The area around Hantsport was known to the Miꞌkmaq as Kakagwek meaning "place where meat is sliced and dried" and the town is still home to a small Miꞌkmaq community known as the Glooscap First Nation or Pesikitk.[2][3] Although no Acadians are known to have lived on the lands within the boundary of Hantsport proper, the area was part of the Acadian parish of Paroisse de Sainte Famille (established in 1698). Etienne Rivet and his progeny farmed the nearby marshlands of the Halfway River (currently the boundary between the town and the community of Mount Denson, Nova Scotia) and his son, Etienne, operated a mill on the river near where the marshlands meet the uplands on the town's southern boundary.[4][5]
After the Expulsion of the Acadians, the Acadian region of Piziquid was formed into the Township of Falmouth. These lands were granted to New England Planters, and officers of the British army. Colonel Henry Denny Denson, a retired British officer, was granted an extensive tract of land (Mount Denson), which included the lands lying north of the Halfway River and south of the Horton Township boundary. In 1789, after Denson's death, his consort and heir, Martha Whitfield, sold Lots Three & Four (the area of Hantsport) to an Edward Barker.
Edward Barker (born at Lowdham, Nottinghamshire, England, 1745) was a British soldier, having arrived in Halifax in 1769 as a member of the 59th Regiment of Foot. In the early 1770s he mustered out of the army and by 1774 was at Falmouth, having married Rebecca Chadwick (see note) [6] of Newport, Rhode Island. He appears to have either worked on Abel Mitchener lands or rented farm lands until 1788 when he purchased land in Falmouth. A year later Barker purchased the Hantsport lots and soon thereafter moved his family to Hantsport. Barker's arrival marks the beginning of the settlement which was initially known as "Halfway River" being the point halfway between Grand-Pré and Windsor.[4]:p24-36[7]
The Hantsport train station was built in the Craftsman style and is a registered heritage building. It is no longer in use as a passenger facility.
Shipbuilding (see Ezra Churchill) emerged as a major industry in the 19th century and the town produced a large number of wooden sailing vessels and some steam vessels before the decline of wooden shipbuilding in the late 1800s. Notable vessels included the barque Hamburg, the largest three masted barque ever built in Canada, and the barque Plymouth, famous for the diaries of Alice Coalfleet, who raised a family aboard her. Hantsport shipbuilders active to the very end of the age of sail in the late 19th century and also built tugs and one steamship before wooden shipbuilding collapsed in the early 1900s. William Hall, an African-Canadian mariner born near Hantsport, was awarded the Victoria Cross in 1857 and is buried at a monument beside the Hantsport Baptist Church.
The arrival of the Windsor and Annapolis Railway in 1869 stimulated a number of local manufacturers which provided some relief from the demise of shipbuilding. A cluster of small factories and fruit warehouses grew around the Hantsport station. Gypsum exports emerged as a major employer in the 20th Century, followed by the pulp mill and paper factory of the Minas Basin Pulp and Power Company established by the Jodrey family in the 1920s.
Artifacts from the town's history are preserved at Churchill House, Hantsport, the restored mansion of the Churchill shipbuilding family (see Ezra Churchill) which serves as a community centre and museum.
During the 20th century, the port was used for shipping gypsum which was quarried at two locations east of Windsor and shipped to Hantsport using the Dominion Atlantic Railway, and later the Windsor and Hantsport Railway which ran frequent gypsum trains controlled by the Hantsport station. The marine terminal used a loader to move gypsum from the storage building to waiting ships and was one of the fastest ship-loaders in the world, necessitated by the fact that the extreme tides in the Minas Basin require ships to enter and leave the port within a four- to five-hour period. Operations at Fundy Gypsum Company's ship loading facility were idled in early 2011, with the facility permanently closed later in 2011.
On November 1, 2012, the Minas Basin Pulp & Power pulp mill, which had been in operation in Hantsport for more than 85 years, announced it would cease all operations. This mill closed in December 2012, resulting in the loss of 135 jobs. The largest remaining employer in Hantsport is CKF Inc., a paper products maker originally founded by the Joudreys to provide a lcola market for the Minas Basin pulp mill, produces Royal Chinet paper plates, as well as egg cartons, cup carriers and other molded pulp products at its plant on the community's waterfront.
