St Margaret's Bay

Margaret Conrad is a professor of history at Acadia University. She is
the author of Intimate Relations: Family and Community in Planter Nova
Scotia, 1759–1800, and Making Adjustments: Change and Continuity in
Planter Nova Scotia, 1759–1800 and the co

This book explores the history of the settlements along St. Margaret’s
Bay, east of Halifax, Nova Scotia. The narrative is driven by
black-and-white photographs, many of which were collected by the St.
Margaret’s Bay Historical Society for bicentennial celebrations in
1985. While the date of commemorations suggests that the settlements owe
their origins to the Loyalists, the area’s place names—Indian
Harbour and French Village, for example—and the names of founding
families—many of them “Foreign Protestants” who emigrated to Nova
Scotia in the early 1750s—suggest an earlier settlement history that
is not fully addressed here. The photographs prompted a division of the
book into chapters focusing on types of public buildings (schools,
churches, associations, businesses) and activities (farming, fishing,
lumbering, tourism, rum-running, driving the new car). Although the
images vary in quality, there are some fine moments captured on Kodac,
most notably an 86-year-old Hannah Vaughan being carried in the
passenger seat of a motorcycle in 1928 and two men boxing in a lumber
yard.

This book will be of great interest to residents of the St.
Margaret’s Bay area, many of whom can trace their family origins in
Nova Scotia back to the 18th century. For people “from away,” the
book would have greatly benefited from a map so that readers could
locate such villages as Boutilier’s Cove, Glen Haven, Hackett’s
Cove, Ingramport, Peggy’s Cove, and Tantallon that are so loving
chronicled here.