A part of Middle LaHave seen from across the river.
Middle LaHave
Middle LaHave in Lunenburg County, Nova Scotia was my home and where I lived for thirty years until I moved to Halifax. I have added this page to my web site to include some information on this community.
In the Google map below you can see Middle LaHave which extends between the red lines. Off map to the top left is Upper LaHave, off map to the bottom right is East LaHave. The Grimm Road off to the upper right leads to Lunenburg.
In earlier days, there was "Middle LaHave" and "North Middle LaHave". From what I've seen in census records, it seems that Crouse's Settlement was considered part of North Middle LaHave ... it is somewhat "north" from Middle LaHave, about 1½ miles back from the river. It is not shown on this map but it is at the north end of the Ferry Road (a modern name we never used when I grew up there. I don't think that road had an "official" name back then.) So from what I see looking at the recently released 1931 census, besides Crouse's Settlement, North Middle LaHave consisted of the properties along the river from Upper LaHave to the Ferry Road plus the first two houses past the Ferry Road (my grandfather, and his brother) which both properties bordered on portions of the Ferry road. The third house past Ferry Road to the south (my great grandfather) was considered in Middle LaHave. So the "border" if there was such a thing would have been at the south side of the school. Eventually, the "North" was dropped from the name.
In the Google map below you can see Middle LaHave which extends between the red lines. Off map to the top left is Upper LaHave, off map to the bottom right is East LaHave. The Grimm Road off to the upper right leads to Lunenburg.
In earlier days, there was "Middle LaHave" and "North Middle LaHave". From what I've seen in census records, it seems that Crouse's Settlement was considered part of North Middle LaHave ... it is somewhat "north" from Middle LaHave, about 1½ miles back from the river. It is not shown on this map but it is at the north end of the Ferry Road (a modern name we never used when I grew up there. I don't think that road had an "official" name back then.) So from what I see looking at the recently released 1931 census, besides Crouse's Settlement, North Middle LaHave consisted of the properties along the river from Upper LaHave to the Ferry Road plus the first two houses past the Ferry Road (my grandfather, and his brother) which both properties bordered on portions of the Ferry road. The third house past Ferry Road to the south (my great grandfather) was considered in Middle LaHave. So the "border" if there was such a thing would have been at the south side of the school. Eventually, the "North" was dropped from the name.
My Corkum ancestors emigrated from Germany (originally from Holland) to Halifax in 1752 and settled in Lunenburg in 1753. [See Genealogy page above for more on that.] Original probate records show that my Great (x5) Grandfather Johann Wilhelm Gorkum was granted a town lot in Lunenburg (black arrow) on the corner of the block where the front door of Zion Lutheran Church is currently located, a "garden" lot in present day Garden Lots (purple arrow) outside Lunenburg just above where the fish plant is today, a 30-acre farm lot in Division "South E-1" which is near the end of the road in present day Feltzen South (red arrow), and a 300-acre lot in "First Division E-3" which is in present day Dayspring below Bridgewater on the Oakhill Road approximately opposite where the Bowater sawmill was located (green arrow). One can imagine it would take some time in those days to travel from town to the 30 and 300-acre lots.
Middle LaHave is shown by the blue arrow. At this time I do not know when our first ancestors settled in Middle LaHave. The first known Corkum house was built probably just before 1850.
This map was drawn by Dr. J. Christopher Young (a cousin) in his 2003 book "Maps Associated With Lunenburg County Family History."
(See this web site for more maps.)
Middle LaHave is shown by the blue arrow. At this time I do not know when our first ancestors settled in Middle LaHave. The first known Corkum house was built probably just before 1850.
This map was drawn by Dr. J. Christopher Young (a cousin) in his 2003 book "Maps Associated With Lunenburg County Family History."
(See this web site for more maps.)
The following transcript is from "Place-Names and Places of Nova Scotia" published by the Public Archives of Nova Scotia in 1967 and a searchable database can be found on their web site here. There are 751 pages and Middle LaHave is on page 432.
