Avon River Heritage Society
  • About
    • Avon River Heritage Society
    • Artifacts & Archives
    • The Avon River
    • Meet the People in our Neighbourhood >
      • Dawn Allen, August 21st, 2020
      • Sara Beanlands, July 22nd, 2021
      • Carolyn Connors, July 30th, 2020
      • Carolyn Connors, July 21st, 2021
      • Louis Countinho, August 13th, 2020
      • Sean Countinho, January 13th, 2021
      • Eva Evans, July 24th, 2020
      • Elizabeth Ferguson, July 27th, 2020
      • Nicholas Hughes, August 6th, 2020
      • Olwynn Hughes, August 11th, 2020
      • Kim Lake, January 18th & 21st, 2021
      • Trudy Lake, March 13th, 2022
      • Raymond Parker, August 12th, 2020
      • Raymond Parker, July 7th, 2021
      • Zacchary Paul, August 21st, 2021
      • Tacha Reed, August 27th, 2020
      • Allen Shaw, January 18th, 2021
      • Carolyn vanGurp, July 16th, 2020
      • Abraham Zebian, August 24th, 2020
    • Avondale Walking Tour
    • Fundraising
    • Book an Appointment
  • History
    • Natural History >
      • Highest Tides in the World
      • Tidal Bore
      • Avon Peninsula Ecology
      • Birds of the Avon
      • Marine and Freshwater Species of the Avon
      • Karst Environment
      • Gypsum
      • Avon Peninsula Watershed Preservation Society >
        • Avon Peninsula Watershed Preservation Society, Interview with President, Raymond Parker
    • Mi'kmaq >
      • Mi'kmaq Birch Bark Canoes
      • Mi'kmaq of the Avon River >
        • Treaty Truckhouse 2 & Zacchary Paul
    • The Coming of the Europeans
    • The North American Colonies
    • Acadians >
      • Pisiquit
      • Acadians of the Avon River
      • Village Thibodeau (Poplar Grove)
      • Acadian Families After Expulsion
    • New England Planters >
      • New England Planters in Avondale >
        • Genealogy
        • James and Lydia Mosher
    • Loyalist
    • African Nova Scotians
    • Local Home Histories >
      • 28 Chip Hill Road
      • 51 Avondale Road
      • 38 Avondale Road: The Clifford Mosher House
      • 58 Avondale Road
      • 71 Avondale Road: The John A. Harvie House
      • 354 Belmont Road: The Yellow House
      • 603 Belmont Road: Wallace Point
      • 801 Avondale Road
      • The Acadia House
      • The Avondale Church
      • The Avondale Parsonage
      • The Church Farm
      • The Fred Robart House
      • The Henry Lyon House
      • The House Across From The Church
      • The John E.F. Mosher House
      • The Knowles Homestead
      • The Mounce Mansions >
        • Captain George R. Mounce House
        • The Thomas A. Mounce House (Honeymoon House) >
          • Interior of the Honeymoon House
      • The Mrs. Dunham Hotel
      • The Old Newton Mosher House
      • The Old Stone House >
        • The Mystery of the Fieldstone House
      • The Roley Mosher House
      • The W.H. Mosher House
    • The Avondale School
    • Golden Age of Sail >
      • The Rise and Fall of the Golden Age of Sail in Newport
      • The Mosher Shipyards
      • Sailing Ships, Sugar, and Salt
      • Vessels of the Avon River
      • Shipbuilding Process
      • Shipbuilding Tools
      • Ship Directories
      • The Avon Spirit
      • Kings Wharf
      • The Hamburg >
        • Obituary Capt. Andrew B. Coldwell
        • The Hamburg and Alice Coalfleet’s Diary
      • Captain George Richard Mounce Sr
      • Annie Armstrong Mounce Correspondence 1875-1892
      • Captain Daniel William Dexter & The Emma Payzant >
        • Captain Daniel William Dexter and Family, Interview with Debbie Siler, July 21st, 2021
        • Diary of Sarah Dexter, 1892-1893
      • The Rotundus
    • Avondale Wharf & The Landing
    • Community Orchard
    • Edmund McCarthy
  • Arts & Culture
    • The Great Little Art Show >
      • Great Little Art Show 2021 - Artists
      • Great Little Art Show 2021 - Artwork
    • Artists Landing Gallery
    • Open Studio at the Museum
    • Full Circle Festival >
      • Sofa Sundays
    • Artisans in Action >
      • Artist in Residence 2022
      • Paint Avondale
    • Avondale Wharf Day
    • Honey Harvest Festival
  • Events Calendar
  • Planters Sea Chest Gift Shop
  • Lydia and Sally Cafe
  • Rentals
  • Volunteer and Employment Opportunities
  • How to find us!

