(Research by Phil
Vogler, Berwick, NS)
Wednesday Evening,
October 26, 1927
Little Village Of Morden
Has Romantic History
Played Prominent
Part As Setting For Early Struggle of Acadians
– Lone Stone Cross Is Now Only Link With the Past.
Old postcard
courtesy of Murray Saunders July ? (looks like 192?) 2 cent
stamp
(By C. R. Gould in Halifax
Herald)
In the year of the anniversary of
Confederation hitherto little known towns and villages of our
expansive Dominion have come into a certain prominence due
both to a re-awakening of their natural charms and to a
revival of interest in their historical properties. One of
these little villages comes into the mind’s recollection
at a period when interest casts a glamour, sixty years old,
over a time when east and west were united, English and
French joined together, to weld into one unity what we term
the Dominion of Canada.
This little village in question, nestling
along the Nova Scotia shore of the rock-bound Bay of Fundy,
has gained some prominence by association with another
celebration.
It was only a few weeks ago that the
French-Canadians of Quebec, New Brunswick and Nova Scotia
congregated in the far-famed Acadian land to pay homage to
their ancestors, whose persecution in an strengthening band
of fellowship and harmony that binds two peoples of different
tongues, English and French, into the closest sort of
concord. Grand Pre was the locality chosen by Mr. Henri
Bourassa and his party at the culmination of their purpose,
but that does not destroy the glamour hovering over the
little village of Morden, removed some thirty-five miles from
the land of Evangeline, and the scene of one of the earliest
tragedies connected with the French Canadian people.
Sheerest Beauty
In summer and in the golden-tinted autumn
the Bay, as it is affectionately termed, presents a scene of
sheerest beauty. The water changes with the tide, but at all
times it exhibits an expanse of dazzling blue, pulsating and
dancing with the energy of the sun. At its setting the
tree-topped cliffs emanate a spectacle of gold and emerald.
On the Nova Scotian side, indentations run into the land
affording glimpses of lush little hollows resplendent with
the purple of early springtime columbine, or the golden glory
of the later goldenrod. In one of these little coves,
scarcely glimpsed from the sea, lies Morden, surrounded by a
locally popular in legend and entrancing to the teller of
stories. It stretches along the rim of the bay, not more than
a mile in length, modern as any coast village, so that it is
with surprise that the tourist hears of its undying past.
Today its only link with history is a cross
of varicolored stone standing rigid and sentinel-like on one
of its rocky promontories, yet to them who are aware of its
silent remembrance it is eloquent enough reminder of a tale
of strife.
It was in the autumn of 1755, at a time
that England and France were heavily waging war, that an
intrepid body of a two score people left behind them their
fertile fields and rolling champaigns, like the mysterious
lemming, to set their faces seaward.
It was around the old French Fort of Port
Royal, lately commanded by the victorious English forces,
that the story begins. Impossible as it is to reconstruct the
scene, one can imagine the tardiness of spirit, prompted by
the sight of a prosperous countryside of Acadian farms and
habitant holdings, that advocated a program of strong
resistance or else utter passiveness.
Seek Protection
At any rate, nearly all of the habitant
farmers of Belleisle, so firmly attached to their land a
little remote from Port Royal, agreed that some measure of
protection had to be adopted to combat the import of the
message which had come to them in the season of harvest when
the sheen of dew is on the corn blade and the red of the
maple shouts its proclamation of winter.
It had come by the way of the Annapolis
River, this message for the peace-loving inhabitants of
Belleisle. A canoe, well manned by stalwart Indians, had
swept westward down the stream to convey the intelligence
that Grand Pre was in the hands of the English enemy, and to
add the information that their settlement was to be the next
to follow the same course of destiny.
These Indians were of a tribe friendly with
the French and many times had aided the struggling Acadians.
Undoubtedly they described the situation in emphatic if
somewhat cryptic terms, striking terror and fear into the
habitant heart as the Acadian compared his fate with that of
his compatriot at Grand Pre.
It was not a pleasant prospect for the
bourgeois of Belleisle to picture his dependents and himself
upon the treacherous seas, buffeted by the gales of autumn.
This, said the Micmacs, had been the part the villagers of
Grand Pre had played in the universal scheme of things.
The news spread rapidly as ill news had a
habit of doing. In Upper Granville, in the region known as
Belleisle, a meeting was called whereby the people were to
prepare a program of resistance. Many were the arguments for
passivity, but the fervant spirit of the Roman Catholic
Church and a high note of intense patriotism impregnated the
majority with the desire to break any oath of allegiance that
they may have been forced to adopt at any earlier period.