"It is on the outside of the LaHave River and about four miles from it's mouth. This place was originally called East La Have Ferry because of the ferry service which operated there. The name was probably changed about 1916.
"Tobias Berringer, John Froelig, Rev. Roger Aitken were original landowners and settlers.
"St. Bartholomew's Anglican Church was built in 1836, and consecrated in January, 1848. A Union Church for Lutherans and Presbyterians was built in 1870. St. John's United Church was built in 1901.
"A school-house was built at "LaHave Ferry" sometime between 1864 and 1872. A new school was built in 1902.
"A Postal way office was opened at Middle LaHave Ferry in 1859.
"Fishing and some farming are carried on as industries.
"Population in 1956 was 161."
Click here to view a history of Middle LaHave as printed in the local newspaper in 1948. Watch the video below for a short three minute travelogue through Middle LaHave.
"It is on the outside of the LaHave River and about four miles from it's mouth. This place was originally called East La Have Ferry because of the ferry service which operated there. The name was probably changed about 1916.
"Tobias Berringer, John Froelig, Rev. Roger Aitken were original landowners and settlers.
"St. Bartholomew's Anglican Church was built in 1836, and consecrated in January, 1848. A Union Church for Lutherans and Presbyterians was built in 1870. St. John's United Church was built in 1901.
"A school-house was built at "LaHave Ferry" sometime between 1864 and 1872. A new school was built in 1902.
"A Postal way office was opened at Middle LaHave Ferry in 1859.
"Fishing and some farming are carried on as industries.
"Population in 1956 was 161."
Click here to view a history of Middle LaHave as printed in the local newspaper in 1948. Watch the video below for a short three minute travelogue through Middle LaHave.
Pictures of Middle Lahave
Click on the pictures for larger views.
This is the four masted schooner "Laura Annie Barnes" on the LaHave River. This picture was taken sometime in the 1930's in front of the Corkum ancestral home ... originally owned by my Great Great Grandfather, Caleb Corkum. The location would be just off #5574 NS-332 on Google maps today. Notice the "fish flakes" on shore ... many people along the river at that time likely had them (as did our family ... see post card below.) The ship was built in the Bowker Shipyard, Phippsburg, Maine and launched November 27, 1920. It was originally owned by Capt. Charles Barnes of Saugus, Massachusetts and named for his wife. In March 1930, it was purchased by Capt. James Leander (Andy) Publicover of Dublin Shore, Lunenburg County, who employed the schooner mainly carrying baled wood pulp from Nova Scotia to New Haven, Connecticut and returning light or with coal from New York. The schooner ran aground on a shoal in Nantucket Sound on January 17, 1939 and was unable to be freed. It broke up during a storm a few days later.
"Fish Flakes" at Middle LaHave. A scene from an old post card. There's no indication of an approximate date, possibly the 1930's like the above picture. Fishing was a prominent industry back then and fish would be preserved in salt when caught. When the boats landed and unloaded their catch, the salt fish would be washed to remove some of the salt and then spread out to dry in the sun on racks called "fish flakes". This picture was taken on the property where I grew up. (Our house is off picture to the right, that's our barn right of center.)
Off picture to the left of the "flakes" by the river was the family's fish shed. In the colorized old picture on this page below, you can see the the fish shed ... the dark building by the river. My father later converted it into his carpenter shop seen in the aerial picture below with a second floor added - the white building (actually grey) at the upper left edge of the picture with the small shed attached.
Below are two sunsets that I captured from my home sometime in the 1970's.
Off picture to the left of the "flakes" by the river was the family's fish shed. In the colorized old picture on this page below, you can see the the fish shed ... the dark building by the river. My father later converted it into his carpenter shop seen in the aerial picture below with a second floor added - the white building (actually grey) at the upper left edge of the picture with the small shed attached.
Below are two sunsets that I captured from my home sometime in the 1970's.
