owing to the very active part which Mr. Gidney has taken in the unhappy disturbance that for the last twelve months has prevailed in this place we have lost every confidence in him and as your Petitioners comprise all the Business Men and Ship Owners of this place do solicit your Excellency to withhold the office from Mr. Gidney as they do not wish their papers and business matters to pass through his hands and beg that

the office be conferred on some person who has taken no part in these unpleasant grievances (signed)

John S. Eldridge

Jones Morehouse Sr.

Jones H. Morehouse

John Lary

Joseph Morehouse Burket Beyea

David Carty

Colin Crowell

James H. Morehouse William Morton Charles Morehouse

John Merritt

Samuel Morehouse Lemuel Merritt 27 The Reverend Mr. Morse was appointed Postmaster in 1854. Zion Methodist Church was opened in 1857 as part of the Digby Circuit and in 1865 Matthew Morehouseâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s house was purchased as a parsonage for Sandy Cove. The minister from Digby reported: Our new church reflects great credit on the Wesleys of that interesting and picturesque village and is the chief ornament of the place. The Baptists, Episcopalians and Wesleys have each a neat and spacious church but the great want of this place among all denominations is genuine deep and all-pervading Revival of Religion and we believe there are not wanting those to labour as well as pray for its accomplishment.28

Chapter Four

THE GOVERNMENT

In the years following the building of the first log houses, the people of Sandy Cove depended only on each other to survive. Food, shelter and clothing were provided in the village and there were infrequent contacts with Digby and probably very few with Halifax. Disputes were settled and services provided among themselves. John Morehouse seems to have been the natural leader and perhaps Billey Saunders, Stephen Fountain, Matthew Eldridge, Francis Harris and others met in his kitchen to talk about keeping the road to Trout Cove in a passable condition, finding and supporting a schoolmaster and caring for widows and orphans. This is how things had been settled in New England even in much larger communities where everyone had an equal right to be heard in the Town Meeting. In Nova Scotia the settlers found that things were somewhat different. Rules were made not by the people for themselves but by those who acted in the name of the British King they had sacrificed so much to support. At Halifax there was a Governor and Council, appointed by the King, who made all major policy decisions and ruled on all money matters. The Legislature which had met first in 1758 was largely controlled by the merchants of Halifax since the representatives of distant counties found it hard to attend. This central authority extended in principle even to Sandy Cove. Justices of the Peace were appointed by it in each County and District.1 The J.P.s met as the Court of Quarter Sessions with a Grand Jury drawn by lot from qualified land owners. Local rules were drawn up by this body and local offices were filled by its orders. The jury nominated two men for each office and the Justices chose the one who would hold it. It was a long way from the direct involvement New

Englanders were used to but everyone was so busy just surviving that there was little protest. Before 1800 Digby was part of Annapolis County and in that year became the Western Division of Annapolis County with its own Court. In 1836, this became Digby County which was divided into Hillsborough, Clare and Digby Townships, the latter covering the town of Digby, Digby Neck and Islands and the St. Mary’s Bay shore as far as Weymouth. The Quarter Sessions of the Peace could assess land owners for roads and the support of the poor. Stephen Fountain’s account book mentions rates as early as 1802. These were supplemented by meagre grants from Halifax mostly for road building. The care of the needy and the provision for schools was almost entirely a local responsibility. As well as overseers of roads and the poor, and school commissioners, the Court of Quarter Sessions appointed many other officers. In each township there were constables, health wardens, pound keepers, fence viewers, officers “to prevent cattle and geese from running at large” and “to prevent gurry (fish waste) from being thrown into the sea.” The Court also licensed shops, ferries, taverns and inns, appointed commissioners of weights and measures and inspectors of barrels, hay, coal, salt, flour and fish.2 When rules made by the court were broken or when criminal charges were laid the cases came before the Court of Common Pleas which met the same day with the same Justices and Jury. J.P.’s were usually appointed for life and they enjoyed status in their communities. John Morehouse was the first in Sandy Cove and later his son, Jones, John Eldridge and William Saunders were Justices.3 Other courts were established to probate wills, register property ownership and deal with serious criminal matters. Many people were involved in this process and in spite of the lack of democratic election, the practical control of local matters was in the hands of local people. Halifax was far away and, in fact, had little interest in the affairs of unimportant counties like Digby. This system of local government continued until the passing of the Incorporation of Counties Act in 1879. Roads were the first concern of the Court of Quarter

Sessions. The winds and tides of the Bay of Fundy and the rocky shores made travel by small sailing vessels perilous. The twenty miles from Sandy Cove to Digby by horse and cart was a long and bone-shaking journey but it was preferable to the prospect of the Bay of Fundy and Digby Gut in a small boat. The road to Mink Cove and Little River going south-west and to Trout Cove going north-east was cleared and gradually linked to other small sections until, by 1802, it was possible to go from Digby to Westport by road. Every land owner was obliged under statute labour to build and maintain roads either by doing a specified number of day’s labour on the road or by paying someone else to do it for him. Digby Township was divided into thirty-nine road sections; Sandy Cove was part of District 14 “from the west line of Trout Cove block to Saunder’s Brook” and District 15 from there to “James Carty’s east line”.4 At first the roads were mere tracks suitable for a horse and rider. In 1795 Stephen Fountain made parts for wagons and sleighs and the roads, no doubt, accommodated them. Roads usually followed the shore line and often varied considerably from today’s routes. Martin Blackford’s ferry across Petit Passage was licensed by the Sessions in 1802 and the Blackford family continued to run it until 1946. Martin Blackford was one of the earliest grantees of land at Sandy Cove receiving lots 26 and 37 in the 1788 grant. In an article in the Digby Courier Sept. 23, 1976 Martin Blackford is described as “a Scotsman who fought for Prince Charlie and was taken prisoner. He escaped and made his way to New Jersey where he married and later migrated to Canada. At first the Blackfords settled at Digby, later they moved to Sandy Cove and still later to the east side of the Passage”. The Grand Passage Ferry between Brier and Long Islands was also a family concession until 1974 when the Nova Scotia Government assumed its operation. The first road from Sandy Cove to Trout Cove ran near St. Mary’s Bay shore and part of it between the village and the Morehouse farm is seen today much as it was then. Beyond the Falls it is only a dim track now but the adventurous walker can still follow it behind Lake Midway all the way to

Centreville. It was in use in 1870 when A.F. Church’s Map of Digby County was published and five houses and a carding mill were marked along its route. Stephen Fountain’s wood lot at the mouth of the Upper Mill Brook which flows out of Lake Midway into St. Mary’s Bay was bought by John Morehouse in 1808. It became the site of a prosperous shipbuilding yard and of the house of his son Jones.5 In 1840 a new road was built nearer to the centre of the Neck and houses and businesses along the Old Road were either abandoned or moved to other sites. Jones’ house was taken apart and rebuilt in the village where it stands today, much changed, as Poplar House. One cold winter three houses were pulled across the ice of Lake Midway and became the nucleus of the village of Lakeside which, at one time, had its own school and post office. Mail service from Digby to Saint John by packet and from Digby to Halifax, by packet to Annapolis and then by road was in regular operation before 1800. The road to Yarmouth was completed in 1810. John Beyea who later lived and died in Sandy Cove owned and operated a packet, the Sally, which carried mail, freight and passengers from Digby to Saint John every week.6 The packet Caroline on the same route was lost with all hands including two men from Sandy Cove, Elijah Carty and George Eldridge, in 1831. These lines are part of a fourteen verse poem quoted by Isaiah Wilson: On the Seventeenth of December This vessel did set sail From Digby Port where she belonged With passengers and mail. Bound for St. John New Brunswick Her duty to perform Under a fair and easy breeze — Nor dread approaching storm.7

In 1810 Lemuel Morehouse, son of James Morehouse of Trout Cove, contracted to carry mail from Digby to Westport. He travelled on horseback and left letters at each person’s house. He and his father later operated a Way office and an inn at

Centreville Corners.8 Post Offices were the responsibility of the government at Halifax which established a Way office at Sandy Cove in 1854 and a Post Office in 1856. Two coaches a week operated from Digby to Westport after 1844.9 It was another thirty years until daily mail and passenger service was offered by George Stailing and Son of Digby.10 There were several inns on Digby Neck in the early days but these were places for travellers and for changing horses rather than for drinking. At Centreville Corners, Sandy Cove and East Ferry there were stopping places but only the last named was licensed as a tavern.11 Everyone, men and women, Baptist, Methodists and Anglicans, drank rum and spirits. They were in everyoneâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s account in Stephen Fountainâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s book and obviously varied in quality as a gallon of rum could cost anywhere from four to nine shillings in 1802. Too much bad rum created many problems and church people became strong supporters of the temperance movement. Isaiah Wilson tells in detail of separate lodges for men and women and rival movements in Sandy Cove and other places in the county.12 Rum could be bought in the local store and most of the small trading ships returned from the West Indies with spirits in their cargo. This sometimes led to disasters. Small boats and large were wrecked because no one was fit to sail them. This note is from the Yarmouth Herald of Sept. 17, 1846: At Sandy Cove there are several vessels owned. One of these, the William Henry belonging to Jones Morehouse and sailed by Captain Saunders, recently returned from Trinidad; and we are pleased to learn that she performed the voyage without having a drop of spirituous liquor on board. This speaks well for all the parties concerned.

The Wesleyan missionary from Digby reported in the Provincial Wesleyan of April 24, 1856: We find a mighty hindrance to religion here (at Sandy Cove) in the shape of intemperance and its parent, liquor selling. Satan roared mightily a short time since because I dared to denounce the unholy traffic in the fiery poison.

Through the efforts of the temperance movement the selling and consuming of liquor became a moral offence and public drinking was driven underground. Generally speaking the women did not drink but the men often enjoyed a nip from a crock in the barn or warmed themselves with a bottle when fishing. As in other villages those who could not provide for themselves were cared for by the community. Widows, orphans and the old were boarded with one family and supported by the contributions of all. Sometimes, however, there was more need than the village could fill and the help of the Court of Quarter Sessions was asked. Gradually there grew up the practice of a yearly auction when the destitute of the County were given into the care of the lowest bidder. This system was open to cruel misuse. A spirited correspondence in the Digby Courier in 1884 describes the death of a three-year-oId girl from starvation and of an old man from overwork. The Poor Farm, opened in Marshalltown in 1890, was a distinct improvement over the virtual slavery of the poor practised earlier. This gaunt building has now been superseded by cheerful new guest houses for the elderly and a childrenâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s home for the retarded in Digby. The most famous story told about Sandy Cove shows how the village looked after someone who could not care for himself. In the summer of 1866 George Albright who lived near the Bay of Fundy, found a man on the beach, apparently left there by a sailing vessel. His legs had been amputated above the knees and he seemed unable to speak. They carried him to a house in the village and the local Overseer of the Poor was contacted to arrange for his support. He had no letters or identifying marks on him but appeared to be foreign so he was taken to Meteghan in the hope that he would respond to the French language. Advertisements were placed in Halifax, Boston and farther afield and many people came to see him. When it appeared that he would be a permanent charge on the county the Province agreed to pay two dollars a week to care for him. Many stories grew up about him. Some said he spoke when taken off guard but the only utterance he clearly

made sounded like “Jerome” and by that name he was known. Some spoke of a great ship which has been glimpsed in the fog from which he had been cast away, of a ship’s mutiny or a missing heir. A New Brunswick correspondent maintained that he was an injured lumberman left in Nova Scotia so that he would not be a charge on his own community. He died in 1908 with his secret. On the Bay of Fundy beach is a large black rock, a favourite place for summer picnics, known still as Jerome’s Rock.13 All the men and most of the women who came to Sandy Cove could read and write. In New England education was a necessary part of community life. The children had little schooling during the upsets of the Revolution and the move to Nova Scotia, and their parents were anxious to get them started again. The Morehouse, Saunders, Peters and Raymond children needed to learn to read and write and to “cypher so as to cast up pounds shillings and pence” as the Education Report of 1824 put it.14 No one expected them to be able to do more than that. Isaiah Wilson wrote of the first school masters in the district: William Barbank went daily from one habitation to the other teaching each family the inestimable benefits of reading, writing and arithmetic. After leaving the town he taught at Sandy Cove in the dwelling of Maurice Peters; at Little River in the house of Francis Harris. The citizens of Sandy Cove built a school house before 1800 at the juncture of the Post Road and the highway leading to the Bay of Fundy. An Englishman named William Gay was the first man placed in charge. At Little River a building was also erected. Mr. Gay kept school in this building as well. Though no sections were defined and no aid from the government encouraged such enterprise, parents cheerfully employed teachers at 7 shillings 6 pence sterling per scholar quarterly besides boarding him their respective part of the term.15

The Sandy Cove school was organized in August, 1790, and the account book records payments towards the master’s board by Simeon Raymond, Maurice Peters, Billey Saunders, Francis Harris and Thomas Dakin. This item is from Simeon Raymond’s account:

Aug. I, 1790 to boarding Master Gay your part 2 scholars 5 18 John Morehouse, and Stephen Westcott also had children in the school which had perhaps fifteen or twenty scholars altogether. This was typical of the scene all over Nova Scotia. Grants were available from the government if a stated sum was raised locally but most schools did not qualify and the grants tended to help the well- established ones and do nothing for the others. Most children stopped their education at nine or ten years because they were needed at home to work in the house or on the farm. By 1824 the level of literacy in Nova Scotia had sunk alarmingly. The Loyalist boast that there were more graduates of Harvard in Nova Scotia than in New England belonged to a disappearing generation. In 1824 the Lieutenant-Governor appointed Commissioners to find out what the actual situation was and to set about correcting it. In the Western Division of Annapolis a dismal picture of lack of qualified teachers and general apathy was reported. There were only two regularly kept school houses, one in Digby and the other in Weymouth. Several communities, including Gulliver’s Hole, Sandy Cove and Grand Passage had built schools by popular subscription but there were often disputes about their ownership. From ten to forty students, ages four to twelve, attended each school irregularly through the year. He cites bad weather, health, domestic concerns and want of proper clothing as reasons for absence. In fact, education was generally valued less than the ability to do hard manual work which was needed to farm in a new land. A licensed teacher was employed when there were enough children to provide a wage: he was willing to accept. 59

These teachers were sometimes well qualified but, more often, were people who could find no other employment. A man or woman from the village filled in when there were not enough students to furnish a salary for a teacher. As well as Mr. Gay, Jonathan Randall and J. Dalton are listed as teachers on Digby Neck, the Ninth school circuit which included Sandy Cove and Little River.16 By one means or another, school was probably held quite regularly at Sandy Cove. Jones Morehouse, John Eldridge and William Saunders were born and educated in the village and became Justices of the Peace, a post requiring abilities well beyond the average. The large number of men from the Cove who received Mastersâ&#x20AC;&#x2122; papers and became captains of sailing vessels testify to a good basic education. Schooling beyond the local level was seldom sought though there was a Grammar School at Digby, founded in 1784 and supported by the Society for the Propagation of the Gospel, which became an Academy in 1844.17

Sandy Cove school built about 1910.

As a result of the 1825 Government survey better grants were made and better standards for teachers were set. School districts were designated to be the same as the road districts laid out earlier. It was also hoped that no child would have farther than three miles to walk to school. Schools were in operation at Centreville, Lakeside, Sandy Cove and Little River by 1864. These place names were all formally registered at this time; Trout Cove became Centreville and Prince William became Sandy Cove.18 The school at the crossroads in Sandy Cove was replaced by a new school built by public subscription on land owned by the Methodist Society. The teacher, Angus Gidney, was appointed by the Digby Township School Commissioners who were themselves appointed by the Court of Quarter Sessions. Municipalities had had the power to incorporate and raise taxes for schools and roads since 1825 but no one wanted to do such an unpopular thing. Even the Government at Halifax resisted until it became apparent that local governments must be forced to take responsibility for local matters. The Compulsory Education Act of 1864 laid out more realistic school districts and taxed their residents to pay for schools and teachers. After the settlement of the misunderstanding between the school master, Angus Gidney, and the Methodists the school was moved on rollers pulled by oxen down the Church Hill to the next lot. In 1860 a new school was built as the Journal of Education and Agriculture reported: We are delighted to observe that the new School House at Sandy Cove is finished and occupied. It would seem from the dimensions to be large and commodious and the furniture, we have little doubt, is in perfect keeping with the exterior architecture. It is impossible that the inner life of education can flourish in any locality unless there is a well plenished workshop â&#x20AC;&#x201D; and having provided themselves with this commodity, the good folks of Sandy Cove are amply entitled to the best trained tradesman. There are but few spots in the Province where a deeper interest is manifested in the cause of Education. We wish we could afford time to

House probably built by John Jones Morehouse eldest son of John Morehouse Jr. about 1865.

visit it every half year if it were for nothing but to get our educational spirits refreshed and our intercourse renewed with the Gidneys, the Morses and a number of kindred genial minds.19

The new building, like its two predecessors, was a oneroom school. By 1877 it had become very crowded and an additional storey was added and another teacher hired.20 In 1885 A. Horner was the Principal and taught the Senior Class, grades six to eleven, and Mrs. Blackadar had charge of the Elementary Department, grades one to five.21 In 1891 there was much discussion about building a new school. The Courier reports: After no less than five excitable school meetings the ratepayers have at last decided to repair the present school building. The sum of $400 was voted for the purpose.22 This square flat-roofed building of unpainted shingles can be seen in an early postcard of Sandy Cove printed about

1900. Mrs. Lena Mitchell Eldridge remembers when it was pulled down, about 1910 because the pupils got an extra long summer holiday that year. The new school, built on the old foundation was well designed and solid. It had two classrooms divided by a corridor containing the boy’s and girl’s cloakrooms, a steeply pitched roof, a bell tower and fine detailing around the windows and doors. It was used until the Digby Neck Consolidated School was opened in 1957 and still stands, now as a private residence. The General Register of the: Senior Class for 1898 lists forty-three pupils in grades VI - XI, only six of them being in the last two years. A few students went on to King’s College, Acadia, Mount Allison or to Provincial Normal School but most girls got married and most boys went to work with their fathers or to seek their fortune in Boston.23 In 1891 an unknown poet penned these lines for the Courier, of Feb. 13th, part of a long poem: Why these deserted homesteads Why these neglected farms Where are our youths and maidens With their stalwart willing arms?

Nova Scotia has always sent her sons and daughters to make their fortunes away from home. Some went to sea, some to work in the United States or even Upper Canada and some to institutions of higher learning. Not many women anywhere went to college in the nineties but three from Sandy Cove furthered their formal education beyond the Cove. Miss Bertha Morehouse24 went to Acadia University, Miss Lena Morehouse25 attended Mount Allison and Mrs. Sadie McKay26 took her training at the Teacher’s College in Truro. Fred Morehouse who was in the senior class in 1898 also went to Teacher’s College in Truro and then graduated from King’s College in Windsor. In 1908 the Courier stated that “while yet a young man in his twenties he is the superintendent of a school of twenty-one departments at Springhill”. He later became Superintendent of Schools in Halifax.27 Other members of the senior class of 1898 also prospered. Lee Crowell became a Judge at Bridgetown, N.S., Ambrose

Morehouse, known as Jack, and his brother Bert had distinguished careers in the United States.

Headstone from the Anglican cemetery.

Chapter Five

VILLAGE LIFE 1860 â&#x20AC;&#x201D; 70

By 1860 a third generation of native-born Sandy-Covers was growing up and the anguish of the Revolution was only a story dimly remembered by the grandmothers. Trading vessels had brought modest wealth to the Cove but no strong social differences resulted. The Justices of the Peace and the church leaders were the people of status with the ship owners and the shop keepers. They had settled into a pattern much like that of their brothers and sisters who had stayed in New England. The population of Digby County had grown from about two thousand six hundred people in 1800 to nine thousand in 1831 and fourteen thousand in 1861.1 In that year the Nova Scotia Government took a census using the polling district as the local unit rather than the whole county. Enumerators named by the local Members of the Assembly mailed a form to the head of each household and picked it up completed a few days later. There was no law requiring people to answer and some refused to give the personal information required but, on the whole, people co-operated. They were asked to mark the age group and sex of each member of the household as well as what had been produced at home, from the farm, the woodlot and from the sea during the past year. There were one hundred and fifty columns to mark.2 Polling District number 4 in Digby County ran about fourteen miles from Tympany Road in Rossway to Petit Passage. Here lived one thousand one hundred and eightyfour people in two hundred and eight households more or less along the main Digby Neck road. Centreville, Sandy Cove and Little River were the largest villages but Rossway, Lakeside, Mink Cove, Whiteâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s Cove, Whale Cove, Tiddville and East Ferry were all communities. Seventy-three people over fifteen years of age, eleven percent of the population,

could neither read nor write and another thirty-eight, or five per cent, claimed the ability to read but not to write. Not everyone was benefitting from the seven schools in the Polling District. Everyone had a religious affiliation. More than half of those who responded were Baptists, with Methodists the next largest group and Roman Catholics and Anglicans the smallest. Clearly the Church which did not depend on outside leadership was the one best adapted to life on Digby Neck. The instructions sent to each householder with the form stated that “a farmer is anyone cultivating the soil with a plough even though engaged in other pursuits” so it is not surprising that more than half the men were in that category. Each head of a household was asked to mark more than one occupation if this applied to him. A third listed themselves as mariners or fishermen and the rest were carpenters, blacksmiths, shoemakers, merchants, clergymen and teachers. As well there was a weaver, a miller, a cooper. a mason, a mechanic, a sailmaker, a port-master and a collector. It is interesting to note that no one claimed to be a ship-builder though seventeen vessels were launched on the Neck that year. It was not considered a separate occupation from mariner, carpenter and blacksmith. The fields of the Neck grew oats, hay, buckwheat and barley, turnips, potatoes and other root vegetables. Apple orchards were common. Every family had at least one cow and there were many oxen, beef cattle, sheep and pigs though only seventy horses among the two hundred households. Lumber was cut in the woods and spruce and hemlock boards, “deals” or pine boards, shingles and barrel staves were produced. At home butter and cheese were still made in considerable quantities and blankets and woollen material were woven from homespun wool from local sheep. Four thousand yards of cloth “fulled and unfulIed”3 were produced on forty-six looms in Polling District Number 4 in 1861. Only one fishing vessel employing four men operated in the area but eightyfive small boats fished regularly in St. Mary’s Bay and the Bay of Fundy catching chiefly herring and mackerel. Some fish oil was also produced. In Polling District Number 4 there were seventeen

The main Sandy Cove crossroads from the MacKay house with the millstone on the left, the house built by John Eldridge, the Village Hall and the back of the Post Office on the right.

Morehouse families and eleven Saunders, ten Denton, eight Eldridge, Gidney, Dakin and Johnson, seven Harris and Carty, six Titus and Cornwell, four Hersey, Stanton and Trask, and three Frost families. Descendants of these families live on the Neck today. As well, there were one or two Beyea families, Morse, Morton, Smith, Barr, McNeil, Mitchell, Snow, Albright, Holmes, Leary, Thomas, Medler, Tebo, Farrow, Addington and Young families. The two hundred and fifty-two people at Sandy Cove were almost equally divided among men, women, and children under fifteen. There were sixteen men and women over sixty. From the graveyards it is clearly seen that although many children and young people died, those who survived the early years often went on to a great age. There were only two women listed as heads of households, Mrs. John Morehouse and Mrs. Ann Crowell, both widows with families.

