North Cumberland Historical Society
Wallace And Area
Wallace is a village and a number of small communities loosely centred around the Wallace River and the harbour. As well as Wallace, there is Wallace Bay (North and South), Head of Wallace Bay, Wallace Station, Wallace River, Wallace Bridge, East Wallace, Wallace Ridge, Wallace Highlands often called Richmond) and North Wallace. All are to be found as distinct entities in the records.
Wallace Village
Wallace was first known as Remsheg, a Mi’kmaq word meaning the place between. There is no record of a settled Mi’kmaq community here, but there are many remnants of the Acadians, their dikes and their salt marshes. Along with the Acadians of Tatamagouche, they were the first to be expelled in 1755 by the British – they were seen as a threat because of their ability to ship goods to Louisburg and escape detection from British Man of Wars.
After the Expulsion, there was no settlement until the land was surveyed in 1783 for the coming of the United Empire Loyalists. These lands were known as the Remsheg Grant.
These were 109 lots of 200 acres around the Wallace area as well as 3-acre building lots which were situated in North Wallace. In all, 137 Loyalists came to Remsheg. They were promised supplies of flour, pork, beef, butter and salt. Each two families got a plow and a cow to share and every four families received a crosscut saw and a whipsaw. Each family got a hammer, a handsaw, nails and four small panes of glass. Every five families got a musket, gun powder and a supply of lead for making bullets.
In 1791, a Methodist congregation was formed and for a number of years, services were held in the homes of Stephen Canfield, Thomas Fulton and Thomas Huestis. In 1808 a small log church, St. John’s, was built. By 1851, more space was needed and a frame church was constructed to replace the original. This in turn was replaced by the present church in 1902. The bell was purchased in 1906.
The first Presbyterian Church, St. Matthew’s, was built before 1800 and replaced in 1828. It had branches at Fox Harbour and Stake Road. In 1840, John Munro built Knox Church at Wallace Bridge which had branches at North Shore, Gulf Shore and Pugwash. When church union happened in 1925, a majority of the Presbyterians concurred and St. Matthews Church and Manse became the property of the unionists. A minority wished to remain Presbyterian and bought the church building, so the Methodist church of 1903 was used for the new union.
In 1846, the Anglicans built their church.
In 1825, the name Remsheg was changed to Wallace.
With the boom in the shipbuilding industry, the town was crowded with workmen. There were three hotels and many boarding houses. Monroe’s Hotel on the corner was the main inn and the town’s social centre. It was also stage coach base. The Hillside Hotel run by Edwin Edgett was available in Wallace for visitors in the mid 1900’s. A later hotel was the Remsheg.
There were many one-man industries: blacksmith shops, tailors, cobblers, harness makers, sail makers etc. A company of militia had its headquarters in an old drill shed. There was a camp site for the occasional roving bands of gypsies who sold tin ware and lace and traded horses. With all this population came wealth.
The high society of the town often put on formal balls to celebrate the launching of a ship. The hall was located on the west end of town overlooking the harbour. According to one report, one of the dances was decorated by covering the interior of the hall with spruce bows and maple foliage with live squirrels running through the branches inside a netting. And those present danced cotillions and minuets all night and the home waltz at the dawn.
The first school was taught in the house of the teacher, Rev. Hugh McKenzie. A school was eventually built which stood at the corner of Gulf Shore Road and Hwy. 6. It was torn down. In 1854, the first free school at Wallace was built and immediately burned down by opponents of free schools. In 1865, they built again, and on Feb. 5, 1915, a new school was built to replace it.
The early settlers were supplied by Mr. D. MacFarland, the first store keeper. Afterwards, Yates and Webber, two Englishmen, had a store on the bank below the Methodist Church grounds, followed in 1840 by Kenneth McKenzie.
In 1890, Rob Nelson built a two-storey store in Wallace right across from St. Matthew’s Presbyterian church as you go up Six Mile Road. It was called Rob Nelson and Co. General Store. The goods came by train to Wallace Station or by boat to Wallace Harbour and were transported by horse and carriage. Rob’s first cousin Ira Drysdale joined him in the business – his father was originally from Tatamagouche Mountain. Since the sign never changed, he was called Co Drysdale. Ira married Emma West and had 7 children. The store continued until the Depression, and today the lot is empty.
In 1911, the Livingston Bridge was built to cross the Wallace Harbour and North Wallace was finally connected to the busy little village.
