From Sandy Lake Community Profile
(Dalhousie School of Planning: Sandy Lake, 2001)
Early Industry Based on Waterpower and Lumbering In 1811, Thomas Johnson (perhaps after whom Johnson’s Brook is named) arrived and operated an inn and gristmill near the Lucasville Crossroad (Withrow, 1999). The early 1800s saw the development of many shingle and saw mills along the streams leading to Sandy Lake, and on the Nine Mile and Sackville Rivers. Schmidt’s Mill, on Johnson’s Brook near Sandy Lake was a well-known establishment (Coakley, 1988).
In 1836, William Piers operated a gristmill at the intersection of Hammond’s Plains Road and the Bedford Highway, on his land grant. By 1876, this land had been purchased by William C. Moir, who built an industrial complex at the site. By 1890, Haverstock had built his shingle mill and dam, which operated until recently as a box manufacturing company on the Hammond’s Plains Road near the Lucasville Road.
According to local residents’ accounts, the harvesting of timber in the Sandy Lake area has been occurring since the late 1800s. Much of the lumber cut in the Sandy Lake, Marsh Lake and Jack Lake area over the next several decades was destined for the sawmill and box factory at the Moirs Site (Robertson, 1983). The Nine Mile River, dammed by a 1,700-foot wooden structure, flowed through a turbine to provide the 400 horsepower needed by the complex. Logs cut in the Sandy Lake area floated through Sandy Lake to Marsh Lake and Peverell’s Brook to the Sackville River. Upon reaching the Basin, they were boomed until being processed in the mill. Dams for gathering logs were constructed in the stream connecting Sandy and Marsh Lakes, and below Marsh Lake. These dams remained into the mid-twentieth century, local residents recalled. Later in the twentieth century, logging trucks hauled lumber overland to the Hammonds Plains Road.
” The logging company took advantage of the lake in wintertime. The company would drive huge trucks full of logs across the frozen lake. The company used an old road that went right through the lake. You can see this road when you canoe over it now.” Resident
Some residents and visitors still remember timber floating across Sandy Lake in the summer. One of these operations was run by a local family named Pender. Later, logs were hauled by truck over the ice in winter. Areas logged included the north side of the lake and around Marsh Lake. Timber was harvested for a number of uses, including for Moirs Mill, Haverstocks crate and barrel company (then the largest employer in the Hammonds Plains area), and a local barrel maker, Hedley Giles. Spruce was used for the barrel staves, and birch for the barrel hoops. Bert Giles had a small sawmill on his property.
Early Industry Based on Waterpower and Lumbering In 1811, Thomas Johnson (perhaps after whom Johnson’s Brook is named) arrived and operated an inn and gristmill near the Lucasville Crossroad (Withrow, 1999). The early 1800s saw the development of many shingle and saw mills along the streams leading to Sandy Lake, and on the Nine Mile and Sackville Rivers. Schmidt’s Mill, on Johnson’s Brook near Sandy Lake was a well-known establishment (Coakley, 1988).
In 1836, William Piers operated a gristmill at the intersection of Hammond’s Plains Road and the Bedford Highway, on his land grant. By 1876, this land had been purchased by William C. Moir, who built an industrial complex at the site. By 1890, Haverstock had built his shingle mill and dam, which operated until recently as a box manufacturing company on the Hammond’s Plains Road near the Lucasville Road.
According to local residents’ accounts, the harvesting of timber in the Sandy Lake area has been occurring since the late 1800s. Much of the lumber cut in the Sandy Lake, Marsh Lake and Jack Lake area over the next several decades was destined for the sawmill and box factory at the Moirs Site (Robertson, 1983). The Nine Mile River, dammed by a 1,700-foot wooden structure, flowed through a turbine to provide the 400 horsepower needed by the complex. Logs cut in the Sandy Lake area floated through Sandy Lake to Marsh Lake and Peverell’s Brook to the Sackville River. Upon reaching the Basin, they were boomed until being processed in the mill. Dams for gathering logs were constructed in the stream connecting Sandy and Marsh Lakes, and below Marsh Lake. These dams remained into the mid-twentieth century, local residents recalled. Later in the twentieth century, logging trucks hauled lumber overland to the Hammonds Plains Road.
” The logging company took advantage of the lake in wintertime. The company would drive huge trucks full of logs across the frozen lake. The company used an old road that went right through the lake. You can see this road when you canoe over it now.” Resident
Some residents and visitors still remember timber floating across Sandy Lake in the summer. One of these operations was run by a local family named Pender. Later, logs were hauled by truck over the ice in winter. Areas logged included the north side of the lake and around Marsh Lake. Timber was harvested for a number of uses, including for Moirs Mill, Haverstocks crate and barrel company (then the largest employer in the Hammonds Plains area), and a local barrel maker, Hedley Giles. Spruce was used for the barrel staves, and birch for the barrel hoops. Bert Giles had a small sawmill on his property.
From A Brief Report on the condition of the principal rivers on the south coast of Nova Scotia
By Frederick H.D. Vieth. Halifax 1868. (Obtained from the Internet Archive, their copy from Canadian Institute for Historical Microreproductions)
SACKVILLE RIVER.
We have now come to Halifax harbor. There is but one river here, and it is of no magnitude ; but men yet live who can remember when it ranked among the most prolific of salmon streams. Let me give one instance : Some twenty years ago a pensioner named Hopewell, (still living), who resided near its mouth, caught with a rod and line, between daylight and nine o’clock in the morning, nineteen salmon, averaging between 8 and 18 lbs. This is a fact which proves how plentiful they were then; and indeed it was no uncommon thing in those days to catch, even by the inexperienced, in its pools, four or five salmon a day ; but a saw mill was erected upon it, about six miles from the sea, which completely stopped it, and year by year the fish have dwindled away in numbers. Last year over 3100 was expended by the Society in opening this dam and placing a fish-gate in it; a trustworthy Warden was also appointed, so that it is hoped that the time is not far distant when it will be again the favorite resort of salmon it was before it became so shamefully abused.
From the River Fisheries of Nova Scotia
by Thomas F Knight, Halifax 1867
Sackville River, flowing into Bedford Basin, is likely to prove a productive salmon river, if the intention of the society respecting it is fully carried out. This river, within view of the city of Halifax, had become wholly closed by mill-dams and other obstructions. [1855]…Although Sackville River had been recently opened at its mouth, the fish that ascended the river were destroyed in a weir placed some distance up, and at Hefller’s mill a dam obstructed the passage.
Barriers to Fish Passage in Nova Scotia: The Evolution of Water Control Barriers in Nova Scotia’s Watershed
Fielding, Gillian. 2011 Honours thesis, Dal U
Progress Report of the NS Water Power Commission 1916 (SRA doc)
Natural
Page on SRA website with general description of Sackville River system, the fish, physical barriers. water quality, water use etc. “On tributary SSlB, Sandy Lake Brook, there was formerly a dam between Sandy Lake and Marsh Lake, one at the outlet of Marsh Lake, and one dam near the headwaters of the stream. All three of these dams have been completely breached”