In 1865 an American, A.F. Church, persuaded the Nova Scotia government to support his efforts to produce new maps of all the counties. He moved to Halifax where he lived with his wife and daughter for many years.4 A map of Halifax County was issued in 1867 followed by one for Pictou County in 1867. Maps for Digby and Yarmouth Counties were finished in 1870 but not published until the following year. They were fifty-four inches square and were on the scale of 1 mile to the inch. All counties were completed by 1888. Each map was drawn from actual surveys and showed, as well as the general area, inserts of each village and a list of local residents called a Business Directory. It is interesting to compare this map with the census made nine years earlier and see where everyone lived. There were a few new homes and a few different names but, on the whole, the village remained the same. Mr. Church does not explain how names were chosen for the Business Directory. Perhaps people paid to be included. In any event a number of prosperous local citizens are not on the list. SANDY COVE BUSINESS DIRECTORY

John C. Morse, Postmaster and Baptist Minister H. Eldridge, Shipmaster I. Farrow, Blacksmith J.H. Morehouse, Shipowner and Farmer Charles Morehouse, Shipmaster S. Saunders, Hotel Keeper and Shipmaster T. Calvin Gidney, Collector of Customs Joseph Carty, House joiner and Cabinet-maker Wm. H. Crowell, Farmer and Mariner Collins Johnson, House joiner Benjamin C. Croucher, Missionary J. Leary, Master Mariner A.M. Gidney, Farmer J.F. Pineo, Physician In 1861 most of the houses in the Cove sheltered three generations like that of Stephen Fountain Eldridge, the second son of Matthew and Mary Eldridge. He lived with his wife

Eleanor Saunders called Nelly, their eldest son Fountain and his wife Sarah Ann Gilliland from Rossway and their children, and two younger sons Albert and Abner in a house on the Old Road on the north-east side of the Cove. By the time Church’s map was made Fountain and Sarah Ann had built a new house behind the old one. Stephen’s daughter, Mary Eliza, was married to Captain Arthur Mitchell from Ireland who had bought a piece of Stephen’s land and built a house next door. The old blacksmith’s account book was still kept in the house, and in March 1864, Nelly started to keep a day-by-day diary on its half- filled pages. Between then and November 1870 she kept her record, usually faithfully for a month or so and then resumed again after a lapse. The most complete records are during 1866, 1867 and 1868. In a line or two she tells the things that happen to her each day. In the winter sometimes it was a “snowy blustery day” with the “snowbank over Mr. Burns’ house” and the “roads full of snow”. On these days there was no Meeting or school and when the household chores were done Nelly and her daughter-in-law, Sarah Ann, mended the children’s clothes, sometimes made them new shirts or new dresses for themselves. They drew a mat pattern on sacking and put it on a frame to hook when they had a spare moment, or cut up the worn out clothes and braided them for mats. They weren’t quilt makers, or at least, Nelly never mentions it. Spinningwheels and knitting-needles were busy providing socks and mitts for the family and to trade at the store or sell to neighbours; Sarah Ann took sixteen pairs of socks to Little River on March 25th, 1864. Stephen and Albert worked in the woods cutting firewood and lumber for building in the better weather. This was carted to the village and stacked by the kitchen door. Keeping warm and fed took a lot of energy. Small boats were hauled up in the winter but the trading vessels came and went even in bad weather. They had to be loaded and unloaded and protected when there was a storm. There were parties all year round but especially in winter. Some were for a purpose: wood-chopping parties, work parties to paint and paper the school house or church pie socials. Some were just for fun. Christmas was a time for a present and an orange

for each child but at New Year there was often a great party with roast goose. Nelly reports on Dec. 31,1868 “Company to dinner, a great fit of romps, some stayed all night”, and on Dec. 29, 1865 “a ball to old Ruth’s”. In the spring, snow and rain alternated with clear days and it was often muddy. The women helped to plant squash and cabbage plants carefully started in the kitchen. New apples trees were set out and, once, a quince. A calf was born and a cow sold. The fields were ploughed and seeded and the roads repaired. The sheep were sheared and fleeces were washed, picked and sometimes carded at home. More often, Sarah Ann took them to the carding mill up the Old Road. Vegetable gardens were tended and cheese and soap made. A new barn was raised and the keel for a vessel was laid down. Spring was a busy time. In July and August the weather was usually warm and bright but some years it could be cold and foggy, as every Sandy Cover knows today. Families went on picnics to the beach or to see the view from Mount Shubel. Sometimes there was a circus in Digby, or a travelling photographer came to “take likenesses”, or Mr. Kinsella or another salesman came to sell tombstones. Soon it was time for the women to join the men in spreading hay and harvesting cabbages and squashes and picking apples. Wild strawberries, raspberries and blueberries were gathered each in its season. Summer was the busiest time for the fisherman. Men went hand lining alone or with a partner and joined with three or four others to build and seine a weir. Fish were split and salted, then dried on flakes in the sun to ship to the West Indies or smoked for use at home. Shipyards were busy so that vessels could be launched on the fall tides. By September there were signs of autumn. The days were cooler but almost always bright. Turnips and potatoes were dug and the fields ploughed for the winter. The carded wool was spun and dyed. Once Sarah Ann dyed some yarn and “all her wool lost its colour”. Sometimes she went to a neighbours to weave. Outside, the house was painted and the roof repaired and, inside, rooms were papered, floors stained and windows washed. Fountain killed the pig ready to be

smoked for the winter ham and bacon and some was eaten fresh with cabbages and roast apples. When the frost came, mutton, beef and geese were all hung in the barn to freeze for winter eating. Vegetables were stored in the basement or in the root cellar and barrels of flour and molasses, brought on the Minnehaha or one of the other trading vessels, were placed in a dry out-building. When the autumn storms came and finally winter snow, people and animals were prepared to survive, warm and fed, until the next growing season. Some women sailed with their husbands to the West Indies or to distant ports but Nelly and Sarah Ann Eldridge and Mary Mitchell stayed at the Cove while Stephen, Fountain and Arthur came and went on the brig or the schooner. Fountain and Nelly’s son, Albert was married on Aug. 25th, 1866 to Jane, sister of Arthur Mitchell. There was a wedding dance and his new wife sailed with him to Boston. The chief pleasure of those who stayed at home was in visiting each other. They went to see a new baby or a grandmother or to help with a wedding but most often they went just for the company. It was easy for Nelly to go to visit Stephen and Sarah Ann Saunders across the field or to the Learys and Cartys on the Church Hill. William and Priscilla Gidney in Mink Cove were great friends, too, and they often stayed overnight at each other’s houses. Sometimes Sarah Ann went and Nelly stayed at home to mind the children, Magellan, known as Gell, Nancy and Jane. Although men and women often shared the work they clearly played different parts both at home and in the community. Fountain was the embodiment of Haliburton’s picture of the Nova Scotian who could turn his hand to anything. He was first a farmer and then a blacksmith as his father and stepgrandfather had been. He worked in a shop on the water side of the main road below his house shoeing horses and oxen and making the ironwork needed in the ship yard. He had a yoke of oxen and often hauled wood or ploughed for his neighbours. He helped move Trask’s house to a new location, probably across the ice of Lake Midway from its site on the Old Road. In the summer he went fishing, once bringing home a halibut and another time an “ale salmon”. He often went to Little

River and Mink Cove and sometimes to Trout Cove, Digby and Weymouth. Once he brought the doctor to see his old father and another time he helped to unload a schooner in Digby. He worked in the ship yard building a schooner and when she was finished went to sea on her. Eventually he became Master and sailed regularly to Boston and the West Indies and is called Captain on his tombstone. His brothers, Albert and Abner, also went to sea and his mother worried about them all the time they were away. “Uneasy for my boys”, she often writes or “no tidings from Sony”. Her relief was great when she saw the brig safe again at Mitchell’s wharf in Sandy Cove. Abner was lost at sea in 1890 but Nelly was no longer keeping her diary by then. Scarcely a month passed without sickness or death in the village and there was much visiting back and forth to sit with those who were ill or to help with the funeral. John Eldridge’s wife, Nancy, was ailing for several years before she “dropped dead” in 1882 and Nelly and her daughter and daughter-in-law spent many nights sitting up with her. There was little that could be done for the sick but to keep them warm and comforted and give them sulphur and molasses, tansy tea or other herbal remedies. Nelly herself suffered from heart trouble and Mary had many pregnancies, four of her children dying before they were five years old. Their gravestones in the Methodist cemetery, each with an epitaph, touch the heart. Franklin, son of Captain Arthur and Mary E. Mitchell died Dec. 4 1882, aged 4 years. Too good to live, to dwell on earth Although to fond ones given God took the blossom to himself And planted it in heaven The Census speaks of old age, convulsions, consumption, dropsy and diphtheria as causes of death, and Nelly mentions an infected throat, fevers, measles, gasping for breath and accidents in the woods and ship yards. The tombstones tell of the perils of childbirth. In 1877 the Digby Courier reported a diptheria epidemic at Mink Cove when Gilbert Merritt and his wife lost four children in two weeks, and seven persons died at White’s Cove, a community of four families near Little River.

On October 24th. 1866 “the old man”. Nelly’s husband Stephen took to bed and died the next day. aged 71, On the 26th she recorded “All gone. all alone with the corpse. O my feelings.” She grieved for him, remembering the date of his passing each month. Nelly’s daughter. Mary Mitchell. had a hard time. Although they were prosperous and had fine furniture brought from Ireland as well as a melodeon she was continually mourning her children, and her husband Arthur had a fierce temper. Once when Sarah Ann was visiting he had an “Irish fit and turned her out of doors”. He was often at sea and Mary would bring her washing to her Mother’s house and they would have a good gossip about village courting, about a bad fight on the deck of a schooner or someone who got drunk and hit his wife. It is still remembered that Mary and her sister-in-law didn’t always agree. On the whole, however, they were close family who cared for each other. Arthur died in 1882, aged 53. Wife and children I must leave you Leave you leave you all alone For my heavenly father calls me Calls me to a heavenly home

Clare Eldridge’s barn with a wooden rake, wagon wheel and bow yoke.

During the time when Nelly Eldridge kept her diary five vessels were owned and sailed from Sandy Cove: the Anna Frances, the Eliza, the Minnehaha, the Highland Nancy, the Brill, the Caroline and the St. Mary. Their comings and goings are noted regularly all year round: Feb. 2, 1866 Fine Day, the Brill has arrived and has received damage and could not get into the Cove. Aug. 2, 1867 Storm blew the barque [the Anna Francis] and the St. Mary ashore. May, 9 1869 Fine Day, Hanford getting his goods ashore. Albert is gone in the Minne with his chest. Aug. 22, 1868 Mitchell sailed for Sydney, Mary uneasy for him. July, 19, 1868 Highland Nancy arrived in Digby. Oct. 26, 1870 Matthew sailed with his wife for Boston. Wrecks meant goods to be salvaged. In November 1870 a schooner laden with apples was cast away and all hands were lost. Next day there were apples all along the shore. There are only two mentions of steam vessels. On July 21, 1868 “the steam man of war went this morning”. This may have been a British vessel engaged in keeping American fishing boats out of the coastal waters. In May 1869 there was (she reported) “a great gale of wind, steam boat went ashore stove to pieces”. After the telegraph carne to Digby in 1855 it became much easier to keep track of a vessel’s progress. There was great relief when a telegram arrived to say that Albert’s brig had arrived in Boston though much overdue. On April 8th, 1868 Hanford Morehouse heard that his son Cutler, aged nineteen, had been drowned in Liverpool, N.S. Another message on the 17th said that his body had been found. His father went for it and he was buried in the Church of England Cemetery on April 22nd. They sleep in their graves but we think of them yet And our eyes are oft dimmed with the tears of regret, And our bosoms are stirred with a tremulous sigh That thrills through the soul when the cherished ones die. On April 3rd, 1867 there was “a very great hurricane,

blew the house down and blew the Barque ashore high and dry and the St. Mary, They have got the schooner off. A passenger vessel went ashore on Grand Manan all hands were lost. It blew Israel Blackford’s house down and he lost all his hand nets and like to lose his life. There never was such a gale of wind.” On the 7th they found “eight dead men along the shore.” That uniquely Canadian holiday, the twenty-fourth of May, was celebrated in Sandy Cove “with colours flying for the Queen’s Birthday”, in 1867. During the period several Temperance Societies met in the Cove, encouraged by Mr. Morse the Baptist Minister. Sarah Ann Eldridge went sometimes to the meetings but the family do not seem to have been supporters of the movement. On the other hand they went every Sunday to the Methodist Church and on Wednesdays to prayer meeting. The minister always came to visit when there was serious sickness in the house or anxiety over an overdue vessel and he often stayed to supper. There was much interest when a new minister arrived. Fountain and Sarah had four daughters and a son and all of them, at one time or another, wrote in the old book. Magellan, the eldest was often “sad and lonesome” but she had fun too. She writes “I found a pen and pen holder and went up in the pasture and got a ball of gum I have written this with my new pen and penholder”. She also practised verses, no doubt used later in the autograph books of friends: Magellan Eldridge is my name Sandy Cove is my station Heaven is my resting place And Christ is my salvation When I am dead and in my grave And all my bones are rotten This little book will bear my name When I am quite forgotten She grew up and went to live in Marblehead, Massachusetts, a town by the sea from which many Tories had been forced to flee more than a hundred years earlier. Politics have always been of consuming interest to

Details from the map of Digby County published by A.F. Church in 1870.

Nova Scotians and in the summer of 1867 the great political issue was, of course, Confederation. There was really no question that the future of Nova Scotia lay with North America rather than with England but her gaze had always been to the sea, not inland. The change of status from â&#x20AC;&#x153;a colony of Great Britain to a dependancy of Canadaâ&#x20AC;?, as one orator put it in the House of Assembly, filled many with apprehension. The Reciprocity Treaty, signed in 1854 by Britain and the United States had allowed reciprocal free trade in coal, fish, farm and forest products in exchange for inshore fishing rights for American fishing boats in Canadian waters. The traders liked it but the fishermen did not. The new treaty, proposed in 1866, was so manifestly in favour of American interests that it was not signed. Digby County voters feared that a government in Ottawa would not understand their needs and would again allow inshore fishing rights to American fishermen. Although Confederation would allow trade to move between Canadian provinces without tariffs they worried about higher tariffs against American goods which might follow the end of British rule. There was bitter resentment over the fact that the province had been committed to Confederation without a plebiscite. The strongly Protestant population was anxious about the Roman Catholic voters of Quebec. These issues made for much emotional speechmaking and it was not surprising that Digby, with most of Nova Scotia, voted for the Anti-Confederation party in the first Federal election on August 18th, 1867. Joseph Howe, who had led this opposition was elected as an AntiConfederate for the riding of Hants. He was able to negotiate better terms for the entrance of Nova Scotia into the new country and the business interests of the province rejoiced in their new opportunities. Confederation coincided, however, with the end of the great prosperity of the forties and fifties and many blamed it for failing economic conditions. Wooden sailing vessels were losing business to the iron steamships and trade was passing Nova Scotia by and going up the St. Lawrence River. Upper Canada is still spoken of as the enemy who stole prosperity from the Maritimes.5 Throughout the summer of 1867 feelings were fiercely

divided in the village. A “Canada” man had come several times to tell them of the great advantages of union but they were not convinced. On the day of the election Fountain’s household was excited. “August 18 Great time voting today. Mrs. Morse got a flag flying. August 19 We gained the election and got colours flying. August 20 Our minister darkened his windows and Maggie Eldridge darkened hers, poor heart. August 21 We had a great time last night firing guns and had a fire on both mountains.” Mount Shubel and Mount David, the two sides of the break in the ridge dominate Sandy Cove and the picture of the riotous goings-on of the Anti-Confederates and the sombre behaviour of the Canada party, closed in their houses with the blinds drawn, is easily imagined. The losers really won and Nova Scotia remained part of the Dominion of Canada. A new national allegiance had been pledged and soon the old system of local government changed as well. The Court of Quarter Sessions had worked well in the regulation of county affairs but it had failed to persuade local ratepayers that they should support local services. In 1879 the Provincial Government passed the Incorporation of Counties Act by which each polling division was empowered to elect a Councillor to a District Council which in turn elected a Warden. The Council levied taxes and dispensed Provincial grants for education, roads and bridges, and the poor, as the old Court had done but was responsible as well for the expenses of the courts and jails, fire protection, the prevention of disease and so forth. Digby County was divided into two municipalities Digby and Clare.6 Communications between the villages of Digby Neck and the rest of the world had been much improved by regular steam packet services with Weymouth where a telegraph office had been opened in 1858 and, in 1888, a further improvement was made when the telephone line between Digby and the rest of Nova Scotia was finished.7 The railway between Halifax and Annapolis had been completed in 1865 and between

Yarmouth and Digby in 1879. It was not until 1891 that the â&#x20AC;&#x153;missing Linkâ&#x20AC;? between Annapolis and Digby was opened and it became possible to ride by rail all the way from Yarmouth to Halifax.8 Although Halifax and Saint John papers and the Church papers were read in the Cove there was no regular local paper until 1872 when the Digby Courier started to publish.9 The first page carried fiction, strongly moral in tone, the second the editorials, letters to the editor and world news; next came a page of advertisements and on the last page was local news of Digby, Weymouth, Bear River and Digby Neck and Islands. There was obviously no correspondent at Sandy Cove until after 1900 but there were a few items describing events there. The flavour of life in Digby County during the last hundred years can be tasted through the columns of the Courier. By the end of the century vilIage life was still strong in Sandy Cove. Many people spent their whole lives there, going to the village school, marrying someone whose family they knew, earning their living and finding their recreation all at the Cove or, at least, on the Neck. Most of the families who came to Sandy Cove before 1810 were still to be found in the Cove a hundred years later.

Chapter Six

THE SEA

The Bay of Fundy and its tides rule the life of Sandy Cove. The settlers, though for the most part an inland people, quickly learned to use the sea to their advantage. Fishing and trading developed together and both needed boats. As we have seen, small boats were owned by nearly every family and fresh, dried and salted fish appeared often at meal-time. Regulations for the fisheries were one of the earliest concerns of the court of Quarter Sessions. The placing of fish weirs, the disposal of fish waste and the quality of dried and smoked fish were all regulated by them before 1800. The first vessels built at Sandy Cove were launched from a ship yard at the mouth of the Lower Mill Brook on St. Mary’s Bay, below John Morehouse’s house. They were probably small two-masted schooners, called pinks, with high narrow sterns.1 Later, John’s sons, Jones and Gershom, built several vessels at the mouth of the Upper Mill Brook which flows from Lake Midway. The two most prosperous yards were in the Cove itself, one operated by the Morehouses, on the northeast shore and the other on the flat place where the road to the Bay of Fundy joins the highway used by the Eldridges, the Saunders and others. Small boats were no doubt built in other places; the Little Fanny, a schooner of thirteen tons was built in the field below Holland Eldridge’s house, hauled to the Beach by oxen and launched in the Bay of Fundy on February 16th, 1877. There were two wharves on the northeast side of the Cove and one which is marked on Church’s Map in the centre of the Cove below Thomas Dakin’s house. In the seventies Colin Crowell had a small wharf on the west side of the Cove. The early vessels were homemade efforts but men learned from each other and by trial and error to build a good vessel out of the materials that were at hand.2 A half-model

was usually carved first by the shipâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s builder from a block of layered wood which could be taken apart and used as a pattern. The lumber was cut on the wood lot and piled on a level place near the shore to season. Beech, birch and maple, which grew on the land when it was granted, were all used and later spruce which grew up in their places.3 Juniper roots were used for tree nails to peg the hull. Every yard had a blacksmithâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s shop where the bolts, chains and anchors were made. Sails were made by a travelling sailmaker or in the larger ship-building centres of Digby or Weymouth. Vessels were sometimes mortgaged to raise money to build them, with the hope that the debt would be paid off by the profits of the first few voyages. Sometimes a vessel was launched wIthout her masts and towed to Saint John for finishing but usually she was completed in the Cove and sailed by the men who built and owned her with a local cargo of dried fish and lumber. If this cargo could be sold and a new one found to trade again or bring home, a small schooner or brig could be very profitable. Captains returned to Sandy Cove from the West Indies with gold Spanish dollars for the owners and with molasses, rum, sugar and oranges to sell in the village. All of the older houses in the Cove were built with the profits from sailing vessels. The Provincial Wesleyan reports on August 17, 1850: The people of Sandy Cove are an enterprising and industrious people. We have been informed that there are a greater number of owners of vessels in this place than in the town of Digby, consequently there will be more profits accruing to them from shipping than are realized in the latter place. Disasters were common and the fear of them hung over every enterprise. The sailing of each vessel could be a last farewell between husbands and wives, parents and children, brothers and sisters, as many were lost overboard or died of fever in some foreign port. Their names are noted on the gravestones even when their bodies were not buried there. Captain John A. Saunders, supposed to be lost in a hurricane off Bermuda between the 24th and the 27th

of October, 1858 in the brig Oliver of Weymouth aged 25 years and 11 months4 Augustus Morehouse, son of John Jr. and Lois lost on a voyage travelling to Liverpool5 Captain Thomas West Crowell lost at sea 1823 aged 60 years.6 Small vessels were not insured and a wreck meant complete financial loss. Matthew Morehouse went bankrupt when his schooner, the Ocean Traveller was lost at sea in 1879. She had been mortgaged in Weymouth and his house was sold at public auction to pay his debts; the Methodists bought it for a parsonage. He started life in the ship yard of his father John Jr. and became a Master Mariner. He owned shares in seven vessels and served as Master many times. The Digby Courier spoke of him on Feb. 16, 1877: Captain Matthew Morehouse has a fine new schooner on the stocks which will probably be launched in early spring. She is of a beautiful model, the material is of extra quality and she will be finely finished. Captain Morehouse lately sold the schooner Onward to Mr. Rice of Weymouth.

Twenty-two vessels were built at Sandy Cove between 1850 and 1880 and another fifteen were built elsewhere and owned in the Cove during the same period.7 At least three vessels were built there before 1850 and registered at Halifax and there were undoubtedly others. The first one recorded was the Mary built in 1808 and the last was the Olive Branch in 1879. Sometimes several were built at the same time as is described in this note from the Yarmouth Herald of September 17, 1847: At Sandy Cove there are three vessels on the stocks. One of them, a beautiful substantially built brig of about 160 tons is owned by Mr. Samuel Dunseith of this town (Yarmouth) and will be launched in a few days. She was built by Mr. John Merritt and Mr. Hiram Crowell who have disposed of her to her present owner. In the same ship yard there are two other vessels being built, each of which will be about 90 tons

Picture of ship Frederick Billings which hung in Chip and Sadie Saunders dining room.

burthen. One of them is owned by Mr. Samuel Morehouse and the other by Mr. Brooks. Some vessels built at the Cove were sold to outside owners but most were owned in the village and sailed by local mariners. They operated as trading vessels for a few years and then were sold usually “out of the Country”, often in Ireland or England. Such a ship brought prosperity to the captain, the mate, the mariners and those who owned shares in her. The important part played by vessels in a man’s life is shown in the will of John Morehouse, the eldest son of John the Loyalist, who died on February 15, 1847, aged sixty- seven years. It is my will that the vessel now building shall be divided in the following way. My son John Jones is to have one quarter of her by paying one quarter of the bills that may be due against her, my son Joseph Matthew is to have one eighth of her by paying one eighth of the bills that may be due against her.................It is my will that

all my moveable property including cattle, horses and all farming utensils be kept on the place as usual until my youngest child is 21 years of age and also that the schooner Lucy be sailed as usual and that her earnings go to the support of my family.8 His widow Louisa continued to live in their log house by the ship yard, where she still lived when the survey was taken for Churchâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s Map in 1869. British law required that as soon as a ship was launched she be registered. Vessels built at Sandy Cove were registered at Halifax, Yarmouth or Saint John until Digby became a Port of Registry in 1849. Her name, type, tonnage, measurements and ownership were all noted. Vessels were owned, and still are, in sixty-four shares. All financial transactions were recorded; mortgages issued and discharged, deaths of owners, and sales or transfers of shares to new owners. The register ends with reregistering in another port or details of a wreck, a fire or an abandonment at sea. Take for example the Eliza. She was a brigantine of two hundred and twelve tons built in 1861 by James Merritt at the Morehouse yard. She was one hundred and ten feet long, twenty-four feet wide and twelve feet deep at midships. She had two masts, one rigged square and the other fore and aft, a square stern and a billet-head. Her builder owned eight shares in her and Jones Morehouse and his sons, Jones H., George and Charles, owned the rest. With George as her captain and a mate and crew from the village she traded between Nova Scotia and the West Indies. In 1864 George died at Demerara in British Guiana. He left no will and the court of Probate in Digby granted his shares to his brother Jacob who was also granted his fatherâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s shares when he died in 1867. John Wentworth Dakin, was given Power of Attorney to sell her in Ireland for a sum of not less than four hundred pounds sterling. This was done and she was reregistered there. Captain Dakin paid the owners the agreed price and no doubt made a profit from the voyage. John and Jones Morehouse became prosperous through their shipyard. They and their sons formed a successful partnership with James Merritt and together they built and sailed at least ten vessels ranging in size from one

hundred to three hundred tons, brigs, brigantines, schooners and one barque. In the 1850â&#x20AC;&#x2122;s Jones built three houses to similar plans for his children, Jones H., Jake Ed and Caroline who married Captain George Nelson Crowell. The first of these, known as Hanford, was the most important man in the village in the 1850â&#x20AC;&#x2122;s and 1860â&#x20AC;&#x2122;s when Sandy Cove was at the height of its prosperity. He carried on the shipbuilding and trading interests of his grandfather, John and father, Jones. His houses which still stand are finely finished inside and out. All four downstairs rooms have fireplaces for a stove, builtin cupboards and wide-board pine floors. The kitchen and outbuildings are in a one-storey wing at the back. There are four bedrooms upstairs. Jones himself traded his house in the village with his half- brother Charles, youngest son of the Loyalist John, for the Farm up the Old Road. Charles was a Master Mariner and sailed the family vessels to the West Indies and across the seas. Many Sandy Cove vessels were sold in Irish ports and, perhaps because of this, Captain Arthur Mitchell came from Ireland to live in Sandy Cove. He prospered and was soon able to send for his mother Mary, his sisters Isabella and Jane and his younger brother Jim. Isabella died aged twenty-two in 1872. Her sorrowing family chose this sombre epitaph signed by the tomb-stone maker: Look on me as you pass by And remember you were born to die. As you are now so once was I Prepare for death and follow me. T. Darness9 Arthur and Jane married a brother and sister, Mary Eliza and Albert Eldridge and settled down as neighbours. Captain Jim Burns and Captain John Leary also came to the Cove as masters of vessels owned there and built comfortable houses for themselves and their families. Some men held shares in more than one vessel at the same time. Charles Jeffrey from the south shore of Nova Scotia settled at Sandy Cove in the eighties when he married Ann Saunders. He sailed on local vessels and out of Saint John according to a note in the Digby

Courier of April 17, 1891. When he died in the nineties his widow married Charlie Beyea who helped her bring up the two Jeffrey children, Floyd and Spurgeon. Shipowners were described as Master Mariners, Mariners or Ship-builders and many were fishermen-farmers who invested the profits of their farms, woodlots and fishing boats in these local enterprises. Trade was brisk between St. Mary’s Bay and Bay of Fundy ports from the first days of settlement. Small sailing vessels and steamers carried passengers and freight between Weymouth, the Digby Neck ports and Saint John and Boston. Here are some advertisements from the Digby Courier: Feb. 23, 1877 The schooner Island Belle has been purchased by Captain John Leary of Sandy Cove to employ as a packet between St. May’s Bay ports and Saint John. Captain Leary and son have now two vessels (the Island Belle and the Active) on the line either of which, we understand will be at St John weekly. Feb. 27, 1878 The fast sailing schooner Olive Branch, Captain Lewis, will leave Weymouth for Boston on or about March 2nd and will return direct to Weymouth and adjoining ports. Parties desirous of having freight brought on will please address the Captain c/o John Hall and Co. Boston. The schooner is also fitted for the conveyance of passengers. She is now at Everett’s wharf at Plympton. Captain Charles Morehouse, Sandy Cove.

