Wentworth | genealogyhistory

Wentworth

The district of Wentworth was named in honour of Sir John Wentworth, who was Governor of Nova Scotia in 1792.

The district is bounded on the south and east by the County of Colchester, on the north by Wallace and Middleboro, and on the west by Westchester. It includes five areas, each of which was once a distinct community: East Wentworth, West Wentworth, Lower Wentworth, Wentworth Station, Wentworth Valley, and Wentworth Centre

No. 4 Highway passes through the district from Folley Lake to Crowley’s Brook, a distance of about 16 miles. Five miles of this distance is through the Wentworth Valley, one of the most beautiful spots in the Province and a great attraction for tourists. Mount High Head, the highest peak in the Cobequid Mountains is near the entrance to the Valley. According to old surveys, it is about 1300 feet above sea level.

Among the first settlers were a number of United Empire Loyalist, and a large number of their descendants still live here. In 1771, Secord Beebee and Stephen Tuttle arrived from White Plains, New York and rowed up from Remsheg. Stephen Tuttle was the Crown Land Surveyor, so they were able to look over the whole area and choose the best land. It was midsummer which didn’t leave much time to get ready for winter. Secord Beebee constructed the first frame house on the Wallace River in 1771. This house had a solid wood wall ten inches thick said to be bullet proof and built in this manner as protection against the Indians. Stephen Tuttle built the second. Within two years, according to Josh Livingston, all the land was taken up from tidewater to the foot of the mountain. In 1803, twenty-nine land grants were handed out simultaneously, and the area began to open up rapidly. By 1827, Wentworth had a population of 239. Some such as the Purdys, Betts, Teeds, and Palmers are of Loyalist stock. The Bigneys, Mattatalls and Patriquins were French Huguenots. Others were of Scotch, English, and Irish origin.

There are large deposits of brick clay in Wentworth. Brick was made at Wentworth Centre one hundred years ago. Part of the stone for the piers under the McElmon railway bridge at Folley Mountain was taken from the Teed quarry near the David Teed bridge at Wentworth Centre. The stone blocks were hauled by teams in winter, a distance of 18 miles.

The Wallace River, which rises in the Cobequid Mountains west of Folley Lake, flows through Wentworth Valley. Is it bordered by beautiful intervals which produce abundant crops of hay and support large herds of cattle.

The Wallace River is one of the best salmon streams in Nova Scotia. Over 300 salmon have been taken from it in one season. Trout are also quite plentiful in the summer.

The farmers of Wentworth produce a lot of cream, and there are also some fine herds of beef cattle. A large amount of pork is raised here.

Lumbering is an important industry. Forest conservation has been practiced and there are still good stands of timber. In the early days, a small water saw mill was built on nearly every brook. Later the main river was dammed and larger mills were built. People used to raise grain and have it ground into flour. Three rotary mils worked on the river for 40 years or more.

With the building of the railway in 1872 linking Truro and Amherst, Wentworth Station became the railway centre for a large section of Northumberland Strait. At this time there were three general stores, one hotel, two rooming houses, a shoemaker, a tailor, a carriage factory, a freight she, a livery stable and a post office. There were 3 passenger trains a day, plus all the freight trains. Stage coaches served the more distant communities via Wallace and so there were many blacksmiths for the horses, not only for the stage coaches but for lumbering.

In the early days, there was only one post office. The mail was brought over the mountain once a week from Masstown. The first post office was kept by Lemuel Bigney, then Amos Purdy and then moved to the station house.

One of the first telephone lines used in Cumberland County was built from Wentworth to Wallace over 50 years ago. It proved to be a great convenience in case of sickness. Before that, people had to drive all the way to Wallace, 13 miles, to get a doctor.

Until 1951, there was no electricity in Wentworth. However, one enterprising citizen, Mr. Richard Letcher, built a dam on the Smith Brook in 1938. He then built a water wheel, a generator, poles and wire - and generated enough power to operate lights, a washer and equipment in a machine shop

The above was excerpted from an article in the Oxford Journal of June 24, 1948, by Roy C. Swallow and mixed with notes from Ira Brown.

West Wentworth

West Wentworth is a rural community settled many years ago by those with Irish and Scottish background. It was once called Henderson Settlement after Mr. William Henderson who was the first postmaster. The mail came off at Greenville Station. Richard McKeand drove the mail twice a week. In 1898 a post office was opened at Mr. William Mahoney's, then called Leroy. About 1907, rural delivery took over and the first post office was at Lemuel Bigney's which carried on through four generations. The mail came from Halifax by horseback and on to Wallace.

In earlier years most of these people earned their living farming and lumbering. Most of these farms used horses to do their farm work.