By 1915, there were other general stores, one of which was owned by J. R. Sutherland. It was on the harbour side across from the Community Centre. It burned in the village fire of 1922. John Charman and Wylie Grant, cousins, also had a general store and sold stoves and fire insurance as well. The village drug store was at the corner of Six Mile Road and Sunrise Trail. There were 3 blacksmiths, one being William Cummings and a village barber, Robert Sawyer. There were 2 doctors, Frank Charman and Dr. Bentley who stayed for a while before moving on to Truro. A small meat market was owned by Samuel P. Jamieson.
The first post office stood on the south side of the back street. In 1854, Joshua Huestis was the post master. There were four mails weekly from Halifax and three each from Pictou, Tata, Pugwash, and Amherst. There was one a week from River Philip and Londonderry. All came and went by stagecoach. Smith Seaman was the next postmaster followed by L. H. Betts. A. S. Dewar took it over in 1930, then Norman Bettes and Francis McKinnon. Vaughn Rhindress and Mae Sellick followed.
In 1922, Wallace had a fire.
North Wallace (Fanningsborough)
North Wallace is bordered on the north by Fox Harbour and on the south by Wallace Bay. It was the site of the 3-acre building lots of the Remsheg Grant which each settler got in addition to a 200-acre farm grant. The town that was to be built was called Fanningsborough. The first loyalists arrived in Fort Cumberland in 1783 and after wintering there in tents, set out for their new home.
However, with no bridge, the North Wallace Loyalists felt cut off from the mainland. Many sold their 3-acre lots for whatever they could get and went to their large farm lots to build cabins and barns. Few families remained, but one of these, the Dottens, have one of the oldest burying grounds in the area on their land. Some of the graves date back to 1790.
James Dotten had arrived in North Wallace in 1784 with building tools, a cow and enough food to last for a year. He stayed in North Wallace, acquiring the grants of some of his fellow loyalists and his family is still there today.
Wallace Bay
This area was once called North Branch Remsheg River and the river leading into it was called South Branch. These names reflect the importance of the river as a means of transportation and as the only available source of mechanical power.
The North Branch Remsheg provided the early inhabitants with fish and shellfish. In 1838, an aboideau was built at the narrows, and the subsequent marshland was capable of producing large crops of hay.
The first settler at Wallace Bay after the Acadians was Major Andrew Forshner who came from the United States at the close of the Revolutionary War, he having been a member of a German regiment that fought for the English armies against the Colonists.
The major obtained a grant of a large block of land on which he settled his sons. One son conducted a wayside inn at which all drivers of the Amherst-Pictou stages stopped and changed horses. By the 1880's no less than seven families of the Forshner name lived at the Bay.
United Empire Loyalists from New York arrived and settled in 1784. Much of this area was part of the Remsheg Grant.
Among the earliest settlers was Stephen Tuttle and his three young sons, John, Stephen, and William. The family had lived in New Jersey where all their property was confiscated and stock slaughtered. They fled to Quebec and Stephen moved on to Remsheg. Some time later, his wife Mary Graham and their youngest son Peter Graham started to walk to Wallace Bay from Quebec. At the same time, Steven had started walking to Quebec to fetch them. By chance, he ran into some natives. They took him to see a white woman they had found in the woods, and it turned out to be Mary.
Stephen’s sons John and Stephen settled at Wallace Bay North, William at Wallace Bridge and later at Wentworth and Peter at Wallace. John, son of Stephen, married a Miss Horton and their son William was the first white child born at Wallace Bay. William was a carriage builder and Thomas a blacksmith after 1890, and they also built coffins..
Another early settler was Alexander Peers who moved from North Wallace. John Brown, a neighbour of Mr. Peers at North Wallace, and his daughter had been killed by lightning and left two sons. Abraham, the eldest, later settled on what was known as the James Albert Brown farm, while Isaac, the youngest was adopted by Mr. Peers and came with the Peers family to Wallace Bay where years later he married a granddaughter of his foster parents. He built a grist mill on a small brook and sometime later bought a farm where he built a long dam and erected a saw mill. Isaac Brown settled five sons on the Bay, three of them in houses built from one plan.
Mr. Alexander Peers owned a large amount of property which in 1815 he willed to the various members of his family. He and his wife were buried in the old cemetery at North Wallace, their graves being marked by separate grey stone slabs.
Perhaps one of the earliest settlers was a family by the name of Dean, an Englishman who settled near the Bay. He was a friend of James Doherty, one of the first settlers of Doherty Creek, now Pugwash Junction. Mr. Dean had a wife, one son and one daughter. Apparently he believed he could raise cattle in the forest as moose, deer and other animals. His cattle died and to add to his troubles his daughter died and was buried near the Brown and Wells line. Some time later, a baby was born, and the mother and baby both died and were buried beside the daughter. After the death of his wife, Dean is said to have taken his son to James Doherty and left him there. He returned to his home and later rowed down the creek and was never heard of after.
