This Week in Nova Scotia History: April 20-26
20 April 1874 - Residents of the Town of New Glasgow awoke to the realization that half of their downtown had been burned to the ground the day before. Though there were two companies of firemen in the town, as well as assistance from Stellarton, Pictou and Westville, little could be done once the many wooden structures were aflame.
A year later, on 12 November 1875, the Town of New Glasgow was officially incorporated and by January 1876, the town had appointed several fire wardens and constables to protect the town from such disasters.
By 1897, when Mcalpine’s Illustrated Tourists’ and Travellers’ Guide was published, a featured picture of Provost Street, New Glasgow, showed a prosperous town with busy sidewalks. The downtown had been rebuilt and its many businesses had a promising future with a growing steel industry in neighbouring Trenton, as well as shipbuilding and shipping in Pictou and Pictou Landing, and the growing coal industry in nearby Stellarton and Westville.
(Reference: Freeman, Jocelyn. “New Glasgow.” Historical Stories of Nova Scotia. 3 March, 2021.)
21 April 1962 - The newly developed “compact community” of Clayton Park advertised building lots in the April issue of The Atlantic Advocate with the byline, “If You Are Moving to Halifax - See CLAYTON PARK first.”
This new development had been the vision of the Shaw Company (Lloyd E. Shaw Ltd.) who were the largest brick manufacturers in Atlantic Canada. Their plan was to construct many of the houses and apartments with brick products. The first phase of the development plan began with just five homes and 140 acres of land.
In 1959, the Shaw Company acquired the land from Mary Louise Clayton. Her father, William J. Clayton (1851-1935), bought a large piece of land at the turn of the century (1904) that had extended between Fairview and Rockingham and up the southern slope of what was known then as Geizer’s Hill, known today as Bayview Road.
In 1868, William J. Clayton, with his mother, Mary, and brother, Edward, started what later became one of the largest manufacturers of clothing in Canada, Clayton & Sons, operating from downtown Halifax.
At its peak, they employed upwards of 500 women and girls as young as 14, sewing and cutting to create finished clothing products. By 1899 they were also one of the first firms in Canada to start a profit-sharing scheme with its employees. William J. Clayton’s daughter, Mary Louise, would later run the business, but by 1955 she sold it to avoid bankruptcy. Its premises were later demolished to make way for the Scotia Square development. Four years later, she sold some of her land holdings from her father’s earlier acquisition to the Shaw Company.
The Clayton Park development would go on to build over 800 single-family homes, a school and a shopping plaza, all aimed at creating what was considered at the time as an upper-middle-class community with pricey homes.
(Reference: “Clayton & Sons Factory - Barrington Street.” The Old North End. 12 January 2013. URL: bit.ly/43yc7dq.)
22 April 1980 - The Halifax band “April Wine” was one of the first big pop-rock groups to come out of Nova Scotia in what was considered the “Golden Age” of Canadian music in the late 1960s and ‘70s.
Formed in 1969 in Waverley, N.S., by Myles Goodwyn, brothers David Henman on guitar and Ritchie Henman on drums, and Jimmy Henman, their cousin, on bass, the band later moved to Montreal and their music was in the Top 40 for over 15 years.
One of the band’s first hits was “Fast Train” which debuted in 1971 and later the following year came “You Could Have Been A Lady” which became their first American Top 40 hit. Such hits were the result of the impressive songwriting talents of the band’s lead vocalist and co-founder, Myles Goodwyn (1948-2023).
By 1980, the band’s level of success was such that on this date, local radio station CJCH presented the band in concert at the Halifax Metro Centre. The concert fee of $8, included the tax.
Many other concerts and hits followed, including the band’s album “The Nature of the Beast” which went platinum in 1981. The album included their biggest U.S. hit, “Just Between You and Me.” April Wine would sell over 10 million recordings. They were inducted into the Canadian Music Hall of Fame in 2010.
23 April 1964 - Neptune Theatre in Halifax completed its first season which had opened in July 1963, offering 13 plays, including the Canadian production by a young playwright and Trurobased musician, John Gray, with his play Louisbourg, “a period farce set in eighteenthcentury Cape Breton….” Gray would later go on to become a successful playwright and multi-talented artist across many media, now best known for his play Billy Bishop Goes to War.
