Cape Breton Places & Foods

“Picture to yourself, M. le Gouverneur, our plight: without a guide in the heart of the wild, not daring to retrace our steps to Quebec, knowing nothing of what lay before us, our food and ammunition low. Besides, we feared the vengeance of the tribe, for the two men that we had slain. M. de Pardeithan had told us how Indians treated captives. He had witnessed scenes the account of which made our blood run cold.”

“But did you meet with no Indians on your journey down the river?” asked the governor.

“No. God is good. Not till we reached Saint John.”

“Did you not see Indians at Meductec?”

“No, your Excellency, and for this reason: Aeneas had spoken so often of this great village of his people that we were very wary. Late one afternoon we saw smoke in the sky far downstream. So we landed, laid the canoe up in the bushes and waited till night. When it was quite dark we set out again, keeping very close to the eastern bank, and so passed undetected in the darkness.”

“But you met with Indians in Saint John, you say. Did they not recognize the canoe and question you about the owner?”

“Your Excellency will remember that it was a new canoe, made for the journey and only finished just before we left Quebec. None but ourselves had seen it.”

“When did you reach Saint John?”

“About three weeks ago. We are unskillful with the paddle and unversed in the craft of the hunter and the woodman. Our progress was slow. We went in continual dread of the Indians. M. de Pardeithan, having great experience in America, was our mainstay. He shot the game and caught the fish and cooked the meals. At last we reached Saint John.

“Here we found Pere Gaulin of the Mission Entrangeres. To him we made our confession and received absolution. At the first opportunity we heard mass. He assisted us in every way and instructed us how to reach the French settlements further on, for we dared not remain in Saint John. A party of Indians was going to Beaubassin; he recommended us to their care. So they piloted us to the river of Beaubassin, where there is a prodigious tide. Here we dared not stay for fear of the tribe of Aeneas would discover his death and hunt us down. We learned that there was another French settlement, called Mines, about twenty-five leagues farther on, which could be reached by water. After the rest of two days, we set out again along the coast. We were much buffeted by the strong tide and currents which run like a mill-race. We reached a great meadow overlooked by a mighty cape. Here were many houses and orchards and cultivated fields, from which the harvest had been gathered. The watercourses were diked against the sea. So fair a prospect I had not looked on since I quitted France.

“Here at last, I thought, we had found a safe haven, but our hopes were dashed. No sooner had we disclosed the dreadful story to the elders of the village, then they manifested the greatest terror and ordered us to depart immediately. They would not suffer us to remain there another night. They assured us the Indians would track us down and destroy us with all the torments of hell. To afford us food or shelter might bring the savages to cut their throats. The only place of safety was with you, M. le Gouverneur, under your protection, here in your strong fort. So the elders assured us, but they would not harbour us another hour if they could help it. Nor would any village dare to act as our guide. So once more, we set forth along an unknown coast in this cold and snow. All our previous sufferings were nothing to what we have endured these last five days. We could make no headway against the adverse tides, but were forced to land and await the ebb. We slept on the bare ground under the canoe. Our last morsel of bread we shared yesterday at noon. We are men in the last extremity. Another twenty-four hours and we must have died of cold and hunger.

“We throw ourselves upon your Excellency’s mercy. If you turn us away, we must perish miserably from cold and hunger, or fall victim of the cruelty of the savages.”

There was a pause. The governor asked to see the minutes the secretary had taken down; and the big book was passed up to him. While he consulted the entries, there was silence in the room, except for the crackling of the fire. The prisoner never took his eyes off the governor’s face. The book was handed back to the secretary.

“Answer me one more question,” said the governor. “Are not you and your two friends deserters from the troops at Quebec?”

“On the faith of a Christian, your Excellency”-the prisoner laid his hand on his heart-”we are not. I scorn to deny that I myself hold the King’s commission in the Regiment Salis-Samade. I have already informed your Excellency I have served in Old France. But my friends were never in the army. I have greater acquaintance with M. de Babour than with M. de Pardeithan, for we were both prisoners in the Bastille together, and little better than prisoners again in Quebec. M. de Pardeithan I have known only some four months, since he came to Canada from the Mississippi. I-we-the-heat-”

The tall Frenchman swayed where he stood, and would have fallen forward with his face against the table, if Sergeant Danielson and one of the soldiers had not caught him in time and laid him on the floor. He was in a dead faint. The Council started from their seats. Mr. Skene ran to the Frenchman’s side and put a hand over his heart.

“Brandy!” he cried, “At once!”

Mr. Doucett opened a locker and produced a glass and a square bottle. The surgeon forced some of the liquid through the clenched teeth of the prostrate man.

“Far gone,” Mr. Skene muttered, as he felt in his pocket for his lancet; “ill nourished-vital forces weak.’ He opened a vein in the Frenchman’s arm and administered more brandy. Presently the prisoner revived suffiently to open his eyes, but he could not sit up, though he tried hard to do so. The soldiers propped him on his feet and half carried him back to the guardroom. At Mr. Skene’s suggestion, the governor ordered food for him.

The investigation was not abandoned on account of this occurrence. The guard brought next M. de Pardeithan before the Council. He proved to be a thick-set, sad-eyed Breton. His thin delicate hands were calloused and chilblained, but on one grimy finger was a seal ring with his arms engraved upon it. This he showed to governor in proof of his gentle blood. His evidence confirmed the story of M. de Veillein in every particular. Of himself, he said that he had been transported to New Spain, for his share in a fatal duel in which he had seconded a friend. From New Spain, he had escaped to the French plantations at the mouth of the Mississippi, where he had obtained employment as secretary. After remaining in this post for three years, he had made his way up the great river to its affluent, the Ohio, and so by the lakes and the river of Canada to Quebec. He had traversed the continent from south to north. All he knew of the other prisoners was the account they gave of themselves, and that they were respected in Quebec as gentlemen.

The third prisoner M. Alexandre Poupart de Babour, a famished, blond Cupidon of twenty, in dirty rags, agreed in every respect with the other two. He did not know the real cause of his confinement in the Bastille, nor of his transportation to Canada, but he believed that it had been so ordered by some of his family, on account of amours, for he had been a very wild youth.

The prayer of the three adventurers was not refused. They were detained within the walls of Saint Anne for six months as prisoners on parole. The officers supplied them with clothing and welcomed them to their table. During the dull winter days and long winter evenings, the strangers learned to speak English. In a hundred agreeable ways they helped to pass the time, at cards or chess, or with stories, over the wine, of Old France.-campaigns, travels, duels, love affairs-of the wild countries of New Spain and Louisiana. The place had known no such winter since the Sieur de Champlain instituted the Order of Good Cheer in 1606, as related in the pages of Master Marc Lescarbot.

In the spring, Mr. William Winniett, trading up the bay made inquires at Mines, learned that the Frenchmen’s tale was true, and wrote to the Hon. John Doucett to tell him so. He and the Council then agreed that their guests were not spies, but gentlemen that had met with misfortune and ill usage. They further agreed that to detain them at Annapolis Royal until the Indians began to gather there would be more cruelty. So by the very earliest opportunity, they were shipped off to Boston, and the annals of Nova Scotia knew them no more.

What happened after their arrival in Boston-whether they ever saw France again and obtained that justice from Louis le Bien-aime which de Veillein was determined to sue for-remains a mystery.

Again the three men at the board head consulted in whispers.

“This is also very strange,” said the governor. “Why did you not sail to old France or to the government of Cape Breton?”

“It was not for want of effort,” said the Frenchman. “I approached the master of every vessel in the port of Quebec. I offered them gold and one or two jewels of some value which I still retained. It was in vain. Not one would receive me on board. You perceive, M. le Gouverneur, the plot of which I am the victim. I was to be banished to the wilderness forever. It must have been some Great One who could command the governor of Canada, for the governor plainly had his orders, and he controlled every shipmaster in the colony. The Great One having taken a dislike to me was resolved that I should never see France again.”

“But why,” said the governor, still suspicious, “did you presume to come to this or any English settlement without a passport?”

A faint tinge of answering blood rose in the prisoner’s thin cheeks, but his voice was unshaken.

As I have said, M. le Gouverneur, I come from a family of good repute in France. Mt father is of the noblesse, a chevalier of Blois. It is not for a man of my blood to submit tamely to such wrongs-to be imprisoned like a malefactor, to be banished from my country; and I was resolved to run all risks in order to reach France again and sue for justice. When I found that it was impossible to leave Quebec with the governor’s permission, I cast about for means to escape without it. One day at the Chateau Saint Louis, a baptized savage came to pay his respects to the governor. He had been educated in a mission and spoke French well. Some priest, remembering his Virgil, had christened him Aeneas. “Multum ille et terries jactatus et alto,” as we say at Saint Omer. He was an old, experienced warrior, who had often been on raids against the English. After the audience was ended, I sought him out. He was in a camp outside the lower town, by the riverside. I sounded him cautiously to find whether he would aid me to escape. He told me of a long way to other French plantations, a long way up and down various rivers, and through forests only inhabited by wild beasts and wild men. I then sought out the other two gentlemen, who have been arrested with me-M. Poupart de Babour and M. Saint Joli de Pardeithan-and they agreed eagerly to escape if possible. Among us we made up the sum Aeneas demanded for acting as guide. There was some delay after the bargain was completed, for Aeneas had to make a canoe large enough to carry five persons. He had to take his nephew, a young brave, along to aid him; he could not manage the canoe by himself.

“On the night of the 28th of August, there being no moon, we met Aeneas when the tide served at his camp outside the lower town. I had got pistols and a musket; M. de Pardeithan, had is hanger only, while M. de Babour bought a fowling-piece. We took with us also three blankets, some pork and biscuits, and a small case bottle of brandy. Our powder horns and shot pouches were filled before starting, and we carried a small reserve of powder in a water-tight canister. Before embarking, Aeneas insisted on payment of the thirty pistoles agreed upon, and I told them into his hand. He bit each piece and then put it into a belt round his middle. The ebb aiding us, we paddled down the river about ten leagues to the mouth of a river on the south bank, called the riviere du Sud, which we reached before daylight. We lay in the woods all that day, rested, ate, and slept. The following night we traveled up this stream for perhaps ten leagues more. Here we carried the canoe and our belongings three leagues through the woods over a well-worn Indian trail, and launched on a river called by Aeneas, Woolstock, but a priest we met in the village called it riviere Saint Jean.”

“At first all went well. The weather was divine. There were no midges or noxious insects. Our progress was ever downstream. There were few rapids and, consequently, few portages. Aeneas and his nephew caught eels and sea trout and shot partridges and ducks for the pot-a-feu. They knew where to halt foe the night at the good camping places, near springs of water. Monsieur has seen the riviere Saint Jean?”

The governor shook his head.

“In my campaigns,” the prisoner continued. I have seen the rivers of France and I have seen the Rhine, but I have never beheld the equal of this stream. I have talked with M. de Pardeithan, who has traversed the Mississippi, the Ohio, and the River of Canada, also in canoe. He had never seen anything so beautiful, though in the River of Canada there is a great lake with many islands-a thousand, he said-which is enchanting. Figure to yourself, monsieur, long, smooth reaches broadening into placid lakes, now flat terraces near the mouths of the tributary streams, some twenty-five toises in height. The river banks and the distant hills on either hand were like fires of yellow and crimson, for, as you know, autumn in this country turns the leaves to marvelous hues. And the skies-of such height! Such blueness! Only the nights were cold and grew even colder.

“The Indians talked much of a great village and fort on this river, called Meductec, which were continually approaching. We had reached a camping ground about fifty leagues above this settlement on the 10th of September. For some days, we had noticed a change in the demeanour of the two Indians; they were growing careless and insolent, slow to answer if one of us spoke to them, and always consulting together in their own tongue. From some words M. de Pardeithan overheard, it appeared that they had formed the design of stealing away in the canoe and abandoning us in the wilderness, where, without such guides, we must have perished with hunger. They were weary of convoying us and acting as our servants; they had received their payment. That afternoon, when we halted to camp and the Indians were fishing, we became convinced of their treachery, and we resolved to seize the canoe at dawn.

“That night we slept little. Each of us watched in turn while pretending to sleep, and waked the others so quietly that the Indians did not observe our stratagem. Just as the first light broke in the east, I roused my two comrades cautiously. We had scarcely risen to our feet when the Indians sprang up also, perceiving our design. There was a scuffle. The young brave, being the most nimble, leaped on M. de Pardeithan and bore him to the ground. Aeneas dropped one knee and leveled his piece. I fired my pistol at him as he pulled the trigger. I felt his bullet whistle past my ear, but he fell face downward. M. de Babour, seeing the other Indian about to stab our friend clapped the fowling-piece to his ear and shot him dead.

“It was all over in a few moments of time. Aeneas lay groaning on the ground, but beyond seeing or feeling. The young braves head was a blackened mass of blood and brains and smoldering hair. M. de Pardeithan rose to his feet slowly, and we three stood there, speechless, breathing heavily, in the dim morning light beside the dead campfire, with the bodies of our enemies at our feet.

“That M. le Gouverneur is the truth concerning this slaying, on the faith of a Christian.”

“What did you do then?”

“In a few minutes the groans of Aeneas ceased, but we remained where we stood, without moving, in the midst of a great silence. Then someone laughed loud and long, like an overwrought woman, who will presently weep and shriek. It was M. de Babour, who is a mere boy. He was staring like a madman at the young brave’s head-one eye had been blown out of its socket, and lay by itself on the grass-and he was laughing, laughing. It was an hour before we could quiet him.

“As soon as we recovered our wits, we put all the gear of the dead Indians in the canoe and stripped them mother naked. This shirt belonged to Aeneas; this hole was made by my bullet. Then we carried the bodies in to the forest about two hundred yards, and scraped a shallow trench with our knives and our hands. I made a little cross of twigs to lie on the breast of each, for, though savages, they were christened men. Then we covered them over with earth and concealed with leaves and brushwood as well as we could. It would not, we knew, mislead any Indian who followed in our track, but we could not leave the corpses where they fell. The sun was at noon before we had finished our task and had left, I hope forever, that accursed spot.

The governor frowned.

“Who and what are you?” he demanded, “and what is the reason of your coming to this place?” As the governor said this, he stared hard at the man.

Me. Adams translated the question into French. Mr. Shirreff, stood at the foot of the table with standish, sand-box, quills, and various documents spread out before him, entered the governor’s words in the very vellum-bound minute book to be seen still in the Province House in Halifax. This was the procedure throughout the examination.

There was a pause. Before answering, the prisoner considered with himself. Then, throwing back his head, he spoke with great deliberation.

“My name is Paul Francois Dupont de Veillein, as it appears in the paper before M. le Secretaire. I come of a family of good report in France”-he smiled faintly and spread out his hands in a graceful gesture-”well known in the ancient city of Blois. I was educated at Saint Omer, for my parents designed me for the Church, but when I arrived at the age of seventeen, I exchanged the soutane for the King’s uniform, and entered the Regiment Salis-Samade as gentleman cadet. In a few months, my family became reconciled and procured me a commission. I served for three years in Flanders, on the eastern frontier, and in Italy, not, I may say, without distinction. During the month of September, 1722, I was on furlough in Paris, devoting myself to the pleasures of the capitol.”

He smiled again and then sighed.

“On the first day of October towards dusk, I was sitting in a café near the Palais Royal; I received a billet from, as I thought, a lady of my acquaintance, making an immediate appointment at our usual rendezvous. When I reached her door, I noticed a hackney-couch before it, waiting in the street. As I turned to knock, I felt my arms clutched from behind by two pairs of hands, and, in spite of my resistance, I was dragged into the couch by two men who appeared to be lackeys of some great house. I still strove to tear myself loose while the carriage was rattling over the cobblestones, as fast as the horses could go, but I could not draw my sword. That night I dined in the Bastille.”

“The Bastille!” echoed the governor, and his face grew harsh, “You are a criminal then. What was your offence?”

Veillein’s black brows gathered.

“I do not know. I was never told. Your Excellency understands what is a letter de cachet? You become obnoxious to some great person who has the ear of the King’s minister, or the King’s mistress. Perhaps some lady finds your society more agreeable of that of a more powerful admirer. Perhaps you have made an epigram or have scribbled some verses about a person of influence which are taken amiss. Perhaps in your cups, you have mentioned names too freely. Pouf! A little piece of parchment with the sign-manual, and La Bastille closes her jaws upon you. Men grow grey there, men die, and never a hint of accusation or accuser. But I am resolved”-he raised his voice-”to know the reason for my arrest. I will sue for justice at the foot of the throne.”

“How long were you confined at the Bastille?”

“From October, 1722, to August, 1724, two years all but two months. Two years out of my life! When I was twenty! Picture to yourself, M. le Gouverneur! Two years of an innocent man’s life spent in prison! True, the imprisonment was not equally rigorous for all. Some of us were allowed to exercise ourselves in the square. It was there, at tennis that I met my friend, M. Alexandre Poupart de Babour, whom I found again at Quebec and who has accompanied me on this adventure.”

“How were you released?”

“One night I was awakened from my sleep by M. Bellamis, commissaire ordonnateur, who showed me an order for my instant removal. As soon as I could dress, I was again placed in a couch, with two soldiers for guard, and driven to the western gate of Paris. There I was met by two mounted men with a led horse. Under this escort I traveled day and night until we reached Havre. I was at once taken on board the Notre Dame de Rouen, supply ship, in the stream, and ready to sail for New France. Although we had to wait three days for a favourable wind, I was so closely watched that I had no opportunity of communicating with the shore, or of making my escape. After a voyage of five weeks, we reached the River of Canada-a truly magnificent river-and in four days more we anchored at Quebec. That is one of the strongest places in the world. In all my experience as a soldier, I never saw a town of such natural strength. Posted on a cliff, up which a goat could hardly find its way, with an impassible river on its left flank, it has a complete enceinte and a cavalier mounted on the highest point-Quebec can never be taken. But pardon me!” he bowed to the governor and the Council, “I forgot I am talking to English officers.”

“How long did you remain in Quebec, M. de Veillein?”

“About a twelvemonth! I was entertained like a gentleman for that time by the governor himself, M. de Vaudreuil. Why, I do not know. That also is to be explained, but I suppose it was upon private advice from someone who had known me in Old France. I have no certainty.”

At this point, the governor, Mr. Adams, and Mr. Skene put their heads together and whispered. The prisoner warmed his hands at the fire.

“This is very strange, M. de Veillein, or whatever your name is,” said the governor in a grating voice. “You were well entertained, you say, by the governor himself, and yet you left the place without his passport. You stole away like a vagabond, like a thief in the night.”

The prisoner bit his lip.

“M. de Vaudreuil is a very old man, near eighty, I should say, and hard to deal with. I tried more than once to obtain a passport, but he always refused it. At the same time he would say: “You may go if you choose, M. de Veillein, whenever you please. I will not stop you;” and his wrinkles would pucker into a smile. I then had recourse to the bishop, M. de Saint Vallier. He could not give me a passport, but you have seen his assurance that I and my two friends were good Catholics and have been regular in our duties.”

On the 9th of December, 1725, the monotony of garrison life at Annapolis Royal was broken by an unusual event. Early that morning, a shivering sentry in his watch-coat on the snowy ramparts of Fort Anne had observed a black speck far down the Basin, creeping along the northern shore. When it could clearly be made out as a canoe with three figures in it coming up with the tide, he reported the occurrence to his sergeant. The canoe made for the Queen’s wharf, directly under the guns of the fort, and the sergeant carried the news to the Hon. John Doucett, the lieutenant governor, major of Phillip’s Regiment of Foot. It was soon ascertained that the strangers could speak only French that they were not Acadians, and that by their own account they had traveled all the way from Quebec. Other rumors flew about, that they had killed Indians and were flying from savage vengeance. All the circumstances were so suspicious that the governor ordered Sergeant Danielson to take a file of men, arrest the strangers, and lodge them in the guardroom in Fort Anne. The three ragged, famished scarecrows offered no objections to their arrest. They even seemed to welcome it. They were stiff from paddling, pinched with cold, and weak with hunger. They were barely able to walk, and could have made no effectual resistance even had they desired to use the arms they carried.

As soon as possible, the governor convened a meeting of the Council in his house within the walls near the old Bastion de Bourgogne. Only Mr. Adams, the senior member, Mr. Skene, the surgeon, and Mr. Shirreff, the secretary were available. Major Armstrong was in England on his private affairs, and Captain Mascarene was also on leave, arranging a treaty with the Indians in Boston. As soon as the members had taken their places round the board in order of precedence, Mr. Adams at the right hand of the governor, Mr. Skene at his left, he told them of his suspicions.

These Frenchmen were plainly not Acadians, nor traders, nor trappers. By their own story they had come from Quebec, but they had no passports from the governor of Canada. The only papers found on them were certificates from Bishop Saint Vallier of Quebec, to the effect that they had duly received the sacrament. As far as could be made out, they had pretended to have escaped from Quebec, but they really belonged to Old France, and they had killed two Indians on their way to this place. It was a strange tale with which his Honour acquainted the Council.

“It is my belief,” he ended, “that they are spies sent out to discover the state of the town and garrison, or else to entice our troops to desert. What is your advice in regard to them, gentlemen?”

“With submission, your Honour,” replied Mr. Adams, “in my view, they should be immediately put in ward and examined separately as to the truth of their allegations.”

“They are already in custody,” replied the governor. “Is it your pleasure that they should be interrogated?”

A murmur of ascent ran round the board. The governor rang a small hand-bell. Sergeant Danielson appeared in the doorway.

“Bring in the prisoner who seems the oldest, the tall man with the black hair.”

It was only a step from the governor’s house to the guardroom. The door had hardly closed when it opened again to admit the sergeant and file with their prisoner. He was a tall, thin man with a military carriage; his head nearly touched the low ceiling; his face, tanned by the sun and the wind, was lined with want of sleep and purple with cold; a four-days beard covered his cheeks; his long hair, undressed and not even tied, fell to his shoulder. His air was haggard, as of a man pursued. His dress was a medley of the European and the savage. Over what remained over a long skirted coat of fine cloth he wore a fringed buckskin hunting shirt. His velvet breeches were in tatters. His legs were bare, but he had moccasins on his feet. Wrapped about him was a red-bordered Indian blanket as protection from the cold; and he edged as near as possible to the crackling birch logs in the great open fireplace. The two soldiers in full uniform who stood at either side with fixed bayonets in their firelocks looked sleek and neat by comparison, although neither rations nor clothing were ever plentiful at Fort Anne.

These true tales are drawn from the romantic past of Nova Scotia, and have been studied from authentic documents. In each case, the reader is referred to the original authority. Pains have been taken to verify details. For example, in preparing the narrative of the loss of the Tribune, I went along the Thrum Cap shoals in a tug and had soundings taken.
The various episodes here gathered together illustrate the history of Nova Scotia. They are arranged in order of their occurrence.

The escape of the three French gentlemen from Quebec in 1725, shows how ancient the practice of sending family black-sheep to the colonies. Their experience of Indian treachery, their flight from the fear of Indian vengeance, opens the chapter of the white man’s relations with the red. Indian warfare was the nightmare of early settlers in America.

The experience of Marie Payzant and her family is the fullest ever recorded in any Canadian document telling of white captives’ life among the savages. Witherspoon’s narrative is based on a transcript of his journal kept during his imprisonment at Miramichi and Quebec; it was written in tobacco juice when ink failed. Both Nova Scotians were in Quebec when it fell in 1759. Fragments of their stories have been handed down, but many other early settlers suffered as they did, and died, and left no sign.

William Greenwood’s efforts to run with the hare and hunt with the hounds reveal aspects of the American Revolutionary War not generally known. A natural pendant to the non-combatant’s hardships is the tale of Tonga’s two spirited fights in the coastal waters of Cape Breton.

Many a tall ship has left her bones along the iron coast of Nova Scotia. Many a wreck and many a rescue are briefly noted in the annals of the province. The tragedy of the Tribune impressed the community by completeness, and by the fact that young officers in the Duke of Kent’s regiment lost their lives by going to the assistance of the stranded frigate. Few more determined efforts to save life at all hazards to the rescuer are on record than the two trips of “Joe Cracker” to the half-submerged masts of the Tribune. Little more than a child himself, he saved the lives of two men; and his heroic example shamed the men of the Cove into saving the six survivors. His exploit ranks with Grace Darling’s; and he had no one to help him.

How the Shannon fought the Chesapeake is an oft-told tale; but the part which the good old city of Halifax had in it is not so well known.

The saga of the blood stained Saladin, like the murders on board the Lennie and the Caswell, reminds the landsmen hoe often deed of violence were done on the high seas. Nova Scotians remember the Saladin; the ballads made about the murders are still extant. One is to be found in MacOdrum’s MS collection of Nova Scotia ballads preserved in Dalhousie College. In the case of both the Saladin and Lennie, Nemesis followed both on the heels of crime. Stevensonian touches occur in the tale of the Saladin. Like Long John Silver, the villain has a wooden leg. Like the murderous captain in Kidnapped, Fielding reprobated Sandy’s cursing and swearing. The murderers taking their Bible oath “to be brotherly together” resembles the incident of conscience-stricken homicides repeating the Lord’s Prayer in unison on the deck of the Flying Scud. The ring-leader in the murders on the Caswell made one sailor kneel in the blood of the slain captain and swear fealty to the mutineers. The Bible on which Captain Fielding swore his red-handed accomplices is preserved in the Dalhousie College, the grimiest relic, save one, of this sordid tragedy.

Privateering began in Nova Scotia in 1756, when the hundred-ton schooner Lawrence sailed to the southward on a six month cruise against the enemies of George the Second. Part of her adventures is related in The Log of Halifax Privateer, Nova Scotia Chap-books, No. 6. In three great wars, Nova Scotia privateers scoured the seas, made prizes, fought and won, or fought and lost. Such battles as the action between Observer and the Jack, and between the tiny Revenge and three rebel privateers are known only in outline, and must be typical of many a sea-duel recorded briefly in long lost log-books. Godfrey’s exploits in the Rover show the mettle of the old seafaring men. His victory over his tour opponents is a classic, and wins the admiration of professional sailors for his cool courage, discipline, and seamanship.

Heroism is not confined to action under stress of war. The courage, skill, endurance and resource of Nova Scotia’s merchant sailors are hard to parallel. Before the era of railways, Nova Scotia was in reality an island; communication with the outer world and by different parts of the province was by sea. These conditions bred a sea-faring race. Whole families followed the sea from generation to generation. Nova Scotia shipmasters took their wives and families with them on voyages around the world. Children were born on shipboard, literally in the midst of storms. The deeds of Cook and Coward, of the two Churchills herein recorded are typical. Chance has preserved their stories; but many others just as splendid have been lost for lack of a chronicler.