The Olive Branch was a schooner of one hundred and nine tons which had been built in Sandy Cove for Captain Charles. Hughie Morehouse remembers hearing about the building of the Olive Branch and other vessels in the Cove.10

We were digging in the fall of ‘33 in the marshy spot east of the Post Office and discovered the bed logs for a ship yard laid down six feet apart, thirty feet long and flat on the top side. The cradle the ship was built on sat on them so she could be launched. The Olive Branch was built here. Vessels like her could be grounded and loaded on the flats and not go out cf shape. Their ribs and timbers were six by eight about, with a twosister keel and keelson on top of that. When they were

timbered out, before you could plank them here’s where the dubbers come in, the men with the adze; they had to cut as much as three or four inches off them to level them up. They cut timbers as near as they could; the side hill timbers with a natural bend saved a lot of dubbing. They would be perhaps two years building a vessel. They didn’t work in winter much, just between crops, before they put their crops in in the spring and then before they had to get the hay and cultivate, they’d work some more. Nobody put full time in and most had shares in her. They supplied their shares not by cash but with wood and work. Men like Colin Crowell would have the money to supply the iron work. He was a big farmer for Sandy Cove and always had a share in whatever was building so as to get rid of what he’d grown on the farm. Once he had a load of turnips for a sixty ton schooner; that’s a lot of turnips, grading them by hand, you know.11 The Saunders always had shares too and all their boys went to sea.

The Highland Nancy was built at the same ship yard as the Olive Branch in 1865. She was one hundred and fiftyone tons, eighty-seven feet long, twenty-four feet wide and eleven feet in depth. John S. Eldridge, William, Charles, John and Lemuel Saunders were her owners. John and Lemuel both held Master’s papers and they may each have sailed her. Her life was short for she was abandoned at sea ninety miles off New York on a voyage to Puerto Rico in March 1870. The Caroline was a brig of one hundred and thirty-four tons built in Digby in 1847. She was eighty feet long, twenty-two feet wide and eleven feet deep, and had a standing bowsprit and a figure head. She was owned first by John Eldridge and Jones Morehouse and later by Jones H. and Charles Morehouse, Stephen and Lemuel Saunders and Arthur Mitchell. Charles Morehouse, Stephen Saunders and Arthur Mitchell were each her captain at one time or another. She was eventually sold in Ireland for “not less than three hundred pounds” after having earned her keep for nearly twenty years. The Two Sisters, a brig of one hundred and thirty tons

built at the Cove in 1872 by James Merritt, was also to be sold in Ireland by Reuben Crowell, her Captain. She took on cargo in Saint John and then unfortunately was blown across the Bay of Fundy and wrecked at Tar Cove near Centreville nine years later. The only three-masted vessel built at the Cove was the Anne Frances, a barque of two hundred and seventy-five tons, built in 1863 by Jones and his sons and James Merritt and sold after nine years of trading. Her half-model hung for many years in Henry Morehouse’s shop in the village. These vessels were tiny compared with large ships, barques, barquentines and schooners, built at St. Mary’s Bay ports of Gilbert’s Cove, Weymouth, Meteghan and others. These were sometimes owned by local merchants like the Campbells of Weymouth but more often they were ordered by one of the large shipping companies in Saint John. New Brunswick enjoyed a preferential tariff with England for lumber and many large vessels were required to carry it. The California gold rush of 1849 and the Australian gold rush and immigration of the fifties stimulated the building of ships as large as two thousand tons in Saint John and Digby as well as along St. Mary’s Bay south-west of Weymouth, called the French Shore because of the Acadian settlements there. Many Sandy Covers worked in

House of George Nelson Crowell built by his father-in-law Jones Morehouse about 1852.

these ship yards and sailed on vessels that carried on world wide trade. The traditional trading patterns of the Atlantic coast had been upset by the American Revolution.12 American vessels were excluded from the British West Indies and Bluenosers sailed in to buy and sell in this ready-made market. By the time the Americans were again allowed entry, patterns of trading had been established which have never entirely disappeared. Small trading vessels from all over Nova Scotia loaded with salt fish, potatoes and lumber sailed south. This voyage could be undertaken with a minimum of navigational skill. Sailing by dead reckoning was relatively safe as there is no land south of Yarmouth until Cuba. This meant sailing south by compass the required number of days which generally brought a vessel to her destination. If the Captain had a sextant he could read the latitude and then sail by compass till landfall. A Captain with Masterâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s, papers could determine his longitude as well. Some old charts still exist with dates and routes of voyages from Sandy Cove. During the Napoleonic Wars busy Nova Scotia schooners and brigs traded illegally with the ports of New England. Unloading goods from a Yankee to a Bluenoser in the shelter of the Bay of Fundy islands became common and even the presence of an excise man in the Cove did little to stop it. One house built in the sixties is reputed to have many exits so as to avoid his watchful eye. The Reciprocity Treaty of 1854 only made legal a trade which had been carried on since before the Revolution. The most respected men in Sandy Cove were those called captain and among these the stars were those who held Master Marinerâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s papers and who had sailed the seven seas. An account in the Digby Courier in 1924 lists fiftyeight captains from Sandy Cove and challenges any other community of its size to produce a better record.13 Most of these men were captains of small trading vessels. A few went on to navigation school in Saint John or Halifax and finally received their certificates as Master Mariners at a British port. It became the custom for a captain to instruct a likely cabin boy in the mathematics needed for navigation; many a master of a

vessel served his apprenticeship in the captain’s cabin. Nova Scotia captains and mates sailed on ships of British and American registry as well as on Bluenosers. They became famous for disciplined well-kept ships though there were a few who made their name for brutality as well. John Wentworth Dakin was a grandson of the Loyalist Thomas Dakin who settled at Marshalltown. Two of his uncles lived at Trout Cove and his father bought land in the centre of Sandy Cove. Like many another he became master of his first ship in his early twenties. In 1873 he was captain of the Eliza and in 1885 held command of the Lancefield, a full-rigged ship of nine hundred and ninety-four tons, built in Moncton and owned by the Thompson line.14 A ship with her three squarerigged masts was the queen of the seas and her captain enjoyed not only much responsibility but also much prestige both at home and abroad. Captain Dakin wrote an account of a voyage in the Lancefield from Cardiff, Wales to San Francisco and back to Rotterdam.15 He tells of being towed out of the port on April 30th, 1883 and sailing by way of the Azores and Madeira to Rio de Janiero, then round the Horn and north to “the golden city of San Francisco arriving on the 20th of October”. She probably carried coal which was unloaded there and a mixed cargo was taken on. They were in port for several weeks and Captain Dakin visited all the main attractions of the city. He was particularly taken with the “street cars which move along without steam or horses. Apparently they are propelled by wires underground worked by steam in different parts of the city.” The Lancefield sailed again on November 30th for Queenstown, Ireland. On the whole, it was an uneventful voyage. “Dec. 27th crossed the Equator into the South Pacific in Longitude 123º 30 West. The wind is more favourable today than usual. Hands busy repairing sails and painting a house that I have constructed. We are now twenty seven days out and have not seen a ship.” On January 16th they “spoke a Swedish barque” and later on an American ship, Astoria and a German barque. On March 19th they spoke the Lady Dufferin of Liverpool which needed a chronometer. “I supplied him with one and went aboard to exchange some reading matter and the Captain came on board

and dined”. They arrived in Queenstown on May 5th for orders and sailed “for Bremenshaven where we lightened two hundred and thirty tons of cargo and proceeded to Rotterdam”. On the 17th of June they sailed for New York in ballast where they arrived early in August. The voyage had taken sixteen months. One of the most puzzling stories of the sea is that of the brig Mary Celeste of Parrsboro, N.S.16 She was found, in perfect order, abandoned at sea on Dec. 4th, 1872 by the Dei Gratia of Brighton, in Digby County. No trace was ever found of her Captain, his wife and child or the eight members of the crew and no final explanation has ever been made of the mystery though many, including Sir Arthur Conan Doyle, have tried. The Captain of the Dei Gratia was Daniel Reed Morehouse of Brighton, Digby County, son of Samuel Morehouse and grandson of John Morehouse Esq. of Sandy Cove. Samuel became a prosperous merchant in Brighton and Capt. Reed later retired from the sea and lived in Bear River. All captains dreamed the same dream, says F.W. Wallace in Wooden Ships and Iron Men; they dreamed that one day they would live on a farm and travel no more. Captain Wint Dakin did this. After many voyages like the one he described he returned to Sandy Cove and opened a shop in the village. He, like other Captains, knew not only how to sail a vessel but also how to drive a hard bargin in finding profitable cargoes for his ships. He settled down in his father’s house now called Roundabout and lived with his wife Louisa (pronounced Loueye-sa) the rest of his life. His brothers Captain Nelson and Captain Wallace Dakin looked forward to the same happy ending but in vain. Wallace was lost at sea in 1892 with his wife Sophia and his son Warren.17 Nelson’s last voyage was on the ship Asia and he also took his wife and child with him. They were away perhaps two years with only occasional news reaching home of their progress. In the shipping news in the Digby Courier of Feb. 11, 1898 it is reported that “the Asia, now 170 days from Manila, is due to arrive in Boston from foreign ports. She has been chartered previous to her arrival to load lumber at $8 per thousand feet for a voyage to Buenos Ayres”. On Feb. 25 the Courier printed this report: 91

The St. John ship Asia, Captain G. Nelson Dakin, struck on Great Round Shoal off Nantucket during the gale on Monday and became a total wreck. Only three of a crew of twenty escaped and among the lost were Captain Dakin, his wife and eleven-year-old daughter, Lena. Dispatch from Vineland Harbour on 22nd. Tug E. V. McCauley arrived today from Handkerchief Shoal. Capt. O’Brien reported that when five miles from here he found the water covered with wreckage of every description and from the largest pieces of which he recovered two bodies lashed to some rigging, one a man and the other a young girl about twelve years old. As quantities of hemp were seen the Captain concluded it was the wreck of the ship Asia. With some difficulty the boat was run along side and the two bodies were cut away. When discovered the man’s arm was about the waist of the little girl as if protecting her from the fearful billows. The child was scantily clothed, having on only a nightdress and light slippers which seemed to indicate that the ship must have struck during the nighttime and broken up in a few minutes. Three of the crew were rescued alive on Tuesday. The Handkerchief Light crew put out a dory and rescued them from a pile of wreckage which drifted by. The men had been afloat for nearly twenty-four hours and were barely alive. Captain Dakin was one of the best known seamen that hailed from Digby. He was about 45 and had been at sea the greater part of his life. About three years ago he came home and made arrangements by which he meant to retire after another voyage. His wife and youngest daughter Lena accompanied him on his last few trips. The long-hoped for return home was drawing daily nearer. The Asia was a ship of 1398 tons, built at Courtenay Bay, N.B. by Oliver Pittfield. She was owned by Taylor Brothers, who managed her, Captain Dakin and others. It is doubtful if there was any insurance on her. The vessel’s cargo of hemp was consigned to Salem and consisted of 8728 bales.

Half-model of the barque Anna Francis built in 1863 297 tons, 119.1 ft. x 27.2 ft. x 12.6 ft. She was the largest vessel built at Sandy Cove and the only three-masted one. The half-model is owned by Dr. Ronald Morehouse.

On April 8, 1898 the Digby Courier reported the last chapter on the tragedy: The bodies of Captain Dakin and his daughter reached Sandy Cove by ferry from Weymouth on Saturday. The funeral was held on Sunday morning.

The monument in the Methodist graveyard remembers them.18 Captain Henry Morehouse served his apprenticeship on vessels belonging to his father, Jones Hanford Morehouse. He became a Master Mariner and served as Captain of a number of large vessels. In 1835 he sailed on the ship Kingsport to the Orient with two of his sons. She was a vessel of one thousand and sixty-one tons, one hundred and ninety feet long and thirty-eight feet wide, built at Cornwallis, N.S. in 1878 and owned in Saint John.19 Both his boys died on the voyage; Oscar, aged sixteen was drowned in the China Sea in November and Harry, aged eighteen, died of yellow fever at Manila in January. He gave up the command the following year but brought home with him a painting of the ship which still hangs in the village. Another or his sons, William, became the top Captain of the White Star Line. Captain Henry and his wife Azuba, who was known as Subie, are buried in the Anglican cemetery beside the memorials to their children, â&#x20AC;&#x153;Gone but not forgottenâ&#x20AC;?. Captain John Eldridge was born in 1854, the son of Harvey Eldridge and the grandson of Matthew Eldridge. Hughie Morehouse tells about him:

He sailed one of the largest ships out of New Brunswick, the John Hickman. I believe built at Bathurst, N.B. He sailed her for years and his brother Amasa and Eddie McKay went with him as sailors. They always said he used them like the biggest strangers in the world, never spoke to them on the trip. They went from here to Germany and then to China and back, took eighteen months. Amasa said if he was seen talking to you on deck why he was showing partiality. The Captain told his orders to the mate and the mate told the bosun; that was the organization. The bosun could take any mate’s place if he were taken sick and when he wasn’t doing that he had charge of the work crews, chipping and painting and repairing. Captain John was drowned off the SS Newfield near the Saint Lawrence in 1900. She was a government buoy boat, and oddly enough she was wrecked at White’s Cove neat Little River a few years after. The brass door to the captains’ cabin is in Amasa’s house. Many people remember Chip Saunders. He was a strong handsome man with straight features, blue eyes and white hair that curled on his forehead. His father and grandfather, both called Lemuel, were Master Mariners so it is not surprising that he went to sea. He and Willie Morehouse sailed first with Willie’s father, Henry, at the age of fourteen. In 1888 when he was sixteen he got a berth as an ordinary seaman on the Arizona, a vessel of 1085 tons in Philadelphia and after a “foreign” voyage was discharged a year later in New York. During the next fourteen years he served as boatswain, third and second mate on a number of steam and sailing vessels, to England, Japan, San Francisco and the West Indies. One letter of reference, written by the Captain of the S.S. Cariboo in 1893 states that “I have found Chipman Saunders a good, sober, honest man and with pleasure recommend him to anyone requiring his services”.20 In 1902 he was married to Sarah Jane McKay, known as Sadie, the daughter of Alec MacKay, the blacksmith. He made one more voyage under Captain Billy Burns from the Cove. They sailed to China and on the return journey were caught in a typhoon. No news of

them reached home for many months and his bride feared she was a widow. When he finally arrived home, bringing her a tea-set from China, she made him promise not to go to sea again. He settled down in the Cove, running a small farm and helping his father-in-law in the blacksmith’s shop. In 1929 Chip and Sadie Saunders started to take summer visitors, advertising their home as “Brookside House, C. Saunders Proprietor”. He built many models of the ships he had sailed in and sometimes told the visitors from New England and Upper Canada stories of his early days at sea. Every house in the Cove held mementos of voyages to far-off places: conch shells from the West Indies and strange dried fish, silk embroidered pictures and models of vessels and ships in bottles carved on long voyages. Captain Lemuel Saunders brought home a portrait of “The Ship Alaric Entering Malta Harbour” as well as photographs of other vessels he had commanded. One mariner brought home a bride from “away”. In the 1890’s the Digby Courier reflects the changing scene in the shipping world. There were repeated advertisements for schooners for sale and more steamers in the annual list of vessels owned in Digby County. The first steamship, schooner-rigged but steam propelled, had crossed the Bay of Fundy in 1827,21 but captains of sailing vessels often treated steamships with scorn and for this and other reasons the Nova Scotia shipping industry failed to adapt itself to the new era of iron steamships. Captain Joshua Slocum, from Westport, was one of those who refused to work on a steamship but he became a hero to all later sailors by rigging an old lifeboat in 1898 and writing a chronicle of his “Sailing Alone Around the World.”22 Large square-rigged vessels which required many men to sail them were replaced by schooners sometimes with three or four masts which needed only a small crew. In Digby County fewer vessels were built and more of those owned came from outside the county and sometimes from Maine. Trade with the West Indies still went on but it was secondary to coastal trade. Local shops were supplied with goods, fish was bought and sold and passengers carried by small steam and sailing vessels. Local men still went to sea and

sometimes became captains of large steamships. Fishing was more profitable with the use of ice for preserving the catch and the development of railroads to take it to market. Although the age of the sail was over, Sandy Covers still looked to the sea and largely earned their living from it.

Chapter Seven

PEOPLE AND PLACES REMEMBERED

In 1890 village life at Sandy Cove was much as it had been in the previous sixty or seventy years. The road to Digby was in better shape and there were regular steam packets to Weymouth where there was a telegraph office. True, many people lived in Marblehead or Boston for part of their lives and some sailed to distant ports, but the centre of life was the Cove. After the First World War this changed. Automobiles made it possible to travel to Digby in an hour or less, children went to Digby Academy for their senior grades and radio and television brought the world into the village. The installation of dial telephones in 1976 put the final period to the old days. A few people at Sandy Cove still remember what life was like before the turn of the century. Judge Lee Crowell remembers:1 When I was four years old I sailed with my father Captain George H. Crowell and my mother on the two-masted schooner Valkyrie out of Saint John to a port ten degrees north of the Equator. I can still see the long lines of black men carrying sacks of brown sugar up the gang plank. More often I stayed at home with my grandmother. Once my father sailed into the Cove unexpectedly after a long voyage on the way to discharge the cargo and settle with the owners in Saint John. He carried a nail keg full of gold coins up the steep road from the wharf and put it under the bed for safety overnight and next day carried it back to the schooner and sailed for Saint John. Judge Crowellâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s grandparents, Captain George Nelson Crowell and his wife Caroline, lived in one of the houses built by her father, Jones Morehouse; later their son Captain

George H. Crowell and his wife shared it. Caroline was a lady of spirit. When a team of horses and a wagon was driven off the wharf, she jumped into the water to hold up their heads so they would not drown. They always had a cow, a pig and a dozen hens. After freeze-up, they bought a quarter of beef and hung it in the barn to freeze. Every six months they got groceries from Saint John: barrels of cake and bread flour, twenty-pound wooden boxes of prunes, dates, raisins and apricots, half a barrel of oatmeal and a five gallon keg of molasses. They drank no alcohol at home but there was always a demijohn of rum in the stores. In the winter they burned hard coal in the base burner to heat the house and soft coal in the kitchen stove; in the summer they used wood. The coal was brought from Cape Breton in schooners, unloaded at the new wharf and hauled up the hill by oxen, with rocks put behind the wheels of the cart to prevent its slipping backwards. Caroline Crowell and her brothers and sisters were left their father’s part of Lot 23, the original Morehouse grant, and shared a pasture up the Old Road where the sheep were grazed in the summer. It was a great day for the boys when the sheep were rounded up and brought back to the barn and the lambs separated and given their owner’s mark. The sheep were black as well as white and the fleeces, washed in the brook, were taken to the carding mill up the Old Road and then spun at home on the walking wheel. Next door, Jake Ed Morehouse’s wife had a big old loom upstairs on which she wove the yarn into blankets and material for warm clothing. Undyed yarn which still retained its natural oil made waterproof mitts and socks for fishermen and mariners. Ice was cut in the Sandy Cove Lake in the winter for those who had ice-houses but most families kept things cool in the well or in the cellar. White turnips were grown on burnt land and fed to the cattle; yellow turnips were grown for table use. At least one family had a cider press and dandelion and fruit wines were made at home. A farmer always had a yoke of oxen coming on. Hereford calves with identical markings were searched for, gelded and put to work at two years old. Sometimes longhorned white Ayrshires were used. They learned to follow the

Wedding picture of Chipman Harvard Saunders and Sarah Jane Mackay 1902. Courtesy of Miss Mary Elizabeth MacKay.

whip of their owner who walked in front of them, and to answer to “Gee” and “Haw”. A man was proud of his oxen, called them names like “Bright” and “Star” and kept them well. Every fall farmers went with two wheeled oxcarts to the Bay of Fundy Beach to gather the seaweed left by the autumn storms. Each man made his own pile and Ieft it to rot until spring when it would be taken to the barn yard, mixed with old manure and spread on the fields before the spring ploughing. It gave off a strong, pungent, though not unpleasant odor, vying at times with the strong smells of the smoke-house and of rotted bait by the wharf. Oxen were common in the Cove up to the Second World War; horses were used for driving and sometimes for racing. The Courier of January 21 1898 published this report:

The Races at Centreville went off successfully on Wednesday. The ice was in splendid condition and a big crowd gathered to see the fun. Six horses entered as follows: Dean, H.B. Churchill; Nellie, Dr. Rice; Mona Brenton, L.D. Morton; Lady Brenton, Henry Morehouse; Belle Locket Maid, W.L. Bonnenfont; and Dutch Boy, L. Tibeau. Mona Brenton won the first prize of $5 and Nellie the second prize. Many Digbyites were present. Doctor Rice had built a grand house next to the store a few years earlier and practised medicine in Sandy Cove for forty years. There had been at least one doctor before this at the Cove, Dr. J.F. Pineo,2 in the seventies and eighties. Alec MacKay was a Scot whose family had come to Cape Breton in the great Scottish immigration of the late eighteenth century. He worked at Digby on the railway and then came to Sandy Cove to make spikes for the new wharf. In 1879 he married Alpharetta Ross from Rossway whose sister, Charity, was the wife of Terah Morehouse. He bought Isaac Farrow’s house by the village ship yard where he set up a blacksmith shop, making and mending the metal equipment of the farm, the ship yard and the kitchen. When replacing worn metal rims on cart wheels he took a plank out of the wooden bridge in front of the store to cool the hot new rims in the brook to tighten them. In 1900 a concrete bridge was built and he had to make other arrangements. There was an old mill-stone at Little River which he had brought to the village and laid in front of the driving shed which was on the site of the present village hall. For years he cooled his wheels there. After his death his son, Oscar, had it hauled to his doorstep by Floyd Jeffrey’s oxen. There was a great outcry from those who thought it belonged to the village but Oscar said “It was my fathers’s” and it is outside the house today.3 There was a blacksmith’s shop in the village until the early thirties and Alec’s son-inlaw, Chip Saunders, used to work there. Most people still went to church and the money-raising events brought everyone together. There were baked beans, clam chowder and pie socials, ice cream sales, quilting bees and

100

Christmas bazaars. In 1891 the Courier reported that members of the Baptist Churches at Sandy Cove and Little River paid Mr. Morse, the minister, a “donation visit” and the Methodists held their annual “donation” at Mr. Alex MacKay’s, collecting eighteen dollars. Once in a while a travelling entertainment came to the village with bell ringers, one-man bands, moving pictures and theatre nights. The boys were sometimes driven to Centreville to work for a day stringing herring at Morehouse and Boutilier’s fish factory. The Sandy Cove notes in the Digby Courier of 1891 reported that “A bevy of girls from Sandy Cove picnicked at Burnside, Mink Cove. They fished, swung and played croquet. The novel way they were conveyed there and back also contributed to their pleasure.”4 There were frequent theatrical events in Digby and people sometimes went to see a play and stay with friends. Many families owned a parlour organ and social evenings often included the singing of gospel hymns or songs from books brought home from the “Boston States”. In October the men went moose hunting. There is a large mounted moose head in the village Library which was shot by Amasa Eldridge near Brighton across St. Mary’s Bay. The women didn’t always approve of these expeditions. The Sandy Cove correspondent for the Courier reports on Oct. 9, 1908: “The men returned from their moose hunting on Friday. Some of them brought meat but the largest amount of them brought a nice cold and by the way, some of them are limping, we think once a year will do them on the hunting grounds.” Moose travelling up and down the Neck could only pass Sandy Cove through the woods along the Bay of Fundy shore. In the early days deep pits had been dug there to burn hardwood which was then bagged up as charcoal and sold in the States to be used in blacksmith shops and fireplaces. Later these pits were roofed over with branches and used as traps to catch an unwary moose who would then be shot and butchered. Funerals were times for village gatherings. When there was a death in the family the women prepared the body for burial and a local carpenter made the coffin. Funerals were held in the parlour with an open coffin. After the service the coffin was placed in a horse-drawn hearse and taken to one of

101

the three cemeteries where the men had dug a grave. In 1891 Will Hen Eldridge bought â&#x20AC;&#x153;a new black hearse for the use of people living on the lower Neckâ&#x20AC;?5 and later Conrad Gidney was the local undertaker. Each of the churches had a bell and a boy shinnied up the belfry and tolled it by hand as soon as he saw the hearse approaching. It was a sad sound that was heard often and never lost its impact. After the burial, everyone went back to the house to share his grief and eat the large meal prepared by friends and neighbours. Weddings were happier times. The families of the bride and groom often knew each other and young and old danced at the party afterwards. Addie Morehouse remembers being lifted to the top of the piano to see the dancing at her Uncle Georgeâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s wedding in the house now owned by Margaret and Homer Brayton. Captain George Morehouse was the son of Jake Ed and grandson of Hanford Morehouse. In 1900 while his vessel was being refitted at Vladivostok he travelled the long journey home to be married at the Cove and after a brief honeymoon returned via the Trans-Siberian Railroad. Unfortunately he caught pneumonia on the train and died before reaching his ship. The Russian authorities sent his family a letter of condolence and a picture of him in his coffin. It was a tragic ending to a marriage of only two months. The stores in the village were often owned by men who also owned a trading vessel; Stephen Saunders owned a store and also the schooners Scud and Anna Belle in the sixties.6 The Courier reported in 1885: L.J. Morehouse is constantly adding to his first class stock of goods making it very convenient for people here who are beginning to find they can buy goods as cheaply at home as import them. The Brig Venice, Capt. Reuben Morehouse, arrived here a short time ago from the West Indies with a cargo of sugar and molasses.7 There were usually two or three stores. Wint Dakin and Hanford Morehouse ran shops filled with goods from New England and the West Indies though the temperance movement had succeeded in preventing the sale of rum over the counter.

