Showing 12 results

Authority record
St. Mary's Genealogy Research Centre at Sherbrooke Village Person

Kaiser, Ruby Lillian

  • Person
  • 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.

Sweet, Samuel Burton

  • Person
  • 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.

Sinclair, Robert Ramsay

  • Person
  • 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.

MacInnis, Edith

  • Person
  • 1926-2017

Edith Muriel (Langille) MacInnis was raised in River John, Pictou County, Nova Scotia. She trained as a teacher at the Nova Scotia Normal College in Truro and at St. Francis Xavier University. She married Murray MacInnis in 1945. The couple moved to Melrose, Guysborough County, with their two young children in 1948, and she taught elementary classes at East River St. Mary's School and high school classes at St. Mary's Rural High School. She and her husband purchased Eleven Mile House or 11 Mile House in Melrose in 1965, and Edith lived there until 2015. She died 22 October 2017.

MacDonald, James William

  • Person
  • 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.

  • Person
  • 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.

MacDonald, Florence M.

  • Person
  • 1895-1983

Florence Margaret MacDonald was born 21 September 1895 in Sherbrooke, Guysborough Co., Nova Scotia, one of three surviving children born to James Wm. MacDonald and Margaret Jane (Hattie) MacDonald. Her father ran a leather and harness making shop on Main Street, Sherbrooke, and her grandfather was Donald MacDonald, a tailor whose shop is now part of Sherbrooke Village Restoration. She was educated in Sherbrooke, and also completed courses at the Halifax Conservatory of Music and the Maritime Business College. Florence lived in Sherbrooke most of her life, but worked in Ottawa within the federal treasury department before returning home in 1946 to accept the position of accountant in the office of the Municipality of the District of St. Mary's. In 1949 she resigned the position because of the illness of her mother. In 1952, she joined the staff of the Nova Scotia Federation of Home and School as provincial treasurer, based in Truro. She returned to Sherbrooke in 1956 to resume her duties as municipal accountant, and in January of 1957 she received the appointment of municipal clerk and deputy treasurer for the Municipality of the District of St. Mary's, a position she held until 1967. She also worked as the assistant secretary-treasurer for the St. Mary's Municipal School Board. Florence MacDonald was active in a number of community organizations, including St. John's United Church, Sherbrooke, where she was church organist for many years and a member of the United Church Women (UCW). She was also a member of the Florence Fraser Chapter No. 47 of the Order of the Eastern Star, where she served as worthy matron, the Women's Institute, the Sherbrooke Street and Light Commission, the local hospital board, the Sunlight Rebekah Lodge #110, and the St. Mary's Historical Society. She died 24 May 1983.

Faulkner, Paula

  • Person
  • 1964-

Paula (nee Horton) Faulkner is the daughter of John Horton and Margaret Carroll Sears. She was raised in the Municipality of the District of St. Mary's and attended school at St. Mary's Rural High.

Cameron, Ian

  • Person
  • 1943-

Dr. Ian Cameron was born and raised in Truro, N.S., the son of Graham Fraser Cameron and Margaret Geneviève Arthur. After completing his education at Mount Allison University and Dalhousie Medical School, he was a professor of Family Medicine at Dalhousie. After he retired from teaching, he practiced family medicine in Sherbrooke for five years before settling into retirement there. A fourth-generation Cameron family member in Sherbrooke, Dr. Cameron has a keen interest in the history of the area. He is the author of "Quarantine, What is Old is New," a history of the quarantine station on Lawlor's Island in Halifax Harbour.

Ellsworth, Margaret

  • Person
  • 1912-1998

Margaret Cameron (nee Giffin) Ellsworth was born 16 July 1912 in Medford, Massachusetts, the only child of Alber Belle Savilla Fraser of Waternish, Guysborough County, and Eldon James Giffin of Isaac's Harbour, Guysborough County. Her parents met while living and working in Boston, Massachusetts. Margaret was raised in the United States, but returned frequently to Guysborough County to visit extended family and friends, often spending summers at the Fraser family home in Waternish (now demolished). Interested in local and family history, she amassed an extensive collection of photographs, genealogies, and other materials relating to the Fraser and MacIntosh families of St. Mary's, and the Giffin family of Isaac's Harbour. She married Henry Ellsworth of Greenfield, NY in 1959 and lived and worked in Illinois as a nursing professor. She died in 1998.

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