Consequently, resistance was the keynote of the assembly, all
it awaited was a leader.
Pierre Melanson
At any time of public strife, leaders of
men arise to exhibit their nearer alliance with divinity or
to portray the play of a mind of super-average mental
capacity. Such a man was Pierre Melanson, whose name was to
be perpetuated to the present day. Of his ancestry, one can
find little, although an account of Rameau de Saint Pire in
Uni Colonie Feodale in Amerique L’Acadie publishes a
detailed account of habitant life in the seventeenth century.
Rameau mentions an inhabitant of Port Royal, residing there
in 1680, by the name of Pierre Melanson, a tailor as well as
a farmer, who enjoyed the prosperity of both professions
afforded him. Melanson, so the account continues, was a man
of forty-five, and the father of five children.
It further appears that he was of a morose
nature, upon occasion churlish, yet fixed with a purpose of
achievement. This prompted him to remove his effects to Grand
Pre where greater opportunity was offered him, land more
easily tilled and of a greater fertility. Melanson then, we
are told, went eastward, abandoning friends, relatives and
old associations for the high light of ambition.
At this time of stress in 1755, it was a
Melanson who rose to take the rod of authority in hand in an
attempt to guide his people to security. If not a son of the
Pierre Melanson, who immigrated, this figure of dauntliness
must have been a near relative. For, as it is told, the
Pierre Melanson, of Belleisle, displayed the same moroseness,
the same aloofness, and the same tenacity of purpose that had
marked his ancestors at Grand Pre. This Melanson is reputed
to have been a well known figure in the neighborhood, so his
was the plausable leadership.
Only a man conversant with forest way, the
roaring streams and the still depths, the paths of traffic,
east and west, could hope to be fortunate enough to lead an
unfortunate colony eastward to the chosen goal. The plan, it
is apparent, included Blomidon as a refuge, thence ships to
transport the flock across the Bay of Fundy to New Brunswick,
where friends would be found in similar condition, or else
more worthy of rendering assistance.
A New Trail
Melanson realized that to follow the
ordinary trails was to court disaster. Wise man that he was,
he decided to blaze a new trail before him, some distance
north of the Annapolis river and north of the narrow horse
path. As their progress was to be on foot, Melanson saw the
advantage of leaving behind all but the prime necessities of
life.
According to legend and authentic
information the small band of stricken fugitives travelled
three weeks marked by distress and the pangs of hunger. Many
fell by the wayside overcome by the rigour of the march and
the heat of the day. Game and fish were shot and caught along
the virgin trail, but even these were inadequate to still the
hunger that beset all.
At length came the day when the small party
of loyal Acadians, with the indomitable Pierre Melanson at
its head, encamped a few miles west of the existing village
of Auburn.
At the present date the site chosen is one
unattractive to the eye, a long monotonous stretch of low
shrubs and sand dunes that appear devoid of beauty. But to
the oncomers of a day long past it must have impressed itself
as a haven and a refuge for the night.
News filtered through to Melanson of the
deportation of his countrymen of Grand Pre and Fort Louis and
it caused him to hastily change his course. Instead of
proceeding to Blomidon he adopted a new procedure. This was
to strike north toward the North Mountain, as the ridge
abutting the Bay of Fundy along the Annapolis River is
called, then to scale its short, steep height, journeying to
the Bay, then across the water to Chignecto on the opposite
shore, where an asylum of peace was certain to be found.
But before he turned perpendicularly from
his former trail, Melanson had a sad duty to perform. During
the short stay on the plain, disease and contagion had worked
their will. So the French Burying Ground the spot where
Melanson interred loved ones and relatives, remains
traditional as making one of the worst phases of the
expulsion of the French. It is still a menacing flat of level
country, as if the dead had left their own memorial.
Near Destination
Finally the old, but daring leader roused
his charge and set out for the Cobalt-tinted waters of the
Bay. Although no substantial evidence has been left to
reconstruct the slow march, it is evident that its general
direction must have corresponded roughly to the road that
runs from the old Church of England at Auburn through the
cross roads now called Welton’s Corner, to the beautiful
sea village of Morden.
So Melanson reached his proposed camping
ground and proceeded to arrange for a winter’s stay.
Before him and his people was the menacing bulk of the Isle
Haut, but beyond that was an egress, a sealane that led to
safety and a peace of mind. English schooners, with the
running of the tides, were coasting up and down the bay, but
so sheltered was the little green covered cove into which old
Pierre had directed his flock that detection was well-nigh
impossible.
