Description The History of Six Mile Brook

The History of Six Mile Brook

By Agnes Gunn, Grade VIII, 1938

 

Six Mile Brook is still a very new settlement probably not quite two centuries old.

The first road built through here was made by Thomas Archibald, John Otterson of Truro and John Rogers, the compass being their only guide.

They blazed a path which left the shore at the head of Pictou Harbor, and went over Roger’s Hill.  It then followed the course of the present road through Four Mile, Six Mile and Eight Mile Brook then passed through Mt. Thom to Truro.

The streams on the west side of the West River derived their names from the distance on this road to their sources in the Cobequid Mountain.

One of the earliest settlers in this area was a man by the name of Joseph Richards.  He built a log cabin which is said to be one of the first dwellings built here.  Other old buildings belong to Miss Josephine Bannie and Messers Alex McBeth, Daniel Sutherland, Banton MacLeod and Gordon Matheson.

The first and only grist mill in Six Mile Brook was built by James Barrie in 1850.

The minerals of Six Mile Brook are of small importance but a copper mine was operated in this area about twenty-five years ago.  Gold was also found.

The population of Six Mile Brook is sixty-six.  The people are mostly of Scottish descent.

Some of the animals found here are foxes, rabbits, squirrels, bears and wild-cats.  In the fall hunters scale the country side in search of moose, deer and partridge. 

In the year 1879 there were around forty farms in this settlement.   Now over half of these are vacant.

The whole settlement is about three miles square.  Besides the brook which drains the vicinity there are many smaller streams, and numerous springs which contains clear, pure drinking water.

The district consists of many hills and valleys.  It is bounded on the north-west by a beautiful range of the Cobequid Mountains, on the east by the West River, and on the South by Stillman.

• Agnes Gunn,

Grade VIII,

1938

 

P.S. My father tells me that the road did not follow the present route, but came up through what we used to call the meadow on the old Bonnie place (now Donald Lewis MacKenzies) and out over the “old schoolmasters hill”.  It then crossed the brook below where it does now and followed the brow of the hill opposite our house at home and thence past MacLeod’s through the old Archibald Gunn place and out to Eight Mile Brook.  You can check on this later.

 

When I was at Normal I found a very badly worn book in the library there.  It contained an excellent and detailed history of Six Mile Brook, Dalhousie, etc.  Perhaps the librarian there would find it for you.