Affichage de 35 résultats

Notice d'autorité
Kaiser, Ruby Lillian
Personne · 1930-2015

Ruby Lillian Kaiser was born in Sonora, Guysborough County, Nova Scotia in 1930. The daughter of Asa and Edna (Burns) Jordan, she had five siblings. Ruby held a life-long interest in the local history and genealogy of Sonora and area, and collected relevant photographs, newspaper clippings, obituaries, memorials, and other genealogy records. She was a member of Sonora Baptist Church, the Sonora branch of the Women’s Institute of Nova Scotia, Women’s Baptist Missionary Society, and the St. Mary’s Garden Club. She married Victor Kaiser in 1953 and they had three children.

Sinclair, Robert Ramsay
Personne · ca. 1842 - 1914

Robert Ramsay or R.R. Sinclair was born ca. 18 October 1842, likely in Sherbrooke, Guysborough County, Nova Scotia. His grandfather, Donald Sinclair, was a merchant who emigrated to Sherbrooke from Thurso, Scotland around 1807. He took with him his two sons, Alexander and William. Alexander married Margaret Ramsay (originally from Edinburgh) in 1830 and together they had ten children, including Robert Ramsay. The family were Anglican. Alexander and his family lived in Sherbrooke before settling in Liscomb, likely in the late 1850s or early 1860s, where they operated a large, successful sawmill, producing over 500,000 board feet of lumber, laths, and staves in 1871. After Alexander Sinclair died in 1866, the mill was operated by his sons Donald Smith, Robert Ramsay, and William James as Donald Sinclair and Bros. The brothers were also involved in shipbuilding, and the James R. Lithgow (1872) and the Three Cheers (1873) were built in their yard at Liscomb. In 1873, the Liscomb sawmill was sold, and R.R. Sinclair moved to Sherbrooke where he worked as a merchant through to the first decades of the 20th century, selling groceries and general provisions. His first store was near the McDaniel's Sherbrooke Hotel on Mill St., where he also boarded, and in 1900 he built a new store located on Main or First St., just past the bridge to Goldenville and across from Anderson's grocery store. The building was demolished in 2018. R.R. Sinclair was also a dealer and exporter of lumber and farm produce. While most of his clients and customers were farmers within the St. Mary's River region, as well as townspeople from the villages of Sherbrooke and Goldenville, he also supplied local gold mining and lumbering companies with provisions, and exported lumber to Nova Scotia building firms like Chappell Bros. in Sydney, Cape Breton. Local memory recalls that "Bob," as he was known, would buy "rafts" of lumber floated down the river from Caledonia, which he then exported on the coastal steamer, S.S. Dufferin. It is likely that Sinclair owned a sawmill on the Northwest Arm Brook in Sherbrooke, as well as a large tract of land on present-day Cameron Rd., listed as the "Sinclair Property" on the 1876 A.F. Church map of Sherbrooke, and where the R. Sinclair shipyard was also located. Sinclair built at least two schooners at his St. Mary's shipyard, the William Hayes in 1874 and the Marshall S. in 1876. At some point, he purchased 124 Cameron Rd, a large Gothic Revival house that had been built for his brother, Marshall Sinclair, a merchant in Goldenville. Later, in 1896, R.R. Sinclair purchased 8149 Main St,. Sherbrooke, which he owned until his death on 19 January 1914, in Wolfville, Nova Scotia. He is buried in Bridgetown, Nova Scotia. R.R. Sinclair was also a member of the 4th Guysborough Regiment, a militia formed in response to the Fenian raids of 1866, serving in the Liscomb area. He remained a life-long bachelor.

Collectivité · 1879-

The Municipality of St. Mary's, known today as the Municipality of the District of St. Mary's, was incorporated on 17 April 1879 as a municipal unit by the Province of Nova Scotia. Prior to incorporation as a municipality, the St. Mary's region was an unincorporated township, with local governance provided by the General Sessions of the Peace, comprised of Justices of the Peace and Grand Jurors appointed by the provincial government. The District of St. Mary's had been divided from the township of Guysborough by the Province of Nova Scotia in 1840. In 1879, the provincial government passed the County Incorporation Act (N.S. Statutes, 1879, c.1) which outlined a basic structure of rural municipal government. The Act prescribed that, "The Inhabitants of every County and Sessional District in this Province . . . shall be a body corporate under the name of the Municipality of the respective county or district, as the case may be, . . . " . Thus, twenty-four rural municipalities covering the whole province were created on the basis of the existing sessional boundaries of twelve counties and twelve districts in six divided counties. The new Municipality of St. Mary's was run by elected councils, replacing the non-elective Courts of General Sessions of the Peace. The municipality assumed all of the local government powers of the Sessions, and municipal responsibility included construction and maintenance of roads and bridges; overseeing the poor; assessment and tax collection; administration of justice; animal control; elections; licenses; ferries; surveying lumber and cordwood, among other responsibilities. Broad authority was also conferred on the new administrations to pass by-laws in relation to "the good rule and government of the municipality, and for the regulation and management of the local, municipal, fiscal, prudential, and sanitary affairs thereof." In the years following municipal incorporation, the specific powers and responsibilities of municipal governments were frequently altered by the provincial government. For example, responsibility for public roads and bridges was re-assumed by the provincial government during the early 20th century. However, most of the original by-law powers enumerated in the County Incorporation Act were to appear in the later Municipal Act, and many of its important features remain the basis of St. Mary's rural municipal government today.