102

Hanford Morehouse bought his store from Charlie Burns’ estate. It had a hall upstairs and many people crowded into it for temperance meetings and entertainments. Magellan Eldridge wrote in Stephen Fountain’s account book in 1891: “Had a concert in the hall and there was a big crowd there, I was frightened, thought the hall would break, there were 300 people there”. This number is probably a child’s exaggeration but many people filled it as late as the thirties. A minstrel show was held in 1935 with many jokes about local people and summer visitors, hugely enjoyed by all. Hanford’s son Lemuel inherited the business from his father and it was later owned by Will Hen Eldridge whose wife Caroline, called Cad, was Hanford’s daughter, by Henry Morehouse, Hanford’s half brother, and finally by Sidney Gidney who kept an ice house in the basement as well as the store upstairs. It ended its days as an ice cream parlour before it was finally torn down in 1955.

Tea party at the home of Mrs. William Saunders about 1904. From left to right: Mrs. Charles Jeffrey later Mrs. Charles Beyea, unknown, Miss Pearl Saunders, later Mrs. Rosco Foster, Mrs. Rice wife of Dr. Frank Rice, Mrs. Cutler Snow, Mrs. Alice Beyea, Mrs. Clarissa Saunders, the hostess, unknown, Mrs. Cad Burns, wife of Capt. Billy Burns, Mrs. Alec MacKay. Courtesy of Miss Anna MacKay.

103

Wint Dakinâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s store was bought by Ernest Morehouse from Centreville in 1900. It burned down and the present one was built and owned later by Demille Dakin, Blair Dakin, Cervantes Dunn, Owen Irvine and Garfield Trask. Today there is no store at the Cove and people buy their supplies in Little River or in Digby. The Post Office is the meeting place of the village now. Mail arrives once a day and everyone is there. Notices of church services, events of the newly organized Fire Department and social events in the Hall are posted along with the government regulations on fishing, election information and public holidays. There is strong community feeling at Sandy Cove today but the village is no longer the centre of the world. The store was the menâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s social centre and some walked from as far away as Mink Cove after supper, dressed in their best caps and sweaters to hear the latest news.8 Captain Henry Morehouse smoked a pipe and he didnâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;t mind his customers smoking too. Everything was discussed from a new yoke of oxen to the price of herring, from the goings-on of the teacher to the sickness of a friend. The most important topics were politics and the weather. These items from the Courier reflect the discussion at the store: May 8, 1891 The first salmon of the season has been caught by Mr. Holland Eldridge in a net. It weighed ten pounds and was shipped to Boston. Mr. Eldridge will not realize as much now as in the past owing to the duty on fresh fish. We hope the day is not far distant when free trade will be established between our two countries. Feb. 20, 1891 The election is over. We have had demonstrations and illuminations. Feelings of bitterness and party animosity have been raised that may never be effaced. As far as our observation went, Sandy Cove was both quiet and orderly, but if rumour is correct such was not the case in other districts. One cannot speak too strongly against the use of intoxicating liquor in elections. It is a disgraceful and debasing system too largely practiced by all parties. The day of honest

104

government must still be far distant when a bottle or case of rum is considered an important and necessary factor in election contests. The Courier also reported that “Captain William Leary arrived home on the ship Assyria in time to cast his vote for the Liberal Candidate” who won by a majority of seventy-three votes.9 In the election of 1908 “a Copp election meeting was held at Morehouse Hall largely attended by voters and ladies”.10 The Nova Scotia Telephone Company employed three operators at Digby resulting in fast election results. A.J.S. Copp won the seat in the House of Commons for the Liberals and his jubilant supporters strung a banner across the village street which read “Hurrah for Copp”. Not everyone was pleased. Dr. Morse, the Baptist minister, Dr. Rice and Fred Sypher were Conservatives. Dr. Rice refused to drive under the banner but led his horse down into the ditch to avoid it. Perhaps more pressing than politics was the subject of the weather and the tides. The rhythm of life by the Bay of Fundy is set by the tremendous rise and fall of the ocean. When the weir will be seined, or lobster traps set, or gill nets put out or handlining or trawling done, all depend on the tide. Even time for eating and sleeping are ruled by it. A sailing vessel could only be brought in to Mitchell’s, Farrow’s or Morehouse’s wharf when the tide was full because the Cove emptied like a tipped saucer when it went out. The new wharf, built by Dr. Rice, Henry Morehouse and Nelson Crowell near the northern side of the Cove mouth, still needed a dug channel to be accessible at low water. Even then a sail-boat often had to be towed in by a row-boat or wait for one of the small coastal steamboats, as the large vessels did at Weymouth, to berth at the wharf. And then there was fog. Everyone on Digby Neck knows that one foggy day can succeed another for a month at a time. Again the Courier says it all: Aug. 15, 1890 The denizens of Digby Neck shared in the fine weather of late. When old Bay of Fundy laboratory sets in to condense fog it is not quite as pleasant. Yet during fog vegetation springs up and thrives, drinking in dew and moisture. The grasses,

105

plants and flowers decked in all shades of emerald and clothed in many tints, seem pleased with themselves and happy. At the turn of the century young men still went to sea on sailing vessels or steam-ships. Captain Robert Bishop and Captain George E. Morehouse were Masters of vessels sailing to China and Captain Will Leary sailed to distant ports also. Willie Morehouse, son of Henry, became the top captain of the White Star Line and settled in England. Captain Harpur Morehouse served the same line as captain of the liner Belgiumland which called at Saint John in the winter. Walker McKay whose brother Eddie was the Post Master was also captain of a liner. Captain Fenwick Saunders, the son of Lemuel and brother of Chip and Rodney was the Superintendant of the Quebec Steamship Lines. When he died his obituary reported that “he was a very successful marine man. Capt. and Mrs. Saunders’ pretty residence at Sandy Cove was only occupied in the summer.”11 Today, his nephew Captain F.O. Saunders, works on the Panama Canal and looks forward to retiring to Sandy Cove. The coastal trade continued until the thirties and many Sandy Covers owned vessels and served as captain, mate or cook on them. Captain Billy Burns and Captain Herbert Saunders sailed out of the Cove in vessels owned in Weymouth, Bridgetown and along the French Shore and hauled them up along the old wharf to winter. Jim Mitchell, with a red beard and an earring in one ear, ran a sailing packet the Beulah Benton and others around the coast until he was put out of business by the steamships Westport I. II and III. He also kept an inn in one of Jones Morehouse’s houses where the rings to tie up the horses can still be seen in the stone wall.12 A large new government wharf was built beside the old one near the Cove mouth with stairs descending into it and a platform to help passengers embark on the ferry to Weymouth. This route was much used and sadly missed by the Weymouth merchants when it was discontinued in 1930. The last vessels to call regularly at the Cove were the Ida Lou and the Grace Hankinson. As well as Weymouth and Sandy Cove, they called also at Little River and the island ports. The arrival of

106

the supply boat was signalled by a whistle blast as she steamed into the Cove and everyone rushed down to the wharf. The goods for the stores came this way and much coastal gossip was exchanged. The final blow to the coastal trade was the advent of the automobile. In 1911 Guy Morehouse, who had the mail contract on the Neck, asked permission to use a Russell touring car. It was granted provided that horses were kept at the way stations in case of its failure. This was the first automobile mail delivery in Nova Scotia.13 Vans with a counter across the back and shelves of groceries inside called at every house in the thirties and pedlars, who formerly travelled by horse or on foot, arrived in a Ford with boxes of needles and pins in the back. The meat man, the fish man and the vegetable man all called regularly and some of them still do. The roads were maintained by statute labour until 1928 when the Municipality gave a deed for the allotments to the

Liefy Smith with her thirty-year old goose. In the background Mary Dakin, Mrs. Ernest Reed and Lila Boutilier, all from Centreville. The picture was taken on an outing to Thomas Cove to collect rocks for the new Centreville wharf in 1912. Courtesy of Mrs. Mildred Dukeshire.

107

Provincial government. The main road allotment was two rods and the side road was one rod. A man could pay his taxes by doing extra roadwork. One year, when a bad storm destroyed many lobster traps, work was given in clearing allotments to the value of the traps lost.14 People went to town in a closed buggy or a sleigh with hot bricks under their feet in the winter and carried goods in a wagon with a seat up front. The dirt road was good for horses but not for automobiles. By the end of the season it was like a washboard all the way. The new road built in 1950 graded the long hills; it was paved in 1954. It followed a new route at Sandy Cove, cutting straight down the hill by the water and so by-passing the village. Fishing had always been carried on from Sandy Cove but in this century it became the main source of livelihood. Fish, caught mostly from small boats and in weirs, was taken to Little River, Mink Cove or Centreville to be filleted and packed in ice or salted and smoked or dried. Dr. Rice, Henry Morehouse and Nelson Crowell set up a fish-packing business by the Cove wharf in the twenties and later Blair Dakin tried one by the Bay of Fundy Beach but neither was a success. Lobster trapped in winter for the Boston and Cape Ann markets provided an increasing part of the fisherman’s income. In summer neatly stacked lobster traps were and are part of the Sandy Cove landscape. A Federal patrol boat enforced the six months season and the allowable size of lobster. Ernest Morehouse had been a partner with Alfred Boutilier in a fish packing business at Centreville and continued to operate a boat for buying fish around the Bay. The Restless was a schooner of fifty-six tons which was built in Bath, Maine. Small vessels went to the fishing ground in ballast which they discharged when the fish were taken on. During this operation in the Bay of Fundy she was hit by a squall and capsized, drowning all her crew. She was righted and towed into Grand Manan. Ernest bought her and put her in trade with general cargo around the Bay. The Courier reported that on Feb. 11, 1898 she carried a cargo from Centreville to Saint John of “200 cases of herring, 200 boxes of boned fish, 100 boxes of finnan haddie and 5 barrels of fish oil valued at $1 ,420.” She eventually ran aground at the Raquette

108

in Digby and was bought by a local merchant for her copper fastenings. She was burned at low tide but he lost his investment as she had been pegged with wood. In 1928 Ernest Morehouse bought the Effie B. Nickerson, a schooner of twentyone and one-half tons, forty-four feet by seventeen feet by seven feet three inches, built of red oak in Shelburne in 1898. Her previous owner, Captain Orner Glynn, used to run rum in her and her bill of sale was for “boats, guns and ammunition for $600.”15 Ernest’s sons, Hughie and Austin, took her to Grand Manan, New Brunswick, for a load of fish and back to Annapolis and once she was employed towing logs for a new wharf at Westport. After that she lay at the old wharf in the Cove and rotted away, the last commercial sailing vessel at the Cove. Shipwrecks were an important part of the life of a seacoast village. They could mean loss of life and of property but they could also mean salvage. The owners of a wrecked vessel could decide that it was to their financial advantage to sell her for salvage or to abandon her and collect insurance. Her cargo then belonged to anyone who could take it. In 1909 a British vessel, the Hestia went ashore on Grand Manan with a tragic loss of life. Only part of her cargo was salvaged before she broke up and a south wind brought parts of her along with cases of whiskey and barrels of rum across the Bay of Fundy onto Digby Neck. All winter there was much excited searching along the shore and many parties on the beach. Bottles were hidden in the piles o’f seaweed and drunk later as social drinking was still heavily disapproved of in the village. “Make a fool of it and it will make a fool of you” was the local maxim. In 1919 the British liner Corinthian was wrecked on Brier Island. She was returning to England from Saint John having carried soldiers back to Canada after the war. Almost everyone on the Neck got something from her, furniture, linen and blankets, flour and hams. Two men tried to save the piano as she lay listing on the rocky shore. They had swung it over the rail when a great wave smashed it against the side of the ship. The men were overcome with laughter and completed the breaking of it to pieces. Another vessel went on the ledge

109

at Deep Cove near the Bay of Fundy Beach and some of the village boys went looking for rum. One brave fellow tied a rope around his waist and went aboard while his anxious friends stood by ready to pull him to safety if she should slide into deep water. He regained the cliff with a small wooden keg addressed to the parish priest at one of the parishes on the French Shore. They stove it in with a rock and passed it around until it was empty. Some time later the priest heard of the wreck and came looking for his communion wine. “O Father,” they said, “It’s a shame. We tried to save it but you can see for yourself, the barrel was stow in!” Many other vessels were wrecked along this coast. Captain John Eldridge was returning to the Cove for a holiday when his vessel the ship John Barkman or two thousand tons went ashore at Deep Cove. She got off safely but later he lost his life at sea. The best remembered is the wreck of the City of Columbo in 1928. She was of British registry and was sailing from Saint John for India with a cargo of railway cars. Perhaps her compass was off or perhaps she was blown off course but she steamed out of Saint John and straight across the Bay of Fundy into the rocky shoreline of Digby Neck at Thomas Cove near Lake Midway. People went at once to her rescue. She had English officers, a Chinese bosun and Lascar or East Indian crew. The officers and bosun came ashore in a breeches buoy but the seamen were left on the ship because of some immigration regulations. They were hysterical by the time they were finally allowed ashore three days later. They were taken to Centreville and kept in an old building under guard until they could be shipped to Saint John to await a vessel for India. It was winter and people came from all over the Neck with ox-drawn sleighs along the track to Thomas Cove to see the ship on the rocks and get what they could. One man still remembers the taste of the sweetened condensed milk taken from the wreck. It was too expensive to float her again and she was sold for salvage. Tugs came from Halifax and she was stripped of anything of value. Her deck plates, orange with rust, still lie on the shore and lobster fishermen set traps on her hull which rests on the rocky bottom just off the shore. Close by was another wreck, of a hundred years earlier; at least

110

Miss Gertrude Warne at the telephone exchange. Picture from a collection of slides taken by Wyman A. Bristol between 1940 and 1960, owned by Eldridge Memorial Library, Sandy Cove.

one gold coin has been found there. The trail from the highway to Thomas Cove was regularly travelled. Lemuel Saunders known as “Bosun” owned land there and in summer he loaded soft wood to take to Rockland, Maine, to burn in the lime kilns. Once a north-west breeze blew up and he lost the vessel on the rocks. Captain Danny Morehouse carried on the Rockland trade for years. The Smith family had built a house there and lived off the flotsam and jetsam of the shore. Cargo was lashed to the deck of a vessel and in a storm it often washed overboard. Also wreckage provided excellent wood for carving useful articles and their children, Ben and Liefy, were smart at finding things. Ben carved butter trays, axe handles and doll’s cradles and peddled them in the village. He would arrive at the back door with a lard pail for milk and he never went away empty handed. Because they lived in a lonely place and did not

111

conform to the village way of life some called them witches. They were certainly friendly ones for all the older people in the village today remember them with affection. It was said that they burned their cabin down because it was haunted and that they kept pet snakes under the new one. When they came to the village, the children would draw a line in the dirt in front of them as they walked along the road and they would go down into the ditch rather than cross it. Liefy had a pet goose which was thirty years old and could not walk. She believed it was bewitched. She seldom left the shore but in the summer she would come to Sandy Cove wearing an old-fashioned sun bonnet to sell wild berries collected in an old wooden jam pail. Silver ten cent pieces were the only money she trusted and when she died a hand- knitted white stocking was found in her chest full of them. Ben was taken to the Poor House in Digby where he died. They are buried at Sandy Cove in the Baptist Cemetery. “Relief Smith 1842-1917, Benjamin Smith 1845-1920” Another recluse lived near the Bay of Fundy Beach in his father George Albright’s barn. He was known as George Coll, Colly or sometimes the Hermit. He slept on the floor and cooked on the top of a wood stove without benefit of pots and pans, wore layers of clothes and had a huge bushy beard. No wonder the children were afraid of him. Eventually the barn burned down and he moved to a shack behind the post office, with his sister-in-law Kate where he died in the late thirties. He had a small regular income which was kept for him by one of the villagers who paid his bills at the store and saw that he had a place to live. He was a common sight in the village as was Bert, Doctor’s Rice’s son who suffered from cerebral palsy. He could not speak clearly but he had no trouble in making himself understood by pointing, grunting and smiling a wide gold-toothed smile. He was always around the store and post office and used to crank the ice-cream freezer for Mrs. Audrey Crowell’s Ice Cream Parlour. There are always people who need to be cared for. In the days before old age and disability pensions everyone in the village did what they could to help them. These four, Ben, Leify, George Coll and Bert are the few who are remembered.

112

Doubtless there were many others. Ghost stories are very real in a place where fog can be so thick that each person is a little island, and sound and sight are muffled. Vague stories exist of the ghost of a tramp murdered on the Old Road near the Morehouse farm, of a lady who stands and watches in the bedroom of an old house and of the Sandy Cove Lake which is reputed to be bottomless and somehow dangerous in spite of its smiling lily-covered face in summer and necklace of magenta loosestrife. Beaver and waterfowl live there, cormorants shelter on it from the winter storms and a great sturgeon is sometimes seen in the clear water. A story is told of a lost girl, unjustly accused of robbery who haunts the woods by the bottomless lake.16 Tourists were already coming to Digby when the Courier started to publish in 1874. Some came from Saint John on weekend excursions and others made major journeys through the Maritimes by ship, stagecoach and railway, returning to England or the United States to delight their friends with florid accounts of journeys in Acadia. Sandy Cove was visited as a beauty spot as soon as transportation made it possible. The Courier in 1884 carried a lengthy account of a dayâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s outing from Weymouth arranged by Mr. and Mrs. John Campbell on the schooner Rosalie. Numerous expressions of admiration could be heard as the schooner neared the Cove. A prettier picture could hardly be imagined than the village with its white cottages dotting the green slopes that run down to the waterâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s edge contrasting finely with the dark sprucecovered heights surrounding it and in the foreground the blue waters of the harbour flashing and dimpling in the sunlight. After eating lunch on the deck by the wharf some of the party walked up Mount Shubel to see the view of both sides of the Neck while others drove to the Bay of Fundy Beach.17 Such a trip had to be planned carefully so that the tide was full on the Sissiboo and at the Cove. They left on one high tide and returned twelve hours later on the next. Some visitors came by land. A correspondent to the Courier in 1885 describes a trip down Digby Neck in Mr.

113

Stailing’s coach which he highly recommended. It left Digby on the arrival of the mail from Halifax, remained at Sandy Cove overnight on the way to Westport and again the next night on the return journey. The fare was a dollar fifty return. It was not always a smooth trip. On January 9, 1891 the Courier reported an accident to the Digby Neck Express. During a heavy gale and blinding snow the Express upset at the side of the road while approaching Sandy Cove at Mink Cove and threw the driver Harry Crowell and the occupants to the ground. One passenger was hurt and had to stay overnight at the doctor’s in Sandy Cove. Stephen Saunders was operating the Sandy Cove Corner House when Mr. Church made his map in 1869. It continued to serve travellers until after the turn of the century and can be seen on the 1900 postcard on the site of the present Village Hall. In 1885 Mr. Stailing’s passengers stayed at the Sandy Cove House operated by Fred Seifer or Sypher as it came to be spelt, in a house built by Hanford Morehouse and now owned by Jack and Juanita Morehouse. He came from Maitland Bridge in Annapolis County and his ancestors were German folk who settled in Lunenburg in 1750. He also operated the livery stable which served the coaches.18 Sandy Cove started to attract people on holiday rather than just passing travellers in 1890 when Will Hen Eldridge and his wife Cad built a superior inn or hotel next to Dr. Rice’s new house. After his death in 1906 his son Karl and his wife Lila continued the business until Fred Sypher’s son Reg and his wife Glennie bought it in the early thirties calling it first Sypher House and later Harbour View Lodge. Someone has said that “Reg Sypher was the kindest man I ever knew.” He owned one of the first cars in the village and was always ready to give someone a lift to town or run errands, or find a bargain in household or farm equipment. As the result of an accident he had only one arm and a stiff leg but in spite of this he was an excellent driver. The whole village missed him when he died in 1959. Dot and Eric Gozna continued the tradition at the hotel and today Bob and Dixie Van operate it as “The Olde Village Inn” with “everything up-to-date and an excellent table” as

114

an ad described it in 1933.19 Today it is the only hotel in the village. About 1890 Mary and Amasa Eldridge started to take summer visitors in their house Hillcote Farm near the Bay of Fundy. Their guests were mainly school teachers from New York and Philadelphia who stayed for the whole summer. One person told another about the charms of Sandy Cove and the comforts of Hillcote Farm until a new wing had to be built to accommodate them. Travellers came from New York to Boston to Yarmouth by boat, from Yarmouth to Weymouth by train and from Weymouth to Sandy Cove by ferry.20 After 1885 a fast train, the Flying Yankee operated between Boston and Saint John but the fare was eleven dollars and eighty cents compared with six dollars and seventy cents by steamship.21 Visitors from Quebec and Upper Canada usually travelled by Canadian Pacific Railway from Montreal to Saint John and crossed the Bay of Fundy on the Empress or one of the later steamships. Tourists came also from other places in New England, from Toronto, Ottawa, Montreal, Halifax and Saint John.22 The Post Master, Eddie McKay and his wife set up a tourist business about 1900 with the help of Mary Eldridge and soon they too built an extension onto their house. In 1915 an American writer Ruth Ward referred to these three places. There are three houses at Sandy Cove which give comfortable accommodation for a dollar a day. The easiest way to get to this picturesque village is by train to Weymouth and by one of the small steam boats from there to Sandy Cove.23 Most of the food served in these inns was home made. Dinner was at noon so the baking had to be done early to free the oven for the large joints of meat, often their own beef, veal, lamb or ham. Supper at five was often fish. Home canned fruits and vegetables from the previous season were served until the new crop was ready. Milk and cream came from Sandy Cove cows and butter was churned on the premises. For Sunday dinner there was chicken and homemade ice cream. White and oatmeal molasses bread, biscuits and rolls, pies,

115

cakes and cookies baked In the wood stove were excellent. Sheets were washed in a hand operated washing machine and ironed with flat irons, and oil lamps kept clean. Electricity was first generated in Digby in 1891 but it was not until 1928 that the lines were run down Digby Neck.24 However, the Hotel, Hillcote Farm and Bonnie Brae all invested in Delco electric plants before the First War to light their houses and ease the burden of daily chores. In 1925 Harry and Addie Johnson opened a tourist home called Poplar House followed in 1928 by Brookside House owned by Chip and Sadie Saunders. Later Scott and Inez Sypher ran Scottâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s Villa. Percy and Jessie Harris ran Chestnut House and in the sixties Osborne and Jean Morehouse operated Orchard House.

Clare Eldridge and his oxen. From a collection of slides taken by Wyman A. Bristol between 1940 and 1950. owned by Eldridge Memorial Library, Sandy Cove.

116

These large households made great demands on the water supply. Most families depended on a gravity well, which is a spring situated on a hill so that the water flows down to the house without a pump. There were a few dug wells. One of these at the village crossroads was used by a number of families in the centre of the Cove almost up to the Second War and was only demolished in 1977. People up the Church Hill carried their water from the village well or from a spring that came out on the road some distance beyond the Churches. Every house, of course, had a rain barrel by the back door. By August the wells and springs were often low and everyone was careful not to waste water. Most of the young people of Sandy Cove and Mink Cove worked at the tourist business from June to September. They slept in the attic or came in by the day from six in the morning to eight at night. A girl of twelve could peel the vegetables, fold the laundry and sweep the floor. By the time she was grown up she could do any of the jobs required from washing and cleaning to cooking, canning and waiting on table. Boys took the cows to pasture, helped with the farm chores and did maintenance jobs in the house and garden.25 The main entertainments for the guests were walking and bathing. People walked to the Beach, the Cove, the Falls, to Deep Cove and up Mount Shubel and swam in the frigid waters of the Bay of Fundy or the not-quite-so-cold St. Maryâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s Bay. There were a succession of ice cream parlours and of course everyone went to the store and the post office. People wore their best hats and gloves for church on Sunday and patronised the three church bazaars. After the early supper the ladies walked to Sunset Hill overlooking the Beach where Mr. Amasa Eldridge had built some benches, and watched the sun go down. Here they met the visitors who were staying at the other hotels and exchanged gossip. Like the rest of the world the Cove suffered during the Depression. Fish prices were very low; often herring had to be dumped back into the sea because there was no buyer for them. Most people rented a room or two to tourists who ate their meals at one of the larger houses. This paid the taxes and bought the paint for the white houses. Almost everything else

117

could still be produced at home. In the late twenties families with children from the hot cities inland began to discover Sandy Cove and wonderful dams and sandcastles were built at low tide on the sand bars of the Beach. During the War visitors in uniform came for a few days leave and tourists stayed for two weeks rather than two months. Some bought houses and settled down as summer residents while others stayed for the night on a trip around Nova Scotia. Holiday patterns had changed but travellers still came to the Cove. The telephone lines connecting Digby with Halifax and Yarmouth were completed in 1885. On March 1st, 1889 the Courier reported that a meeting had been held in the Temperance Hall in Westport to organize the Digby Neck and Islands Telephone Company. The capital required was fifteen hundred dollars and nearly all the shares, were taken up at ten dollars each. The chairman of the meeting, Charles Bingay, was optimistic: Many farmers near the line can easily pay for a few shares with poles or labour in setting them. I am often asked if it will pay. In answer I point to the lines running out of Yarmouth. If they pay so handsome a dividend in competition with the telegraph, the lines down Digby Neck must pay better yet for there cannot be any competition. With the new or secret instruments as much privacy is secured with the one as with the other, doing away with the objection so often used against the telephone. Notice for tenders was published on March 19th. About a thousand poles were quired of spruce, pine or hemlock, each twenty-two feet long and at least five inches diameter at the smaller end. These were to be set four feet deep and thirty to the mile. A single iron line was strung between them and the telephones were connected to it along the way. On September 30th this note appeared under Westport News:

118

The telephone line has been completed for some months and the company has been anxiously awaiting the government steamer to lay the cables across the Passages. The shareholders were promised that this line

would be in operation by July 31st, yet the instruments are at Digby instead of being placed at the ends of the line between Freeport and Tiverton.

