Page 9

Browse more items from German Canadians

Title: Page 9

Full text: INTRODUCTION as follows: ". . The Town of Lunenburg is situated at the innermost ex- tremity of a peninsula . . ., and to a military traveller presents a more for- midable aspect than any other in Nova Scotia; the upper houses being placed on the crest of steep glacis slopes, so as to bear upon all approaches, while a half-concealed parapet surmounted by a block-house, suggests to the imagi- nation that this must be the dernier ressort of stout burghers determined to bury themselves beneath its ruins. . . . The town is irregularly built on the steep slopes of a hill; its form is more compact that usual, and the streets are laid out at right angles. Perhaps this is the only town in Nova Scotia that does not contain one building from whose external appearance may be inferred the indigence of its inmates: every householder, from high- est to lowest, appears to possess the means of keeping his tenement in repair and good order; a fact by no means too prevalent in other places. The houses are almost all of wood, constructed with a view to comfort rather than to appearance. A whimsical taste has introduced the custom of painting the exterior white, red, pink, and even green, which, on ap- proaching from a distance, raised up before my imagination the original of the little Dutch toys I remember, as a child,..." During the ensuing decades, Lunenburg retained its distinctive char- acteristics—"Lunenburg is Lunenburg still"—but its population continued to increase. "There is the same compact and clean little town," it was re- ported in The Times, of August 25, 1840, "rendered indeed more compact, by being better filled with houses than it was ten years since." Earlier that yea'r the old Lutheran Church building was demolished and a new edifice was constructed. Besides the Lutheran Church, there were a Church of England, a Presbyterian Church, a Methodist Church, and a Roman Catholic Chapel, with its interior still unfinished. The town of Lunenburg then had "a good school house" and a Court House. The agricultural produce of Lunenburg County as shown by the census for the years 1851 and 1861 was as follows: 1851 1861 Tons Hay 17,538 20,012 Bushels Wheat 4,892 3,730 Barley 50,361 71,078 Buckwheat 1,013 2,269 Oats 12,421 19,231 Rye 8,078 11,082 Indian Corn 403 149 Potatoes 72,939 153,954 Turnips 26,947 42,203