Cornwallis Township was one of the original townships of Kings County, Nova Scotia. The township was named after Edward Cornwallis, the founder of Halifax, Nova Scotia. It bordered Aylesford Township to the west and Horton Township to the south. [1] While the name has fallen into disuse on maps, overshadowed by the growth of individual towns and villages within the township, many historical places and documents refer to Cornwallis. The Parish of Cornwallis, however, is still in use today by several churches after more than 250 years.
After the French colonists, the Acadians were commanded to leave Nova Scotia in the Great Expulsion, the area was relatively desolate. The Township was established by a group historians refer to as the New England Planters. In the early 1760s the Planters brought with them the colonial pattern of land division; each town or township was to contain one hundred thousand acres.
While an official town plot was laid out for Cornwallis Township in what is now Starr's Point, towns actually took shape around Planter settlements at Port Williams, Kentville, Kingsport and Canning. A generation after the Planters, a sudden influx of United Empire Loyalist settlers arrived to escape the Revolutionary War in New England further changing township settlements.
Wolfville is a Canadian town in the Annapolis Valley, Kings County, Nova Scotia, located about 100 kilometres (62 mi) northwest of the provincial capital, Halifax. The town is home to Acadia University and Landmark East School.
New Minas is a village located in the eastern part of Kings County in Nova Scotia's Annapolis Valley. As of 2011, the population was 5,135.
Edward Cornwallis was a British career military officer and was a member of the aristocratic Cornwallis family, who reached the rank of Lieutenant General. After Cornwallis fought in Scotland, putting down the Jacobite rebellion of 1745, he was appointed Groom of the Chamber for King George II. He was then made Governor of Nova Scotia (1749–1752), one of the colonies in North America, and assigned to establish the new town of Halifax, Nova Scotia. Later Cornwallis returned to London, where he was elected as MP for Westminster and married the niece of Robert Walpole, Great Britain's first Prime Minister. Cornwallis was next appointed as Governor of Gibraltar.
Fort Edward is a National Historic Site of Canada in Windsor, Nova Scotia, and was built during Father Le Loutre's War (1749-1755). The British built the fort to help prevent the Acadian Exodus from the region. The Fort is most famous for the role it played both in the Expulsion of the Acadians (1755) and in protecting Halifax, Nova Scotia from a land assault in the American Revolution. While much of Fort Edward has been destroyed, including the officers' quarters and barracks, the blockhouse that remains is the oldest extant in North America. A cairn was later added to the site.
Berwick is a Canadian town in Kings County, Nova Scotia. The town is located in the eastern part of the Annapolis Valley on the Cornwallis River. The town site stretches south from the river and Exit 15 of Highway 101 to Highway 1. Berwick occupies 6.80 km2 and has an elevation of 43 m (141 ft) above sea level.
Port Williams is a Canadian village in Kings County, Nova Scotia. It is located on the north bank of the Cornwallis River, named after Edward Cornwallis, first governor of Nova Scotia. As of 2016, the population was 1,120.
Brooklyn is a Canadian rural community located in western Hants County, Nova Scotia with a population of 916 people in 2016.
Woodville is a community in Kings County of about 200 people located in the Annapolis Valley of Nova Scotia. The community is situated north of Cambridge and Waterville at the foot of the North Mountain. Centred along Route 221, Woodville has a volunteer fire department, a Baptist church, two auto body shops, a home run automotive mechanic business, and many family-run farms. It is administratively part of the village of Cornwallis Square. A community centre is located in the former school, built in 1942. The former Wesley Knox United Church, built in 1921, was sold in 2006 is now a residence and artist's workshop.
The Cornwallis River is in Kings County, Nova Scotia, Canada. It has a meander length of approximately 48 kilometres (30 mi) through eastern Kings County, from its source on the North Mountain at Grafton to its mouth near Wolfville on the Minas Basin. The lower portion of the river beginning at Kentville is tidal and there are extensive tidal marshes in the lower reaches. In its upper watershed at Berwick, the river draws on the Caribou Bog while a longer branch continues to the official source, a stream on the North Mountain at Grafton.
Maugerville is a New Brunswick unincorporated community located on the east bank of the Saint John River in Maugerville Parish, Sunbury County, in the Canadian province of New Brunswick. The settlement is located on provincial Route 105, 16 kilometers southeast of the capital city of Fredericton and 3.18 kilometers northeast of the town of Oromocto.
Kingsport, is a small seaside village located in Kings County, Nova Scotia on the shores of the Minas Basin, famous at one time for building some of the largest wooden ships ever built in Canada.
The St. Croix River is a river in Nova Scotia entirely contained in Hants and Halifax Counties. Its headwaters are Panuke Lake. The river has been exploited for water power. There were water mills in the nineteenth century and in the 1930s three hydroelectric dams were built; they still operate.
Canard is a rural community occupying a ridge to the north of the Canard River between the Canard and Habitant Rivers in Kings County in the Canadian province of Nova Scotia. The name comes from the French word for duck which was in turn derived from the Mi'kmaw name for the river which described the large numbers of black ducks once found there.
Mount Denson is a small community in the Canadian province of Nova Scotia, located in The Municipality of the District of West Hants in Hants County. The community is named after Mount Denson; the mid-eighteenth-century estate of Henry Denny Denson.
Starr's Point is a community in the Canadian province of Nova Scotia, located in Kings County two miles west of Port Williams. Starr's point faces the Minas Basin to the east and separates the mouths of the Cornwallis River and the Canard River. It is an agricultural area noted for apple orchards.
Hortonville is a community in the Canadian province of Nova Scotia, located in Kings County at the mouth of the Gaspereau River and is part of the Landscape of Grand Pré UNESCO World Heritage Site.
The Raid on Dartmouth occurred during Father Le Loutre's War on May 13, 1751, when a Miꞌkmaq and Acadian militia from Chignecto, under the command of Acadian Joseph Broussard, raided Dartmouth, Nova Scotia, destroying the town and killing twenty British villagers and wounding British regulars. The town was protected by a blockhouse on Blockhouse Hill with William Clapham's Rangers and British regulars from the 45th Regiment of Foot. This raid was one of seven the Natives and Acadians would conduct against the town during the war.
Fort Vieux Logis was a small British frontier fort built at present-day Hortonville, Nova Scotia, Canada in 1749, during Father Le Loutre's War (1749). Ranger John Gorham moved a blockhouse he erected in Annapolis Royal in 1744 to the site of Vieux Logis. The fort was in use until 1754. The British rebuilt the fort again during the French and Indian War and named it Fort Montague (1760).
Grafton is a small farming community in the Annapolis Valley area of Kings County, Nova Scotia, Canada. Located just north of the village of Waterville, it stretches from the Cornwallis River to the slopes of the North Mountain and includes the crossroads of Buckleys Corner. Route 221 crosses the north part of Grafton while Highway 101 crosses the south part of the community. It is administratively part of the village of Cornwallis Square.
A township in Nova Scotia, Canada, was an early form of land division and local administration during British colonial settlement in the 18th century. They were created as a means of populating the colony with people loyal to British rule. They were typically rural or wilderness areas of around 100,000 acres (400 km2) that would eventually include several villages or towns. Some townships, but not all, returned a member to the General Assembly of Nova Scotia; others were represented by the members from the county. Townships became obsolete by 1879 by which time towns and counties had become incorporated.
Coordinates: 45°11′N64°31′W / 45.19°N 64.52°W