Early History of Prospect, 1500 - 1754
Settled in 1754 by mostly Irish and English fishermen the village of
Prospect, Nova Scotia has endured 250 years of strong winds and salt
spray as it sits perched along the rocky shores of the Western Shore of
Halifax County. Prior to the settlement of the village by these brave
souls the site was considered by sailors and fishermen as a place of
refuge during storms and a good place to fish. Characterized by small
islands protecting a large deep harbour Prospect has been a place of
shelter for centuries.
The original inhabitants of the area were most likely the Mi'kmaq
people who populated Nova Scotia prior to European settlement in the
early decades of the sixteenth century. Mi'kmaq settlement in the area
was probably on a seasonal basis and was primarily based around fishing
in the area surrounding Prospect Bay. There was, throughout the late
nineteenth century, a family of Mi'kmaq that lived and fished out of
the Shad Bay/Blind Bay area. Silas Rand, Baptist minister to the native
population of the Maritimes during the mid to late nineteenth century,
was one of the first people to collect and document the words of the
Mi'kmaq. In his dictionary of their language he provides two words that
he attributes to meaning Prospect:
- Prospect, Kunek nemedoomk
- Prospect, pr. n., Naspadakun
It is not clear exactly how he arrived at these words or where his
source for these words comes from. However, Rand states that:
" The word [Naspadakun] refers to any place, person, or thing of
Prospect. It doesn't necessarily refer to the area in which the
village of Prospect is located. But someone speaking Micmac would
call Prospect - [Naspadakun] 1
"
The first word [Kunek nemedoomk] is quite clearly a place name,
while the second is a pronoun. Another set of Mi'kmaq words is provided
to us through the work of Elizabeth Frame. In Frame's List of
Micmac Names of Places, Rivers, Etc. , she states that the words
Paspege'ak and Paspebeek are the words that Mi'kmaq used to describe
the place where the current village of Prospect is situated. However,
after some examination there is some doubt in this attribution as in
1746 Duc D'Anville creates a map showing the location of 'Paspebiac' as
being east of Halifax Harbour when in fact it is west. This mistake is
carried through in the work Acadians of the Maritimes in a
chapter detailing the resettlement of Acadians in Nova Scotia after the
expulsion of 1755. It states that some of the first returnees on the
Nova Scotia peninsula settled first at Chezzetcook and also Prospect.
It goes further to show that some 520 Acadians were living in
Chezzetcook and Prospect in 1803. However, it is quite clear that this
is an obvious mistake and they are referring to the village of
Petpeswick which is located on the Eastern Shore not far from the
village of Chezzetcook. This argument is carried further by the
complete lack of documentary evidence in the Prospect area of any
Acadian settlement after 1755. This mistake could quite easily have
been an error due to the confusion of the names originating from their
Mi'kmaq roots . 2 This brief
discussion does not however attempt to disprove either set of names as
being accurately attributed to the location of the current village of
Prospect, however, it attempts to merely point out some plausible
inaccuracies in the interpretation of these words by historians in the
past.
The first European reference to Prospect appears on a map likely
drawn by Portuguese cartographer Diogo Homem. This Homem-like map,
drawn sometime between 1554 and 1568, shows the area labeled as
"Ribeira de Jardines" or translated into English as "River of Gardens".
William F. Ganong in his exhaustive study of early maps in Canada
states that he believes this "River of Gardens" to be the area known as
Prospect and though no trace of the name exists today or has since the
creation of this map he attributes the name to Prospect due to its
relative proximity to another well defined location along the Western
Shore, that of Cape Sambro or in this case Cape St. James. 3
The "River of Gardens" was next visited by the Jesuit priests who
were slowly migrating to the new world to work with the aboriginal
populations. In their Relations of 1612-1614 the priests make note of
two ships which are anchored at 'Passepec' and getting ready to head
back to France . 4 The Jesuits were
quickly followed by the French explorer Nicolas Deny. Deny's first tour
of Nova Scotia in 1632 included a stop in Prospect. In his journal he
states that:
" [after leaving Lunenburg Harbour] leaving the bat and going
along the coast, at three or four leagues distance there is found a
river having two entrances formed by an island which is between them.
On the shore of the first entrance there are fine and good lands
covered with big and beautiful trees. At the other entrance on the
right one does not find good woods until one ascends into the river.