Behind them were heavily wooded slopes of
evergreens spicing the air with odor of their balsom. The
site that provided them with breathing space, as it is today,
only slightly modified, was a rocky formation stretching far
out into the sea, black and forbidding, yet in the very
neutrality of its coloring containing nothing to catch the
eye of a searching enemy schooner.
The season that the habitants spent there
under the shadow of the cliff has by another writer been
aptly called the Black Winter. To quote is not amiss:
"The last tidings brought them late in the autumn was
that all the Canadian homes had been burned. Disease dogged
their steps from the sand dunes to their cold camps on the
shore. Death claimed more victims. Close by the shore,
opposite their camps, was an open space, green till covered
by the snow. There they dug more graves for their fallen
companions."
Thinning Ranks
Then the never-flagging Pierre enacted a
roll that has perpetuated his name in history. Death and
disease had stalked his companions throughout the long, black
winter. Food was scarce; long since had the small stock of
provision brought from Belleisle been consumed.
Consequently, all had been forced to
subsist on the spoils of the forest, the world of game and
fish. But even these items of diet became scarce as a
starving clan depended more and more upon them to keep the
body alive. Long before spring came, the shell fish that
harboured along the rocks of the Point, in the crevices and
water-swept crannies were practically the sole article of
food.
They called them mussels, and by the advent
of spring, a great heap of bleaching shells spoke eloquently
of the struggle for maintenance of life. Disaster was not
assuaged even then, for, it is said, their last source of
food, the shell fish, began to disappear, and the refugees of
the Point found death had almost surrounded them. The mussels
were longer to find and required more diligent search. What
were they to do?
(Continued next week)
November 2nd, 1927
Village Of Morden
Has Romantic History
(Continued from last week)
Across the Bay, the roaring rip of tidal
wave with the fresh impetus of spring upon it, was the
opposite shore, Chignecto, with its promise of food and
shelter, Pierre Melanson, scarcely surviving the distress of
his people and his own personal suffering, realized that to
remain at the Point was to court calamity. Yet in between was
the plough of the breaking water and the grim warden of the
Bay, the Isle Haut.
Just as hope was giving way to despair
however, a lone Indian and a slight, wiry boy rounded the
Point and beached upon the gravel beneath the towering red
and gold cliffs. Apparently they had heard in some manner of
the plight of the refugees and desired to lend them
encouragement and aid.
Legend tells the rest of this story. How
the old Indian assured the starving Acadians of the help that
would come to them if only the sympathizers on the other
shore were aware of their condition.
It was a grim spectacle, however, the band
of struggling men, women and children clinging to the last
vestige of hope, and the ancient redskin explaining to them
their only means of future livelihood. He would have to be a
dauntless individual who would brave the rage of the loosened
floods, surmount the rushing wave to gain Chignecto shore.
Once again it was the old, whiteheaded
Pierre who found a means to evade the difficulties. Legend
has it that at the time he was ill, undergoing the effects of
a fatal malady. But such was the condition of his company
with its majority of women and children and the greater part
of the men woodsmen and hunters rather than seamen, that
Pierre felt that he himself was the only one suitable to
undertake the expedition. Legend has it that he set out upon
the short and fateful voyage with the young Indian stripling
as his sole companion.
They tell of the pathetic parting at the
Point – the black bulk of rock with the services and
depressions caused by the fierce onslaught of water and the
friction of the sand; the hurtling blocks of ice that chocked
the passage to the cove; the swaying trees of fir and spruce
that paralleled the small but swollen stream leaping to lose
itself upon the beach. It was a situation that must have
struck terror to many hearts.
It was a death-defying undertaking, but, we
are told the French Pierre and the young Indian lad navigated
the thirteen miles, that stretch between the Point and the
Isle Haut. On the other side hidden from the watchers on the
Nova Scotian shore, on a sandy beach, the pair shelved their
canoe on the island that had appeared so formidable from
afar.
They rested awhile, then fought their way
onward, content to assail the tide if only to reach their
destination. The shore loomed in sight, eloquent with
welcome. There, in Chignecto, Pierre related the cause of his
adventurous struggle across the bay with the result that the
Micmacs and Frenchmen of the district set out immediately to
relieve the ones left behind.
Yet, according to story, Pierre Melanson,
arriving at the Point, surrounded by his small group died
from the effects of the exposure. Thus did he culminate in
the supreme manner an act of supreme bravery. As one may
imagine it, many were the tears shed on the distant strand
for the old hunter, their leader. Still, time could not be
wasted in mourning. For at the back of them, behind the
mountains, down in the valley, guided by the shining
Annapolis River was the vital, if hostile menace of the
English forces.