Meet the People in our Neighbourhood


Picture

Allen Shaw,  January 18th,  2021

Allen Shaw: I’m Allen Shaw, I’m one of the directors at the museum here, and my supposed claim to fame is I’m a direct descendant of Arnold Shaw that was listed in the proclamation of 1758. The history shows that he was here for the census of 1759, which I assume he showed up in 1758, which is the date of this proclamation. This (proclamation) shows my four-father, Arnold Shaw, and his brothers, John Shaw and my oral history tells me that John Shaw returned to Little Compton, Rhode Island at some point in time. There was another brother who also came up, Peter Shaw. He was a land grantee In Falmouth, and my great aunt told me that the Shaws, the “brick” Shaws, were direct descendants of that Peter Shaw. Now there's an Edgar Church in the same grant, he was married to a Grace Shaw, which would be a sister of my forefathers, and there was a Jon Wood over here, who is married to Rebecca Shaw. So actually there were five of them that came up at the same time. My assumption is they were here by 1760. This book gives you a list of all the people here in 1755 when the Acadians were expelled, but also lists the Acadians that returned to help work on the dyke and that was sometime in the 1760s. So, I'm supposedly the last farmer that's working the original grant of 1760. The Moshers and the Knowles’ were here at the same time. But if you look at the map of the land grant that is in this book (Newport, Nova Scotia, a Rhode Island Township
Founded 1760, John Victor Duncanson), they currently farm different farms than were done in 1760. Now, my niece, Sarah Beanlands, is also on the board of directors, and myself being more senior than many I was able to identify to her where all of the Acadian foundations were on the original Shaw farm, because they were not pushed in until in the 1960s. So she did excavations there and she was able to prove that the buildings, contrary to history, the houses were not burned, but the New England Planters when they came up they also inhabited the same buildings. So that's part of my family's oral history. I’m the 7th generation here. So I guess I'm connected to this museum in a lot of ways and when reading this book, I actually found out that one of my ancestors was a druggist in Windsor and he was a shareholder of five or six of the ships that were built here in Newport Landing. 

Tacha Reed: Oh, wow!

AS: So anyway, that's my story. 

TR: So who is your farm going to pass on to, the next generation of Shaws?

AS: Well, unfortunately my three children don't seem to be interested in farming, so that's the dilemma that I'm faced with, you know so, seven generations is not a record. I know people down in Horton who are already in the ninth generation to be on the same land grant. So it's not totally unique, but it's unusual, so I haven't got that all figured yet, I still have time. 

TR: You have time. So you somehow along the way ended up with the waiting room for the Rotundus. How did that end up in your possession? 

AS: Actually the way the waiting room for the Rotundus ended up in my procession was I bought the Vaughnie (SP?) and Emily Withrow property just up the road here, 319 Belmont Road, and Vaughnie was a very good friend of my father and I spent a lot of time down there as a child and when they passed on they left word to their descendants that if the farm was to be ever sold that I should have first offer on it. And they also told me that grainery that's on the barn was actually the waiting room for the Rotundus and there's carvings in there and it's the right period and the community history is that that is the waiting room of the Rotundus. Now how it got moved up there, I do not know, but I can remember as a child coming down here to the Avondale wharf and that waiting room was still there on the wharf in 1960 something, so it would have been moved up in the 1960s and it was made into a grainery. Now the roof looks like it's been modified, but the base of it is definitely a period of what the Rotundus would have been doing. 

TR: Do you think that the building should be preserved and turned into something that people could visit, or what do you see in the future for the waiting room? 

AS: I would like to see that Rotundus building return here. At the moment there's no suitable place for it, but if there is I would definitely like to see it returned here where people could actually visit it, because I mean, it's just a building that has historical significance and it would be most valued I believe if it was placed here, close to this Museum. So I'm hoping someday that we get this all sorted out and we find a location suitable for the Rotundus waiting room and maybe we can restore it to, as it looked in the pictures. So anyway, that's a work in progress. 

TR: Did you have anything else you wanted to say? 

AS: No, that’s my history. So anyway, I'm enjoying my time on the directorship here at the Museum and it's good to see such a vibrant society and we hope for many good years going ahead. 

TR: Awesome, thank you Allen.

Avon River Heritage Society Museum, 17 Belmont Road, Avondale/Newport Landing, Hants County, Nova Scotia, B0N 2A0
Email us at infoavonriver@gmail.com
Telephone us, May through October, at (902) 757-1718