November 2023
Editorial
Dear Friends,
In this issue we present two articles which, by their titles, may appear unrelated. They were sent to me separately without notification of any connection between the two authors. But they are in fact interestingly connected. In the mid- to late-18th century, much construction in the Tantramar area would have been required to accommodate the waves of newly-arrived Planters, Loyalists and Yorkshires. Sawmills and gristmills were needed to make lumber for homes and to provide flour for food for the inhabitants. In this issue, Paul Bogaard presents a detailed account of sawmills and gristmills in the Tantramar area in its early years of development in the 1700s. The interesting relationship between the two articles presented here is that sawmill workers would surely have had to deal regularly with sawdust and woodchips that would, in some cases, have found their way into workers’ unprotected eyes. Calum Pamenter informs us of the practice of using eyestones to remove such unwanted debris from the eyes. I’m sure that many millworkers were most appreciative of the availability of eyestones to relieve them. There is always something new to learn about our region’s history, as the two articles in this issue demonstrate.
Enjoy!
—Peter Hicklin
BOOK LAUNCH
Indifference and Remissness
English Language Education on the Isthmus of Chignecto 1760s-1870s
by Rhianna H. Edwards
Sunday, November 26, 2023, 2 pm
Anderson Octagonal House
27 Queens Rd., Sackville, NB
Light refreshments will be served.
To keep up with what’s happening at the Trust, follow us on Facebook or Instagram (tantramarheritagetrust) or contact the office at tantramarheritage@gmail.com and ask to be added to our email list.
The Earliest Mills on the Lower Mill Creek
by Paul Bogaard
This is a brief account of what may have been the earliest sawmills and gristmills within the Township of Sackville. The context (and inspiration) for this particular story has been gathered together and made available by other local historians.
My long-time friend and colleague, Gene Goodrich, has filled the June 2023 issue of the Westmorland Historical Society Newsletter1 with “Down by the Old Mill Stream” — a detailed account of early mills in our area. He has spelled out the use of mills to grind grain, saw lumber, work up wool, and provided an introduction to how water-powered mills worked.
Remarkable detail is included in his article from material Gene had gleaned from the Trueman papers in the Mount Allison University Archives about the series of mills constructed by the Trueman family beginning in the 1780s and 1790s and which provided for the grinding of grain and sawing of lumber for friends and neighbours over many decades (see Fig. 1). While no other mills in our area have been documented at this level of detail, the Trueman account allows us to glimpse what must have been a similar story for the many mills that sprang up in our area. And there were many. Gene’s account suggests there were more than 60 over the century after Sackville Township was established in 1762. This article will focus on only a few mills that appear to be the earliest water-driven mills on or near the Lower Mill Creek.
Fig. 1. From the Walling map of 1862 confirming that on the stream flowing through the Trueman farm there were both grist and sawmills (note arrows showing the locations of both).
To make sense of “earliest” we need some context: Ten years ago, with the help of many others, Amy Fox and I pulled together The Struggle for Sackville2 — featuring what we argued was the oldest township in all of New Brunswick—which made clear that the Upper Mill Stream and Lower Mill Stream, named as marking the boundaries between the three Sackville villages, also marked the location of previous mills constructed decades earlier by the Acadians. Documents from this Planter re-settlement of Sackville (see Fig. 2) and evidence on early maps (see Figs. 3 and 4) are our only records of the Acadians having established mills here. Documents that record the Mason family settling on the Upper Mill Stream, succeeded by the Ayers, Harpers and Morices, provide a long-known storyline for the mills on what we know as Morice Mill Pond, locally known as Silver Lake. However, we may now have evidence that ownership of these early Planter mills was more complicated, but that will emerge later.
Fig. 2. From the Millidge map of 1791 showing how the Township of Sackville was divided
into Divisions A, B and C. The boundaries were provided by the “Lower Mill Stream” between A and B, and the “Upper Mill Stream” between B and C. Stars have been added to locate the mills and their dams that had been in operation before the Planters arrived in 1760-62.
Fig. 3. From the map drawn by Captain Lewis (on the orders of Col. Moncton) in 1755. His mark just below the lake is thought to be an Acadian mill, on what the Planters called the Upper Mill Stream.
