Halifax

Halifax was founded in 1749 by Edward Cornwallis and 2000 settlers in order to counter the military and tactical strength of Louisbourg to the Northeast. Beyond that, its settlement was both to claim a stronger stake in the British owned, french populated colony and to appease the ever restless New Englanders who had captured Loiusbourg (a feat considered near impossible at the time) and effectively secured the colony only to have the British Crown give the town back and undo all of their hard work.  It was an instrumental port for the British during the 7 years war, the American Revolution, the War of 1812 and both World Wars.

Being a military port, Halifax picked up a rather unsavory character. Heavy handed, strict, ever power hungry and self interested, Halifax had poor reputation at home and abroad. Abroad its bleak terrain, position at the very edge of the British colonies in a hostile wilderness populated by the enemy Mi'Kmaq and Acadians and the rowdy, often criminally aggressive character that port towns tend to gain earned it a reputation as a back water hell-hole in the British Empire. For a period in the 18th and 19th centuries one could here people cursing each other to Halifax rather than Hell. This opinion was echoed by the Americans to the South. The phrase "Go to Halifax!" is used as an expletive twice in the novel Gone With the Wind. The towns reputation was further hurt by the stories circulating in Britain of how lush and bountiful Nova Scotia was (of course in reality refering only to the Annapolis Valley) and the crushing disappointment at the hard reality of life in the colony. At home in Nova Scotia, the town picked up a bad reputation, particularly with the immigrant New Englanders and later Loyalists for constantly overstepping its bounds, fixing the council and abusing the rest of the province for its own self interest; a tradition which many in the controversial HRM will contest never ended.

The cities history is in many ways written in blood. The legacy it calls to mind is usually connected to its well known disaster and its role in various colonial atrocities. Halifax today takes criticism for its role in two of the great atrocities of Canada history, the institutionalized genocide of the Mi'Kmaq through the trade of scalps, as well as its centrality to the deportation of the Acadians. Its perhaps best known for the Explosion of 1917 which leveled the entire north end of the city and left thousands dead or injured.

The town, being an military installation on a rocky coast with poor soil, was completely dependent on British investment. The cities prosperity can be traced up and down like a tide, rising with the wars and dwindling again with peace time when the British no longer needed it. Due to this the town has had a much closer connection to England than the rest of the country (exluding of course Newfoundland, which was British until 1949). This held true until after WWII, when the connection began to deteriorate. It was this same issue of unsustainability which set its habit of funneling the resources of the more hospitable regions like the Annapolis Valley toward the capital.

Halifax proper was the capital of the Nova Scotia until 1996, when the whole county amalgamated into the Halifax Regional Municipality which is now the capital.

Below you will find articles on individual historic features and people in the bounds of the original Halifax city.

George Wright and the Council of Women's House

The Wright House, Photo courtesy of http://doorsopenhalifax.com

If you go down to the corner of Inglis and Young Ave, you will find a beautiful Queen Anne home, a prime example of the higher end of Victorian Architecture in the area. As one might expect the home has rather grand beginnings, however, the owner himself did not. The house was built in 1902 by noted local architect James Charles Dumaresq for George Wright, a self made business man and son of a farming family from Dartmouth. Residents in the area will recognize the surname from Wright Ave and Wright's Cove in Burnside, which roughly mark the location of the old family farm where George grew up. It was here that he was born in October 26th, 1849. At the age of 17, he did what most local boys did when they came of age and went down to the States to seek his fortune.

While at the Philadelphia Bicentennial Exhibition of 1876 he conceived of the idea of publishing a global business directory to ease mercantile exchange. So in 1880 he published his 4000 page directory which organized and listed the contact information for all of the companies in Australia, India, China, Japan, Canada, South and Central America, The West Indies and Africa. This became an essential tool of business in the English speaking world, and quickly made George Wright very wealthy. He spent the next 16 years travelling and promoting his directory, and returned to settle in Halifax in 1896. After returning, he took a strong interest in the development of the town. In his first years in town he hired an architect to build the Marble Building (now known as the Wright Building) at 1672 Barrington, and the St. Paul Building at 1694 Barrington, which was until recently the home of Doull’s bookstore. He also was instrumental in the creation of a housing development on Young St. His strong sense or morality lead him to take an interest in providing housing for the working poor. He built a housing development on a tiny cul-de-sac off of Morris Street on Wright Court to help this community in need. George was also a noted philanthropist around town. He spread his fortunes to the YMCA, Dalhousie University, St. Paul's Church and the Anglican Cathedral among others.