The first McKims were Andrew and his wife who came from Ireland to Jamestown, Virginia to Londonderry and finally to East Pugwash. He became an active politician under the leadership of Joseph Howe and was elected member of the legislature for Cumberland.
The first Dotten settled near the shore, but their sons later built their homes on what is now called “The Sunrise Trail”. One son, Joseph, drove the mail between Greenville Station and Wallace Bay North and South for many years. Every Friday evening the people would gather at the post offices to get their mail. The Post Masters were George Forshner and George Brown who were paid the handsome sum of $12 a year.
In 1829, school district No.9 of Wallace Bay had 25 students under the care of teacher Robert Dallis. Surnames of the students were King, Brown, Forshener, Tuttle, Fountain, and Thompson. W. D. Corbett taught on the north side until 1863.
The Wallace Bay United Church which was originally Methodist was built in 1852. A bell was bought and placed in the steeple and in 1853, there was a rather heated debate over who should have the honour of being the bell ringer. Charles Oxley was chosen by the church trustees and this was very unpopular with the other contender, John Forshner. When the congregation waited to hear their bell for the first time before the Saturday grand opening of the church in June 1853, all that met them was silence. Someone had stolen the 200 – 300-pound bell out of the steeple. It was searched for extensively but never found. In 1980, John MacQuarrie contacted a dowser to find it, and that too failed. The steeple of the church was struck by lightning in 1922, and the church itself no longer used after 1982.
In 1898, the Wallace Bay Butter and Cheese Company was built.
East Wallace
The area known as East Wallace is east from Wallace on the Sunrise Trail (Hwy 6) where it meets the North Shore Road, which leads in to Malagash. It circles around Lazy Bay. The land was initially granted to UEL and was later known as Canfield Town.
It was named after Stephen Canfield who was born in September 1752 in Bedford NY. He married Mary Pierce, and they remained loyal to the crown. Driven by their home by drunken soldiers they immigrated to PEI and then to Amherst in 1779 with some of their furniture. In 1785, they moved to lot 110 of the Remsheg Grant. From there, they moved to East Wallace and bought 4 UEL land grants from Captain Barnes Hatfield, David Totten, John Teed and James Totten.
Good quality limestone was discovered at East Wallace and shipped south by schooner.
Wallace Ridge
Wallace Ridge is where the Sunrise Trail crosses a height of land commanding a magnificent view of the countryside and sea.
During the time of the Fenian Raids (1866) the men of the Wallace area trained on Wallace Ridge in what became Harold Mattatal’s land. Many years after, each man who could prove that he did this training received $100.
There is a little Catholic church on the ridge. It was first known as the Church of St. Simon and St. Jude but in 1883 changed its name to St. Cyprian. Its earliest record comes from 1854 when Archbishop Walsh visited, but it is thought to have been built sometime in the 1840’s on land donated by Ed Carberry, a native of Ireland. It was a successor to the church in Brule which had been built by the French, and served as the spiritual home for the Irish who came to the area. The first grave is that of James Kackeys who died in 1844..
Mass was last celebrated in this church in 1973.
Wallace Bridge and Wallace River
Mills, quarries, brickyards and farms lined the Wallace River during the 1800’s. Now some of that same land is the home of the Wallace River Golf Course.
The 138-meter long Wallace train bridge was built in the 1880s to serve the railway which arrived at the area in 1890. It was a beautiful example of masonry. The east span could be manually swiveled to right angles and out of the way of ships sailing up the Wallace River to take on loads of brick, stone and other supplies. It was burned in 2002.
The original owners of the land where Wallace Bridge now stands were Remsheg Grantees Thomas Cornell, Jacob Neal, Warren Myers, John Angevine, Ezekiel Peers, Gabriel Purdy and there was a lot for Governor Wentworth. Initially the river was crossed by ferry. The first bridge constructed was a covered wooden draw bridge 535 feet in length.
In 1800, John Munroe came and built the old Knox Church at Wallace Bridge.
At one time there was a wharf where boats came in to load pulpwood from up the Wallace River. The J.L. McKim Store at Wallace Bridge was destroyed by the August storm of 1873 where the merchandise was washed away by high tides. They built again and that store was bought by the O’Briens who ran The Bridge Motel from it.
The principal shipyards of the area were at Betts’ Point where the Livingston Bridge is now. In the early times, no less than four ships would be on the blocks at a time. When these were launched, they would be followed by another four.