The Founding Artistic Director for Neptune’s first season was 30-year-old Leon Major, who had been appointed in September 1962. He would remain for five seasons and later go on to be a director of productions at Hart House Theatre in Toronto, as well as direct several opera productions throughout North America and Europe, as well as productions at the Stratford and Shaw Festivals.
Major began the new Neptune Theatre company with 14 core members. He had visited Halifax earlier in 1960 as an adjudicator of the regional finals of the Dominion Drama Festival and “was impressed with the enthusiasm for theatre in the city.” With the support of various community and business partners, the Neptune Theatre Foundation was established in July 1962 and the Garrick Movie Theatre building on Sackville Street was acquired from Odeon Theatres for a suitable conversion to a legitimate theatre space. It was purchased with several prominent citizens guaranteeing the mortgage.
Today, Neptune’s artistic director Jeremy Webb will close Neptune’s 61st Season for 2023-2024 with a production of The Full Monty (March 26-May 19).
(Reference: Perkyns, Richard. “Two Decades of Neptune Theatre.” Theatre Research in Canada. Vol. 6 No.2/fall 1985. URL: bit.ly/3uipili. And “Past Seasons.” Neptune Theatre. URL: bit.ly/43xnjv6.)
24 April 1915 - Market Day was held by the Post Office in downtown Halifax, near the corner of Hollis and George Streets (current location of the Art Gallery of Nova Scotia).
The first farmers’ market in Halifax had started in June 1750 when Governor Edward Cornwallis and the Nova Scotia Council assigned the first site for a farmer’s market in Halifax on Bedford Row and George Street near where the old City Court House once stood, creating one of the oldest farmer’s market cultures in North America. At that time, products and livestock often came in from Acadian farms in the Annapolis Valley and from surrounding local farm production.
Later referred to as the Cheapside Market, farmers would regularly come to the Halifax settlement with their produce, eggs and flowers every Wednesday and Saturday. A meat market was also later established nearby for butchers and fishmongers.
Since those early settlement days, the market has operated in several locations across the city. The three most popular markets today are the Halifax Seaport Farmers’ Market at Pavilion 23 on the Halifax Waterfront, the Halifax Brewery Market and the Halifax Forum Farmers’ Market. Other farmers’ markets across the province can be found at: bit.ly/3xabzab.
25 April 1894 - Annie Isabella Hamilton (1866–1941) became the first woman to graduate from Dalhousie Medical School. Upon her graduation, she worked closely with Dr. Maria Louisa Angwin (1849–1898), a Newfoundland-born, U.s.-trained doctor, who became the first woman licensed to practice medicine in Nova Scotia, and a dedicated feminist.
Annie practised medicine in the North End of Halifax for about a decade before deciding to emigrate to China as a medical missionary in 1903. She learned Chinese while studying at Dalhousie and had been a member of the Knox Presbyterian Church. She lived in China till her death in Shanghai in 1941 during the Second Sino-japanese War (1937-1945) when the Japanese occupied Shanghai.
26 April 1918 - Women in Nova Scotia were granted the right to vote in provincial elections, the first province to do so in Atlantic Canada. Achieving such a right involved the dedicated effort of women and men across the province. Earlier unsuccessful attempts had been made in 1894 and 1895. But with the First World War, a recognition of the franchise to military family members was acknowledged and this in turn refuelled “the drive for universal extension.”
On this date, 18 petitions (with 3,865 names) from across the province were presented to the Nova Scotia House of Assembly and legislation was passed to extend the right to vote to women.
A month later, the federal government, under Prime Minister Robert Borden, passed legislation for the whole country to allow women to vote. However, this did not include Indigenous women or Asian women and men. It would be after the Second World War, in 1948, when Asian women and men could also vote.
It wouldn’t be until 1953 that Nova Scotia enacted fair employment laws, and 1956 when the province enacted equal pay legislation. In 1960, First Nations people could vote federally without losing their Indian status. And later, in 1962, the Human Rights Act was enacted.
In honour of the ‘extension of the franchise to women,’ the Nova Scotia Archives has digitized the 18 petitions with the names of the women and men from across the province who had supported the franchise effort, representing a cross-section of Nova Scotia society - from homemakers to tailors, music teachers, etc. See: “Suffrage in Nova Scotia: Making our Mark.” Nova Scotia Archives. URL: https://archives.novascotia.ca/suffrage/.
Leo J. Deveau is an independent researcher, author and commentator. His previous columns can be found at: bit. ly/430kgwv. He can be reached at leo.deveau@eastlink.ca