Waverly
Waverley was an old gold-mining town,- gold had been discovered in the late 1800s in numerous, easily workable small deposits. All industry was small and local in those days, and a lively community grew up to exploit the mines. But Waverley’s background was farming and logging. This has always been a favoured area for settled life. There is good farm land on and below the hills that enclose the chain of lakes that, 150 years ago, formed the basic route for the Shubenacadie Canal. The canal, sadly, never operated, the railroad came along just as it was nearing completion, and ran away with the business.
Windsor Junction
With the railways came Windsor Junction. It was a main switching place, between local and trunk lines, and a work yard. There had always been local farming, but the new community grew up around the focus of railway activity, and churches (Presbyterian, Anglican and Baptist), and a school soon appeared. As well as soil for farming, the area offered easy access to forest for timbering, as well as rock and old glacial deposits for gravel. Sawmills and quarries made their appearance, spurred by the building demands of the growing cities of Halifax and Dartmouth, and rebuilding, too, after the great Halifax explosion of December 6, 1917.
History
The roots of family and community go back over three centuries here. Many land grants were distributed by British authorities to reward loyalists who had lost, and often lost all, in the American Colonies War of Rebellion after 1776. One of the ironies of history has been documented by the late historian George Rawlyk, a Maritimer who was for many years Chair of the Department of History at Queen’s University in Kingston, Ontario. According to Rawlyk, the reason Nova Scotia failed to join the other colonies in rebellion was that it was wholly absorbed in a religious revival “The Great Awakening,” led by
evangelist Henry Allyne. But that disinclination to rebel did not lead to any severing of strong ties with what, still today, are called “the Boston States.” There are many place names in Massachussetts, Fall River is but one, which echo those of Nova Scotia. There is no longer a waterfall at Fall River, where water from Miller Lake used to cascade down to the stream which leads past today’s Inn on the Lake into Lake Thomas.
Nova Scotia Power first dammed and ducted the cataract, building a small generating station which still provides power to the provincial grid. Then the Department of Transport successively placed its major new highways, 102 and 118, to meet over the site of the falls, finally completing— with grading and paving— what the Power utility had begun: obliteration of the falls. Only the name remains of them— Fall River.
Growth
In the origins of the area, it was perhaps enough to have land and be somewhere. But Halifax and Dartmouth, lying nearby to the south, exerted a growing economic force on the area. As the twin cities grew— and then, after World War II linked their destinies more tangibly with bridges— the area to the north became part of a prospering hinterland. Today, with the two main access highways easily nearby, and with the settling of many employees of the airlines and industries of Halifax International Airport, this has become a lovely suburban area, where large lots are still irresistibly priced, and where gardeners still must consider how to discourage the inevitable deer from foraging among the vegetables. It is an area of energetic young men and women, choosing to live here as much for the community as for the convenience and manageable mortgages so near to city jobs. It is an area of bright young professionals, living comfortably with the descendants of the old settler stock who still remain, so that below Miller Lake the many descendants of the pioneers can still be found, along the line of the lakes which once sheltered the dream of the Shubenacadie Canal.