10079 Highway 1: The Edmund Bent House

Architecture Style: Vernacular (Modified)

Built: c. 1860

Jesse Seth Bent was the son of Rachel Ray and the celebrated Samuel Bent, who raised the flag at the Plains of Abraham. Samuel was apprenticed to Capt. John Wade, a Massachusetts furniture maker who organized a company for the 1758 siege of Louisbourg. Apprentice and master came to Granville in 1760 and raised large families.

Jesse moved up to Paradise, as did other Granville Planters who sold out to the newly arrived loyalists. The “old settlers” and the loyalists were often at odds, and while Granville Township quickly integrated the two groups, early Paradise was a Planter village. We see how the “old” families married within their own group, as the Bent, Phinney, and Starratt families did. However, co-operation between planters and loyalists developed here:  they shared common struggles and found they needed to speak to the powers in Halifax with one voice. By 1884 we find a descendant of the eminent loyalist, Brig. General Timothy Ruggles, listed as the owner of this Bent house.

One of Jesse’s sons was the ambitious Ambrose, pioneer of commerce and shipping. Another was Edmund, who married his distant cousin and neighbour, Amanda. She was the daughter of Simon Starratt and his wife Abigail [Bent], who had died when Amanda was only six. In 1851, Amanda died in her 27th year, and Edmund buried her beside her own young mother. “Precious in the sight of the Lord is the death of the saints”, says her tombstone. If Edmund built this house (1860) for his second wife, Sarah Freeman, he was surely heart-broken when she died the next year, aged 30. In Abigail, Amanda, and Sarah, we see the risk and tragedy of childbearing years for women in those days. Edmund and his third wife, Elizabeth [Albe] Chesley, sold their “fine farm” to Donald Sinclair, and  Edmund became Registrar of Deeds in Bridgetown. They grew old together.

The family who lived here the longest, for over 100 years, were Phinneys. This Massachusetts family of Mayflower descent came to Granville in 1760, and Zacchaeus and Lois [Starratt] came to the Paradise area with other Granville planters. In 1901 their descendant, J. Carey Phinney, bought the house. He sold it to his nephew “Jack” and Anne [Beckwith], whose children grew up here. Mary, a nurse, married Dr. H. Davidson, Acadia professor; Jean was in banking.  Arthur C., with his sons Daniel, Scott, and Stephen continued generations of family farming tradition. “Phinneyval” was a community treasure, as were Arthur and Carolyn [Travis], for the people of Paradise.