“Rendering assistance” is instinctive and habitual with sailors, by land as well as by sea. To those practical seamen, who open freely to me their stories of professional knowledge and who gave me the benefit of their friendly criticism my grateful thanks are due; and especially to Captain W. G. S. de Carteret, Captain Fred Ladd, Captain Charles Doty, Captain H. St. G Lindsay, Captain Neil Hall, and Mr. Adams MacDougall. Without their assistance my “navigation” must have been very faulty. My thanks are also due to Mr. J Murray Lawson, the historian of Yarmouth, for much personal aid. His records of Yarmouth shipping and the files of his paper The Yarmouth Herald are veritable store-houses of information.

It was Saturday, May 1, 1908, and two small New Ross, Lunenburg County, boys had just finished eating dinner. The boys were brothers, Fred, seven and a half years old, and Ira, nine years old, sons of Mr. and Mrs. Harry Meister. The day was dark and rather cold, but it did not dampen the spirits of the two youngsters who had visions of a pleasant walk through the spruce-scented woods to their Uncle John’s house on the farm less than a mile away.

Lois Meister, the boys’ mother, an attractive young woman of thirty-three, was busily engaged in washing the dinner dishes and nodded in the affirmative when the two boys asked permission to go over to their Uncle John’s farm. Then, as an afterthought, or perhaps, with a premonition of danger, she asked the boys to promise not to go fishing. The brooks and rivers were swelled with water from the spring rains and melting snow, and she knew too well the dangers which they presented to the daring young boys, too innocent to realize the full meaning of their surging power.

They promised.

The boys followed the woods road to the home of John Meister, pausing occasionally to study the prints of their tiny larrikins disappearing in the salt-like snow whose patches still lingered where the trees shaded the road from the sun. The rabbit offered amusement, too, as the boys tossed their caps toward them, then watched the rabbits bolt for their burrows with the dreaded thought that a hawk would swoop down to end their existence.

Uncle John was busy at his job of ploughing the land to prepare it for the planting season, and the bubbling brooks, and chirping of the squirrels beckoned the boys to the woodland.

Despite the promise they had made to their mother, the boys decided to go fishing.

Cutting some alder sticks, and using the “poor boys” line (white string), they soon were geared for the trip and followed the woods road to the river.

The fishing was poor, however, and soon the boys tired of trying and started for home.

On the way out they met their cousin, Terry Meister, a kind-hearted lad of seventeen who was on his way to the Larder River. Terry liked the youngsters, especially Freddy, the younger. With a warm grin, he took the lad by the back of the red sweater which he had wore and said, “You better come fishing with me.” Freddy agreed and turned back with his friend, Terry, while Ira continued on to his uncle’s home to await their return.

Even with the experience of the older boy, Terry, their luck was bad and after some time Freddy complained of being cold and hungry. He wanted to go home. The time was late afternoon.

Terry Meister took the lad by the hand and set him on the road for home, after satisfying himself that Freddy knew the way and would go straight along the road and not take the turn at the forks which led across the Ross March, making a round-about journey home.

Freddy was never seen again and in the many years since, no trace of his clothing, or the little body which it covered has ever been found!

That night, when he failed to return with Terry, Harry Meister, Freddy’s father, organized a search party that combed the wilderness by lantern light in a fierce thunder and lightening storm. Their shouts fell against the teeming rain and only the roaring thunder answered.

The only trace they found of the boy, were seven small tracks of his larrikins in a patch of snow. The tracks indicated that the boy was alone and headed toward home-then vanished! All further trace of him disappeared as if the earth had opened up and swallowed him.

Freddy couldn’t have gotten outside the ring of searchers (some two hundred), that scanned the woods from all points that night and the following day. He could not have drowned and drifted down the river, because the river was staffed with drivers who were engaged in moving a drive of logs some fifteen miles downstream for the McKean Lumber Company of Gold River. All brooks, rivers, and creeks were thoroughly searched and dragged. The red sweater that he wore would have shone brightly in the dull spring brush, had he been killed by some animal such as a bear, and his remains left among the trees.

Foul play was dismissed by the simple statement of the boy’s father, “None of my neighbors could be guilty of such evil.” And, indeed, everyone else felt the same, for the people of the community were a good-living, Christian people incapable of such an act.

Even if Freddy had met up with some strangers who had taken his life, it is most improbable that his body could have been hidden to elude the sharp eyes of the New Ross woodsmen who have searched every inch of the territory for long years after his disappearance.

Less than twenty years ago a suspicious looking mound of ground was opened, and the dirt sifted in a vain attempt to find some trace of bone, buttons, etc.

Harry Meister and his good wife became the targets of many hoaxters such as “fortune tellers” who claimed to know of their son’s whereabouts. In fact, it was said that they actually paid money to one female “fortune teller” who professed to know where the boy was. She knew no more than the others.

Another time word came that the distraught parents’ son had been kidnapped and held prisoner in a house miles away. A search warrant was procured and the house searched to no avail.

It has been sixty-nine years since Freddy Meister disappeared without leaving a trace except seven tiny footprints in the snow, and the residents of New Ross still ask, “What happened to Freddy Meister?”

Until her death, Mrs. Meister relived the tragic day of May 1, 1908, when she lost her “Little Freddy” and wept in silence.

In 1959 she told me, “It was hard to lose my Freddy, but it would be easier if I only knew what happened to him.”

Today I feel that she and Freddy are happily together again.

Halifax, the ancient and picturesque capitol of Nova Scotia, is visited every summer by thousands of American tourists. They enjoy their escape from the torrid heat of August at home, to the cool sea air, the clear blue days, and the peaceful sleep-filled nights, and they find no little interest in the bowery public gardens, the mazes of the sea-grit park, the royal prospects from the star-shaped citadel, and the many monuments that record the history of this old garrison. As long ago as the eighteenth century, during the American Revolution, hundreds of American citizens used to visit the place, but they did not come willingly; they were singularly blind to its scenic charm and they took the earliest possible opportunity of returning to their native land. They were, in fact, prisoners of war gathered up by His Britannic Majesty’s cruisers and land forces. They were confined in jails and prison-ships and barracks, and they lived on prisoner’s fare. Their lot was hard and they gave the city of their captivity a bad name which it was slow to shake off. Sooner or later, they were sent home by cartel, in exchange for British prisoners gathered up by the Continentals; but the more impatient broke out by force or stratagem, and the sympathizing Nova Scotians helped them “up along to the westward” on their way to freedom. The rape of the Flying Fish is a case in point, and the story shows how peaceful men suffer in time of war.

On the evening of April 7, 1780, a little ten ton schooner with this poetic name lay at a wharf in Halifax, probably Fairbanks’ near the foot of Blower Street. With the help of a single other hand, William Greenwood brought her up from Barrington, a small fishing village at the butt-end of the province, to the capitol with a load of potatoes. He had sold his cargo, possibly to the commissariat department, for Halifax had a huge garrison to feed at the time; and he had received his money. He had also his clearance from the Customs and he was ready to sail. Between eight and nine o’clock he was in the tiny cabin with the other man, the two forming the entire crew; he may have been getting ready to turn in for the night, or he may have been reckoning up the profits of the trip, or considering how soon he could get back to Barrington and begin the spring fishing. He had on board nets and other gear, and he knew where he could procure a sufficiency of salt; he may have been thinking of the Banks. Or he may have been meditating on the varied experience of the past five years, since the Thirteen Colonies had declared their independence of the mother country.

The war had been a hard trial for poor men like William Greenwood. Only ten years before it broke out, he had left his native state of Massachusetts for Nova Scotia and had settled at Barrington for greater convenience to the rich fisheries of the North Atlantic. He was a British subject. He had simply transferred himself and his belongings from one British colony to another, and now, for no fault of his, by the ironic accident of mere residence, he found himself an enemy to his old friends and the kindred he had left behind. How could he bear arms against them? How could he help sympathizing with the “rebels,” against whom the governor and Assembly of Nova Scotia fulminated in menacing Acts and proclamations? It was a cruel situation for a poor man, especially after Congress had declared that the thirteen colonies would have no trade or commerce with the two erring sisters to the north, which refused to join the union. The fishermen of Barrington and Yarmouth soon felt the pinch of want. Fishing was their sole source of livelihood; to move back to Massachusetts meant ruin; to remain in Nova Scotia exposed them to the American privateers and shut them out from their natural market.

Still, men are not as harsh as their laws; even in the worst year of the war, commerce between Nova Scotia and Massachusetts did not wholly cease. In October, 1776, the Barrington men loaded the schooner Hope with fish and liver oil and sent her to Salem with a piteous request that they might be allowed to barter the cargo for provisions, to keep them through the long winter approaching. It is impossible, they said, to get provisions elsewhere. The homely petition breaks into an irrepressible cry of distress-God only knows what will become of us.” To resist such an appeal was not easy. The House of Representatives allowed the agent of the Hope, Heman Kinney, to dispose of his cargo, and to purchase two hundred and fifty bushels of corn, thirty barrels of pork, two hogsheads of molasses, two hogsheads of rum [a necessity of life], and two hundred pounds of coffee. With these rations, rather plentiful and luxurious compared to what they purchased in later years, the community of Barrington managed somehow or other to get through the long winter.

Exactly a year later, Greenwood had been able to render an important service to the new republic by returning to it no fewer than twenty-five of its fighting men. Captain Littlefield Libby had the misfortune to lose his privateer. She was driven on shore by one of H.B.M.’s cutters. Her crew set her on fire and took to the woods. After a toilsome journey of seventeen leagues through the primeval forest, they reached Barrington and bought a boat with what money they had, eked out with their shoe buckles and thirty small-arms. But ill luck still fowled them. They were wrecked and lost their dear bought boat… Once more they were forced back on the limited hospitality of the fishing hamlet at the east passage of Cape Sable Island. In this crisis, Greenwood undertook to ferry them over to his forty-five ton schooner, the Sally, which may have been named after his wife. In addition to Libby’s crew, he brought one of Captain Fullerby’s men and three others who had escaped from Halifax and made their way to the end of the province nearest their own home. The plan of the previous year was repeated. On Captain Libby’s advice, the Sally was loaded with a few quintals of fish, the result of the labor of many families, some bushels of salt, and some fish oil to be exchanged for corn or wheaten flour, for the indispensable daily bread. By October 27, 1777, the Sally with her cargo and her returning privateers was safe at Salem, and four days later, Greenwood’s petition for leave to buy food was granted.

For the return trip, Greenwood had shipped a new hand, one John Caldwell, a young fisherman, whose artless tale illustrates the sufferings of the innocent noncombatants in time of war. He lived in Nova Scotia, not far from Barrington, where the visionary Colonel Alexander McNutt projected his marvelous city of New Jerusalem. Caldwell was the only support of his widowed mother and his sisters. The fishery had been ruined by the depredations of the merciless small privateers, so he made a voyage in a merchantman from Nova Scotia to the West Indies. On his return, he avers that he was “strongly important” to go on another voyage to Quebec; so he must have been a likely lad. On his way thither, his vessel was snapped up by the privateer Dolphin out of Salem, and he himself was mage prisoner of war. Now he petitioned for release, and the Council of Massachusetts were not without bowels. They considered his motives, his youth, and his peculiar circumstances, as he requested, and they gave him leave to return in the Sally to his own place. The next October saw Greenwood again in Boston with his annual cargo of escaping prisoners on board the Sally, and his annual petition for leave to buy food. His passenger list included Amos Green of Salem, Ichabod Mattocks of Mount Desert, and Mr. John Long, late quartermaster of the Continental ship Hancock. She had been captured by that very active officer Sir George Collier of the Rainbow in a sea-duel, like that between the Chesapeake and the Shannon, and taken to Halifax. The local jail must have been a curious place. The jailor was infirm and delegated his duties to his wife. The supply of shackles was insufficient and the regulations for visiting the prisoners at night were not enforced. Apparently, nobody with any contrivance remained long in durance. Americans were always escaping and always being helped up along by the people of Nova Scotia.

So far Greenwood, the “hearty friend of America,” as Captain Libby calls him, had managed to escape being ground between the upper and nether millstones of the hostile forces, but soon he was to suffer not from “the enemy,” but from the Americans he consistently befriended.

Some time between seven and fifteen years after the original discovery, operations at the Pit were resumed. Most accounts say “seven years,” which would place the resumption of work about 1803; although the account in the Colonist of January 2, 1864, gives the time as “fifteen years” after the first discovery. The weight of evidence, however, fixes the date as 1804. The Colonist account says:

The late Simeon Lynds of Onslow, a man well known in many parts of Colchester County, at the time happened to visit Chester on business. As Lynds’ father and Vaughan were related, he called and passed an evening with him. In the course of their conversation, Lynds was let into the secret of the “Pit” on Oak Island, and the opinion entertained about it by Vaughan and his companions.

Another version, however - a modern one dating from 1930 - gives the name of Dr. John Lynds of Truro. According to this version, John Smith’s wife did not want their first child to be born on Oak Island, apparently because of its mysterious history. They therefore traveled to Truro to see Dr. John Lynds, a relative of Anthony Vaughan, and they stayed at his home in Truro until the birth of the child.

During their stay with Dr. Lynds they told him of the Pit and he became greatly interested, and when they returned to Oak Island he came along with them to see the island and advise as to further exploration of the Pit.

After considerable research, little or no evidence has been found in support of this story. The best evidence is that Smith did not build his house on the Island until about 1805 and, their first child was born at Chester some time before April 15, 1798, on which date he was baptized.

Moreover, the genealogy of the Lynds family of Colchester County shows no physician with the name “John” at this time.

It would seem very improbable in those days, with all the existing difficulties of travel, that John Smith and his wife should travel to Truro, more than one hundred miles away, when competent midwives, if not a physician, were available in Chester, four miles away, or in Halifax, forty-four miles distant, if not in nearby Lunenburg, Mahone or Bridgewater. James McNutt’s diary written on the island in 1863, when and where the best sources of information were available, gives Simeon Lynds of Onslow as the leader of the expedition of 1804.

The accepted version of the story relates that the next day Vaughan crossed over to the place with Simeon Lynds, in a boat, to let him pass his own judgment upon it. The result of Lynds’ visit was that he came to Vaughan’s way of thinking:

Lynds was then a young man (about thirty years) and his father (Thomas) Lynds was in comfortable circumstances, and he had a good many well-to-do friends. He concluded to go home, form a company among them, to assist the pioneers in the search after the treasure and to complete it.

In his history, DesBrisay gives a shortened but circumstantial account of the discovery of the Pit in 1795 and its later history, based mainly upon an account in The Colonist, a Halifax newspaper, published on December 20, 1863, and from other sources of information.

Some time in the spring or summer of 1795 Daniel McGinnis, while roaming over oak Island, discovered a spot which “gave unmistakable proof of having been visited by someone a good many years previous.” He found that the first growth of wood had been cut down and that another was springing up to supply its place. Some old stumps of oak trees that had been chopped down were visible. Near this place stood one of the original oaks with a large forked branch extending over the old clearing. To the forked part of this branch, by means of a wooden trunnel (tree-nail) converting the fork into a small triangle, was attached an old tackle block.

McGinnis made his discovery known to his two close friends, John Smith and Anthony Vaughan, then only a lad of thirteen years, and next day all three visited the site and as they took the block from the tree it fell to the ground and broke into pieces.

(In passing, it is perhaps significant that Smith immediately purchased, on June 26, 1795, the Lot, No. 18, upon which the mysterious tree stood. They also found that the ground over which the block and tackle swung had settled and formed a hollow.)

At first they were at a loss to decide what it all meant. Recalling the local tradition that pirates (including, of course, Captain Kidd) had buried treasure along the coast, they went to work to ascertain whether their conjecture was well-founded.

On removing the surface soil for about two feet, they struck a tier of flagstones, evidently not formed there by nature. Afterwards they ascertained that these stones were not indigenous to the island but must have been brought from Gold River, about two miles distant. On removing the stones, they saw they were entering the mouth of an old pit, or shaft, that had been filled up. The mouth was more than seven feet in diameter and the sides of the pit were of tough hard clay, but the earth with which it had been filled was loose and easily removed.

They dug ten feet lower down, where they came across a tier of oak logs tightly attached to the sides and found that the earth below the logs had settled nearly two feet. The outside of the logs was so rotten that they felt confident they must have been embedded there for a great many years. After removing them they continued the work till they were fifteen feet farther down.

At this juncture they were unable to proceed farther without more help, and decided to drop the work until they could obtain other assistance. Before leaving off, however, they took oak sticks and drove them into the mud and covered the place over.

As these men, like most new settlers, were poor and found that it required all their time at hard labor more certain of remuneration to supply their wants; they were unable to devote more time just then to “Captain Kidd and his treasure.” However they looked about them and sought help from others, but without success. Some were superstitions enough to credit the saying that when pirates concealed money they always killed a black man and buried him with it to guard it. There were others who laughed at the idea of money being hidden so deeply in the earth and none felt inclined to render them any assistance.

From other accounts we learn that red clover and other plants foreign to the soil were growing over part of the cleared area. The earliest authentic mention of clover covering the site is to be found in an account of the discovery written by James McNutt, in 1863, of which only a fragment remains. This account begins with the words “to dig in the clover-patch, at ten feet found a tier of wood and the pit to be twelve feet in diameter.”

We learn further that there were marks and figures on the trunk of the oak, that the over-hanging branch projected four feet from the trunk and that it was twelve to eighteen feet from the ground; that the hollow below the branch was a well-defined circular depression about thirteen feet in diameter; that before abandoning the work they reached a total depth of thirty to thirty-two feet and that there were platforms of oak logs at the twenty and thirty-foot levels.

As one version put it: “They found that they were working in a well-defined pit; the walls of which were hard and solid; and in some places on the walls, old pick marks were plainly seen while, within these walls the earth was so loose, that picks were not required.” It is also stated that “it was low tide and hunting around in the cove, the men discovered a huge iron ring-bolt set in a rock and apparently a mooring place of a bygone day.” The cove referred to was undoubtedly that known as Smith’s Cove, where it is said that a very low tide the ring-bolt may still be seen, embedded in a huge rock.

A second ring-bolt embedded in a boulder under water has more recently been found off the north shore of the island.

The most reliable account of the discovery of the Money Pit, so-called, is given by Judge Mather B. DesBrisay in the second or 1895 edition of his History of the County of Lunenburg, Nova Scotia, first published in 1870. DesBrisay lived in Chester in the days of his childhood and was always in contact with those who were exploring the mystery of the Money Pit. He was an ardent and accurate student of the law of evidence and of the history of his native county.

In his History, he says: “The first settlers on the island were John McMullen, and Daniel McInnes (or McGinnis)… one of the early residents was Samuel Ball, a colored man, who came from South Carolina where he had been a slave to a master whose name he had adopted. His wife Mary had been a domestic in the house of Provincial Treasurer Michael Wallace, at Halifax.” They were married in 1795.

His firm comprised thirty-six acres (lots 6, 7, 8, 24, 25, 26, 30, 31, 32) on which he lived and “cleared.” He died December 14, 1845, aged 81 years, and under his will the property passed “to my servant, Isaac Butler who had resided with him on condition that he take the name of Ball.”

Daniel McInnis, to whom reference was made above, came from New England and took up land on Oak Island. One of his sons, also known as Daniel, his son James and his grandson John McInnis were all interested in the Oak Island enterprise. John McInnis, the grandson, was born on the island about 1865 and lived and died there.

At this point two others should be mentioned who with McInnis discovered the pit and worked to recover the treasure, and passed on the facts of the original discovery from father to son until a very late date in our story.

Anthony Vaughan was one of seven brothers, residents of Rhode Island, descendants of Rowland Vaughan who came to Massachusetts in the seventeenth century. Three of them settled in Chester, john in 1768, Anthony and Daniel in 1772, all of them being residents in 1783. Anthony took up 200 acres on the mainland, near Oak Island, and Daniel owned lots 13 and 14 on the island, which he sold in 1790 to Nathaniel Melvin.

According to the parish records of Chester, Anthony and his wife, Anna Vaughan, had four children - all born in Chester,

Anthony Vaughan, his son, was the chief source of the story of the discovery of the Pit. In 1849 he related the facts to Robert Creelman, who worked on Oak Island in that year.

Four grandsons of Anthony - namely, George, James, Harris, and J. Albert, aged respectively 80, 82, 84, and 90 - were all living on the Vaughan homestead at Western Shore in September, 1930. James died on October thirteenth of that year.

The various pits or shafts dug in search of the treasure were dug in the period 1795 to 1850, all on the farm of John Smith.

He was born in Boston, Massachusetts, August 20, 1775. He married Sarah Floyd on September 28, 1790. John, their first child, was baptized at Chester, along with twelve other children, by Rev. Robert Norris, on April 15, 1798. On June 26, 1795, Smith purchased Lot 18 on Oak Island from Caspar Wollenhaupt, a merchant of Chester. About 1795 he built a house near the Money Pit, and later purchased Lots 16 to 21, and there he and his family lived until his death in September, 1857. He brought up his children in very respectable circumstances. His daughter Mary lived in the family of Judge M. B. DesBrisay for sixteen years, first at Chester and later at Dartmouth, Nova Scotia.

Some time before 1790, the island became known as Oak Island, because of the very fine grove of large and beautiful oak trees growing upon its eastern end. It is a fact that Oak Island is the only one out of over 300 in Mahone Bay which has on it any oak trees. That they were large and consequently very old in 1795 is well established. Owing largely to the attacks of black ants in the last century, these oaks, which were numerous at one time, have entirely disappeared, the last two or three dying about 1960.

A number of writers, apparently with a view to adding more mystery to their stories, have stated that this species of oak does not grow elsewhere in Nova Scotia, that they are southern trees found no farther north than Louisiana. Some accounts allege that they are of Mexican origin, and on that assumption advance the theory that the treasure is an Aztec hoard.

Other writers have asserted that these oaks are of the variety or species known to the botanist as the “live oak” (quercus Virginia), an evergreen oak found principally in the southern United States. Its leaves are smooth and glossy; its wood hard and heavy, much used in shipbuilding. This assertion cannot be supported, for the oaks on Oak Island undoubtedly are red oaks, found along the same coast of Nova Scotia.

In 1931 one of these oaks, which bore on its surface evidence of having received an injury in earlier life, was cut down and examined critically with a view to determining its age and the cause of injury. Embedded deeply in the tree was found the end of a stout knife blade had broken off at the point of entry into the tree, the “rings” or “layers” were counted and it was determined that the tree was at least 183 years old, or dated from 1748 or earlier.

As we shall see, the presence in the Money Pit itself of platforms of oak logs, one platform above another, to a depth of more than ninety feet (each log six to eight inches in diameter) would indicate that a very extensive grove of trees existed on oak Island when the Money Pit was constructed. As such engineering work must have been carried out previously to 1749 when Halifax was founded, it follows that the tree cut down in 1931 was of a later generation. We have it as the opinion of a forestry expert, familiar with the grounds of oak trees along the south coast of Nova Scotia, that a tree measuring approximately seven or eight inches would be in the vicinity of fifty to seventy-five years of age. The older the tree, the slower it increases in diameter. A sixteen inch oak tree in this area would probably be about 200 years old. Assuming the correctness of this opinion, it fits in with the writer’s theory that the “Pit” was constructed between 1650 and 1750.

Oak Island is one of over 300 islands in Mahone Bay and is itself four miles from the town of Chester, Nova Scotia, and about forty-five miles from Halifax. A narrow channel separates it from the mainland at a point known as Western Shore.

The island was originally included in a Crown grant of 100,000 acres, forming the township of “Shoreham” (the original name of Chester), made to some seventy-three grantees or proprietors, on October 18, 1759. These grantees came in that year from Boston, Kingston, Hanover, Pembroke, Concord, Lexington, Plympton, Shrewsbury, Lancaster, Stoughton, Casco Bay and other places in New England. A further grant of 29,750 acres was made in 1760, and a third grant of 12,400 acres in 1785. The island is about twenty-five miles from the inner run of vessels sailing along the coast, and is almost entirely hidden from the view of passing ships by Big and Little Tancook Islands which lie to the east and southeast.

Oak Island itself is about three-quarters of a mile long and about half a mile wide and was designed on the first survey in 1762-1765 made by Charles Morris, Surveyor General of the Province, as Island No. 28. It was divided into thirty-two lots of four acres each, arranged in two tiers, one north and the other south of a line running almost easterly and westerly the length of the island. In DesBarres’ Atlantic Neptune (1778) the island is shown as Gloucester Island, a name conferred by DesBarres, which, however, did not persist. It was also known as Smith’s Island about the same time.

The eastern end of the Island runs out to a point which encloses a crescent-shaped cove, known today as “Smith’s” or “Smuggler’s Cove.”

In 1965 a causeway was built between the mainland and the western end of the island passable for ordinary motorcar traffic, and extending eastward towards the Money Pit.

It will also be observed that there is a marked indentation in the southern shore of the island and abundant evidence that this indentation was originally a lagoon, cut off from the ocean by a barrachois, or bar, of heavy gravel. Today the land north of the indentation is a very wet swamp, running almost across the island to the north side, and probably in earlier times a narrow channel between two islands. East and west of the swamp the land rises to form two hills, each rising thirty or thirty-five feet above sea level. It is near the crest of the easterly hill that the Money Pit, so-called, is located.

The soil of the island is very hard tough clay mixed with boulders of glacial origin. The erosion of the southern shore is proceeding at less than two inches a year. Today the island is partly cleared at its eastern and western ends. From time to time during the island’s history portions of it have been cultivated by residents.

Oak Island has become known as the most elusive treasure in the world, and the Money Pit and its adjacent works the greatest piece of engineering on the American continent.

The unique precautions taken by those who made the original deposit of treasure on Oak Island were intended to protect the treasure from all who might learn of its existence, and those same precautions and safeguards have successfully protected its secret for more than 170 years since its discovery and foiled the efforts of scores of capable, intelligent engineers, at a cost of many thousands of dollars. Who made the deposit? For what purpose was a pit opened to a depth of nearly 200 feet? Who constructed the subterranean sea-guarded vault, and protected it with water tunnels and other devices? Every new attempt to solve this mystery has made it more puzzling.

It is a fact that a vast amount of work was done at some remote period in an exceedingly well-conceived and efficient manner, in order to conceal and safeguard something of very great value. Men do not undertake such stupendous works from mere caprice, or for the concealment of trifles.

Competent engineers have estimated that it took an army of men, working for at least two years, to make this excavation. Their work was competently done, defying all later efforts to recover the treasure.

Each attempt to recover the deposit, after the discovery of its existence in 1795, has been based on, and encouraged by, information obtained directly from predecessors, and as the work progressed from one attempt to another additional evidence of the original work was disclosed, but always without leading to complete success.

