Understand

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History

Windsor was settled in 1685 by the Acadian French, who built a network of dikes along the rivers. Windsor has always been a meeting place, first for the Mi’kmaqs, then the Acadians, and later the English gentry.

Windsor became a permanent English settlement in 1749. Its strategic location prompted the British to build Fort Edward. The Blockhouse is the only structure remaining from the original Fort and it is the oldest structure of its kind in North America. Fort Edward is a National Historic Site.

Windsor quickly became a favourite locale of the British gentry, particularly with those living in Halifax. The area’s growth and prosperity was heavily affected by this influential collection of politicians, merchants and military officers from Halifax. In fact, Windsor was such a popular “get-a-way” for people in the provincial capital that it became known as “The Athens of Nova Scotia”.

Shortly after the arrival of the United Empire Loyalists from New England in 1783, Kings College was established in Windsor, in 1788. Kings College was the first independent school in Canada, and today is a world-renowned co-educational preparatory school.

Windsor was for many years a bustling seaport and shipbuilding centre. Between 1840 and 1890, shipbuilding was the most prominent factor in the economy of Windsor.

Windsor is recognized as the "birthplace" of hockey and represents an inextricable part of Windsor’s heritage and culture. In his book Attache, Windsor’s own Thomas Chandler Haliburton, generally regarded as the father of North American humor, alluded to a form of hockey being played by the students of King’s College, now King’s-Edgehill School.

The passage from the Haliburton book, which deals in part with memories of his days at King’s in the early 1800s, is believed to be the earliest written reference to the game we now know as hockey, and goes as follows:

“the boys let out racin’, yelpin’, hollerin’ and whoopin’ like mad with pleasure... with games at base in the fields, or hurley on the long pond on the ice...”

The students from King’s-Edgehill School today still play hockey at the Cradle of Hockey on the Dill Family Farm. There have been many re-enactments of games of hurley-on-ice, “back of the college woods” on the pond. The students at King’s still use the same path today that their predecessors would have used some 200 years ago.

It’s also known that the British troops stationed at Windsor’s Fort Edward in the early 1800s took up the game of hurley-on-ice, which evolved into the great Canadian game of hockey. In fact, it’s said that a Colonel John Hockey actually served at Fort Edward.

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