On Saturday, May 4th, 1940, at 11.00 pm local time, the British freighter SS Graig ran aground in dense fog on Flint Ledge, some 60 km east of Halifax on the Eastern Shore of Nova Scotia. The vessel had left Halifax on route to the United Kingdom…

Clam Harbour was settled in the last quarter of the 1700s. These early settlers built the community’s first church – a multi-purpose building used as a meeting house, school, and place of worship. The original church building was destroyed by a…

The Yarmouth County Museum officially opened its doors on June 9th, 1969, at 22 Collins Street, right in the heart of the Collins Heritage Conservation District. It is dedicated to the memory of Major Daniel and Alvina Murphy, who, two years…

Daniel Warnell (1814-1888) was born in Chezzetcook, Nova Scotia. He was first recorded in census records in 1851 as living in the Jeddore area, although his son, William, was recorded as born in Salmon River Bridge in 1843. Daniel worked as a…

Florence (Flora) Henry (1853-1918) came to Oyster Pond in the early 1870s to teach school. She married John Duncan Mitchell in 1875, had two children, Roxanna and William, and was widowed in 1885 at the age of 32. In 1891, Flora started a general…

In 1888, the province purchased a farm in Bible Hill (present-day Dalhousie University Agricultural Campus) for the practical education of farming students. In 1892, the new School of Agriculture established its campus on the Provincial Farm. Six…

For several decades, the Stoddard Hotel in Clam Harbour was a landmark on the road to Clam Harbour Beach. The hotel was owned by Walter E. Stoddard (b.1852) and his wife Hannah Palmer (b.1856). It is believed to have been built around 1900 by Fred…

Thomas Isaac Spidell II was born September 4th, 1873 in Maplewood, Lunenburg County, to Thomas Isaac Spidell I and Sarah Abigail Berghaus. He loved to read and often wrote for the Bridgewater Bulletin. Thomas left home when he was sixteen and…

The canning of shellfish, such as clams, lobster, crab, and oysters, developed as an industry around the early 1900s when equipment, canning materials, and a general knowledge of the science of canning coincided with a demand for canned goods.…

Not much remains of a once thriving industry in Lower Ship Harbour known locally as the “Peg Factory." Built on Weeks Lake where the lake meets Ship Harbour River, John Lewis Industries' peg factory started up in 1922 after having shut down a…