Wednesday Evening, August 31, 1927
Harbourville - By - The - Sea
The terrible storm of Wednesday of last week, sure hit us just about as hard as it could, although there were no lives lost. The whole surfacing of the Shore Boulevard, accompanied by tons of earth off the mountain side, was carried down onto the flat, and what was a lovely boulevard before the storm, was a quagmire of mud. On the Hamilton Boulevard, what is known as the Curry bridge across the brook, was badly damaged, in fact part of it carried away, leaving a gap of about 15 feet before the rest of the bridge could be reached, and what was left of it was absolutely dangerous. Just as soon as morning came after the storm, F. O. Ayer and Emmerson Spicer got to work and constructed a barricade at each end of the bridge, and when night came protected same with lighted lanterns. It also carried off Curry’s private bridge leading across the brook to their orchard, and came within an ace of carrying away the Curry barn. One or two outhouses above the old Curry bridge were also carried away and never seen again.
Emmerson Spicer is probably the heaviest loser here, as his fish house, with its entire contents, such as cured fish, five or six bags of salt, five hundred feet of lumber, as well as a lot of other things, disappeared in the flood, and was a total loss. He estimates the value at one hundred dollars.
Ed. Anderson lost a lot of lumber that he was hauling to his home, also window casings, but it is understood he recovered a part of it. The Dixon motor boat had a close call right in the harbor, and was left cross-wise of the raging brook when the gale subsided. The Dixons had a dory go adrift and out of the harbor, and that was the last seen of it, except that they found her bow, with rope attached, down the bay. All communication between Harborville and Burlington was cut off, as the bridge at Turner Brook also went out. The going out of these bridges should by this time teach our highway officials a lesson. Money enough has already been spent replacing that Curry bridge after every out of the way flood to twice pay for an iron bridge, placed high enough so the flooded brook could not carry it away. Unless I am misinformed that brook runs for nearly seven miles – as the brook twists – at the bottom of a narrow valley between two banks at least seventy-five feet high. There is an enormous amount of water comes down off those sides every time it rains, and when we have a storm like the one of last week it comes in such an avalanche that no wooden bridge ever could stand it.
To the credit of the road men, it must be said that they were promptly on the job on Friday and with every available man and team were at work replacing that bridge. The automobile yard at the Park was covered with a foot of mud, and a whole section of the side hill came rushing down carrying trees and everything else with it, and buried the yard. Their driveway was also washed out clean down to the shore. Lloyd Aker was up at daylight Thursday morning, to begin work on the road leading up to the Park, and by night had it in good condition once more for cars, and is now digging out the yard in the rear of the buildings. Another great worker in repairing damages was D. Boyd Parker, who put in two good hard days work on Thursday an Friday, in getting rid of the mud and stuff that had come down the Shore Boulevard, and buried the approaches to his house and store and Post Office under a foot of mud. The bar, in the harbor, had a lot of it sliced off and carried out into the bay, so that now for the entire length of the west wharf we have a natural cradle wide enough to berth almost any size vessel that might want to lie here. Fortunately the Given Road, or what is now known as the Berwick-Harborville highway, sustained but little damage. The new work, only recently completed by Roadmaster Gould, coming into Harborville stood the "gaff" in splendid shape, once more proving that a real ditch alongside of a highway is one of the surest safeguards against "washouts." When I saw the miniature Niagara Falls shooting out from the culvert at the bottom of that ditch into the harbor off the East wharf, I thought of what would have happened to that road if the ditch had not been there.
After all is said and done politics develops conditions that, to say the least, are simply wonderful, let alone most darn foolish.
Our Liberal friends had a great meeting one day last week, at Annapolis, and of course some of our leading Liberals over here went, among them a County official and a Government official, and immediately there was a roar went up at the very idea of these men mixing in politics. Why should they not? The county official will likely be a candidate for re-election next year, and he would be one decided lunkhead if he did not keep in touch with his party and its supporters. While the other holds a Government office, is that any reason why he should be debarred from attending the political meetings of his party or taking part in its deliberations? The Government surely does not want men as officials who are behind the times, who shut themselves up in their offices, and are even afraid to read the daily papers for fear of giving offense. There is a vast difference between being an active participant in an election or at other times and simply showing his allegiance to his party. Every man has a legal right to his own opinions, political or otherwise, but a whole lot of people don’t seem to know it. Over in Waterville, not satisfied with the big job they have on their hands in making their 1928 Home-Week a success, they are working tooth and nail in trying to remove an official who is not only a veteran with a leg over in France, but who has also left a few of his immediate family under the lilies of France. I happen to know the official, and no one could ever make me believe that so quiet and unassuming a man as I know him to be could ever be a partisan in political matters or any other. Damn politics, anyway.
Well, you have had another annual Memorial Service in your town, and doubtless heartfelt addresses were made in memory of the boys who laid down their lives, and it’s all to the good, but why not some attention to the hundred of maimed, physically and mentally that we still have with us? Men whom neither we as a people, not the government have ever done anything for. We have two over here, and one of them was called on the phone on Saturday night and urged to come over and help with the meeting. They were told that he had no means of getting to Berwick unless he walked; could not even earn enough to support himself let alone have conveniences for travelling. Many a Berwick returned man owns his own car. Did some of them volunteer to run over and take our three veterans, - mind you real veterans – who fought in the trenches until disabled for further trench duty? Nary a one. Memorial services cost darn little cash but it would take half a dollar’s worth of gas to come to Harbourville and take over a veteran. Our hearts need no memorial services to remember our dead, but the living do need us and all the influence we can exert in their behalf.
Our summer bungalow visitors have all left us for home excepting our editor, and so Harbourville is lonely and newsless.