The Brooks Family
William Malcolm Bent’s Autograph Book
In 1867 Edward Brooks, 24, from Nottingham England married Jessie Ann Skinner, 18, in Hopewell, Pictou County. She was the daughter of Andrew Skinner and Margaret MacKenzie , who emigrated from Scotland to Nova Scotia. Edward is noted on the register as a “Railway Labourer”.
The young couple had to make their way. They first tried farming in Aylesford, but in 1873 he is in Annapolis with the Windsor Annapolis Railway, and in 1881, a year after he came to Paradise, he was a foreman on the line.
The railway meant everything to the valley towns. It brought huge economic benefits, not only in the opportunity to ship lumber, apples and other local products, but the thousands of passengers who travelled on the Windsor Annapolis and later Dominion Atlantic Railway.
The train brought tourists and adventurers like the “Tent Dwellers” from New England to fish and camp; it brought families from far and near who came for short or long visits. It carried students to university or Normal School, civil servants and politicians back and forth to the city, and many many travelling salesmen. Hotels, farms, and the logging industry prospered. Merchants abounded. Now you could buy anything in Paradise.
The train was good for assorted group expeditions, and they were many. It was fun to take the train to the many Exhibitions, to plays and theatre, to hear famous speakers. You could walk to the train station most times if your luggage was light. When steamships replaced sailing vessels, thousands of Maritimers every year took the train to the wharves and travelled from their small villages and towns all over the world. There were those who were not happy, as farms and properties were bisected, compensation not always sufficient, and the railway companies unsympathetic. But all in all, it was a good thing.
Locally, the railway employed both labourers and the highly respected station masters who had major responsibility. Edward seems to have arrived in Paradise in that capacity in 1880.
He and Jessie had three children when they arrived in Paradise: William Henry, Margaret ( Maggie) Skinner, and Andrew James. Soon Augustus Robinson and Kenneth Mackenzie were born, and Edward was into something new. He had purchased the little house on the Ambrose Bent property, by then moved to the south side of the Post Road. And in one room he set up a small store. He sold candy, tobacco, a few groceries- and he did barber duties for the men of Paradise! He must have been a most enterprising man.
When the property of the eminent merchant Benjamin Starratt became available, Edward snapped it up and took over the store. He moved his barber chair in, and there was a Brooks’ Store on the corner for seventy years. Some of us remember that chair. And there were always, always, candies in that store.
As for Mack, he would not live to see Brooks’ Store, nor would his friend Maggie. In 1887, the three families on the Paradise corner were close. Among the Brooks children, Maggie was closest in age to Mack, and may have signed his autograph book early with Harry and Bessie Starratt and William Brooks. Andrew signed it later.
Even the estimable patriarch, Mr. Edward Brooks, who offered words of wisdom for us all, offered his signature. Victorian adults did feel they should never miss a chance to offer proper guidance to the younger generation. But you know, Mr. Brooks’ words sound pretty wise still.
Written by Barbara Bishop