Sweet, Samuel Burton
Personne · 1857-1903

Samuel Burton Sweet was born July 31, 1857 in Black Rock, Kings County, Nova Scotia to Lorana and Leander Sweet. He moved to the Country Harbour area of Guysborough County sometime after 1881, where he ran a store in Country Harbour Mines before moving his business interests to Goldenville sometime after 1894 and before 1901. He married Alice Cox Eaton and together they had twelve children. He died July 29, 1903 and he and his wife are buried in the Evergreen Cemetery, Cross Roads Country Harbour, Guysborough County.

St. Mary's Rebekah Lodge
Collectivité · 1927 -

The International Association of Rebekah Assemblies (also known as the Rebekahs or the Daughters of Rebekah) is an international sororal and service organization that was founded in 1851. It is the female auxiliary of the Independent Order of Odd Fellows [I.O.O.F.] The St. Mary's Rebekah Lodge was instituted on 6 August 1927. The first Noble Grand was Mrs. Margaret G. McKeen, First Vice Grand Miss Annie Bears.

MacDonald, James William
Personne · 1853-1936

James William MacDonald was born on 15 December 1853 in Sherbrooke, Guysborough County, Nova Scotia. He was the eldest son of Donald MacDonald, a tailor, and Elizabeth MacDaniel. His grandfather, Donald "Brae" MacDonald emigrated from Kerrowgare, Scotland to Sunnybrae, Pictou County in 1802. His father, also named Donald, relocated to Sherbrooke and set up the successful tailor and clothier shop on First St. that is now a part of Sherbrooke Village Restoration. James William MacDonald was a harness-maker by trade, running a harness and leather goods business located on Main or First St. in the village of Sherbrooke, next to the Joe McLane blacksmith shop, from the 1870s until the early 1930s. One of his leather treadle sewing machines is on display in his father's tailor shop within Sherbrooke Village Restoration. James William MacDonald was a member of many local fraternal, religious, and political organizations, including the Marmion Lodge (No. 73 I.O.O.F.), Queen's Lodge No. 34 A.F. & A.M, the Masonic Grand Lodge of Nova Scotia, St. Johns United Church, and the Liberal Conservative Association of the Municipality of the District of St. Mary's. He married Margaret Jane Hattie in 1889, and together they had six children, three of whom survived into adulthood. He died 24 July 1936 while enjoying a social evening at the home of his brother, J. Geddie MacDonald.

MacKeen, Lester D.
Personne · 1895-1971

Lester D. MacKeen was born 30 May 1895 in Stillwater, Guysborough County, Nova Scotia. His parents were John Cargill MacKeen and Mary Caroline "Carrie" Taylor. He was the oldest of their seven children. There are many MacKeen families within the Municipality of the District of St. Mary's, and this branch was known as the "Cargill MacKeens." Lester D. MacKeen worked as a blacksmith and wheelwright, offering horseshoeing and general repair work, as well as carriage painting and upholstering. He was also an agent for Frost & Wood farming implements. In later years, he offered sheet metal work and was a heating agent, selling stoves, ranges, and furnaces, which he also installed throughout the local area during the mid-20th century. He purchased the former Joe McLane Blacksmith Shop in Sherbrooke in 1954 following the death of McLane. The building was subsequently used by Lester D. MacKeen until 1970, when it was purchased by the Nova Scotia Museum and moved from Main or First St. Sherbrooke to Mill St., within the bounds of the Sherbrooke Village Restoration. In addition to his business pursuits, he served the Municipality of the District of St. Mary's as the Secretary of the Unemployment Relief Committee during the Great Depression, and as Chief Deputy Sheriff for the County of Guysborough. Lester D. MacKeen married Muriel "Myrl" McKeen of Aspen, Guysborough County, on 29 July 1925, and together they had three children. He and his wife are buried in Riverside Cemetery, Sherbrooke.