There is nothing here by bald rocks, rather high. Among these rocks
there is a little harbour where vessels anchor, and where men are
often found making their fishery and drying their fish upon these
islands the fishery is very good, and abounds in Cod, Mackerel and
Herring are very abundant on the coast. This place is called
Passepec. 5 "
It is quite clear from this description that Deny was entering the
mouth of Prospect Bay, commonly mistake for a river in early
descriptions due to what appears to be a lack of interest on the part
of explorers to go further than its mouth. Also worth mentioning is
that Deny describes the landscape as consisting of small islands full
of "big and beautiful trees" which could allude to what the Homem-like
map of the late 1500s was referring to when it labeled the area as the
"River of Gardens". Another interesting fact is that besides the
mention of ships anchoring in the harbour by the Jesuits this is the
first mention of the place being used as a fishing outpost. Though it
is not clear whether these fishermen were here on a permanent basis it
does establish Prospect as an area of settlement, even if it was only
on a seasonal basis. This places habitation of the area as being as
early as 1632.
For the next seventy years there are scattered references to
Prospect in the documentary and cartographic history. An interesting
example pops up in the journal of an anonymous passenger on the Acadian
ship La Marianne, who for two months along with another ship he sailed
around Nova Scotia. After having spent sometime at LaHave they left the
sheltered harbour and traveled on the morning of 8 September 1784
towards Canso. They traveled as far as Passepeq the first night,
anchoring in the "lee of a large island", leaving the next morning.
6 The name evolved throughout this
period finally taking its anglicized form in about 1744 when the
cartographer Bellin published his map of Acadia. 7
The 1740s saw a dramatic change in control over Nova Scotia. First,
with the fall of Louisbourg to British and American forces in 1745 and
secondly with the establishment of Halifax in 1749 Nova Scotia was put
under British rule. The signing of the 1763 Treaty of Paris enshrined
British rule of this part of North America culminating with the
expulsion of the Acadians from the Nova Scotia mainland. It was at this
time that we see an increase in the number of English and Irish
settlers emigrating to the province. Between 1750 - 1752 a large scale
campaign to recruit German speaking Protestants took place bringing
some 2000 so-called "Foreign Protestants" to the province. This group
of people would eventually be moved from Halifax in the spring of 1753
to settle the town of Lunenburg. 8
In an April edition of the Halifax Royal Gazette there appeared a brief
note mentioning the wreck of a vessel off the coast of Prospect where a
settlement is intended. It is with this article that we get the first
mention of a permanent settlement in the area. Since 1754 and with the
beginning of land grants, fishing licenses and other types of land
records we can establish a consistent pattern of settlement in the
village of Prospect.
Royal Gazette - Halifax, Nova Scotia - April 1754
Halifax
We are inform'd by a Gentleman who lately arriv'd from a Place
call'd PROSPECT, a little to the Westward of this Harbour, (Where a
new Settlement is intended) that they met with exceeding bad Weather,
in which they carried away their Jibb, and had like to have been cast
away among the Breakers: That they saw some Beams and other Pieces of
Wreck floating upon the water, which they judg'd to be Parts of a
Ship or other large Vessel lately cast away upon this Coast. 9
From the earliest Mi'kmaq inhabitants to those Irish and English
settlers in 1754 we have a continual pattern of land use in Prospect
dating some five hundred years, if not more. The name Prospect has
evolved from its earlier Mi'kmaq name and through subsequent
mutilations by Portuguese, French and English explorers, cartographers
and fishermen to evolve into its final anglicized version by the
mid-eighteenth century at a time when we see efforts to establish a
permanent settlement.
Timeline Summary
- 1554-1568 - Homem map - Ribeira de Jardines (River of
Gardens)
- 1612 - Jesuit Relations - Passepec
- 1656 - Nicholas Sanson d'Abbeville - Paspay
- 1692 - Cadillac Journals - Paspeq
- 1684 - Lalanne - Passepeq
- 1744 - Acadia, Bellin H. - Prospec
- 1750 - Thomsa Jefferys - Prospect Harbour
- 1754 - Royal Gazette - Prospect
- 1755 - Charles Morris map - Prospect Harbour
- 1755 - map from Port Maltois to Lawrencetown - Prospect
Harbour
- 1757 - Acadia, Bellin - not shown
- 1787 - map showing port houses - Prospect
