History of Dartmouth, Nova Scotia

[1] Prior to European colonization, the region around Dartmouth was inhabited the indigenous Mi'kmaq people, who had occupied the area for roughly a millennia.

The Mi'kmaq called the area Ponamogoatitjg[2] (Boonamoogwaddy), which has been varyingly translated as "Tomcod Ground" or "Salmon Place" in reference to the fish which were presumably caught in this part of Halifax Harbour.

There is evidence that bands would spend the summer on the shores of the Bedford Basin, moving to points inland before the harsh Atlantic winter set in.

Establishing a Protestant settlement on shores of Chebucto (Dartmouth/ Halifax) was a strategic British manoeuver to control Acadia and defeat France in North America.

Father Le Loutre's War began when Edward Cornwallis arrived to establish Halifax with 13 transports on June 21, 1749.

To guard against Mi'kmaq, Acadian and French attacks on the new Protestant settlements, British fortifications were erected in Halifax (1749), Bedford (Fort Sackville) (1749), Dartmouth (1750), Lunenburg (1753) and Lawrencetown (1754).

[7] On September 30, 1749, about forty Mi'kmaq attacked six men who were in Dartmouth cutting trees at the saw mill which was under the command of Major Gilman.

They built homes, a Quaker meeting house, a wharf for their vessels and a factory to produce spermaceti candles and other products made from whale oil and carcasses.

It was a profitable venture and the Quakers employed many local residents, but within ten years, around 1795, the whalers moved their operation to Wales.

They were Loyalists who arrived in 1785, and received a grant that included land bordering present-day Portland, King and Wentworth Streets.

Many early settlers are interred in the Woodlawn cemetery including the remains of the "Babes in the Woods," two sisters who wandered into the forest and perished.

Within twenty years, there were sixty houses, a church, gristmill, shipyards, saw mill, two inns and a bakery located near the harbour.

The Stairs Ropeworks, later Consumer Cordage, was a rope factory on Wyse Road offered work to over 300 and created its own residential neighborhood.

During the American Civil War, on August 18, 1864, the Confederate ship CSS Tallahassee under the command of John Taylor Wood sailed into Halifax harbour for supplies, coal and to make repairs to her mainmast.

All the lights were out, but the residents on the Eastern Passage mainland could see the dark hull moving through the water, successfully evading capture.

In 1885 a railway station was built, and the first passenger service starts in 1886 with branch lines running to Windsor Junction by 1896 and the Eastern Shore by 1904.

On July 18, 1945, at the end of the Second World War, a fire broke out at the magazine jetty on the Bedford Basin, north of Dartmouth.

The barge responsible for starting the explosion presently lies on the seabed near the eastern shoreline adjacent to the Magazine Dock.

[1] [2] Dartmouth saw rapid growth after 1954 when the Angus L. Macdonald Bridge opened, finally providing a direct roadlink to Halifax.