North Cumberland Historical and Genealogy Society, NS

08/10/2025

08/10/2025

Baseball games could be rough in the 1930's

08/08/2025

Aug. 8, 2025 - First thank you, Nellie Van der Wiel, for your donations of yearbooks and of Thinkers Harvest. She also leant us family papers and personal stories to photocopy and return. I have read her father's diary from the year that they immigrated. It is fascinating. What a testament to hard work and staying positive in the face of a lot of adversity.

Today's picture shows what happens if we ever relax about fire. This was the 1898 fire in Pugwash. A lot of lives destroyed!

08/01/2025

Aug. 1, 2025 - Lots of visitors today. Mark Rushton, president of the Oxford Historical Society, was in. Daniel Matmor is doing research on Pugwash contemplating on doing a film on the village. Owen Porter dropped in with some information for our McGrath files. Thank you, Owen.

Today's picture is of the George Di**le house. It belonged second to John Henry White. It was on Murray Road. You can see how the family added on over the years.

07/25/2025

July 25, 2025 - Harbourfest starts tonight. The festival began in 2005 and has always had a variety of activities. Over the years, one of the most popular events has been the cardboard boat race.

Today's photo is of 2017's FOPE entry. This good ship was crewed by Bob Nogler and Jimmy Felice with Mike Cunningham lending a hand. This was probably their last dry moment - and it quickly sank into the mists of history!

Our AGM was a success. And so begins the 62nd year of the Historical Society.

07/24/2025

Just came to me today.

07/11/2025

July 11, 2025 - Next week is our AGM. Dick Henley is a retired university professor. He will be speaking about the education of Nova Scotia and who controlled the school experience. Did local people have any power over how their schools were run? At what point did the local school trustees lose control and the province take over?

We have had many generous donations over the years. The Brown family donated their father's scrapbook to NCHS as accepted by Debby Weagle. It was compiled by Ira Brown who was a local historian from Wentworth. Come in and have a look at it some time. It is a fascinating book with agricultural info, recipes and stories from 1929. Coming to our AGM? Memberships are available for $10.00. That would be a great time to bring in those papers that you want saved for the future. We are always happy to accept your donations.

07/09/2025

07/06/2025

The Historical Society is now open for the summer! Our summer schedule is Wednesdays, Thursdays, and Fridays from 1 to 4pm, and Saturdays from 10am to 1pm. As always, if you would like to come in on a day or time outside of these hours, that's no problem, just get in touch and we'd be happy to set something up :)

07/04/2025

July 4, 2025 - We are preparing for our AGM. It will be a good one. Hope you will be there.

06/27/2025

June 27, 2025 - Many of you heard Janet Mills, the governor of Maine, claim Pugwash as her ancestral home. I was asked by a few people how she was related to this area. She was almost correct - her ancestors are connected - but not to Pugwash but to Linden.

Gov. Mills comes from a long line of Maine people. Her father was Sumner Peter Mills Jr. whose father was Sumner Peter Mills Sr. His father, Peter Hunter Mills was born in 1827 in Maine. Peter's father was Amos Oliver Mills who was born in 1801 in River Hebert, NS. He married Rosannah L. Hunter who was born in 1806 in Linden. Her father was Martin Hunter, early founder of Goose River now called Linden. The Hunter family had come to NS in 1769 from the Hunter Castle in the Clogan Estate in Scotland.

So, Governor Mills's great great grandmother is her connection to this area. Rosannah and Amos left for Maine before Peter Hunter Mills was born in 1827.

And now another Canada Day. Fingers crossed for good weather. Have fun, everyone, just as they did in 1928.

06/21/2025