The Cunard Line

The Aquitania leaves Liverpool on her maiden voyage circa 1914 courtesy http://www.liverpoolecho.co.uk/news/liverpool-news/reflecting-one-greatest-ocean-liners-7233961.

Samuel Cunard, raised in Halifax, was the son of a German Quaker and an Irish Roman Catholic who fled the United States during the American Revolution, part of a large group of United Empire Loyalists.  During the War of 1812, Cunard fought on the British side with the second battalion of the Halifax Regiment.  The young man was a highly successful entrepreneur who was one of 12 people to greatly influence the affairs of Halifax.

In 1830, Cunard founded the Halifax Steamboat Company which ran a steamship between Halifax and Quebec.  Seven years later, Cunard travelled to the United Kingdom where he made a successful bid to run a trans-Atlantic mail service.  The result was Cunard Steamships Limited.  In 1840, the company's first steamship, the Britannia, sailed from Liverpool to Halifax and then on to Boston.  Cunard's ships soon earned a reputation for speed and safety.  However, that reputation came with a hefty cost; Cunard fled creditors in Halifax by 1843, unable to pay his bills.  By the following year, however, the entrepreneur started to turn a profit.

The Cunard Line has owned several famous ships over the decades.  The Carpathia (1901) came to the rescue of the Titanic when it sank in 1912.  The Lusitania (1906) was torpedoed by German U-boats and sunk in 1915.  The Aquitania (1914) served in both World War I and World War II.  The Queen Mary (1936) transported royalty, movie stars and war brides across the Atlantic.

Britannia sails from Liverpool to Halifax circa 1840 courtesy http://postalhistorycorner.blogspot.ca/2014/02/canadian-letter-rates-to-united-kingdom.html.

Old Town Lunenburg

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lunenburg,_Nova_Scotia

Lunenburg, established in 1753, was a planned British colonial settlement which has retained much of its original appearance.  The town, situated on the south shore of Nova Scotia, was settled by Protestants in an attempt to offset the large number of Acadian Catholics and Mikmaqs in the area.  The town has a seemingly German name as it was named after Britain's King, George August of Hanover, also the Duke of Braunschweig-Luneberg.

It is surprising that the town, filled with a mix of multi-coloured buildings, remains as beautiful as it does for Lunenburg has endured many attacks.  In the 1750's, the Acadian and Mikmaq militias attacked the town in a series of raids.  British officer John Knox wrote:  "In the year 1757, we were said to be masters of the province of Nova Scotia or Acadia, which, however, was only an imaginary possession..."

In 1775, during the American Revolution, the Yankees raided Lunenberg.  Again, in 1782, they attacked the town.  On both occasions, the town was devastated.

During the War of 1812, private citizens of Lunenburg were called on to build or purchase privateer ships to attack American vessels.  "After a long battle in Mahone Bay, the Lunenberg militia was sent to take prisoners from the American privateer, Young Teazer."

A relative peace came to the area by the early to mid-1800's and its residents could focus on making a living. Lunenburg became known for its agricultural industry as farmers took advantage of the fertile soil on the rolling drumlins of Nova Scotia.  In the 19th Century Lunenburg became a major fishing centre, drawing on the schools of fish on the offshore banks.  Lunenburg shipping yards specialized in building wooden fishing schooners which remained competitive until the 1920's.  The most famous of these, the Bluenose, which won the International Fisherman's Trophy, is immortalized on our Canadian dime.

Designated a UNESCO World Heritage site in 1995, the town was also featured on a Canadian stamp in 2014.

http://www.therecord.com/news-story/4522426-new-stamps-celebrate-canada-s-unesco-world-heritage-sites/

The Shakers: Hands to Work, Hearts to God

"Back in the early 1980's, when my then wife Amy Stechler and I were driving through rural western Massachusetts, we came across a remarkable round stone barn on the side of the road whose shape and exquisite workmanship made me stop in my tracks...Who are the people who would make such a thing?  It turned out to be the religious converts at the Hancock Shaker Village." (Ken Burns)

After completing The Brooklyn Bridge, an urban based documentary, Ken Burns turned his attention towards a rural documentary, The Shakers:  Hands to Work, Hearts to God.  While their official name remained the "United Society of Believers in Christ's Second Appearing", unofficially they were called the Shakers after the ecstatic dancing they performed.

