sheenamackenzie.com Blog

History of Dartmouth
 

Governor Cornwallis asked that settlers be brought over, particularly ones with experience in fishing to help with feeding the new colony.  Ultimately the Alderney arrived having left from Gravesend, England with 370 passengers, fishermen , Swiss and German tradesmen and farmers.  
 

They suffered a terrible buffeting by storms in the English Channel for nearly a month, then put in to Plymouth and started out again, this time to land in Halifax harbour in late August.   They arrived too late to plant crops to sustain them for the winter so Cornwallis decided to settle them on the other side of the harbour in what became known as Dartmouth.   This was most likely because some of the settlers were from Dartmouth, England  but there have been suggestions it was named after the Earl of Dartmouth.
 

Quick work was involved to cut trees and fashion rough houses before winter began in earnest.   The site selected was near the big cove (which already had a sawmill) the north boundary of which was the present day North Street, the western boundary the harbour and the southern boundary was Dartmouth Cove and eastern boundary present day Victoria Road. This settlement lay right on the Mi’kmaq summer fishing grounds. 
 

In the spring, just as the settlers were preparing to do their planting the Mi’kmaq attacked the settlement in the night. Several settlers were killed and scalped and some were taken as prisoners.  A handful of soldiers in the blockhouse fired on the Mi’kmaq but it did not do much to help.  The sounds of the skirmish could be heard across the harbour in Halifax and people came as fast as they could to help.As a result of this attack palisades were built around the settlement but it also caused many of the original settlers to melt away.  
 

By July 1752 Dartmouth had a population of 193 barely half of the original total.Governor Cornwallis departed to England and in his place came Charles Lawrence.   He caused Fort Clarence to be built to accommodate some thirty men whose numbers swelled to 230 when the troops of Colonel John Winslow were billeted there after expelling the Acadians.
 

After the war of American Independence a trickle of United Empire Loyalists started to come north.   Men such as Hartshorne and Tremain proved efficient at developing small industries such as a gristmill, bakehouse and wharf to supply Halifax with produce.  Boats ran flour and baked goods directly to Halifax markets.   A friendly Governor Wentworth, himself a Loyalist, granted them a solid contract to supply flour for the army and navy in Nova Scotia, Newfoundland, Bermuda and the West Indies.
 

Theophilus Chamberlain was made Deputy Surveyor of Nova Scotia and was made responsible for surveying the Preston area and creating a site for Loyalists yet to come north to Nova Scotia.
 

Two shipyards grew around this time and made for large employment which drew skilled labour to the area.  The Lyle Shipyard in Dartmouth Cove built the first steam driven ferry, the Sir Charles Ogle, which was launched in 1830.   This made a big difference to the time it took to cross the harbour.
 

In 1826 sod turning ceremonies were held for the Shubenacadie Canal.  A long debated project, a favourite with both Michael Wallace, a Loyalist from Norfolk, Virginia and Charles Fairbanks, Halifax born and educated.   The Schubenacadie Canal Company was formed, monies raised both privately and from London, with Francis Hall in place as Engineer to build it.   
 

It was started with a work force of 150 men who cleared the land.  By the second summer skilled labour had been imported from Scotland and actual building of the Canal commenced.    The work force would vary considerably between the summer and winter months but changes to the route of the Canal, forcing the Company to buy expensive tracts of land, nearly killed the project.   Charles Fairbanks had to make a trip to London in 1830 to secure a further £620,000 from the government and £27,000 more from private sources.
 

The work continued at a good pace.  Sullivans Pond (which was named after a Canal foreman) was to be the holding area for vessels about to go through the Canal.  The two circular stone markers can still be seen which marked the entrance to the first lock. By 1831 (although completion had been marked for 1828) the canal was still not finished.  Francis Hall the engineer terminated his contract and departed to build the Welland Canal in Ontario.    By 1832 The Shubenacadie Canal Company was finished and in financial ruin.   Work stopped.
 

1847 – A dentist, Lawrence E. Van Buskirk having witnessed an operation in Boston performed using ether, successfully administered ether to Dr. Daniel McNeil Parker.  The next day the pair anesthetise a woman and Dr. Parker amputates her leg becoming the first Canadian physician to operate using anesthesia.    Dr. Parkers career was illustrious. He founded the Medical Society of Nova Scotia, held the Presidency of the Canadian Medical Association and helped found the Dalhousie Medical Faculty and the Victoria General Hospital in Halifax.
 

1850 was the one hundredth anniversary of Dartmouth, but it went relatively unnoticed as Dartmouth remained more of a village than a town.
 