One interesting fact that stands out throughout the 170 years of history is that men of high reputation and skill have persisted in believing in the existence of treasure buried on Oak Island, and this in spite of the ridicule of others. It is also noteworthy that from the beginning to the present day many of those who have been identified with one search have hastened to become identified with the next, and that with every succeeding exploration the evidence and probability of ultimate success has steadily grown until it has become almost a certainty.

Failure to recover the treasure after the conditions became known has been due to lack of funds, or lack of engineering skill, or lack of proper equipment, or all three. Money was often raised in too small amounts, the work was conducted in too haphazard a manner, or no well-considered plan was ever adopted and carried persistently and aggressively to its logical conclusion.

It was always the confident belief of those identified with the operations that the recovery of the treasure would excite a much greater interest than was aroused by the discovery of Tut-ankh-amen’s tomb; for the reason that the treasure on Oak Island was believed to be one of even greater size and value.

When you stand by the Old Town Clock on the Citadel Hill and gaze across the Harbor, to the town of Dartmouth, you will notice that the town is settled mostly in a valley between the hills. On one side is the high ground on which the golf links are located and on the other high hill is the site of the lovely home of H.R. Silver. On this hill I first saw the light of day. It was then known as Owen’s Farm. Between these high places the famous Dartmouth lakes are located, and they empty out to the Harbour of Halifax, down a controlled waterway of the Starr Manufacturing Company, and the rolling mill in Dartmouth Cove. I propose today to chat about the Dartmouth lakes where I spent my boyhood and the famous Shubenacadie Canal, which was built with the idea of a commercial waterway from Halifax Harbour to the Bay of Fundy.

The Dartmouth lakes which now bear the name of Lake Mic Mac and Lake Banook were for years known simply as First and Second Lakes. When I was a boy, living alongside First Lake with my grandparents, there were only one or two rowboats and the old steam-launch on the lakes, whose chief reason for existence seemed to me, to be a place where next summer’s ice could be obtained by my old friend Sam Chittick, but with McPhee’s Boat House, and the establishment of the Banook Canoe Club and later the Mic Mac Rowing Club, the scene completely changed.

The Dartmouth lakes became the playground of Dartmouth, and there is nothing finer anywhere. Today instead of just half a dozen houses at the foot of the lake on Prince Albert Road, and two of tree on the other side of the lake, one finds one of the nicest residential sections, particularly on the north side, and all along the Waverly Road lovely homes are springing up, where a few years ago only summer camps were to be found.

To the Dartmouth lakes on Natal Day, goes every Dartmouthian and thousands of Haligonians for the regatta and fireworks display, which outstrips anything in the way of celebration that takes place in the Province.

To those who did not own a boat or canoe, McPhee’s Boathouse proved a blessing. Here one could hire a boat and row up First Lake, through the tittles and on up Second lake to Port Wallis Locks, where family picnics would take place.

When this beauty spot was discovered, and after the usual romping around had been done and the family had settled down to eat on the banks of the canal leading up to the locks, nearly every small boy asked his parents what the big granite walls were for, and no doubt many of my listeners in Dartmouth have had to explain to their boys and girls the reason for this structure.

Only a few weeks ago I received a letter from a Dartmouth listener, whose small son had asked this very question and so for the benefit of this lad and others who want to know more about it, I propose to chat today about the Shubenacadie Canal, with which it was proposed to join the Harbor with the Dartmouth Lakes and then make a canal joining other lakes until the Shubenacadie River was reached as a waterway into the Minas Basin. The history of the Shubenacadie Canal covers a period from 1794 to 1870, nearly one hundred years, and ended in complete failure, as far as a commercial enterprise is considered, and now is nothing more than a magnificent scenic waterway, over which adventurous youths sometimes in summer, spend a couple of weeks, in a canoe trip, with several small portages between lakes; the locks long ago have fallen into disrepair. A great many members of the Banook Canoe Club will tell you of trips they have taken over this route, during the summer holidays.

At a very early period, the importance of obtaining easy access to that part of the Province lying on the shore of the Basin of Minas, by making a canal between Dartmouth and Shubenacadie Lakes and Rivers, attracted general attention. Sir John Wentworth, in a letter to Colonel Small, dated 27th May, 1794, says;” Your territory at Kennetcook will be much approved by my plan of rendering the Shubenacadie navigable, and a communication thence to Dartmouth by a chain of lakes. This great work I hope to get completed, if we are not interrupted by hostilities.”

Lake Charles, near the first Shubenacadie Lake, is three and a half miles from Halifax. From the southern end of this lake there is a descent through the Dartmouth Lakes to the harbor of Halifax, of ninety one feet; and from it’s northern extremity, a gradual descent through several beautiful lakes into the great Shubenacadie, thence in the channel of the river for a distance of about thirty miles to the junction of the waters of the Bay of Fundy. The lakes on this chain are the First and Second Dartmouth Lakes, Lake Charles, Lake William, Lake Thomas, Fletcher’s Lake, and Grand Lake.

In the year 1797, the matter of the canal was brought before the legislature. The House appropriated the sum of two hundred and fifty pounds, and appointed a committee to institute inquiry into everything connected with the construction of a canal from Dartmouth Cove, across the Province to the Shubenacadie River, where it falls into the Basin of Minas. This committee employed Mr. Isaac Hildreth, a civil engineer, who made a survey and reported it to the commissioners. The report was dated 15th November, 1797. He estimated that the cost of a four foot navigation would be 17983,202,17s [pounds] 6d.

In the session of 1798, a bill was brought before the legislature, for incorporating a company to complete the canal. A petition praying for legislative assistance had previously introduced and signed by William Forsyth, Andrew Belcher, and Richard Kidston. The governor of the province, Sir John Wentworth, being very friendly to the undertaking, addressed a letter dated 16th July, 1798, to the gentlemen who proposed to form the company for constructing the canal. He stated that the House of Assembly had addressed him, requesting that a patent might be issued toward carrying into effect the purposes intended in the said petition, and that he would give the necessary orders to expedite that patent for the advice and consent of His Majesty’s Council.

He goes on to say, that he is persuaded that the greatest benefit will be derived from the execution of the plan, “to the revenue and morals of the country, by making it the interest and convenience of numerous and increasing inhabitants to purchase the fair trader in or through Halifax; whence the frauds, lying, violence, and prejudices attendant on their commerce will naturally vanish.” Evidently bootleggers were in existence in those days.

Notwithstanding all this, the bill did not pass. The subject of a canal was therefore in abeyance until 1814. About this time the opinion was held by certain promoters of the scheme, that communication could be made between Lake William and the Harbor via Bedford Basin, A competent engineer, however, who was authorized to examine this line, disapproved of the proposal and gave his adherence to the original route. Further sums of money were then voted at the solicitation of Mr. Valentine Gill, a civil engineer.

About this time a small amount of money was voted by the Assembly was expended by Mr. Gill in removing obstructions from the river near Fletcher’s Bridge and rendering that point accessible during spring and autumn for large boats from the bay shore.

On opening the session of 1820, Lord Dalhousie, who was then governor, deemed the matter worthy of being included among the suggestions for the improvement of the Province. He said it promised great public advantages, and he suggested the employment of competent engineers to ascertain the extent of its difficulties. The House replied that it would carefully consider the interesting subject, Two hundred pounds were accordingly voted for a more particular survey but this sum being found to be inadequate, further proceedings were delayed until 1824, when an additional sum of three hundred pounds was appropriated to secure the services of a gentleman of competent ability for the execution for the important task.

In order to encourage and facilitate the formation of an association to construct the canal, an act to authorize the incorporation of such a company was passed by the assembly in 1844. at the close of the session, His Excellency Sir James Kempt said, “the internal communications of a country tend so manifestly to its improvement and to increase the productive industry of its population, that I shall lose no time in employing the means which you have placed at my disposal, to ascertain the practicability and expense of forming a canal to unite the waters of the Basin of Minas with the Harbour of Halifax.”

The Shubenacadie Canal Company was incorporated by letters patent dated 1st June, 1826. On Tuesday, the 26th of July, of the same year, the ceremony of commencing the canal took place. Sir James Kempt, the governor of the Province, attended by a large escort of the military and naval force, with artillery and rifle bands, also the officers of the Grand Lodge, the Royal Albion, and the Lodges Nos.4, 8 188, 265 of the Free and Accepted Masons, turned out, together with a large number of spectators, to do honor to the occasion. They proceeded to Port Wallis, three miles from Dartmouth, at the pass between the Second Dartmouth Lake, and Lake Charles; and there ground was broken by Lord Dalhousie who was visiting Halifax at the time.

The funds of the company were increased by the sale of stocks in England to the amount of twenty seven hundred pounds sterling, and also by a loan of twenty thousand pounds sterling by the Lords Commissioners of the Treasury. In consideration of this loan, the Lords of the Commissioners of the Treasury received a mortgage of the canal. The total expenditure of this company up to December, 1835, was in currency eighty seven thousand eight hundred and thirty pounds,

Notwithstanding Mr. Hall’s abilities and attention, and the approval of his designs by Thomas Telford, the consulting engineer, the works in the locks and dams proved very faulty. Every winter the frost did great damage. The contractors declared their inability to proceed with and complete their work. The company itself undertook to make good the damages, but with no better result. The dam broke at the northern end of Lake Charles, and immediately the costly works at Fletcher’s Lake and at the Grand Lake were destroyed by the great rush of water. This disaster proved a deathblow to the Shubenacadie Canal Company.

While the work had been going on, Dartmouth had profited materially by the enterprise. From the beginning, it had been difficult to procure suitable workmen, and the vessel called the Corsair was accordingly charted by Mr. Kidd, who proceeded to Scotland and returned in the spring of 1827 with about forty stonecutters and masons with their families. These men labored at the locks for about two or three years. They were industrious and skillful artistsans, and infused a spirit of emulation in their fellow-laborers, which has long borne good fruit in Nova Scotia.

After the unfortunate disaster caused by the breaking of the dam at Lake Charles, the works were inspected. And in the years 1835 and 1836, a most elaborate survey, with plans, estimates and report, was made to the order of Charles R. Fairbanks, Esq. It was estimated that the cost of the works would be four hundred and eighty seven thousand three hundred and seventy five pounds.

The mortgage made by the company to the British government was now foreclosed and by a deed in chancery it was conveyed to the province of Nova Scotia on 11th of June, 1851. The properties not covered by the mortgage were sold in the following year to satisfy judgment, and the whole was purchased for the Province by Hon. Mc Nab as trustee.

In 1853, the Inland Navigation Company was incorporated, having a capital of thirty thousand pounds. It purchased from the government of Nova Scotia the property and works of the late Shubenacadie Canal Company. The opening of the canal was again proceeded with, under the direct supervision of the new company’s engineer, Charles William Fairbanks, Esq. All their cash, twenty thousand pounds, having been expended, the company was obliged to borrow money by mortgage of all their property. The canal progressed very slowly, but in 1861 it opened for business throughout. A steam vessel of sixty tons, the Avery, named after the president of the company, Dr. James F. Avery, having cleared at the custom house, Halifax reported, via the canal, at Maitland, and returned again to Halifax Harbour.

On the 11th of June, 1862, the whole property and works were sold by the sheriff. They were purchased by a company called, the Lake and River Navigation Company. No boats were provided by this company, but private individuals placed on the canal three steamboats and twelve scows, together with one eighty ton barge. Consequently some business was done. A large quantity of timber was delivered at Halifax, also many thousand cords of wood, with building materials, coal and supplies for the gold mine were transported from Halifax. The Canal was thus worked at a small profit by the Lake and River Navigation Company, until they sold the property in February, 1870, for $50,000. Lewis Piers Fairbanks, Esq. was the purchaser. It was again doomed to go to destruction. Gold was discovered at the summit reservoir, and the Mines Department without any regard to the rights of the owner of the canal-lands there, disputed Mr. Fairbanks title, and the effect of the Provincial Government deed made by the Hon. James McNab, trustee for the province in 1875. One thousand dollars in damages were awarded to Mr. Fairbanks against the government for trespass. While this matter was under consideration, the drawbridge at Waverly was removed by the provincial authorities, and a fixed bridge erected in its place. This was a bar against all passage. The Dominion Railway or Public Works Department removed the bridge at Enfield, and replaced it by another bridge, whose girders were so low as to prevent the passage of a boat on the River Station. the owner, harassed by persons opulent and in high places, was obliged to realize the fact , that the completion of this inland river communication did not fulfill in any degree the expectations so earnestly expressed by Sir John Wentworth in regard to the great improvement to the “revenge and morals” of the country.

And that’s the story of the Shubenacadie Canal. Perhaps it’s just as well. If the Dartmouth Lakes had become a commercial waterway, thousands of people would have lost one of the finest playgrounds-camping sites and residential sections. And my only hope is, that the town fathers will see to it that it is kept beautiful, and that a large section will always be available to the John Q. Public and his family to enjoy themselves in God’s fresh air amidst such gorgeous scenery.

As we gather together, again around the Old Town Clock and gaze at the harbor, I am again thinking of the days of sail, of the days that the wharfs berthed those tall ships, that are, alas for the most pert no more.

Engines have taken the place of sails, wide flung to catch the breeze; steel plates have taken the place of Fundy spruce. Fortunately, the romance of sail remains and through these weekly meetings on the Old Citadel, all the glamour of a day that is gone forever can still be ours.

Some months ago, when it was my honor to have been serving with the Canadian Active Army I met an old friend, Bert Robinson, who was also serving and whose unit is now overseas somewhere in England. He had joined up in Winnipeg where he had been living for the last five or six years, and as he was the only Maritimer among the officers of his unit, we naturally got in a corner and talked about many things. My friend was formerly a newspaper man and had written many stories along the lines of those I tell you each week, and so today I’m going to tell you a yarn that he told me, and believe me it’s a corker! If you are superstitious you’ll be all ears-I think you’ll listen anyway.

A number of people wonder where I get my information every week-well the answer is from all sorts of places. From historical papers, from History books, from visiting many of the historic places in Nova Scotia., from talking with those who have made a study of things historical and by picking up information here, there, and everywhere and using my imagination and putting it broadcast story form, sometimes from direct information collected for me from which I make a story, sometimes people give me clues as to where to find a story, and sometimes from a friend like the story I will tell you today.

Anyone who makes even the most careless study of the days of windships cannot fail to be very much impressed by the superstitions that held sway both in the forecastle and in the after cabin. Some of these like the tale of the Flying Dutchman came down to modern days from the Middle Ages, but were so real to old shellbacks that there are still men alive who tell of seeing the Dutchman, ever beating south against a driving south-cast gale around the Horn, but never making any headway.

Too, it is a matter of record that many skippers refused to sail unless among the crew was numbered a Dane or a Finn, for these people were supposed to have supernatural power over the winds. Then, too, there was the kobold, a sprite that played the fiddle in the rigging of a ship that was doomed to e wrecked-and countless other superstitions. Old seamen will tell of haunted ships without number, and a whole library could be written on superstitions of the sea.

It is possible that many of these superstitions had some basis in actual occurrence, for wonderful things happen at sea just as they do on land. Today, I want to tell you of a very remarkable happening, a happening that is still without any satisfactory explanation. Some, after hearing this story, will dismiss it with a shrug of the shoulders and say,” Coincidence,” others will see it in the power of an arm far mightier than that of the fickle goddess of chance. But here is the story.

In 1872, the year that the Marquis of Dufferin became the Governor-General of Canada, there was a barque launched in Quebec. In honor of the new Governor-General’s consort, the barque was named the Countess of Dufferin. Like most wooden ships, her story is almost unknown until the very end of her life. The last voyage of the Countess of Dufferin began from Saint-John in December, 1891. Her captain was Captain Doble, and her cargo deal and lumber; the Countess of Dufferin carried a very heavy deck-load, as well as the cargo in her hold.

When she left Saint John, it was with a following south-west breeze that kicked up the white-caps and sped the barque on her way with every inch of canvas drawing. But as it is often the case, the fair weather did not last. The barometer began to fall rapidly, until the mercury touched only the twenty-eight inch mark. Every sign of a heavy blow hovered around the Countess of Dufferin, until on Christmas Day, 1891, the gale began.

It set in from the northward.

It set in from the northward, almost the worst possible direction, for the seas were running from the south, and a gale from the north sent tremendous cross-seas hurtling at the barque. Feeling none too safe with his heavy deck-load of deal, which could not but help make the vessel top heavy, Captain Doble took every precaution that he could. He reduced sail to the main top-sail, and, as a further precaution, he set that goose-winged.

First a heavy sea swept over the Countess from astern, and plunged into the forward cabin, completely ruining the supply of provisions that were kept there. Captain Doble ordered his men to get two barrels of apples which were in the stateroom, bring them on deck and make them fast. They got the apples, but before the barrels could be made fast a tremendous sea swept them overboard. That was the last of the Countess of Dufferin’s provisions.

The next discovery-even more ghastly than the discovery of the loss of food-was that salt water had gotten into the drinking water, and made it quite unfit for use. Comment on this is needless.

Then the barque began to behave so badly that the deck-load was jettisoned. Even this, however, did not make the decks safe for the men at the pumps. There was no danger of the barque sinking, for the cargo would keep her afloat. She would wallow, a water-logged hulk, through the sea, until her crew perished of starvation and thirst, or until they were washed overboard by the seas that swept over her every minute. And there was always the possibility of rescue-a hope that, no matter what the circumstances, never lefr the minds of the great seaman of the days of wooden ships.

Such was the condition of the Countess of Dufferin on the twenty-ninth day of December, 1891, I want you to remember that date-the twenty ninth day of December.

Now, while all this was taking place, the ship Arlington, under the command of Captain Samuel Bancroft Davis, of Yarmouth, was on her way from the old country to New York. What was a disastrous wind for the Countess of Dufferin was a fair wind for the Arlington, and she was in a fair way to set a record for crossing the Atlantic, when on the twenty-eighth day of December, one of those inexplicable events that happen once in a lifetime, occurred.

In the middle of the night, during the second mate’s watch, Captain Davis suddenly appeared on deck.”Luff!” he shouted. “Hail o’distress! Luff!”

The helmsman spun the wheel hard up, the Arlington’s head swung into the wind, and the second mate ran to Captain Davis’s side.

“Where’s the hail from, sir?” he asked.

“Didn’t you hear it?” demanded the captain, in astonishment.

“No’ sir,” replied the second mate, wonderingly.

“Lookout, ahoy!” he shouted. “Did you hear a hail of distress?”

“No sir,” came the lookout’s instant answer.

This was a puzzler for the captain. He questioned every man of the watch, but none of them had heard a hail of distress. He turned in perplexity to the second mate.

“I can’t understand this,” he said. “I was below, asleep, when I heard a hail of distress as plain as could as be. Why, they even gave their position=fifty two north, twenty one west.”

The second mate gasped
“That’s a day’s sail to the north of us, sir!” he exclaimed. “You must have been dreaming!”

But, dream or no dream, the hail was so vivid to Captain Davis that he ordered the Arlington’s course changed, then and there, to reach the spot of which he had heard in is dream. This took the Arlington two points off her course, far from the regular ship lanes, and, to speak plainly, some of the crew began to doubt the Captain’s sanity. There were many stories currant of skippers whose reason had fled them, and who had gravely endangered the safety of their ship and crew to satisfy insane whims. The Arlington’s crew feared that such a situation now faced them. No amount of persuasion however, would induce Captain Davis to change his mind, and he was not a man with whom one could argue; therefore, the Arlington sped northward, while the officers and crew watched their captain with anxious faces.

The course had been changed early in the morning on the twenty-eighth of December. All that day, the Arlington kept on hr way. The night passed, and the next day, without the least sign that Captain Davis had any ground whatever for his peculiar behavior. Then, on the night of the twenty ninth of December…the date I asked you to remember…as the Arlington neared the position given in the Captain’s dream, additional lookouts were posted, and, at midnight, Captain Davis himself came on deck and took watch.

Nervously, he paced the deck for more than an hour. There seemed to be nothing around them except windy darkness. The Arlington ploughed steadily plunged through the water.

Suddenly there came a sharp cry from one of the lookouts. “Something on the lee bow!” he shouted. “It’s got no lights-I can’t make it out!”

Instantly Captain Davis jumped into action. “Luff!” he shouted to the helmsman. Then, to the lookout. “Are we going to foul it?”

“No, sir!” cried the lookout. We’re clearing it… it’s going by on the lee quarter!”

Now, for all that he was thoroughly convinced that his errand was one of mercy, Captain Davis was very much angered at any craft that would sail on a night like that without any lights…or any other night, for that matter. A vessel without lights is a menace to navigation anywhere. Therefore, very wrathfully, Captain Davis seized his speaking trumpet and shouted as the Arlington went past the stranger.

“What ship is that?” he called angrily. “Why haven’t you your lights up?”

And through the darkness came the answer-

“Barque Countess of Dufferin-Saint John to Londonderry! We’re water-logged-haven’t anything to put lights up with. Please standby until morning and take us off!”

The astonishment on board the Arlington can better be imagined than described. Captain Davis however, was not one bit surprised. This was exactly what he expected. He sprang to the rail, and shouted in reply that the Arlington would standby until morning.

With daybreak, the task of transferring the Countess’s crew to the Arlington began. It was a difficult task, for the seas were still running high, and the gale had not abated. Two of the Arlington’s boats were smashed to splinters before a third one managed to reach the water intact, and to remain afloat. Here another Yarmouth name must be mentioned in our story-that of Hemmeon, the first mate of the Arlington. The task of rescue fell to him, and it is a credit to Yarmouth seamanship that the rescue was completed.

By early afternoon, the Arlington was again on her way to New York.

In concluding our tale, we should mention, that on the thirtieth day of December, the day of the rescue, the Arlington’s officers were able to take an observation and calculate her position. It was worked out as Latitude fifty-two degrees, thirty minutes north, Longitude twenty-one degrees, twenty minutes west…very close to the fifty-two north, twenty one west of Captain Davis’s dream.

As we sit and watch the shipping, I am easily persuaded to talk of the sea and on this occasion I am going to ask you to bring to mind one of the greatest riddles of the sea which concerns a Nova Scotian-built ship. Now all you seafaring men sit up and take notice, perhaps you have the answer to this mystery of the sea.

Just a week ago, our British United Press ticker carried a news item telling us that a yacht with sails set, was picked up at sea with nobody aboard, and that the authorities were endeavoring to locate her home port and owner. In this day of strange happenings at sea during war time, this item did not cause much of a stir. There was a point in the news item which interested me more than anything else, and that was the fact, that the yacht was picked up at a point at sea within twelve miles to the spot, where the famous Nova Scotian vessel, the Mary Celeste, was picked up about seventy years ago, with no living soul aboard, and to this day no definite and satisfactory explanation has been given out.

When-if ever-will someone come forward with an explanation of that mysterious episode of the sea, the finding of the Mary Celeste? By this is meant, a real explanation- one that will satisfy even those ancient mariners who listen to a tale of the sea, shake their heads gravely, and say “Couldn’t ha’ happened.” The one who explains this mystery satisfactory must tell why there was but one boat missing from the docks of the Nova Scotia brigantine; why, in apparently excellent weather, the captain and crew of the vessel deserted her; why one hatch cover, overturned was found lying on her decks; why there was no traces of a struggle other than spatters of blood here and there over her decks; why the hip’s log was left in the captain’s quarters, and all the other papers and instruments were taken; why nothing ahs ever been heard from the eleven souls who were on board, all of whom, including the captain’s wife, and little girl, must have perished.

There have been many attempts at explaining all this; but none seems to be satisfactory. Briefly, the known history of the Mary Celeste is as follows: She was built at Spencer’s Island, N.S., in the Dewis shipyards, about 1865. Launched under the name Amazon she made a few profitable voyages for her Bluenose owners, and then she went ashore on the rocky coast of Cape Breton, and pounded her bottom out. She was sold to J.J. Winchester & Co., of New York, was repaired, and she went to sea again under the name Mary [not Marie as it is often given] Celeste.

For one voyage, she loaded oil and spirits for the Mediterranean at an East River [New York] pier and set sail. From that day until she was sighted by the British brig Dei Gratia, her story is wrapped in mysterious silence. The Dei Gratia sighted her a few miles off the Azores group. The Mary Celeste was stated to have all sail set, was yawning frightfully, and was falling off continually in the light breeze that was blowing. Mystified by her behavior, the Dei Gratia sent a boat across to the Mary Celeste, and discovered abandoned, in the state mentioned beforehand. Everything otherwise was in perfect order, even some sewing and a small bottle of oil rested upon the sewing machine in the captain’s wife’s cabin.

There, sketchily told, is the greatest mystery that the sea has ever known, those who wish to explain the matter usually base their explanations upon the fact that the cargo carried by the Mary Celeste was highly inflammable.

For example, Frederick William Wallace, the dean of Bluenose sea-story writers, offers the following. On her way across the Atlantic, the Mary Celeste fell in with a ship carrying powder or some equally dangerous cargo. She was on fire, and while the menace of the flames was not immediate, it was enough to make Captain Braggs of the Mary Celeste, stand be the crippled ship. During the night, the wind fell, and a stray current bore the burning ship rapidly down upon the Mary Celeste. Terrified, the crew of the latter vessel crowded into a boat, and put away from the danger. At the entreaties of those on the burning ship they put back to try to take them in their boat, with the result that the boat capsized, and the crews of both were drowned. A breeze carried the Mary Celeste away from the burning ship, and saved her, to be discovered by Dei Gratia.

Mr. Wallace admits that this is not the best possible explanation. The open hatch is not disposed of; neither are the blood stains or the hacked bows taken into account. Farther than that, this presupposes that another vessel disappeared at about the time of the finding of the Mary Celeste. There is no record of such a vessel.

Another explanation, from the United States of America, is along somewhat the same lines. The Mary Celeste, it says, ran into very warm weather, and the captain and mate became fearful lest the cargo of whale oil ignite spontaneously. To cool off the hold, they opened one of the hatches. Their action as apparently too late; a huge fountain of burning gas spewed forth from the hold, and terrified, they took to a boat and rowed away a few miles and watched for another and fatal explosion. But that explosion did not come. A breeze came up, and carried away the brigantine, out of their sight, and so they perished in the boat. The blood stains are explained by saying that the cook, who was cutting some meat at the time of the explosion, became exited and cut himself; blood from his wound, as he ran excitedly about, spattered over the decks.

But this theory, plausible as it is, neglects the hacked bows, and leaves unexplained a very important matter.. The hatch-cover was overturned; no deep-water sailor would remove a hatch-cover, and lay it down upside down. It is just not done.