In the wake of the closures of the marine terminal and the pulp mill, Hantsport town council voted on April 16, 2014 to dissolve its municipal incorporation. The town was formally dissolved into the Municipality of the District of West Hants effective July 1, 2015.[8]
Sports have been a significant part of the atmosphere in Hantsport. The Hantsport Hawks junior high team won the regional banner in 2015 and they repeated in 2016. The Hantsport Shamrocks are one of the most well known baseball clubs in Nova Scotia. The Hantsport Bruins are a dynasty in the Hants County Hockey League, winning 8 Howard Dill Cups since 1998. Some say that sports in Hantsport are "the glue" that holds the town together. In the 2005-06 track and field season, Kira Pederson set the Hantsport Junior High 100 m dash record with a time of 13.34 s, which still holds to this day.
The Annapolis Valley is a valley and region in the province of Nova Scotia, Canada. It is located in the western part of the Nova Scotia peninsula, formed by a trough between two parallel mountain ranges along the shore of the Bay of Fundy. Statistics Canada defines the Annapolis Valley as an economic region, composed of Annapolis County, Kings County, and Hants County.
Hants County is a historical county and census division of Nova Scotia, Canada. Local government is provided by the West Hants Regional Municipality, and the Municipality of the District of East Hants.
Windsor is a community located in Hants County, Nova Scotia, Canada. It is a service centre for the western part of the county and is situated on Highway 101.
Falmouth is a village located along the Avon River in Hants County between Mount Denson and Windsor in the Canadian province of Nova Scotia.
The Minas Basin is an inlet of the Bay of Fundy and a sub-basin of the Fundy Basin located in Nova Scotia, Canada. It is known for its extremely high tides.
The Dominion Atlantic Railway was a historic railway which operated in the western part of Nova Scotia in Canada, primarily through an agricultural district known as the Annapolis Valley.
The Windsor and Hantsport Railway was a 56-mile (90.1 km) railway line in Nova Scotia between Windsor Junction and New Minas with a spur at Windsor which runs several miles east, serving two gypsum quarries located at Wentworth Creek and Mantua. It suspended operations in 2011.
Ezra Churchill : Nineteenth-century industrialist, investing in shipbuilding, land, timber for domestic and foreign markets, gypsum quarries, insurance companies, hotels, etc. As a politician he held positions in the Nova Scotia legislature and was appointed a Canadian Senator for the Province of Nova Scotia. Churchill was also a Baptist lay preacher.
West Hants, officially named the West Hants Regional Municipality, is a regional municipality in Hants County, Nova Scotia, Canada.
Trunk 1 is part of the Canadian province of Nova Scotia's system of Trunk Highways.
The Annapolis Valley Regional Centre for Education (AVRCE) (formerly Annapolis Valley Regional School Board) is the public school district responsible for the approximately 40 elementary, middle level, and high schools in Annapolis County, Kings County, and the West Hants Municipal District of Hants County in Nova Scotia, Canada. The school district was renamed following the dissolution of elected school boards and placing in Nova Scotia in March 2018.
Walton is a village in the Canadian province of Nova Scotia, located in the Municipal District of East Hants, Nova Scotia. The community is named after John Nutting's son James Walton Nutting.
Kings County was a four-masted barque built in 1890 at Kingsport, Nova Scotia on the Minas Basin. She was named to commemorate Kings County, Nova Scotia and represented the peak of the county's shipbuilding era. Kings County was one of the largest wooden sailing vessels ever built in Canada and one of only two Canadian four-masted barques. At first registered as a four-masted full-rigged ship, she was quickly changed to a barque after her June 2 launch. More than three thousand people from Kings and Hants counties attended the launch. She survived a collision with an iceberg on an 1893 voyage to Swansea, Wales. Like many of the large wooden merchant ships built in Atlantic Canada, she spent most of her career far from home on trading voyages around the world. In 1909, she returned to the Minas Basin for a refit at Hantsport and loaded a large cargo of lumber. In 1911 she became the largest wooden ship to enter Havana Harbour when she delivered a cargo of lumber and was briefly stranded. She was lost a few months later on a voyage to Montevideo, Uruguay when she ran aground in the River Plate. Too damaged to repair, she was scrapped in Montevideo where her massive timbers were visible for many years.
Hamburg was a three masted barque built in 1886 at Hantsport, Nova Scotia. She was the largest three masted barque ever built in Canada.
