For the past several years an anonymous person has set up a lighted Christmas tree in the entrance of the iconic vacant house at Rossville.  There have also been lights at Halloween.  Here is a link to some media reports in the past.

During its one and a quarter century of occupation, it was an impressive house compared to other farm houses in the area.  It was a full two story dwelling without the second floor rooms being compromised by dormer ceilings.  It was neatly painted white with green trim and stood in a commanding manner above the road.   It would have been quite the novelty when it was built around 1860.   

This post will summarize the families that inhabited this house and those before it.

This 100 acre property was first settled by Donald MacKay better known as “Donald Ross”.  There were at least four settlers named Donald MacKay so for clarity this Donald was tagged after his home in Rossville¹.  He was the son of Sandy MacKay and Janet MacLeod, Rogart.   There is no record of the parents coming to Nova Scotia.  Like many of the settlers, Donald entered the military in 1809 at the age of 16 and served in the West Indies with the 55^th Foot between December 19, 1809 and January 4^th, 1814.  Having already experienced a Transatlantic crossing, the decision to emigrate to Nova Scotia would not be daunting.

 Donald was single when he arrived in Earltown as evidenced by the standard 100 acre grant he received.  His old friend from Rogart, Donald Ross, was in charge of guiding the settlers in from Pictou and likely helped him pick out the location near the Ross brothers.  Behind him was Rogart’s John Sutherland “Ballem” and to the Northeast was Alex MacKay “Judge”, another Rogart settler. Considering the topography of the area, Donald didn’t do too badly. There was a good acreage of level and fertile ground along the Nabiscamp Brook in addition to a slope behind the house suitable for pastures but could also be cultivated.

Donald “Ross” MacKay rectified his marital status by marrying  Marion MacKay around 1819. She  was born in Rogart in 1793 to Alex and Christy MacKay.  There is a faint thread of oral history that suggests that her parents came to Nova Scotia and settled, if not in Earltown, somewhere close by in Pictou County.  Her sister Christy married another Donald MacKay at MacBain’s Corner.

Marion and Donald “Ross” had three children that we know about:   Janet, (1820-1857), Marion (1825- ), and John (1830-1910).   Janet never married and is buried beside her parents in Knox Cemetery.  Marion married Joseph MacCulloch and they settled in Diamond.  John alias “John MacKay Ross” inherited the homeplace.

It was John MacKay Ross’s marriage in 1860 that gave rise to the need for an upgraded dwelling to accommodate both his parents and what he hoped would be a growing young family.  His bride was Janet Murray “Og” from Back Mountain.  The 1860’s were prosperous years when Earltown was at the height of its population with its lumber and farm produce being in demand.  The exodus to the West was yet to begin.

John and Janet or Jennie had six children.  Christy married Donald MacKay “Achany” at The Falls; Janet never married; Marion died at the age of 19; Maggie married Manning Lake of Hants County and lived in Cohasset, Ma.;  Donald and finally Mima who married Jerimiah Murphy of Ireland in Boston.

Life in this house was not always happy.  Daughter Janet had died before 1881.  In 1887 Marion died at the age of 19.  It was somewhere in this time frame that Jennie, the mother, passed away.  The eldest daughter Christy died in 1892 at The Falls leaving two young boys.

On Sept 21, 1893  John married Henrietta Isabel Morrison.   John was 63 at the time and his bride was 25 per the marriage certificate but later records show that she was probably 23.  Bella Etta is on the 1901 census so the marriage survived presumably until John’s death in 1910.   Where Bella went after this is currently unknown.  Her father was a Morrison from Nuttby and her mother was a Stewart from an old farm near Gunn’s Cemetery.  

Son Donald Alexander was heir apparent to the farm.  In the late 1890’s he married Jennie Belle Sutherland of Earltown Lake.   Sadly this marriage was short lived.  Jennie Belle died on July 15^th, 1898 and was buried in the Earltown Village Cemetery with an infant daughter.   Donald, often called Dan, remained with his father and stepmother for a few years and then went west to work in the smelters of Trail, British Columbia.   While there he married Florence Twells in 1908.  They returned to Nova Scotia where they raised their 5 children on a showcase farm at Lower Onslow.

Meanwhile in Earltown, John died in 1910 and by 1911 the farm had been taken over by John Murray “Og” . John Og was the brother Jennie, first wife of John MacKay “Ross”.  This move was likely precipitated by the marriage of his son Rod who may have wanted a more accessible farm than the old place on Back Mountain.

John had been married to Alexandrina “Lexy” MacDonald (1846-1903) of North River and they had five children all born on Back Mountain.   Christena, a teacher, was the second wife of Robert MacIntosh, Clydesdale; Jessie, unmarried, lived her adult life in Medford, Ma.; Sibbie Bell died at the age of 28; William Roderick, known as Rod, married Barbara MacLeod of the The Falls; and Neil Dan, a blacksmith, moved to Cape Cod where he worked for Berichon native Hugh Baillie manufacturing cranberry harvesters.

John Og died in 1919 and the farm was fully in the hands of Rod and Barbara.  They are remembered to this day as a warm and hospitable couple, very neat about their property but also very thrifty in the Scottish sense.  They had four children born in the old house : Allister, Sybel, Ken and Marion.

Ken married and lived in Truro until his death in 2019.   Marion  was married and lived in Brentwood.  Allister and Sybell, both unmarried, remained at home to run the farm.  Allister was the clerk of the Presbyterian Church.   After Allister’s death in 1974, Sybell moved to Truro and the farm was sold to the MacKenzie family.

The MacKenzies lived here for several years and then abandoned the dwelling.  Lori MacKenzie tells of a wonderful childhood in this CBC interview and as she explains, life took the family in other directions.

Like all those dwellings that have disappeared over the past century, it saw the birth of new generations, hosted wakes for the dead, entertained guests at weddings, welcomed neighbours for a visit and was the administrative centre for the family farm. The old landmark is gasping its last breath this winter, (2024), and will soon join the hundreds of empty cellars scattered throughout the surrounding hills.

1. During this Donald MacKay’s lifetime, there was Donald “Pentioner”, Donald “Deacon”, Donald “Miller”, Donald “Magomish”, Donald “Uhr”, Donald “Gouda”, Red Donald, Black Donald, Donald “Judge” also known as Danny Baptist, Big Hector’s Donald, Donald “Achlean” and likely others. ↩︎