Fig. 4. From a map published by T. Jefferys in 1755 with an icon showing a mill on what the Planters called the Lower Mill Stream. This also had to have been an earlier Acadian mill.
The story behind the Lower Mill Stream has been more challenging to put together. The naming of this stream (or “Creek”) and references to an earlier mill dam have long suggested an additional site of an Acadian mill which Acadian historians have spoken of as being used as a stronghold for prisoners during the conflict of the 1750s.3 But its location has been puzzling with a couple of possibilities having been considered. One is the well-known location at the upper end of Frosty Hollow, where, in recent years, the dam that created Bulmer’s Pond gave way. Phyllis Stopps has provided a well-researched account of the fishing club on Bulmer’s Pond in her History of Bulmer’s Mill Pond and the Bulmer Pond Fishing Club (2012).
Entries in the Westmorland County Land Registry of property transfers, coupled with early maps (see Fig. 5), supports the sequence of owners recounted by both Phyllis and Gene: the Towers, Stone, Barnes, Snell, and then the Bulmers.4
Fig. 5. From the Walling map of 1862 locating G. Bulmer and listing both Fulling Mill and Saw Mill in upper Frosty Hollow.
That sequence takes us back to Benjamin Tower, perhaps even prior to 1790,5 and one might speculate that he built upon an earlier Acadian site. There is another and more likely alternative. The alternative location for an earlier Acadian mill is further downstream on the west side of the Diamond “A” Farm (on NB #106) where Frosty Hollow Creek flows close by. The lumps and bumps of groundwork behind that farm still make visible where a dam and millpond had been situated. I had the pleasure of being guided out to that location some years ago by Dick McLeod and his friend Ken Campbell whose own home and farm were adjacent. This is the location Gene’s article identifies with the Botsfords6 (and we will return to this point at the end). It seems likely that this is where the Botsfords built upon what had been an earlier dam and mill site of Acadian origins. Further evidence has surfaced that helps support this alternative but there may have been others that had already made use of this site before the Botsfords did.
I am most grateful for the help of Colin MacKinnon who has been collecting documents on early mills for many years and which he has generously shared with me. Between us, I think we can firmly identify this early mill site, not just because the Botsfords were said to have rebuilt mills there7but from descriptions used in earlier registered property transfers. The Registry for Westmorland County retains those records still and they are now available online. For example, there is an entry from 1787 recording that Wm. Cornforth was the highest bidder at an auction for “a certain tract of marsh land containing three acres…on the south side of Lower Mill Creek and adjoining to the Abois D’Eau and also one other tract containing seven acres…lying on the south side of the said creek extending up the same as far as the Old Mill Dam.”8 By mapping out these two parcels of marshland along the Lower Mill Stream, we can firmly establish the location of the older “aboideau”9 (variously spelled) and at a distance upstream the location of an older mill as indicated on the 1791 map (See Figs. 6 and 7).
Fig. 6. The Millidge map of 1791 was surveyed at about this time and shows two parcels of marshland along the lower “Mill Creek” (indicated by the two arrows) and I have added a star to mark what the map identifies as a mill. Where a road is shown crossing the Mill Creek is likely the site of the early aboideau.
Fig. 7. This modern map from GeoNB, showing exactly the same area (adjusted for true North) allows one to confirm that these same two portions of marshland are of the right size, and I’ve indicated where the earlier aboideau was located just to the right and the old mill dam just to the left.
A year later, in 1788, there is an entry for Wm. Cornforth selling these same two parcels of marshland to Zel. Olney10 with a description that, like the previous entry, locates the 3+ acres “a little above the great Abois d’eau” and the 7+ acre parcel “lying from the Brook on which Foster’s Mill stood, up to the old Sawmill Dam.” Here we have another valuable description from which we learn that the “old mill dam” had fed a sawmill (not a gristmill for grinding grain) and that the second marshland parcel began at a brook on which had stood Foster’s Mill. This is a nice example of how one can (most unexpectedly) discover evidence of yet another mill! To be clear: at this point in the 1780s what is referred to as the “old sawmill dam” is the one on the “Lower Mill Stream” (or Creek) marked clearly on the survey map shown above from 1791. There are additional Registry entries that include references to the early aboideau and the old sawmill dam, leaving little doubt as to their locations. And it gave us hope that there might be additional references to Foster’s mill, apparently located on a smaller brook that feeds into the Lower Mill Stream. If so, we may have stumbled onto one of the very earliest Planter mills.
