In March 1884 a newly ordained deacon, the Reverend Ned Harris, arrived in Mahone Bay, Nova Scotia, from Charlottetown, Prince Edward Island, via King’s College in Windsor, Nova Scotia, as assistant to the Reverend W.H. Snyder, who had been Anglican Rector of Mahone Bay since 1858. Every few days Ned wrote a letter home describing his adventures. The Letters are full of tales of his horse, Jet, and his dog, Col (both Prince Edward Islanders like himself), and his encounters with all manner of folk, ranging from Bishop Hibbert Binney (whom he lost in the woods), the Rector and Mrs. Snyder, and his fellow clergy, to the Ernsts, Grays, Knauts, Zwickers, Maders, Keddys, Hyssons, Slauenwhites, Inglises, Langilles, Venoits, Demones, Oickles and others who were his parishioners living in Mahone Bay, Blockhouse, Clearland, Fauxburg, Maitland, Swedeland, Northfield, Newburn, Woodstock, New Germany, Martin’s River and Indian Point. Central to the story he tells is the building of St. James’s Church, Mahone Bay, designed by his brother William, which stands today as one of the landmark buildings of Nova Scotia. In the mid 1880s St. James’s Church was the subject of sharp controversy, the story of which has never been told until now.

LETTERS FROM MAHONE BAY has been put together by Ned Harris’s grandson, Canon Robert Tuck, with assistance from his great granddaughter, Dr. Elizabeth Eayrs, and his great grandson, Graham Tuck. The 220 page book is richly illustrated with 18 pages of early Mahone Bay photographs and sketches in black and white, many of them made by Ned Harris himself, and includes 8 pages of reproductions in colour of portraits - and some local landscapes - painted by his brother, Robert Harris, PRCA, CMG, Canada’s Confederation Painter.

Every lover of Mahone Bay and Lunenburg County will enjoy Letters From Mahone Bay and the insight it offers into what life was like in both church and community on Nova Scotia’s South Shore in the 1880s.

To order LETTERS FROM MAHONE BAY send $19.95 plus $5.00 for postage and packaging to Maplewood Books, 90 Maplewood Crescent, Charlottetown, Prince Edward Island, Canada, C1A 2X6 or Email your order to <rctuck@maplewoodmall.ca>, in which case you will be billed. Copies may also be available at the following outlets:

In Mahone Bay - KEDDY'S LANDING and MAHONE BAY MERCANTILE

In Bridgewater - SAGOR'S BOOKSTORE and COLES

In Lunenburg - ATTIC OWL BOOKS and DIANE FALKENHAM CRAFTS

In Charlottetown - THE BOOKMARK and THE CANADIAN BIBLE SOCIETY