Slacks Cove 'hidden gem' of New Brunswick history
Area was home to industry, birthplace of Canada's Baptist movement
But centuries ago, the area thrived in other ways.
It was a major industrial outpost, the birthplace of Canada's Baptist movement and the home of one of Nova Scotia's more difficult to reach post offices.
James Upham, a Moncton historian and educator, calls the Slacks Cove area "one of those hidden gems of the province."
"This is one of those points where it's just everywhere you look there was something here."
Historian James Upham says Slacks Cove would've been an attractive location for sailors on the Bay of Fundy. (Khalil Akhtar/CBC)
One question that may come to mind is, why Slacks Cove?
The simple answer is location.
Upham says the cove would have been one of the first obvious places of refuge for people sailing in the Bay of Fundy.
"The Bay of Fundy is rocky, scary, windy … It's a very dangerous spot to be in a boat," said Upham.
"If you're coming up the bay and the weather's bad, this is going to be one of the first safe harbours that you hit."
Baptist birthplace
In 1763, Nathan Mason, the pastor of a baptist congregation in Swansea, Mass., along with 13 church members boarded a ship, sailing for a new home.
The place they landed was Slacks Cove.
They would go on to become "the seed bed in Canada of the Baptist denomination," according to Sackville historian W.C. Milner's 1934 book History of Sackville.
A cairn memorializes the Baptists who landed at Slacks Cove. (Khalil Akhtar/CBC)
The church grew to 60 members, but a separation was in the cards.
"In 1771, Elder Mason with some of his disciples moved back to Massachusetts," wrote Milner.
All was not lost, as some of the remaining Baptists aimed to found a Baptist Association, which they did by 1810.
Both
the Middle Sackville Baptist Church and Sackville Main Street Baptist
Church, pictured, can trace their origins to the first Baptists arriving
in Slacks Cove. (Google Maps)
Both the Middle Sackville Baptist Church and Sackville Main Street Baptist Church can trace their origins to that first Baptist congregation.
A monument to those first Baptists still stands at the cove.
Thriving community
While the Rockport and Slacks Cove areas of the province are no longer a hub of activity, in the 19th century they would have been thriving communities.
An 1862 map lists about 29 families, a school, a general store, two sawmills and a rock quarry along a six-kilometre stretch of road.
A map of the area drawn in 1862 shows the number of families and businesses in the community. (Norman B. Leventhal Map Centre, Boston Public Library)
At its peak, about 200 men worked at the rock quarry, cutting stone for building and sharpening tools.
But other industries also thrived in the area.
Using
chisels and picks, workers along the shores of New Brunswick made
grindstones and building stones, which were shipped around the world. (Provincial Archives of New Brunswick/P93\G32-B)
"There was a thriving fishery industry, there [were] boats being built here," said Upham.
"There was a point in time where a person wouldn't have looked at Slacks Cove as a quiet little spot in the middle of nowhere."
Sail mail
The community also served another function. It housed the post office — for Joggins, N.S., six kilometres across the Cumberland Basin.
There were (and still are) no fixed links between the two communities, so the options were to walk along the coast, which would take about 19 hours one way, or take a boat across.
A mail run in 19th century Joggins, Nova Scotia meant a 6 kilometre boat ride across the Cumberland Basin to New Brunswick. (Google Maps)
Not exactly convenient.
"This boggles my mind that this was a normal part of life," said Upham.
Eventually, industry died out, people moved away. But Upham says that's one of the fascinating things about so much of the province.
"You basically could take a map in New Brunswick and throw a dart at it and go stand at that spot and start pointing at the things that were there, you know, that happened there, that could have happened there.
"And this is one of those points where it's just — everywhere you look there was something here."
Information Morning - Moncton 8:42You can read more stories in our Roadside History series with historian James Upham at www.cbc.ca/roadsidehistory.
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With files from Khalil Akhtar