Fortunately, there is another entry in the Registry from 20 years earlier in 1767 recording that Robert Foster paid Ebenezer Barnum 20 pounds for “one Gristmill together with the Stream and Dam and everything belonging to said mill, together with one hundred acres of land adjoining the said Mill in Sackville first Division in letter A… bounded as follows, beginning at a heap of stones in the line of the seven acre Lots in said Division, and running westward over the Stream whereon the Mill stands, to the next small stream to a heap of stones, and from thence by said stream northerly until it falls into the Mill Creek, and from thence by the Mill Creek [back to the first] small steam that falls into the Mill Creek and thence by said stream to the first mentioned Bounds.”11 This entry is worth exploring further.
Beginning at a “heap of stones” doesn’t help us very much after more than 250 years! But we can trace some of the other features mentioned (see Figs. 8 and 9). The map in Fig. 8 takes us back to the survey done in 1791 which actually marks the location of the earlier Acadian mill discussed above and points out the set of 7-acre lots recognized as such at the time. Exactly where “in line with the seven acre lots” places that first heap of stones is not very precise but I have marked the only location from which one can map out 100 acres, going westward, along the lower Mill Creek.
Fig. 8. The Millidge map of 1791, once again, this time pointing out the seven acre lots mentioned in the Registry description, and a possible location along Mill Creek for the 100 acres.
Fig. 9. The modern GeoNB map of the same area, which allows me to mark out exactly 100 acres. The “lidar” data GeoNB adds to their map clearly shows at #1 the stream used by R. Foster for his grist mill. I have marked it with a star, but don’t know exactly where on that smaller stream it was located; it does clearly show at #2 the stream that marks the other boundary of the 100 acre parcel, and I’ve added #3 as a reminder of where the old saw mill was located.
The modern-day map supplied by GeoNB (Fig. 9) allows one to measure out that 100 acres and you can see in the shading of the landscape the Province recently added (relying on “lidar” data) that there might be a number of smaller streams feeding into the Mill Creek but only one significant one that allows for this number of acres. These descriptions may not tell us exactly where Foster’s gristmill was located but it was certainly along the stream as shown. Today, one can still see where a dam had been constructed across that stream but it is difficult to tell how old that might be or whether over 200 years ago it may have been further downstream. In any case, the mill itself would have to have been just at, or just below, a dam to take full advantage of the “head” of water the dam helped create.
And Colin has located additional evidence from early Census information.12 Not only is Robert Foster listed in the census of 1771, it also records the number in his family, that he had come from America, had been granted 500 acres, and was keeping a horse, cattle, sheep and pigs. It also records that he owned one gristmill. What’s more, the same Census lists Sam’l Belew (more often spelled Bellau or Ballou) and John Olney as owning ½ a sawmill each. There is more: this 1771 Census lists Elijah Ayer as owning a gristmill and a number of others who shared ownership in a sawmill. Other documentation that Ayer and these others lived in Middle and Upper Sackville provides strong evidence that those two mills were located on the Upper Mill Stream. Since Ballou and Olney both held land in Division A (which is still called Westcock), it seems most likely that Foster’s mill and the mill owned jointly by Ballou and Olney were located near where their residences were located, that is, on or near the Lower Mill Stream.
There is also a surviving Census from 1770 that is organized in a similar way. However, it does not list Robert Foster as owning a mill and I have found no evidence to help me understand why he isn’t since we know he purchased it in 1767. It does list Ballou and Olney with their ½ shares in a sawmill and theirs is definitely listed as a “saw” mill, not to be confused with Foster’s “grist” mill. I might add that this Census has a slightly different list of folks sharing ownership in the sawmill on the Upper Mill Stream and Nathaniel Mason as owning a gristmill. It has been known from several other sources that Mason owned a mill on the Upper Mill Stream and that he sold it to Elijah Ayer. But whether there was already a second mill for sawing lumber has not been clear nor that sawmills may typically have had a number of owners. (We also find in these censuses that the Upper Mill Stream sawmill was considerably more productive than the one on the Lower Mill stream but this information leads me away from our main story.)