Anderson family
Famille · ca. 1800s-1900s

The Andersons were a prominent business family in the Sherbrooke, Guysborough County area in the late 19th to mid-20th centuries. Alexander William "Sandy" Anderson was born ca. 1840 in West River, Pictou County, Nova Scotia, where his family ran the Anderson Hotel at West River Station. It is believed that the family lived in the Halifax area, possibly Hammonds Plains, prior to moving to Pictou County in the 1830s. The youngest son of Robert and Elizabeth Anderson, by 1866 Alexander had moved to the Wine Harbour gold diggings in Guysborough County, where he worked in a store. In Wine Harbour he met his future wife, Caroline MacKeen, who was the local school teacher. When she returned home to Sherbrooke to teach at the newly constructed school house, Alexander moved to Goldenville, which was closer to Sherbrooke. He married Caroline MacKeen on 4 November 1867 and shortly after their marriage they opened a boarding house in Goldenville. At some point during the 1870s, Alexander started the firm A. Anderson & Sons (also at times known as A. Anderson & Son), general merchants, later located at Rock Hall on Main St. in Sherbrooke. Alexander also maintained interests in timber and shipping, and acquired a large amount of property. Alexander and Caroline Anderson had five children: Clarence Wentworth (1871-1944); Robert Henry (1874-1907); Mabel Elizabeth (1877-1918); John Alexander (1879-1937); and Ethel Hattie (1881-1971). Caroline MacKeen Anderson died in 1910 and Alexander Anderson died in 1918.

Robert worked in mining operations in the United States and British Columbia. He died in Spokane, Washington in 1907. After working for a time in mining with his brother in B.C., John worked for the rest of his life in the A. Anderson & Sons general store and did not marry. Ethel and Mabel studied at the Halifax Ladies College. Ethel married Dr. James Ellis and Mabel "May" married Alexander Gunn of East River St. Mary's.

A shrewd businessman and a prominent figure in the political life of Nova Scotia, Clarence Wentworth Anderson, known as "C.W.," furthered the Anderson family business interests in the Sherbrooke area in the early decades of the 20th century. C.W. worked for J. B. Gass in Antigonish for a couple of years before beginning his studies at Pictou Academy in 1887. He then returned to Sherbrooke to work in his father's general store. In addition to running his father's store at Rock Hall with his brother John, C.W. founded the Scotia Lumber and Shipping Company with his brother-in-law Alexander Gunn of East River St. Mary's, who had married Mabel. C.W. Anderson was elected to the provincial legislature in 1920 on the Liberal ticket, and was re-elected in 1928 and 1933. Beginning in 1908, he served as the Warden of the Municipality of St. Mary's, a position he held for 12 years. He was married twice, first to Annie Baker of Marie Joseph in 1895, with whom he had eight children: Alexander (1896-1926); Robert (1897-1973); Mary (1899-1968); Annie (1901-1988); Helen (1903-1920); John (1905-1906); Margaret (1907-1911); Caroline (1911-1925). He then married Katherine Clifford MacLennan in 1941, before he died in 1944.

C.W. Anderson's descendants also went on to have successful business careers in the Sherbrooke area. C.W.'s grandson, Jack, took over A. Anderson & Sons general store after C.W.'s death in 1944. He operated the store until 1990, when it was subsequently sold.

Fraser family
Famille · ca. 1820s-1949

Crows Nest is an area that stretches across both sides of the St. Mary's River near Waternish, Guysborough County, Nova Scotia. Crows Nest farm was settled in the ca. 1820s by Simon Fraser, who was born in Pictou in 1790 and migrated to the St. Mary's River valley. He married Ann MacLean and together they had four children: Malcolm (b. 1813); John (b. 1824); Hugh R. (b. 1826); and Simon (birthdate unknown). Hugh R., who was born in St. Mary's, married Ann McDaniel and inherited the family farm. They had seven children: Rebekah (b. 1858, d. 1924); Abigail (b. 1858); John (b. 1860); Margaret (Maggie) (b. 1863, d. 1949); Charles (b. 1867); Freeman (b. 1868); and Hugh (b. 1872). Hugh R., Ann, and their children continued farming through the first decade of the 20th century, and the couple died in 1913.

Rebekah Fraser married James Coffey in Amherst, Nova Scotia in 1881 and was widowed. She returned to her parent’s farm at Crows Nest by the 1901 Census of Canada and lived in the community until her death in 1924.

Margaret (Maggie) Fraser immigrated to Chelsea, Massachusetts, sometime in the 1880s. There she married Herbert B. Smith, who was originally from Mount Denson, Nova Scotia, on 4 September 1895. He died in a tragic workplace accident in 1906, and the widowed Maggie returned home to the farm in Crows Nest by the 1911 Census of Canada.

Following the death of Hugh R. and Ann Fraser in 1913, and when sportsmen began frequenting the St. Mary's River region for hunting and fishing, Maggie Fraser Smith transitioned the farmhouse to an inn that accommodated sportsmen from around the world. According to Maggie’s death record, she operated the Crows Nest House, as the inn was called, until ca. 1937. She died in 1949 in a nursing home in Apple River, Cumberland County.