Exploring "shreds and nooks"
June 21, 2011
by Corey LeBlanc
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| Ruth Legge has authored her second book about the rich history of eastern Guysborough County - shreds and nooks of land – A history of Liscomb, Spanish Ship Bay & Gegoggin, Guysborough County. (Corey LeBlanc photo) |
Author Ruth Legge has made her own history through her love for eastern Guysborough County. The Liscomb Mills native has released her second book – … shreds and nooks of land – A history of Liscomb, Spanish Ship Bay & Gegoggin, Guysborough County.
“I feel privileged to tell these stories,” she said just before picking up copies of her latest piece hot off the presses at the Casket.
Legge’s first book chronicled the history of Liscomb Mills – Sawdust and Seabreezes. “That one I spent about 25 years researching as my girls grew up – bits and pieces here and there,” she said, noting conversations with older people from the community were also a key component to her research. “I would dig in the archives in the winter when I had the time,” Legge added. That book hit the shelves in 2005.
“I didn’t really know if people would care or buy the books.
“It became obvious they did care because the immediate question was often ‘what’s next?’”
With that inspiration, Legge decided to the “cast the net a little wider” with her latest project.
“It is about the next few communities down the road – Spanish Ship Bay, Liscomb, Little Liscomb, Wedge Island, Liscomb Island and Gegoggin – so a circle around Liscomb, if you think of Liscomb,” she informed. Research and writing took approximately five-and-a-half years. “A lot that I found from the older people when I was researching the first book, of course, helped me with this one,” the author said.
“I started digging deeper – a lot of time at the Registry of Deeds in Guysborough, the archives in Halifax,” Legge added, noting people have been wonderful with sharing photos.
With the first book, she said she inherited a box of photos. “I was able to piece [them] in with the oral history I had gathered and understand. With this one, most of the pictures have come from other people,” she said.
'Detective at heart'
Her desire to write these books came from a deep interest in history.
“I can remember when I was a little girl saying to my Dad, ‘why do they call it Liscomb Mills – there are no mills here,’” she recalled, noting his response was they once were part of the community.
“When I was five, I remember having an interest in that, so it just always stuck with me,” Legge added.
She said there was not any sort of written record for her area of Guysborough County. “There is a couple but they deal with the Guysborough town part of it,” she noted.
Legge said she thought there was a “real need” to record that history. She said the entire process, including speaking with older people from the communities, was a pleasure. Legge said the common response when she would approach one of these people was ‘I don’t think I could tell you very much.’
“But, their knowledge was mure localized because people didn’t travel then like they travel now.
“There were gems of information and when you take his little bit and her little bit, and this little bit, when you put it all together it gave me the framework to then go and hunt in the archives for the actual documents to back it all up and to flesh it out,” Legge said.
The challenge of gathering enough information “depended on the subject.”
“I talk about the wreck of the lightship Halifax #19. With that, after a lot of digging and sifting through things, there was a lot of deciding what I would use and what I would leave out.
For the most part, Legge said it was a digging process – something that she loves. “I am a detective at heart I believe,” she laughed.
Bessie A.Crooks
The memorable stories with both books are many, including for her the “most fun and exciting one” was solving the mystery of a ship that left Nova Scotia with two Liscomb people on board in 1916, which was never heard of again. Legge said the fate of the Bessie A. Crooks and its local crew members was a common topic of conversation in the community over the years.
“It was during the First World War and they assumed it was sunk by the Germans in some way, shape or form,” she said. “They knew it had gone down to the Caribbean but that was it. There was never any word from the crew.”
Through some Internet research, Legge said she unearthed much information, including names of other crew members and where the ship was lost.
“There is a little tiny, five square mile island called Saba in the Dutch Antilles in the Caribbean,” she said, noting a search for the ship’s name pinpointed a history of the island. Someone had taken a man’s work on the country’s history and placed it online. In it, he wrote about Saba’s nautical history, noting the loss of many seamen.
“In one particular instance, he wrote about his great-grandparents losing four grandsons when the Bessie A. Crooks was torpedoed by the Germans off the coast of Brazil,” Legge said, noting she contacted the historian.
“He knew not where she was from or anything more other than that word had filtered back to Saba that this is what had happened to the vessel.”
She said they learned a lot from each other, with much becoming part of her piece in the book about the ship, which was owned by a Liscomb man. Legge spoke to his grandson.
“The family story was that the grandmother had a premonition and would not let her husband go on that trip, and he did not go,” the author related.
“It was the only trip that the ship ever took that he was not the captain. They had another captain from the Valley area. He took that trip and, of course, he was lost with the rest of the crew.”
She said it was a really fun story to piece together.
“It is a little late for the old fellas that used to stop after church and say ‘I wonder whatever happened to the Bessie A. Crooks,’ so now we know,” Legge added.
‘Shreds and nooks’
As for the book’s title, Legge said she was looking for one during the time she was researching and writing. “That’s what jumped out at me.
“I thought it was really apt because when you look at the area that I am talking about – he [Rev. John Stevenson, recounting his 1832 visiting the Eastern Shore] talked about the shreds and nooks of land,” Legge said, running her finger along a map on the back of the book, noting the areas where people lived.
“It was as close as they could get to the open ocean because that was the most important thing.” Legge said Stevenson was spot on with the ‘shreds and nooks’ description.
“He really had it right,” she added.
Wide appeal
Legge agreed readers would not have to be from the communities covered in the book to enjoy the stories. “A lot of them are typical to any coastal community from that time,” she said, noting she writes about the lobster factories extensively.
“Those were all around the coast of Nova Scotia at the time.
“The local people really had no market for lobsters until the Americans came up looking for a new source of lobster because they had kind of run it out down in the New England states,” she said, noting their catches were “dropping off.”
“They came up here looking and they established lobster factories all along the coast of the Maritime Provinces and the capital came from Maine mostly,” she added.
Local people eventually learned the ropes and a whole new fishing industry was established, Legge noted.
“Until then, they used lobster as fertilizer or to feed the pigs or whatever. They had no use for them,” she said.
“It opened up a whole new world for our people,” Legge added.
What’s next?
“Probably not another book of the complexity of these last two, but I have some ideas,” she said.
Legge said there are a couple of things that came up during her research for the previous books that could be the subject for another piece.
“I am going to explore those, and maybe some day I will put together a book with half a dozen or so of those stories that have a wider appeal,” she said.
Legge also writes occasional articles for newspapers focussing on historical subjects.
“I will probably try to do a bit more of that,” she said.
Legge said there is also some family genealogy that will take centre stage on her to do list. The … shreds and nooks of land – A history of Liscomb, Spanish Ship Bay & Gegoggin, Guysborough County launch will take place Saturday, June 25 at St. Luke’s Anglican Church in Liscomb, beginning at 2:30 p.m.
Ever the historian, Legge noted one place name preference. “I prefer Liscomb without an ‘e’ on it,” she laughed.
Legge’s second book will be available at the Antigonish 5 to $1, along with Sherbrooke area locations such as Sherbrooke Village, the municipal office, St. Mary’s River Interpretive Centre and Liscombe Lodge.
They can also purchase directly from Legge, who deals with most of the distribution at (902) 779-2931 or RuthLegge@seasidehighspeed.com