Notes
from Laurene Shewan
- Murrille, the son of Thornton and Mamie Maude,
was the family historian from Gaspereau Mountain.
He worked for the power company in Halifax
and spent his weekends at home in Gaspereau.
All of these items were given to Keith
Brown at Murrille's death. Keith generously
allowed us to have them, so we could share them.
- Edgar James Schofield, was born 1882 in Gaspereau
and died in Trinidad in 1944.
- Mamie Maude is the daughter of Edgar Oberon
Schofield and Emily Morine. She is the sister of
Edgar James and the wife of Thornton Schofield,
who died in France in WWI.
- Rosetta Eagles and her husband, James Schofield
are the parents of Edgar Oberon Schofield.
Berwick Register,
August 9, 1922
The Nova Scotian
Skipper
(A. H. Chute in Blackwoods)
Shipbuilding was indigenous to the soil of
the Bluenose country. They, the New Englanders and the
Scandinavians, were the only people who could farm, cut
timber, build a ship, load her with their own produce, and
sail to the ends of the seven seas. Those were wonderful days
for Nova Scotia, when in answering the call of the sea her
sons followed their true vocation. At the same time that
Donald MacKay, by his incomparable clippers, was adding
lustre to his birthplace, Samuel Cunard, a native of Halifax,
was sending out from his home city the first of the trans-Atlantic
packets, whose house-flag in later day was destined to lead
the world. Everywhere there was the presage of a glorious
future. Joseph Howe, Canada’s orator of that heroic age,
said, "I am neither a prophet nor the son of a prophet,
and my hair may be white with age before this prophecy is
realized, but I tell you the day will come when Nova Scotia,
small as she is, will maintain half a million men upon the
sea."
This irresistible turning of the seadogs to
the ocean is illustrated in a tale my grandfather was wont to
tell. Away back on the South Mountain in Nova Scotia was an
old farmer named Schofield. These boys grew
up on their inland farm, far from the sight or sound of the
ocean. Before them stretched out the Gaspereau and Cornwallis
Valleys, fragrant with sixty miles of apple blossoms in the
springtime, crimson and gold in the autumn. Across their
farthest sky-line the grim North Mountain raised an
impenetrable barrier between their sheltered agricultural
pursuits and the blue of the maritime world. Not one of these
six sons ever saw the sea till he grew up. But as soon as
each lad came to responsible years, he shouldered his pack
and left for the nearest port in search of a ship.
My grandfather, who was the clergyman in
that vast parish between the mountains came one day to the Schofield
home to find the old man alone and in tears. His
last son, Orlando, a boy of sixteen, had
departed.
As a ship was being built in one of the
Nova Scotian shipyards, the small boys of the village were
forever clambering over the frame. Every young dare devil
wanted to climb aloft and place his cap on the top-mast ball.
Thus long before they went to sea, they came to know a ship
in all her parts, from stem to stern, from keel to truck.
When a new ship sailed on her maiden voyage
one of these small boys generally managed to go with her. And
before many years the same small boy, grown into manhood,
would be standing in the place of the master.
The Nova Scotian captains represented in a
rare degree, the ideal union of strength and intelligence. In
their bodies was the iron of a pioneer stock, while their
minds were sedulously cultivated. This cultivation of the
mind was the key to their rapid promotion. No seamen ever got
their master’s papers earlier than they.
In the village of Grand Pre, just off Minas
Basin, there were at one time twenty able-bodied seamen
attending the village school, sitting side by side with the
village children. These young seamen had some ashore for the
winter, and under the teacher, Mr. Somerville, they were
engaged in wrestling with Bowditch’s "Seamanship"
and the Royal Readers. This village school in Grand Pre was
typical of many others.
Why did the Bluenose skipper leave the sea?
Because of the passing of the sailing-ship is commonly given
as the reason, but that is superficial. The same men who
gained our renown in sail would have gained us an equal
renown in steam.
The Bluenose skippers and the Yankee
captains alike turned from their maritime empire because they
lost the vision of the sea. The railroads, the prairie farms,
and the wealth of an opening West allured them, and they
turned their backs upon blue water.