While I welcome the additional evidence these Census listings bring, they also make the story more complicated and with new owners to consider. But they do provide one useful detail: that “grist” and “saw” mills are listed separately, making it quite clear that Foster’s gristmill is not to be confused with Ballou and Olney’s sawmill. The latter must have been on the Lower Mill Stream while Foster’s was on its own little brook. Neither should they be confused with mills on the Upper Mill Stream nor with those developed further upstream in Frosty Hollow.
We have located some Registry entries that further support this account. That the Botsfords (father and son) were involved in rebuilding a mill in this area, a bit later, has already been mentioned and the Registry entry for a transfer of marshland in 1798 from H. King to A. Botsford has already been noted (see Endnote 6). By 1800, Botsford was arranging with Th. Harriot to split a grant of land for which the description begins “…at the centre of Ballau’s bridge, so called, the next to run the general course of that brook to the water…”13
Understanding how this split served Botsford’s purpose depends on knowing just where Ballou’s bridge was located—a mystery over which Colin and I have puzzled. For one thing, we do know where Ballou owned land in this area. The minutes of the Committee appointed for the purpose of distributing the lands of the Sackville Township have been preserved14 and the second meeting in September of 1762 records Samuel Ballou being granted No. 1 in Division A. (It also records John Olney, co-owner of the sawmill listed in the census 8 years later, receiving a grant for lands nearby.)
The Memorial submitted to the new provincial government in 178615 notes that Sam. Bellew was still on the premises of #1, fourteen years after it was first granted to him. The map of 1791 (see Fig. 10) shows clearly where a 100-acre parcel of that grant was located. I have added an arrow pointing to the top of Ballou’s parcel so that you can match it to the arrow on the modern-day GeoNB map featured in Fig. 11. Notice that the roadways we still use, especially that curve which swings around to St. Ann’s Anglican Church, are still following pathways laid out already in the early surveys from the last decades of the 1700s. And some readers will know that long before NB #106 was established to the north of Lower Mill Creek, the original road leading off to Dorchester came through the oval I have added here, swung around St. Ann’s and continued along the dotted line shown by GeoNB.
Fig. 10. The Millidge map of 1791 locates the Wood Lot that was a portion of the 500 acre share granted to Samuel Ballou in 1762. The Registry entry tells us this was about 100 acres and I’ve added an arrow to indicate how the apex of this lot points to an important junction.
Fig. 11. On the modern map provided by GeoNB I have added an arrow pointing to the same junction to which Ballou’s lot reaches where I believe Ballou’s Bridge was located. The oval added locates what was already called Indian Brook, on which this very earliest of gristmills was located. By comparison, the farmstead shown on this modern map helps us locate where Ballou and Onley most likely had their sawmill and the Botsfords thereafter.
The relevant point here is that this early roadway crossed the very stream we have been investigating, which, during the period around 1770, provided the water to run Foster’s gristmill. This roadway crosses that stream just as it swings around the curve (and still does) and so, back in the 1700s, it would have needed a bridge. That bridge crosses right at the point of Ballou’s property (and depending on just how the boundaries ran at that time, may have crossed over onto Ballou’s property). There are other possible locations for Ballou’s bridge but this is the one that makes most sense to me. Lots of folks would have used that roadway back in that day and it would not be surprising that the bridge came to be named in this way. And let me carry this presumption back to other Registry entries for 1800 and 1799 (the LAST two!).
