Wharf & Waterfront

Wharf and Waterfront. Historic Lower Saint George Street. In the early hours of July 4, 1724, a combined force of Mi’kimaq and Maliseet warriors attacked Annapolis Royal, slipping into the town as its residents slept. They attacked the fort from the cover of the hollow near the east bastion. Although the assault was repulsed by artillery fire, two soldiers were killed, some wounded, and several people were captured before the attackers retreated. Two British buildings were burned in the raid., In reprisal, and by order of the governing council, one of the Mi’kmaw hostages held in the fort prison for the previous two years was taken out and executed; and claiming Acadian collusion, their two priests were expelled to Louisbourg and three Acadian dwellings were burned. Acadians were also prohibited from living in the Lower Town., Members of the town’s small British population were afraid to return to their homes. Fearing the abandonment of the Lower Town, three blockhouses were built in response to the attack; the largest was erected in the street near here. A fixture in the town for decades, it was manned by a guard from the garrison. During the 1740s, when Annapolis Royal was subjected to yearly assaults, properties bordering the Annapolis River were fenced along the riverbank. A palisade also ran diagonally behind the glebe lands to the Cape blockhouse opposite the fort’s east bastion, enclosing the Lower Town., The political and military turmoil of its first 150 years obscures the fact that this was also a community of civilians, often engaged in a precarious act of survival. Smuggling was endemic. The Acadian population and early English settlers in town engaged in trade with both Boston and its rival, Louisbourg. Feathers for bedding and hay were among the major exports during that period. Although a few private wharves existed early on, for much of its early history, the town’s small population of traders was served by the original government wharf located adjacent to the fort, known as the “King’s Wharf” and in Victoria’s era as the “Queen’s Wharf”. The arrival of the Loyalists in 1783 added a new mercantile class to what was still essentially a military town, and the number of private wharves increased on the waterfront. The first steamboat between Annapolis Royal and Saint John, New Brunswick, crossed the Bay of Fundy in 1826. In addition to commerce with that Loyalist city and traditional links to Boston and English ports, trade with the British West Indies had increased dramatically in the 19th century., The opening of the Windsor and Annapolis Railway in 1869 heralded a prosperous era for the town. The Railway Wharf with a rail line its full length became the terminus of the Annapolis Valley’s first railway and the town became the export point for much of the area’s increasingly important apple crop. Passengers and mail were able to connect with vessels to Boston once a week and to Saint John three times a week. Annapolis Royal’s advantage as a port ended in 1891 when the construction of the so-called “missing link” to Digby completed the rail line between Halifax and Yarmouth. The wharf became federal property in the 20th century and for many years was vital to the export of local pulpwood. In 1988, the wharf was completely rebuilt and was turned over to a community based non-profit group in 2001. Today it serves the local fishing fleet and recreational boaters.