LOCATION:

Just minutes from the Halifax/Dartmouth bridges, heading east of Dartmouth along Route #207.

WHAT'S IN A NAME?

The area when it was originally settled was known to the Mi'kmaq as "Wonpaak," which means "still water" or "white water." The English name may refer to an early pioneer family, though in a land grant of 1765 it is called Coal Harbour.

SETTLEMENT HISTORY:

A few years after Dartmouth was founded in 1750, Governor Charles Lawrence decided to have a road constructed to the township that would eventually bear his name. Houses appeared along the road and soon news reached the Foreign Protestant settlers in the Lunenbur area that rich farmland could be found to the east of Dartmouth. Several families moved to the region, where they were later joined by New England settlers and then by the United Empire Loyalists arriving from the United States after the American Revolution.

GENEALOGY:

The community was originally part of a grant issued to Benjamin Green Jr. in 1765. Others who settled in the area included families with the name of Beck, Bisett, Conrad, Gammon, Turner, Morash and Settle, many of whom have descendants still residing in the area.

Among the earliest settlers was Thomas Beamish, grandfather of Dr. Thomas Beamish Akins who wrote an early history of Halifax. In 1782, George Bisett (Bizette) and George Harper both received 600-acre grants. The Bisett family built the first oat mill in the community. By 1830, the Gammon family arrived and became renowned for their finely designed furniture. Toolmaker James Beck also resided in the area and made the ploughs and other farm implements needed to cultivate the land.

COLE HARBOUR TODAY:

In 1973, the Cole Harbour Rural Heritage Society was formed to preserve the area's heritage. The Society operates the popular Cole Harbour Heritage Farm Museum at 471 Poplar Drive. The land, located today in an urban setting, was owned by a number of families over the years, including those with the names of Hartshorne, Turner, Settle and Harris. On the property is the Giles Saltbox House, one of the oldest buildings in Cole Harbour, built around 1804 or earlier. In 1976 the Nova Scotia Housing Commission moved the house to its present location at the Cole Harbour Heritage Farm Museum.

Today many of the old farmsteads have gone. Now the community is a large residential subdivision. Bel-Ayr was established in 1959. Colby Village was developed by 1970, and it was followed by the Forest Hills subdivision a year later.

The Cole Harbour Parks and Trails Association along with the Cold Harbour Rural Heritage Society joined forces to achieve park status for the salt marshes found within the area of the Trans Canada Trail project being developed around the Cole Harbour area. In 1998 the association was successful in acquiring their objective of full park status. They are now in the process of developing the abandoned railway lines as public tails in the hopes of increasing Tourism, and therein the economy as well.

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