Roots and Heart of Mill Village Multi-Cache

Mill Village (also once known as Mills Village and Port Mills) began as a settlement after (1760) Mr. Morris(surveyor) was sent there to examine the forest for timber to make ship spars for H.M. Navy. Appropriate trees were marked with the “Broad Arrow”, a carving in the trunk, still known today among our forest workers. Mr. Smith and Mr. Mosley were among the first permanent settlers. These gentlemen were among a group of eight who built the first saw mill on the Medway River at the heart of Mill Village. Eventually they sold their mill(s) to a Connecticut man, Samuel Mack, in 1764. By this time there were 8 saw mills and numerous grist mills along the river banks.

The families living in the area were wealthy, well respected and lived in well built houses. The land and water provided excellent resources from top quality timber, fertile soil great for agriculture (the best area for the township of Liverpool) and an abundance of Alewives(Gaspereau or Kiacks as they are still called) which were used locally and exported through the ‘down-river’ port of Port Medway to places far away as Barbados.

When Mr. Mack passed away in 1783, his widow, Desire had a house built that same year. She remarried in 1785 to the saw mill business’s Chief Clerk, Patrick Doran who was native to Ireland. One of the Doran’s daughters married a Davison and the house remained in the family for the next 100 years. A Davison grandson (Edward Doran Davison) born in 1894 continued with the saw mill business, expanded, and his company became the largest lumber producer in Nova Scotia.

Eventually the Mill Village mills were sold out to Benj. Johnstone & Co. and over time this company closed, moving to the U.S. The Davison household was sold to Gavin Creed and at one point in time became an Inn but is a private residence today and not open for viewing.

The tour begins!


START First cache is at eye level. Please sign the log.

N44 08.549 W064 38.736

Looking East, across the road, you see a small section of the Medway River and a bountiful trout fishing hole. To the north-north-west is a quiet resting place of ancestors and first settlers, a place to show respect, of the men and women who worked hard to establish their homes and families.

To the near south is the driveway leading to the very house of Patrick Doran, built in 1785 with 4 foot thick basement walls made of hand cut stones. The house has 4 fireplaces, a central chimney is supported on a solid mass of rock about ten square feet for the fireplaces and the floor planks are 24 inches wide. A man was purposely brought from Connecticut to work on the structure. About 1920, the property was purchased by Gavin Creed, son of Frederick Creed who invented the Creed teleprinter. Gavin is reputed to have spent $70,000 restoring the house, improving the garden and installing plumbing and hot water system. It is not open for viewing.

STAGE1 N44 08.713 W064 38.939

Leave the cache site and travel north UP the road (river) to the stop sign, marking an intersection that is very busy in terms of historical points of interest. Here, on of the first things you see you is a long standing “General store” and a 144ft long 'Pratt Truss Bridge', built in 1883 by the King Bridge Company. The "General Store" stands on the same property where there once used to be a shoe shop in the late 1800's.

Directly to your right, as you sit at the stop sign, was a building owned by a member of the Mack family, housing a store and telegraph office.

If you look southwest, diagonally across this intersection, you see the old house where Frederick George Creed was born. Mr. Creed was the inventor of the teletype (1882) before the First World War, which became very important in war-time communications. Before and after the war his inventions, now including the teleprinter (which received and printed out teletyped messages) were spread world wide and instrumental in same-day publications of particular news papers.

At the north end of the bridge on the "down-river" side, you can see the remains of a foundation that supported another store, 3 stories high!

North north-east of the "General Store" is a long narrow island joined to the mainland by a wooden bridge you cannot see from here. Because of the activity at the saw mills and re-directed water flow around this island, a pond was made below the wooden bridge still known as the "Mill Pond". At the very end of this island behind the “General Store”, remnants of old dock posts and supporting piers of a Davison sawmill can be seen even today in low summer water and/or low tide. The south end/tip of the island still shows piers of a Mack saw mill, at low water.

