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1870 Hants County Historical Sketch.*
*Benjamin Smith,
Esq.
The county of Hants occupies the central part of
Nova Scotia proper, contains 1073 square miles, and is divided
into seven townships - namely, Windsor, which is the shire town,
Falmouth, Newport, Douglas, Rawdon, Kempt, and Uniacke.
The Mic-mac tribe of Indians were the first
inhabitants of the county, as also of the province. Some
sections of the county were claimed by particular families of
the tribe as their peculiar hunting-grounds. The Paul family has
from time immemorial claimed the district on the west side of
the Shubenacadie River, where a reservation of land has been
made on their behalf by the Government, and a number of families
are now settled and engaged in agricultural pursuits, and where
they have erected a chapel, in which they perform their
religious services. Several rivers in the county are still
called by the names they received from the Mic-macs, as the Shubenacadie,
the Kennetcook, and the Cogmagun.
The Acadian French were the first European settlers
in the county, and although it may be difficult to ascertain the
precise date of their settlement here, it was most probably
about the year 1640, as in the year 1634, Charles Etienne La
Tour received from the King of France a land grant of that part
of Nova Scotia then called Minas, and which no doubt included
the counties of Kings and Hants; and it is stated in a
proclamation issued by Governor Lawrence in 1758, inviting
persons in the New England colonies to settle in Nova Scotia,
that "one hundred thousand acres of land had been
cultivated, and had borne wheat, rye, barley, oats, hemp, flax,
&c., for the last century without failure." From the
quantity of marsh land they had reclaimed from the tide-water,
and cultivated, with other improvements, there can be no
reasonable doubt that they had been settled here more than a
century before their removal.
Near every marsh of any considerable extent in the
county, their cellars, wells, and fruit-trees still mark the
localities where their villages once stood. Their principal
village or settlement appears to have been Windsor, the large
tracts and superior quality of the marsh land having attracted
greater numbers to that place than to other parts of the county.
They had a chapel in Windsor, near the site of which the
Indians, until within a late period, resorted to bury their
dead, as also to the site of another chapel, on the west side of
the Shubenacadie River, on a farm now owned by Mr Daniel Snyde,
and which still retains the name of the Mass-house Farm.
The greater number of the Acadian French were
removed from the county in 1755. The Rivers St Croix, Herbert,
and Petite still bear the names given by the French settlers.
Shortly after the settlement of Halifax in 1749, a
blockhouse and other fortifications were erected at Windsor, on
what is now called Fort Hill. This fortification was deemed
necessary to protect the early English settlers of the adjacent
lands from sudden attacks from the Indians and many of the
Acadian French, who had associated with them, and who were still
encouraged by the hope that while Canada was held by the French,
efforts would be made by their countrymen in that quarter, and
also by the French Government, to recapture Nova Scotia, and
re-establish them in the possession of their lands. But when
they received information of the taking of Quebec by General
Wolfe in 1759, and that the whole of Canada had fallen into the
hands of the English, their hopes were entirely frustrated; and
the French, who had for some years lived in retired and secluded
places with the Indians, soon after retired from the country,
and the Indians, being no longer instigated by the French in
annoying the English, soon became quiet and peaceful towards
them.
Several of the French and Indian encampments at
this period may still be pointed out near the head of the tide
on the Kennetcook River, to which the French drove many of their
cattle, and had them slaughtered for their subsistence. Those
encampments long retained the name of the French Barracks.
The principal part of the township of Windsor
was granted to gentlemen either connected with the Government or
belonging to the army, but few of whom ever resided on the lands
conveyed to them, which operated unfavorably to the improvement
of the township in its early settlement; but many of those
grants have since been sold and subdivided, by which a very
favorable change has been affected.
