The Township of St. Mary's

New Englanders were accustomed to administering their municipal affairs by township meetings, and brought this custom to Nova Scotia. At a meeting of the settlement held by appointment on February 11^th, 1814 the following officers were chosen and their names ordered to be returned to the clerk for the Settlement to the Quarter Sessions at Halifax for confirmation:⁽³⁰⁾

At the request of a number of inhabitants on the St. Mary's River, St. Mary's Township was established on March 28, 1818. However, the township was in both Halifax and Sydney (now Guysborough) counties because the river was the dividing line.⁽³¹⁾

In 1819 the inhabitants of the township of St. Mary's petitioned the Lieutenant-Governor, the Earl of Dalhousie, to alter the boundary because "the increasing population of this Township and its remote situation renders it extremely necessary that a court for the Summary Trial of Action should be held therein, and the Village of Sherbrooke being nearly central, and the only place in this settlement, where mercantile business is done and merchandise exchanged for timbers, sawed lumber, and other produce, and as the distance from Halifax to any other market for produce, causes all communication in that way to be carried on by Sea, the said Village has heretofore been and, no doubt will continue to be the principal resort for Trade and other purposes; and (your petitioners humbly presume) the proper place for holding the said Court, and Transacting public business in the said Township." Those signing the petition were David Archibald 3^rd, John K. McKeen, Israel Nickerson, David Campbell, William Sinclair, Alexander Manson, Robert Henderson, George Bruce, William T. Archibald, James Campbell, Wentworth Taylor, David Fisher, John McIntosh, Hugh McCutcheon, James Kirker, John O'Brien, Thomas Pye Jr., Henry Baker, William Taylor, and Nathaniel Niles.⁽³²⁾

By an order-in-council on October 22, 1822 that part of St. Mary's Township which had been in Halifax County was annexed to Sydney (now Guysborough) County.⁽³³⁾

One of the first actions taken by the Township of St. Mary's was the erection of a Jail. In 1819 the Grand Jury of Sydney County voted "a Sum of Fifteen Pounds to aid the Inhabitants of Said township to erect a Jail in the village of Sherbrooke, provided a like Sum of fifteen Pounds shall be raised by the said Inhabitants for the same purpose".⁽³⁴⁾ The leading businessmen pledged themselves to pay certain sums to Mr. David Campbell, one of the commissioners appointed to erect the jail e.g.:

In 1827 the sum of 25 pounds was voted to complete the Jail at Sherbrooke.⁽³⁵⁾

At this time the 280,000 acres of St. Mary's Township were inhabited by 249 families.⁽³⁶⁾

Thomas C. Haliburton, the Nova Scotian lawyer and judge who is remembered for his books about Sam Slick, the Yankee clock peddler, wrote in his Historical and Statistical Account of Nova Scotia.⁽³⁷⁾

Sherbrooke is situated at the extreme head of the navigation of the river, and is accessible by vessels of fifty or sixty tons burden. In the years 1824-25 and 26, fourteen cargoes of timber were shipped at Sherbrooke for the British market, amounting in the whole to 4,155 tons of timber, 63-460 feet of three inch pine plank, and 76 cords of lath-wood, besides spars, cars, handspikes and it is probably that during the three preceding years, a similar quantity was exported. In 1827, 400,000 feet of sawed lumber, and 100 head of horned cattle were sent from this place to Halifax and during the last seven years, ten vessels of from 50 to 1000 tons burden were built here. A new road has been opened to Musquodoboit, erected over the west branch with a span of 90 feet. The Township of St. Mary's possesses many important natural advantages, and only requires population and industry, with an addition to its capital, to render it one of the most populous and thriving settlements in Nova Scotia.