In the late 1940’s and early 50’s a couple of these farmers bought tractors. At this time very little money was spent on groceries as most of their food was grown on the farm. Apples were often peeled, sliced and put on strings where they were dried for winter use. Some farmers took wheat to Oxford Mills to be ground for flour.

In the winter, logs and pulpwood were cut to supplement their income. When spring came portable sawmills were set up to saw the logs into lumber. In the mid 1940’s one of the last steam powered sawmills owned by Ambrose Stewart of Stewiacke was set up on the Crowley brook.

About ¼ mile from Mahoney’s Corner is the St. Cornelius Roman Catholic Church. It was built in 1880. It has always been kept in good repair and mass is still held there. The cemetery was established in 1882.

In the late 1930’s an American couple Mr. & Mrs. Pitman bought the Lynn Woodworth property on Greenville Road. This property contained 600 acres. A large barn with an upright silo was built. It was equipped with water bowls for each cow. A utility shed with grain storage bins up stairs was also built. The rumour was that $30,000.00 was spent.

A team of horses and a herd of cattle were also bought. Charles Cloney bought the farm and stock from the Pitman’s and Russell Cloney & wife operated for a couple of years before it was sold to Howard & Greta Ogilvie. They held barn dances for several seasons. It remained vacant for several years before it was bought by the late Austin & Doris Patriquin. It remains in the family at the present time.

Next to the West Wentworth School was the Lodge Hall and this was used for the School concerts. Mr. Will Giles was always the master of ceremonies and at one of these concerts a baby cried a lot. At the closing of the concert Mr. Giles stated “I must say this concert has certainly been a howling success”!

n the 1950’s the Ogilvie Farm (owned by the late Joseph & Maggie Ogilvie) and his son the late Ivan Ogilvie & then wife Florence, had a successful chicken & egg farm which they operated for many years. They raised broilers and sold eggs with much of the product taken to Amherst. The farm is now owned by David & Linda Ogilvie (late Ivan’s son).

The Wallace River divided Wentworth Centre & West Wentworth and many weekends in the spring were spent by the river watching salmon being caught. Many of these were fly fishermen and they were quite proficient in casting lines. Yearly tourists to the Wallace River were the Tinker brothers. Often when a late snow storm would arrive they called it the “Tinker Storm”!

In the late 1940’s a dance hall was built by Lynn Woodworth. The power was supplied by the Woodworth’s home as the power line did not go through Wentworth until the early 1950’s and he had a generator. Most of the dances had competition in step dancing. A few arguments were sometimes settled outside, however there was never too much damage occurred.

The roads were not ploughed in the area until the 1950’s. Each farm that had horses had to break the road after each snowstorm. They were only 12 feet wide and the bushes would slap you in the face. Often in winter the roads were blocked by snow until rain came along and reduced it.

About ¼ mile east of Mahoney’s Corner in later years the Irving Oil Co. build a Garage & the Lady Wentworth Restaurant which was a very popular eating place for many years.

Life is much different today as there are no farms operating in this area. Most people work in Oxford, Pugwash, Wallace & Truro.

Written by Don McGill

Early Bridges

One of the earliest roads in the area was a road called the Back Road in West Wentworth that followed along the Wallace River. It is thought that this road was a stage coach road and followed up the Hunter Road to Westchester and on to Londonderry. Bligh Teed built a pedestrian suspension bridge using cable, posts and “dead men” buried in the ground out of wire and short boards placed crossways. It was about 150 feet long and 20 feet above the water. A freshet took it out in the 1950's along with Shur Tuttle’s hay trailer. People in the area built other bridges. A cable bridge spanned the river in New Annan at Byers Corner. George Oliver built a foot bridge below that to bring the sap home from his trees. Another was a foot bridge in the Drysdale Falls area built by Alex MacKay on the Matheson Brook Road.

Excerpted from an article in The Light of Nov. 21, 1990 by Ellen Millard

Churches

The Baptist Church at Wentworth was organized Oct. 14, 1838 by Reverend David Harris and a place of worship erected before 1850. It was on the edge of the hill near the Myers bridge, where a few stones still stand marking the graves of the early Baptists. By 1852, there were at least 32 members, and by 1854 45 which increased to 53 in 1859. In 1869, a new church was started on land bought from Lewis Purdy. It was built by the labour of its congregation and dedicated in 1874. Family pews were provided and the members of both sexes sat together which had not happened in the old church. The congregation grew and shrank according to whether there was a pastor and how far afield his responsibilities were.

The oldest building now standing in Wentworth is the United Church (originally Methodist) at Wentworth Centre. A centennial service was held in 1945 to commemorate its 100th anniversary, In the adjoining cemetery, there are monuments with dates as far back as 1837.