Arthur Conan Doyle, who was intrigued by the tale, wrote a story intended to explain the mystery. Unfortunately, all that the great creator of Sherlock Holmes explained was the hacked bows. These he explained to perfection by saying that a diving platform had been built there, and had been carried away in a squall. The rest of his story is so at variance with the known facts that it is almost completely forgotten.

All these explanations were given on the assumption that the facts concerning the ship were as follows:

The Mary Celeste overtaken and when boarded, sound from truck to keel, all shipshape and undamaged, and under full spread of canvas; her galley fire still warm, and food upon the stove; wash hung to dry in the fo’castle, with the crews money, pipes, and razors laying about; spread on the cabin table a half eaten meal, including a dish of porridge, a boiled egg slicked open at one end, three cups of lukewarm tea; besides these an uncorked bottle of cough medicine. A watch ticks hanging from a nail over the captain’s berth.. On the desk in the mate’s cabin is a piece of paper, on the paper an unfinished sum. The cash box has not been touched; the cargo appears to be in good order; the pumps are dry. There is no lack of food or drinking water-no sign of fire, or panic, or disorder. Yet, every soul that was aboard was vanished into the unknown without a trace.

Just lately another account of this great mystery ship has been written by George S. Bryan of Philadelphia, who claims that all former accepted accounts were all wrong. Mr. Bryan states that the Mary Celeste was not overtaken, she was met; she was not under the spread of canvas, she was under a lower topsail and two jibs with upper topsail and foresail blown away and the rest of her sails furled; her galley fire was out, all cooking utensils were washed and hanging in their places, and there was no sign of food being prepared; there was no wash hanging in the forecastle; there was no food of any kind on the kitchen [cabin] table., and no bottle of cough mixture; there was no watch ticking anywhere, there was no unfinished sum on a piece of paper; there was no cashbox aboard the vessel; the pumps were not dry, for the Mary Celeste had three and a half feet of water in the hold. All this the author brings out clearly in his text, without a shadow of misunderstanding.

This latest expert feels like the case itself was strange and mysterious, indeed; yet it must have had a simple explanation. The Mary Celeste was met by another vessel off the Azores in 1872 sailing free under shortened canvas as described; there was no one on board, there were no signs of violence, there was every indication that she had been abandoned in haste, the ship’s papers and chronometer were missing. Captain Briggs had his wife and baby along-there were ten people in the ship’s company-no word of them has ever come to light.

The cargo, consisting of alcohol in barrels, appeared to be in perfect condition. The fore and lazaret hatches were open the water in the vessel evidently had come from the seas shipped while she was sailing abandoned, and this was further proved by the fact that the binnacle had been knocked over and the compass smashed by a boarding sea.

The other vessel, the British brig Dei Gratia, put her mate and a couple of seamen aboard the Mary Celeste; they pumped her out, after which she did not leak to any extent, and sailed her into Gibraltar. There Admiralty proceedings were held, testimony was taken, surveys were made, salvage was awarded and the Mary Celeste finally went on under another crew to complete her voyage to Genoa. Thereafter she sailed under the American flag for eleven years, at last was wrecked off Port au Prince in Haiti, in an insurance scandal that ran through the Boston courts.

As for a final explanation of the Mary Celeste mystery this latest account favours the idea that the cargo of alcohol leaked and developed gases in the hold; that the fore hatch possible blew off with the sound of an explosion frightening the ship’s company; that they took to the boat, the wind being light or calm, and they hung astern at the end of a long rope and that a sudden squall parted the rope and the ship sailed away. The latest account also brings out the fact that Captain Morehouse, master on the Dei Gratia who was a friend of Captain Briggs, by the way, had a similar theory and claims that all seafaring men naturally hold to simple and rational explanation.

Old seamen about Nova Scotia, in discussing the Mary Celeste mystery, seem to be of the opinion that there was somebody alive on the vessel when the boarding crew from the Dei Gratia arrived. Indeed, this was the opinion of the British Admiralty Court, for an exhausted inquiry based upon this supposition was made by that body. Nothing came of the inquiry however, and the matter was allowed to drop.

But even today, when you mention the Mary Celeste to one of the old Bluenose skippers, he will shake his head and say, “Ah that mate from the Dei Gratia could have told a lot more than he did.” And , ask as you will, that is all they will say. Perhaps this latest author has the right answer and all previous accounts were twisted. You can take your choice, and so there my friends there you have the story of the Mary Celeste with the different explanations given. I suppose someone else will write a story about this mystery some day and so it will go on and on. As far as we are concerned we must leave it to others to settle.

As we think about the war and it’s activities, and the part this old “warden of the Honor of the North” is again playing our thoughts go back over the years, before there were any of the modern weapons of destruction, and when it took weeks to find out what was going on over the other side of the ocean and I promise to chat about the defenses of this port at the time when Halifax was first founded. Of course I cannot talk about any of the present day defense precautions, I also want to chat about a Canadian Regiment, The Princess Louise Fusiliers with which I had the honor of association, over a period of many years, and whose members have in previous troublesome times, as well as this war, carried with honor the name of its home city, Halifax.

I have no doubt many of you, have walked through Point Pleasant Park in the south end of the city, and have looked at the Martello Tower, or perhaps come across Chain Rock on the shores of the North West Arm, and have wondered why those big ring bolts were put in a large solid rock, or perhaps you heard about a boom of logs and chains which were anchored to these ring bolts. If you are like me, that much information would start you hunting and wanting to know how they defended the city when it was first founded, and you would not be satisfied until you had inspected whatever fortifications…or ruins…there were left standing, and imagined yourself living in those days, wondering all the time how you would have stood up to the trials and tribulations of the early settlers, and the more you found out, the greater your admiration would be, for those hardy pioneers.

As you are all aware Halifax was founded in the year 1749. From the year 1740 to ’54 or ’55, the defense of the town consisted of palisade or pickets placed upright, with block houses built out of logs at convenient distances. This fence extended from where St. Mary’s Cathedral now stands to the beach at the south end, and on the north along the line of Jacob Street to the harbor.

A large portion of the front of the present Citadel Hill was originally private property; a small redoubt stood near the summit with a flag staff and guard house, but no traces of any regular or permanent fortification appear until the commencement of the American Revolution. There were several block houses south of the town…at Point Pleasant Park, Fort Massey, and other places. A line of block houses was built at a very early period of the settlement, extending from the head of the North West Arm to the Basin, as a defense against the Indians. These block houses were built of square timber, with loopholes for musketry-they were of great thickness, and had parapets around the top and a platform at the base, and a well for the use of the guard. In 1755, four batteries were erected along the beach…the center one, called the middle or Governor’s Battery, stood where the King’s Wharf now is…another where the Ordinance Yard was afterwards built, called the Five or Nine Gun Battery; the third was situated further north, and the fourth called the South or Grand Battery, where the Nova Scotia Hotel now stands and which property was for years known as the Lumber Yard. These fortifications were removed about the year 1783, and the ground appropriated to their present purposes. The Ordinance Yard, then a swamp around the battery, and the King’s Wharf were both filled up and leveled by stone and rubbish removed from the five-acre lots of the peninsula which were beginning to be cleared by this time.

There were block houses along the beach, near the dockyard, built by Col. Spry about 1775. The drawings of the town, published about the year 1774 or 1776 show a strong fortification on George’s Island. About the year 1778, the Citadel Hill appears to have been for the first time, regularly fortified; the summit was then about eighty feet higher than at present; the works consisted of an octagonal tower of wood of the blockhouse kind, having a parapet and a small tower on top with port holes for cannon…the whole encompassed by a ditch and ramparts of earth and wood, with pickets placed close together slanting outwards. Below this there were several outworks of the same description extending down the sides of the hill a considerable distance.

The Lumber Yard, Ordinance Yard and King’s Wharf were all commenced about 1784-‘5. The North Barracks were built soon after the settlement. The buildings known as the South Barracks were erected under the directions of the Duke of Kent, as also were the North Barracks destroyed by fire some years ago.

A building called the Military Office stood at the south corner of the market wharf. It was used as a military office until 1790 or perhaps later. At this time a guard was kept at the Prince’s old playhouse, where an old Acadian School building now stands, and is used as a printer’s shop on Argyle Street, by my old friend Jack Ross. Jacob Street was a barrack site as early as 1769. It was the site of one of the old blockhouse forts erected at the first settlement. It continued to bear the name of Grenadier Fort until removed.

The old wooden fortifications were removed from Citadel Hill about the time Prince Edward was Commander-in-Chief.

The remains of this work were removed at the commencement of the present fortifications. Much of the old work was performed by the militia drafts from the country, embodied at Halifax at the close of the 18th century particularly in 1793, during Sir John Wentworth’s administration, and at subsequent periods.

Towers on George’s Island, Point Pleasant, The East Battery, Meagher’s Beach and York Redoubt were built at the commencement of the 19th century. The Prince established signal stations between Halifax and Annapolis, the first post being on the hill behind his residence on Bedford Basin. He leveled the ground called the Grand Parade. The Chain Battery at Point Pleasant was the first constructed, it is said, by Lord Colville, in or about 1761. The present ring bolts were put down during the war of 1812-15. The old blockhouse at Fort Needham and one on the south-east corner of the intersection of the present North and Windsor Streets, which was then the road leading to the Basin called the Blue Bell Road, were built during the American Revolution, and reconstructed during the Prince’s time. You see Windsor Street was evidently an extension of what we now call Bell Road; apparently the proper name is Blue Bell Road.

As early as 1761, there was a good road to Point Pleasant; it was a continuation of Water Street and was said to have passed through or near the site of the Lumber Yard grounds, where the Nova Scotian Hotel now stands, following the shore of the harbor.

Having taken you back to the early days of the foundation of Halifax, nearly two hundred years ago, I can not let this occasion pass without reminding my listeners of one very important present day link with our past, which every one of you must come across every day.

Do you know that the young men you see in the King’s uniform wearing as a cap badge a brass grenade, with the words Princess Louise Fusiliers written on it, are members of one of Canada’s most famous regiments; one whose history goes right back to the founding of Halifax in 1749?

The history of the Regiment is traced to December 10th, 1749, when Hon. Edward Cornwallis mustered the settlers of Halifax on the Grand Parade and formed ten companies under captains. This was the beginning of the Halifax Militia in which every man from 16 to 60 was trained. Throughout the first winter 150 men were on duty each night. Men of the regiments were also employed during the summers of 1749 and ’50 erecting palisades about the town.

In1753 Gov. Lawrence formed these companies into a “Regiment of Militia of the Peninsula of Halifax and parts adjacent.” Gov. Lawrence used the regiment during December and January in guarding the Town, whilst the King’s troops were in Lunenburg. During the strenuous days of 1756 the regiment was held in readiness to help repel any attempt by the French. The war with Spain in 1762 again saw the Halifax Militia erecting a battery on McNabs, and strengthening the various posts, and drilling daily. In 1775 Col. Butler was ordered to supply guards for the Town and the regiment was commonly known at this time as the “Town Militia.” In 1777 an expeditionary force under Brigade Major Studholm, fought against the Americans on the St. John River and included men of the “Halifax Regiment.” In the defense dispositions of 1788 three hundred and fifty men of the regiment were assigned to oppose landings.

During the Loyalist immigration, the unit supplied patrols for the Town. Hostilities with France in 1793 brought the regiment to the fore, two battalions being formed, called the 1st and 2nd Halifax Regiments, and they reported as being in good order by the Government. The Duke of Kent also used the regiment for work on the Citadel the summer of 1797 and later that year 400 men did Garrison duty.

In 1799 Town Patrols were supplied. Alarms in 1804 found them ready and in 1808 more guards were supplied. During the war of 1812-15 the regiment continuously did duty in the Fortress. The Fenian Raid in 1866 saw the embodiment of the 1st Halifax Regiment and its sister units. At Confederation the old unit took the name of Halifax Volunteer Battalion with the numeral 66 and in 1870 became known as the 66th Battalion, Princess Louise Fusiliers.

It was chosen to form the guard of honor for the Princess Louise, when she arrived in Canada, with the Marquis of Lorne, afterwards the Duke of Argyle, on the occasion of his appointment as Canada’s Governor General of Canada in 1879.

Three companies in 1885 were attached to Halifax Provisional Battalion and preceded to North West Canada. The Unit was credited to supplying the largest quota of volunteers to the South Africa Contingents in 1899-1900.

During the Great War the regiment did duty from 5th August, 1914, to May 31, 1918, also supplying 54 officers and 850 other ranks to the C.E, F. overseas.

On reorganization in 1919 the regiment dropped the numerals 66 and became the Princess Louise Fusiliers, perpetuating the 64th Battalion C. E. F.

The following honors are borne on the Colors: North West Canada, South Africa 1899-1900, Somme 1916, Arras 1917, and Amiens.

The regiment is allied with The Royal Inniskilling Fusiliers who have just celebrated their 250th Anniversary and keeps up regular correspondence with this old British Regiment.

In December 1936 the regiment became incorporated with the 6th Canadian Machine gun Battalion and is now known as The Princess Louise Fusiliers [Machine Gunners], and since this war began, it became a motorized battalion of one of Canada’s overseas divisions.

The colors of the old 1st Halifax Regiment were carried from 1900-1901 and then were deposited in St. Paul’s Church in 1903. The present colors were given by the ladles of Halifax and were presented by His Royal Highness. The Duke of York, who later became King George the Fifth at a parade on the commons during his visit here in 1901.

On the rolls of this famous old regiment one fins the names of such well known Halifax men as Major Gen. R.W. Rutherford, who was in command at M.D. 6 in 1914. Sir john S.D. Thompson, Col. the Hon. G.S. Harrington, Major H.B. Stairs, D.S.O., who distinguished himself in South Africa. Lieut. Col. G. Stairs of the Canadian Grenadier Guards, Lieu. Col. A.Q. Blois and D.S. Bauld of the 25th Battalion, Hon. Col. the Rev. W.J. Armitage, col. W.M. Humphrey, Sir Charles Tupper, Col. H.L. Chipman, Lt. Col. A. King, Lt. Col. R.B. Simmonds, and last but not least, Col. B.A. Weston, who must be known to a great majority of my listeners, and who joined the regiment as far back as 1865.At the outbreak of this war this grand old soldier came up to watch the regiment being mobilized. There are many more, too numerous to mentioned.

And still this splendid unit is carrying on in this war. Already a number of its officers and men are overseas with the first, second, and third divisions, and every officer and man is enrolled for overseas service and awaiting the day when the regiment will join their comrades overseas in the motorized division to which it now belongs.

There are several amusing stories told in the regiment and perhaps one outstanding is how the regiment got its nickname “The Plungers.” It appears that in the old days, perhaps when they used to drill in Pykes Field, which is the land enclosed by Spring Garden Road, South Park Street, Sackville Street, and Queen Street, one of the officers took them on a march out Bell Road, and headed them straight for the Egg Pond.

The officer failed to give the order to wheel to the left when they came to the bend in the road and it is said that they marched straight through the water in the pond…it was considerably deeper than it is now. Henceforth they were known as the Plungers.

Another amusing story I once heard, but cannot verify, and certainly do not take any responsibility for, concerned a certain Commanding Officer during the reign of the late beloved King George V. It appears that the Colonel and some of the Senior Officers were about to sign up some recruits on a very cold day and before going into the Orderly room, the Colonel decided he would like some stimulant and was served a brand of whisky known as King George IV. I don’t know how many he had, but it is said that he must have been greatly impressed with its excellence because when he was swearing in the first recruit, he asked the man to swear allegiance to King George Fourth instead of King George the Fifth. Luckily his adjutant was standing by and quickly corrected the error.

You know another point has come to my attention while speaking of the Princess Louise Fusiliers. The Old Town Clock which we love to talk about was used in the year 1833 as the Armory for the 1st Halifax Regiment, the predecessors of the men we now honor so readily for the part they are playing along with their comrades of Canada’s active Army. I hope many of the young men going in the Army anyway, will by this time next week, have on the King’s uniform, when we meet for more tales told under the Old Town Clock and will be wearing the famous grenade, the badge of the Princess Louise Fusiliers of Halifax. To Col. C.C. Mitchell, E.D., all his officers, N.C.O.’s and men who are serving overseas with this unit, which we are proud to call our own regiment, may I say-Cheerio and all the best.

Not far from where I live in Halifax, is located Gorsebrook Golf Course, and to the south of what is now the Club house, a garden is surrounded by a stone wall. At the south east corner, one of the stones has subscribed on it-”This wall was built in 1915″-This house and grounds are part of the old Collins estate, and the date on the stone and the history of the place has caused my thoughts to wander back for something to interest you of those stirring times, and so I remind you of the most remarkable privateer story that Nova Scotia has ever given us.

This particular story has nothing to do with the Collins family, but as they were interested in shipping in those days, no doubt the story I am to tell you, was well known to those who frequented this old garden at Gorsebrook.

In the olden days, Navy Departments used to encourage private citizens to outfit ships in time of war. These ships were not subject to naval discipline, they were not part of the navy, nor did they ever, when it could be avoided, take part in any naval engagement. They were designed solely to prey upon merchant ships, to destroy the commerce of that nation with whom their country was at war. As a reward for their actions, they were allowed to keep and sell as prizes, the ships and cargoes which they captured, and for authority, so that they would not be regarded simply as pirates, they carried documents known as letters of marque, granted them by their government.

These ships were very fast, and often carried quite heavy armament. Their smallness and their speed enabled them to escape from hostile warships, and their arms made them much more than a match for any luckless merchantman whom they might meet. If it so happened, however, that a hostile warship ever did get a good chance at a privateer, there was small mercy shown, for regular men of the navy looked upon privateers as nothing more or less as pirates. Indeed, two of the most famous pirates ever known, Captain John Kidd, and Captain Henry Morgan, began their careers as privateers.

During the war of 1812, The United States of America, being a new country, had almost no navy whatever. Therefore the government, more than a little dismayed at the one hundred and six ships of the line that the English had gathered at Halifax, put forth an especial plea for privateers, calling attention to the fact that here was a chance both to serve the new republic and to grow rich off prize money. Within a very short time, there were twenty-four heavily armed, very fast privateers sailing out of New York and making themselves no end of a nuisance to British shipping. Among these was a vessel known as the Teazer, which was particularly active. In a few short weeks, she had captured two ships, six brigs and six schooners. It is no wonder then, that as much effort was directed toward capturing the Emden during the early days of the last war, or the Bismarck in this war.

But to get back to my story last, in December, 1812, she was run down. The San Domingo, a huge warship, cornered the little privateer, captured her and burned her.

Her officers were allowed to go home on parole: that is, they were freed upon their promising that they would not again during the war bear arms against Great Britain. Officers were regard as men of honor, men who would keep their word. One of these officers was Lieutenant Frederick Johnson, of whom we shall hear more later.

It was not long before the Teazer was replaced. Early in May, 1831, the Young Teazer, named after the vessel that and been lost, took to the high seas with the intention of giving the British quite as much trouble as had the old Teazer, and with no intention whatever of being captured and burned.

But best-laid plans and the very best of intentions often go astray. The Young Teaser’s first mistake was made when, early in June, she boarded a vessel off La Have, and allowed the vessel and crew to proceed. Of course, the vessel was in ballast, and was hardly worth taking, but her crew arrived at Halifax with full details about the new privateer, her tonnage, the number of guns she carried, and the size of her crew. A very few days later, an incident happened which shows the daring of these privateers. The Young Teazer captured two vessels right off Sambro Light, at the very entrance to Halifax Harbour, and escaped a possible capture by running into the harbor and raising British colors. This was certainly bravado, but it was discovered after the Young Teazer had gone, and a number of British warships sailed wrathfully out into the ocean in search of the Young Teazer.

A Liverpool privateer, called the Sir John Sherbrooke, sighted her, and gave chase: but the Young Teazer was too fast, and with the coming of a thick fog, the Young Teazer got away. Then two warships, the Caster and the Manly, caught sight of her, but the light Teazer was far too fast for the heavy lumbering warships.

A few days later, the frigate Orpheus met with Young Teazer, and being nearly as fast as the privateer, gave her a hot chase to Lunenburg Harbour. There was a light fitful breeze blowing, and the master of the Young Teazer, realizing that he was no match whatever for a heavily armed frigate, crowded on every inch of canvas, and manned the huge oars, or sweeps, with what the Young Teazer was equipped. Even with this help, however, the Young Teazer was unable to get away from this British frigate, who crowded close at her heels.

The Young Teazer darted amongst the maze of islands that dot Lunenburg Harbour, hoping that she would get into shallow water, where her light draught would enable her to sail where the deeper frigate would ground. But the Orpheus was not to be shaken so easily. Into the harbor she raced; close enough to give the master and crew of the Young Teazer a great deal of worry.

Then luck favored the Young Teazer. She doubled over past Sculpin Rock into Spindler’s Cove, and then she squared away and ran between Cross Island and East Point into Mahone Bay, toward Tancook. In the meantime, the Orpheus lost the breeze, and could follow no farther.

But, just as the officers and crew of the Young Teazer were beginning to breathe more easily, and to think that perhaps they had escaped once more, a huge three-decked British warship hove into sight. She proved to be La Hogue, a ship that carried seventy-four guns, a giant of the sea that would blow the Young Teazer out of the water with just one blast. Still, however, there was a chance for the Young Teazer. La Hogue was a great sea-castle, and needed a real breeze to move her- and the wind that the Teazer was light and fitful, so much so that her sweeps were manned constantly. She kept on toward Mahone Bay.

Now the luck that had favored the Young Teazer deserted her entirely. La Hogue caught a breeze that was evidently missing the privateer, and to the dismay of the American, swept around her to windward. But this was not the worst. Scarcely had the Young Teazer realized the peril that this placed her in before the towering sails of the Orpheus appeared.

The breeze that had favored La Hogue, had also enabled the frigate to get windward of the Young Teaser.

Then the wind died, and the Young Teazer, trapped in the landlocked waters of Mahone Bay, lay motionless, with the huge British ship a scant three miles away, also becalmed, but waiting there sinisterly for the Young Teazer to make a move.

One chance remained. With the warship becalmed, the Young Teazer might have worked her way to safety with her sweeps, and, indeed, much a move was begun. But La Hogue was not to be cheated out of her prey. Across the waters to the Teazer came the rattle of La Hogue’s anchor chains, and the sound of putting over boats. In the twilight, the Teazer’s crew saw five huge boats, each thronged with men, and each with a heavy gun in the bow, coming swiftly toward them. The sweeps had to be abandoned, for the boats could move much faster than could the Young Teazer, and besides, there was evidently a fight in the offing, and every man would be needed.

To the accompaniment of the distant, yet ever nearer, splash of oars, a council was hastily called on the Young Teazer. There were two courses open; they could surrender, or they could put up the best possible fight against tremendous odds. There were only thirty-six of the Young Teazer’s original crew of sixty-five on board; the rest had been sent on prizes. Each of La Hogue’s boats carried more men than the whole crew of the Young Teazer; there were more British tars on La Hogue and in reserve, there was the Orpheus, sinisterly awaiting the last breath of wind.

Even so, a gallant fight could have been made. The Teazer mounted five guns, which could have wrought great damage to the five shapes approaching through the summer twilight.

But, while the captain hesitated, the council was suddenly ended by Lieutenant Johnson, the paroled officer from the old Teazer, who had broken his oath, and was again bearing arms against Britain.

Somebody screamed that Johnson had run into the cabin with a live brand from the galley fire. The next moment, the Young Teazer was blown into fragments, by a terrible explosion, a great spout of flame shot skyward, and the career of the Young Teazer was over. Johnson, who did not care to swing at La Hogue’s yardarm as a renegade, had fired the Young Teazer’s magazine.

La Hogue’s boats went hastily back to their ship, and waited until morning. Then, when the British saw the hulk of the Young Teazer still afloat, they sent out boats to pick up any who might have survived the dreadful explosion. A few men, horribly wounded, were patched up and taken ashore to Lunenburg. One or two others who had been flung uninjured into the water, made their way ashore, and surrendered to Lunenburg authorities. In all, twenty-eight of the thirty-six on board the Young Teazer perished from Johnson’s rash act.

The wreck of the Young Teazer was towed ashore, and Lunenburg people gave Christian burial to the horribly mutilated remains that they could find. Some idea of the ghastly scene that the Young Teazer presented may be gathered from the fact that at least one man fainted at the sight of the hulk. There still remain some relics of the Young Teazer. One of the lanterns is in possession of a citizen of Lunenburg County, and a piece of the keel made into a cross, is in the Anglican Church at Chester.

But the greatest memory of the Young Teaser is to be found in the legends about Tancook, and many stories have been told about happenings in June, 1813, when the Young Teazer came to her end.

When you take a walk around Gorsebrook, have a look at the old stone on the wall, and you will probably say to yourself, I’ll bet the occupants of this house in those days, heard some exiting stories of the sea.

Today we take another trip some distance from the Old Town Clock, for the location of the story of Jerome, the mystery man1

I was traveling on the Dominion Atlantic Railway coming from Yarmouth some little time ago, and my fellow passenger was Mr. F.G.J. Comeau, the general freight and passenger agent of that line.

When we were not far from Digby, Mr. Comeau, who was greatly interested in the history of Nova Scotia, said to me; “Did you ever hear the story of Jerome, the mystery man who landed on the shores of St. Mary’s Bay, and whose identity was never known, and who was put ashore from a mystery ship?” Immediately I sat up and took notice, and this is the story that Mr. Comeau told me:

It was in the early summer of 1854 that Jerome first came to Digby County. One evening the fisherfolk who lived along Digby Neck noticed a large vessel sailing up St. Mary’s Bay. She was strange to them and looked something like a man-of-war or a pirate ship…However she made no attempt to land a boat but simply hovered off shore. She was still there when darkness fell but in the morning she was gone, and her apparently meaningless visit caused some mild wonder amongst the people along the coast. This was changed to intense excitement when later in the day, one of the settlers named Albright, happened to go down to the shore at Sandy Cove.

As he approached the water’s edge he was startled to hear a moan, and on looking about him, he saw lying on the beach-a man. The stranger was young-apparently not over nineteen- with fair hair, blue eyes, and fine aristocratic features. All of this was apparent at a glance, but there was something else which caught and held Albright’s horrified gaze- both of the man’s legs were amputated slightly above the knees and the stumps tied up in bandages. When Albright finally mustered sufficient self-assurance to speak to him, the stranger said not a word, but simply lay there and moaned again.

Quickly, some of the neighbors summoned and the poor fellow was carried to the home of a Mr. Morton living at Centreville, and then called Trout Cove, where he was cared for and given a home. Apparently the operation had been newly performed by someone fairly skilled, for, though the victim at first suffered intensely, the wounds gradually healed and he became at last physically strong and well.