On November 8th, 1889, the government steamer Newfield laid the cables “giving us communication with the mainland which will afford a much needed accommodation”. The main incentive for the line undoubtedly came from the isolation of the islands. Calls could now be made to Digby but it was not until 1910, when the forty subscribers of the reorganized Westport and Digby Telephone Company were hooked into the line of the Maritime Telegraph and Telephone Company, that they could call other parts of Nova Scotia. In that year there were nine telephones in Sandy Cove with Mrs. Fred Sypher as Central.26 When the Maritime Telegraph and Telephone Company bought the Company in 1946 there were ninety-five subscribers and still only ten at the Cove, all on one party line with Mrs. Wilfred Gidney of Mink Cove as Central.27 Larger exchanges were set up at Westport and Sandy Cove and the Neck at last had an efficient phone service. Miss Gertrude Warne operated the Sandy Cove exchange for twenty-two years at her house, Rose Cottage, originally built by Captain Charlie Burns. In 1947 there was a forest fire on the point by the Bay of Fundy Beach and Miss Warne was able to alert the village quickly to organize fire fighters. Later the exchange was operated by Laura and Fenwick Jeffrey, Gloria and Weldon Trask and finally by June and Frank Jeffrey. The operators knew all the numbers and also the voices of the callers and could inform each if the person wanted had gone to Digby, was at church or was visiting a neighbour. In the last few years the fish buyers talked about the day’s catch in a local conference call by keeping the switches open between several party lines. As well as allowing for care and concern among village people it also led to gossip and there was little or no privacy about one’s own affairs. In 1976 a dial system was installed. By the Second World War great changes had come to Sandy Cove but it had the same houses and the same families and the same source of livelihood, the sea.

119

Chapter Eight

TODAY

History is alive in Sandy Cove, not only in the neat white houses and churches built in another age, but also in the way of life of the village today. The tides and the weather still set the rhythm. Lobster fishing boats tie up at wharves at the Bay of Fundy and at St. Maryâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s Bay from November until May when they are hauled up, painted and repaired ready for the next season. They are still wooden boats, built in ship yards along the French shore and registered at Weymouth. The present wharves are built and maintained by the Federal Department of Transport. In summer some men are partners in one of the two weirs at the Bay of Fundy beach, some cut pulp wood or work at the tourist business, or in the fish plants, or paint houses. Everyone has a garden, and vegetables and fruit kept for the winter are more apt to be frozen than preserved. A living can still be had from the sea but there is talk about the foreign draggers and about the effects of pollution. Not many of the younger people are looking forward to life as fishermen. It is a hard life but it has great compensations. A man can be independent and even prosperous if he works hard. His hours are long when the fishing is good but he has slack seasons and he is his own boss. He can build the weir, roof the house and fix the plumbing, the car and the boat. He is still the Nova Scotian of Haliburtonâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s description, able to do a little of everything. To see the land from a fishing boat just off shore gives the world a wide perspective, a view still held by the men of the Cove. Men and women, for the most part, play distinct roles in the village. Little girls wash dishes, clean house and hang out laundry while the boys work with their father in the woods or on the boat. Women work at the school, in the fish plants, the store, the post office, the telephone exchange or in Digby,

120

Lobster boat Bay Star built at Mavilette, Digby County in 1973. Ten tons, thirty six feet by twelve feet, owned by Fenwick Jeffrey.

but never on the boats. The Digby Neck Consolidated School at Sandy Cove is attended by children from Rossway to East Ferry for grades one to six, and everyone goes by bus to Digby for the remainder of their schooling. Little children still speak with the accents of Digby Neck but they lose it when they go to town and this distinctive speech is fast disappearing. Many students continue their education at technical schools and universities and do not return to the Cove. Recently there has been a small migration of people from Digby Neck and Weymouth to Terrace, British Columbia. People still visit Boston but more often move to other parts of Canada. Everyone has a car, a telephone and a television and, of course, owns his own house. A fleet of large seiners from Tiverton and Westport comb the Bay of Fundy for fish, and draggers operate out of Centreville and Little River where there are fish plants. At Sea Wall near Rossway there are six or eight weirs in St. Maryâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s Bay and the scalers that work them tie up at the Sandy Cove wharf. They suck the fish up from the nets in the weirs, scale them and pass them on to the fish buyers, taking the baskets of scales as payment. The scales are sold in Maine to make pearl buttons, and also most of the herring, which is used for cat food. At Mink Cove there is a gurry plant where fish waste is converted into fertilizer and a smoked-fish business producing kippered herring, finnan

121

haddie and smoked fillets. There are still three churches in the Cove but they play a less important part in village life than they did in the old days. A small library which is open in the summer was built in 1935 as a memorial to Mary and Amasa Eldridge. Two Summer camps operated at the Cove, Arcadie for girls founded by Mrs. Helen Anthony in 1936 and Champlain for boys founded by Eric Gozna and Howard Prat in 1952. Children came from far away places to these camps in the forty years or so in which they operated and they continue today as accommodation for summer visitors. There are many things which connect Sandy Cove with its past. Women still make beautiful quilts and braided and hooked rugs. Lobster traps are made locally and each man has a shuttle in the kitchen to “knit” the net heads. Baked beans on Saturday night made from dried beans, molasses and salt pork are a tradition as they are in New England, and fish chowder with haddock or flounder, potatoes, onions and milk is a local treat. Dried beans and salt pork come from a time of no refrigeration as do molasses, dates and raisins which still figure strongly in the baking. Oatmeal bread and doughnuts are as good as they ever were and are made almost as often. “Don’t buy what you don’t need” is still a principle often invoked. Many of the old houses are owned by Sandy Cove families and others who now live “away” and come to the Cove only in the summer. Almost a third of the houses are dark in the winter and Sandy Covers welcome the lighted windows as the summer residents return. History can be written from many points of view. Two hundred years of life in Sandy Cove could be described in terms of economic development, or growth in communication or as a collection of genealogies. These are each part of the picture but this history is, above all, a story of a village and the sea. The Indians, fishermen and Loyalists arrived by water, their first food was from the ocean, and prosperity came from the trading vessels; even the tourists came because of the sea. The farms and woods play their part but the sea is life for Sandy Cove.

122

View of the Fundy Beach at low tide, looking north-east, showing a weir, the wharf fish houses and the shore line of Digby Neck.

123

Appendix I Blacksmith Stephen Fountain’s account book is one of the key source documents for this history. The names of his customers in Sandy Cove between 1788 and 1815 are listed here, with the year of the first and last entry in each account. (Two or three small accounts are on the fly leaf with indecipherable names). Addington, William 1790–1814 Archibald, Jesse 1794–1796 John 1794–1809 Baley, Capt. William 1792–1809 Bates, Nathaniel 1792 Balcomb, Abel 1812 Blackford, Martin 1789–1808 Brown, Mikel 1808–1813 Bryant, William 1792 Cameron, John 1796 Campbell, Samuel 1811 Carmon, William 1804–1810 Carty, John 1811 Coggin, John 1791–1811 Andrew 1805–1811 Henry 1795–1796 Colwell, John 1791–1811 Cornwell, Capt. Jacob 1801–1806 Jacob Jr. 1809 Dakin, John 1799 Thomas 1790–1799 Capt. 1812 Denton, Joseph 1789–1815 William 1812 Dingee, Arthur 1791 Douset, Peter Jr. 1808 Eldridge, Matthew 1802–1809 Gidney, Joseph 1802–1804 John 1789–1799

124

Graham, Mires 1790–1807 Hamilton, Henry 1788–1797 Archibald 1788–1797 Hains, Lt. Bartholomy 1800–1811 Hait, Ambrose 1801 Hanebury, Thomas 1800 Harris, Stephen 1806–1811 Peter 1790–1801 Francis 1788–1814 Harrison, Thomas 1792 Christopher no date Hill, Thomas 1789–1793 Hooton, John 1789–1790 Hues, John Freeman 1809 Hutchinson, Capt. Thomas 1788–1806 Johnson, William 1801–1811 James 1803–1805 Jones, Josiah Judge no date McCoy, John 1790 MacDormand, James 1805–1808 MacGregor, Alexander 1791–1810 Marshal, Isaac 1800–1806 Medlar, John 1794 Merit, John 1810–1813 Moody, Capt, James 1788–1790 John 1796–1801 Moor, John 1809 Morehouse, John 1788 Capt. John Jr. 1809–1812 Samuel 1810–1812 Joseph 1809–1810 James 1790–1813 Morrel, Capt. James 1794 Outhouse, Robert 1791–1810 Peters, Morris 1789–1790 Potter, Franklin 1804–1805 Rice, Stephen 1791 Judah 1791 Ashbell 1797

125

Raymond, Peter 1788–1807 Simeon 1789–1801 Rutherford, Henry 1794–1805 Dennes 1809–1811 Saunders, Billey 1788–1794 John 1793–1814 Lemuel 1799–1814 Soulis, Daniel 1789–1794 Stanton, James 1789–1800 Thurber, Burden 1802 Titus, Isaac 1790–1811 James 1807 Jacob 1808 Loce 1808 Van Velzer, Daniel 1791–1811 Ward, James 1795–1803 John 1803–1812 Weekes, Rev. Charles William 1803 Westcott, Thomas 1789–1794 Stephen 1802–1810 Thomas Jr. 1807 Willson, William 1799–1809 Winchester, Mr. 1796 Williams, Frederick 1798 White, Dr., Digby 1811

126

Appendix II Memorial addressed to his Excellency. John Parr, Governor and Commander-in-Chief of his Majestyâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s province of Nova Scotia. 14 January, 1788. PANS. List attached to the Memorial. Memorialists Name

Men

Women

Children

Jacob Brewer

James Stanton

Josiah Burrell

Billey Saunders

Stephen Fountain

Matthew Stewart

Simeon Raymond

John Jones

Francis Harris

John Morehouse

Maurice Peters

Daniel Soulis

Martin Blackford John Stewart

John Dixon

) Survivors

Jane Dixon

) Robert Dixon

James Dixon Margaret Dixon William Kerr

1 1 1

1 1

3 2 1

) of the late )

127

Appendix III Names on Gravestones in Anglican, Baptist and United Church cemeteries in Sandy Cove (1809-1976). Note: Those listed under one family name are in the same plot. A single date denotes year of death. ZION UNITED CHURCH Brown Jessie Crocker

1932—67 yrs.

Burns James Ward (his wife) Jane James H. John N. Joseph W. Ambercy F. Frances A. Isaac N.

1815–1896 1816–1903 1840–1870 1842–1911 1843 1845 1848–1890 1850–1888

Burns Aubie E. Wesley T. Jacob C. Chesley T. Sarah W. Charles O. Abigail E.

1852–1855 1854–1856 1854–1856 1856 1860–1862 1862 1855—2 yrs.

Carty Mary E. (wife of Benjamin) nd. Carty Harris 1900—81 yrs. (his wife) Elmira 1900—88 yrs. T.D. 1877–1947 (his wife) Edna M. 1875–1955 Emerson L. 1899–1918

128

Carty Elijah (drowned at sea) 1869—17 yrs. David 1886—84 yrs. (his wife) Elizabeth 1889—65 yrs. Lavinia Carty Smith 1841–1902 Neoma Carty 1847–1862 Crowell Harry S. Maud E.

1870–1951 1904—32 yrs.

Crowell George C. Abigail (wife of Wm. H.) L. Amelia (their son) Byard C. (their son) Wm. R. (lost at sea) Thomas West (his wife) Elizabeth

1894—76 yrs. 1907—89 yrs. 1900—52 yrs. 1898—25 yrs. 1869—1 yr., 3 mos. 1823—60 yrs. 1860—84 yrs.

Crowell Cymenthia (wife of George C.) Cymenthia Y. (d. of George & Cymenthia)

1873—27 yrs. 1872—2 mos.

Crowell Capt. Nelson H. 1908—52 yrs. (his wife) Edna Patten 1944—83 yrs. Dr. Archie D. 1883–1972 (his wife) Margaret E. MacDonald 1894–nd. lona M. 1892–1969 Gladys R. 1896–1948 Infant children of Nelson & Edna P. Nelson O. 1886—7 mos. Murray S. 1889—4 mos. Hattie May 1890—10 yrs. Hannah Alice 1862—1 yr. Cossaboom George D. (his wife) Hannah Arlington E. Zilphea E. Martha E.

1890—71 yrs. nd. 1877—1 yr. 1882—3 yrs. 1904—39 yrs.

129

Dakin Eliza

1869—69 yrs.

Dakin Thomas

1874—69 yrs.

Dakin Capt. John W. (his wife) Louisa (their son) Harry W. (their daughter) Stella

1909—66 yrs. 1869–1925 1907—20 yrs. 1881—3 yrs.

Dakin Capt. George Nelson (his wife) Irene (daughter) Lena M. Randolph N. (son of Blair & Jeannette)

1844–1898 1844–1898 1888–1898

Davis Mary (w. of John) (her daughter) Hannah J.

1874—70 yrs 1901—78 yrs.

1899—4 mos

Eldridge John S. 1879—82 yrs (wife) Nancy A. 1882—69 yrs Harvey 1820–1880 (wife) Mary Ann 1830–1888 (their children) Capt. John F. 1854–1900 Florence L. 1857–1883 Eldridge Albert 1890—57 yrs. (wife) Jane 1914—70 yrs. (d. of Fountain & Eleanor) Hannah 1851—12 yrs. (s. of Fountain & Eleanor) (lost at sea) George 1852—26 yrs. (infant children of Harvey and Mary) Reuben 1863–1865 Charles 1875 Stanley 1895–1896 Eldridge Fountain (wife) Sarah A. (wife of Fred E. Merritt) Annie Laura

130

1829–1899 1834–1910 1931–57 yrs.

Eldridge Amasa N. (his wife) Mary E. Margaret M. E. Anne Eldridge Addie A. Hooper Harold Hooper Florence Hooper

1866–1938 1865–1944 1868–1929 1871–1962 1860–1939 1888–1948 1891–1919

Eldridge George W. (his wife) Bertha E. (buried in Italy) Capt. C. Harpur Gidney Orner M. Vinitia P.

1869–1946 1882–1959 1917–1944 1877–1952 1875–nd.

Gidney Elmer L. 1892–1948 Violet E. 1893–1942 Seymour L. 1916–1919 Roy 1925–1929 Gidney Edwin Betts Nell Vroom

1890–1967 1893–1941

Johnson Harry (his wife) Addie

1860–1946 1867–1933

Joudry Ella P. deR.

1904—18 yrs.

Leary Emma J. (wife of Charles) (their son) Robert Duncan Capt Wm. W. (his wife) Eugenia May (their son) E.P. Scott

1837–1867 1862–1864 1847–1932 1855–1925 1876—5 mos.

MacKay Alexander J. 1854–1928 (wife) Alpharetta 1861–1946 Oscar 1885–1975 Lema Viola 1890–1901 Infant 1887 Walter R. 1892–1951

131

McCullough Ernest J. 1887–1969 (wife) M, Lillian 1894 Charles C. 1916–1931 Roy W. 1918–1947 (Gunner) Sidney R. 1924–1944 (buried in Italy) Elizabeth E. 1921– franklin 1944–1946 (infant) David 1959 Mason Jane 1867–1952 (wife of Capt. Charles T. Mason) Merritt George E. (his wife) Flora M.

1879–1968 1884–1970

Merritt Gilbert (wife) Manetta Frederick D. Hannah M. Bertha M. Edith E. Angie W.

1896—59 yrs. nd. 1877—11 yrs. 1873—1 yr. 1877—2 yr. 1877—7 yrs. 1877—9 yrs.

Merritt Annie Laura (wife of F.E. Merritt)

1931–57 yrs.

Mitchell Capt. Arthur 1882—53 yrs. (wife) Mary E. 1901—65 yrs. Mary 1889—78 yrs. (infant children of Capt. Arthur & Mary E.) Lena W. 1860—11 mos. Georgiana 1862—3 yrs. Arthur Scott 1864—4 yrs. Malhon Franklin 1865—4 yrs. Isabella 1872—22 yrs. Mary 1913—21 yrs. Captain James 1904—60 yrs. (his son) James 1900—3 yrs. Morehouse Lemuel (his wife) Jane E.

132

1885—83 yrs. 1867—75 yrs.

Morehouse John Ambrose (wife) Agnes Cock

1883–1957 1885–1961

Morehouse Enoch D. (wife) Mary W.

1870–1951 1888–1974

Morehouse Ralph 1881–1955 Veva 1900– Betty 1927–1934 Morehouse Ernest D. 1868–1956 (his wife) Cynthia M. 1872–1945 Hazel Snow 1893–1919 (son of Austin and Clara) Glen Robert 1953–1974 Outhouse Amos E. (his wife) Mary E.

1855–nd. 1858–1930

Raymond Wm. Henry (his wife) Eliza A.

1876–1952 1874–nd.

Saunders Chipman Harvard (his wife) Sarah Jane

1872–1961 1884–1976

Saunders Watson (his wife) Jennie B. (their son) James L. (wife of Frank Saunders) Mary C. Holmes (his wife) Mary Mary H. Adelaide Caroline J.

1914—69 yrs. 1923—73 yrs. 1905—24 yrs.

Saunders Murray F. Frank M.

1925–1948 1875–1954

Sypher Bernard Gilbert Georgia E. Mitchell Belva May Frank Warren

1848–1901 1865–1941 1893–1895 1895–1912

1916—37 yrs. 1891—79 yrs. 1899—87 yrs. 1870—16 yrs. 1868—18 yrs. 1854—11 yrs.

133

Sypher C. Fred (his wife) Lizzie Gertrude Charles Roy Reginald Worthen George Collin

1862–1931 1869–1924 1888–1948 1891–1959 1895–1909

Theriault Randolph T. 1873–1951 Edward Allen 1879–1914 Winchester Pte. Robert (Can, Infantry Corps CA)

1926–1964

Young Marsdon

1842–1871

SANDY COVE BAPTIST Adams Mary A. (wife of J. Leslie)

1902—55 yrs.

Bishop Robert Lawrence 1911–1935 (son of Boyd & Ella) Leolyn 1898–1915 (mother of Ella) Linda McCullough 1855–1937 Raymond 1901–1975 Boyd A. 1870–1956 (his wife) Ella Taylor 1875–1967 Capt. Robert Bishop 1839–1928 (his wife) Mary I Saunders 1843–1937 Blackford Frank

1913—58 yrs

Brooks Wm.

1855—19 yrs.

Burns William S. nd. (his wife) Mary R. 1909—76 yrs Louise E. 1864–1873 Annie 1871–1883 Burns Capt Wm. (his wife) Clara (drowned) Gerald V. Roger W.

134

1863–1943 1864–1941 1913—16 yrs. 1903–

Carty Deacon Kenneth H. 1902– (wife) Anna 1907– Carty Silas 1884—95 yrs. (his wife) Catherine 1858—63 yrs. (Silas) 1862—12 yrs. (son of Wellington & Lucy) Carty Loretta

1970–1973

Crowell Barlow M. (his wife) Lizzie W. William R. (his wife) Nina M.

1853–1925 1865–1919 1882–1950 1887–1954

Crowell Hannah 1837–1887 Nellie 1886–1907 Crowell Reuben 1837—33 yrs. (died Norfolk, Virginia) (wife of Reuben) Jane 1875—70 yrs. (d. of Reuben & Eliza) Celestia Jane 1865—11 yrs. (wife of G.F. Troop) Cynthia 1864—29 yrs. Hiram 1817–1858 (his wife) Ann 1820–1891 Reuben 1847–1869 Eliza 1856–1879 Elizabeth 1850—10 yrs. (illegible stone) died 1862 Crowell Charles T.

1901—73 yrs.

Crowell John F. Ward 1859—30 yrs. (his wife) Helen (Crowell) nd. (their infant children) Mary F. 1854—1 yr. Lucy 1855—1 yr. George R. 1891—24 yrs.

135

Crowell Warren 1895–1960 Harold 1918–1967 Dakin Capt. Wallace 1892 (his wife) Sophia 1892 (lost at sea) (his son) Warren 1892 (lost at sea) (on same stone as Shubael Eldridge) Eldridge Shubael (his wife) Sophronia (d. in Marine Hosp.) Matthew Chelsea

1883—63 yrs. 1884—60 yrs. nd.—28 yrs.

Eldridge Holland 1856–1904 (wife) Annabelle 1859–1944 Fowler 1882–1891 (wife of Geo. L.) Mildred M. Canuel 1890–1917 Foster Roscoe D. Pearl R.

1876–1952 1886–1951

Farrow Louisa (wife of Isaac) 1858- 40 yrs. (their children) William 1861—11 yrs. Mary E. 1862—12 yrs. Gidney Samuel 1932—83 yrs. (his wife) Emma 1909—55 yrs. (wife of Heraldo P.) Myrtle 1918—27 yrs. Flora M. 1880 Robbie E. 1882 Infants Willie E. 1881 Tela B. 1889—1 yr. Fred W. 1890—4 yrs. John B. 1915—75 yrs. (his wife) Louisa 1839–1893 (children) Effie B. 1872–1878 Charles C. 1877–1883

136

Gnr. Duncan (d. in France) 1918—22 yrs. Albert 1865–1951 Emma M. 1874–1936 Gidney Heraldo P. (his wife) Eva May

1891–1955 1896–1954

Griffiths Wm. Henry (his wife) Carrie Esther

1868–1910 1868–1948

Haines Holland R. Emma L.

1876–1925 nd.

Harrington George E. Georgie Etta

1869–1944 1866–1941

Harris Clinton A. Jessie M. (granddaughter) Virginia Dale Goodwin

1905– 1906–

Harris Percy B. (his wife) Jessie M.

1893–1969 1900–

Harris Robert (wife) Jane

1868–1896 1875–1932

1950–1965

Hayes Clarence 1904–1972 Marianna 1910– Hersey Albert 1861–1942 Carabell 1868–1946 Hersey Lyall C. 1909–1968 Gertrude 1918– Irving Owen M. Vivian C. Rafuse Kenneth Owen Donald Glen

1917– 1917– 1942–1965 1944–1950

Jeffrey Floyd V. Margaret E.

1891–1950 1895–1957

137

Johnson Collins Samuel 1831–1888 (his wife) Caroline 1838–1915 Walter Payson 1864–1892 Mary Ada 1870–1872 Ethel Beatrice 1880–1955 Edith May 1874–1960 Lewis Charles R. (wife) Lavinia

1830–1916 1844–1915

McClelland Harry L. 1885—2 yrs. (infant son of Robert M. & Ella) McKay R.B. 1873–1922 Capt. E.W. 1891—58 yrs. (his wife) Annie 1901—68 yrs. Robert 1861—6 yrs. John W. 1862—2 yrs. Walter 1865—2 yrs. Evelyn 1880—15 yrs. Cassie 1890—15 yrs. Sadie 1899–29 yrs. Merritt John 1866–76 yrs. (his wife) Ellen 1874–69 yrs. Susan 1878–73 yrs. (d. of John & Ellen) Caroline 1862–15 yrs. James 1886–77 yrs. Merritt Edgar J. (his wife) Audrey (his wife) Gertrude (his son) James

1900–1974 1909–1935 1909–1959 1942–1946

Merritt Kenneth L. (his wife) Florence B.

1902–1966 1905–

138

Mitchell F. Slater (his wife) Carrie Eldon Leigh (his wife) Phyllis Yates

1870–1923 1874–1963 1905–1958 nd.

Morehouse Eva L. Arnold R.

1874–1937 1877–1951

Morehouse Archie (his wife) Hilda (buried in Victoria, B.C.)

1875–1941 1896–1974

Morehouse Norval St. Clair (his wife) Eva Hicks (daughter) Lena Marie

1886–1958 1891–1974 1931–

Morse Rev. John Chipman (his wife) Isabel (his wife) Frances L. Edmund C. (lost at sea) Shannon Alfred C. Lalah Burpe Charles D. (his wife) Lottie E.

1819–1907 1872—54 yrs. 1834–1910 1851–1874 1858–1878 1856–1884 1869—19 yrs. 1874–1949 1882–1936

O’Neill Oscar 1870—1 yr. Lizzie 1891– (infant children of Mr. & Mrs. Preston O’Neill) Alford 1886—10 mos. Willie 1886—1 yr. Raymond Wm. Holland 1896—33 yrs. (son of Asa & Elizabeth) Wallace W. 1861–1947 (his wife) Esther T. 1867–1949 Gladys 1895–1914 Hereford E. 1899– (his wife) Elsie P. Bruce 1898– Theodore 1845–1909 (his wife) Mary P. 1847–1923 Herbert 1877–1901 Wayland 1879–

139

Saunders Effie B. (wife of Capt. J.R.) Annie E.

1883—19 yrs.

Saunders Wm. W. (d at sea) (his wife) Clarissa J. (their son) Harold J. Seymore H. Pt. Jeffrey (died at Yimy)

1847–1897 1861–1929 1884–1889 1893–1900 1882–1917

Saunders Capt. William Lemuel Sr. (his wife) Mary (lost of Bermuda) Capt. John A. Wm. J.P. (his wife) Ruth Wentworth

1873—63 yrs. 1847—69 yrs. 1859—77 yrs.

1877—23 yrs.

1858—25 yrs. 1874—80 yrs. 1870—68 yrs. 1861—46 yrs.