1851 and the Shubenacadie Canal is revived with the original company being replaced by the Inland Navigation Company (the Provincial Government having bought the land from the Shubenacadie Canal Company) with Dr. Charles Avery as President and one Charles W.Fairbanks, eldest son of the original Fairbanks as engineer. The new canal was rerouted once more and by 1855 more than two thirds of it was completed.  Financial troubles still kept cropping up but by the end of  1857 all the canal needed was the last piece, the link from the harbour to the first lake.   With more money put in, the canal was finally finished in in 1861 and it was possible for a vessel to travel from the Minas Basin to Halifax Harbour.  The first ship through was the 60 ton sidewheeler, the Avery.   Leaving the Halifax Customs House with dignitaries aboard, she arrived in Maitland eight days later.The Canal went on to operate for ten years moving heavy cargoes and sometimes passengers.  Although now complete it was still losing money.  It finally closed early in the summer of 1870.  
 

The Railway Age was coming.
 

The Victorian Era of industrialization effectively changed  Dartmouth from a large rural village to a manufacturing town.  Several foundries grew up, some had already been there for the canal, and produced iron and brass castings – fireproof safes, kitchen ranges and stoves to name just a few.
 

The Starr Manufacturing Company, which only closed down in 1996 was the best known.  The Company foreman, one John Forbes, developed a new spring skate.  Although the Starr Company was producing nuts and bolts profitably, the skates soon took over as demands for them flooded in from all over the world.  For many years these skates were considered the premier skates in the world.
 

Chocolates made by the John Mott factory on what is now Pleasant Street, were shipped world wide.  In partnership with his son, Henry, they also handled a soap and candle factory as well as a mill for grinding imported spices.
 

Ice cutting on the Dartmouth lakes also employed many people.  The usual cutting season ran from after Christmas until the end of February.   The ice was cut and stored in huge ice houses and was able to be delivered through the summer until the next harvest.  In  1880 the ice cutting received a huge boost supplying ice to Boston when  the New England supply failed.   The price for ice shot up to $7.00 per ton.In 1858 the Nova Scotia Hospital (then the Mount Hope Asylum) was built for the mentally ill by Hugh Bell, a local businessman and  the American activist Dorothea Dix.  A pipeline to supply the hospital with water was laid from Lake Maynard and was able to supply the houses lying along its route as well.
 

Ebenezer Moseley bought the Campbell Shipyard at the foot of Queen Street and built very reputable sailing ships, pleasure yachts and even a military transport steamer.  In 1870 he developed an antifouling paint which was sold for more than fifty years.
 

The Stairs family from Halifax set up a rope making factory that was the most up to date in the country.   The Stairs were good employers, with the welfare of their workers a consideration.   They built small cottages and rented them to employees at reasonable rates and provided a building used as a school in the week and for religious services on Sunday.
 

Twenty years later the company  was employing 120 workers.  This increased later to 300 when the factory started making the fine manila trawl lines needed for the North Sea fishing industry.   Even though the Stairs family were beneficent employers in the light of their time, workers of the industrial era generally worked long, hard days in horrendous, unhealthy conditions for very poor wages.
 

By the 1870s Dartmouth’s population reached 2,200 and its residents met to discuss incorporating as a Town.   At first it was turned down; then a second time but on the third the ratepayers decided by 141 to 98 to incorporate.  The Bill of Incorporation passed in the Nova Scotia Legislature in April 1873.The new Dartmouth quickly set up to put in sewer and water systems but even four years later the money was not  in place for it, the council instead deciding to build a new town hall, buy a steam engine and build a new school.   In 1878 Dartmouth purchased Lake Lamont in an effort to move closer to supplying a water system.  A Board of Health was formed in 1880 when there was an outbreak of typhoid, creating more pressure for an adequate water supply.
 

Construction of a rail bridge between Halifax and Dartmouth went ahead.  Starr Manufacturing made the 200 foot steel swingspan that would open to allow marine traffic back and forth to Bedford Basin.   It  traversed the harbour between Richmond and landed on the Dartmouth side at Tufts Cove.  The first train crossed in March 1885.A sugar refinery was opened in 1883 by George Dustan from Glasgow, Scotland, which refined 1,000 tons of sugar per day.   The refinery made good use of the railway bridge and shipped sugar Canada wide. 
 

A new station was built on the waterfront and a passenger service began in January 1886 when a train left for Halifax in the morning and returned in the evening with passengers and freight.In 1886 Dartmouth was the first municipal town to grant women the vote. 
 

July 1890 gave rise to a ferry tragedy when people gathered to see a second hand ferry, just purchased from New York, arrive in Dartmouth.   In the crush to get on board the ferry as it neared the dock, the crowd pushed forward and part of the wharf collapsed flinging people into the water.   Valiant rescues were made but after it was over, four people had  perished. In 1891 a summer storm roared up the harbour and badly damaged the railway bridge.  It was badly twisted and most of the swing section was torn away.  The railway link had become so important to Dartmouth that it was quickly repaired to keep the way open from Dartmouth to the rest of Canada.Finally – in 1891 actual work began on the long promised water supply for Dartmouth. 
 

Electric light followed quickly in 1892.
 

Once more in 1893 the rail link to Canada was lost again.   The bridge collapsed in the middle of the night and left with the tide!  Telephone and telegraph lines (which had crossed the harbour with the bridge) were also lost.  After much argument and persuasion Dartmouth leaders and business men were successful on insisting that an overland rail link be built to Windsor Junction.
 

