Nicholson Family of Rear Beaver Cove

Nana Nicholson at her kitchen table circa. 1965 During my recent trip to Cape Breton, I browsed the book section of a gift shop at the entrance to the Cape Breton Highlands National Park just outside Cheticamp.  Not looking for anything in particular, I noticed a rather small, spiral bound cookbook entitled A Treasury of Nova Scotia Heirloom Dishes by Florence M. Hilchey, who collected these recipes "from very old cookbooks, scribblers, and notebooks."  The first recipe for "Nova Scotia Homemade Bread" convinced me that I needed to bring this souvenir home, with a wish and a prayer that it would produce rolls like the ones my grandmother made. Of course, Nana Nicholson never used a recipe to make her rolls.  At least that's what I am told, and I believe it.  When I was in first and second grade, my father dropped me off at my grandparent's house every morning so that I could walk next door to Ascension School on Vernon St. in Worcester, MA.  I h...

I often wonder about life in Rear Beaver Cove, Cape Breton at the time my grandfather was born and during the first 20 years of his life.  The pioneers who came into that wilderness from Scotland had arrived in the late 1830s.  They were the ones who cleared the forests to build the cabin homes and to plow ground for planting.  By the time Patrick Nicholson was born in 1887, there was a good size community of about 40 families in the rear. In April of 1891, the Census of Canada was conducted across the country.  At this time, my grandfather was 3 years old, living with his parents, John and Maggie Nicholson and his 2 brothers, Alex J. (8), and Daniel (1), his 2 sisters, Jessie A. (5) and Mary C. (1 month) as well as his grandparents, Alexander (88) and Catherine (78).  The census reveals that both John and his father Alexander were farmers.  Only Patrick's parents, John and Maggie could read and write at the time of the census. 1891 Census of Cana...

My mother knew him as Daddy; we knew him as Papa.  Many others knew him as P. MacE. Nicholson, Patrick or Paddy.  At one point or another in his life of 84 years, he was a husband, poet, short story writer, editor, painter, labor organizer, labor newspaper reporter, janitor, and devout Catholic father of 8 children.  This is not a complete list, but it's a good start for now. P. MacE. Nicholson He spent his first 20 years farming the land that his grandfather, Alexander Nicholson, claimed and cleared when he emigrated from the Isle of Barra in the Outer Hebrides of Scotland in 1836.  This land is located in what is known as Rear Beaver Cove, Cape Breton, Nova Scotia.  Patrick was born on that land in 1887 at a time when there was a thriving community of fellow Scottish immigrant families with names like MacMullin, Gillis, MacSween and MacNeil, to name a few.  It's called Rear Beaver Cove because Beaver Cove borders the Bras D'or Lake; Rear Beaver Co...