They also designed ships there. First they carved them in wood, but finding that too slow a medium, at the instigation of Grandmother Betts, switched to using turnips. From this came the first model of a new type of mechanical steering gear for ships later known as the Jordeson Patent Steering Gear which was used in ships all over the world.
Once called Henderson Siding Station, the name was changed to Wallace Bridge in 1897. One of Nova Scotia’s most famous sons was born here: Simon Newcomb. The son of John Burton Newcomb, a teacher, and Emily Prince who died when he was in his teens, Simon was the oldest of 7 children. He was educated by his father and from that foundation became the greatest astronomer of the 19th century. He won many prestigious awards and honorary doctorates.
Another notable citizen was Rev. James B. Woodland who founded and edited the first newspaper in Oxford in 1870.
One of the famous landmarks of the 1950’s, The Bridge Motel displayed the replica of two dappled grey horses and a landau. They became famous with tourists and residents of the area. The horses had been made by the Toledo Display Horse Co. to stand in a harness maker’s shop. They were moved to Arizona and finally went to the Carriage Museum in the Napa Valley.
By 1993, the electoral district of Wallace Bridge had 254 adults registered to vote.
Wallace Station
Wallace Station is centred at Highway 307 and Colter Road, about 2 miles inland, south of Wallace.
People had settled out the Colter Road during the 1700’s. Many of their homes were still standing in the early 1900’s. Most of the descendants of the original settlers seemed to move away from the area except the Woodland family who were there for more than 150 years.
The road between Wallace and Wallace Station was a narrow trail until the railroad was established. The early settlers had to walk to the then nearest store at Wallace Bridge to buy groceries and to Wallace River to attend the Baptist Church there.
At one time the train station was a very busy place with three passenger trains stopping regularly, freight trains passing through steadily and a great lumber yard. It was also the junction between Oxford and a small private 3-mile spur which ran to the sandstone quarry and shipping pier at Wallace. The station was managed by McKinnon. There was also a post office operated by Austa Drysdale and a store and blacksmith shop operated by Roderick Gullen. Now the track bed is part of the Trans Canada Trail and the village is a group of farms.
The Wallace Station school house had only one room with an old wood stove at the centre. According to one graduate, if you sat near the stove you cooked to death and if you sat away from it, you froze. The drinking water was kept in first a pail and then a creamer and everybody drank out of a common dipper. The water had to be carried from a house each day. At one time there were 60 students from Grades 1 – 11 taught by one teacher. After, the school house became the Orangeman’s Hall until that was dissolved. It was moved in 1997.
There was a Community Hall which held the year’s big event, the annual Christmas Concert.
Wallace and Area Industries
Shipbuilding
The building of the first vessels in the area dates back to the 1700’s. One was built by Benjamin Stevens at Salters Creek. Not having any rope at the time, the builders peeled the elms. Using the bark for both rigging and cable and a stone for an anchor they closely hugged the shore until they arrived at Halifax where they were able to procure proper rigging and an anchor.
In 1816, Samuel Cunard had a ship built in Wallace, the Country’s Dalhousie, described as a British plantation-built ship with one deck and two masts.
About 1821, John and Donald MacFarlane built on the north side of the harbour. Angus Livingstone, came from Scotland in 1830. He built two vessels in the 1840’s.
In the 1850's, there was a boom in shipbuilding in Wallace Harbour spurred by the need for supply ships to feed the armies involved in the Crimean War. Wallace was the home of 11 shipyards, all working at full capacity. The industry gave work to about three hundred besides the men and teams who prepared the timber. And then there were offshoots such as the shipping of ice blocks to Boston and New York. Limestone from East Wallace, tanning bark, eggs, blueberries and timber were other frequent cargoes.
In 1854, 16 ships were completed or under construction in the harbour in 7 shipyards. With the end of the Crimean War, shipbuilding slowed down and finally came to a halt - not only because of the war, but also because of the increase in steam power which was creating a need for iron ships.
In all, records and names of 110 ships have been found with many more known to have been built. The largest was the Retriever, a full-rigged ship of 990 tons built in 1854 by Robert Purvis. His workmen were paid with tokens which could be redeemed at his general store.
Until about 1870, these early vessels were mostly square rigged and other than for the war, they were built for the St. John’s and Great Britain trade. Later ships, until 1885, were large schooners built in Wallace to carry stone from the quarry to the U.S.A. Listed as outstanding workmen on the ships were James Robertson a rigger and blacksmiths – “Old” Leggett, John Stevenson, John Chambers, David Betts and William MacLennan.
