The Importance of the Starr Family of Kings County, Nova Scotia
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SHINING STARS: THE IMPORTANCE OF THE STARR FAMILY OF KINGS COUNTY, NOVA SCOTIA by Samuel Normand Howes Thesis submitted in partial fulfillment of the requirements of the Degree of Bachelor of Arts with Honours in History Acadia University March 2012 © Copyright by Samuel Normand Howes, 2012 This thesis by Samuel Normand Howes is accepted in its present form by the Department of History as satisfying the thesis requirements for the degree of Bachelor of Arts with Honours Approved by the Thesis Supervisor __________________________ ____________________ Dr. Barry Moody Date Approved by the Head of the Department __________________________ ____________________ Dr. Paul Doerr Date Approved by the Honours Committee __________________________ ____________________ Dr. Pritam Ranjan Date ii I, Samuel Normand Howes, grant permission to the University Librarian at Acadia University to reproduce, loan or distribute copies of my thesis in microform, paper or electronic formats on a non- profit basis. I, however, retain the copyright in my thesis. _________________________________ Signature of Author _________________________________ Date iii Acknowledgements Thanks to Wendy Robicheau for convincing me to choose the archival option for my thesis and for always helping whenever I needed guidance. As well, Bethany and Liz in the Kirkconnell Room were often a huge help. Thanks as well to Dr. Barry Moody for taking the time to be my supervisor when he had little time to give and for sparking my interest in Maritime history. As well, thanks to Dr. Gillian Poulter for giving her time to be my second reader, and for introducing me to the area of Public History. To Dr. Jennifer MacDonald and Dr. Michael Dennis, thanks for being so inspirational and motivating me to work at my best possible level, for always being so understanding, and for always keeping my interest in history alive and strong. A special thanks to my family who has always been there and supported me. And to my friends, especially my fellow Honours students. We worked well together this year and were able to understand each other and build our own support system, but also form some great memories together. Finally, to Harry and the rest of the Starr family, who always had an interest in history, and thus allowed me to work with this incredible collection over the last year. iv Contents Acknowledgements ........................................................................................................... iv Abstract ............................................................................................................................. vi Preface ............................................................................................................................. vii Starr Family Fonds finding aid .......................................................................................... 1 Table of contents .................................................................................................... 2 Biographical history ............................................................................................... 3 File listing .............................................................................................................. 4 Custodial History ................................................................................................. 36 Appendix .............................................................................................................. 39 Shining Stars: The Importance of the Starr Family of Kings County, Nova Scotia .................... 40 Appendix .............................................................................................................. 69 Bibliography ........................................................................................................ 70 v Abstract The Starr Family of Kings County, Nova Scotia is remembered in the community quite well, but they have largely been ignored in regards to academic research. They are quite often considered important to the community of Cornwallis, especially within the context of their own family, but little has been done discussing this. The Starr family fonds has been revealing in the activities of the Starr family and just how they were significant to Cornwallis and the surrounding areas. As an archival thesis, the preface to the thesis discusses the archival process of working with the Starr Family fonds, and follows with the finding aid produced while working with the collection, detailing the records found in the fonds. The format of the finding aid is consistent with RAD (The Rules for Archival Description). The second section of the thesis discusses the importance of the Starr Family in Cornwallis, Nova Scotia, using the fonds to supply the main primary sources. The records and secondary research reveal the activities of the Starr Family that resulted in their significance. This section also discusses whether the Starr family truly was important to the community, or if they just viewed themselves in this way and inflated their status. The thesis concludes that the Starr family did, to a certain degree, inflate their status, but they were important to the community as well. vi Preface Harry Starr began donating records to the Esther Clark Wright Archives while he was still alive and from time to time would make donations. After his death in 1990, the remaining records he had collected were donated to the archives by stipulation of his will. The records consisted of the Prat and Starr family and were split between the Esther Clark Wright Archives and the Nova Scotia Archives. The records were placed into large boxes where very little was done with the records. However, one step was taken in that the records were separated between the Starr and Prat families, creating two separate collections. Some of the earlier papers had already been sorted and placed in acid free folders while others had little organization. I began working with the collection late in the summer of 2011 and began by making a list of what records were present. This was an important step as it laid out dividing lines, showing what types of records existed, and whose records were in the collection. Harry’s papers visibly made up the majority of the collection, and a wide variety of records were present in his papers. At this point I decided the best way to proceed was to sort the records by person. As there was such a wide range of dates represented, it seemed sensible to sort it this way as it was a simple dividing line. The early papers had largely been sorted already, so I took a quick inventory of these files and then moved to the later records, especially Harry’s. While there was some order to his papers, some order had to be imposed to sort and label the collection. In many of the records, an order had already been established. In these cases, I went through the files to verify that they had been sorted correctly into the folders. For records vii that had not been sorted, I then looked through and decided whether they should stay in the order they were already in or if I should impose an order. In most cases, the records that had not already been placed in folders were in no particular order, so I collected like records and placed them together in chronological order. During the process of sorting the records, preventative measures were taken to keep the records in their original state as much as possible. Metal paper clips and staples were removed to keep from destroying the paper, papers were removed from envelopes and unfolded, and the records were moved into acid free folders. Newspaper clippings were photocopied and replaced with the photocopies as newspaper is highly acidic and destructive. One of the most time consuming aspects during this time was the separation of photographs. These had largely been kept in stacks and unprotected. The proper way to store photographs involves keeping them separate from the textual records and in different conditions, but this is not possible with the facilities available at the Esther Clark Wright Archives. However, other steps were done to protect the photographs from harm. I removed them from the stacks and placed them in individual envelopes to keep them from causing harm to other photographs. If photographs had more than one copy, they were placed in one envelope but with a piece of tissue paper between them. If photographs came together in one envelope, I made sure to keep them together, whereas some others were grouped together when they had not been before. Also during the process I had to remove some items from the collection. I soon found some items that had not been moved to the Prat family collection yet belonged in the Prat collection. The family Bible was one example of this. I looked through it finding the family sheet and found that it actually belonged to the Prat family, so it was viii moved there. This also occurred with some of the photographs. Other items that were removed were published materials. If there was not a significant amount of annotations within the items, then they were removed and given to the librarians in Special Collections to see if they were worth keeping in the library. Overall the process of sorting the collection and placing them into the proper conditions took nearly six months. The total collection is placed in six boxes, with some oversized items placed separately. When looking through the collection, trying to find topics to research, and doing some research on the family, I realized that Harry