The North Shore Villages

“The North Shore Villages”

The North Shore Villages
1755-1815 (British Navy, Loyalists)

Price $30.00 + S&H

ISBN  978-1-7383926–1-2

547 pages

6”x9” perfect bound

By author Stephen G. Leahy

Early in the 16th century, sails were predominant in moving wooden naval vessels with their powerful and weighty cannons.

Sails in turn relied on masts which played a far greater role in world affairs than just supporting the canvas sails. Masts were vital to the success of nations which sought to rule the seas for trade, exploration, empire building, or war. In effect, masts were then to sea transportation what fuel is to fleets of today.

For its masts, the British Empire required strong, straight, and massive trees reaching up to one hundred and twenty feet in height and weighing as much as twenty tons. By the early 1600’s the Baltic forests had been depleted while threats of war by Sweden and the Dutch made the supply less secure.

Over the next 125 years the white pine forests of New England supplied the largest masts for the British Royal Navy. When these pines came under siege by colonists who wanted to keep them for themselves, Britain imposed the King’s Broad Arrow Policies which restricted their use to the Royal Navy. The colonists greatly resented this move, helping to further the American Revolution.

In 1721, the British Board of Trade set out to acquire a “Nursery of timber” of considerable size in Nova Scotia, in the process removing the French from the region in favour of English settlers. However, a stipulation forbade peopling the Colony of Nova Scotia until suitable “Nursery” was found.

This book records the outbreak of the American Revolution, the establishment of the Nova Scotia “Nursery” and the founding of the North Shore Villages, Pugwash, Wallace, Wentworth and Westchester.