Mount Denson is a small community in the

Canadian Canadians (french: Canadiens) are people identified with the country of Canada. This connection may be residential, legal, historical or cultural. For most Canadians, many (or all) of these connections exist and are collectively the source of ...

province of

Nova Scotia Nova Scotia ( ; ; ) is one of the thirteen provinces and territories of Canada. It is one of the three Maritime provinces and one of the four Atlantic provinces. Nova Scotia is Latin for "New Scotland". Most of the population are native Eng ...

, located in The Municipality of the District of West Hants in

Hants County Hants County is an historical county and census division of Nova Scotia, Canada. Local government is provided by the West Hants Regional Municipality, and the Municipality of the District of East Hants. History Formation The county of Hants ...

. The community is named after Mount Denson; the mid-eighteenth-century estate of

Henry Denny Denson Henry Denny Denson (ca 1715 – 3 June 1780) was an Irish-born soldier and political figure in Nova Scotia. He was a member of the Nova Scotia House of Assembly from 1761 to 1765 for Falmouth Township, from 16 October 1769 to 1770 for New ...

. The area first became known to Europeans in the sixteenth century as the river now known as the Avon appears on maps from this period. By 1686

Jean-Baptiste-Louis Franquelin Jean-Baptiste-Louis Franquelin (1650-c.1712) was a French trader who was appointed in the early 1670s as the first cartographer in ''Nouvelle France'' (Canada) by the colony's governor. He was appointed in 1688 as royal hydrographer by Louis XIV. ...

's map of

Acadia Acadia (french: link=no, Acadie) was a colony of New France in northeastern North America which included parts of what are now the Maritime provinces, the Gaspé Peninsula and Maine to the Kennebec River. During much of the 17th and early ...

/Nova Scotia defines the area, showing the local tributaries flowing into the Avon River. One of these tributaries, the Cacaquit or modern day Halfway River, which now forms the northern boundary of the community, is indicated on the map. By 1680 Acadian farmers had migrated out of the Port Royal area and began settling the eastern end of the Annapolis Valley including the lands about Mount Denson, then known as

Pisiquit Pisiguit is the pre-expulsion-period Acadian region located along the banks of the Pisiquit River from its confluence with the Minas Basin of Acadia, which is now Nova Scotia, including the St. Croix River drainage area. Settlement in the region ...

. Census records indicate Etienne Rivet was one of the first settlers to establish a farm. He and his progeny farmed the nearby marshlands south of Mitchener's Point as well as those in the Cacaquit River valley. His son, Etienne, operated a mill on the Cacaquit near where the river meets the uplands, just beyond the southern boundary of today's town of

Hantsport Hantsport is an unincorporated area in the West Hants Regional Municipality, Nova Scotia, Canada. It is at the western boundary between West Hants Regional Municipality and Kings County, along the west bank of the Avon River's tidal estuary. T ...

. By the 1690s Mount Denson was incorporated into the Acadian parish of Paroisse de Sainte Famille (established in 1698).Surrette, Flannery. Mapping Catholic Acadia - Parishes, Churches, Chapels, and Missions. Saint Mary's University, 2005. When the

Expulsion of the Acadians The Expulsion of the Acadians, also known as the Great Upheaval, the Great Expulsion, the Great Deportation, and the Deportation of the Acadians (french: Le Grand Dérangement or ), was the forced removal, by the British, of the Acadian pe ...

began in 1755 the area's male residents were detained at Fort Edward and later in the fall deported along with their families from the province. After the deportation of the Acadians, Nova Scotia's fine farmlands in the Bay of Fundy region remained empty and in an effort to repopulate the country the British government offered the recently vacated lands in grant to Protestants who wished to move to the colony. In 1760, Henry Denson acquired for himself 4000 acres in the new township of Falmouth and acting for the government began distributing the remaining tracts of land to

New England Planters The New England Planters were settlers from the New England colonies who responded to invitations by the lieutenant governor (and subsequently governor) of Nova Scotia, Charles Lawrence, to settle lands left vacant by the Bay of Fundy Campaign ( ...

. Many families living in Mount Denson today descend from these settlers.

Sources

Mount Denson on Destination Nova Scotia

References

Communities in Hants County, Nova Scotia General Service Areas in Nova Scotia {{HantsNS-geo-stub