There was no clue to his identity beyond the fact that his clothes were of the finest material, nor did his protectors ever find out who he was despite the fact that he lived in the district for fifty-eight years. For in all that time he utterly refused to talk or to write and evidenced a desire to avoid anything which might throw light upon himself or his history. How could he remain so long silent is a question, but it has been suggested that he was unable to speak, either because of some natural defect of his vocal organs or as the result of an operation.

Only two or three times did he ever try to say anything and then it was apparently when taken by surprise, for he would immediately lapse into his former silence and appear to be angry at having been so caught off his guard. On one of these occasions he was heard to mutter something which sounded like Jerome, and from then on, that became his name. At another time, years later, he was suddenly asked where he came from, and murmured what sounded like Trieste, while on still a third occasion, when asked the name of the ship from which he was landed, he was thought to say Colombo. This last word led to the belief that he may have been of Italian descent, though people who knew him claimed that he looked more as though he might Irish.

In an effort to establish some conversation with him, the Mortons called in Jan Nicola, a Corsican, nicknamed “the Russia,” who was then living at Meteghan, and who spoke several European languages. Nicola had fought in the Crimean War and had later escaped from a war prison to find rest and shelter in Nova Scotia. He could elicit nothing from Jerome but his own former hardships made him sorry for the man, and although he had little enough himself, he made arrangements for the castaway to live with him. There, then, for the next seven years, the stranger made his home, and when Nicola died, he was taken by a family of Comeaus at St. Alphonse-de-Clare, Digby County, where he lived for over forty years.

During this time he was visited by thousands of people who heard his story but no one was able to identify him…He did not seem to mind their coming nor did their conversation usually disturb him, except that he would fly into uncontrollable rage at the mention of pirates or pirate ships.

The Nova Scotia Government learned of Jerome and several times published short accounts of him in an effort to locate his relatives, but without avail. Failing this they granted to his benefactors the sum of $104.00 a year to pay for his board. This amount being yearly passed by the Provincial legislature.

In later years a son of the Comeau family was working in New York when he was visited by two women who questioned him concerning Jerome. They said that their name was Mahoney and that they had known the man in Mobile Alabama. According to them, he had run away from home when still a boy and had gone to sea. Comeau afterwards said that one of them looked enough like Jerome to have been his sister. This one asked him if he would take a letter to Jerome and, on receiving his assurance that he would, brought him one sealed in an unaddressed envelope. This he took with him when he returned home; feeling that there might be a solution to the mystery, but such was not to be. Jerome took it when it was handed to him, looked fixedly at the envelope for some time, then tore it unopened, into little pieces, and threw it in the fire.

This same man, who had brought the letter, always felt that his mother, who cared for the stranger, knew something of the mystery about him, but if she did, as far as has ever been known, she did not tell a soul.

On April 19, 1912, Jerome died and was buried in the Catholic Cemetery at Meteghan. With him his secret also died, to be locked forever from human ears.

Many explanations have been suggested concerning him, but they are all purely imaginary. Some say that he may have been a nobleman whose lands had been wrongfully seized by a powerful rival and that his legs and voice were removed as a mans of getting him out of the way forever. Others suggest that he was a politician prisoner punished in this way for some crime. It as even been suggested that he was just a seaman who, as the result of an accident, had lost his legs and, being of no further use to his ship, was put ashore, where the Captain knew that he would receive good care. This, however, does not seem probable when one considers the fitness of his features and clothes and the total absence of any sign that he had ever done any hard physical work, for his hands were white and shapely as those of a girl.

The whole story, which is worthy of the talents of Sherlock Holmes, bears all the marks of some diabolic revenge. And if revenge it was, possibly not a state but a private one, or one wrought by some powerful secret society. When one considers the man’s personal appearance, his apparent unwillingness to try and talk, and his annoyance when a word was surprised from him, this idea becomes at least slightly probable. He would at times be lost in thought, when his mood was one of sadness, and he disliked any possible reference to his past, as is evidenced in his destroying of the letter unread.

If then, there were revenge; he may have felt that it was at least partly deserved. Yet it is evident that whoever left him on shore at Sandy Cove did not wish him to die as they left him the biscuits and water- not perhaps the daintiest of food, but still nourishment- and bandaged his wounds carefully. If the malnutrition was indeed deliberate, it is apparent that the perpetrators wished their victim to live. Perhaps Jerome had committed some offence, or had interfered with the plans of someone, for which the punishment was that though he should live, he would never walk or speak again.

All of this is mere fancy, but it is interesting at least to wonder what was the true story of the origin of Nova Scotia’s mystery man-Jerome. My thanks to Mr. Comeau, for a very interesting story and for a pleasant trip on the Dominion Atlantic Railway.

By the way, have you noticed that, if you come via the Dominion Atlantic Railway, when you get out of the train at the station in Halifax and look at the engine that brought here, that every D.A.R. engine ahs a name on it, not just a number? The names on these engines perpetuate the names of men who made history in this province, and I respectfully suggest that you look a little more closely at these engines and look up the history of the different men whose names you find there. It is quite usual to see a name on a ship, but to see a name on a railway engine is not usual. If you take a trip on one of the Dominion Atlantic trains, pulled by these engines with interesting names, be sure to look at the map of the line and find Sandy Cove and St. Mary’s Bay, where Jerome, The Mystery Man was landed in 1854.

The many fishermen friends of my acquaintance have told me some wonderful stories of their favorite lakes and never seem to tire of relating the exact details of the big ones that got away, but today I believe I have a true story of olden days in Halifax, of four Haligonians, and their amusing adventures on a fishing trip which took place over one hundred years ago.

In the limited time at our disposal for our chat today under the Old Town Clock, I regret that it is necessary to leave out some of the detailed descriptive comments of the original story as told by a former well-known citizen, Peter Lynch, Queen’s Councillor, who brought this story to light some sixty years ago in an address before the nova Scotia Historical Society.

It’s a story of Spider Lake, which you will find on your maps, over on the Dartmouth side towards Waverly.

Years ago, there was no one in the Town of Halifax better known than Joseph Hobson, the Barber. His shop, the resort of all classes, was on the north side of Duke Street.

He was an ardent fisherman. No disciple of Isaac Walton ever more delighted in the sport, or more skillfully and successfully whipped a stream. With an eye to business, and knowing how much he was missed when he was away, he did not allow his rod to keep him from his shop, and although during the fishing season, he was every week to be found at some of the neighboring lakes and streams, he managed to indulge in the one and sedulously attend to the other by leaving his home in the night at such time as to enable him to be at the fishing ground as the day broke, and after some three hour’s sport, to be back to his shop by breakfast time looking as neat as a new pin, and as fresh as a daisy. The dish of glittering fish displayed on the sill of the capacious shop window, generously told the nature of the morning’s occupation.

Next door to Hobson’s dwelt an old shoemaker by the name of Izet, a character in his way. He was just as enthusiastic a fisherman as his neighbor. Strange to say although the two men were always on the best of terms and held daily converse with each other, they never fished together. Izet had his fishing companion, George Illes, whose grocery shop occupied a corner some three blocks above that of his friend. They were both Scotchmen.

Joe Hobson, the Barber, also had a friend. He was Geordie Anderson, a man possessed of many of the same qualities of mind and heart as Hobson, and was one of the jolliest wags in town. He had not an enemy in the town, except those upon whom he had perpetrated some practical joke, for he was an inveterate practical joker. That overweening passion had cost him some friend, much money, and many a hard run, and not infrequent tussle, in which he was apt to come off second as he was but a small man. He was about five feet high and was of slight build. His dress was a long-skirted coat, a waistcoat which reached down to  his hips with large flap pockets and his short but well formed were cased in knee breeches, grey woolen stockings and ankle-jack  boots laced tight to his ankles. Above all those, resting in an ample white neck-cloth was a lean good nature face. Such was Geordie Anderson, the friend of Joe Hobson. They frequently talked together, often walked together, and always fished together. Geordie was of the two more reticent.

It so happened that on one memorable occasion, the two friends left their homes a little after midnight with their fishing gear, rowed themselves across the harbor and made their way through the thick bushes in the darkness towards as they thought a favorite fishing ground, but by some unaccountable blunder they had missed their way, got entirely astray and at last had to confess to each other that they did not know where they had got. Weary with wandering through the tangled bushes and fretting with the thought that they were wasting their morning in the woods, they had almost despaired of finding the fishing ground when just as the first grey streaks of light were shooting up into the heavens, they to their surprise, came upon the margin of a lake they had never seen before. It was a fine sheet of water, wooded to its margin, and lying asleep in the quiet of the surrounding hills. But just as the two men stepped upon a little hillock on the border of the lake a flop broke the stillness and a circle spread out upon the water until ring was locked in ring the whole surface of the lake was covered with gentle eddies. In a moment all sense of fatigue was forgotten, as with looks of delight the rods were quickly unclasped, joint fitted into joint, the lines were hastily put through the eyelets and favorite flies whirling through the air. The fish ignorant of the devices of the visitors, rose greedily in pursuit of the gandy flies as they skimmed the water, and in a very short time both baskets were filled, and a large bunch of splendid fish secured varying from 3 to 4 pounds in weight, and the fishermen, of course very much elated, were at home in time for breakfast.

On the way home Anderson charged his friend not to reveal to anyone their discovered treasure, and although Hobson promised to keep dark on the subject the other received the assurance with apparent incredibility “You know,” he said,” Joe, your weakness, now for once keep your own council and above all don’t tell Illes or Izet or the lake will soon be useless to us.”

In a short time after their return home the whole sill of Hobson’s shop window glistened as the light of the morning sun fell upon the fine fish, and what with the crowds who gathered around the window, and those who made their way into the shop to examine and ask about the finny monsters, there was but little to be done in the way of shaving or hair cutting. Poor old Hobson loving the truth, but yet remembering the injunction of Anderson stuttered and stammered as he perpetrated one after another of those monstrosities known as white lies, in response to the questions as to where the fish had been taken. About eleven o’clock when most of the crowd had dispersed, old Izet who had heard of the wondrous display, appeared in the shop with his leather apron. “Hello, Joe!” said the old man looking admiringly at the fish. “Where did you get those beauties?” Hobson repeated the reply he had been giving to the others during the morning, but he had now a more cunning party to deal with.

“Oh, no,” said Izet as he looked at honest Joe and saw falsehood written upon his face. “That won’t do,” Hobson became more confused and tried to evade further questions, but his neighbor would not let him escape, and after a long time he dragged the secret out of his victim, he having first promised faithfully not to reveal it to mortal man. Of course within half an hour, it was communicated by Izet to Illes, and the two had made their arrangements for a speedy visit to the Lake. As Izet was as leaky as Hobson, he had incautiously communicated the secret to a friend, and informed him with a chuckle of the intended excursion of himself and Iles. That friend, also a chum of Anderson, soon conveyed the intelligence to him and Geordie, as early as he could manage to, made his way to Hobson’s shop. As he entered Hobson saw by his manner that a storm was ahead and was not much surprised when the other said, “So Joe you’ve let the cat out of the bag.” As evasion was impossible Hobson had to admit that he had told the secret to Izet, but under a solemn pledge that tit would not be revealed to any other. “Didn’t I tell you’d do it,” rejoined his friend. “I knew you could not hold it, and I am not much surprised. Izet’s promise of secrecy was about as good as your own. He has told it to Illes and they already have arrangements to fish the lake, and are to leave tomorrow night, but I have determined that they shall not carry out their scheme and you know when I make up my mind to a thing I carry it out.” Hobson, kind hearted old soul, tried to remonstrate with him, reminded him that they were all neighbors, and friends,  and that they themselves would have felt very much hurt if Izet had made such a discovery and refused to allow them to participate in it first. But it was all in vain, and Anderson more excited and angry than his friend had ever seen him before, left the shop with a reiteration of his threat.

A short time before that, an Indian more in want of food than clothing, had offered a complete set of his clothes, including his hat and an eagle feather of portentous size, for sale, and Anderson thinking perhaps that it might be useful in his excursions through the woos, or more probably that it might aid him in carrying out one of his practical jokes, had become the purchaser of it.

On the next night, therefore, an hour before Izet and Illes were to set out, he with his full Indian suit, an old rusty musket, and the feather, piloted himself across the harbor and made his way up to the margin of the lake where he hid himself in the thicket. In due time his victims followed in their boat, landed at the place told to Izet by Hobson, and following the blazes on the trees as cut by the others as they could be discerned in the twilight, arrived on the shore of the lake just as day was breaking. As the two men stood upon the margin of the lake, no sound disturbed the repose except the gentle sighing of the woods but although there was not a breath of wind, the bosom of the lake was not undisturbed, for it was dappled all over with the fish, which were rising hither and tether in all directions. As the two enthusiastic sportsmen glutted their eyes with the ravishing scene, made doubly beautiful them by the circles on every hand, they looked at each other and with a merry laugh Izet remarked “What do you think Geordie Anderson would say if he saw us now,” little thinking that Geordie was but a few yards from them, his face beaming with delight. In a short time their hamper was opened and its contents spread out, for not knowing how long it might take them to reach the lake, they made their arrangements to breakfast there and spend part of the day. Their rods were put together with all possible expedition as the rising fish made them eager to get at once to work. Everything being ready was cautiously treading upon the yielding moss hillocks at the margin of the water when a crash of a bough of the neighboring thicket caused them to start.

No very recent atrocities had characterized the conduct of the Indians towards the whites, but past acts of treachery and cruelty were not so remote as to have been forgotten, and an Indian was therefore still an object of great dread. The evident crash of a limb near at hand, therefore, caused both men to start and look at ach other inquiringly but as nothing further was heard for the next few anxious moments, they were again to make ready for action, when another and louder crash caused them both to start, and with pallid faces turn towards the spot from whence the noise proceeded. “Did you hear that George?” said Izet. “Indeed I did,” said the other, “what can it be?” and as they both directed their anxious gaze towards the wood to their horror and dismay up rose an Indian clad in full regalia of his tribe. His face daubed with war paint and a very tall eagle feather rising from his cap gave him the apparent height of a giant. With loud and evidently angry words, purely extempore, which of course neither of the frightened men comprehended, he with impatient gesture motioned them to be off, and as they with trembling limbs hesitated, and gazed apparently spellbound, to their horror the Indian, raised a gun to his shoulder, with a wild Indian whoop. In an instant their rods were flung from them, their hamper and its contents abandoned, and they in full flight not knowing where they were going, and scarcely able to make their way along from terror, they tumbled and fell, with their clothes torn and their faces and hands scratched and bleeding, they made their way through the forest, and in a breathless state after an hour or more on the run, made their way to the shore, sprung into their boat and never felt that they were out of danger, until they were on the waters of the harbor, only too glad to have abandoned everything and saved their lives. In rags and tatters they made their way to their homes and narrated to their trembling families their narrow escape.

In the meantime Geordie Anderson as soon as they disappeared, having thrown down his musty firelock which had been innocent of powder or shot for many a long day, laid aside the cap and feather, threw himself down on the dewy moss and fairly rolled in it while his face was exuberant with delight. He, at last, sat down upon a rock, partook of the forsaken breakfast and then clearing one of the fishing rods, fished for an hour with much success, and returned in time to pay his accustomed morning visit to Hobson’s shop. His narrative of the morning’s adventure to Hobson, suffice it to say that it was interrupted by frequent and long pauses, during some of which his face became so purple and swollen, and his laughter so boisterous that Hobson begged him to desist fearing that it would result in a fit of apoplexy.

As for Izet and Illes they were the heroes of the day. Once within the precincts of the town, and feeling that they were safe, they recounted to their friends the perils from which they had escaped. They asserted that several Indians armed with guns and scalping knives had marched down upon them, and that fearing their numbers might increase, they, not being armed with anything but their rods, had thought that discretion was the better part of velour and had retired from the scene. The wondrous tale was reported from time to time for a day or two, until at last, just as Izet was finishing the narrative to an admiring audience in Hobson’s shop, Anderson appeared and raising his stick to his shoulder and pointing it at Izet, he uttered the same war whoop that he had let go at them at the lake. In a moment the truth flashed upon the mind of Izet and with a hearty malediction he fled from the shop. The audience, astonished at the sudden interruption, turned to Anderson for an explanation. He at once narrated the true version of the affair amid shouts of laughter. For days those who passed the cobbler’s shop heard the hammer of the old cobbler as with impatient blows it fell upon his lap-stone, but no one saw hi face for the next week.

We are all more or less familiar with Captain Kidd and his supposed activities off this coast. Today I am going to tell you a yarn, about a story which has come to me about a different kind of a pirate to Captain Kidd-a woman.

You know, if you chat with an old sailor, it is not very long before he will tell you a yarn of some far off happening, and in the course of my many travels for yarns and tales of the sea, with which Nova Scotia is so much associated, I have heard some weird and wonderful ones, but none more interesting than those of female pirates, one of which I will relate today.

As far as I know, there were no female pirates along the coast of Nova Scotia, but the sailors who sailed from these parts in bygone days have heard about them and so we can include a story like this in Tales Told under the Old Town Clock.

The story I’ll tell you today has been handed down from generation to generation and it dates back to 1799, just fifty years after the founding of Halifax. It’s the story of Priscilla Adams, who operated out in the Atlantic. It came to me in its original form, as a newspaper account from the pen of Captain Charterson. Most pirates operated off the coast of South America, or in places where no considerable naval strength was available to check their activities,-but not Miss Priscilla Adams. She operated right under the nose of the British Fleet, during the six years that she became famous. She is known to have robbed many craft and at all times to have operated within a day’s sail of where she might expect interference of naval vessels.

It is a mystery as to how she could have practiced as a pirate for so long without being caught. As the story goes, it was in December, 1799, that a vessel of less than forty tons, named The King Eagle, was known to be leaving a coastal port on the Atlantic on a so-called trading voyage. Merchants of her home port, knowing of her forthcoming voyage, requested space on board for freight, but her master refused, notwithstanding the fact that when he left port he carried nothing but ballast. Priscilla Adams found out somehow, just what this ship, The King Eagle, was up to. She found out that the King Eagle was not to be engaged in trade but was to go out into the Atlantic to meet a smuggler who was flying the flag of France, and there to take on a cargo which the smuggler had. She also found out that the smuggler was to receive, in return, bags of gold in payment for the contraband.

The King Eagle was out at sea for three or four days when she found she was accompanied by a long, rakish, dismal-looking craft of ugly lines. The skipper of The King Eagle tried to find out her name but even with the use of his telescope, he was unsuccessful, because the stranger had no name. If he had scanned the stranger a little more closely, he would have noticed the woman on the deck, was none other than the lady we have spoken of as Priscilla Adams. A brisk south-westerly gale came up and for two more days the vessels kept company with one another, until the gale had blown itself out, when Captain Roberts of The King Eagle continued on his voyage, and to his surprise he found that the mysterious, unknown craft sailed a similar course to that which he set. The mysterious craft was the much faster of the two, and in a few hours she outdistanced The King Eagle and disappeared over the horizon, much to the pleasure of Captain Roberts. Sailing with Captain Roberts, as first mate was a man named Evans, no doubt a Welshman, and to him Captain Roberts expressed his pleasure at seeing the mysterious boat disappear, as he had no liking for a ship that sailed the seas without even a name, and especially one so fast. Evans surprised the Captain by saying to him:” I believe that that ship is one known as The Black Devil, and overtook another ship and sent it to the bottom after stealing everything that the other ship had on board, including a number of bags of gold.” The mate continued, and told him that The Black Devil, had performed in exactly the same way as this ship had done during the past few days,-had caught up with them and sailed along with them and then sailed out over the horizon, but after dark had appeared from nowhere, as if from out of the sea, and had then sent on board a boarding party. He did not make Captain Roberts feel better by adding that while he was not reckoning on it, nevertheless, he felt that this mysterious ship, which he thought might be The Black Devil, was up to no good and might be heard of again.

With the thought of what the mate had told him, Captain Roberts proceeded to the point of rendezvous in the Atlantic and there awaited the coming of the French smuggler, whose cargo would be transferred to his ship and to which he would hand out the bags of gold he had brought with him. The King Eagle slow as she was, reached her meeting point well before time and the sea being fairly calm, just cruised around and waited. He calculated that the Frenchman would turn up some time that night and by the next night the job would be done, but he was mistaken. What he did receive that night was a visit from a lady heading a boarding party of well armed pirates, who, just as in the story related by the mate, seemed to appear from nowhere in the night. The long, ugly, black-painted craft suddenly loomed up astern and easily overhauled The King Eagle. His ship was boarded before he had time to do anything about it, and as soon as the lady was aboard she said very sweetly: “If I am not mistaken, Sir, I am addressing the master of The King Eagle, who is hanging around these parts awaiting the coming of a Frenchman.” To which captain Roberts replied: “It was most kind of you, Mistress, to take so much trouble to come and tell me that.” The soft-spoken female voice replied: “I am glad that you are grateful, and since that is the case, I know you will grant me a little favor.” Captain Roberts, of course, was greatly surprised at such a statement, and said; “What might that be?” To which the lady said: “will you please hand me over some gold coins that you have done up in four canvas bags, marked with crosses on each.” Captain Roberts then said: “Oh, you have seen them.” To which the lady replied;’ I have not, but I intend to, and I am going to see them in a hurry, so don’t delay.” By this time Captain Roberts decided, lady or no lady, she was not going to take his money away from him that easily, and he swore by heaven, that he would have nothing to do with her and that she would not get the money. Still very much the lady, this woman pirate replied, “It is a pity that you cannot be persuaded,” and then she turned to her men and said: “Get  ready, boys,” and commanded her boarding party to guard Captain Roberts and his mate, whom they promptly surrounded, and then she ordered the rest of them to male for the crew’s quarters. Evans, the mate, was evidently impressed that the lady meant business, and he whispered to the Captain” It is better to give the money to her as it will be of no good to us if they throw us overboard. If we give her the money, we will live to come out again, and if we don’t it looks like she is going to get it anyway.” Apparently Captain Roberts decided that the mate was right, as they had been caught unprepared. So he addressed the lady with the remark that a woman had never altered his plans before but this time it looked as if he could no help himself. He suggested that she go aft with him to get hi money, or rather the Frenchman’s, and then he received a piece of news that did not make him feel any better, when Priscilla Adams said: “The Frenchman has no use for the money, sir, for he was rude to me a few hours ago, and, well, there isn’t any Frenchman now.”

In the Captain’s cabin, beneath the glimmer of an old lantern, Priscilla Adams, carelessly doffed her oilskin hat and threw off her coat, and revealed herself to Captain Roberts as the most beautiful woman he had ever seen. In fact, she was described as a dream of beauty. Captain Roberts was a man who prided himself in never having succumbed to the wiles of maidens, a seasoned sailor, but there he sat, gazing with amazement. He had already fallen in love with the pirate, who with her men had captured his vessel and had now come to take his money. Suddenly he said to her: “I have changed my mind, you will not have my money until you make a promise.” To which she replied: “If you have changed your mind, Sir, I have not. I have come for your gold and I am going to have it, but, however, I will listen to what you have to say.” And so Captain Roberts made this proposition: “Take my money if you will, but if you promise to do what I want you to do, I will never speak of you being a pirate. I want you to meet me ashore;-you have no need to be afraid.” To which the lady replied: “Afraid, Sir! You insult me. Afraid! I certainly will meet you ashore. I have not seen the man I am afraid of yet. I will meet you ashore when and wherever you choose.” And she stood to her promise. She met Captain Roberts, some four or five days later, on an island in the Atlantic, and there on a chill, winter morning, they walked and talked. Three hours or more went by before Priscilla and Captain Roberts made their way down to their boats. “And this is the last, I suppose, I will see of you,” said Captain Roberts. “Certainly no,” replied Priscilla, “I can see that you have never made love before. I have captured your gold and now I’ll give it back. I’ll admit you have captured my heart but I’ll not take it back. Take me aboard your ship and we will set a course for church.”

The Black Devil may have continued her career as a pirate craft, and The King Eagle may have still sailed many seas, but Priscilla Adams was never more seen on the decks of the ugly vessel and Roberts never again was known to give money in exchange for contraband, and as far as can be ascertained these two strange characters of the sea spent the rest of their days in the Channel Islands,- those beautiful islands in the English Channel where for generations retired people have found a haven in which to live in peace and quietness in their old age, amidst the most lovely surroundings, where there was not even any Income Tax. Where life was considered ideal, until this war we are now engaged in overtook the world. No longer are those lovely islands the land of peace and plenty, as with the fall of France, the Nazi hordes moved in on them and many old people were forced to flee and leave their homes and belongings behind. The homes that they had saved all their lives to obtain, and which we all hope they get back in the not far-distant future, where the Union Jack will once more fly in the breeze, in place of the crooked cross.

As one gazes out to sea from our meeting place by the Old Town Clock on the Citadel, one can see Thrum Cap shoals and just opposite is the little fishing village of Herring Cove.

Today I want to take you back over the years to 1797 to tell you about the wreck of His Majesty’s Ship La Tribune and about a young hero about thirteen years of age, a boy whose home was in Herring Cove. His name was Joe Cracker. Perhaps his descendants live there today. The account from which the report of the wreck was obtained gives all the details and names of important individuals aboard the doomed ship, but fails to record the name of the Herring Cove boy, who by his example shamed older men to action, and whose name should be honored down through the years. Thanks to the Nova Scotia Historical Society his name was brought to light and honor given, to whom honor was certainly due, by the erection a few years ago, of a tablet on the sea side of the Herring Cove lighthouse.

La Tribune was one of the finest frigates in His Majesty’s service mounted 44 guns and had been lately captured by Captain Williams in the Unicorn frigate. She was commanded by Captain S. Barker, and sailed from Torbay the 22nd September, as convoy to the Quebec and Newfoundland fleets. In Lat. 49* 14″, Long. 17* 29″ she fell in with and spoke to his Majesty’s ship Experiment from this place, out 12 days. She lost sight of all her convoy October 19th in Lat. 46* 16″, Long. 32* 11″. On Thursday, November 28th, 1797, they discovered this Harbor about 8 o’clock in the morning. The wind being E.S.E. they approached it very fast, when Captain Barker proposed to the master that they should lay the ship to till they could obtain a pilot; the master replied, “he had beat a 44 gun ship into the harbor, that he had been frequently here and that there was no occasion for a pilot, as the wind was fair.” Confiding in these assurances Captain barker went below and was for a short time employed in arranging some papers he wished to take on shore with him. The master in the meantime taking upon himself the pilotage of the ship, and placing great dependence upon the judgment of a negro man by the name of John Casey, [who had formerly belonged here] whom he had placed forward to con the ship. About 12 o’clock had approached so near the Thrum Cap shoals that the master became alarmed and sent for Mr. Galvin the master’s mate. Who was sick below? On his coming on deck he heard the man in the chains sing out “by the mark five” the black man forward at the same time singing out “steady.” Galvin got on one of the carronades to observe the situation of the ship, the master in such agitation at the same time taking the wheel from the man who was steering with an intent to wear ship, but before this could be effected or Galvin able to give an opinion, she struck, Captain Barker instantly came on deck and reproached the master at having lost the ship. Seeing Galvin also on the deck, he addressed him and said [as he knew he had formerly sailed out of this harbor] that he was much surprised that he could stand by and see the master run the ship on shore. Galvin informed the Captain that he had not been on deck long enough to give an opinion. Signals of distress were instantly made and answered by the military posts and ships in the harbor.

