PLEASE NOTE: This is a 5:34 minute clip, over 5.2MB, in MP3 format, so make sure your computer can handle it.
[ FTM
Nicholson Homepage | Robert
Nicholson’s Homepage ]
[ Descendants of William NICHOLSON of Spryfield, Halifax
County, Nova Scotia ]
[ Map of Beaver Bank Settlement Land | “Translation” of
Beaver Bank Settlement Deed ]
This page was last updated
Sunday, September 21, 2003 7:43 PM
CT
To contact me, please send
e-mail to: Marsha
L. Hillson Gerace
The Story of the Nicholsons of Spryfield
Thank you to Iris
V. Shea of the Mainland
South Heritage Society and Karl A. Robinson for information contained
on this page.
The NICHOLSONs of Spryfield¹, Halifax County, Nova Scotia
were in charge of the water supply for the City of Halifax for almost a century,
starting in 1848 when the dam at Long Lake was built. William Nicholson,
Sr. was probably the first Dam Keeper. There were Nicholsons associated with
the dam until World War II. William’s sons, George and Charles Jonah, were
Keepers of the Dam in subsequent years. Charles Jonah was at the Chain Lakes
Dam as caretaker until his death on September 07, 1923, and George was at
Spryfield (Long Lake) as caretaker. Charles Jonah was also a cabinetmaker
and carpenter and seemed to follow that trade until he became Keeper of the
Dam at Chain Lakes. George Hartlen, farther-in-law of Agnes Nicholson (granddaughter
of William Nicholson, Sr.), was the Keeper of the Dam at Spruce Hill Lake.
City workers now look after the water supply¹. They check
for the buildup of any algae, or anything that might affect the quality of
the water. No one person is stationed at the site any more. The dams on the
lakes where the Nicholsons worked, are no longer part of the Halifax water
supply, but Chain Lake is still protected by the city, in case it ever has
to be used as a backup. There is a “pump house” there. If you get to Halifax
for a visit, there is still evidence of the dam and the operation that was
carried out at the Spruce Hill site, which the Hartlens managed. The Keeper
had to do periodic checks of the water, and would open the dam to allow water
out, if the lake became too high. Nobody was permitted to use those lakes
for swimming. Long Lake, where the original Nicholson family lived, was no
longer used as “watershed” (that’s the term they used for the lakes that
were used to supply Halifax with water) after 1965-66. There were pipelines
built as early as 1848, and so the Keeper would have to inspect them as well
for damage or leaks.
¹Iris
V. Shea, Mainland South
Heritage Society 
Charles
Jonah’s son, Charles Edward, took over as caretaker at Chain Lakes Dam after
his father had the job for 40 years, and George’s son, Charles W.² continued
as the Keeper of Long Lake in Spryfield until the duty was taken over by
the military in response to a perceived sabotage threat in circa 1940. In
the 1930s, Charles W., also looked after Spruce Hill Lake and would go on
horseback to take the water samples. He was living in a small cottage about ¼ mile
from the Spryfield site at the time of his death in 1961.
My
grandfather, Edgar Wellesley “Ted” Nicholson, grandson of Charles Jonah,
was a plumber all his life in Woburn, Massachusetts, immigrating in 1906
from Halifax, Nova Scotia. During 1943³, he worked in Oak
Ridge, Tennessee, 20 miles west of Knoxville, for Stone & Webster
Engineering Corp. on the Tennessee Valley Project; a project that covered
about 41,000 square miles, including parts of 7 states, and constructed 27
dams in all. He was employed as a piping supervisor in the construction of
the Oak Ridge National
Laboratory, where “the wartime role of the Laboratory was to find a way
to produce and separate gram quantities of plutonium for use in the development
of the bomb.” Although he was not a “Keeper of the Dam,” my grandfather continued
in the “family business” by helping to build the dams of the TVA.
²Karl A. Robinson
³ Edgar Wellesley Nicholson, Letter to the Editor, James D.
Haggerty of the Woburn Daily Times,
October 12, 1943
Photo of dam courtesy of Gerry
MacLeod
Photo of Ted Nicholson courtesy of William
E. Nicholson
Marsha L. Hillson Gerace, BLACK CAT
graphics, ©1999-2003
Please contact the Webmaster if
you have any comments or problems with this site.