The Middle LaHave School as it looked while still in use (above.) It was closed in 1958. It was two rooms, the elementary grades primary to six on the right and the high school grades seven to twelve on the left. There was a hallway inside the front door, and another inside the back door, partitioned from each other so you had to go through one of the classrooms to get from the front door to the back door. Inside the door to the right was a small storage closet and to the left was a small office for the principal. There are windows above the door but there was no second floor, just an attic. (Interestingly I saw later once I got into the attic that the builders appear to have miscalculated a bit on the alignment of the right chimney. It went straight up through the ceiling but then in the attic had a distinct tilt before straightening again to go through the center of the roof.) I attended my first two years (1956-57 and 1957-58). That was very convenient as I lived just two houses away! It was heated in winter by a coal stove in the middle of each room and the older boys would carry buckets of coal from a coal storage shed. The old shed can still be seen in the aerial picture below at the upper left corner of the school. Drinking water was stored in a metal "cooler" (something similar to the example in the picture below left) and the older boys would fetch a bucket of water when needed from the well of the house across the road. Bathroom facilities consisted of a "three-room" outhouse behind the school.
A two-page "Middle LaHave School History" document prepared for a reunion in 2003 is available here.
When the school was closed it was sold to my father who used it for a carpenter workshop for approximately fifteen years. The school is located on a small piece of land along the river. The deed stated the property to be "half an acre, more or less" and my father used to joke that it was "more when the tide was low and less when the tide was high!" In the pictures below, the center picture (taken from the roof of our barn) shows the school in the distance at the right. If you click on the picture to enlarge it, you can see more of the property and the outhouse with the sloped roof and the coal shed to the right of the school. I don't know the date of the picture but some time in the 1960's as it was the workshop at that time.
When my father purchased it he removed the interior walls and the left chimney to make it functional as a work shop. The original entrance was removed and replaced with a large sliding door to move materials in and out, with a standard entrance door in the middle of the sliding door. Otherwise the interior remained as it was with the original paint color on the plaster and the blackboards on the walls.
After my father passed away, it was sold and for a time was a boat shop (with a large door cut into the north side) and then eventually became a residence in 1984.
This is a picture of the school after 1984. At this time it had been sold by the boat shop owner and the new owners used it as a cottage. I was in the building once during this time and I remember that it was still much as my father had left it. The new owners maintained the large open concept interior. (This picture, provided by the owner, appeared in the 2002 calendar "Schoolhouses of Lunenburg County" printed by Lighthouse Publishing Limited.)
A reunion was held August 23, 2003.
It was again sold in 2009 and the new owners at that time made major renovations including the exterior as you can see from the picture below right in 2018. (I have seen some pictures of the inside ... very nicely renovated.)
A reunion was held August 23, 2003.
It was again sold in 2009 and the new owners at that time made major renovations including the exterior as you can see from the picture below right in 2018. (I have seen some pictures of the inside ... very nicely renovated.)
Here's an interesting picture. This is a Halloween party at school (undated) and it was taken on the back steps.
St. John's United Church is the first of three churches in the community heading south along the highway (and the only one still operating.) A bit farther along the highway is St. Bartholomew's Anglican Church which is the oldest church along the river. Unfortunately this church closed in 2016. Finally the last church at the southern border of Middle LaHave was St. Mark's Lutheran Church. This is the largest building however due to declining membership, the congregation disbanded and the church was closed in 2005. This was the church as it looked at the time it closed. This was the church I attended. The church was later sold and renovated by the new owner - see his web site at www.stmarksplace.net.
Here's a picture of the former St. Mark's Lutheran Church (now St. Mark's Place) as it looked in 2018 - picture from Google Street View. (For more information and church history see the St. Mark's link in the menu at top.)
Here's a picture from the
river showing a portion of Middle LaHave with the school
in the center. Not sure of the exact date but I believe it
may have been around 1984 or shortly after while the building was being
used as a cottage and you
can see some skylights had been added on the roof.
Here is an aerial view of the same part of Middle LaHave and you can see the school building at the left edge. This picture was taken at an earlier date (no skylights on the school) and it is believed to be during the 1970's. The last home (white building) at the bottom left had once been the community general store originally owned and operated by our Corkum relatives in the early days. It had been sold an operated by another family (who lived upstairs) when I remember it in the 1950's. At the top of the picture just behind the (red) barn is Ferry Road, a dirt road to the right that went to Crouse's Settlement. Most of this road is no longer in use except for a short portion on this end with some houses. (On the map above, this road - the brown line - runs through the 4-146 number.) There were children from Crouse's Settlement who would walk this road every day to come to school ... about a mile and a half. Not so nice in the winter! There were no school busses in those days.
