Harry Starratt
William Malcolm Bent’s Autograph Book
It was a new year – 1886! – and 13-year-old “Mack” Bent had a brand new autograph book, perhaps a gift from his stepmother, Clara Foster Bent. She signed it right away on January 2nd, and on the same day, Mack went across the Post Road¹ and had his friend, Harry Starratt, sign it. Harry was 15.
These boys growing up on the “Paradise Corner” lived in beautiful Victorian homes that had replaced earlier, simpler buildings.
The buildings in the postcard shown in Figure 1 of Paradise Corner are all gone now. All but one were torn down or moved by the end of the 19th century, the last one being the building on the southeast corner which survived well into the last century.
Figure 1. Postcard of Paradise Lane looking north.
Harry’s father was Benjamin Starratt, an energetic and progressive man (a Unitarian in a Baptist and Methodist world), who built a new store in 1866 on the southwest corner. He built on land purchased from Asaph Marshall – the site of a beaver hat shop (1820-1830). The factory for the hats was on the north side of the road and now, there was a story! It is said that Joseph Roland, a Light Horseman in Napoleon’s army, deserted before the Battle of Waterloo and ended up in Paradise, making and selling hats from furs.
But in 1866, the Starratt building rose on the site (Figure 2). The Starratts lived above the store in an elegant, almost opulent apartment. The Starratt’s store operated from 1866-1898, and the Brooks’ store (Figure 3) followed from 1899 to c.1969.
Figure 2. Paradise Corner c.1911
Figure 3. E.Brooks & Son Store in 1943
In the photo of the Lane looking north (Figure 1), you see Ambrose Bent’s store/trading centre at the head of the lane. His home, just east of that building, is not seen. Ambrose sold everything from buffalo robes to tobacco, scythes to silk. You could get credit for the butter you made or the socks you knitted.
Moving here from Granville in the 1840s, Ambrose Bent built like crazy. He had a modest building erected in 1848 by Nathaniel “Two Thumb” Parker to house a crew building a covered bridge as some say, or to build ship hulls as others say. That building was moved to the south side of the road where it still stands today.
Sometime after 1845, Ambrose built his Gothic Revival showplace (Figure 4). In January 1886, the Ambrose Bent home, not the simple trading store, dominated the view for anyone coming north on Paradise Lane, and it still does today. This is the home where Ambrose, Clara, and Mack lived,
Figure 4. The Ambrose Bent Home (Click here to learn more about this ‘Home of Paradise‘)
The last building standing (Figure 5) with the verandah is identified on the AF Church map of 1874 as “Mrs. L.B. Freeman”. It became the Christopher Jackson store where Jackson ran a supply depot for Pickles and Mills of Annapolis Royal and a general store. The verandah was removed at some point, various merchandising businesses came and went, and it was torn down some years ago.
Figure 5. Paradise Corner c.1950
Ambrose Bent and Benjamin Starratt contributed a great deal to the village’s economy and development with their retail outlets, shipbuilding, and the marketing and shipping of thousands of barrels of Nova Scotia apples. They would one day team up with Avard Longley for the apple enterprise.
Today “The Corner” is so much less. But the homes of Mack and Harry are still there, memories of Paradise prosperity.
Written by Barbara Bishop