Ken Burns came upon the Shakers by accident.  "Back in the early 1980's, when my then wife Amy Stechler and I were driving through rural western Massachusetts, we came across a remarkable round stone barn on the side of the road whose shape and exquisite workmanship made me stop in my tracks...Who are the people who would make such a thing?  It turned out to be the religious converts at the Hancock Shaker Village." (http://www.pbs.org/kenburns/shakers/shakers/)

The Shakers movement began with a former factory worker from England named Ann Lee who immigrated to America in 1774 with eight pilgrims on the eve of the American Revolution.  She practiced celibacy, never married and never had children as did all of the Shakers.  She told her followers to give up their families, property and ties "to know...the peaceable nature of Christ's kingdom" Quakers believed that Christ had come again in the form of "Mother Ann".  Soon, the religious movement was sweeping New England.  At its peak, in 1840, the Quakers included 6,000 people in 19 communal villages which stretched from New England to Ohio to Kentucky.

Shakers were passionate about their work which produced reliable goods and bounteous gardens.  Surplus food was given to the poor.  They were ahead of their time:  women were granted equal rights within the commune by 1787, the year that the United States drafted their Constitution.  In 1817, members who had joined the movement with slaves set them free.  The Emancipation Proclamation was not signed until 1863.  A Shaker owned one of the first automobiles in New Hampshire.  While the state capitol was burning gas, Shakers in the state already had electricity.  

Because the Shakers did not believe in procreation, they eventually died out.  At the time of Ken Burns' documentary debut, there was only a single village of Shakers remaining in Maine.

http://www.pbs.org/kenburns/shakers/shakers/

Plymouth Rock

"This rock has become an object of veneration in the United States.  I have seen bits and pieces of it carefully preserved in several towns in the Union.  Does this sufficiently show that all human power and greatness is in the soul of man?  Here is a stone in which the feet of a few outcasts pressed for an instant; and the stone becomes famous; it is treasured by a great nation; its very dust is shared as a relic."  (Alexis de Tocqueville, upon the occasion of his visit from France, 1834)

Plymouth Rock, on which 135 Pilgrims first landed in 1620, courtesy http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Plymouth_Rock.

Forty years ago, when my family visited Boston, we made the pilgrimage to Plymouth Rock.  Two things stood out in my seven-year-old mind:  the fact that my dad had to bend over when we explored the decks of the Mayflower and the bronze pilgrim figurine that my mom bought me at the gift shop. Here is the history of the great rock..

Plymouth, located on the Atlantic Ocean 45 miles south of Boston, is where the Pilgrims chose to land in 1620.  Alexis de Tocqueville called them outcasts as they were a group of separatists fleeing the persecution of the Church of England.  The group, numbering in the dozens, had first landed at Provincetown, Massachusetts on Cape Cod in November.  After stealing some corn, getting in a skirmish with the Natives and failing to find a good place to settle, they set off again.  

Henry Bacon's painting circa 1834 courtesy http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Plymouth_Rock.

On a blustery December day, they landed at Plymouth where they happened upon a giant rock which served as a natural dock.  They decided to call it Plymouth after the town that they had disembarked from in England.  Relieved to have reached land, grateful to have survived that first winter and thankful for God's bountiful harvest that first summer, the Pilgrims celebrated the first Thanksgiving the following November.  

Elder Faunce, in the "Story of the Pilgrim Fathers" (1841), confirmed that his father landed at the same rock in 1623 upon arriving from England.  In 1774, on the eve of the American Revolution, the giant rock was split in two, the top half remaining at the site, the bottom half being relocated to the town's meeting house in Plymouth.  Passersby would sometimes chip pieces off the stone as keepsakes.

The 1867 structure courtesy http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Plymouth_Rock.

The rock remained there for 50 years.  In 1834, it was relocated to Pilgrim Hall where a Victorian Canopy was built around it in 1867.  As in the past, tourists would sometimes steal pieces of the rock as souvenirs.

In 1880, the top half of the rock was re-attached to the bottom half of the rock at the Atlantic shoreline.  The 1620 date was carved into the rock at that time.  Estimated to weigh 20,000 pounds in 1620, the rock now measures about a third of its original size.  

While the rock has lost much of its weight, it has not lost its intrigue.  Nearly one million people flock to Plymouth each year to view the rock, a tad more than first landed on it almost 400 years ago.

The Parthenon-like portico circa 1970's, the way it would have looked when I visited on my Boston trip courtesy dreamstime.com.