The house at the bottom right (with the school bus) was a Corkum home originally owned by my Great Grandfather James Amiel Corkum and later by his son. Apparently the family owned a large property back in those days and it was subdivided as sons eventually got married and built their own homes. One of his sons, Lorraine Corkum, built the house to the immediate upper left, and another (my grandfather, Amiel Theodore Corkum) built the one straight up from it (with the red barn) which became my parents' home where I grew up. Another house off picture at the bottom - it is the one at the left of the picture with the funeral procession, I believe is the original ancestral Corkum home built by my Great Great Grandfather Caleb Corkum about 1850, and I believe the house on the far right in that picture was also in our family at one time. (Only my grandfather's home is still owned by a family member today.)
The house at the bottom right (with the school bus) was a Corkum home originally owned by my Great Grandfather James Amiel Corkum and later by his son. Apparently the family owned a large property back in those days and it was subdivided as sons eventually got married and built their own homes. One of his sons, Lorraine Corkum, built the house to the immediate upper left, and another (my grandfather, Amiel Theodore Corkum) built the one straight up from it (with the red barn) which became my parents' home where I grew up. Another house off picture at the bottom - it is the one at the left of the picture with the funeral procession, I believe is the original ancestral Corkum home built by my Great Great Grandfather Caleb Corkum about 1850, and I believe the house on the far right in that picture was also in our family at one time. (Only my grandfather's home is still owned by a family member today.)
Here is a picture of Middle LaHave taken approximately at the point where the road leaves the above picture at the top. I cannot date this but my guess is maybe the 1930's given the condition of the dirt road. The picture is from a book by Melba (Crouse) Lantz about Crouse's Settlement which was located about 1½ miles back from the river in the woods. The "Ferry Road" just behind the barn at the top left edge of the above picture leads to Crouse's Settlement and was used in those days when children would walk to Middle LaHave to the school until it closed in 1958. I believe that in the past, Crouse's Settlement may have been previously called North Middle LaHave (since it is north of the river). I have seen that name used in some old records. (I have no idea where the name "Ferry Road" came from. It seems to be a modern invention when the government decided to put up a sign. It was never called that in the past and didn't have an official name back then. We simply referred to it as the Crouse's Settlement road, or just Crouse's Road.)
Here is a picture (colorized) of our house - exact date not known, but you can guess by the vintage of the cars. (My guess is late 1930's or early 1940's.) This is the same house at left (behind the tree) in the above picture.
Here are some pictures from 1959 when the main road was paved. In a rural area, a paving project was a big event back then as many roads were still dirt. The location was along the section of road in the above picture.
Here's another old picture - I have no idea of the date although from the cars it looks like some time in the 1940's - maybe someone can recognize the some of the cars. As you round the curve in the distance, you would enter the bottom of the aerial picture above. All I know about this picture is that it was a funeral procession (note the hearse at the front of the line of cars) and would have been coming likely from one of the three churches in the community going to the Middle LaHave Cemetery. If you click to enlarge the picture, note that there is a group of people walking in front of the hearse. I'm not familiar with traditions of the time but it looks like possibly family of the deceased walking to the cemetery. It looks like women and children so possibly the deceased may have been a husband and father. The cemetery is about one kilometer ahead and the nearest church (United) is just out of the picture to the bottom right, the next church (Anglican) was about one kilometer farther, and the last church (Lutheran) still an additional kilometer. This picture is in our family collection but without any further information I have no idea if the deceased may have been a relative.