Milling
With the coming of the loyalists, lumber for building was needed. Mills supplied the power for lumber, for grinding grain, grist and meal as well as for turning wool into yarn. It was also found that there was a ready market for pine and spruce lumber. The first record of a sawmill in the area is in 1786 near Samuel Kipp’s grant. It was bequeathed to Isaac Brown and converted to a grist mill. There were, at one time, mills all the way up the Wallace River. The largest was the Forshner stand of mills which included a sawmill, grist mill and a carding mill. It continued until the late 1870’s.
The Dewar River also had its share of mills. The Dewar Mill which was at at the head of tide was a flour mill. The John Johnson mill was about 3/4 mile upstream for woodworking and furniture making. Upstream from that was the Levi Stevens mill, grandson of the original Levi Stevens, loyalist. He built the IOGT hall and donated it to the community. The mill was eventually sold to Wes Porteous. Next up the river was the Charman mill. They were the first family to settle on the River. It was a lumber mill, and they also quarried sandstone. The MacIntosh Mill was a lumber mill on the Dewar where the Wallace Highland Road crosses over.
The portable steam sawmill heralded the end of the water powered ones. The first in Wallace Bay was owned by Noble who had a contract to supply ties for the short line railroad in 1889. The camp remained until the 1920’s and was used by a number of crews. The last of the mills was reconstructed by George B. Treen.
Quarrying of Wallace Stone
By 1809, a number of quarries were being worked along the North Shore. John Merrick, architect, had a love for Wallace and so Wallace rock was used to build the Province House in Halifax. At first, it was fairly easy to move; there was a bare face of solid rock from the water up to the top with practically no overburden. Vessels came to the base of the cliff and the stones was rolled out on to the ship’s deck on cannon balls. The building was finished in 1819.
Land was granted to William Mackenzie in 1810, who deeded it to Isaac and Benjamin Smith, who sold it to architect Richard Smith. This later became the Battye quarry. Not far away the Battye brothers also started a brickyard. In 1860, Thomas Battye became owner and had two ships built the Freestone and the Mary Anne to carry the stone away.
In 1863, William McNab bought a 6-acre field from Joshua Huestis. When he tried to build a fence, he found he could only put posts down ten inches before striking rock. James Drysdale, a stone mason, was called, and they realized that there were sheets of rock four inches thick. McNab hired three men who cut the sheets into flagstones and loaded them to on scows to take out to schooners to ship to PEI and Halifax for sidewalks. As they proceeded, the rock became thicker until it was building blocks, and it was determined to be a high quality of stone.
In 1873, the Wallace Huestis Gray Stone Company leased the quarry for 20 years. A gravity railroad was installed to take the extracted stone down to the wharf to be loaded onto ships. Barriers were placed at each street crossed by the rail track; these barriers dropped down each time a trolley load of stone came down the hill and when an empty one went up. A semaphore signaled when a trolley was ready to go up or down the hill, which was every 20 minutes. It was finally removed in 1936. Stone was sent to Boston on the “Wallace” which was owned by James Drysdale. Fred and George Battye had come from their quarry on Wallace River and opened a much-expanded quarry nearby. Other owner/managers have been G.P. Sherwood, T. C. Dobson, and Peter Lyall and sons of Montreal. Today it is operated by Wallace Quarries Ltd.
With the quarry came improvements to the harbour in the form of jetties, wharves, and methods of getting the stone to the ships.
Stone from Wallace Quarries has been used in the construction of the Parliament Buildings in Ottawa, Halifax Province House, Charlottetown Province House and the Central Park Bridge in New York and many other beautiful stone buildings.
Brickyards
The clay along Wallace River is excellent for brick, and at one time, there were eight brickyards along the river.
Fishing - Lobster Industry
The first lobster canning factory on the north shore of NS was in Wallace in 1875. It was owned by an American company and lobsters were packed and shipped to the U.S. and to England. The number of canneries soon expanded to twelve in the area.
Initially, fishermen could set traps wherever and whenever they wanted, often starting as soon as the ice left. However, it was soon realized that the industry had to be managed, and regulations were put in place.
Lobster meat was packed in one pound cans and the shells were used as a fertilizer. This industry continues to today, but is strictly controlled – and the lobster canneries of yesteryear are nothing but a memory.
Tin Can Factory
Late in the 1800’s, tin cans were needed for the lobster factories. Mitchell Burns Canfield operated the Tin Shop or Tin Can factory in Wallace which stood opposite to the community hall. It took a great deal of manual labour and ability to produce a can. It was done on an assembly line. The solder cutter was next to the tin tester who was next to the table shears. Next came the rollers and the press for lids and bottoms. The first World War and the drowning of Burns Canfield put an end to this successful business.
Compiled by Dianne Elliott from the files of the North Cumberland Historical Society