Danger Ahead
Facing them was the growing possibility
that with the coming of spring and the unchecking of the
waters, some English vessel would be prompted to poke its
nose in the sheltered cove that we today call Morden.
So behind them the fugitives left the site
of a difficult winter’s encampment. There in various
heaps were the bones of moose, deer, and game of the forest,
whitened by the winter snow and the spring rain. There, at
one side, was the pile of mussel shells that told their tale
of the means taken to outwit death by hunger. And at the
Point was a hallowed spot, here and there mounds packed firm
by the snow, others, bearing traces of recent excavation.
It was the latest place, the burying ground
of the refugee habitants. It could not be left behind without
some mark to signify the tragedy of it. Some thoughtful mind
conceived the idea of planting a cross upon the ground, a
reminder to passing ships.
So in the spring of 1756 was erected the
first wooden cross. It was fashioned of the soft white
driftwood from the beach, in itself bearing the traces of
conflict with the sea, and becoming in this way a spirited
witness of protection for the dead. Thus the cross remained
for many years, alone and solitary against the leaden sea
with the encroaching forest creeping upon it, its only
companions the gulls that wheeled along the shore.
Finally the Point was rediscovered. A few
Indians haunted it throughout the year, finding along the
bluff alder shoots which they turned into baskets of finest
weave. Soon settlers found their way up the mountain slopes
and sown to the little inlet. By the beginning of the past
century a large number of the settlers of the valley invaded
the quiet fastness of the North Mountain, finding at the
shore a means of communication by water with the other
provincial settlements. Among the earliest families at the
cove, the settlers of whom were by now nearly all English,
was one by the name of Orpin.
Grants Of Land
In the records of the Aylesford town
grantee book, revealing the various grants of land bestowed
by the English crown, is the name of John Moore Orpin, who
around 1800 was given a tract of land up on the southern
slope of the North Mountain.
His son, John E. Orpin, has uttered various
accounts of the cross erected by the fugitives supplementing
in great detail what a later period has revealed.
To quote from a message left by the late
Mr. Orpin, referring to 1815: "I saw on the Point a
cross about seven feet high which was called by everybody the
French Cross. I have seen the cross since 1815, dozen of
times; in 1820 it still stood. It stood close by the shore,
on the extreme point, but the waves have washed the spot
bare, and the spot where it stood is now on a ledge of rocks,
a few feet from the shore."
The scourge of time had worked havoc upon
the cross so erected by the Acadians, who, so many years
previously had escaped to the Chignecto shore. But in 1887 a
new cross was executed by John Orpin, its exterior painted by
a George Fail, and the inscription applied by Mr. Thomas
Jones, whose descendents still live in Morden. Of necessity,
due to the force of the tide, the promoters of this second
emblem were forced to plant it some distance back from the
original site, so that the old location is now surrounded by
water.
The impression exists that the burying
ground of the descendents of Pierre Melanson is today
occupied by a row of summer cottages and contains the grounds
of the Catholic Glebe house. Be that as it may, the second
cross stood a few feet from its original location, well into
the twentieth century.
Historic Value
Then in 1925, a number of the citizens of
the village remarked that the old cross put up by John Orpin
was showing the ravages of time, decaying in its timbers and
tottering from its base. The final result was that the same
year, effort was expended to place there, a new cross, this
time to be of more weatherproof material.
Due to the efforts of interested
individuals in Kentville and to the energy of cottagers, a
large group, realizing the great historic value in
perpetrating the dead of Pierre Melanson, contributed to the
building fund. Material was found close at hand, for nothing
harmonized so well with the surroundings as the variegated
smooth, round stones to be found at the waters edge.
Careful selection was made of this medium,
so that a cross of symmetrical form and beauty was erected,
worthy of the greatest admiration. At this time the location
was removed still further from the original spot marked by
the fleeing Acadians. Today the memorial stands austere and
plain, a golden hued cross against the shining surface of the
bay, by its very form reminding all of its purpose and a
reminder of the sacrifice of the Acadian habitants that
inhabited the ground long ago.
Other tragic reminders of their flight may
be found in the vicinity of Morden. Not only is the Aylesford
Burying Ground eloquent, but the old Anglican Church of St.
Mary’s in Auburn has borrowed some of the veil of glory
that hovers over the French Cross.
An Early Church
In 1790, one of the very earliest Anglican
churches in the Province was organized. A short distance
north of the river, in the general direction of the passage
that the Acadians took to reach the Bay, the third oldest
house of the Church of England of Nova Scotia survives to
this date.