Scotch Village is an unincorporated community on the Kennetcook River in the Canadian province of Nova Scotia, located in the Municipality of West Hants. This area was part of Newport Township at the time of settlement primarily by Rhode Island Planters in the early 1760s. It was referred to as “Scotchman’s Dyke” or “Scotch Village”, due to settlement of early families of Scottish descent. Prior to the arrival of the Planters, Scotch Village had been the home of Mi'kmaq and Acadians.
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.
Churchill House is a historic house and community centre located in Hantsport, Nova Scotia. The house was built in 1860 by noted Hantsport shipbuilder Ezra Churchill as a gift for his son John Wiley Churchill. The well-preserved example of an Italianate house today serves as a museum and community centre owned by the non profit corporation Hantsport Memorial Community Centre.
Canada was a full-rigged ship built in 1891 at Kingsport, Nova Scotia on the Minas Basin and was the largest sailing ship operated in Canada when launched in 1891. Canada was built and owned by Charles Rufus Burgess of nearby Wolfville, Nova Scotia. Despite the decline in wooden shipbuilding, Burgess saw that there was still potential for very large wooden sailing ships to make profits in the twilight days of the wooden sailing ship era. He had built the barque Kings County, the previous year, the largest four-masted barque ever built in Canada. Burgess planned to make Canada to be the largest sailing ship ever built in Canada, but damage, during harvesting, to a timber intended for the keel caused her length to be trimmed by ten feet making Canada slightly smaller than the ship William D. Lawrence built in 1874. However, as the William D. Lawrence had been sold to Norwegian owners and renamed in 1883, the ship Canada still claimed the honour of being the largest sailing ship under the Canadian flag at the time of her launch. Between 75 and 150 men were employed in building the ship. Canada was designed by master builder Ebenezer Cox who was in charge of the Burgess Shipyard in Kingsport where he had built ships since the 1860s and was regarded at the time to have built more ships than any man in Canada. The construction cost $111,000. Her interior included a finely outfitted captain's cabin, finished in walnut, ash and rosewood with a full dining room, office and bathroom. Her launch at noon on July 6, 1891 attracted 5,000 people from all across Western Nova Scotia, brought by multiple special trains run by the Cornwallis Valley Railway. It was regarded as the biggest event in the history of the village. A tug took the completed hull of Canada from the launch at Kingsport to Saint John, New Brunswick where the masting, rigging and outfitting was completed at the Customs House Wharf. Her immense size attracted hundreds to the Saint John waterfront to see Canada depart on September 1, 1891 for her maiden voyage, carrying with a cargo of lumber worth $144,109 bound for Liverpool, England. Classed A1 by Lloyd's Register for 14 years, Canada made several fast passages between South America and Australia. However by 1900, the ship was facing stif competition for cargoes from the growing numbers of general cargo steamships. Canada was converted to a gypsum barge in 1910, carrying gypsum from Windsor, Nova Scotia to Staten Island, New York for the Gypsum Transportation Company of New York. She was towed a final time from New York to Portland, Maine in 1926 where she was broken up.
Pisiguit is the pre-expulsion-period Acadian region located along the banks of the Pisiquit River from its confluence with the Minas Basin of Acadia, which is now Nova Scotia, including the St. Croix River drainage area. Settlement in the region commenced simultaneous to the establishment of Grand-Pré. Many villages spread rapidly eastward along the river banks. These settlements became known as Pisiguit or. The name is from the Mi'kmaq Pesaquid, meaning "Junction of Waters". In 1714, there were 351 people there.
↑ Rand, Rev. S.T. A first Reading Book in the Micmac Language: Comprising the MicMac Numerials, and the Names of the different kinds of Beasts, Birds, Fishes, Trees, &c, of the Maritime Provinces of Canada. Also, some of the Indian Names of Places, and many Familiar Words and Phrases, Translated Literally into English. Halifax Printing Company, Halifax, 1875.
1 2 Robertson, Allen B. Tide & Timber - Hantsport , Nova Scotia, 1795-1995. Lancelot Press, Hantsport, 1995
↑ MacMechan, Archibald, ed. Nova Scotia Archives II, A Calendar of Two Letter-Books and One Commission-Book in the Possession of the Government of Nova Scotia, 1713-1741. Herald Printing House, Halifax, NS. 1900.
This page is based on this Wikipedia article Text is available under the CC BY-SA 4.0 license; additional terms may apply. Images, videos and audio are available under their respective licenses.
