Author: Hantsport & Area Historical Society

Taped Interviews with Maurice “Moss” Smith Hantsport, NS – Summer 1975 OFY Project – Historical Insights CANDY MAKING: In 1895 an old gent arrived in town by the name of George H. Yeaton. He had worked for the Halifax Baking Company, and he got an idea – – the sales of candy. He thought he’d like to start a little candy manufacturing company. His wife happened to be from Hantsport and they’d come here a lot and lived here. They say he started with about fifty cents worth of sugar. The first batch of candy he made cost that much. Then he made a few other things. He wasn’t a candy maker but he employed a candy maker from Halifax, from Moirs, by the name of Beazley. He started manufacturing in a long building (they called that Station Street) and on the further end of it was a grocery store operated by George Davision, and up this end, the Davision family lived. In...

FORWARD We, who are Adria Coalfleet Phillips' friends, have watched her "Songs of the Avon" come into being with appreciation and delight. Ships, the music of the wind and sea, the River in all its moods, even in its stark and dreadful beauty at low tide - love of these is in her blood. She has one other love which now and then reveals itself in her poems - love of the history and traditions of this small seaport town in which she has lived most of her life, within sight, sound and smell of the Avon River. Of course, Mrs. Phillips comes naturally by her love of the sea and all things connected with it. A sea-captain's daughter, it is perhaps her proudest boast that, of the 250 Hantsportonians who have sailed the seven seas as captains of their craft, "34 were Davisons and all related to me". As a child, she sailed to distant ports on her father's ships often...

ADVANCE [newspaper]: My earliest recollection of it was that it was run by a man named Marchant - his wife was a sister of Maurice Smith's wife, The shop was across the railroad track in what we know as the Mumford Block, now owned by Arch Kerr. There were three little places in the bottom; barber shop in one end, Town Office in the middle, and the Customs Office in the far end. Overhead was the Advance office. After Marchant, a man named George Woodworth took it over and ran it till it died. It was there for a while, then moved [to] a little building from T. R. Johnston property over to where Karl Dowe's house is now. His office was there, and he built on to it two or three times. Later it was moved up the Lane and it burned down. Tri-Mu Church Club started by Methodist minister, then taken over by the Baptist minister....

Joe Harvie owned a farm in Kelleyville on a sideroad near Skull House. It was a quiet place, where one seldom saw a car, or for that matter, any kind of a vehicle pass their gate. From the farmyard, you saw rolling hills on one side, and gentle flatness of a fertile interval on the other, and a narrow brook meandered through the fields, crossing the sideroad, and disappearing into the thicket beyond, eventually spilling into the Halfway River. The house was painted white at one time, but the rest of the buildings were bare wood, for it seemed only the more affluent could afford paint on outbuildings. I am not sure if he had a pair of horses or just one, and I don’t remember him hauling anything to Hantsport, but he came to our place when we lived where the Strickland barn is now, to plow up the ground for us to plant. I remember that it was near...

It has been said that the mining and shipping of gypsum rock or plaster began at Windsor about the year 1832.1 It is known that E. Churchill and Sons built a tug boat called the “Chester” at Hantsport in 1890. It was steam powered. Also in the years 1890-1892 the D.S. Howard shipyard at Parrsboro built four large schooners for the gypsum trade, namely the "Gypsum Queen", "Gypsum Princess", "Gypsum Emperor" and the "Gypsum King". J.B. North built the "Gypsum Prince" at Hantsport and the "Gypsum Empress" at Horton. All six schooners were of four masts. The tugboat “J A Mumford” was built at Spencer's Island in 1903 for the Gypsum trade. The “Mumford” was of 115 gross tons and had a forty horsepower steam engine. The "Mumford" was still in use by the Gypsum Company in 1947. Later that year she was taken to the drydock at Saint John, New Brunswick where her engine and boiler were dismantled and placed in a dredge. This work, as...

