Identity area
Type of entity
Authorized form of name
Parallel form(s) of name
Standardized form(s) of name according to other rules
Other form(s) of name
Identifiers for corporate bodies
Description area
Dates of existence
History
The Municipality of the County of Colchester was created in 1879 when the Nova Scotia government passed the County Incorporation Act, the forerunner of the later Municipal Act. 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 were created on the basis of the existing sessional boundaries of twelve counties and twelve districts in six divided counties. In Colchester County, the boundaries of the Sessions district and the county had been coextensive, and the 1879 Act created a single municipal unit in the county, the Municipality of the County of Colchester. The new rural municipalities were run by elected councils. Generally, the rural municipalities assumed all of the local government powers of the Sessions, which included: poor houses; licences for intoxicating liquor; ferries, wharves, and markets; paying for the administration of justice; tax collection; contracts; salaries; presiding officers; and general supervision. When the County Incorporation Act was replaced by the Municipal Act, the basis of county administration remained very much the same.