There is also a United Church at Upper Wentworth and a Roman Catholic Church at West Wentworth.

There were two Presbyterian churches. The Bigneys, Stevens, Chisholms and Flemmings wanted a church built on their land and the rest wanted it elsewhere. They couldn’t agree so they built two churches, The Kirk Church and the Presbyterian Church.

Excerpted from an article of Oct. 1, 1938 in the Amherst Daily News

Mining

During the late 1800's, American companies had come to the area and began a booming industry - the mining and smelting of copper. They were located at several sites, one on the Palmer property, 2 ½ miles up the river from Wentworth Centre, a second just behind the old Heber Tratt place where the smelter plant was and a third on the Feeley property just down the Six Mile Road. This development was carried out by William Hogal and his father.

It was a boom time in the district. Many of the men who worked at constructing the copper smelter lived in Wentworth, and many farmers left their farms to work in the copper mines and smelter. The company built the Copper Crown Hotel to accommodate them. The smelter worked day and night during the last three months it operated. When it was closed in 1906, many of the workers had not gotten their pay. Some were owed over $100.

Excerpted from an article by Ellen Millard in The Light of Feb. 18, 1991

Hotels

At 30 feet by 80 feet and three storeys and another structure in the back, the Copper Crown Hotel was a large building in Wentworth. It was situated just past the junction of the Lake Road and the Wentworth Highway and was built to house the workers of the copper mine. Carpenters from Lake Road constructed it. When the mines closed in 1906, the land reverted back to its original owners and Tom Ogilvie ran a general store and post office in the hotel and passed it on to his son Loran. It was next sold to Harold Little and Byron Patriquin. Betty Patriquin Curry remembers they lived there from 1943 to 1954. There were 7 bedrooms on the third floor and 9 or 10 on the second with a large second storey verandah. Irving Oil bought the property and several people ran it as a store and gas pumps. Phyllis and Loran Henderson, Gwen and Wendel Little, “Steamboat” Steeves, the Fenton bothers and lastly Clary and Arlene DeBaie all ran it. During its last years, it was made into a very popular restaurant with a campground behind it. It burned to the ground in 1974.

Excerpted from an article by Ellen Millard in The Light of Feb. 18, 1991 and notes by Hope Bridgewater

1930 Baseball Team

The Wentworth Baseball team of 1930 captured the Central Baseball Championship by oustin teams of three leagues: Oxford, Westchester, Pugwash, Wallace, Tatamagouche, Truro, Milford, Brookfield, Victoria, Londonderry, Brookfield, Wallace, Springhill and Stewiacke. Members were Bob Swallow, Bill Walsh, Art Betts, Leo Feelely, Jim Henderson, Bazil Wilson, Wass Betts, Holly Langille, Art Little, Doug Henderson and Bob Redmond. Billy Walsh was the mascot, Fred Heustic the scorer and Len Woodworth the umpire.

Schools

WENTWORTH VALLEY COMMUNITY SCHOOL - 1872 - 1959

The Old Valley Schoolhouse was built in 1872 and had a facelift in 1903. When one-room schools were phased out in 1959, it was bought by the residents of Wentworth Valley and leased to the Wentworth Rifle Club.

The building has Heritage Status with the County of Cumberland and is listed on the website of “The Nova Scotia Historic Places Initiative”.

Here are some of the former students of the one-room schoolhouse:

Barclay - Carolyn, Donna, Larry, Lorne, Ross, Roy, Marion, Dorothy

Bardon - Alma, Clair, John, Jack

Beebe - Brenton, Don, Joyce

Benjamin - Eileen

Betts - Bernard, Ken

Brown, Arlene

Crawford - Irma

Fowler - Dorothy

Fulton - Doris

Giffin - Aubrey

Henderson - Roy, Fay

Higgins - Daisy, Audrey, Patricia, Kathleen

Hunt - Bob, Brian, David, Robert, Wallace, Mary Ann, Lorna

Hunter - Adrian, Gwen

Langille - Marion

Letcher - Alonzo, Dianne, Ed, Gerald, Kelly, Wallace, Karen

Little - Margaret, Sherman, Warren, Faye, Betty

MacDonald - Bud

Manuge - Gerald, Ruth, Judy

McLellan - Ewart, John, Vernon

McNeice - Valcaster

McNutt - Jean, Muriel

Palmer - Bill, Bun, John

Patriquin - Cecil, Delmar, Gwen, Martha

Purdy - Jean

Schell - Patricia

Slater, Eileen

Teed - Ethel, Shirley

Weatherbee, Charles, Stewart, Ann

Weeks - Dorothy

Whittier - Ralph

Wood - Ernest, Jessie

And some of their teachers:

Gordon, Barbara Murphy

Little, Flora (last teacher)

Lynds, Olive

Patriquin, Flora

Smiley - Helen Gilmore

Weatherbee, Muriel

Excerpted from Party Line, written by Friends of the Old Wentworth Valley Schoolhouse

EAST WENTWORTH SCHOOL 1912 - 1959

In the early 1900’s, the first East Wentworth School burned. For a time school was taught in a building on the Axe Handle Factory Road. The second school was built a few years later on the original site, possibly 1912.