Boats from all the military posts and the ships in the harbor, from His Majesty’s ships and from the Dockyard, proceeded to the relief of La Tribune. The military boats and one of the boats from the Dockyard, with Mr. Rackum, boatswain of the Ordinary, reached the ship; but the other boats, though making the greatest exertions, were not able, the wind being so much against them, to get on board. The ship was immediately lightened by throwing all her guns, except one retained for signals overboard and every other heavy article so that about half-past eight o’clock in the evening the ship began to heave and about nine she got off the shoals. She had before at about five or six o’clock lost her rudder, and on examination it was now found that she had seven feet of water in the hold. The chain pumps were immediately manned and such exertions made that they seemed to gain on the leaks, and by advice of Mr. Rackum the Captain ordered to let go the best bower anchor. This was done but it did not bring her up. The Captain then ordered them to cut the cable, and the jib and fore topmast stag sail were hoisted to steer by. All this time the violent gale, which had come on from the south east, kept increasing and carrying them to the western shore. In a short time the small bower anchor was let go, at which time they found themselves in about thirteen fathoms of water. The mizzen mast was then cut away. It was now about ten o’clock. The water gaining fast on the ship, little hope remained of saving the ship or their lives. All hopes of safety had vanished, the ship was sinking fast, the storm was increasing with redoubled violence, the rocky shore to which they were approaching resounding with the tremendous noise of the billows which rolled towards it, presented nothing to those who might survive the sinking of the ship, but the expectation of a more painful death from being dashed against those tremendous precipices, which even in the calmest day it is almost impossible to ascend. Dunlap, one of the survivors, stated that about half past ten at night, as nearly as he could conjecture, one of the men that had been below came to him on the forecastle and told him the ship was sinking; in a few minutes after, the ship took a lurch as a boat will do when nearly filled with water and going down. The jolly boat was let down with four men in her-but instantly the ship took a second lurch and sank to the bottom; after which neither the Captain nor any of the officers were seen. The scene, sufficiently distressing before became now particularly awful-more than 240 men, besides several women and children were floating on the waves making their last efforts to preserve their existence. Dunlap, whom we have before mentioned, gained the foretop. Mr. Galvin, the master’s mate, after incredible difficulty, got into the main-top, he was below when the ship sank, directing the men at the chain pump. He was washed up the hatchway, thrown into the waste and from there into the water and his feet as he plunged, struck a rock. On rising again he swam to the shrouds and arrived at the main-top and seated himself on the arm chest which was lashed to the mast. It appears that nearby one hundred persons were for a considerable time hanging to the shrouds, the tops and other parts of the wreck. On the main-top four only were alive when morning appeared; and ten were at one time alive on the foretop but three of them got so exhausted and had become so unable to help themselves that before any relief came, they were finally washed away; three others perished, and four only were finally left alive in the foretop. The place where the ship went down was only about three times her length to the southward of the entrance into Herring Cove. The people came down in the night to the point opposite to which the ship sunk and kept large fires, and were so near as to converse with the people on the wreck. Now we come to the hero part of our story.

The first exertion that was made for their relief was by a boy, thirteen years old, from Herring Cove by the name of Joe Cracker, who ventured off in a small skiff by himself about eleven o’clock the next day; and this truly deserving young lad with great exertions and at extreme risk to himself, ventured to approach the wreck and backed in his little boat so near to the foretop as to take off two of the men, for the boat could not with safety hold any more; and here a heroic action occurred which deserves to be noticed. Dunlap and Munroe had, throughout the disastrous night providentially preserved their strength and spirits beyond their unfortunate companions, and had endeavored to cheer and encourage them as they found their spirits sinking; they were now both of them able to have stepped into the boat and put an end to their own sufferings, but their other two companions though alive, were unable to help themselves. They lay exhausted on the top, wished not to be disturbed and seemed desirous to perish where they lay. These generous fellows hesitated not a moment to remain themselves, on the wreck and to save, though against their will their unfortunate companions. They lifted them up and by the greatest exertions got them into the little skiff, and the manly boy rowed them triumphantly to the Cove and instantly had them conveyed to a comfortable habitation. After shaming, by his example, older persons who had larger boats, he put off again in his little skiff, but with all his efforts he could not then approach the wreck. His example, however, was soon followed by men in the La Tribune’s jollyboat and by some of the boats from the Cove, and by their joint exertions the other men were preserved, who with four that escaped in the jollyboat make twelve, the whole number of survivors of this fine ship’s company.

Some were disposed to blame Capt. Barker as exhibiting too much obstinacy in not abandoning the ship and preserving his crew as a violent storm was evidently approaching, but on examining the men who survived, it was found [though other officers in the same position might have formed a different judgment] that the conduct of Captain Barker was throughput the trying scene completely cool and collected. Though from the manner in which the ship had run ashore, no blame could be attached to him, yet he could not reconcile it to himself to lose so fine a ship without making every exertion to save her. Having by the greatest efforts considerably lightened, he had reason to suppose she might get off before high-water. She made no water while she lay aground, there were therefore great hopes, if she could not that night been got up the harbor she might with safety have been brought to anchor and have ridden out the gale. When she finally got off, universal joy was diffused throughout the ship-every man thought the object of their joint efforts was attained- but the rapid manner in which the water poured into her, soon damped their joy and plunged them into despair. Had the ship been finally saved by the great exertions which were made to affect it, every man would have praised Captain Barker, and notwithstanding those exertions failed, we think it can be justly said, as in the language of Addison, “Tis not in mortals to command success, Barker did more, he did deserve it.”

To his memory therefore and that of his brave fellow sufferers, the commiseration of their countrymen is justly due.

As a reward for his heroism Joe Cracker was made a Midshipman in His Majesty’s Navy. He did not, however, like it and so was let out and disappeared from further notice as far as can be ascertained. And as we look out towards Thrum Cap and Herring Cove let us think of the lad, Joe Cracker, who so long ago contributed to the splendid record of heroism, of which Nova Scotian fisher folk are so justly proud.

It is surprising the number of newcomers to Halifax who ask about that circular building, with the round dome for a roof, which they see a few miles before arriving in the city, if they come by the main highway or by train. It is not so surprising on the part of those whose advent to Halifax is by means of a motor road, but the more fleeting view that arrivals by train experience, does not give them equal opportunity to have the structure impress itself on their minds. Yet, many of them note it, and a number express curiosity about its unique design.

O course, it would be difficult to find a Haligonian who does not know of Prince’s Lodge, and who does not boast at least a smattering of its history. But even a number of regular residents do not know much about the building perched high on the hill overlooking Bedford Basin on one side, and with the cutting of the C.N.R. track providing a minor precipice on the other.

It would seem rather fitting for those of us who gather each Sunday morning for our visit together for Tales Told Under the Old Town Clock to take a jaunt out to Prince’s Lodge today. The same royal person who was instrumental in the erection of the historic clock on the slope of Citadel Hill likewise caused the erection of this other building. But, where the town clock stands in isolation, the other one was once part of an extensive group of buildings which formed the home of the Duke of Kent during his sojourn at this post.

True, it was separated by a little distance from the main buildings of the estate, but was a part of it. The rotunda provided the place from which the band on frequent occasions in those colorful days discoursed sweet music for the entertainment of Edward and his guests. Legend has it that the Duke utilized the Maroons, colored men who were shipped here from Jamaica, in his operations of building, and it is said that the rotunda was used as a kind of temple in which these Maroons practiced their rites.

It was after Edward’s arrival here from the West Indies in May of 1794, that this beautiful section of the Basin’s shore took on its very important role in local history. While guest of Governor Wentworth, Edward, who had been named head of the British troops in Nova Scotia and New Brunswick, was taken to the Governor’s summer home these few miles from Halifax, which Wentworth had given the name of “Friar Lawrence’s Cell.”

Dr. Clara Dennis, in her much read book, Down in Nova Scotia, says “The Governor could not know that it was destined to be the setting for a real Romeo and Juliet whose romance would also end in tragedy, although unlike the tragedy of the imaginary Romeo and Juliet from whose story the Governor had taken the Friar Lawrence’s Cell as the name for his modest summer home.”

Edward found this spot, to use his own words, “better than any spot outside England,” and the obliging Governor gave over his place to his royal guest. From then on, it gained its new name of Prince’s Lodge.

Services of the leading landscape artist of the day in England were sought by the enthusiastic builder, and the natural beauty of the surroundings soon took on new glory as the development proceeded.

It is recalled that myriad pathways were directed through the woods, and each path was so designed that it formed a letter of the alphabet. Grottos abounded, Chinese pagodas were speedily erected where commanding views of the Basin could be secured.

It was fitting that such a place, and with such a history to be written in the brief period of its glory, should have a special pathway which boasted the designation of “Lover’s Lane”. What happy hours for those ill-fated lovers of history, Edward and the beautiful Julie St. Laurent who won his affections, the young widow who was an aristocrat in her own country, and who was Edward’s constant companion until expediency of the ways of state made it necessary for him to choose a royal bride. It was with Madame St. Laurent as the charming and beautiful and charming hostess that the then leaders of Halifax social world wended their way to the retreat on the Basin’s shores for the gay festivities. Many a titled visitor from other climes had his good option of Halifax greatly increased by the happy hours spent as an honored guest at the Lodge.

Let us say that we have traveled out the Bedford Road, past Mount St. Vincent, through Rockingham, beyond Birch Cove, and but a little beyond we see the rotunda, with the tracks between it and our highway. It was up the pathway from opposite the music room that we travel to reach the site of the main parts of the Lodge.

Arriving at the site, which has lost every link to the past but the rotunda, we will have to close our eyes and try to picture what it must have looked like at the end of the eighteenth century.

Records tell us that the main residence was a two-storey house of Italian style with wings at each end and the grand hall and reception room in the center. To the rear was a church-like structure said to house the offices and kitchen, for no cooking was actually done in the main building, a subterranean passage leading to that very necessary department. What rich repasts must have been carried along its artificially-lighted course?

Near enough to the house to give ready access was the library, stocked with books that were brought with great difficulty, for it is said that seven times through piracy or shipwreck Edward lost his household goods and books, including thousands of volumes at Sable Island.

It was a self sufficient little community that dwelt amid all this beauty, for it had its stables, forge, and a variety of other out-buildings to meet its requirements. There was even a barracks there for the guards over such an important person, and this structure was said to have been just a small space north of the still standing rotunda.

But even if able to get along quite well alone, it still was considered necessary to have a link with the city. It was not as simple a matter as today, with the telephone-so on a high elevation was the observatory and signal station. From it, signals were relayed through Fort Needham, at the north end of Halifax, on to Fort George on the summit of Citadel Hill.

Expense was not spared by Edward in meeting his own whims or those of his beauteous companion and it is said that when His Royal Highness finally quit this section, to meet the call of state elsewhere, he left the trifling amount of $800,000.00 in debts in Nova Scotia.

Dr. Clara Dennis tells us that behind all these scenes of pomp and gaiety dwelt a lonely hermit in his cell. He was furnished with rich food from the Lodge, but rejected all but the plainest of scraps, never leaving his cell but by nights. His grave is said to be somewhere about, at a place selected by Madame St. Laurent, and with keeping with his habits during life, he was laid to rest in the darkness of night. We could spend many moments here merely pondering what lay behind his selection of such a strange way of life.

There is another hidden grave hereabouts, according to stories that have been handed down. It is that of the Prince’s favorite charger. He would have no horse but the best, and it is said that this favorite stumbled but once, but even that was sufficient for a royal decree that he be shot.

There is still a little lake to be seen, if we travel up over the hill we find a small artificial lake. Once this was heart-shaped, made for Julie by her lover, but its shores are now unkempt. Where once stood well kept buildings. Are now but rough board structures used for picnic purpose.

For years the property was used for the center of organized outings from the city. Many of us in Halifax recall with thrilling memories the travels up the Basin in some small steamboat, to be disgorged at a wharf by the rotunda, and then to proceed on to the open parts above, where the fun of the picnic was experienced. Then at day’s end, as the shades of night started to make the eastern shore indistinct, we traveled down the slope again on tired and begrimed legs for the climaxing thrill, the boat trip back to the city.

What a contrast to those days of royal parties, with bowling on the green.-Prince’s Lodge, the name given to the section, is today counted as a residential suburb of Halifax. But a few short years ago it was the place where the more fortunate people of the city had summer homes, to be boarded up and deserted with the arrival of the colder months. Today it has a variety of attractive year-round residences, and people who make their homes there travel to and from the city in a matter of a comparatively few minutes, where once it was a journey of hours by horse-drawn vehicles, or by water up the harbor, through the narrows and to the western shore of the Basin.

There are still to be found traces of the paths leading back of the summer homes, the paths once trod by Edward and Julie, in the days before that fateful 1818, when it became advisable that Edward’s marriage to the Princess of Leningen take place. Madame St. Laurent first learned of this plan from a newspaper, and heartbroken she to a convent, death ending her career which knew both so much happiness and sadness in 1832. This romance, which is said to have included a marriage of Edward and Julie at Gibraltar, but which was not recognized by his royal father, George the Third, was doomed to unkind fate at the last.

But as a result of Edward’s union with the Princess, the British Empire was given its great Queen Victoria.

Surely a visit such as this, as we wind our way back to the shadow of the Town Clock, can give us food for much thought in the coming week, and will give added interest to the occasion when we next pass the rotunda. If you have time, and wish to hold a session with the past, so to speak, then by all means visit this historic place. See the lake, which still to a measure holds its heart-shape. Don’t delay for years, or it will be too late, for the area has been sub-divided for building lots. Up to recent years traces of the old foundation could be seen, but many of the rocks were more recently trucked away. Even the Gray house that succeeded the Prince’s Lodge, on the name site, is now a thing of the past.

Today the rotunda is owned by Mrs. Mary Karas, Morris Street, who occupies it as a summer home, and hopes to follow that practice for years to come, and finds the unusual design of the rooms of her Bedford shore home very intriguing.

At times efforts have been spoken of to gain possession of the place as a historic shrine, but so far no successful project has been launched.

And so we leave Prince’s Lodge, to return to town.

Here at our Sunday meeting place, the Old Town Clock on the eastern slope of Citadel Hill, we have a story of a young Halifax girl who became the wife of an Indian, and perhaps the strangest elopement story that this old city has ever had, to cause its gossips to let their tongues wag without ceasing for many days. It was up this steep incline that the young Indian and his chosen mate made their hasty way, in their successful effort to get clear of their pursuers.

But let’s start at the beginning. I’ve heard the story from various sources, it’s well known to many older Haligonians, but it will new too many of those who are newcomers. Peter Lynch recorded the story for the Nova Scotia Historical Society in 1883, so let’s go back to his account of it to refresh our memories.

Amongst the earliest settlers of this town from England, came a merchant, a man of respectable family, good education, and much intelligence. It was rumored that some unfortunate speculations at home had placed him in an unfortunate financial situation and that he sought a new chance in a new world. He soon won respect in Halifax, and went about his way unobtrusively, gaining a name for kindness and integrity.

His family was said to have been a small one, consisting of his sister, a aged spinster, who, after his wife had died, had presided over his household, and there was also his only child,, a beautiful girl seventeen years of age, and these with his domestic help and his clerks all dwelt under the one roof with him. In those days, it is recorded, hostels and boarding places were rather scarce, and it was not uncommon for a businessman to have his staff enjoy the comforts of his home with him.

At the time to which we refer, there was much distinction between the white settlers and the Indians, the red men feeling that the intruders on their grounds were taking from them their rightful heritage, the attack on the little settlement of Dartmouth, and the cruel scalping there, had heightened the feeling.

But despite the feeling, some Indians at times ventured into the settlement and were to be seen about its few streets. Among them was a tall, graceful lad who had been for some time an invalid and whose disease had baffled the skill of the Indian Medicine Men. He had come to seek the aid of the resident doctors, and while in the settlement, had attracted the attention of our merchant.

It was said that his good looks and his fine manly bearing, but above all, his sunken eyes and hollow cheeks and evident disability enlisted the sympathy of the kindhearted man. Gradually from time to time the Indian was invited to the house, and given a good feed at the merchant’s table. The lad’s intelligence and his apparent honesty, won the confidence of the man. His health improved under the attention of a Halifax doctor.

Then, at an evil hour for him, the merchant, and father of the young Halifax beauty, made the sad decision of taking the Indian into his employ… and in a shot time, he had won a place almost equal to one of his family. He wore the garb of the white man and seemingly adopted his customs and manners. His ability made him valuable to his benefactor. He was orphaned, and all contact with his race seemed to have successfully broken off. But there was one call that he could not overcome; that of the woods, and at intervals of increasing frequency, he sought and received permission to shoulder a gun and head into the forests. He always returned well laden with spoils of the hunt. First these were excursions of only a few hours. Then they became longer, perhaps some days.

He shirked his duties, and seemed to lose the pleasure of his new found life. Then, with a strange suddenness he was restored to his fondness for the civilized life, or so it seemed on the surface. It seemed a surprise of course to all others, but not to the maiden…the daughter of the household. Gossip started to spread about the friendship that was evident between the two young people of different races. Friends despaired of speaking with the father, knowing of his faith in his beloved child, and his confidence in the youth he had befriended. However, finally the merchant himself became aware of what was going on. 

The Indian was thrust from the house, and the young girl was kept under close watch. But, as Peter Lynch said, in his descriptive account in 1883, and I suppose it is just as true today, Love Laughs at Locksmiths.

After a time, she apparently emerged from her grief, and returned to a calm appearance. She was allowed to go and come from the house as she pleased. Soon again tales began to spread, that the Indian lover had been seen hovering about the brushwood fence and that under the cover of night, the pair had even been seen conversing near her father’s house.

Come the fall of the year, and one dark, but fine night, the occupants of the merchant’s house were aroused by his frantic cries on his discovery that his daughter had fled with her Indian lover. Neighbors were aroused by his cries, and gathered about the father, who seemed on a state bordering madness. He promised a large reward to anyone who would either secure the girl, or shoot the Indian. The discovery of her flight had been made with little loss of time. The father had armed himself with a gin, and had called on his neighbors to likewise equip themselves.

A tramp who had been wandering about the settlement said he had seen the pair as they passed him, speeding up the slope that now is surmounted by our Citadel, the very slope on which we gather, while I tell you these tales. The excited pursuers pressed on, spurred to fresh effort by this information. As they passed the palisade, one of the parties cried that he could see the path passing over the brow of the hill, which was then higher than it, is today.

You can see that the slope is a steep one, and possibly fear gave added drain on her strength, for the trembling girl tottered as she almost fainted with fatigue, but the Indian more accustomed to such a pace, was better fitted for such a race, and throwing his arms around her, had helped her sustain her steps.

Down the other side of the hill, they were able to gain speed but as they raced on, they could hear the angry cries of their pursuers. Where the Common is now, was once a stream and the Indian familiar with the lay of the land directed their path to a place where a dead log spanned the stream. He carried her across this makeshift bridge, the, putting down his burden, with a strength born of the situation, he managed to tear the end of the log from its resting place and topple it in to the water.

Up the incline known as Camp Hill they went on their way happy in the thought that the course of their pursuers had been somewhat delayed by the removal of the log bridge. Down the incline on the opposite side they ran on, and the cries of the armed pack behind again drew nearer and nearer.

What a welcome sight the black waters of the Northwest Arm must have been to the Indian, for he had laid his plans well. But, for a moment it seemed that fate had played fickle with his planning. His signal that he gave on reaching the shore went unanswered. No canoe with staunch-muscled braves at the paddles darted into sight as he expected. A cry of dismay broke from his throat as he heard the pursuers drawing nearer. But the cry was not in vain, for his friends, who had just given up hopes of his arrival had started to retrace their course across the Arm. They turned and put back to shore.

But a few yards separated the quarry from the pursuers when the canoe touched land. The girl was tossed into the frail craft, and just as one of the merchant’s servants reached out to grasp the hand of the Indian, he leaped into the canoe. The pursuer then grasped the canoe and held on, but a well directed blow of a paddle, landed on his head, put him out of the picture. The chase was over. A musket was raised and directed at the canoe, but fearful for the life of his daughter, it was thrown up by the father.

Today, in an auto, the place where the canoe left shore, and the place of landing on the Western bank near Melville Island, could be reached in a matter of scant minutes. Then it meant a long delay. The depths of the pathless forests hid well the path of the Indian, his fellow tribesmen, and the beautiful young girl who had chosen such a life, rather be separated from her lover.

What was the sequel, you ask. About a year from the time of the flight, on the banks of the Shubenacadie River, a baby was born, but the death of the mother wrote the end of another chapter in this strange story of old Halifax. What can have been her lot, in strange surroundings so foreign to her, and bearing the burden of the sorrow that she had caused the father who loved her so, can only be imagined. Perhaps death was a kindness to her.

The story isn’t quite all told. A few weeks after this scene of new life and of death in the lonely wigwam a tall gaunt Indian, under the shadow of night, stealthily made his way into the settlement. Carefully wrapped in a coarse blanket, an infant was placed in the porch of the merchant’s home, the door was loudly wrapped…then the Indian sped away.

The infant was carried in and placed in the arms of the father, as he sat sad and listless, just as he had spent much time since his daughter’s heedless act. The others for a moment thought he would cast it from him, and then as he looked down on the swarthy, little face, some of the features must have borne to him a link of the happier past. He gathered it to his bosom and baptized it in his tears. Blossoming into a beautiful woman, this mite was the solace of her grandfather’s declining years. Her Indian blood proved a blessing in one way, for it gave her a wonderful beauty of dark and distinguished nature. She did all in her power to add happiness to the home of the old man, and was beloved by the people for her kindness. She was sought in marriage by a British Naval Officer in command of a ship on this station, but giving him her heart, she would not consent to give her hand until the old grandfather she so loved had passed away. Then only did she marry her Naval Officer, and go with him to England and make hr home-a home blessed by a large family which had a number of its members gain distinction. Of the Indian, nothing more was ever heard.
 

As we gather in the shadow of the Old Town Clock, I am asking you to get out your map of Nova Scotia for today’s tale. We’ll talk of Claude de La Tour, and his son, Charles,

During the days when Canada was New France, there lived in this country for a number of years a scholarly gentleman named Nicolas Denys, Monsieur Denys, being a scholar, knew that a description of this strange, unreal country would be of interest to those at home in writing a book whose English title is “The Description and Natural History of the Coasts of North America”, and which was published in 1673. It is to this very well written work that we are indebted for today’s tale of a conflict between father and son: a misfortune that dogged the steps of Claude de La Tour.

By 1628, the two de La Tours. Claude the father and Charles the son, had built what is now Cape Sable the most important and strategic fort in all Acadie, Fort St. Louis. For many years, until the fort was superseded by the one at Louisburg in 1715, this stronghold at Cape sable was regarded as a key position for Acadie. 1628, however, found the de La Tours in a situation where it was imperative to have the support of certain powerful men at the court in France, and, in order to maintain their position, and hold their claim on Acadie, Claude de La Tour sailed for France. He was very successful on his mission, and on his return journey to Acadie, he was accompanied by a large French flotilla carrying supplies and reinforcements for Fort St. Louis.

But here began the bad luck which henceforth dogged the steps of Claude. The French ships met with an English fleet under the command of that mighty warrior, David Kirk. A battle followed in which the French were defeated. Kirk captured 18 French vessels, and among his prisoners of war was Claude de La Tour.

Kirk took his prisoner to England, where he was presented at the court of King Charles the First. Now de La Tour was a Huguenot, and King Charles had always been interested in the Huguenots. In a very short time de La Tour had found high favour at the English court, and had married one of the noble ladies of Queen Henrietta Maria’s retinue. This paved the way for the trouble that followed.

The English at this time were very anxious to get a strong foothold in Acadie, and it occurred to Charles the First that now, with de La Tour married to an English lady, it might be possible to win the French noble to the English cause.

It was suggested to de La Tour that he pass over Fort Louis to the English. Claude agreed at once, making only the condition that he and his son remain in charge of the fort, and that they both receive titles from England. This was agreed to, and very soon, in 1630, two ships of war, one of which bore Claude de La Tour and his lady, sailed from England for Fort St. Lois.

They arrived safely in Acadie, and dropped anchor in the harbour in front of Fort St. Louis. As Claude and a party came ashore from the ships he saw that Charles, thoroughly suspicious of any ship flying the English flag, had brought from the fort a group of soldiers, and was waiting for him. Claude landed and after an affectionate greeting between father and son, Charles demanded to know what his father was doing in English ships.

Taking his son to one side, Claude explained the situation, and told briefly all that had happened since he had left Fort St. Louis two years before.

“I have here commissions from King Charles the First of England for both of us,” he concluded. “We are both to made members of the Order of the Garter, and we will stay on at the fort just as we have in the past, except we will fly the English flag instead of the Fleur de Lys.”

Charles looked at his father scornfully.

“Is this the man who was the husband of my mother,” he demanded. “What would she say to such traitorous conduct?”

Claude, who had fully expected Charles to fall in with him at once was just a little concerted by this reply.

“You do not understand,” he said to Charles. “I am older than you and wiser. Here are two ships of war flying the English flag, that crossed the ocean without being once challenged. I left France with a large fleet, flying the French flag; it was immediately attacked and shattered.”

“They were cowards,” growled Charles.

“They were not cowards,” returned Claude.” They were defeated by a superior force…and so it is going to be until the end. I tell you, Charles, the King cannot hold this country against the English.

“And you want to be with the winners!” exclaimed Charles, scornfully.

“I want to be with the winners,” replied Claude, calmly. “I am no longer young, I have a wife to whom I have obligations, I wish to be secure for the rest of my days.”

“I will have nothing to do with it!” cried Charles. “Go tell your English king so!”

