Duncan–Hayes family fonds

The son of a farmer, George Duncan was born at Chester in 1827. In 1861, he purchased a Mahone Bay property (now 6 Edgewater Street) from Casper and Sarah Joudrey, who had inherited the land from the blacksmith John Mader. The following year, Duncan married Lucy Catherine Hayes, who was born at Lunenburg in 1837. Not long after, Duncan built a store and residence on the lot that he had acquired from the Joudreys. (This building still stands and now houses “The Teazer,” a well-known gift shop.) Over the course of the next few years, Duncan emerged as a prominent Mahone Bay merchant. In addition to running a general store, he was involved in the West Indies trade and served, for a time, as the town postmaster. George and Lucy Duncan had three children: Jane Dorothea “Dora” (born in 1865), Edith Helen (born in 1867), and John Henry (born in 1869). Following George’s death in 1871, Lucy Duncan remained active in the town as a business woman, acquiring rental properties and loaning money. Although the family retained possession of the former store property in Mahone Bay, they lived for many years in Blockhouse. Lucy’s brother, John Hayes, a Nova Scotian who had served in the United States Navy during the American Civil War, also lived with the family for several years. After Lucy Duncan’s death in 1915, her son, John, and her daughter Dora, lived on in the family home. John, who worked for many years as a postal clerk, died in 1951. His sister Dora died in 1959. The following year, the George Duncan property, held by the family for nearly one hundred years, was sold by Dora Duncan’s estate to the Merchant family.