It is small and compact with many antique
features, old high straight-backed family pews with prayer
benches at the foot, all in the atmosphere of a miniature
cathedral. High up in the church, a spot a few feet in
diameter, a patch of greyish white plaster, serves to
commemorate these same Acadians.
According to the records of the church, the
builders were forced to ingenuity. They had to supply their
own nails, hand-fashioned of steel, and their plaster too
exhibited the inventive mind. It is conceded that the old
heap of mussel shells left by the Acadians supplied that item
of material.
Skepticism would point to what remain of a
pile of shells, disintegrated by thirty-five years of sleet
and rain, as practically negligible. Be that as it may,
whether in fact or fiction, in this original manner have the
Acadians perpetuated their memory.
Naturally the greatest degree of
perpetuation has come about through the establishment of the
village itself. The life of the little settlement in the cove
revolves around two chief points of interest, the cross of
the fugitive French and the wharf that projects itself out
into the frigid swell. The origin of the name, Morden, is not
difficult to trace. In 1783 a grant of vie thousand acres of
land in Aylesford was received by Mr. James Morden, an
Englishman and ordinance shopkeeper at Halifax, the same
gentleman who a few years later, with Bishop Inglis and Henry
VanBuskirk was to promote the raising of the Anglican Church
in Auburn. His land extended to the Bay of Fundy, including
the site of the French habitation. Gradually, from 1783 to
1825, tenants settled upon the land, transfers were made so
that soon the important families along the shore included
such names as Orpin, Jones, Benedict, Cook and Dodge.
The name of the village, then, apparently
originated as being the holding of Mr. James Morden, of
Halifax and Morden. However, a transfer put through in the
year 1833 presents a new angle. This
(Continued on page 6)
Little Village Of
Morden
Has Romantic History
(continued from page 1)
transfer shows a grant having been carried
Whitehall, to John Butler across from George Foreman Morden
of Scotland Yard, Butler, Esquire, commissary generalonce
owned by James . It is mentioned that the land in question
was Morden.
It is the same Colonel Butler Butler that
carried out a number of improvements in the village.
Consequently, it is asserted by some that it was due to
Colonel Butler that the hamlet received its name, Morden
being the birthplace in England of the man. The only means of
concording the two theories is by suggesting that both James
Morden and John Butler Butler colonized from some town in
England called Morden. It has been shown conclusively by the
grantee records that Colonel Butler was a relative of James
Morden.
Growing Community
In this way Colonel Butler, assignee of the
old haven of the refugee French with its historic cross, came
at a time when the village was beginning to assume its
present proportions. By 1868 it was of considerable size, and
used a great deal by the valley farmers as a shipping point.
In 1884 Colonel Butler had caused an Anglican Church to be
erected so that it was through his philanthropy and
munificence that the Church of St. Mary’s in Auburn had
a sister organization at Morden. Colonel Butler also gave a
certain parcel of property to be set aside for public
utility. The site of the existing wharf, in the east end of
the village, was granted by him as a shipping point for
lumber, cordwood, and fish. A few years later a wharf was
thrust out into the Bay, its ownership transferred to the
Dominion Government.
It was Colonel Butler, too, who gave Morden
its present plan of habitation – three streets running
parallel with one another on different levels along the
shore. The lower, or waterfront avenue, extends from the
wharf in the east to the French Cross in the west, winding
along the glory of dazzling blue water and wave swept cliffs.
A middle street runs similarly, while the upper street runs
east ward into the road that leads to the valley floor, a
trail similar to that trod by the weary feet of Pierre
Melanson.
Morden, today, while it has progressed with
the spirit of the years, is essentially a village of old
traditions. The new cross stands as did the old, testifying
and alone. Upon, the graveyard of the French, so it is said,
upon the hill back of the cross, a string of summer cottages
looks proudly toward the green mound of the Isle Haute. A
little to the east extends the property of the Glebe house,
established there by the Roman Catholic Church in the last
decade, and harboring under the green arches of its trees
some more graves of the stricken Acadians.
A Modern Village
The Morden of today is a modern village in
the possession of its fine summer cottages, its general
store, its fine wharf, and its Morden of the past, sleeping
beneath its exterior of gay summer activity, the Morden of
the old Anglican Church, the spire of which stretches up and
up, as if to look down upon the cross of the fugitive French,
to read there what commemorates their deed for all time:
"On this site the Acadians from
Belleisle wintered in 1755-56. In the spring of 1756, Pierre
Melanson with Indian boy crossed the Bay for aid. On return
trip he died. The original cross was erected by the Acadians
to his memory."