A few more miscellaneous pictures below. On the left, is a loaded timber freighter heading down river. Years ago, freighters would come up river to Bridgewater to load timber. In the center is a oil tanker also heading down river. Irving Oil used to have a tank farm in Bridgewater and tankers would come up river to unload. In the winter the river would freeze over with ice and when a tanker or freighter was due, an ice breaker would first have to go up river to open a channel in the ice. On the right is an older picture - that is probably an ice breaker opening a channel up river - but notice the small black spots to the right of the ship - that would be some curious bystanders out on the ice to watch the progress.
When I was growing up, the river would freeze over every winter. We would skate and play hockey on the ice, and we would walk across the river to visit family on the other side. (We would row across in the summer.) We estimated it to be about a mile across here. There were stories of people actually driving cars on the ice many years ago. I have a copy of some newspaper clippings where one couple (related to me) lost their lives when their car crashed through the ice. The old Union Church building (predecessor to St. Mark's Lutheran Church between 1864 and 1901) was moved from Middle LaHave to Bridgewater pulled by ox teams over the ice in the river not long after it was closed. So you can imagine that the ice on the river would have frozen quite thick in those days. Our winters must be warmer today as the river does not freeze over anymore until you get close to Bridgewater.
When I was growing up, the river would freeze over every winter. We would skate and play hockey on the ice, and we would walk across the river to visit family on the other side. (We would row across in the summer.) We estimated it to be about a mile across here. There were stories of people actually driving cars on the ice many years ago. I have a copy of some newspaper clippings where one couple (related to me) lost their lives when their car crashed through the ice. The old Union Church building (predecessor to St. Mark's Lutheran Church between 1864 and 1901) was moved from Middle LaHave to Bridgewater pulled by ox teams over the ice in the river not long after it was closed. So you can imagine that the ice on the river would have frozen quite thick in those days. Our winters must be warmer today as the river does not freeze over anymore until you get close to Bridgewater.
Rural life in Middle LaHave (as elsewhere) was a lot simpler back in the 1950's and maybe harder too. Employment Insurance had begun in 1940 however many workers did not qualify until it was reformed in 1955. The Canada Pension Plan did not begin until 1965 and would take a number of years until one would be able to reach a full benefit on retirement. Those who had good steady jobs were fortunate. My father was a self-employed carpenter and people liked his work so he usually was busy. People tried to be as self sufficient as possible too. Our family had our own vegetable gardens, we had a cow and some chickens so had milk and eggs. Sometimes we also kept a pig. We had a wood stove in the kitchen, and a wood furnace in the cellar (that's what it was called before the era of finished "basements.") Back in the 1950's it was a coal furnace but was replaced with a wood furnace by the 1960's. Heating homes with coal by that time was starting to fade into history. Later it was replaced with a combination wood and oil furnace - one could burn wood during the day and at night when the wood fire went out, the oil side automatically came on. Eventually that was replaced with an oil only furnace much later after which we no longer needed to deal with firewood.
In the winter we cut our own firewood from our woodland, mostly softwood, and in later years would buy a few cords of hardwood. My father had built a machine saw to cut the wood (pictures below,) which he towed with his truck. I remember he said it had an old 1936 Chrysler motor (with a crank starter that was very finicky!) Notice that it has four wheels of which the front two pivot (where the trailer tongue is attached.) Now if any of you have tried to back up a two wheeled trailer (with one pivot point at the hitch) with a car or truck, consider how much more difficult it was to back this machine into position with two pivot points! Sometimes it was just easier to unhitch it and a few men would push it by hand. He would hire out to the neighbours to cut their wood too. In the pictures below, my father was getting the original machine ready (at center) - saw is still stored on the side of the machine - and in the right picture, we are cutting up our winter's hardwood with the later version of the machine. The original motor had worn out and the machine was rebuilt with a 1949 Studebaker motor (thankfully with electric starter.) It took a crew of four people to operate the machine efficiently. This is probably the late 1970's as my father had passed away by that time. I am operating the saw and two of my brothers are loading wood on the machine. It took two people to lift the larger pieces of wood onto the side table which had rollers to roll the wood to the saw. A neighbour (back to camera) is tossing the cut pieces away from the saw directly into the cellar. We could store a winter's hardwood in the cellar behind the furnace. (You were always careful when reaching up for the handle of the saw carriage (and grabbing the cut piece). It wasn't far from that big spinning blade and no safety guards! It was quite noisy too and no one wore hearing protection in those days.)