The Hantsport W. I. came into existence in 1915 in the Presbyterian Church. Their motto then as now, "For Home and Country." Mrs. A.O. Graham, Mrs. S. Morse, Mrs. McKeen, Mrs. William Dorman (still living), Mrs. Asa Newcombe, Mrs. Blackburn and Mrs. B. Davison were some of the Charter Members. Mrs. Sterling became a member at an early date. This was during World War 1 and they worked hard and faithfully, making quilts, sewing, knitting for the Red Cross and helping wherever need arose. Homemaking was perhaps the main interest at that time in its early days and many were the aids and hints for better ways and means. They later did much for the schools, sponsoring school fairs, sewing and cooking classes before we had established Home Economics in this school. Reclaiming River Bank Cemetery was the big project at this time. Mrs. Lyon was the leader in this work and no effort was...

On Wednesday last, the 27th ult., Mr. J.B. North who has been an invalid by reason of paralysis, for some eight years, passed peacefully to his reward at the age of 81 years. The deceased was a native of Cornwallis, Kings County, where he grew to manhood and married a Miss Ells, a sister of the late David and Nathan Ells. Mr. and Mrs. North came to Hantsport about 1855, and he commenced business as a general dealer and shipbuilder. He bought the house now known as the Campbell house, built a store where now stands the Evangeline house, on the corner of Avon and William Street. After coming to Hantsport he first built vessels in Mr. Churchill's yard, where he launched at least three, the "Herald," the "Persis," and the “Augusta C. Small." About the year 1863 he bought property over the line on the river front, built a house and commenced building vessels in his new yard. Here he built vessels...

Hattie Clark Chittick was born on the 20th of May 1883 in Hantsport, daughter of David Chittick, a blacksmith from Halifax County, and Margaret Utah Davison. Margaret was the daughter of Capt. Joseph Davison and Olivia Dickie of Hantsport. The Chittick family came from Ireland. David Chittick and Margaret Davison were married in 1871 by Rev. Thomas Angwin of the Wesleyan (Methodist) Church in Dartmouth and raised four daughters and two sons. Hattie was the second youngest. The family was enumerated in the Lower Horton, Kings County census division in 1881 and had farmers, ship masters and shoe makers as neighbours. By 1891 they had moved across the Minas Basin to Cumberland County where Hattie's sister Utah Marie was born on the 19th of March 1893 at Apple River. This was the same year that her oldest sister, Lottie, first married. By 1901 all but Marie had either married or moved away, Hattie's brother Fred moving the furthest. He can be found...

January 18 / 79 We have been waiting a long month for tonight's meeting and it is my privilege to introduce our guest speaker. We are fortunate to have him share his talent for story telling with us. (John) Sandy Davison  left Hantsport as a young man for Mt. A in 1921, then graduating from N.S.Tech. in 1925. He worked as a Junior Engineer with the Canadian International Paper Co. in Three Rivers Que. until 1926 when he moved to Can. Comstock – now known as Can. International – and until 1939 directed projects in the Eastern Provinces. At that time he was loaned to The Aluminum Co. of Canada and was in charge of Industrial installations across Canada, in India and South America. This was an exciting move in Sandy's career as at that time he acquired a charming Sec'y who later became his wife. After the war he returned to Comstock as Manager of their Electrical Division, becoming General Mgr. And Vice Pres. of Quebec and the Maritimes – a position he held until his...

The Women's Suffrage movement in Canada relied on petitions to provincial governments; on lecture tours and speaking engagements; on meetings with politicians; and on public meetings and events. In 1918 at least 3,865 names on 18 petitions, representing areas from across Nova Scotia, were presented to the House of Assembly and on April 26, 1918, the “The Nova Scotia Franchise Act”1 was passed granting women the right to vote, with certain conditions. Twenty three individuals from the Hantsport Area have so far been identified on those petitions and their names and further details are listed below. Qualification of Voters. Every person (male and female) shall be entitled to be registered in any year upon the list of voters for the proper polling district of any county, if such person - Is of the full age of twenty-one years and is not by this Chapter, or by any law of the Province of Nova Scotia, disqualified or prevented from voting and has not since the last revision...