Birthplace
Overview
T.C. Haliburton’s
NS c1800
Overview
NS 1st Historian
Windsor
King’s College
Hurley
on Long Pond
TCH’s
Long Pond
Clifton
Grove
Waterways
Windsor Gypsum
Bluenose
Why He Wrote
Wise Saws
Bibliography
Works Online
Sam
Slick’s Words
Related
Pages
Acadians
Rhode
Island to NS
MacMechan
Hist/Stat
Chittick
Hist/Stat
TCH
Explains Hist/Stat
Alexander
Meets TCH
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"Nicknames stick to people, and the most ridiculous are the most adhesive."
– Thomas Chandler Haliburton
Thomas Chandler Haliburton
–
His works are about Nova Scotia and "Mr. Blue Nose"
The Old Judge or Life in the Colony – Preface
by Thomas Chandler Haliburton
The
following sketches of "Life in the colony" were drawn from nature, after
a residence of half a century among people whose habits, manners, and social condition
they are intended to delineate. I have adopted the form of a tour, and the character
of a stranger, for the double purpose of avoiding the prolixity* of a journal,
by the omission of tedious details, and the egoism of an author, by making others
speak for themselves in their own way. The utmost care has been taken to exclude
anything that could by any possibility be supposed to have a personal reference,
or be the subject of annoyance. The "Dramatis Personae" of the work
are, therefore, ideal representatives of their several classes, having all the
characteristics and peculiarities of their own set, but no actual existence…
I
have also avoided, as far as practicable, topics common to other countries, and
endeavor to select scenes and characters peculiar to the colony [of Nova Scotia],
and not to be found in books…
This distinctive character is produced by
the necessity of a new country, by the nature of the climate, the want of an established
Church, hereditary rank, entailment of estates, and the subdivision of labour,
on the one hand, and the absence of nationality, independence, and republican
institutions on the other…
The Nova Scotian, who is more particularly
the subject of this work, is often found superintending the cultivation of a farm
and building a vessel at the same time; and is not only able to catch and cure
a cargo of fish, but to find his way with it to the West Indies or the Mediterranean;
he is a man of all work, but expert in none…
[he] is a handy, frank, good-natured,
hospitable, manly fellow, and withal quite good looking as his air gives you to
understand he thinks himself to be. Such is the gentleman known throughout America
as Mr. Blue Nose, a sobriquet** acquired from a superior potato of that name…
[The term "Bluenoser", in refference to Nova Scotian’s, is
in use to this day.]
Note: The Concise Oxford Dictionary, 5th edition
pub 1963
*prolixity – lengthy, tediously wordy
**sobriquet – nickname
Excerpt From –
The Old Judge or life in the Colony
by Thomas Chandler Haliburton
Originally published London, Henry Colburn1849
Volume Consulted Published by the Tucumseh Press, Ottowa, Canada, 1978
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