Saunders Orwell l880—9 yrs. (son of Lemuel & Adelaide) Saunders Capt. Wm. 1866–1930 (son of Wm. & Addie) Harry 1901—3 yrs. Saunders Capt. Herb 1856–1912 (his wife) Angeline B. 1860–1934 Murray 1890–1918 Sarah 1893–1901 Clara M. 1895–1901 Infant 1882–1883 Saunders Holmes 1832–1896 (his wife) Frances 1836–1904 Charles H. 1873-–883 Ingram 1859–1926 (his wife) Nancy S. 1862–1899 Harry T. 1893–1969

140

Saunders L. Fenwick 1858–1910 (his wife) Melda 1861–1948 Infant 1882–1883 Smith Albert 1914– (his wife) Gertrude DeEll 1913–1974 Smith Relief (her brother) Benjamin

1842–1917 1845–1920

Snow Capt. Cutler 1858–1922 (his wife) Jane 1911—47 yrs. Stephen 1871—56 yrs. (his wife) Charity 1912—90 yrs. (ch. of Cutler & Helen) Gordon 1916—31 yrs. Helen nd. Sypher Albert Dutton (his wife) Edna Fraser

1901–1970 1909–

Sypher Arthur Scott (his wife) Inez B. Manzer (son) Eric Lawrence

1886–1956 1900– 1928–1929

Stanton Roy B. Theriault Walter Daley (his wife) Estelle Freda

1903–1967

Thomas Capt. Charles P. (his wife) Isobel Trask Elkana Sr. (his wife) Mary Walker Donald C. (his wife) Dora May Warren Grace Rita Valeria Manzer Westcott Thomas (his wife) Sarah Thomas

1880–1967 1893–1951 1828–1907 1837–1918 1861—80 yrs. 1858—68 yrs. 1913– 1906–1970 1892–1964 1857—72 yrs. 1868—77 yrs. 1809—60 yrs.

141

CHURCH OF THE NATIVITY Banks Clifton (RCAF)

1958—43 yrs.

Beyea Burket (his wife) Catherine (sons) Wm. Botsford Viets (d of Botsford & Alice) Rita May

1806–1888 1826–1906 1851–1861 1918—65 yrs.

Blackadar Capt. Fred

1878–1958

Broadbent George H. (his wife) Henrietta Bell

1873–1943 1875–1947

1891—8 yrs.

Carty Elijah 1831—27 yrs. (his son died at sea in 1852—21 yrs.) Crowell Arlington C. (his wife) Marian P. (their son) Colin C. (his wife) Lenore C. Phyllis MacPherson

1887–1967 1892–1936 1912–1970 1916–

Edgerton Rowland Philip

1891–1973

Eldridge William Henry (his wife) Caroline J. (their son) Carl Jones (his wife) Lila A.

1851–1906 1857–1939 1887–1931 1888–1967

Eldridge William B. (his wife) Elizabeth

1858–1943 1860–1943

Gidney Edwin 1880—65 yrs. (his wife) Lydia 1898—78 yrs. Edwin A. 1857–1924 (his wife) Margaret A. 1862–1947 (their son) Kenneth A. 1889 Roger Rawson 1928–1929 (children of Edwin & Lydia) John 1869—19 yrs.

142

Frances 1873—19 yrs. Edwin 1857–1939 Charles R.W. 1882—22 yrs. Gidney William M. (his wife) Priscilla Angus M. (drowned) R. Heber

1897—79 yrs. 1885—67 yrs. 1849–1926 1875—14 yrs.

Gidney Robert Oscar 1927–1930 Wilfred 1897–1975 (his wife) Gussie 1899–1962 Gidney Conrad L. Maria E. (wife of Bailey) Audrey Vida Paul Edwin (his wife) Mary Porter

1898–1959 1901–1970 1920–1973 1923–1975 1927–

Jones John

1818—88 yrs.

Ludwick Daniel

1865—58 yrs.

MacKay Edward (his wife) Janet Haines

1868–1955 1872–1960

Merritt Gilbert (his wife) Jennie A. Mitchell

1882–1951 1890–1976

Morehouse John Esquire 1839—78yrs. (his wife) Lefy (Tucker) 1825—52 yrs. (his wife) Mary (Jones) 1812—50 yrs. Mary 1819—31 yrs. William Henry 1818—21 yrs. George Wentworth 1839—7 yrs. Mary Ann 1836—14 yrs. Jones Esquire 1867—70 yrs. (his wife) Mary Ellingwood 1886—87 yrs. Eliza 1885—71 yrs. Joseph 1822—33 yrs.

143

Sarah W. 1872—84 yrs. (her daughter) Eunice A. 1818—5 yrs. (drowned) James A. 1853—32 yrs. (his wife) Joanna 1853—32 yrs. James 1830—38 yrs. Capt, Charles 1884—65 yrs. Gershom 1867—68 yrs. Relief Tucker 1825—75 yrs. John Jones 1818—88 yrs. Morehouse John 1847—67 yrs. (d. of John & Lois) Sarah S. 1853—29 yrs. Capt. Daniel J. 1853—27 yrs. Capt. George E. 1864—24 yrs. (died at Demarara) (drowned) Cutler 1868—19 yrs. (wife of George Nelson Crowell) Caroline 1880—51 yrs. (their son lost at sea) Clinton 1882—19 yrs. (son of Terah & Charity) Herbert 1882—7 mos. (lost at sea) Augustus 1917—17 yrs. Morehouse Jacob Edward 1838–1902 (his wife) Elizabeth 1840–1902 (son) Byron 1872–1894 Orwell 1884–1952 (his wife) Jennie Reid 1886–1967 Jones A. 1860–1931 (wife of A. Doucette) Edith B. 1874–1895 (wife of F. Haines) Mary Eliza 1870–1922 Frank Haines 1872–1930 Morehouse Reuben Tucker 1844—24yrs. George A. 1840–1923 (his wife) Annie 1851–1926

144

(his wife) Mahala (their children) (drowned) Lafayette Bernard Clarence Garland (wife of Gershom) Amelia

1879—33 yrs. 1881—17 yrs. 1882—15 yrs. 1897—27 yrs. 1869—11 mos 1883—86 yrs.

Morehouse Capt. Henry 1916—72 yrs. (his wife) Azuba 1924—78 yrs. (children) (drowned) Oscar F. 1885—16 yrs. (died at Manila) Harry W. 1886—18 yrs. (wife of E.E. Hewson) Laura 1904—30 yrs. (father of Capt. Henry) Jones H. 1884—60 yrs. (bro. of Capt. Henry) Capt. Daniel 1927—73 yrs. (his wife) Helen Augusta 1891—35 yrs. Morehouse James Terah (his wife) Charity Ross

1852–1936 1859–1945

Morehouse Frederick G. Msc. LLd. 1880–1970 (his wife) Blanche Parker 1881–1956 Arthur R. 1861—76 yrs. Charles E. 1907—65 yrs. (2nd wife) Rachel 1920—70 yrs. (1st wife) Sarah Ann 1869—27 yrs. (children) Eva O. 1876—5 yrs. Effie L. 1890—8 yrs. Chatty L. 1895—17 yrs. Walter Bertram 1896–1978 (his wife) Alice Evelyn MacCullough 1898–1975 Mary R. 1872—26 yrs. (her son) Coram 1872—7 mos.

145

Pratt Francis Edward

1892–1969

Putnam Hartwell Nugent

1869–1953

Rice Dr. Frank E. (his wife) Laura E. Hilda Crowell (their son) Bertram Cutler B. Crowell

1969–1958 1867–1935 1894–1915 1897–1955 1891–1975

Saunders Isobel

1842–1908

Tebeau (Tibo) Joseph

1882—65 yrs.

Timpany E. Haines 1845–1923 (his wife) Margaret Cynthia 1843–1932 Theriault John Adelaide William H.

1844–1924 1879–1928 1870–1950

Trask Sarah A. 1836—8 yrs. (d. of Elkanah & Mary) Sarah J. (d. of Elkanah & Mary)1826—14 yrs. Woodman Eleanor (wife of A. Woodman - nd.) 1852—17 yrs. Addenda SANDY COVE BAPTIST CHURCH Jeffrey C. Spurgeon 1893–1963 (his wife) Gladys Sypher 1897– Winston 1901–1977 Griffin Marvin (his wife) Ida McKay

146

1894–1973 1901–1977

Appendix IV A Partial list of Sailing Vessels Owned or Built at Sandy Cove 1808– 1890 from the Shipping Registers of Digby (D) and Weymouth (W) and also from de Wolf Register of Nova Scotia Shipping. Halifax, 1866 (deW). Note 1. Before Digby became a Port of registry in 1849 Sandy Cove vessels were registered in halifax (H), Yarmouth (Y) or Saint John. These registers have not been searched and only vessels registered there which are referred to in some other place are included in this list. Also not recorded are the shares owned by their captains in large ships registered in London, New York, or some other port.

2. All schooners mentioned are two-masted.

1808 Mary—Schooner, built in Sandy Cove, not registered

owner—John Morehouse Esq, and Loce Titus

by John Hearsey, reg H.

1. Thomas West Crowell, Mariner, her Master John Morehouse Jr. Mariner

1824 Olive Branch—Schooner, 70 tons, built at Sandy Cove owners

2. 1825 sold in Saint John

3. 1826—lost

1834 Alert—112 tons, built at Sandy Cove by Peter Brooks

reg. H, 65 ft. 1 in. x 25 ft. ¼ in. 10 ft.

1. Alkanah Trask of New Edinburgh, Mariner 43 shares and Jacob Trask of New Edinburgh, Mariner 21 shares. 1855 Register cancelled 147

owners

1835 Lucy — Schooner, 40 tons, built at Sandy Cove by Wm. Dakin, reg. H, re reg. D. (1853), 26 ft. 8 in. x 14 ft. 7 in. x 7 ft. 4 in. owners

1. John Morehouse, Mariner, 64 shares

2. 1848 John Jones Morehouse, 16 shares; Joseph, Matthew, Thomas H., Charles E., Samuel and James Morehouse, 8 shares each. 3. 1859 Register cancelled

1847 Caroline — Brigantine, 117.2 tons, built at Digby, Reg. Y, rereg, D, 80,9 ft. x 22,5 ft x 10,7 ft. and figure head. owners

1. Jones Morehouse 48 shares; John S. Eldridge, 16 shares

2. 1847 Jones Morehouse, Mariner, 32 shares; John S, Eldridge, her master, 16 shares; Jones H. Morehouse, 16 shares

3. 1862 Lemuel J, Morehouse, her Master, 64 shares. empowering him to sell her for not less than £300 at Belfast or any port outside of Nova Scotia within 9 months; cancelled, no sale having taken place.

4. 1863 Charles Morehouse, 48 shares; Jones Morehouse, 8 shares; Jones H. Morehouse, 4 shares; John S. Eldridge, 4 shares.

5. 1863 Charles Morehouse, 48 shares; Arthur Mitchell, her Master 16 shares; empowering Capt. Mitchell to sell her for not less than £400 Killiebogue, Ireland in 6 months — cancelled 6. 1865 Charles Morehouse, 48 shares; Stephen Saunders, her Master, : 6 shares, empowered to sell her for not less than £300 in 4 months. 7. 1866 sold in Youghal, Ireland and re-registered

148

1850 Augustus — Schooner, 67 tons, built at Sandy Cove by Smith Morehouse, Reg. D. owners

1. Matthew Morehouse, her Master, 32 shares and Smith Morehouse, 32 shares 2. 1864 — Broken up at Sandy Cove

1850 Neptune — Schooner, 40 tom, built in Sandy Cove owners

1. John Leary, 64 shares; John Payson, Master

1853 52 ft. x 10 ft. x 7 ft.

1. 1850 William Vail, Yarmouth, her Master, 64 shares

1850 Hope — 40 tons, built at Sandy Cove, reg. St. J.; reg. D. owners

2. 1854 re-registered, Yarmouth

1850 Major — Schooner, 59 tons, at Sandy Cove, Reg. D. owners

1. Samuel Saunders, 32 shares and Wm, Saunders, her Master, 32 shares 2. Wentworth Saunders, her Master, 16 shares with 3 other shareholders 3. sold and re-registered in Liverpool, N.S. 1852

1851 Woodbine — Brigantine, 93 tons, built at Sandy Cove, by Gershom Morehouse, reg. D. owners

1. 1851 Gershom Morehouse, 64 shares

2. 1856 Stephen Saunders, Mariner, 32 shares and Lemuel Saunders, Mariner, 32 shares 3. 1860 Lemuel J. Saunders, 64 shares. Empowered to sell her at Dublin or any other port outside Nova Scotia for not less than £500 4. 1861 sold and re-registered in Maryport, Great Britain

149

1851 William Walter — built at Weymouth Reg. D. owners

1. Wm. Payson 32 shares; John Eldridge, 16 shares; Harvard Eldridge, 16 shares 2. 1859 sold to a Weymouth merchant and re-registered in Lunenburg

1852 Peeler — Schooner, 20 tons, built at Digby (1833) Reg. H. de W owners

1. 1852 John Eldridge, 32 shares; John Leary, her Master, 32 shares 2. 1866 foundered in the Ba:1 of Fundy register closed

1852 Zetland — 51 tons built at Sandy Cove, Reg, D. owners

1. 1852 George Jones, Yarmouth 64 shares 2. 1853 re-registered Y

1853 Aurora — 39 tons built at Little Harbour, N,S., Reg. D, had a figure head owners

1. 1853 Wentworth Saunden, Master, 32 shares and John Saunders 32 shares 2. 1884 register cancelled

1854 Isobel — Schooner 18 tons, built at Little River, Reg. D owners

1. John Leary, her Master, 64 shares

3. 1860 (12 transactions in Digby and Granville N.S.)

150

2. 1860 Pardon Saunders of Digby, 64 shares 4. 1868 broken up and register closed

1854 G. Walker — Brigantine, 140 tons, built at Sandy Cove, Reg. D., 85 ft. x 22 ft. x 11 ft. owners

1. Jones Morehouse, Mariner 32 shares; Charles Morehouse, Mariner, 16 shares; Jones H, Morehouse, Yeoman. 8 shares; James Merritt, shipwright, 8 shares

2. 1864 David Evans. Milford, Wales, 64 shares register transferred to Wales.

1854 Zephyr — 25 tons built at Hillsborough. N .S. 1853, Reg. D. owners

1. Wentworth Saunders. 22 shares; Isaac Farrow, 21 shares; John A. Saunders, 21 shares 2. 1856 John Leary. 64 shares

3. 1856 sold to a Saint John merchant and reregistered St. J. 4. 1858 registered anew

1856 Zealous — Schooner 53 tons built at Granville, 1835 Reg, H. owners

1. 1856 Wm. Saunden, 64 shares

3. 1858 sold in Westport

2. 1856 Robert Saunders, 64 shares 4. 1864 cast away on Tusket Islands

1857 Brill — brig built on St. Mary’s Bay by Edward Everett reg. D. deW., 234 tons, 108 ft. x 25 ft. x 13 ft. owners

1. 1857 George N. Crowell, Mariner, 24 shares; Jane Crowell, widow, 24 shares; Reuben Crowell, Mariner, IS shares 2. 1857 mortgage with E. Everett, shipbuilder for £986 at 6%

151

3. 1857 George N. Crowell, Master, 64 shares. Empowered to sell her at Liverpool or any other port within 12 months, cancelled

4. 1865 mortgage discharged

5. 1867 George N. Crowell died intestate. Letters of Administration granted Caroline S. Crowell and Jones H.Morehouse, shipowner

6. 1864 William McLean, Merchant of SainI John, 64 shares 7. 1868 sold in Belfast, no minimum reregistered

1857 Saint Crispin — brig, 107 tons built at Sandy Cove by James H. Morehouse owners

1. 1857 James H, Iv.:orehouse, Centreville, 24 shares; John Morehouse, Master, 16 shares; Joseph H. Morehouse, 24 shares 2. 1863 sold and transferred to Yarmouth

1858 William Henry — Schooner 68 tons built at Digby 1845 — Reg. H. Re-reg D, 1858 owners

1. 1858 Charles Morehouse, 48 shares; James Merritt, 16 shares 2. 1862 vessel lost — register closed

1860 Empress — 38 tons built at Weymouth 1860, Reg. D. 49 ft. x 16 ft. x 7 ft. owners

152

1. 1860 John Leary, 22 shares; Benjamin Carty, Abraham Carty, 21 share, each 2. 1868 Charles Leary, 64 shues — empowered to sell her out of Nova Scotia within three months 3. 1868 sold in St. Christopher W.I. and reregistered in London, England

1861 Eliza — Schooner, 212 tons built in Sandy Cove Reg. D, deW 101 ft. x 24 ft. x 12 ft. owners

1. 1861 Jones MorehouseE~q., 16 shares; Jones H. Morehouse, trader, 16 shares; George E. Morehouse, Mariner, 3 shares; Jacob E. Morehouse, Carpenter, 8 shares; Charles E. Morehouse, 8 shares; James Merritt, Shipbuilder, 8 shares

2. 1867 J ones Morehouse died intestate, Letters of administration granted to Jacob E. Morehouse, 8 shares; Jones H, Moret,ouse, 16 shares; James Merritt 8 shares; Jacob E. Morehouse, 8 shares; Jones H. Morehouse, Ii shares

3. 1872 George E. Morehouse died intestate in Demerara. Letters of administration granted to Jacob Morehouse,

4. 1873 John Wentworth Dakin, 64 shares — Empowered to sell for not less than £500 at Dublin or any port out of Canada in 4 months. 5. 1873 sold in Dublin and reregistered.

1863 Anna Francis — barque, 297 tons built at Sandy Cove Reg. D, deW 119.1 ft. x 27.2 ft. x 12.6 ft. owners

1. 1863 Jones Morehouse, 16 shares; George Morehouse, 8 shares: Jones H, Morehouse, 16 shares; Charles E, Morehouse, 8 shares; Jacob E. Morehouse, 8 shares; James Merritt, 8 shares.

2. 1867 Jones Morehouse, died intestate; letters of Administration granted to Jacob E. Morehouse, 3. 1872 George E. Morehouse died intestate. Letters of administration granted to Jacob E. Morehouse.

4. 1872 Jacob E, Morehouse, 32 shares; Charles E. Morehouse, 8 shares; Reuben J. Morehouse, her Master, 16 shares; James Merritt, 8 shares 5. 1872 sold and reregistered Ireland

153

1864 Minnehaha — Brig 177 tom built at Sandy Cove Reg. D., de W 92.4 ft. 24.3 ft. x 11.3 ft. owners

1. 1864 Gershom Morehouse 24 shares; Nicholas Morehouse, William Gidney, Edwin Gidney, Colin Crowell, Jones Morehouse, Master Mariner, each with 8 shares

2. 1864 mortgaged with a Halifax merchant for £380 at 6% 3. 1867 Nicholas & George A. Morehouse, executors of Gershom Morehouse estate, 24 shares; Nicholas Morehouse, 4 shares; Harvard Eldridge, 12 shares; Jones Morehouse, 12 shares, Arthur Mitchell, 12 shares. 4. 1870 mortgage discharged

5. 1871 Nicholas Morehouse, 16 shares; George A. Morehouse, 12 shares; Harvard Eldridge, 12 shares; Arthur Mitchell, 8 shares; James Mitchell, 16 shares

6. 1878 Arthur Mitche I, her Master, empowered to sell for not less than £100 in Waterford, Ireland in six months, cancelled.

7. 1879 Henry Morehouse, her Master, 64 shares — empowered to sell in Dublin. 8. 1880 sold in Dublin — reregistered

1864 Onward — 67.7 tons, built at Sandy Cove, Reg. D. 68 ft. x 18,9 ft. x 8.8 ft. owners

154

1. 1864 Matthew Morehouse, Master Mariner, 32 shares; Jones H. Morehouse, 16 shares; Charles E. Morehouse, 16 shares 2. 1872 Matthew Morehouse 64 shares

3. 1877 sold to a Weymouth merchant, reregistered

4. 1880 sold for salvage at Portland Maine, cancelled register

1864 St. Mary — Brigantine, 164 tons, built at Sandy Cove, Reg. D. deW 88.6 ft. x 21.1 ft. x 11.3 ft. owners

1. 1864 Jones Morehouse Esq. 32 shares; Jones H. Morehouse 16 shares; Joseph H. Morehouse, Master, 8 shares; James Merritt, 8 shares 2. 1870 ship abandoned at sea because of the loss of a spar

1865 Highland Nancy — Brig. 151 tons built at Sandy Cove, reg. D. 86.9 ft. x 24 ft. x 1l.2 ft. owners

1. 1865 John S. Eldridge Esq., Master Mariner, 16 shares; Lemuel S. Saunders. Master Mariner, 16 shares: Wm. Saunders, ships carpenter, 11 shares; Charles T. Saunders, Mariner, II shares; John R. Saunders. MasteMariner, 10 shares

2. 1870 ship abandoned at sea — 70 miles from New York bound for Puerto Rico

1865 John Good — 343 tons. built at Digby. Reg. D. 124.4 ft. x 28.8 ft. x 12.8 ft. owners

1. 1865 George Nelson Crowell. Master Mariner. 64 shares 2. 1865, 48 shares mortgaged for $1800: discharged

3. 1865 George N. Crowell, 48 shares: Jane Crowell, widow, 8 shares; Reuben Crowell, Master Mariner, 8 shares

155

1867 Anna Belle — Schooner, 27 tons, built at Sandy Cove, Reg. D. 52 ft. x 11.6 ft. x 6.8 ft. owners

1. 1867 Joseph H Momhouse, Master Mariner, 32 shares; Wm. Burns, Mason, 32 shares

2. 1868 Lemuel Saunders, Master Mariner, 22 shares; Daniel Morlon, Trout Cove, 21 shares; Stephen Saunders, Master Mariner, 21 shares 3. 1869 Sheriffs’ sale to Lemuel Saunders, her Master, 64 shares 4. 1871 total wreck off Bosseterre, St. Christopher, W.1.

1867 Prince of Wales — Schooner, 33 tons, built at Sandy Cove 54 ft. x 17.5 ft. x 6.4 ft. owners

1. 1867 Jones H. Morehouse, Merchant, 32 shares; James Merritt, 32 shares 2. 1869 Albert Burns, Master Mariner, her Master, 32 shares; James Merritt, 32 shares 3. 1869 Reed Morehouse of Sissaboo, 64 shares — empowered to sell, no minimum, in any port out of the province 4. 1869 sold in Kingston, St. Vincent, W.I.

1872 Two Sisters — 138 tons, built in Sandy Cove, Reg. D. owners

156

1. 1872 Jones H. Morehouse, ship owner, 48 shares; James Merntt, ship builder, 16 shares

2. 1881 Reuben F. Morehouse, her Master, 64 shares — empowered to sell her for not less than $2000 at Shannon or any other port outside the Dominion of Canada in six months 3. 1881 ship lost at Tar Cove on the Bay of Fundy shore between Sandy Cove and Centreville on a voyage from Saint John to Bally, Ireland

1872 Scud — 19 tons, built at Sandy Cove, Reg. D. owners

1. 1872 Charles Morehouse, Master Mariner, 64 shares

2. 1872 — 16 shares mortgage at Boston for $15000 at 7% 3. 1878 mortgage discharged

4. 1879 Stephen Saunders, her Master, 32 shares; John Holdsworth, 16 shates; Henry Gilbert, 16 shares 5. 1879 Stephen Saunders, 64 shares — empowered to sell her no minimum at Barbados or any port out of Canada 6. 1879 sold at St. Kitts, West Indies

1872 Little Fanny — Schooner, 12 ton:; built at Sandy Cove, Reg. D. 37.7 ft. x 13.7 ft. x 5,3 ft. owners

1. 1872 Wm. S, Eldridge, fisherman, 16 shares; Henry Holland Eldridge, 16 shares; (illegible) Eldridge, 1.6 shares; Simon Soulis, Smith’s Cove, 16 shares 2. 1880 sold in Granville, N.S.

3. 1888 ship wrecked on Split Rock, Saint John, N.B.

1876 Active — Schooner, 49 tons, built at Belliveau’s Cove, 1866 Rg. W. owners

1. 1876 John Leary, Master Mariner, 32 shares; Charles Leary, Master Mariner, 32 shares 2. 1880 total wreck on Black Point; Digby County and broken up for fire wood

1876 Emma Gidney — Schooner, 47 tons, built at Sandy Cove, Reg, W. 61 ft. x 48.5 ft. x 75 ft. owners

1. 1876 Samuel Gidney, 22 !hares; Edwin Gidney, 21 shares; Edwin A. Gidney, 21 shares 2. 1877 sold in Halifax

157

1877 Ocean Traveller — Schooner, 121.6 tons, built at Sandy Cove. W., 83 ft. x 24.5 ft. x 8.5 ft. owners

1. 1877 Matthew Morehouse, Master Mariner, her Master, 64 shares 2. 1877 mortgaged to Clare Jones, Weymouth 3. 1879 lost at sea

4. salvaged and reregistered, Saint John as Edmund 5. 1901 — wrecked on P.E.1. - registration cancelled

1877 Island Belle — Reg. W. owner

1. 1877 John Leary & Son, 64 shares

1878 Olive Branch — Schooner, 109.55 tons, built at Sandy Cove - Reg, W., 76.5 ft. x 22.2 ft. x 9.2 ft. owners

1. 1878 Charles Morehouse, Master Mariner, her Master, 48 shares; Lemuel Merritt, carpenter, 8 shares; Charles Lewis, Weymouth, 8 shares

2. 1878 mortgaged in Halifax for $1,672 payable in one year, discharged 3. 1879 sold to William Denton, Westport, N.S.