In 1912 on a return trip from a winter spent in Europe he bought a last minute ticket on the Titanic, making him one of two Haligonians on the ship, though unlike Hilda Slayter, George Wright was lost in the tragedy. His body was never found, though his sister put up a memorial stone for him in Christ Church Cemetery. George Wright left over $200,000 to his favourite causes. He left his house on Young Street to the Council of Women, who still own and manage it. This house he had only owned for 10 years, and lived in for less considering his frequent travels.

This chapter of council of women was founded in 1893 and has operated out of the Wright house since 1912, for many years being the only chapter in Canada to own its own building to operate out of. The local chapter here in Halifax was set up with the encouragement of the council's founder, Lady Aberdeen, the wife of the Governor General of the day. The society has worked tirelessly for over a hundred years to improve both the station of the women in Halifax, as well the general community, fighting for women's suffrage, better education for women as well as such reforms as the inspection of food in local stores.

George Tait and the Institute for the Deaf and Dumb

This is a sketch of the Institute for the Deaf and Dumb at its Gottigen St Location

(This is building 39 on the 1876 panoramic map of the city.)

The story of George Tait, a deaf-mute carpenter who immigrated to Nova Scotia and, quite by chance, founded the first school for the deaf and mute east of Montreal was a story that captured my heart when I worked on the Dartmouth Heritage House Tour for the first time and one that I felt I should share here as well.

The story of George Tait and his institute began far from Nova Scotia, all the way back in the Province's namesake.George was born to a farming family of rural Caithness Shire, Scotland in 1829. Most significantly, he was born deaf-mute, a disability which would come to shape much of his life. In those days, life was even more difficult for deaf mutes. The education systems could not effectively accommodate them and most were left uneducated and illiterate, particularly in rural areas, and many in Tait's situation would have been left with very limited communicative skills. Even in large urban areas there were few institutions able to help such children. In fact, in 1776 there were only three institutions in the world that were set up for the purposes of educating the deaf or mute. Though the numbers slowly grew through the end of the 18th century there were still very few by the time George Tait was born.

Due to these circumstances Tait spent his early years with very little education, whiling away his days looking after his fathers flock of sheep while his other siblings attended school. The work was dull and in his autobiography Tait admitted he was fairly poor at it since he was always running off and dodging the work. But he got lucky. Whether by savings or charity, in time was sent to one of those few schools that could help him: a boarding school for the deaf and mute in Edinburgh.There he got a solid education and learned to sign and read. But, ever the truant and free spirited adventurer, he spent more time dodging school with his friends. His commitment to his schooling was remarkable poor considering what he would achieve in his later days. He spent more time dreaming of being a sailor and traveling to America than he ever seemed to spend studying. despite his distaste for the place it was his time in Edinburgh that came to shape most of the significant moments of his history. It was there in Edinburgh that he picked up the basic skills of his lifelong trade as a carpenter. This was not so much by choice as by circumstance, however. It wasn't until Tait was quite old that he gave up his dream of sailing the seven seas in search of adventure and settled into carpentry. He didn't even finish his formal education in the trade. After a few short years at the school he dropped out to join a crew and tour Europe. He only learned carpentry at all because the school, aside from offering education in Liberal Arts, had each student trained in a trade. Unfortunately, the school was only set up to teach three: tailoring, shoemaking and carpentry.