STAGE2 N44 08.716 W064 39.052

As you continue traveling north UP the road (river) you pass by the United Church where the original Methodist Meeting House once stood. The current church building was constructed in 1898, replacing the Methodist building erected between 1816 - 1818. Rev. James Lumsden decided there was need for a new building and with help from E. D. Davison and Sons Lumber Company, the new church was opened free of debt. The Mitchell Cemetery is located behind this church, where more of the prominent community-establishing members have been laid to rest.

Next is the Mill Village Volunteer Fire Department hall, remodeled from the Mill Village School which was built in 1865. Of course it was a one room schoolhouse holding students from primary to grade twelve.

STAGE3 N44 08.733 W064 39.102

Here is the mouth of a brook and the turn-off to Church Square (so named because there once were 3 churches) another very busy spot, historically speaking.

Just past the fire hall, closer to the brook there used to a store (now a cement foundation with a small building on top) and behind it stood the Baptist Meeting House built in 1859. The back side of the "Square" also had a Church of England which was dismantled around year 2000 and taken to the United States.

An Eddy Match Co. Factory was built over the brook and a few hundred yards up you can see the remnants of a dam that controlled water flow for the factory.
On the river side, where there is now a water filling station for fire trucks, stood the Steadman Shingle and Nail factory. The Steadman house was (is) the older white house on the outside of this corner of Church Square. The tall white L-shaped house beside the brook was the Steadman Furniture Factory combined with a Steadmans store and a grist and carding mill.

STAGE4 N44 09.461 W064 39.685

This point is in reference to the boundary between Mill Village and the neighboring community of Charleston (used to be called Tumblingdown Falls). To find the second cache you must briefly explore Charleston.

STAGE5 N44 10.433 W064 39.580

Continue and you will reach the Charleston bridge which is a temporary structure replacing the ‘Pratt Truss Bridge’ that collapsed in the mid 1990’s with the added weight of a loaded log truck. From the bridge you can see the remains of an old pulp mill that had been burned twice by fire and in more modern times, changed to a fish hatchery and then abandoned. At the south end of the bridge is a small building used to measure water levels.

STAGE6 N44 10.626 W064 39.758

From this bridge to the west, is Charleston Falls, used by experienced canoeists and kayakers during high water in the Spring.

Other Kiackers are fisherpersons who build platforms from the shore across the wild water flow to an exposed rock tip. They dip the water with a huge net on a long pole, catching Kiacks (Alewives or Gaspereau fish), which was done in the 1700’s and is still a part of the local fishery.

STAGE7 N44 10.675 W064 39.871

Here to your left across the river you will see the remains of a dam used to divert water to the mill at the bottom of the falls. Summer-time waters were not favorable for running the mill and they tried to save it up! The mill was effective for only 9-10 months of the year due to this water problem. Drive forward and you will be on a small bridge. Look right to see Salter's Falls, above a great little trout fishing hole.

STAGE8 N44 10.910 W064 40.173

Continue UP the road (river) to a white gate. It marks the entrance to what used to be the first Earth (monitoring) Satellite Station in Canada built in the 1960’s. It started as a huge ‘dish’ encased in a humongous, white balloon covering, with a red aviation light on top, and became an "I-can-see-it-from-here" landmark for many years. It is now abandoned.

The gate also marks the spot where the infamous Billy Stafford was found by a local resident one early morning, shot to death by a family member.

STAGE9 Final and last cache. Please sign the log.

N44 10.914 W064 40.181

Here you will locate the second and last cache, like the first. This cache marks the end of the tour. This tour obviously does not cover all historical points of Mill Village or Charleston, but it provides you with some fun and knowledge.

References:

More, J.F., Esq. The History of Queens County. Belleville, Ontario: Mika Studio. 1972.

Sheppard, Tom. Images of Our Past, Historic Queens County, Nova Scotia. Halifax N.S.: Nimbus Publishing Limited. 2001.