4. 1879 lost, 12th Oct. on south-east point of Grand Bahama Island, W.I.

1878 Cumi — Schooner, 20 tons, built at Liverpool, N.S., Reg. L. rereg. D. owners

158

1. 1878 Lemuel J, Sa unders and others at Sandy Cove, 64 shares 2. 1887 register closed

1879 Edmund — Brigantine, 160 tons built at Digby by E. Burnham, Reg. D. 85 ft. x 24.8 ft.

1879 — Capt. Charles Burns, her Master and part owner

1880 Alert — Schooner. 28 tons. built al Granville. N.S. 1876 reg. Annapolis. rereg D. owners

1. 1880 Wm. F. Eldridge, Master Mariner. 64 shares

3. Squires Eldridge, farmer. 32 shares and Henry Holland Eldridge, fisherman. 32 shares

2. 1880 mortgaged for $500. discharged

4. 1885 ship enlarged at Meteghan and registered anew at 39 tons. Wm. F. Eldridge. her Master, 21 shares; Squire Eldridge. 22 shares; Henry H. Eldridge, 21 shares

5. 1886 Reuben Crowell. Master Mariner. her Master. 64 shares empowered to sell her, no minimum out of Canada in 6 months 6. 1886 sold to foreigners and reregistered

1881 Edith — Schooner. built at Parrsboro. N.S. Reg. W 70.5. ft. x 202 fl. x 6.5 ft. owners

1. 1881 J oh n Leary. Master tvlariner, 32 shares and Charles Leary, Master Mariner. 32 shares 2. 1883 sold in Yarmouth ard reregistered

1884 Charlie — Schooner, 10 tons built in Weymouth, Reg. W. owner

1. 1884 J.L. Morehouse. 32 shares and W.H. Eldridge. 32 shares

159

1885 Leonard B. Snow — Schooner. 30 tons. built in Truro, Mass. 1881 owners

1. 1885 James Mitchell. 64 shares

2. 1891 stranded in the Sissiboo River. sold

1886 Roving Lizzie — Schooner. 10.79 tons. Reg. W. owners

1. (ninth owner) James Merritt, 32 shares; Holmes Saunders and Ingraham Saunders, 16 shares each 2. 1894 Obediah Smith, Tiverton, 64 shares

3. 1903 wrecked at Seeley’s Cove, Charlotte Co. N.B.

1888 M.C. Rowe — Schooner, 69.47 tons, built at Bath, Maine, 1857 Reg, W., 74.4 ft. x 22.1 ft. x 7.6 ft. owners

1. 1888 jointly owned by Daniel J, Morehouse, Master Mariner, Wm. F. Eldridge, Watson Saunders, Charles E. Morehouse, and Charles H. Denton, Rossway 2. 1889 jointly owned by Daniel J. Morehouse, John Reed, Rossway; Jacob Gilliland, Waterford and Charles Denton, Rossway 3. 1894 wrecked, April 10th at Gilberts Cove

1890 Laura — Schooner, built St. Saint John, 1871, Reg. St. J. rereg D.1890 owners

160

1. 1890 John R. Saunders, 22 shares; Charles T. Saunders, 21 shares and Charles R. Lewis, Rossway, 21 shares 2. 1890 wrecked on Gull Rock off Brier Island and adrift in Bay of Fundy — total loss

N/D Beulah Benton â&#x20AC;&#x201D; Schooner, 36 tons, built at Shelburne, N.S. 1875, reg. W; 56.2 ft. x 18.6 ft. x 7 ft. owners

1. James Mitchell, Mariner, 64 shares

2. 1907 Sarah Mitchell and George Morehouse, 64 shares 3. Vessel broken up at Whites Cove, near Little River

161

Appendix V Captains Courageous from Sandy Cove—from Digby Courier, July 13. 1923. A fishing village that boasts of 55 Sea Captains. What place can beat this record? (X marks those still living in 1923) Capt. X Robert Bishop X William Burns Jr. Reuben Crowell Sr.* Nelson Crowell Sr.* Byron Crowell Reuben Crowell Jr.* Nelson Crowell Jr. G. Nelson Dakin* John Eldridge* Harvard Eldridge* Abner Eldridge Judson Eldridge Wentworth Dakin* John Farrow John Leary Jr.* John Leary Sr. X William Leary Charles Leary* X Gordon Leary — son of Wm. X Fred Leary, — son of Charles Harry Leary, — son of Charles Arthur Mitchell* James Mitchell George Morehouse Joseph Morehouse* Henry Morehouse* Charles Morehouse*

162

Reuben Morehouse X Dan J. Morehouse Jr. Dan. J. Morehouse Sr. Matthew Morehouse George Morehouse Jr. X Walter Morehouse X Harpur Morehouse* X William Morehouse X Jones A. Morehouse Boyd Morehouse — son of Reuben X Samuel Morehouse Wayland Morse Edward McKay X Walter McKay (Walker)* Bruce McKay X Arch McKay Steven Saunders Lemuel Saunders* L. Fenwick Saunders* Robert Saunders Herbert Saunders Wint Saunders Charles Thomas Sr. Sinclair Thomas My informants say “Many have sailed and never been heard from. Two were murdered at sea. Capt. John Eldridge was drowned in the St. Lawrence River over 20 years ago, Capt. Nelson Dakin was lost on the Nantucket shoals with his wife and child. He was on his last voyage coming home to stay, being through with the sea. One of Fred Leary’s sons was in the U.S. Navy and saved many lives by keeping to his post on a warship during the war and a destroyer or something in that line was named after him, great honour being given to his mother at the time.” — Canso, July 18, Cecil Boyd. List compiled by a resident of Digby County.

163

Note: The asterisks are the authors to indicate those who were Master Mariners, In addition 1.0 those on the above list the following are called captain on their gravestone or in a shipâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s register. Albert Burns* Thomas West Crowell Wallace Dakin* Fountain Eldridge William F. Eldridge* Charles E. Morehouse Joseph H. Morehouse Charles T. Saunders* Holmes J. Saunders John R. Saunders Lemuel S. Saunders William Saunders Cutler Snow

164

Appendix VI General Register of the Sandy Cove School, 1898 Senior Class: Name of Pupil Age Margaret Irene Leary 18 Ethel Beatrice Johnson 17 Ralph Arnold Dakin 16 Archie Durkee Crowell 14 John Ambrose Morehouse 14 Leolyn Bishop 10 Sarah Jane McKay 14 Orrie Holmes Morehouse 14 Fannie Lila Saunders 13 Florrie Maud Crowell 13 Vera Blanche Morehouse 12 Stella Lee Morehouse 13 Harry Wentworth Dakin 11 Mary Lulu Baldwin Bishop 11 Kenneth Lee Crowell 11 Olwell Saunders 9 Hugh Hay Burns Eldridge 12 Horace Eldridge 10 Charles Reg Sypher 9 Willie Edward Cahoon II Jeoffrey Huffman Saunders 10 Gordon Maxwell Snow 10 Rodney Vernon Saunders 10

Grade XI X IX

Harold Hooper

IX VI VII VII VII VII VII VI VI VI VI VI VI VI VI VI VI VI VI

Name of Parent William Leary Mrs. Beatrice Johnsor Capt. John W. Dakin Nelson H. Crowell Terah Morehouse Robert Bishop Alexander McKay Jacob Morehouse Herbert Saunders William Crowell Daniel Morehouse Robert Morehouse Capt. John Dakin Robert Bishop Nelson Crowell Dantford Outhouse Holland Eldridge John F. Eldridge Fred Sypher Edward Cahoon William Saunders Cutler Snow Lemuel Fenwick Saunders Mrs. Allilie Hooper

165

Ida Linton Eldridge Cecil May Morehouse Arnie Clinton Crowell Nellie Crowell Nellie Crowell Daisy Annie Ellis Jessie Morrison Saunders Carl Jones Eldridge Annie Sophia Crowell Thomas Ralph Morehouse Eunice Hearty Saunders Mary Chipman Eldridge Fred Garland Morehouse Arlington Glenmore Crowell Abbie Schurman Eldridge James Lemuel Saunders

11 11 13 12 12 14 15 10 13 17 10 14 17 11

VI VI VII VII VII VII X VI VII IX VI IX XI VI

John F. Eldridge John E. Crowell William Burns William Burns William Burns Charles Ellis Ingram Saunders William H. Eldridge Barlow Crowell Hantford Morehouse Dantford Outhouse John F. Eldridge Terah Morehouse William Crowell

15 17

X IX

William H. Eldridge Watson Saunders

Dan McNeil McKay Bernard Morris Atwood Outhouse Cora Vance Dakin

Alexander McKay from Advocate Harbour Dantford Outhouse Capt. John Dakin

This document was provided by Miss Elizabeth McCullough the present Principal of the Digby Neck Consolidated School.

166

Appendix VII Summary of some discharge papers of Chipman Harvard Saunder, (1872–1961) 1889

1894

1895

1895 1896 1897

1898

Arizona 1085 tons sailing vessel; registered Saint John, voyage — foreign; ordinary seaman; age 16; engaged 13 May, 1888 Philadelphia; discharged 6 June, 1889 New York.

Orinoco 1200 tons steam vessel registered London; voyage — New York and Bermuda; boatswain age 22; engaged II Sept., 1894 New York; discharged 6 Oct., 1894, New York. Trinidad 1390 tons steam vessel registered London 1. voyage — West Indies; 3rd mate; age 22; engaged 18 Dec., 1894 Bermuda; dischatged 8 July, 1895 New York. 2. voyage — foreign; 3rd mate; age 23; engaged 10 July 1895 New York; discharged 5 Sept., 1895 New York. 3. voyage — West Indies; 3rd mate; age 23; engaged 7 Jan., 1896 Newfoundland; discharged 19 Mar. 1896 New York.

Cambusdoon 1131 tons sailing vessel; registered Saint John, voyage foreign; 2nd mate; age 24; engaged 29 April, 1896 New York; discharged 8 Aug., 1897 New York. Florence 1605 tons sailing vessel; registered Bath, Maine, voyage - Philadelphia to San Francisco; 2nd mate; age 26; engaged 25 Mar., 1898 Philadelphia, discharged 15 Aug., 1898 San Francisco.

167

1899

1899 1902

R. D. Rice 2105 tons sailing vessel; registered New York. 1. voyage — San Francisco to London; 2nd mate; age 26; engaged 1 Nov., 1898 San Francisco; discharged April, 1899 London. 2. voyage — London to New York; 2nd mate; age 26; engaged 19 April 1899 London, discharged 14 July, 1899, New York. E.D. Sutton 1039 tons sailing vessel; registered New York, voyage — Kobe, Japan; 2nd mate; age 28; engaged 16 April, 1901 New York; discharged 2 April, 1902 New York.

Letters of reference 1. Dec. 11, 1893 “Chipman 5aunders has sailed on S.S. Cariboo one trip to the West Indies, forty days. I have found him a good, sober, honest man and with pleasure recommend him to anyone requiring his services”. 2. 3.

168

Jan, 23, 1895 Lynn, Mass, “Mr. Chipman Saunders was with me in the schooner Charles F. Atwood in the years 1892 and 93. I consider him a good seaman”.

Nov. 10, 1897 “Mr. Chipman Saunders has been with me on the Barque Cam busdoon as second officer during a nineteen month voyage from New York to Australia, Manila, Singapore and back to New York during which time he was sober, earnest and attentive to his duties and a good officer”.

Appendix VIII

TOURIST INFORMATION

Nova Scotia Relief Map Directory, Truro: 1933 Sandy Cove is one of the most prominent tourist centres in this part of the province. It has good hotel accommodation at moderate prices, “Bonnie Brae Croft” has eight rooms; good verandahs, electric lights and all modern conveniences. “Sypher House” has thirteen rooms; everything up- to-date; an excellent table. “Hillcote Farm” and bungalows; eighteen rooms, every modern convenience; fresh green vegetables for the table grown on the property. “Poplar House”, eleven rooms, all modern conveniences; an excellent table — everything the tourist may need. “Brookside House” with bungalows has ten rooms; very comfortable; excellent bathing facilities and a good table. There are two general stores where the motorist may procure Sunoco gasoline and motor oils, one operated by D & S Gidney and the other by Reginald Sypher. The bus leaves Digby daily at 2:45 P.M.

169

ENDNOTES Preface 1

Thomas Chandler Haliburton, The Old Judge, preface – p.XXVII – XXVIII.

Chapter 1 1 2

3 4 5 6 7 8 9

10 11 12 13

170

T.M. Lewis, Recreation and Duty. Digby Courier, Jan. 16, 1885. Mrs. Olga Denton has found arrowheads while digging in her garden by the Sandy Cove Lake. A large Indian dug-out canoe was uncovered by the Ground Hog Day storm, 1976, on Brier Island. It is now in the Nova Scotia Museum, Halifax. W.I. Morse, Acadiensis Nova: New and Unpublished Documents relating to Acadia. Samuel de Champlain, Voyages and Exploration 1604-1616 p71. Brackets denote translator’s note. I. Wilson, H & G p.34-37. R. B. Powell, Scrap Book I. p.93. I. Wilson, H & G p.34-37. W. A. Calnek, History of the County of Annapolis p.152-156 The children of John Dickson or Dixon received lots 35 and 20 in the 1788 grant. Thomas Hamilton and his sons archibald, John and Henry received lots 44, 45, and 46, situated south of lot 26 in the 1802 grant though they had first settled on the Cove. I. Wilson, H & G p.34. John Eardly-Wilmot, View of the Inquiry into the losses of American Loyalists, reprint of 1805 edition in the Boston Atheneum. W. S. Bartlet, Frontier Missionary, Memoir of the Life of the Rev. Jacob Bailey, 1853. Ontario Bureau of Archives, UEL inquiry Vol. 1.

14 New Brunswick Historical Society No. 4 Loyalists in Arms, etc. 15 I. Wilson, H & G p.69-73. Muster Roll for Digby. 16 I. Wilson, H & G p. 64-67. Names on the first Digby Grant. 17 I. Wilson, H & G p.51. 18 Nova Scotia Dept. of Lands and Forests, Grant to Jacob Brewer and others. Sandy Cove, 1788. 19 Memorial Petition of Residents of Sandy Cove, 1788 PANS. See Appendix II for list of residents. 20 Warrant to Survey, PANS. (illustration page 13 in the text). 21 Copy of the map made by Dr. Ronald Morehouse in 1960. See illustrations page 18. 22 Only these seven had accounts with the blacksmith. Stephen Fountain between 1788-1820. See appendix I. Chapter 2 1

2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12

Stephen Fountainâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s account book, the original of which belongs to Mrs. Lenika Eldridge Ensor of Sandy Cove is on microfilm in the PAC, Ottawa and the PANS in Halifax. All the details of everyday life in Sandy Cove described in this chapter come from this source unless otherwise indicated. Lorenzo Sabine, Biographical Sketches, Vol. 1 p.434. New Brunswick Historical Society Bulletin No. 4, Passenger List of the Ship Union. I. Wilson, H & G p.64, 70. Map accompanying Grant Jacob Brewer and others 1788. Text illustration, p. 18. J.R. Campbell, History of Yarmouth County. 1866. Eldridge Family Papers belonging to Ruth Eldridge, Sandy Cove. Morehouse Family Papers belonging to Dr. Ronald Morehouse of Sandy Cove and Montreal. Rebecca D. Beach, The Reading Loyalists, New Haven Colony Historical Society Papers, Vol. 7 1907. Lorenzo Sabine, Biographical Sketches, Vol. 11. p. 102 Morehouse Family Papers, Dr. Ronald Morehouse. Digby County Registry Office. Weymouth, Book 1, B p.443.

171

13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 26 27 28 29 30 31 32 33 34

I. Wilson, H & G p.277. Lorenzo Sabine, Biographical Sketches, Vol. II, p.102. Digby County Registry Office. Book 1B p.472. Gravestone in the Sandy Cove Baptist cemetery, see Appendix III. I. Wilson, H & G p.81; also Gidney family papers. Ontario Bureau of Archives. UEL Inquiry. Ontario Bureau of Archives. UEL Inquiry. I. Wilson, H & G p.60. I. Wilson, H & G p.101. I. Wilson, H & G p.165. Crowell Family Papers, Judge Lee Crowell, Middleton, N.S. Digby County Registry Office, Book 38 p.101, 127, 147. I. Wilson, H & G p.110. Digby County Registry Office. Book 38 p.146. Digby County Registry Office. Book 8 p.220. These details of boats and fishing were related to the author by Hughi Morehouse and Clare Eldridge in 1976. Digby County Registry Office. Book 38 p.146. I. Wilson, H & G p.156. SPG Letter Book, 1794 p.397. I. Wilson, H & G p.120-124 I. Wilson, H & G p.157. Petition to prevent the granting of head of St. Maryâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s Bay marches to Capt. Fred Williams, 1808. Grant of shares in St. Maryâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s bay marshlands, 1816. PANS.

Chapter 3 1 2

172

Samuel Eliot Morison, Oxford History of the American People, Vol 1 pp.84-110. The Society for the Propagation of the Gospel was organized for the purpose of providing the colonial possessions of Great Britain with ministry of the Established Church. Letter books of annual correspondence of missionaries and boxes of actual letters can be consulted at the SPG Archives Tufton St., London. Material relating to Canadian missions is on microfilm at the Public Archives of Canada, Ottawa.

3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16

17 18 19

20 21

Victor Cardoza, History of Trinity Parish, Digby; SPG Letter Books. SPG Letter Book Sept. 30, 1805. Vol. 29. SPG Letter Book Sept. 29, 1791. Vol. 25. SPG Letter Book Sept. 29, 1794. Vol. 26 Digby County Registry Office, Book 1A. Digby County Registry Office, Book 38 p.102. C.E. Thomas, Dean Wm. Bullock DD, Nova Scotia Historical Society, Vol. 36. SPG Archives; also C series Reel 30, p.94-101, re: William Bullock, DD, 1804. PAC and PANS. J.M. Bumstead, Henry Alline; Gordon Stewart and James Rawlyk, A People Highly Favoured of God. I. Wilson, H & G p.244. A typical example of one hangs in the author’s kitchen in Sandy Cove, see illustration p.46. I. Wilson, H & G p.90. I. Wilson, H & G p.114. This description of the founding of the Baptist Church at Sandy Cove is from an article in the Halifax Herald, nd. Details in Wilson’s History differ slightly see p.90, 113 & 247. Quoted from the Christian Messenger in the above article. Mr. Starr Fairweather who lives in John Morse’s house in 1977, has talked to members of the Morse family and related to the author these details of his life. Records of Sandy Cove Baptist Church. Charter members were: Mrs. William Gidney, Mrs. S. Harris, Mr. & Mrs. William Burns, Mrs. Charles Taylor, Wesley Crowell, Mrs. William Saunders, Mrs. Lorenzo Saunders, Lemuel J. Saunders, Adelaide Saunders, Mr. & Mrs. Ed. McKay, Mr. & Mrs. John Wright, Mr. & Mrs. Asa Raymond – Dec. 27, 1883. Short History of Zion Methodist Church Sandy Cove in the Mar. 8, 1975 Halifax Chronicle Herald. Provincial Wesleyan, Aug. 17, 1850.

173

22 Documents relating to the dispute in Provincial Archives of N.S. 1. March 24, 1853 Warrant to apprehend Stephen Saunders, John Leary, James Morehouse, Colin Crowell, Joseph Carty and James Merritt to answer charges of Angus Gidney before a J.P. 2. April 4, 1853 Petition of Angus Gidney to the LieutenantGovernor. 3. May 4, 1853 Letter from John Eldridge J.P. to the Attorney-General. 4. May 18, 1853 Summary of the case by the AttorneyGeneral. 23 The Christian Messenger, Halifax, Aug. 10, 1849. 24 Indenture between the trustees of the Sandy Cove Calvinist Baptist Church, called the Union Meeting House, and the heirs of Maurice Peters, Jan. 1, 1852. Document held by Sandy Cove Baptist Church. 25 Memorial of a Warrant sworn against the Methodists by Angus Gidney â&#x20AC;&#x201C; 1853. PANS. 26 Journal of Education and Agriculture. Halifax, Feb. 1860. 27 Petition against the Appointment of Angus Gidney as Postmaster at Sandy Cove, June 1853. PANS. 28 Provincial Wesleyan. Halifax, Apr. 9, 1857. Chapter 4 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9

174

C.B. Fergusson, Local Government in Nova Scotia. PANS. Bulletin No. 7. Digby Courier Nov. 24, 1876. I. Wilson, H & G p.431. I. Wilson, H & G p.231-236. Digby Courier Registry Office. Book 4 p.74. I. Wilson, H & G p.63, 156, The Sally was one of the vessels which had brought the Loyalists from New York. I. Wilson, H & G p.162-5. I. Wilson, H & G p.157. I. Wilson, H & G p.158.

10 Digby Courier Oct. 30, 1885, A trip down Digby Neck in Stailings Coach. 11 I. Wilson, H & G p.157. 12 I. Wilson, H & G p.195, 99, 207, 212, 213, 217, 218. 13 R. B. Powell, Second Scrap Book, p.87, Also Clara Dennis Down in Nova Scotia and other books about the Province. 14 Documentary Study of Early Education. PANS. Bulletin No. 1. 15 I. Wilson, H & G p. 93, 94. 16 PANS. Bulletin No. 1. 17 I. Wilson, H & G p. 92, 255. 18 I. Wilson, H & G p. 260. 19 Journal of Education and Agriculture, Feb., 1860. 20 Digby Courier, Feb. 16, 1877. 21 Digby Courier, Dec. 4, 1885. 22 Digby Courier, June 19, 1891. 23 See Appendix VI. 24 Digby Courier, June 1, 1923 “30 years ago” (1893). 25 Digby Courier, June 2, 1891. 26 Digby Courier, June 19, 1891. 27 Digby Courier, Oct. 30, 1908. Chapter 5 1 2 3

4 5 6

I. Wilson, H & G. Census statistics from Digby County p.468-470. Nova Scotia 1861. PANS and PAC on microfilm and David E. Stephens. The 1861 Census of Nova Scotia, Nova Scotia Historical Quarterly Vol. 3 No. 1, Mar. 1973. I. Wilson, H & G p.242, Hand-woven cloth was “fulled” by washing and beating to make it suitable for blankets and heavy clothing. This was usually done at a fulling mill. C.B. Ferguson, Abrose F. Church and his Maps. Nova Scotia Historical Society. Vol. 37, 1970. See illustration p.76. D.A. Muise, The Federal Election of 1867 in Nova Scotia, Nova Scotia Historical Society. Vol. 36. 1968. C.B. Fergusson, PANS. Bulletin No. 17.

175

7 8 9

I. Wilson, H & G p.293, 295. I. Wilson, H & G Western Counties Railway p.287-292. Digby Courier. Centennial Edition. Sept. 19, 1974.

Chapter 6 1 2 3

4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15

176

Charles Armour and Thomas Lackey, Sailing Ships of the Maritimes, p.9—A plate “A View of the Entrance of Petit Passage” reproduced from The Atlantic Neptune, 1799. William Wood, All Afloat, p.82-91 and Frederick William Wallace, Wooden Ships and Iron Men, p.23-31. N.S. Department of Lands and Forests, note on map accompanying 1788 land grant at Sandy Cover dated at Digby 20th of march 1788. “I hereby certify the timber on these tracts of Beach, Birch, Maple and little or no Pine. The land appears good. Signed P. Millidge.” Sandy Cove Baptist Cemetery—see Appendix III. Sandy Cove Anglican Cemetery—see Appendix III. Sandy Cove United Church Cemetery—see Appendix III. Ship’s Registries at Digby and Weymouth—on microfilm at PAC see Appendix IV. A copy of this will was shown to the author by Mrs. Ralph Morehouse whose husband was the grandson of John Morehouse Jr. Sandy Cove United Church Cemetery—see Appendix III. Hughie Morehouse is the son of Ernest Morehouse who came to Sandy Cove from Centreville. He is a descendant of James Morehouse, brother of John Morehouse, Esq. This may be a description of the building of the Minnehaha in 1864. She had a number of owners, one of whom was Colin Crowell. A.M. Lower, Colony to Nation p.86-89, Donald Creighton Dominion of the North p.190-194. See Appendix V. F.W. Wallace, Record of Canadian Shipping. This account, which starts in rhyme but soon turns to prose, is in the possession of Miss Mary Elizabeth MacKay of Sandy Cove and Wolfville, N.S.

16 Many books have been written about this mystery. The most recent is McDonald Hastings The Mary Celeste, London, Michael Joseph 1972. A letter from the Mate of the Dei Gratia is described in E.B. Powell Scrap Book 1968. 17 Sandy Cove Baptist Cemetery—see Appendix III. 18 “Capt. George Nelson Dakin who perished on the Ship Asia off the Nantucket shoals Feb. 21, 1898, Born Dec. 12, 1844 aged 54 years, and his wife Irene who perished on the same ship born May 16, 1844 aged 53 years. Her body was not recovered. The sea shall give up the dead. Lena M. their daughter. Born Feb. 16, 1888 aged 10 years. Gone to Jesus.” Another account of this wreck is given by one of the three survivors in F.W. Wallace, In the Wake of the Wind Ships. 19 F.W. Wallace, Record of Canadian Shipping. 20 Discharge papers and letters of recommendation of Chipman Harvard Saunders—property of the estate of Sadie Saunders, Sandy Cove, See Appendix VII. 21 I. Wilson, H & G p. 159; and William Wood, All Afloat p.136. 22 Joshua Slocum, Sailing Alone around the World. There is a memorial to him on Brier Island. Chapter 7 1

2 3

Lee Crowell was born 1886 and after finishing Grade XI at the Sandy Cove School he went to work in Boston, graduated from Harvard in Engineering, worked on the Panama Canal and in Costa Rica. After service in the Canadian army 1914-18, he went to the Dalhousie Law school and practised law in Bridgetown N.S., 1923 to 1936 when he was appointed a Judge. He now lives in Middleton, N.S. 95 Dr. Pineo is spoken of in the Courier Aug. 27, 1875 and is in the Business Directory for Sandy Cove on Church’s Map 1869. This story was told by Oscar MacKay, son of Alec MacKay in 1974.

