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1927-1936 (Creation)
- Creator
- Fraser family
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1 register
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Biographical history
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.
Custodial history
Records were in the possession of the Cameron family until donated to Sherbrooke Village Restoration by Alexander "Sandy" Cameron. Records were transferred to the St. Mary's Genealogy Research Centre at Sherbrooke Village in 2020.
Scope and content
Fonds consists of one register for the Crows Nest House, an inn near Waternish, Guysborough County that was operated by Maggie Fraser Smith after 1927 through to the late 1930s, mainly accommodating sportsmen. Register lists names of guests and their residence.
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General note
A.W. Cameron, a resident of Sherbrooke, purchased the Crows Nest House and farm property in 1940, where he raised a 50+ head herd of purebred Aberdeen cattle. Various families worked the farm for the Camerons before it was sold by the family to a consortium of sportsmen from Dartmouth in the mid-1960s. The house was eventually torn down and the sportsmen built a fishing and hunting camp on the property further up the river.
General note
Digital object: Acc. # 2020.033. Fraser family fonds. Page from the Crows Nest Hotel register, 1939.
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- Fraser family (Subject)
- Cameron family (Subject)