The East Wentworth School consisted of one room with a woodshed at the back of the building. There was a wood burning stove in the centre of the room that supplied heat for the one room. Oil lamps were used s there was no electricity in the earlier days. There was an outhouse “two-seater for bathroom facilities. All grades were taught by one teacher. A bell was used for classes to commence in the morning, and the same for recess, noon hour and time to go home in the afternoon. Students walked to school on gravel roads.

The school closed it doors in June 1959.

At that time, a ‘consolidated’ school was opened in Wentworth Centre for grades primary to six, and transportation was available to the new district high school in Pugwash.

No records can be found as to the history of the East Wentworth School, and information has been given verbally from different people. The school building was sold and has been used as a cottage since closing its doors.

Written by Grace Fiddes

WEST WENTWORTH SCHOOL

The school was on the old road leading to Westchester. Many had to walk over five mileds to school and before the rural school system too over, one child was all the parents could afford to attend school. It was heated with a wood stove and Mr. Will Giles usually supplied the wood. He would bring the wood and put it in the “lean to” at the back of the school. The Janitor work was done by one of the students. The school had two outside toilets (male & female). These were cleaned during vacation time in the summer.

The West Wentworth School was sold to Austin Patriquin and served as a home. Later it was bought by James Hill, torn down and the material used to

Written by Don McGill

LOWER WENTWORTH SCHOOL 1937 - 1957

Teachers:

1937-38 - Yvonne Webb

1940-41 - Beth Marsters

1941-42 Greta MacKenzie

1942-43 - Evelyn Little

1943-45 - Nina Tuttle

1945-46 - Pearl Murray

1946-47 - Eileen McGill

1947-50 - Dorothy Ralph

1950-53 - Pearl Hyson

1953-56 - Dorothy Ralph

1956-57 - Ella Patriquin

Information collected by Shirley Tuttle

CENTRAL WENTWORTH SCHOOL 1893 - 1959

Teachers:

1893-94 Susie E. Archibald

1895-96 Addie C. Johnson

1897-98 Emma B. Henderson

1898-99 Georgie E. Chisholm

1899-1900 John James Sutherland

1900-01 Alberta Gould

1901-02 Alberta Gould

1904-05 Edna M. Stiles

1909-10 Katherine A. Sutherland

1911-12 Retta T. Davis

1912-13 Bertha M. Mattinson

1914-15 Mary Morrison

1915-16 Florence VanBuskirk

1916-17 Lillian Tuttle

1917-18 Minnie Jane Corbett

1918-19 Minnie Jane Corbett

1919-20 Gladys A Graham

1920-21 Elsie B. Brown

1921-22 Ethel M. Ralph

1922-23 Ethel M. Ralph

1923-24 Nina Isabel Marsh

1924-25 Carrie E. Benjamin

1925-26 Eveln Jane Wood

1926-27 Ruth Ethel Hill

1928-29 Kathleen Dotten

1929-30 Lena O. Akerley

1930-31 Mary Julia Crowley

1931-32 Mary Julia Crowley

1932-33 Dorothy E. Ralph

1933-34 Dorothy E. Ralph

1934-35 Dorothy E. Ralph

1935-36 Dorothy E. Ralph

1936-37 M.J. Eleanor Taylor

1937-38 Marian A. Mattatall

1938-39 Marian A. Mattatall

1939-40 Jean E. MacDonald

1940-41 Jean E. MacDonald

1941-42 Phyllis Vance

1942-43 Dorothy E. Ralph

1943-44 Dorothy E. Ralph

1944-45 Dorothy E. Ralph

1945-46 Dorothy Langille

1946-47 Elsie Tratt

1947-48 Elsie Tratt

1948-49 Jean Angevine

1949-50 Yvonne Henderson

1950-51 Yvonne Henderson

1951-52 Yvonne Henderson

1952-53 Joyce Beebe

1953-54 Sept.-Dec. Pearl Murray

Jan.-June Bertha Giles

1954-55 Bertha Giles

1955-56 Bertha Giles

1956-57 Minnie Betts;

sub. Olive Lynds

1957-58 Elizabeth M. Funge

1958-59 Dorothy E. Ralph