Claude searched his son’s face, and saw determination written there. Not until that moment did he realize the position in which he had put himself. He had assured Charles the First and the English court that his son would change his allegiance as readily as Claude himself had, and the English, acting upon Claude’s assurances, had sent out in the two ships only a small garrison to add to the men already at Fort St. Louis. It was not a force large enough to do very much attacking a fort. Claude turned swiftly to Charles.

“What shall I tell the commander of the ships?” he asked.

“I do not care what you tell them,” retorted Charles. “Send them here and I will give them my answer.”

That seemed to be the best thing to do, so Claude sent for the English commanders. Charles bowed courteously before them.

“I thank the King of England, your master, for the favous which he has been pleased to offer me, and I am under great obligation to him for the good will which he shows to me; but I have a master fully able to appreciate and reward my loyalty to him. I cannot consider surrendering the fort, or accepting any commission or rewards other than those to which my master is pleased to give me.” He said.

The commanders looked at one another in dismay. This was not at all what they had expected. They argued their arguments and pleas to Claude, but to no purpose. At last Claude decided that it was no use trying to do anything until the next day, at least.

“This would be well thought over until the morrow,” he said to Charles. “I will send for my lady and your new mother and I will spend the night with you in Fort St. Louis.”

Charles eyes blazed.

“She is not my mother,” he flashed. “If my mother were alive, she would die of grief to hear her husband speak the words of treachery that you have spoken to me!”

“You have not met her, Charles,” said Claude

“I do not intend to meet her,” cried Charles. “You shall not enter Fort St. Louis…neither you or your wife.”

With those words he turned away and left his father

There was nothing for Claude to do but return to the ships, which is what he did. Through the night, he held a council with the commanders, during which they treated him with scant respect for having misled them so badly regarding Charles’ stand.

The following morning, Claude did not again land, but he sent a letter to Charles, in which he summarized all the arguments which he had, to make Charles surrender. He ended by saying that if Charles would not willingly yield, they were determined to make him yield by force, and he cautioned Charles not to bring upon himself the anger of the King of England. This letter was taken to Charles by an officer of one of the ships.

Charles did not even deign to send written reply. Instead, he sent a verbal replay by the same messenger who had brought the letter. It was terse, and very much to the point.

“My father and commanders of the ships may do as they think best,” he said. “For my part, my garrison and I are quite ready to receive them at any time.”

The following day the ships landed a force before Fort St, Louis, and a battle which lasted all day and all night began. Attempt after attempt was made by the English to force an entrance into the fort, but every attempt was turned back by the garrison. Then they tried to set the wooden fort on fire, but so withering a fusillade was maintained by those in the fort that the English could not come near enough to accomplish their design.

Losses to the English were quite heavy during this attempt at forcing the fort, while the garrison, behind the heavy wooden stockade, suffered very lightly.

The next day, in an effort to frighten Charles into surrendering the commanders brought on shore every man in the ships, soldiers and sailors alike. During the latter part of the night, they made entrenches near the corners of the fort. They placed their men in these trenches, and poured a heavy fire upon the fort.

But Charles was not a man who was easily frightened. With some of the spirit that his mother had shown years before, he met the increased attempts to captured the fort with redoubled efforts to hold it, and once more the English losses were heavy.

Towards the close of that day, the commanders of the ships held a council, at which Claude was present. They told him very plainly that they had not enough men to carry on a siege with so determined resistance against them and they reproached him again with having deceived them. The only course left to them, they said, was to return to England and leave Charles in possession of the fort.

At this Charles was thunderstruck. He did not dare to return to England, for he was almost certain of punishment for his outwitting deceit if he did. To go back to France would even be worse; in that country he would assuredly hang as a traitor. To stay in America was almost as impossible. To ad to the misery of the situation, there was his wife. What should he do with her, now that in fact he was a man without a country? He had never made plain to her the exact circumstances in which he would find himself, should there be any slip in the plans which he had made at the English court.

Now however, he was obliged to go to her, and tell her frankly that he was an outlaw, without refuge anywhere. He suggested to her that the best course she could follow would be to return to England with the ships, and leave him to get along the best way he could. But for a second time Claude de La Tour had been fortunate in his choice of a wife. Lady de La Tour refused point-blank to leave her husband, and suggested that he try to make some sort of terms with Charles. This suggestion was immediately supported by the commanders of the ships, who offered to send to Charles any message that Claude might have.

With the help of Lady de La Tour, Claude wrote Charles a second letter, telling his circumstances, and asking Charles for his protection. A reply, this time written, was brought back by the messenger saying that while Charles would never again permit Claude to enter Fort St. Louis, he would be welcome to land, and would be cared for as long as he wished to stay.

Claude and his lady were taken to the wood flanked shores, and the two English ships sailed away. At once Charles set his men to work building a log cabin for his father and the Lady de La Tour, just outside the borders of the fort. The cabin was soon built and supplies from the fort were taken to it.

From that day on, Claude and the Lady de La Tour lived in their log hut beside Fort St. Louis. When the supplies were exhausted, they were replenished from the fort; but never did either of them set foot within the fort; that they wished to betray the English.

And that, ladies and gentleman is the end of the story of the two de La Tours. Claude the father, and Charles the son, of whom plenty more was heard, and who later established himself in Saint John where his name is honoured today.

Eastern Passage, Nova Scotia, is a small community at the mouth of Halifax Harbour and is named for the waterway between the mainland on one side and the islands, Lawlor’s and McNab’s, on the other. The first official mention of the area was on a nautical chart prepared by James Cook in 1759. It refers to the South East Passage, the ocean end of the overall Passage, as passable for small watercraft. The name Eastern Passage is mentioned on an Admiralty Chart in 1853.

Eastern Passage has been, at one time or another, home to Mi’kmaq, French, British and German settlers. Native settlement was usually in the summer months when the Mi’kmaq could take advantage of the saltwater and freshwater resources accessible from the area. They continued summer settlement until the late 1800s.

War between France and England had a terrible effect on relations between the settlers of the Halifax area and the natives, who were often in caught in the middle. The Mi’kmaq were allied with the French, and as the fighting between France and England intensified m 1749, Edward Cornwallis placed a bounty on natives.

At the height of the problems in 1751, after an attack on Dartmouth residents, the Mi’kmaq were deported from Eastern Passage to McNab’s Island, where it was thought their movements would be restricted and easier to monitor. In his “History of Eastern Passage” for the Dartmouth Patriot in 1901, H. W. Hewitt wrote about an incident in which Mi’krnaq killed five English soldiers at the fort on Cogel’s Point.

A truce was called in 1752, at which point disease caused by European contact had weakened the Mi’kmaq population. By that time the English settlement of Halifax had become powerful enough that the Mi’kmaq no longer posed a great danger.

One of the first land grants given in Eastern Passage was to a veteran soldier. Joseph Gorham was granted a large parcel of land in Eastern Passage from Governor Edward Cornwallis in 1752. Gorham was most famous along with his three brothers as members of military group known as the Gorham’s Rangers, a mercenary group largely made up of Britain’s Mohawk allies, that used guerilla tactics. Gorham went on to be appointed Head of the Indian Department and Governor of Newfoundland. He was reportedly a heavy drinker and this eventually led to the loss of all his land, including the Eastern Passage grant.

In 1798 the land formerly owned by Gorham was deeded to one of the more noteworthy early settlers of Eastern Passage, Jacob Horn (his descendants now have an “e” at the end of their surname). Of German descent, Horn had fought alongside Frederick the Great of Prussia. Jacob eventually came to Canada and fought for the British under General Wolfe at Quebec in 1759. After the French defeat, he came to Halifax. According to Hewitt, Horn travelled from Quebec on snowshoes, a popular but gruelling mode of travel during the winter months. Jacob had been granted McNab’s Island, but found it inconvenient to transport produce and cattle to the mainland, so he traded his grant for one in Eastern Passage.

Many land grants were given to individuals whose ancestors still live in Eastern Passage. Names such as Naugle, Romkey, Hartlen and Soward can be traced to these early land grantees. Agriculture was a major source of income for many of the early settlers. Many of the early residents prospered, as they found the quiet life to their liking and the close proximity of the markets of Halifax convenient, especially in the winter when the harbour froze, making the trip easy in a horse and sleigh.

In 1813 the road from the Horne property (Quigley’s Corner) to Hawkin’s Point (Hartlen’s Point) was repaired after a request from Lewis Himmelman, a newly arrived settler of German descent. There were subsequent repairs to roads in Eastern Passage and Cow Bay due to increased population and usage. In 1827 the population of Eastern Passage stood at 157, comprised of 26 families. According to census data, none of the families reported fishing as an occupation.

By 1851 the population had quadrupled.

There were 661 people in Eastern Passage in 90 families. Almost half the families listed fishing as their primary occupation. This suggests that they migrated to Eastern Passage for this. The family names that were common at the time and which are still familiar are Horn(e), Cleary, Negus, DeYoung, Fraser, Osborn(e), Himmelmann, Moser, Edwards, Bowes, McKenzie and York.

The population of Eastern Passage continued to grow. The 1871 census recorded 818 people and 152 families. Fishing was the main occupation of a fifth of the population. Additional names in the census that are familiar today are Henneberry, Conrad and Welshman.

By 1881 the population growth slowed and there were reportedly 892 residents. One-third of the families listed fishing as their primary means of making a living. Most of the names of the settlers from the 1800s can still be found in Eastern Passage.

In the 1800s the residents of Eastern Passage made their living in a number of ways other than fishing. In 1855 a brickworks was opened. It employed up to 40 workers at a time and provided face bricks for Fort Needham in Halifax.

Between 1840 and World War II, gold was mined in Cow Bay. It was said to have been discovered by Al Negus in the 1840s and mined ’til 1890, when rights were sold to an American Company. Gold and other minerals such as graphite and lead were mined in Cow Bay and the Passage until World War II.

Construction has always been an important source of income in Eastern Passage. As early as 1745 the British military built the Eastern Battery to help protect the harbour from attack. It was renamed Fort Clarence. In 1866 and 1880 Fort Clarence was expanded, providing local jobs. It was finally dismantled in 1930.

The turn of the century brought new technology to Eastern Passage, including the first telephone service in 1902. The first automobiles appeared in Nova Scotia in 1909. Into the ’30s and ’40s boats and horse-drawn wagons or sleighs were the main modes of transportation in Eastern Passage (according to one resident there were only three or four cars in the Passage before World War II). In 1912 the railway was extended from Woodside through Eastern Passage to Musquodoboit, allowing further industrial developments.

Imperial Oil opened in 1918 and was a major employer, offering year-round employment with benefits. Many of the employees of Imperial Oil moved to the new village called Imperoyal in what is now known as Woodside.

The early ’40s brought a lot of changes to Eastern Passage both physically and psychologically. The population of Eastern Passage exploded with the influx of thousands of soldiers who were assigned to guard the harbour and train for the war in Europe. The forts, gun bunkers and submarine gates changed the landscape forever. The destructive fire of 1942 also changed the lives of many people in Eastern Passage. Families were left homeless and much of the waterfront was burned to the ground. And finally the famous Crick was dredged in 1946. Before that it has been said that you could jump across the water at low tide. The dredging made it possible for the Crick to become the base for the fishing industry in the area.

The Eastern Passage that the interviewees remember was a small rural community, where many people fished, others ran small businesses and some worked in the home. Earning a living was no easy task as most of the employment was seasonal. Many of the Passage people were employed in one of the nearby oil or sugar refineries and some worked gathering sand and gravel for construction.

While only several kilometres from Halifax, the Eastern Passage that is remembered in these interviews was a small, tightknit village that had the feel of a place far removed from the big city. People seemed to enjoy the rural feel of Eastern Passage as well as the advantages of living near a big city.

Eastern Passage was a community of contradictions. Often it was referred to as a fishing village, but many people worked in construction or the oil industry and some travelled to the city to work. Though Passage people were protective of their rural lifestyle, they could and often did travel to Halifax for business and recreation. Maybe it was the isolation and the shelter provided by Lawlor’s and McNab’s, large islands that lie between Eastern Passage and Halifax, or their love of rural life, but most will tell you that it was the strong sense of community that has made Eastern Passage unique.

Sometime ago I had to out of town in connection with programs to be broadcast ans as I found myself in the Annapolis Valley, I decided I would go and see the De Mont Habitation, near Granville Ferry, which was rebuilt just previous to the outbreak of the war.

When I arrived at Bridgetown I kept straight on, instead of turning to the left, and very shortly after passing through Belle Isle, I came to Granville Ferry and the bridge that heads over to Annapolis.

I then continued straight ahead for about seven miles to my goal, the Habitation, which I propose to tell you about, especially as I found that very few Halifax names on the register. The excellent roads we have on the main highways in Nova Scotia, should be left once in a while if one is to see the many historic and interesting places in our own Province. A visit to the Habitation should be made by every Nova Scotian and particularly school children, as it would make the study of our History, that much more interesting.

We in Halifax are rather prone to look back on 1749 as the dawn of history. We have many things of historic significance within the shadow of the venerable old town clock, or not very far afield, but we have to realize, that is, if we want to be fair, that there are many places on this continent that pre-date our own little sphere.

For instance, we have in this province this site of the first permanent habitation of the white man north of the Gulf of Mexico, but even today, with all the publicity that has been given to this restoration of this habitation at Granville, I am amazed at the number of our own people that have a complete lack of knowledge about the site or the wonderful restoration that has taken place.

I ask you, radio-listener. Today, how many of you have visited the restored habitation?

I’m rather ashamed that I have to estimate that a very small percentage of one percent has ever been there, yet there is a mecca worthy of the attention of every person on this continent.

Do you realize that in 1605-yes, I said, 1605 De Monts and Champlain arrived in Annapolis Basin and named it Port Royal?

The first permanent abode was not at the Annapolis Royal we know today, but some seven miles down the other side of the water, and there in 1605 was built the French fort, or habitation that was first built by white man on the Northern side of the Gulf of Mexico.

Before we go into the restoration of the habitation, let us consult the booklet of the Provincial Government, titled “Historic Nova Scotia” for a few more facts that will better prepare us for a visit to the place itself…It records that “During the first winter six settlers died, and the reason recorded was that they overtaxed themselves through grinding corn by hand. The Indians could not be induced to assist in such labour….”

It was 1606 that Lescarbot arrived from France amongst additional settlers… and we have every reason to give thanks for his arrival. It was largely due to the willingness of this man to set down facts, that we have such a complete picture of early life in this Province of ours. Let’s see what we can find out about Marc Lescarbot, for he is one who has left as strong an imprint on our earlier annals as the more venturesome explorers. Marc Lescarbots was born in Vervins, France., and, as we have said, joined the Port Royal colony in 1606, his Talents as Lawyer, Poet and historian making him the life of the place. He taught the colonists agriculture, the Indians Christianity, followed the chase and studied the nature of the country. In between, he composed and staged a play, Neptune’s Theatre, said to be the first fruit of literature in North America. It is recalled that on his return to France he wrote a monumental history of New France, and it is said that he performed many public services and died full of years and honours in his native land.

But it seems unfair to deal with Lescarbot at such length, and ignore the many others whose names were associated with the early days of this very important colonization venture. Names such as De Monts himself, Champlain, Pontgrave, a member also of the original De Mont’s expedition, that very alluring name of Poutrincourt, Champdore, a member of Champlain’s order of Good Cheer, Louis Hebert, the apothecary of De Monts expedition…yes, and others who braved the rigors of ocean passage, which we can hardly realize today, and the increasing dangers after landing on a new shore.

But that is all history, and for the majority of you, I imagine the details are stored in the back of the mind from the days when you sat in either city or town school, or in the little re school house,[ or shall we say the whitewashed one] and heard it retold by your teacher.

The main thing to be impressed on you at the present time is that what is now known as Granville, on the western side of the Annapolis Basin, there is to be found one of the most unusual structures to be encountered anywhere on this continent.

It is a restoration of the original De Mont’s habitation, so completely true to form that it is breath taking. I know that 90 percent of my listeners will drive up to it in shiny modern cars and park in the lot that is provided, that will eventually constitute a memorial park. But if you want a word of advice, which I am afraid you will not heed, you will leave your car a quarter of a mile, or even less, up the road, and then afoot, slowly approach the habitation.

To drive up at the swish of modern speed is to destroy the illusion. Rather it is more in keeping to approach leisurely on foot. It will be truly breath taking when you get your first view. True, time has to a small degree only succeeded to efface the traces of newness from the masonry, but as to the timbers, already bathed by the fog so often down old Fundy, and the winter’s snow and summer’s heat, the structure might well have been there centuries.

If ever there was a place where there is need for the caution not to dismiss it with a visit of ten or fifteen minutes, and then speed away, it is this one. That is, if you are interested in gaining the full savour of that which is about you. Probably few can feel they could spare the time, but one of the best times to wander about its walls, even if the gate is locked, is on a foggy evening. You can sit on the grass, with back against the log stockade, and peer out over the Bay, with eyes in the direction of Goat Island. You can hope, alas, in imagination only, to see the boats returning once more from France, to receive an accounting from that true guardian left for several years, the Indian Chief Membertou, one who was allowed to sit with the white men at the festival times within, as the Order of Good Cheer held its convivial gatherings.. Stay there until darkness falls, smoke a bit if you will, but be careful that no sparks endanger this glorious shrine of history. Then come back early, say, a bit after 8 a.m., and give each part of the structure your undivided attention, before the daily flow of tourists arrives.

What will you see?-a palisaded fort, which has its own blacksmith’s shop and armouries place, its bake shop, its living quarters, its chapels, its trading post for exchanging baubles with the Indians for furs they have trapped, its storehouses, its wine cellars [but no wine there now, unfortunately], and even the original well, in the centre of the yard, which has been excavated again. You will see the timbers hown out of logs, by skilled Annapolis Valley men, who still survive today, and held together with pins, not spikes. You will find hand-wrought nails, just as those made by the early arrivals from France. You will find iron work, the product of nearby forges of this age, notably that of Arthur Eaton, Granville Ferry. And made to look as if they have been allowed to come down to us through the centuries.

More important you will be able to sit in the hall which, as far as possible, is an exact duplicate of that in which the happy hours were spent by the Order of Good Cheer. Oh, those early days1 You will see the hospitals, on a second floor, where the sick and wounded were placed in wooden cubicles, close to the chimneys, for warmth, and with sliding doors, with grilled windows, where to be placed would seemingly mean certain death from lack of air, if not from wounds inflicted by the enemy. The habitation is only sketchily furnished, that in the hall of Good Cheer by interested friends in the States, France was to have supplied much of the fittings, but the war intervened.

The construction itself, a Federal undertaking, was a painstaking effort. The ground was sifted for quite a depth, and there the excavations revealed the places where fireplaces existed, where the wine cellar was dug. All of this tallied with the original drawing of the habitation, and measurements left in the documents. Under the skilled guidance of Architect Harris of Ottawa, all of this was carefully followed. A kiln was erected on the site during the restoration, and thousands of bricks baked from native clay, as it was done at the start of the 17th century, to give complete authenticity. The glass in the windows was specially made to be in keeping of those times. Many are covered with parchment alone, to let in the light, and in this new structure, this, in two years, has been so effective, that only one has been replaced.

Much of your pleasure of a visit to the habitation will be from your association with Albert Parker, caretaker, who loves the whole place. He lives just across the road, and has done so for many years, and is a native of the section. He went to sea early, but returned to these parts. He heard the tales of the habitation that once stood there from his boyhood days. When the restoration took place he was one of the principals selected to aid. He selected many of the timbers and stones that went into its building, traveling miles through the woods to get just the right articles. No better choice could have been made than this quiet mannered, but this enthusiastic man. He will unquestionably play a major role to making the habitation better known in all parts of this continent.

Already thousands have visited the habitation. Their remarks, listed in the register kept there will show in convincing manner their true appreciation of what the habitation means: That it was a venture truly worthwhile. In the register remarks column, I wrote, “I will tell my friends of the Old Town Clock about this”.

But in 15 minutes it is impossible to give a comprehensive picture of the wonders to be found there. May I suggest that when the opportunity exists, you visit this almost hallowed ground at Granville, Nova Scotia . All Service men from Upper Canada or elsewhere should go and see where history began in Canada. They will find it particularly interesting, and can imagine how the soldiers and sailors of those days carried on, without the modern departmental corps to rush up their every need by motor truck. I think they’ll agree it was tough soldiering in those days.-No radio to broadcast messages home every week, or to tell how their comrades were making out, on the other side of the world.

Be you, Soldier, Sailor, Airman, or Civilian you’ll find plenty of interest at the habitation of Granville, where history began in North America.

As we meet together under the Old Town Clock and look out over the habour, we might see an old sailing ship putting out to sea. Whenever this happens, my thoughts immediately go back to the days when all was sail and of the strange happenings which took place along our Coast, and so I have a story about sailing ships, a woman, and hardships and danger. The date of this story goes back to the middle of the sixteenth century, and our heroine is a French girl of noble birth who endured unbelievable hardships in order to be with the man she loved. Get out that map of North America and search out a small island, called the Isle aux Demons.

The First French governor of Canada, during the days of the intrepid Cartier, was Sieur de Roberval, appointed to King Francis the First as “Lord of Norembega, Viceroy, and Lieutenant General in Canada, Hochelaga, Saguenay, Newfoundland, Belle Isle, Carpunt, Labrador, the Great bay, and Baccalaos.” With these high-sounding titles went the more practical awards of a grant of money with which to buy and equip five ships, and authority to settle the new land with convicts pardoned from French prisons.

Now at Roberval’s castle in Picardy lived his beautiful young niece Marguerite, a favourite with everyone at the court on account of her courage and daring, and her ever-gay spirits. But if she was a favourite with everyone, there was at least one at the court, a young man whose name has not come down to us., for whom she was the center of the universe. He was not of noble birth, however, and had no fortune; therefore, even though Marguerite shared his passion, there was little or no possibility of a marriage.

Hope dies very hard in young breasts, however, and when it was known that Roberval was sailing for the New World, and taking with him Marguerite, the young man volunteered to join the Viceroy’s party. In the hope that in Canada some lucky circumstance might enable them to disclose their secret love.

Their secret was disclosed, however, long before they wanted Roberval to know about it. Somehow, during the crossing of the Atlantic the Viceroy discovered the affair, and was exceedingly angry. It would seem from the meager records that he was not so angry with Marguerite for her attachment to one of low birth as he was for keeping the affair a secret. However that may be, he was so angry with his niece that he devised for her as terrible a punishment as one could imagine.

Some miles off the coast, there is a lonely, rocky island, rising sheer from the water, around which the winds moan with a sound that is scarcely earthly. Superstitious sailors believed it to be haunted, and called it Isle aux Demons, or Island of Devils, and gave it a very wide berth. Roberval decided to leave Marguerite on this barren island as punishment.

The little fleet put off its course to Isle aux Demons, and Roberval put Marguerite and her old nurse, who accompanied her on the voyage, into a boat and ordered them taken ashore. He allowed the unfortunate women a small supply of provisions, and gave them for guns and some ammunition to defend themselves against wild beasts, and to shoot game for food. Slowly the boat went ashore while the sailors crossed themselves as protection against the demons which, they were sure, were waiting to seize and devour them. As the boat’s keel grated against the rocky beach, Marguerite’s nurse begged and entreated not to be left on the island; but in vain, for the men was condemned criminals, whose only hope of freedom lay in complete obedience to the orders of Sieur de Roberval. As for marguerite, she sat calmly in the boat, too proud to ask for mercy, until one of the seamen offered to help her ashore. Then, refusing his offer, she placed one foot on the gunwale of the boat, and leaped to the barren shore of Isle aux Demons.

In the meantime, Marguerite’s lover was standing by the rail of the ship, hardly believing that Roberval would really carry out so atrocious a plan. When he saw the boat returning, however, and glimpsed the figures of Marguerite and her nurse on the beach, and heard orders given to prepare to sail, he knew that the punishment was indeed going to be carried out. He turned from the rail, rushed to his quarters, seized his two guns and some ammunition, and, returning to the deck, leaped into the water. Weighted down as he was, he managed to swim to shore, and three figures stood unhappily on the cliffs of Isle aux Demons and watched the white sails of Roberval’s fleet grow smaller and smaller, and at last fade into the distance.

When the last sail had disappeared below the horizon, the three marooned people took stock of their situation. Fortunately it was during the summer that they were marooned, for their chance of surviving without preparation for the North Atlantic winter would have been very small indeed. They looked over their slender stock of supplies, decided how long the food would last, and went to work at once preparing temporary shelters until such time as they could build something more permanent.

That evening, Marguerite and her lover knelt on the rocky heights of Isle aux Demons, and with joined hands, prayed to god to consecrate their marriage.

During the weeks that passed, while they worked hard at building shelters against the coming winter, and stocked a larder with wild fowl and with game, both of which were, fortunately, abundant on the island, Marguerite’s good spirits were almost invaluable. She laughed, sang old songs of Picardy, reminded her lover that at last they had their wish to be together, and was far, far jollier than I am afraid most of us would be under the circumstances.

But on stormy nights, when fall set in, and the wind howled and shrieked around the little island, and waves pounded with deep throbs against the rocks, it was hard to keep cheerful. The old superstitions rose in their minds, and Marguerite, when the wind gave a more than usually demon like howl, crossed herself and breathed a short prayer foe safety against the powers of the lower world that held this land in their sway.

With the coming of the next summer, a baby was born to Marguerite-the first European baby to be born in North America to a family living on this continent. This event opened for Marguerite new interests, and new motives for living. But her husband, in spite of Marguerite’s efforts to be gay, began to lose his spirits. The thought of Marguerite deprived on his account of all the things to which she ha been accustomed, the thought of this unfortunate infant, probably destined never to see a human face other than those of its father and mother and the nurse, weighed heavily upon him, and he began to fail rapidly. So weak did he become that with the first chill weather he fell victim to what was probably pneumonia, and died.

Doggedly refusing to give up, Marguerite buried his body, and took upon herself the task of providing food for the three remaining persons. In a few weeks ,however, death struck again, this time taking Marguerite’s baby. Even this terrible blow did not dishearten her. She carried on, with indomitable spirit, while her sole remaining companion, the old nurse gave up entirely, and fell an easy prey to disease. Marguerite was alone.

Even yet, this amazing girl-for she was scarcely more than that- refused to abandon hope. Sometimes, on the far horizon, during sunny days, she would catch a glimpse of a white sail, whose mariners were keeping far from the fearsome, haunted Isle aux Demons. “One day,” she thought, “a ship will come close enough for me to signal it, and I shall be rescued.”