The first Natal Day Celebrations  were held, and August 7 declared a civic holiday in 1895.  By 1897 the parades and celebrations drew large crowds and received monies from many of the Dartmouth industries to sponsor floats and attractions. As 1899 drew to a close Dartmouthians had every reason to view the coming century with great optimism. 1901 and there was talk of combining Halifax and Dartmouth.  Arguments flared back and forth but in the end this would not happen until 1996, nearly the close of the century.
 

There was also pressure about the need to extend the rail line through to the Musquodoboit Valley.The Nova Scotia Legislature incorporated the Banook Canoe Club in 1903 to promote paddling on the lake system in Dartmouth.   The Canoe Club shouldered the task of organizing the Natal Day Celebrations each year.Most of downtown Dartmouth had water and sewer services by 1904.  The north end had thus far decided against the cost of installing it since they had wells but now decided it should go ahead. A list of industries for 1907 shows Starr Manufacturing, skates, bolts, rivets and spikes – 100 workers.  Atlantic Foundry, hot water boilers, radiators and pipe fittings – 18 workers.  Marine Railway – able to accommodate nine vessels at any time – paid out approximately $45,000 per year in wages.   Beazley Brothers, Lighter and Tug – between 12-15.   The Dartmouth Ferry Commission – 45.   Acadia Sugar Refinery – 200..   Halifax Fish Company – 80.  J.P. Mott & Company – Dominion Molasses Company 15-20 and  E. H. McElmon’s sawmill 10.    Army Navy Brewery -15-  E. F. Williams Shipyards 10-30,  the icecutting employs 35 and another 150-200 in season and  Consumer Cordage, 200-250.
 

A large fire in February 1912 demolished the sugar refinery warehouse located at the dock.  Starting in the late afternoon the fire soon engulfed the building with its combustible store of sugar.  One man died.  The total loss was reckoned at over $1.5 million.  The fact that firefighters had been able to save the powerhouse from being burnt down caused the directors to decide to rebuild in Dartmouth even though offers were received from  Moncton, Saint John and Toronto!
 

By August 20, 1914 a train left Dartmouth taking the first of the Maritime men off to Valcartier in Quebec for training for the First Canadian Contingent to go and serve across the sea in World War I.   Natal Day Celebrations were cancelled in favour of a more patriotic style concert, raising funds for  the Red Cross.  Throughout the war years Dartmouth worked hard on fundraising, for Belgian Relief as well as for relatives of those serving overseas.Imperial Oil enabled Dartmouth to join the passage from coal to oil when it started building it’s new refinery in Woodside..
 

When the United States came into the war in 1917 they gained permission from the Federal Government to build a naval air base at Eastern Passage.  They used the base for the sea planes that patrolled the Atlantic coast.  Admiral Byrd (later of Polar exploration fame) was stationed there.
 

Just before the end of the war in 1917 Dartmouth was to suffer from the Halifax Explosion when two ships, one a munitions ship,  collided in the harbour narrows.  Some industries such as Crathornes Gristmill, Halifax Breweries and Willistons Foundry were so severely damaged that they never reopened.  Many churches were completely destroyed and private houses were levelled with fires from overturned wood stoves.  Residents in the north end of Dartmouth were at a loss to know what had happened and supposed it to be a German bomb attack.  Rescue workers were urging people to stay outdoors for fear of more explosions.
 

Many of the wounded were taken to the Nova Scotia Hospital – others to doctors houses and still more to Halifax as the ferries had managed to remain running.   The day after brought  a blizzard, hampering rescuers.   Help finally arrived from all points and on Friday December 7, then Mayor Williams gathered prominent citizens of Dartmouth together and appointed a large committee to take over relief  efforts for the City.   Fifty-two men, women and children died and many suffered life long related injuries.
The Halifax Relief Commission had a fund of $27 millioin to assist residents of both Halifax and Dartmouth.  The money had come in from Britain, the United States, Australia and even such far flung countries as Chile.   Some was also spent towards helping repair industries that were badly damaged. Just short of a year later, on November 11, World War I ended and brought celebrations to Dartmouth.   Of the 520 Dartmouth men and nurses who left for the war, 100  never returned.
 Dartmouth suffered some set backs after the war.  A strong industrial base began to crumble further with Mott’s Chocolate, Candle and Soap factory, operating since 1844, closing down.  Following on the heels of the Gristmill, Brewery and Foundry which did not reopen after the explosion. Imperial Oil, with it’s petroleum business adjusted to peacetime and to the advent of the automobile and was flourishing.   Imperial built houses for it’s workers known as Imperoyal Village.  In 1921 an explosion at the refinery as six pressure stills out of twelve blew up, caused great alarm to people in surrounding areas who shortly before had survived the Halifax Explosion.  A resident of Dartmouth, William J. Roue (a younger son of the Roue of ginger beer fame) designed the schooner Bluenose, launched in 1921 and soon to become the pride of Nova Scotia and appear on the dime nationally.