With the crew he signed on with Tait toured Europe for a few years on a brig and though he enjoyed it after a few years he found himself penniless, without a contract and far from his home in Scotland. By chance he stumbled upon a brig destined for America, but the ship was leaving that day and there was no time to clear his departure with the customs officials and there was a heavy fine for anyone caught bring an infirmed person out of England without the proper clearance. George managed to convince the captain of the ship to disguise him as one of the crew during inspection in exchange for working as the assistant carpenter aboard the ship. It was by this crafty move that he both set himself down his path as a carpenter and made his way to North America where he would spend the rest of his days. After several years of working various jobs in America, he made his way up the coast to work with his uncle’s home construction company in Halifax, chasing the money to made in the cities late Victorian boom and making use of the skills he had picked up in Edinburgh.

When Tait arrived at Halifax in 1856 there was no place for the education of deaf mutes east of Quebec, and that was one of the few schools in North America. It was this and George’s background led him to his real legacy in the area: being the first educator of the deaf and mute in the Maritimes and founding the first school for the education of deaf mute children in the region. This all came about quite organically. While staying at a boarding house in Halifax, a fellow boarder heard about his background and asked if he might be able to tutor his niece, who was born with the same disabilities. She had gone uneducated due to a lack of teachers and resources in the area. He agreed, and in doing so Ann Marie Fletcher became the first deaf-mute educated in Halifax. Little Ann was so thrilled with the situation that she encouraged him to help others. It was because of her that the Institute for the Deaf and Dumb was dreamed up at all. The following year he had managed to raise $160 and procure two teachers to start a school in a small room on Argyle St in Halifax. It just so happened that during that year Tait had run into a fellow former student from his Edinburgh school, William Gray, who by coincidence was in Halifax as well. Gray helped drum up the funds to bring Tait and Ann's dream to fruition. The school opened with four students, but within a few years was averaging ten times, with students coming from all over the Maritimes to board there and study. Soon the school was forced to move to moved to the larger building seen in the sketch at the top of the page which stood on the corner of Gottingen and North, not far from where the North End Library stands today. In all, the school ran from 1856 until 1961, when it was replaced by the Inter-provincial School for the Education of the Deaf in Amherst.

This is a post card showing the Institute, presumably at its later location in the South End.

Though Tait was the founder the Instuite for the Deaf and Dumb and got it on its feet, he was not heavily involved after the first few years. He did not stay on as a teacher, but left the task to professional teachers and experts like J. Scott Hutton who became the school's principle. Tait instead settled into Dartmouth in 1971 (by which time he was 42) to start a family with a woman named Cynthia who he had fallen in love with while living in Halifax. Tait bought a lot carved off of the back end of the Falconer Estate at 289 Portland St for $357 dollars. He built the house at 22 Mackay, which still stands today. When the house had been completed, George signed his name on the cornerstone, and when they moved into the house on a then unnamed street, they christened the property by having each of the sons plant an elm. Their mother, Cynthia, planted an old oak which was later marked by 9 inch cuts. According to tradition, these trees were brought from Scotland. While living at this house he gave up his work as a carpenter, likely due to the fact he was getting up in age, and started working as a pattern-maker of acme skates for Starr Manufacturing not far down the way from his new home. Skating was a popular pastime at the turn of the century, when the winters were colder and the locals were able to skate across the harbour, sometimes as far as MacNab’s Island. Occasionally, the frozen Dartmouth cove was used for hockey. Though the market was ripe for skate manufacturing, with the locals being so found of the passtime and Starr skates becoming renowned across North America, this job didn't last terribly long for Tait and in his later years he was forced to travel the Maritimes and sell his autobiography to make ends meet. Still, he would reside at 22 Mackay for 30 years and firmly establish Dartmouth roots for his family. For three generation the house he built would anchor the family. Though the Tait children grew up and scattered as far as Texas whenever any of them were expecting a child they would return home so that their mother, a nurse, could usher the newest Taits into the world within the warmth of the family home.

Anyone interested in further information on George Tait specifically should seek out the handbook version of his autobiography which he peddled around the province. The Nova Scotia Archives has a copy of this.

Anyone who is interested in the Institute itself can find more information from this blog by a descendant of one of the students. There is a lot of good information in her articles, as well as many useful links.