Against wild animals-two beautiful pelts of white bears were among her trophies-against her own superstitions, against the paralyzing cold, against starvation, and-even worse-against insanity from the horrible conditions and her almost hopeless situation, Marguerite waged her lone battle. Three mounds of earth stood just outside her shelter to remind her of what she might expect, and the sails that she saw were far, far away on the horizon, just near enough for her to see them, but to far away for them to see her. Even if they had seen her from a distance, it is doubtful they would have come to the island, for seamen feared the Isle aux Demons as they would have the mouth of the bottomless pit.

Nevertheless, Marguerite watched all day for the sail which might come. She made herself a seat on a rocky pinnacle of the island, and on every clear day, winter and summer, she sat there watching the horizon-watching-watching.

Two winters and two summers passed, with Marguerite still alone on the Isle aux Demons-alone, save for her memories, three mounds and the hope that could not be quenched in her breast, kept ever burning, like a beacon fire that she maintained at her point of vantage from which she watched the horizon.

Then, just as the third winter was about to wrap its icy blanket about Isle aux Demons, Marguerite sighted a sail-much nearer than any that had ever before come into sight.

She rushed to her fire, and heaped green wood on it. Soon a pillar of grey smoke was rising skyward, a beacon that the men on the ship could scarcely miss. Hardly daring to look, Marguerite turned her back on the approaching sail and counted slowly to a hundred. Then she turned again to see if the vessel was coming closer. It was! It was now close enough for her to distinguish the figures on the deck, close enough for her to see that it was a fishing vessel that had wandered from its usual course. Warily the vessel approached the island. Quite evidently the superstitious seamen feared that the smoke was simply a trick of the devils to lure them to their destruction; but their curiosity was overcoming their fear.

Marguerite raced to the beach, and signaled frantically to the vessel. Amazed, but still cautious, the ship came closer, closer, and at last put a boat that came near enough for marguerite to tell the men who she was, and what she was doing on this lonely and much feared island.

The boat came to shore, and took Marguerite off her horrid island prison. The crew of the ship did all they could for her comfort, and carried her with them back to France to civilization. Marguerite de Roberval’s lonely exile was over.

After knowing this story, one cannot help but feel just a little glad that the cruel Sieur de Roberval did not prosper as Gove nor and Viceroy of New France. His convict colony, held together only by force, soon broke up when a famine struck it, and his days came to an inglorious end when he was killed in a tavern brawl in Paris some years later.

Of the later days of Marguerite, little is known. Of this, however, we may be sure; that wherever she was, and however how much of a favourite she was, her heart was buried with two mounds, one large, one small, on the lonely Isle aux Demons.

Good day, my friends. One day I had occasion to call on the family physician, and when I arrived at his office, the waiting room had some ten or twelve people there. Having nothing else to do but settle down and wait until my turn came, I naturally did what everyone else does; looked over the old magazines, and then at the other people waiting to see the doctor, wondering what was the matter with this one, or what was the matter with that one, and getting quite a bit of amusement out of the shy look of each new arrival, as everyone tried to keep quite still, and look unembarrassed.

There was one old gentleman who particularly took my eye; light spring coat, spats, and a light coloured hat . he was joined by another old gentleman, a small man with a round cheery face, who shook hands, who shook hands, and the first thing I knew they were talking about Halifax. When the cheery one said, “I can remember Halifax fifty years ago, just as well as I can remember coming here today,” I sat up and took notice. Then the thought struck me that if the many changes taking place in Halifax as compared to the old days were such a topic of interest in that room, and made everybody feel so interested and at home; that there must be thousands more in Halifax who would like to have memories of by-gone days revived, and thousands of new-comers who would like to know more about the city in which they are living; and so that is the purpose of these broadcast talks.

Nearly everyone who speaks to through the medium of the microphone these days ha a message of importance about the war, but I believe that there is still room for a friendly chat about this and that, to give our minds a rest from the strenuous times about us.

Among the places the old gentlemen talked about was the Old Garrison Clock on Citadel hill, and how they used to sit on the hill in the shadow of the Clock and talk things over, in the summer evenings or Sunday afternoons. It struck me , as a mighty good idea.
If more of us would slow up once in a while, and go find an old friend and relax for an hour or so by the old Town Clock, we would be better able to carry on afterwards.

So I have decided to make this old Town Clock the starting point in these weekly chats with you, which we will call Tales Told Under the Old Town Clock.

We will wander far from the old Clock, but every time we pass it, it will remind us to go hunting up other subjects of interest to chat about.

Only this week, I received from Mr. Barnes of Rolf Clark Stone, a beautiful calendar, which is now hanging up in my office. This calendar has a lovely illustration with the Old Town Clock with the following description under it;

“The Halifax Town Clock took up its position two years and a day before the battle of Trafalgar. Plans were prepared on instructions from H.R.H. the Duke of Kent, while commanding his Majesty’s Forces in Nova Scotia- the same Duke of Kent who was later to become the father of Queen Victoria. They were finally approved in 1801. The clock itself arrived from England on June 10, 1803, in H.M.S. Dart and was placed in position on October 20th of that year.

“Those were trying days for England. The Garrison Clock, as it was called then, ticked off the tragic hours of the Napoleonic War and the War of 1812. While still strange to its new surroundings, it recorded the time spent by Bonaparte by his fruitless preparations to invade England. It continued to serve the good people of Halifax during the dark days prior to Waterloo, and the victorious days which followed. It told the time for all to see, during the depressing campaign in the Crimea. It said “Good-bye” and “Welcome home” to those Canadians who fought in South Africa. It struck the departure hours for countless thousands, sailing from Halifax to do their part in the World War of 1914-1918, and struck as confidently during the retreat from Mons, as during the last glorious hundred days.

“And now mellowed by the years, it looks on once more while the Empire fights its greatest fight=mildly amused, perhaps, by the same doubts and fears so often expressed during the other wars it has watched. When the time comes to record the end of this war, the job will be done and the faithful old clock, its roots in the past, its face to the future, will go on as before, keeping a kindly eye cocked towards the little island whence it came.”

What more fitting place for us to start our little jaunt in Halifax today than by a visit to the Old Town Clock itself?

It is a familiar sight to all of us, some more than others. For a number of JHaligonians its North face is a guide as to whether they are on time for work, as they walk briskly over the diagonal path across the Citadel Hill, from North Park Street to Brunswick Street, or take a short cut from Gottingen Street by Glacis Barracks, to reach the downtown section of the city.
Few Haligonians have ever been inside the Garrison Clock structure, which boasts such an unusual shape. This statement can be taken as fact, from a man who has lived there for 33 years. That man is ex-Sergeant W. J. White, formerly of the Halifax Police department. It is said that familiarity breeds contempt and while it is not contempt in this case, few of us pause to wonder about the mechanism that has ‘ticked” faithfully on for nearly a century and a half, giving the time to Halifax people. According to Sergeant White a number of tourist visitors call to the Old Town clock and ask to see the interior of the structure, but few regular residents of the town ask to see the faithful time piece at close quarters.

However, let us pay our visit to the tow clock- Let’s pause to examine the conspicuous cornerstone in the wall, at the base of the hill-removed by a few feet from busy Brunswick Street itself/ The stone seems to have been selected hardly with an idea to make it stand out with any prominence. Brown in colour and with no relieving hues for the letters, it is necessary to lean forward to read the inscription.

This tells us of the erection of the clock in the days of the Duke of Kent, when that Gentleman whose name loomed rather large in the city’s earlier days, made this city his home, while on duty on this side of the Atlantic, and after whom the street un the rear of Broadcasting House was named-Kent Street.

The inscription on the stone tells us that the town Clock was erected in 1803 and further, that this particular stone was laid by H.R.H. the Prince of Wales, who today you know as the Duke of Windsor. The ceremony took place in 1919 on his visit to the city, and was supposed to be the inauguration of the new foundation for the historic clock. True, a short retaining wall was erected, but today the immediate vicinity of the walls presents a sorry sight. There is litter about and plenty of mud, caused by the water from the springs that abound on the Eastern slope of the Citadel Hill. Really it seems time that Halifax paid a little more attention to keeping the immediate vicinity of the clock in more presentable shape.
But let us get along with our tour of inspection. A long line of wooden steps leads us to the clock structure. Count them as you mount and excluding the upper platform, there are 52 steps. Rather fitting, don’t you think, for the introduction for a place devoted to the telling of time…a step for each week of the year. It is rather a disappointment that the other set of steps, leading to the doorway lack a couple of an even dozen. If that was remedied, we would have one for each month, and then things would be complete in their significance.
Knock at the door and you are greeted by a man who stand straight, and has a smile that hardly bespeaks of the 78 years that have passed since he was born in the city of Dublin. But if you know anything of the past history of W.J. White this well preserved physique is hardly surprising…you see, he is, by many of the veterans, accepted as the “Daddy” of Boxing in this city, and he was by no means a ring adversary who could be overlooked in the days of his prime. A man that had the privilege of boxing with Jim Corbett, and Philadelphia Jack O’Brian, in the days when their names meant much in the boxing world, certainly had to be good, and Sergeant White, in exhibition with them, proved his caliber well/ these incidents that loom large in his memory occurred when the noted pugilists visited here.

Evidence in his pride in his associations with the ring is given by a large lithographed sheet, showing as it’s details, the world’s champions in the manly art of self-defense, from the days of Pipes right through to Dempsey.

Why is it given a place of honour, in its frame and standing on an easel?- The answer is interesting. It was a gift to Sergeant White from the one time champion himself, Jim Corbett.
But it’s not the most honoured article in the room. For on the wall hangs pictures of a famous Canadian airman, Joe White, whose feats in the First World War won him high recognition. Among the medals under the frame, with the pictures of the tall, dashing flier, are the distinguished flying Cross, and the Croix de Guerre. No wonder the veteran Police Officer is proud of these medals, won by his son, who, unfortunately, later in his flying career, was to meet disaster while in service at Camp Borden.

Sergeant White came to Canada with the Royal Artillery in 1886, and by the way, the speaker’s father was in the same Garrison Artillery Unit, and so I have a particular regard for him, as I have for another old comrade of his, named tom Doherty. These are the only two left of that famous North Irish Battery, that I know of now,- After a brief period of service in Bermuda, Sergeant White came to Halifax, and has made his home here ever since. It was in 1887 he joined the Halifax Police Department retiring about 18 years ago with the rank of Sergeant. He took up residence, with his family, in the Old Town Clock 38 years ago, and as a means of curbing the vandalism of youths, who were causing destruction to the historic edifice.

Well-up we go, more and more steep stairways, with loose rope handrails, past on landing, then to the one directly behind the four faces of the clock. There, housed in a wooden and glass door box,-are the works.-The things that make the hands go around. In four directions the metal tubes and bars extend, through the faces of the clock, and to these the hands are attached.

A metal plate bears the name of the maker “Vuilliamy,=London-No. 371”, but no date.

Every Saturday Mr. White winds the clock…that is, he turns the spindle to which is attached the thin steel cable, to which a heavy weight is suspended, and which drops through a well that goes down through the whole tower, right through the living quarters, and into a deep pit in the cellar. The weight once up=the clock is ready to keep on ticking for another week, or even a day or so more. A pendulum with a massive circular weight, also extends downward for several feet, keeping the works moving at their regular, measured pace.

Many can recall the bells that tolled the time from the tower. They were three in number, but these, also powered by separate cables, were disconnected years ago. Now only one bell remains in the tower, the others having been removed- and are stored at the City Field workshops, where they were shown to me the other day by another well known old servant of the City, my old friend and comrade of militia days-Sergeant ‘Bun” Thomas.

“The clock keeps pretty accurate time, although I have to watch it with changes in the weather.”-says caretaker White. “I may have to adjust the pendulum, or even move the hands a bit, but I try to keep it right.” He added that it was in some need of attention to its works.

An interesting feature of the old clock, and showing somewhat the trend of population in the earlier days, is the fact that the face on the West side, where the Citadel towers above, and that facing South to Sackville Street, are smaller than the others. It was not necessary for them to be designed to be seen from such distances as the faces on the East and North sides.

Up in the tower, below the level housing the clock mechanism Mr. white has his workbench, where he putters at some hobbies, and about are interesting pictures of earlier police force days. Occupying a place of prominence, and further proving the love W. J. White held for the activities of the ring, is a picture of John L. Sullivan famed world’s champion.

Thanks to Sergeant White, we have had a very interesting visit to a historic spot, made more interesting by his evident pride in the timepiece that has served the city so faithfully.
Let’s hope, that Halifax will not to long fail to realize the honours due to such a vulnerable structure, and that everything possible will be done to preserve this clock linked with the city’s storied past. Some paint would not be amiss today, and surely the surroundings are worthy of every attention. It is also respectively suggested to the civic fathers, that the two bells now in storage in City Field workshops could be presented to the Hon. Angus L. Macdonald to put aboard the corvette, H.M.C.S. Halifax, to be used as the ship’s bell, as apparently they never intend to place them back in service in the Old Town Clock.

Of course, in these days when watches are not so scarce as personal possessions, and clocks for the home can be secured at low prices, and correct time is given by Radio. The need may not be so extensive for the friendly guidance of the old clock. But it is an old friend, and as such, it deserves our affectionate care. I hope many of my listeners will make it a point to visit the Garrison Clock soon.

Just to refresh your memory before we leave, remember the Old Town Clock has ticked off the hours since October 20th,1803, and mellowed by the years, with its roots well planted in the past, and its face to the future, it keeps a friendly watch of the hours in this old city, which has been referred to “Warden of the honour of the North”.

Another clock much younger, but very prominent as far as I am concerned, the Studio Clock, has been keeping pace with the Old Town Clock while I have been chatting with you, and it tells me, it’s time to say-Cheerio and all the best!

Here’s another amazing fact. A point about halfway between Elmsdale and Milford Station, which is about halfway between Halifax and Truro is exactly halfway between the Equator and the North Pole.

You see, there are exactly ninety degrees between the equator and the North Pole and the forty-fifth parallel cuts across the Halifax-Truro road at that point. Believe it or leave, nevertheless it’s a fact.

Halifax has a church that was built in a day. In case you are not familiar with it, may I point out that this church is called Our Lady of Sorrows and is located in the Roman Catholic Cemetery on South Park Street. Service is held in it once a year, on All Souls Day. Nearly one hundred years ago a large number of interested citizens, having gathered the material together assembled one morning at dawn, and by sunset that evening the building was completed including the roof.

Sports fans, particularly those interested in hockey, will be surprised to know that Hockey, Canada’s national pastime, was first played on the Dartmouth lakes, just across the harbour. As a matter of fact it was just seventy years ago. There was only one rule, but no set number of men to a team. School boys and Indians were the players. The sticks had shorter handles with rounded heel and blunt blades, and were called hurleys. A ball was used instead of a puck and goal posts were rocks on the ice.

Colonel B. A,. Weston remembers playing hockey in it’s primitive form in 1865-66-67. he recalls the only rule, which was one more of conscience and very flexible in interpretation. The players were not supposed to raise the hurleys above their shoulders or to slash at their opponents. This same rule in modern day hockey can be classed in a similar category. Captain J.T. Sutherland of Hamilton, Ontario, one of Canada’s earliest prominent hockey players also recalls the playing of hockey at Halifax before Confederation.

Believe it or leave it, nevertheless it’s a fact that the possession of Bible once saved the lives a Nova Scotian crew from South Sea island cannibals. The fortunate Nova Scotian who always carried a Bible was Captain Jim Ellis of Maitland whose ship becalmed near a cannibal king’s domain. The cannibals came on board and were looking the situation over, when quite by accident, the Captain’s Bible was discovered by the cannibal chief. He immediately ordered his men ashore and returned to present the Captain with a very rare sea shell. It appears that a missionary some years before had done a favour for this cannibal chief, and at the same time taught him that the Bible was a good book and all men who read that book, were good men, and should not be interfered with. It is said that the Captain was a firm believer in missionaries after this experience.

The mention of the Bible brings to mind a fact which to strangers might be news. Nova Scotia has a Paradise and a Garden of Eden within its boundaries. Paradise is a lovely village and will be found in the Annapolis Valley. The Garden of Eden as the name would denote is also a place of beauty, and has a Mount Adam and a Lake Eden. The first settler was William McDonald of Scotland, a pioneer of the sturdy Highlanders who selected Nova Scotia as their abode in the new world. This attractive spot in Pictou Co.

Leads into the picturesque valley of the East River Saint Mary’s, with its beautiful intervals, great timber resources, numerous water courses, fine fishing and abundance of game. That’s our Garden of Eden.

Believe it or leave it, Halifax has a house whose total width is only ten feet. This house can be found at 36 ½ Dresden Row. It has stood on its foundations for many years and is a two story structure, boasting four rooms. On the ground floor there is a living room in front, with the door opening right on the street and one window close by the door. To the rear is the kitchen with two bedrooms upstairs.

Next time you go up to Dresden Row take a look at No. 36 ½.

Strange as it seems, it’s true, that Scotch heather, exactly the same kind that grows wild in old Scotland grows wild here n New Scotland. You can see it in Point Pleasant Park, if you take the trouble to enter the park via Tower Road and keep on going until the road turns to the left in a large circle. There, you’ll find it growing in a field outside one of the old forts that was used years ago by the Imperial troops. But how did the wild heather of old Scotland take root in New Scotland? Well here’s the explanation. The Imperial troops brought their bedding with them, which consisted of covers filled with straw. A Scottish regiment came out here and after a period of time when ordered to renew their bedding, dumped the old hay and heather they had gathered in Scotland, outside the fort and refilled their bedding with Nova Scotian hay. In the course of time, the heather took root, and has been growing wild ever since at this spot, and there it is growing wild in Point Pleasant Park.

It is surprising to be told that Nova Scotia had the only giantess in the world. There have been lots of giants but only one giantess. Her name was Annie Swan and she belonged to New Annan, Colchester County. She was one of a family of thirteen children. The other twelve were quite normal in size. Annie weighed eighteen pounds at birth and at eleven years of age was so big that she could get into her mother’s clothes. Her mother was a woman of five feet, seven inches. Annie kept on growing and at maturity weighed 509 lbs. and was eight feet, one inch in height.

She married an American giant who was well over seven feet tall. They built a special house for themselves with doors nine feet high and ceilings of eleven feet and large rooms in proportion. An ordinary person when dining with them, had to climb upon the chairs like a child, by placing one foot on the rung to get on the seat.
They had two children, a boy and a girl, but neither of them lived any time. The boy weighed twenty two pounds and the girl eighteen pounds at birth.
Annie Bates, that was her married name, was for a number of years was under contract with the great American Showman, Barnum, and traveled extensively and even was presented to Queen Victoria. She died in 1888 at the age of thirty-six. You can see some of her clothing at Green Hill museum in Pictou County. It is said that her skirt would reach up to the head of an ordinary woman.

Are you aware that the faces of the Old Town Clock are different sizes? If you closely inspect the Old Town Clock, you will see that the faces on the North and East are larger than the faces on the South and West sides. You see, the Duke of Kent was a very practical man. The people all lived on the North and East side, so he had large faces towards those directions. Nobody lived South and East of the clock, so he had small faces on those outlooks. Next time you go by, take notice of this old fact.

Speaking of Halifax, it reminds me of the fact that Halifax once had a coloured policeman. The late Doctor Akins, who wrote A History of Halifax, and read it to the Nova Scotian Historical Society in 1839, has this to say about police matters in Halifax around the year 1821. “Drunken people were frequently seen in the streets in those days, yet the peace of the town was tolerably well preserved by the three or four police constables. Old Jock Henderson was very corpulent, but his great knowledge of his profession rendered him as an exceedingly useful officer. Jock Mahar was celebrated as a detective, but King Alcohol at last put an end to his usefulness. The practice of publicly whipping thieves had almost altogether gone out of fashion by this time, though occasionally resorted to at the workhouse.

Among the oddities was Constable Hawkins. He was a Negro, one of those who were brought from Chesapeake Bay by Admiral Cockburn. He had for some time been employed at the work house to do the whipping. He was usually dressed in an old military green uniform, epaulets, plumed cap, with red sash, and on state occasions, a sword.

With constable’s staff in hand, this worthy might be seen in the morning at the opening of the police office, escorting prisoners down George Street to the office for examination, accompanied by a mob of boys.

And now for one of the most amazing facts! Believe it or leave it, Nova Scotia was at one time owned by a woman! On May 16, 1613, a ship arrived at Le Have with some forty people aboard, including two priests. There at Le Have they set up a cross, bearing the arms or crest of Madame de Geurcheville, and claimed the entire Atlantic Seaboard for her, she having purchased it from the King of France, with the right to send out an expedition to stake her claim.

Madame de Geurcheville was the wife of the Governor of Paris and very influential in court circles.

The expedition was led by Mons de Saussaye. Madame de Guercheville never came out here, and apparently never did any more about her claim and purchased rights. It would appear she was a sort of agent of one of the religious orders anxious to establish themselves in the New World. So, believe it or leave it, nevertheless it’s a fact that Nova Scotia for a short while was actually owned by a woman.

Can you imagine an army starting off to capture what was believed to be the strongest fortress in the world, armed mostly with pitchforks, rifles axes and cannon balls but no cannons? When you read the story about the first capture of Louisburg in 1745, by an untrained army of recruits under a Boston merchant named William Pepperell, you will find out that this statement is not far from the truth. It is also an interesting fact that the generosity of the government of those days was stretched to the point where it magnanimously gave each volunteer an extra issue of one pound of sugar and a few ounces of ginger for risking his life.

Strange as it seems, nevertheless it’s a fact that a lottery provided the funds to build the first Halifax lighthouse. In the year 1752 it was decided that Halifax Harbour needed a lighthouse at its entrance so someone thought of the bright idea of raising the necessary funds through the medium of a lottery. The point selected was Sambro at the western entrance. One thousand tickets of three pounds each were sold and the first prize was to be five hundred pounds. When the authorities in the old country heard about it the lottery was quashed, nevertheless the lighthouse was built, the funds being provided by the authorities to repay the purchasers of the tickets.

Almost incredible gut true is the fact that the Halifax Citadel was at one time eighty feet higher, than it now is. When the city was first founded a small wooden fort was established at its peak. When the present stone fortress was erected with its drill shed and star shaped moat, it was necessary to take the top of the hill off to give a flat surface to accommodate the area taken according to plan, and as a result some eighty feet of earth was removed from the crest of the original hill.

Dartmouth citizens may be surprised to know that at one time to travel on the ferry on Sunday, it was necessary to assure the captain that the passenger was on the way to or from church. According to an old history of that town published in 1890, it is recorded that the early ferries were only allowed to run on Sunday to carry passengers who were members of Halifax churches and were desirous of crossing the harbour to attend Divine service. It does not state whether the Captain would ask passengers to quote the text of the sermon heard or not, before he would ferry them back to the Eastern capital.

It would surprise many to know that if they have the honour of being asked to visit Government House, the residence of our Lieutenant- Governor, that they would be invited to enter Government House by the back door. You see, when Government House was built, Hollis street was then “Main Street”, where the prominent citizens lived, and the front entrance faced east towards Hollis Street and the Harbour. Barrington Street was then back in the pasture, so to speak, adjoining the Governor’s fields. Gradually the centre of traffic was moved up the hill and Barrington Street has become the main thoroughfare and Hollis Street,- well that certainly is not one of the spots where one takes visitors these days, if it’s beautiful residences they have in mind. So, for at least the last thirty years the Barrington Street entrance of Government House has been used as the main entrance, which is really the back door. So dear reader, you see, it’s the usual thing to be invited in, via the back door.

Speaking of Governors, brings to mind the fact that Nova Scotia at one time had two Governors. The history books record the fact that in the year 1635 Charles de La Tour believed himself to be the Governor, and carried on as such and suddenly Sieur d’Aulnay de Charnisay, turned up and claimed he had been appointed to that high office. These two French gentlemen fought it out for nearly twenty years and the stories of their activities in Nova Scotia ended in one of the most remarkable romances ever recorded, when Charles de La Tour and Madame de Charnisay joined forces, after both had lost their former life partners, through the fortunes of war.

Believe it or leave it Nova Scotia has the destination of being the only province of the Dominion of Canada and the first colony of Great Britain to possess a flag of its own. The flag of Nova Scotia is a silver field with a blue St. Andrew’s Cross, a small shield with the Royal Arms of Scotland being placed as a escutcheon upon the cross.

It traces its origin to the Charter of New Scotland granted in 1621 to Sir William Alexander [afterwards the Earl of Sterling] by King James the Sixth of Scotland and First of England. In this charter the name Nova Scotia [which is Latin for New Scotland] first appeared in contradistinction to Acadia or the Acadie of the French . the flag itself is derived from the Royal Coat of Arms granted to Nova Scotia in 1625 by King Charles the First of England, and son and successor of King James the Sixth. This ancient and beautiful armorial bearing is the oldest of all the Arms borne by the British Dominions, and by reason of the unique combination therein of the Royal and National Arms of Scotland is pronounced by heraldic writers as the grandest of all.

In the register of the Lyon Court of the Lord Lyon King of Arms at Edinburgh, the Scottish heraldic office of the British Government, the Arms of Nova Scotia are recorded as follows; “Nova Scotia, the Province, of Bears argent, a cross of St. Andrew azure, charged with an escutcheon of the Royal arms of Scotland. Supported on the dexter by the Royal Unicorn and on the sinister or wild man proper. Crest, a branch of Laurel and a Thistle issuing from two hands conjoined, the one armed and the other naked. Motto:”Munit haec et altera vincit.”
The mount at the base is adorned with Mayflower and Thistle floral badges, the former being the national flower of Nova Scotia and the latter the badge chosen by James the Third, king of Scots. The Latin motto may be rendered; “With this [the naked hand] he labours, and with the other [the armed hand] he protects “ It is a sturdy motto, for implies not only diligence in our own business but an active interest in our public welfare.

The Royal Arms of Nova Scotia were granted by Charles the First as a signal mark of royal favour to the New Scotland which had been founded as a compliment to New England. They may be seen on doors in the Province House at Halifax, and the banner is flown at the masthead on the public and private buildings around the Province.

The Ancient Arms of Nov Scotia, in the changes following the union of the Provinces in 1807, were officially supplanted for a time by a commonplace design of a salmon and thistles, but they are now officially restored to their proper place, and this unique and ancient armorial achievement of the romantic days of the Stewart Kings is after three centuries of colourful history the official badge of nova Scotia and the basis of her famous Flag.

Is it any wonder, with so many interesting facts available in the history books of Nova Scotia, that Tales Told Under the Old Town Clock, which have given details of historic and unusual events of our storied past, have proven a popular radio feature?

Some of the items mentioned in this introduction have been selected in more detail for your approval in the stories printed herewith, along with those talks for which the greatest number of requests for copies were made during the past year.

There are many more strange and interesting items stored away for future use, for more Tales to be Told Under the Old Town Clock.