The advantageous conditions of Governor Lawrence's
proclamation issued in 1758, and widely circulated in the New
England colonies, induced a large number from those colonies -
principally from Massachusetts and Rhode Island - to remove with
their families for the purpose of forming settlements in this
county in 1759 and 1760. They obtained grants of lands in the
townships of Falmouth and Newport, the grant of
the township of Falmouth being dated July 1759, and that of
Newport in 1761. The township of Newport was granted to seventy
proprietors, nearly all of whom had come from the colony of
Rhode Island. The grant was laid off in farm lots, containing
both marsh and upland, wood lots and town lots, each proprietor
being allowed at least one lot of each description, with a right
in a large quantity of land, both marsh and upland, that had not
been included in the first division. There were also glebe and
school lots laid off at the same time. The greater number of the
present inhabitants of the township are descended from these
early proprietors.
Douglas is the most extensive township in
the county, and has for some years been divided into three
districts for the support of the poor. The settlements of
Kennetcook, Gore, Nine Mile River, and Five Mile River, were
included in a grant passed in 1784 to Lieutenant-Colonel John
Small, for the purpose of settling the 2d Battalion of the 84th
Regiment, disbanded after the close of the American
Revolutionary war.
Noel is situated on an inlet from Cobequid
Bay, and is surrounded by a large quantity of marsh land, which
has been settled by the Acadian French. The principal part of
what is now called Noel Village was granted to and settled by
two families from the North of Ireland, by the name of O'Brien
and Densmore, the first locating on the west side of Noel Bay,
and the second on the east side. The descendants of these
families still occupy the place, and the greater number of the
inhabitants of the district bear their name.
The township of Rawdon was granted in 1784
to a number of loyalists, who had removed to this county from
the Southern States at the close of the American Revolutionary
war.
The township of Kempt was not settled at so
early a period as the adjoining township of Newport. The fist
settler in that township, after the removal of the Acadian
French, was a Mr William Parker, who located himself upon the
Petite River, near where the village of Walton now stands. A
considerable proportion of the present inhabitants of the
township are Mr Parker's descendants.
The township of Uniacke was so called as a
mark of respect for the late Hon. Richard John Uniacke, who
about the year 1820 induced the Government to form that part of
the county into a separate township, in order to enable the
inhabitants to transact their local business without being
obliged to proceed to other townships for that purpose, in none
of which this tract had been included by any specific
boundaries.
Few counties in Nova Scotia exceed Hants in its
agricultural capabilities. A large portion of Windsor, Newport,
and Falmouth townships consist of dyked marsh of a very superior
quality.
The whole county lies upon a bed of gypsum, which
crops out in numerous places, and which is exported in large
quantities to the United States. The following figures exhibit
the amount exported in the year ended December 31, 1869: -
Windsor, 81,276 tons; Cheverie, 9348 tons; Walton, 4760 tons;
Maitland, 1180 tons; Hantsport, 3860 tons - total, 100,424 tons.
The principal gold districts in Hants county are at
Renfrew and Uniacke, though gold has been discovered at
Ellershause, Stillwater, Ponhook, River Herbert, and other
places. The mines at Renfrew produced in the year ended
September 30, 1867, 9401 ounces of gold, the product of 7770
tons of quartz. For the same year, Uniacke produced 947 ounces
of gold from 1212 tons of quartz.
Manganese, slates, freestone, pipeclay, grindstone,
limestone, moulding sand, &c., are also found in Hants
county.
Shipbuilding is extensively carried on in this
county. In this respect it is second only to Yarmouth county.
There were launched in the county and sent to sea during the
year ended December 31, 1864, thirty-one vessels, registering
11,922 tons. From 1860 to 1865, the total tonnage in the
registrar's office in creased from 29,058 to 63,640. And these
figures, it may be observed, do not exhibit the total tonnage
built in the county, as the ships built at Maitland are mostly
registered in Halifax. Ezra Churchill, Esq., Hantsport, is
probably the largest shipbuilder in Nova Scotia.
The population of Hants county at the present time
is about 20,000; of Windsor, about 3000. Windsor is 45 miles
from Halifax.
* For the information in this
sketch, I am entirely indebted to my venerable friend Benjamin
Smith, Esq., of Douglas, who very kindly placed in my hands a
historical essay on Hants county, written in 1865. I would
hereby gratefully acknowledge my obligations to him.
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