To All Newsletter Readers

Since Ronald Mizon, who was sent here from Britain with his sister Bessie during the war,  contacted our Newsletter via    e-mail several years ago offering to write about their “visit” to our community and surrounding communities, it has tweaked the interest of a lot of our newer residents as to the history of our community.  Ronald’s stories will continue but we thought it would be nice to resurrect some of the stories of the history of our community as seen/experienced through the eyes of one of our late, older residents.

We know there are many, many people out there who could share their knowledge and experiences of our community’s history with all our new community residents, and we urge you to do so.

Beginning in 1979, one of our older residents, the late Sadie Siroy, wrote many, many articles on the history of Mount Uniacke/Lakelands for the Uniacke Newsletter and since we have been requested for historical stories relating to our community, we have decided to re-write Sadie’s stories in this issue and coming issues to relive the history of the building of Mount Uniacke/Lakelands and what it means to the older residents and their families.

We hope you enjoy them.

The Symbol of Peace in a Steeple

      It matters not from which direction the Lakelands Church of the Holy Spirit comes into view. If you stroll up the hill opposite and look down there seems to glide past your mind’s eye all these churches you have heard of in song and verse and they seemed to be summed up in the spire reaching up towards the sky among the evergreens.  It is as if it had been created and set down on this spot by a pair of loving hands.

     The little chapel was built on land whose fingers reach out to touch history.  We tend to think of the upper Counties as being the homes of the Acadians.  The Acadians reached their places of settlement by the waterways.  The Avon River coming in from the Minas Basin was one of these.  Newport Landing (Avonport), Ardoise, even as far as Cameron Lake, had Acadians on the land.  After 1755 the land lay idle for a few years.  Then, in the 1750’s, the Loyalists and some settlers from England, Ireland and Scotland came to claim land grants.  You may see the descendent farms on the hills and in the valleys as you drive through and often wonder how they came to be there in the first place.

      Mount Uniacke, whose district may contain more lakes than any other in Nova Scotia, looked good to those who wanted to leave the city behind. 

      Richard J. Uniacke would now take advantage of his land grant and in 1815 he would build his handsome summer home here.  His son-in-law would follow him.  Thomas N. Jeffery had married Martha Uniacke, Richard J’s eldest daughter.  It seemed they also liked lakes so they built their Manor House between two of them (Piggott Lake and Lily Lake).  This house had the appearance of a huge Villa, sitting on a high foundation with the rear part of the house dropping down to suit the slant of the land behind it.  It had many dormer windows jutting out from the almost dome-shaped roof.  Its tall double chimneys told of the many fireplaces within.  The house stood almost opposite the church. 

The house was destroyed by fire in 1918.

       From the early days Newport was the centre for the Churches.  It was from these Churches that the Clergymen of different denominations went out to serve their flocks, often holding services in a farm kitchen.  The nearest Anglican Church for this district was at Newport. 

       In 1816 the Church near the entrance to Newport on the Post Road offered, with the Bishop’s approval, to raise fivehundred pounds, providing the Inhabitants raise a like sum of five hundred pounds.  This plan did not seem to gain much ground.

     In 1831, Judge Uniacke put forth a suggestion.  If the Governor would release the five hundred pounds to build a church near Mount Uniacke, the Uniacke family would give three hundred pounds and an altar piece worth one hundred guineas.  To make the offer more tempting Judge Norman Uniacke stated he would give one hundred pounds annually if the Bishop would appoint Mr. Richard Uniacke, then at Oxford and about to be ordained, to the new Church.  The donation would be paid for as long as Richard Uniacke served as the Rector.  The Bishop declined Uniacke’s offer.  Since most of the congregation lived nearer Newport than Mount Uniacke and since this plan did not seem to fit with the original conditions of the grant of money, the Bishop turned it down.

     The Uniackes waited thirteen years, then in 1844 they decided to go ahead and build a chapel of their own, however, for some reason or other, and maybe because they did want to share it with the neighbours, they built it not at Mount Uniacke but on the estate of Thomas Jeffery at Lakelands.  By this time the new Rev. Richard Uniacke had been in Newport since 1837.  He in fact had the distinction of being the first Priest to live in the new rectory.

    The Rev. Richard was indeed at the first Service for the little Church.  It was he who assisted the Rev. Fitzgerald Uniacke of St. George’s in Halifax, and his sister Martha Jeffery, with the laying of the corner stone.  At that time they called the Church “All Saints”.  When the Church was completed in 1845, it had the look of graceful dignity it would carry into the years ahead.

    The Chapel would not see people enter its doors in the wintertime.  She had to learn she was a summertime Church. Her Clergy, in most instances, were guests of the Uniackes and Jefferys.  The people who came to the Services from the neighbourhood were glad to have a Church nearby, even if Services were only for a few months of the year.  The winter was a lonely time for the Church.  The only sound the Church heard was sleigh runners on the snow taking the farmers to Halifax.  These sleighs were the means of opening up the road after a snowstorm.  No tracks led into the Church and she must have often murmured an answer to the creaking and croaking hardwood trees on a cold winter’s night.

    Spring and summer came and with it the opening of the big houses, and her people came again.  It was a time of brightness and usefulness for the Chapel.  She often heard the wagon wheels going past now at the break of dawn.  The farmers had left their homes in the early hours to start their trip to the city.  The Church could picture those on the other side of the Ardoise Hill taking along an extra man and horse to help get up the hill.  When the hill was topped the man and extra horse could turn back for home.  They would be alright from now on.  How welcome those Inns along the way must have been to these travelers!  They were the service stations and motels of yesterday.  A man could get a meal, rest the night and have his team put up – all for 25 cents!

  The journey to the city took three days round trip.  When they met another team on the road they didn’t have to worry about traffic.  They must have just leaned over the backs of their patient horses and exchanged the news of the day.  On the return trip the wagons would be loaded with supplies for the homes.  The problem of Ardoise Hill was still there, only this time in reverse.  When they reached the top of the hill a pair of oxen was hitched to the rear of the wagon.  They would act as the brakes going down the hill.  A neighbour living on the hill was always willing to lend his oxen for the job.

     In 1847, sadness came to the Jeffery family.  Thomas Jeffery died.  He had been the Customs Collector for the Province and held several minor offices as well.  He left his widow in moderate circumstances, but she did not think it beneath her to write and ask for her husband’s salary, nor to ask that a position be found for her youngest son James Woodhouse.  A job was found for him – he became the Surveyor of Lands and Waters.  He went to live in a home called Cleverden, in Newport.

    It seems that in 1857 Martha must have decided to sell the Estate, but before she did this she deeded the Chapel and seventeen acres of land to The Colonial Church and School Society.  It was to be held in trust for its successors.  The first buyer of the Estate must have been W.I. Cledon, for it was he who offered it for resale in 1862.  The Newspapers of the day described the sale as “the former Estate of the late Thomas Jeffery with two hundred acres of land, a Manor house, coach house and stables,  The grounds are well laid out and there is a Church on the property”.  The new owners, however, would only get the mention of the Church for Martha had done well by the little Chapel.  She had put it beyond the reach of any private buyers.  The Chapel was now part of the Parish of Rawdon.  (Sadie Siroy)   to be cont’d next month