In 1800, Amos Botsford was passing along to his son, William, (for a nominal 5 shillings) land “near the Lower Mill Stream…through the centre of Ballou’s bridge, so called, to the hundred acre Lot number One granted to Samuel Ballou, thence along the same lot…”16 encompassing the land from that line up and along the Lower Mill Stream. Amos was aiming to set up his son with the land needed to rebuild the mill at the “Old Saw Mill Dam.” Starting from Ballou’s bridge and extending toward the Lower Mill Creek, this transfer seems to include the stream on which Foster’s gristmill once stood because this 1800 transfer ends by adding: “…together with the Mill Privilege of Indian Brook.” Even today, the stream we have been investigating is referred to as Indian Brook. The Botsfords acquired the rights to run a mill there, but instead, seem to have had their sights set on the larger site on the Lower Mill Stream, namely, the Ballou and Olney sawmill as marked on the 1791 survey.
One last document may help to settle any doubts: the year before, in 1799, Amos Botsford purchased from Samuel Ballou “…the southwesterly half of my [viz. Ballou’s] hundred acre Lot number one in the letter A Division, in Sackville…also the full and free use and liberty or privilege of turning Indian Brook … and culling such brush, Trees or Timber as may be necessary, and for cutting or digging a Canal for the said Brook through the same.”17 I must confess I am disappointed that with all these recorded transfers; we do not have one transferring the privilege to run a mill on the Lower Mill Stream from Ballou and Olney to the Botsfords. Their mill must have ceased operation sometime earlier.18
As Gene Goodrich pointed out in his Westmorland Historical article, W. C. Milner, in his History of Sackville, had recognized that the location of mills on what we now call Silver Lake was referred to already in 1762 as the “Upper Mill Dam,” implying that the Acadians had long before established a mill there. Then Milner goes on: “At the same time the stream spanned by the Westcock Aboideau was called the ‘Old Mill Dam.’ The mill built at the latter place by Amos Botsford was in the year 1812 to saw timber, grind grain and it was fitted with a carding machine.”19 Of course, Milner was wrong to identify the Westcock aboideau as the Old Mill Dam and we have seen how several registered land transactions referred to them both and located them at a distance from each other along the Lower Mill Creek. But he makes it quite clear that the Botsfords (William more likely than his father Amos, who died in 1812) re-established a mill that was substantial enough to power a sawmill, a gristmill and the first carding machine in this area. This would have occurred at some point after 1800, by which time Benjamin Tower seems to have had a mill operation further up the same stream where the dam later held back Bulmer’s Pond.
From the documentation we have considered, it seems we have a strong case for there having been earlier mills, earlier than either Tower’s or the Botsford’s. One was a sawmill jointly owned by Ballou and Olney and later acquired by the Botsfords, although connecting that to either earlier or later ownership has proven elusive. Another was a gristmill, in this case on the smaller stream that from early on was called Indian Brook. Robert Foster owned and ran it as early as five years after the Township of Sackville was settled by Planters from New England. And he purchased it from Ebenezer Barnum, who just may have had it in operation even earlier!!!
Endnotes
1. Westmorland Historical Society Newsletter Volume 58, Issue # 2.
2. The Struggle For Sackville: The British Re-settlement of Chignecto 1755–1770 is available, along with over 30 other publications, from the Heritage Trust’s website: https://tantramarheritage.ca/publications/books/the-struggle-for-sackville-the-british-re-settlement-of-chignecto-1755-1770/
3. Paul Surette who authored many accounts of the Acadians in our area (and two of whose Atlases THT has published) told of a mill not far from Cumberland Basin being used to hold prisoners.
4. For example, the Registry includes entries for 1853 in Book FF, pages 112 and 122, describing the mill property going to Geo. Bulmer, who, around 1890, passed it along to his son, Seth.
5. Milner’s History of Sackville (p. 44) tells of the “first frame house” in Sackville, adding that this house had been built from rough lumber that came from the Tower mill in Frosty Hollow. That would have been about 1790; see my article in The White Fence #68, May 2015.
6. There is documentation, for example, that Botsford was buying land surrounding this old mill site as early as 1798: Westmorland County Registry, Book B-1, page 221.
7. That this was the location of an earlier Acadian mill also fits better with the map in Fig. 4, even though crudely drawn.
8. Registry Book B-1, page 99.
9. Ken Campbell had warned me some years ago that the existing aboideau was not in its original location but that it was first built further upstream at some point—although, only a short distance.