177

4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20

21 22 23 24 25

178

Digby Courier June 9, 1891 Burnside was the home of Mr. & Mrs. Conrad Gidney. Digby Courier Dec. 4, 1885. Diary of Nelly Eldridge. Ships Registry—Digby. Digby Courier Dec. 4, 1885. R.B. Powell, Second Scrap Book “Rural store of yesterday”. p.69-80. Digby Courier Mar. 20, 1891. Digby Courier Oct. 23, 1908. Digby Courier Feb. 28, 1910 House now owned by Homer and Margaret (Morehouse) Brayton. R.B. Powell, Scrap Book I p.90-92. Hughie Morehouse was the last Roads Commissioner a Sandy Cove. Bill of Sale for Effie B. Nickerson owner by Hughie Morehouse. Julia Sauer, Fog Magic, New York. Digby Courier, June 3, 1885. Digby Courier, Oct. 30, 1885. See Appendix VIII. Mrs. F. Bancroft described her first visit to Sandy Cove in 1922. She stayed at Hillcote Farm. She returned later with her husband, Dr. Bancroft and in 1928 they bought a farm on the Bay of Fundy shore which is still in the family. Digby Courier, May 22, 1885. Register of Brookside House 1929-1970. Ruth Ward, The Tourists’ Maritime Provinces. Digby Courier, Sept. 19, 1974. Centennial Edition. Lenika Eldridge Ensor went to work for Mrs. Eddie McKay at Bonnie Brae Croft when she was 12. She has Mrs. McKay’s postcard book containing cards from guests sent from all over the world.

26 Directory of the Westport and Digby Telephone Company 1914 Sandy Cove: Barlow Crowell, Demill Dakin, A. Eldridge, Carl Eldridge, E.D. Morehouse, Guy Morehouse, Dr. Rice, Ingraham Saunders, Mrs. Fred Sypher, (central). Records of Maritime and Telegraph Company, J. Furber Marshall, Archivist. 27 Directory of the Maritime Telegraph and Telephone Company, 1946 Sandy Cove: Camp Arcadia, Thomas Carty, William Crowell, Mrs. A.E. Eldridge, Sydney Gidney, Percy Harris, E.D. Morehouse, Dr. F.F. Rice, R.W. Sypherâ&#x20AC;&#x201D;Harbour View Lodge, Gordon Allard. Records of MT & T.

179

A SELECTED BIBLIOGRAPHY Published Sources Armour, Charles and Lackey, Thomas. Sailing Ships of the Maritimes. Toronto: McGraw Hill, Ryerson, 1975. Bartlett, W.S. Frontier Missionary, Memoir of the Life of Rev. John Bailey. Boston: Ide and Dutton, 1853. Bird, Will R. Off Trail in Nova Scotia. Toronto: Ryerson Press, 1956, p.123. (Description of Sandy Cove with a photograph). Brebner, J.B., The Neutral Yankees of Nova Scotia: a Marginal Colony during the American Revolution. New York: Columbia University Press, 1937. Brown, Wallace, The Good Americans: The Loyalists in the American Revolution. New York: Morrow, 1969. Bruce, Harry, Nova Scotia; with 80 colour photographs. Toronto: Hounslow Press, 1975. (Bay of Fundy wharf p.19, Church Hill p.50). Bumstead, J.M., Henry Alline. Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 1971. Canadian Biographical Studies. Calnek, W.A., History of the County of Annapolis. Toronto: W. Briggs, 1897. Campbell, J.R., History of Yarmouth County, 1886. Champlain, Samuel de, Voyages and Exploration (1604–1616), translator Annie Nettleton Bourne, New York: A.S. Barnes & Co., 1906. Careless, J.M.S., Colonists and Canadiens, 1760–1867. Toronto: MacMillan of Canada, 1971. Clark, S.D., Social Development of Canada. Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 1942. Church and Sect in Canada. Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 1948. Creighton, Donald, Dominion of the North: a History of Canada. Toronto: MacMillan, 1957. Dalgleish, Alice, Blue Teapot. MacMillan, 1931. Relief’s Rocker. MacMillan: 1932.

180

Roundabout. MacMillan: 1934. (Children’s books with illustrations.) Dennis, Clara, Down in Nova Scotia. Toronto: Ryerson Press, 1934 (Description of Sandy Cove and Digby Neck with some local stories). De Wolf, Record of Canadian Shipping. Halifax: Press, 1866. Fingard, Judith, The Anglican Design in Loyalist Nova Scotia, 1783–1816. London: Society for the Propagation of the Gospel, 1972. Eardly-Wilmot, John, Historical View of the Commission for inquiry into losses, services and claims of the American Loyalists with an account of Compensation Granted, reprint of 1805 edition. Haliburton, Thomas Chandler, The Old Judge; or Life in the Colony. London: H. Colborn, 1849. Toronto: Clarke, Irwin, 1968, originally printed 1849. How, Joseph, Travel Sketches of Nova Scotia. Edited by M.G. Parks. Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 1973. Hughes, C.C., Tremblay, M.A., Rapaport, R.N., and Leighton A.H., People of Cove and Woodlot. Sterling County Studies No. 2. New York: Basic Books Inc., 1960 (Sociological study of Digby County). Kerr, D.G.G., Historical Atlas of Canada. Don Mills Ont; Nelson, ref. ed., 1975. Lower, Arthur, R.M., Colony to Nation: a History of Canada. Toronto: Longmans, 1946. MacNutt, W.S., The Atlantic Provinces; the Emergence of Colonial Society 1712–1857. Toronto: McClelland and Stewart, 1965. Canadian Centenary Series. Morrison, Samual Eliot, The Oxford History of the American People. Vol. 1: Prehistory to 1789. New York: Oxford University Press, 1965, Mentor, 1972. Morse, W., Acadiensis Nova—New & unpublished documents relating to Acadia. 1935. Murdoch, Beamish, A History of Nova Scotia or Acadie. Halifax: James Barnes, 1867. Nova Scotia Travel Bureau Tour Book, Nova Scotia Dept. of Trade and Industry, printed every year (description of Route 117

181

along Digby Neck; photograph of Sandy Cove on the cover of the 1959 edition). Ontario Bureau of Archives, United Empire Loyalist, Inquiry into losses and services in consequence of this loyalty—Evidence in Canadian Claims Vol. I. Toronto: 1902. Parker, John P., Sails of the Maritimes. North Sydney, N.S.: 1960. Cape Breton Ships and Men. North Sydney N.S.: 1967. Powell, R.B., Scrap Book of Digby Town and Municipality. Digby: 1968. Second Scrapbook of Digby Town and Municipality. Digby: 1973. Rawlyk, G.A., Historical Essays on the Atlantic Provinces. Toronto: McClelland and Stewart, 1967. Carleton Library Series. Russell, Loris, Everyday Life in Colonial Canada. Toronto: Copp Clark, 1973. London, Batsford, 1973. Sauer, Julia, Fog Magic. Viking: 1943. (Childrens’ book about Centreville andWhite’s Cove). The Light at Tern Rock. Viking, 1951 (Children’s book about the lighthouse on Briar Island). Smith, Leonard H., Jr., Index of Persons: Isaiah Wilson’s “County of Digby, Nova Scotia”. Clearwater, Florida: 1974. Sabine, Lorenzo, Biographical Sketches of the Loyalists of the American Revolution. 2 vols. Boston: Little Brown 1864. Port Washington, New York: Kennicut Press, 1966. Slocum, Joshua, Sailing Alone Around the World. New York: Century Co., 1901. London: R. Harte-Davis, 1952. Stephens, David, Forgotten Trades of Nova Scotia. Halifax: Petheric Press, 1973. Stewart, Gordon and Rawlyk, George, A People Highly Favoured of God; Nova Scotia Yankees and the America Revolution. Toronto: MacMillan, 1972. Towne, Charles Hanson, Ambling Through Acadia. Toronto: F.D. Goodchild, 1923 (sentimental account of Sandy Cove with two drawings). Wallace, W. Stewart, The United Empire Loyalist; A Chronicle of the Great Migration. Toronto: Glasgow Brook and Co., 1914. Wallace, Frederick William, Wooden Ships and Iron Men. London: Hodder and Stoughton, 1924.

182

In the Wake of the Wind Ships. London: Hodder and Stoughton, 1927. Record of Canadian Shipping. Toronto: Muson Book Co., 1929 Wood, William, All Afloat; a Chronicle and Craft and Waterways. Toronto: Glasgow Brook and Co., 1914. Chronicles of Canada Series. Wood, Ruth Kedzie, The Touristâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s Maritime Provinces. New York: Dodd Mead and Co., 1915. Wilson, Isaiah W., Geography and History of the County of Digby, Nova Scotia. Halifax: Published by the author, 1900. Mika Studio Belleville Ont., 1972. Periodicals Loyalists in Arms. Loyalist Transport Ships, appointing of Agents including A. Botsford and his report. New Brunswick Historical Society Bulletin No. 4. Passenger List of the Ship Unionâ&#x20AC;&#x201D;New Brunswick Historical Society Bulletin No. 4. Beach, Rebecca. The Reading Loyalists, New Haven Colony Historical Society Papers vol. 7. 1907. Thomas C.E. Dean William Bullock D.D. Nova Scotia Historical Society vol. 36, 1970. Fergusson C.B. Local Government in Nova Scotia, PANS Bulletin No. 17. 1961. Documentary Study of Early Educational Policy. PANS Bulletin No. 1, 1961. Journal of Education and Agriculture. Halifax: Feb. 1860. Stephens, David E., The 1861 Census of Nova Scotia. Nova Scotia Historical Quarterly vol. 3 No. 1 march 1973. Muise, D.A., The Federal Election of 1867 in Nova Scotia. Nova Scotia Historical Society vol. 37, 1970. Fergusson, C.B. Ambrose F. Church and his Maps. Nova Scotia Historical Society vol. 37, 1970.

183

Newspapers Halifax Chronical Herald—1970 Provincial Wesleyan, Aug 17, 1850, April 9, 1857 The Christina Messenger (Halifax) Aug. 10, 1849 Digby Courier—microfilm 1874–1948 PAC, PANS, John Robarts Library, University of Toronto and bound copies 1948–1977 at Digby Courier Office, Digby N.S. Unpublished Sources Digby Neck Consolidated School, General Register of the senior class, 1898. Digby County Registry Office, Weymouth, N.S., Deeds, Wills, Land tansfers, etc., 1782 to the present. Maritime Telegraph and Telephone Co. Archives, Middleton, N.S., Directories, 1914 and 1943, Westport and Digby Telephone Co. Nova Scotia Dept. of Lands and Forests, Grant, “Jacob Brewer and others” Sandy Cove, 1788. Provincial Archives of Nova Scotia, Sensys, 1831 and 1861, Nova Scotia, microfilm; Stephen Fountain’s Account Book, microfilm; Frant “Jacob Brewer and others”, 1788; map of Digby County, 1870, A.F. Church; Petition “St. Mary’s Bay Tidal Lands”, 1815. Public Archives of Canada, Stephen Fountain, Account Book, microfilm; Ship’s Registers for Digby and Weymouth, microfilm; Society for the Proagation of the Gospel, papers and Letter Books relating to the Canadian Mission, microfilm. Sandy Cove Baptist Church, records. Society for the Propagation of the Gospel, London, England, papers and Letter Books relating to the Canadian Mission. Family Papers Crowell, Judge Lee Crowell, Middleton, Nova Scotia.

184

Eldridge, Lenika Eldridge Ensor, Sandy Cove, Stephen Fountain’s Account Book, 1762–1820 also containing Nelly Eldridge’s Diary, 1860–70; Ruth Eldridge, family records. Gidney, Rev. Richard Gidney, Regina, Sask. MacKay, Mary Elizabeth MacKay, Wolfville and Sandy Cove, Voyage of the ship Lancefield, 1890, Register of Brookside House 1929–1970, Discharge Papers of Chipman Harvard Saunders, 1888–1902. Morehouse, Dr. Ronald Morehouse, Sandy Cove, and other members of the Morehouse family.

185

INDEX Addington family 67 Albright family 67 Albright, George 57, 112 Albright, George Coll. 112 Anglican Church 39–44, 66 Baptist Church 44–47, 66, 101 Barr family 67 Beyea, Mrs. Alice 103 Beyea, Burket 51 Beyea, Charles 86 Beyea, Mrs. Charles (Ann) 103 Bishop, Capt. Robt. 47, 106 Black, Rev. Wm. 45 Blackford, Israel 75 Blackford, Martin 16, 17, 18, 42, 47, 54 Blacksmith 20–21, 24, 29, 66, 71, 81, 100 Botsford, Amos 15, 19 Boutilier, Alfred 108 Brewer, Jacob 17 Bullock, Rev. Wm. 43–44 Burns, Billy 94, 106 Burns, Mrs. Billy 103 Burns, Charlie 103, 119 Burns, Jim 85 Burrell, Josiah 17 Busby, Rev. Sampson 47 Camps, Arcadie 122 Camps, Champlain 122 Captains, 89–95, 106 Carty, David 28, 51 Carty, Elijah 28, 55 Carty family 67

186

Carty, James 28, 36, 54 Carty, Joseph 68 Carty, Silas 28, 36 Carty, Stephen 28 Carty, Thomas 28, 36 Carty, William 28 Census 1861 65–67 Church, A.F. 55, 68, 76, 80 Clothing, 32–34 Coggins, Henry 32 Cornwell, Samuel 45 Court of Quarter Session 52–53, 57, 61, 78, 80 Crandall, Peter 47, 48 Croucher, Benjamin C. 68 Crowell, Mrs. Ann 67 Crowell, Colin 51, 80, 87 Crowell, Caroline 85, 97, 98 Crowell, George H. 97, 98 Crowell, George Nelson 28, 85, 88, 97 Crowell, Hiram, 82 Crowell, Lee 63, 97 Crowell, Reuben 88 Crowell, Sarah 28 Crowell, Thomas West, 28, 42, 82 Crowell, Thomas West Jr. 28 Denton family, 27, 67 Denton, Joseph Sr. 32, 47 Dickson or Dixon, John 12, 17 Dickson or Dixon, James 17 Dickson or Dixon, Jane 17 Dickson or Dixon, Margaret, 17 Dakin, Blair, 104

Dakin, deMiIl, 104 Dakin family 67 Dakin, John Wentworth (Wint) 35, 84, 90, 91, 104 Dakin, Louisa 91 Dakin, Nelson 91–93 Dakin, Thomas 59, 80 Dakin, Sophia 91 Dakin, Warren, 91 Dakin, Wallace, 91 Dunn, Cervantes, 104 Electricity 116 Ensor, Lenika Eldridge, 22–23 Eldridge, Abner 69, 72 Eldridge, Adelaide 23 Eldridge, Albert 69, 72, 74, 85 Eldridge, Amasa 101, 115, 117 Eldridge, Carolone (Cad) 103 Eldridge, Charles 23 Eldridge, Clare 73, 116 Eldridge, Cynthia 23 Eldridge, Eliza 23 Eldridge family 67, 89 Eldridge, George 23, 55 Eldridge, Harriet 23 Eldridge, Harvey 93 Eldridge, Harvard (H.) 68 Eldridge, Holland 80, 104 Eldridge, Jane 23, 71 Eldridge, John 87, 93, 110 Eldridge, John Squires 22, 23, 48, 49, .51, 53, 60, 72, 87 Eldridge, Lucinda 23 Eldridge, Magellan 71, 75, 103 Eldridge, Mary 68, 115 Eldridge, Mary Eliza 69, 85 Eldridge, Matthew 22, 23, 31, 34, 38, 52, 68 Eldridge, Nancy 71, 72 Eldridge, Nelly 69–75 Eldridge, Sally 23

Eldridge, Sarah Ann 69 Eldridge, Shubel 23 Eldridge, Squires 23 Eldridge, Stephen F. 22, 36, 68, 71, 73 Eldridge, William 23 Farrow family 67 Farrow, Isaac 68, 100 Farming 26, 28–29, 66, 98–99 Ferries 36–37, 53, 54, 93, 106, 115 Fishing 36, 66, 70, 71, 77, 80, 108, 121 Flax 26, 29, 32 Foster, Mrs, Rosco 103 Fountain, Sarah 36 Fountain, Stephen 16, 17, 19, 20–22, 24–25, 28, 38, 40, 42, 46, 53, 54, 56, 103 Frost family 27, 67 Funerals 101 Gidney, A.M. 68 Gidney, Angus 49, 50 Gidney, Calvin 68 Gidney, Conrad 102 Gidney family 27, 32, 67 Gidney, Joseph 27, 42 Gidney, Priscilla 71 Gidney, Sidney 103 Gidney, Mrs. Wilfred 119 Gidney, William 71 Graham family 27 Hamilton, Archibald 42 Hamilton, Henry 31, 42 Hamilton, Thomas 12 Harris family 67 Harris, Francis 16 17, 19, 26, 38, 52, 59 Harris, Jessie 116 Harris, Percy 116 Harris, Peter 24, 25, 26, 46, 47 Harris, Stephen 38

187

Hersey family 67 Horses 21, 29, 99–100 Holmes family 67 Housekeeping 29–31, 69–71 Hunting 30, 101 Inns 53, 56, 114 Iron mine 25–26 Irvine, Owen 104 Jerome, 57–58 Jeffrey, Ann 85, 103 Jeffrey, Charles 85 Jeffrey, Fenwick 119, 121 Jeffrey, Frank 119 Jeffrey, Floyd 86, 100 Jeffrey, June 119 Jeffrey, Laura 119 Jeffrey, Spurgeon 86 Johnson, Addie 116 Johnson, Collins 68 Johnson family 67 Johnson, Harry 116 Jones, John 17, 19, 24, 38 Justice of the Peace 26, 52, 53, 65 Kerr, William 17 Leary family 67, 71 Leary, John 68, 85, 86 Leary, William, 105, 106 Local government 52–60, 78 Lumbering 66, 69, 81 Mail 37, 55, 104, 107 Medlar family 67 Merritt, Gilbert Sr. 28 Merritt, Gilbert Jr. 72 Merritt, James 84, 88 Merritt, John 27, 51, 82 Merritt, Lemuel 51 Methodist Church 44–45, 47–51, 66, 75, 101 Mills, carding 54, 71 Mills, grist 27 Mills, lumber 24–25, 27, 66

188

Mitchell, Arthur 71, 72, 73, 85, 87 Mitchell family 67 Mitchell, Isabella 85 Mitchell, James 85, 106 Mitchell, Jane 71, 85 Mitchell, Mary 85 Mitchell, Mary Eliza 72, 73, 85 Money 37, 81 Morehouse, Addie 102 Morehouse, Augustus 82 Morehouse, Austin 109 Morehouse, Azuba 93 Morehouse, Bertha 63 Morehouse, Bertram, 64 Morehouse, Charles 51, 68, 84, 85, 86, 87 Morehouse, Cutler 74 Morehouse, Daniel 23 Morehouse, Danny 111 Morehouse, Daniel Reed 91 Morehouse, Ernest 104, 108, 109 Morehouse family 67 Morehouse farm 29, 54 Morehouse, Frederick 63 Morehouse, Gershom 80 Morehouse, George A. 102 Morehouse, George E. 84, 102, 106 Morehouse, Guy 107 Morehouse, Harry 93 Morehouse, Harpur 106 Morehouse, Henry 88, 93, 94, 100, 104, 105 Morehouse, Hugh 86, 93, 109 Morehouse, Jack 114 Morehouse, Jacob Ed. 85 Morehouse, James 23, 55 Morehouse, James H. 51 Morehouse, Jean 116 Morehouse, John 17, 19, 22, 23–26, 30, 31, 34 38, 42, 52, 53, 55, 59, 80

Morehouse, John Jr. 31. 38, 62, 82, 83 Morehouse, Mrs. John Jr. 67 Morehouse, John Jones 62,83 Morehouse, Jonathan 23 Morehouse, Jones 24, 38, 51, 53, 55, 56, 80, 84, 85, 88, 106 Morehouse, Jones Hanford 51, 68, 74, 84, 85, 87, 88, 102, 103, 114 Morehouse, Joseph 51, 83 Morehouse, Lemuel 37, 55 Morehouse, Lemuel J. 102, 103 Morehouse, Lena 63 Morehouse, Louisa 84 Morehouse, Mary 23, 24 Morehouse, Matthew 82 Morehouse, Osborne 116 Morehouse, Oscar 93 Morehouse, Ronald 93 Morehouse, Reuben 102 Morehouse, Samuel 22, 51, 83, 91 Morehouse, Terah 100 Morehouse, William 93 Morse family 67 Morse, John Chipman, 47–48, 49, 51, 68, 75, 101, 105 Morton family 67 Morton, William 51 McIntosh, Alex 38 MacKay, Alex 100, 101 MacKay, Anna 103 MacKay, Alpharetta (Etta) 100, 103 MacKay, Oscar 100 MacKay, Sarah Jane (Sadie) 94, 99, 116 McKay, Eddie 106, 115 McKay, Walker 106 McKay, William 38 McNeil family 67 McNutt, Rev. A. 47 New Lights 44–46

Newspapers 79 Oxen 29, 36, 66, 71, 80, 98–99 Peters, Maurice 17, 19, 46, 47, 58, 59 Pineo, J. F. Dr. 68, 100 Politics 75–78, 104, 105 The Poor 53, 57–58 Prince Wm. Henry Cove 42 Raymond, Simeon 17, 19, 21, 35, 59 Rice, Dr. Frank 100, 105 Rice, Mrs. Frank 103 Rice, Bert 112 Roads 34, 53–55, 107–8 Roman Catholics 66 Ross, Alpharetta 100 Ross, Angus 38 Ross, Charity 100 Ross, Donald 38 Rum 31, 56, 98, 102 Saunders, Billey 16, 17, 19, 26–27, 32, 52 Saunders, Charles 87 Saunders, Chipman 59, 83, 94, 95, 99–100, 106, 116 Saunders, Fenwick 106 Saunders, F.O. (Burr) 106 Saunders, Herbert 106 Saunders, John 26, 27, 31, 38 Saunders, John A. 81, 87 Saunders, Lemuel Sr. 27, 31, 32, 33, 87 Saunders, Lemuel, Jr. 111 Saunders, Rodney 106 Saunders, Ruth 26, 38 Saunders, Sadie 83, 94, 95 Saunders, Sarah Ann 71 Saunders, William Sr. 27 Saunders, William Jr. 50, 53, 60 Saunders, William 87 Saunders, Mrs. William 103

189

Schools 49–50, 53, 58–64, 121 Sheep 32, 70,98 Shipbuilding 34–35, 66, 70, 72, 80–88 Ships 77, 80–96 Shipwrecks 74, 75, 82, 109–111 Shoemaker 26 Sickness 72 Slocum, Capt. Joshua 95 Smith, Ben 111–112 Smith family 67 Smith, Liefy 107, 111–112 Snow family 67 Snow, Mrs. Cutler 103 Society for the Propagation of the Gospel 39–40, 43, 60 Soulis, Daniel 17 Spinning 26, 32, 69, 98 Squires, Mary 21, 22 Squires, Seth 21 Squires, Sarah 21 Stage coach 56, 114 Stanton family 67 Stanton, James 16, 17 Steam ships 74, 95 Stewart, John 17 Stewart, Matthew 17 Stores 31–32, 53, 95, 102, 104 Sypher, Fred 105, 114 Sypher, Mrs. Fred 119 Sypher, Glennie 114 Sypher, Reginald 114 Tebo family 67 Telegraph 74, 78 Teachers, Barbank Wm. 58 Teachers, Blackadar, Mrs. 62 Teachers, Gay Wm. 58, 59 Teachers, Dalton J. 60 Teachers, Gidney A. 49, 50, 61 Teachers, Randall J. 60 Telephone 78, 97, 105, 111, 118–119

190

Temperance 47, 56, 75 Tidd family 27 Thomas family 67 Titus family 67 Titus, Isaac 27 Titus, Jacob 34 Titus, James, 34 Titus, Loce 34 Tourists 113–117 Towner, Rev. Enoch 47 Trask, Capt. Elkanah 49 Trask family 67, 71 Trask, Garfield 104 Trask, Gloria 119 Trask, Weldon 119 Trading 81, 86, 89, 106–107 Viets, Rev. Roger 22, 37, 40–43 Viets, Rev, Roger Jr. 43 Warne, Gertrude 111, 119 Weaving 23, 26, 27, 32, 33, 66, 70, 98 Weddings 71, 102 Westcott family 27 Westcott, Stephen 38, 59 Westcott, Thomas 30, 38 Wharves 36, 80, 105 Williams, Capt. Fred 38 Wilson, Isaiah 11–12, 55–56 Wilson, William 42 Wright, John 47 Women 29, 63, 68–73, 98, 103, 120 Young family 67

191

ABOUT THE AUTHOR Mary Kate Bull was born in Ottawa, the daughter of an Ontario father and a Nova Scotian mother. She went to Sandy Cove first in 1933 and still spends her summers there with her four sons. Henry Osler Bull is the authorâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s eldest son. He was born in 1949 in Calgary, Alberta, educated in Cobourg, Ontario and at Trinity College School, Port Hope. He studied art under Paavo Airola, David Blackwood and at the New School of Art, Toronto, under Gordon Raynor and Robert Markle. He lives in Vancouver.

192