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. The community is named after Mount Denson; the mid-eighteenth-century estate of Henry Denny Denson. 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'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 Port Royal is a village located at the end of the Palisadoes, at the mouth of Kingston Harbour, in southeastern Jamaica. Founded in 1494 by the Spanish, it was once the largest city in the Caribbean, functioning as the centre of shipping and co ...

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. ...

. 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 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. 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