10. Registry Book A-1, page 131.
11. Registry Book A-1, page 83.
12. Both the 1770 and 1771 Census of Sackville are held by the Nova Scotia Archives.
13. Registry Book B-1, page 347.
14. The Sackville Townbook that includes these minutes is held at the Mount Allison University Archives. A whole display about the role of this Committee is to be found in the Anderson Octagonal House, which is part of the Boultenhouse Heritage Centre.
15. The same “Townbook” includes this Memorial.
16. Registry Book B-1, page 312.
17. Registry Book B-1, page 295.
18. Registry entries do confirm that Ballou (and his Estate) only ever sold his holdings to the Botsfords.
19. W. C. Milner, History of Sackville (1935), p.70.
The Eyestone
Eyestone on Bill Snowdon’s finger
by Calum Pamenter
While the object you see in the photo may initially be mistaken for a pebble, the eyestone is no ordinary stone. Rather, it is an object both practical and mysterious, one that was once commonly used by labourers but now rests peacefully in its jar.
Eyestones were mostly used to remove debris from an eye. Naturally, this meant that they were mostly used in occupations where flying debris was a hazard. Woods workers, mill workers, and miners1 all used eyestones to safely clean out their eyes which would have been especially useful in a time before modern safety equipment.
Eyestones were typically stored in a jar full of sugar. Before use, the eyestone would be washed off then it would be placed on the eye and moved around collecting whatever had made its way in there. According to D. R. MacDonald’s short story, Eyestone, this was a strangely smooth feeling, “like the mouth of a snail” moving across the eye.2 Eyestones are rare these days, which makes it all the more fortunate that Trust member Bill Snowdon from Wood Point, NB, has one in his collection of which he was willing to share the story.
While regular eyestone use was less common in Bill’s lifetime, he does remember one occasion. His neighbour, a quarryman, came over with something stuck in his eye and asked to use their eyestone. Bill’s grandmother got it from the cabinet, took it out of its jar of sugar, rinsed it off, and told the quarryman to lie down. He complied and put the eyestone in for about ten minutes while he was lying down, about enough time for a pleasant conversation. Once enough time had passed, he took the eyestone out and returned it to the sugar, his eye now cleared of debris (Bill Snowden, interview with the author, Sackville, NB, July 22, 2023).
Now you may be wondering about the sugar. For this, one must understand the dual nature of eyestones. There is the practical side—in short, they were a valuable tool to have. However, there is also a mythical element to eyestones, one that Dr. Richard MacKinnon of Cape Breton University mentions in a letter to one of the teachers that worked for Bill. The term Dr. MacKinnon used was “occupational folklore”. The practice of keeping the eyestone in sugar is a great example of this. On the practical side, sugar (sometimes along with some rum) would help keep the eyestone moist and safe. At the same time, this practice was also described as “feeding” the eyestone, which was said to be alive. It held a special animate status deserving of some respect. This characteristic of the eyestone is likely due in part to its origin—they were created from the tip of a conch shell. Traders from the South China Sea would have brought them to Europe where they were then passed down through generations. Seeing as eyestones were such rare, prized possessions from a far-off place, one can understand why they were surrounded by so much tradition.
Despite these traditions, eyestones eventually faded from regular use. This was likely due to the introduction of proactive safety measures such as safety glasses and newer, safer machines. Now they sit in their jars, gathering dust, acting only as a reminder of a different time.
1. Dr. Richard MacKinnon. Letter to Rosemary Pineau. Sydney, Nova Scotia, Canada, June 20, 1995
2. D. R. MacDonald, “Eyestone,” in Eyestone: Stories (Wainscott, N.Y: Pushcart Press, 1988), page 41
Works Cited
MacDonald, D. R. “Eyestone,” in Eyestone: Stories. Wainscott, N.Y: Pushcart Press, 1988. 19-42.
Caplan, Ronald. “The Eyestone.” Cape Breton’s Magazine no. 4, May 4, 1973.
MacKinnon, Richard. Letter to Rosemary Pineau. Sydney, Nova Scotia: Canada, June 20, 1995.