In the winter we cut our own firewood from our woodland, mostly softwood, and in later years would buy a few cords of hardwood. My father had built a machine saw to cut the wood (pictures below,) which he towed with his truck. I remember he said it had an old 1936 Chrysler motor (with a crank starter that was very finicky!) Notice that it has four wheels of which the front two pivot (where the trailer tongue is attached.) Now if any of you have tried to back up a two wheeled trailer (with one pivot point at the hitch) with a car or truck, consider how much more difficult it was to back this machine into position with two pivot points! Sometimes it was just easier to unhitch it and a few men would push it by hand. He would hire out to the neighbours to cut their wood too. In the pictures below, my father was getting the original machine ready (at center) - saw is still stored on the side of the machine - and in the right picture, we are cutting up our winter's hardwood with the later version of the machine. The original motor had worn out and the machine was rebuilt with a 1949 Studebaker motor (thankfully with electric starter.) It took a crew of four people to operate the machine efficiently. This is probably the late 1970's as my father had passed away by that time. I am operating the saw and two of my brothers are loading wood on the machine. It took two people to lift the larger pieces of wood onto the side table which had rollers to roll the wood to the saw. A neighbour (back to camera) is tossing the cut pieces away from the saw directly into the cellar. We could store a winter's hardwood in the cellar behind the furnace. (You were always careful when reaching up for the handle of the saw carriage (and grabbing the cut piece). It wasn't far from that big spinning blade and no safety guards! It was quite noisy too and no one wore hearing protection in those days.)
In the early days before a lot of mechanization on farms, some of the hay would be raked by hand. When carpentry business was slow in the winter he would spend the time in the workshop manufacturing wood hay rakes, usually stamped with the name "LaHave Brand". When my brothers and I were old enough to help in the workshop that's where we would often be found - it was a lot of labour to make a hay rake. I can still remember all the many steps involved in the assembly line process. In the spring he would sell some directly to the local hardware stores in Bridgewater and Lunenburg and also to wholesalers who would distribute to more distant farm supply stores. In the picture at left below (sometime in the 1950's) you can see them all stacked ready for spray painting bright red (I count 50 dozen.) In the center picture (1968) they are now finished. Notice there are four wheelbarrows also in that picture. The picture on the right was the last production in 1973. My father passed away in 1975.
I have written a very detailed article about all the steps that went into making these hay rakes - "It Started With A Tree". If you want to download a PDF copy, please click here.
Once he received an order from someone to make some very large rakes. I do not remember what the purpose was but they were very much bigger than these normal hay rakes. At another time he was approached by a businessman who had the idea of selling rakes to tourists for souvenirs. His idea was that they would be painted different colours and there would be designs painted along the top of the rake heads to represent various regions. One sample was painted blue with red lobsters, another was painted a pastel yellow with red cherries. However there were some problems that could not be overcome. A rake has a handle that is 6 feet long - you can't easily put one of those in your car trunk or check it as luggage on a plane! He experimented with some way to cut the handle into three shorter pieces to be packaged with the rake head in a triangular shaped box and reassembled once the purchaser had gotten it home. However each solution tried resulted in serious weakening of the handle at the joints so the project was abandoned. A lady once suggested that he make some miniature rakes for souvenirs. He wasn't particularly interested in that but he and I experimented a bit and found a way to make a few samples (I still have three of them - picture below) however it really wasn't practical and was too difficult with something that small.
In addition to hay rakes, he also made some wood wheelbarrows. Our family still uses them - see two pictures of mine below. They were well built - oak handles and wheel with iron tire, and pine box with removable sides - and while heavy (definitely a man's wheelbarrow) they were very stable with the slightly downward curved frame and it was easy to push heavy loads with the large narrow wheel (as long as you were not going uphill!) Toward the end of production it was very difficult to find a blacksmith with the skill to put the iron tire on the wood wheel properly - the blacksmith needed to know exactly how big to make the ring of iron so that when heated it would expand just enough to slip on over the wood wheel and shrink enough when cool to be a nice tight fit. He had a good blacksmith - the late Lorraine Lohnes of Lunenburg (who I later learned was related.)
