Biographical Sketch of A. Shay

A. Shay, of San Bernardino, was born in Maine, May 1, 1812, but reared principally in Nova Scotia. He learned the cooper’s and carpenter’s trades. When a young man he went to New Orleans, where he was successful for three years. Seeing then a specimen of gold from California, in 1849, he at once set out for the gold fields, coming by water and the Isthmus of Panama. He worked in the mines for a time and made and lost a great deal of money-lost heavily by the floods in the upper country. Then he carried on a large sheep … Read more

Fort Annapolis Royal

More by accident than by design the Sieur de Monts, in 1604, with his oddly assorted band of adventurers on the foggy Bay of Fundy, steered into the rocky entrance, which leads into the beautiful landlocked basin of present day Annapolis in Nova Scotia. One of his followers, the Baron de Potrincourt, was so enchanted by the beauty of the scene that he asked a grant of land here. This was given him, and upon this land in the next year he built himself first a fort, then a house, and then several more houses. This was the beginning of … Read more

Biography of George D. Cunningham

George D. Cunningham is one of the enterprising and representative business men of Riverside who have made that city second in enterprise to none in San Bernardino County. He has been associated with her leading business enterprises and building industries since 1876, during which time the small hamlet of a few hundreds has grown to a city of thousands. He was born in Nova Scotia in 1853. His parents were Herbert R. and Eleanor (McGregor) Cunningham. He was reared and schooled in his native place until sixteen years of age, and then came to the United States and located at … Read more

Biographical Sketch of Amos Stiles

Amos Stiles, retired, San Bernardino, was born in Kennebec, Maine, in 1823. His father, Israel Stiles, a farmer, moved to the northern part of New Brunswick. In 1843 the subject of this sketch went to Ohio, where he remained four years, and then returned to New Brunswick, where he remained until 1819. He was married in Nova Scotia, in 1849, to Miss Rebecca O’Brien, and soon after his marriage he moved to Utah, where he lived four years. In 1860 he left with teams for California, and arrived in San Bernardino in December of the same year. Here he bought … Read more

Medicine Man – North American Indians

A Medicine Man Administering to a Patient - Plate 46

But among the many things that are associated with the North American Indians as topics of conversation and subjects of the printer’s ink more talked about and less understood is the “Medicine Man.” On Nov. 14, 1605, the first French settlement was made in America, on the northeast coast of Nova Scotia, and they gave the name Arcadia to the country; and on July 3, 1808, Samuel Champlain laid the foundation of Quebec. The character “Medicine-Man” had its origin, according to tradition, among those early French colonists who corrupted the word “Meda” a word in the language of one of … Read more

Biographical Sketch of Cyrus S. Eaton

Eaton, Cyrus S.; public utility work; born, Nova Scotia; educated, Woodstock College, Ontario; McMaster’s University, Toronto, degree of B. A.; married, Cleveland, 1908, Margaret House; three children; organizer and operator of public utility properties: pres. continental Gas & Electric Corporation, and The Canada Gas & Electric Co., Beasdot Gas & Power Co.; member firm Abbott & Eaton, engineers and operators; director Washington, Baltimore & Annapolis Electric R. R.; also officer and director in more than a score of other gas. electric-lighting, street railway and water companies, in the United States and Canada; member Union, Colonial and Athletic Clubs.

The Discovery Of This Continent, it’s Results To The Natives

Columbus Landing on Hispaniola

In the year 1470, there lived in Lisbon, a town in Portugal, a man by the name of Christopher Columbus, who there married Dona Felipa, the daughter of Bartolome Monis De Palestrello, an Italian (then deceased), who had arisen to great celebrity as a navigator. Dona Felipa was the idol of her doting father, and often accompanied him in his many voyages, in which she soon equally shared with him his love of adventure, and thus became to him a treasure indeed not only as a companion but as a helper; for she drew his maps and geographical charts, and also … Read more

Biography of John B. Tays

John B. Tays is one of the early settlers and enterprising and progressive citizens of Ontario. He is the owner of forty acres of land in that colony and has for years been building up the horticultural industries of his section. His place is located on the south side of Thirteenth Street, east of Euclid Avenue. Mr. Tays purchased this land in 1883 and immediately commenced its improvement, planting trees and vines. He is justly ranked among the pioneer horticulturists of Ontario, and has produced one of the representative places of his section. He now has twenty acres in citrus … Read more

Biography of Archibald Gammell

Archibald Gammell, county assessor and tax collector of Latah County, now residing in Moscow, is a native of Nova Scotia, his birth having occurred February 23, 1835. He is descended from Scotch-Irish ancestry, of Presbyterian faith. William Gammell was the progenitor of the family in the New World. He crossed the Atlantic to Nova Scotia about 1776, since which time three generations of the family have been born there. Industry, uprightness and reliability are the chief characteristics of the Gammells, and they are also noted for longevity, most of the name having attained the age of eighty years or more. … Read more

Micmac Tribe

Micmac Birchbark Box with Porcupine Quills

Micmac Indians, Mi’kmaq First Nation. (Migmak, ‘allies’; Nigmak, ‘our allies.’ Hewitt). Alternative names for the Micmac, which can be found in historical sources, include Gaspesians, Souriquois, Acadians and Tarrantines; in the mid-19th century Silas Rand recorded the word wejebowkwejik as a self-ascription. An important Algonquian tribe that occupied Nova Scotia, Cape Breton and Prince Edward Islands, the north part of New Brunswick, and probably points in south and west Newfoundland. While their neighbors the Abnaki have close linguistic relations with the Algonquian tribes of the great lakes, the Micmac seem to have almost as distant a relation to the group as the … Read more

Sabots and slippers

Sabots and Slippers cover

Sabots and slippers is a fancy title for a history and a genealogy of the ancestors of Kenneth F. Mackenzie born 7 Oct 1882 in Truro, Nova Scotia the son of Hugh Mackenzie and Jean Walker Blanchard. He married 23 June 1910 Aileen Sinclair. The families lived in Nova Scotia and New England.