He also made a child's size version as a toy. I still have mine that he made in the early 50's (two pictures below). It's showing some wear (got a lot of use in my childhood days) and a little rust on the wheel but still in good condition after being in storage for over 65 years! I made a few myself (spoked wheel was no longer available then) in the 1970's (one of those was sent all the way to England) and then again in later years but with the cost of materials and time to make, it was not practical anymore. But definitely much higher quality than the plastic stuff available today. The child in the picture below has the last one I made (and he's definitely enjoying it). He's all grown up by now. [Picture courtesy of his mother.]
You couldn't make any of these products today to sell (rakes or wheelbarrows) - material cost and labour time would make them too expensive, never mind what it would cost to ship anywhere!
If anyone out there still has one of the wheelbarrows that you use (or even a rake), I'd like to know. Email me via my Contact page.
I have written a very detailed article about all the steps that went into making these hay rakes - "It Started With A Tree". If you want to download a PDF copy, please click here.
Once he received an order from someone to make some very large rakes. I do not remember what the purpose was but they were very much bigger than these normal hay rakes. At another time he was approached by a businessman who had the idea of selling rakes to tourists for souvenirs. His idea was that they would be painted different colours and there would be designs painted along the top of the rake heads to represent various regions. One sample was painted blue with red lobsters, another was painted a pastel yellow with red cherries. However there were some problems that could not be overcome. A rake has a handle that is 6 feet long - you can't easily put one of those in your car trunk or check it as luggage on a plane! He experimented with some way to cut the handle into three shorter pieces to be packaged with the rake head in a triangular shaped box and reassembled once the purchaser had gotten it home. However each solution tried resulted in serious weakening of the handle at the joints so the project was abandoned. A lady once suggested that he make some miniature rakes for souvenirs. He wasn't particularly interested in that but he and I experimented a bit and found a way to make a few samples (I still have three of them - picture below) however it really wasn't practical and was too difficult with something that small.
In addition to hay rakes, he also made some wood wheelbarrows. Our family still uses them - see two pictures of mine below. They were well built - oak handles and wheel with iron tire, and pine box with removable sides - and while heavy (definitely a man's wheelbarrow) they were very stable with the slightly downward curved frame and it was easy to push heavy loads with the large narrow wheel (as long as you were not going uphill!) Toward the end of production it was very difficult to find a blacksmith with the skill to put the iron tire on the wood wheel properly - the blacksmith needed to know exactly how big to make the ring of iron so that when heated it would expand just enough to slip on over the wood wheel and shrink enough when cool to be a nice tight fit. He had a good blacksmith - the late Lorraine Lohnes of Lunenburg (who I later learned was related.)
He also made a child's size version as a toy. I still have mine that he made in the early 50's (two pictures below). It's showing some wear (got a lot of use in my childhood days) and a little rust on the wheel but still in good condition after being in storage for over 65 years! I made a few myself (spoked wheel was no longer available then) in the 1970's (one of those was sent all the way to England) and then again in later years but with the cost of materials and time to make, it was not practical anymore. But definitely much higher quality than the plastic stuff available today. The child in the picture below has the last one I made (and he's definitely enjoying it). He's all grown up by now. [Picture courtesy of his mother.]
You couldn't make any of these products today to sell (rakes or wheelbarrows) - material cost and labour time would make them too expensive, never mind what it would cost to ship anywhere!
If anyone out there still has one of the wheelbarrows that you use (or even a rake), I'd like to know. Email me via my Contact page.
History of the County of Lunenburg - Written by Judge Mather Byles DesBrisay, second edition published 1895. This is a very comprehensive book about the county at that time. I have a copy that was reprinted some years ago. This link will take you to a PDF copy you can read on-line however if you scroll down to the middle of the page, there is a PDF link there where you can download a copy.
All links on this page were verified working as of November 18, 2023