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Port Williams
Port Williams (Greenwich), Nova Scotia
Mile 51.93 from Windsor Junction on the Halifax Subdivision (Mile 67.15 from Halifax)
Facilities & Features
Commerce & Industry
The busy village and seaport of Port Williams was actually across the Cornwallis River from the railway but was served by a station and warehouse located in nearby Greenwich, connected by a road and bridge across the dykelands to Port Williams. Several large business clustered around the station at Greenwich. Before WW II, they included five Apple Warehouses including some of the first apple wareh ouses built on the DAR and the Port Williams Fruit Company, a large co-operative warehouse.[1]. After WW II, Port Williams hosted two large poultry producers, C&M Ells and Archibald Farms Limited as well as Canada Packers flour, feed and poultry plant and the Canadian Petrofina, later West Nova bulk fuel plant.
1918 Track Chart of Port Williams
Port Williams track chart, including the Port Williams Fruit Company, stock yard, spurs and sidings for the evaporator and other warehouses, Oct. 1, 1926.
Port Williams (Greenwich) showing the Port Williams Station, the Port Williams Fruit Company and other warehouses as well as the evaporator ruins, August 1931.
Detail of air photo of the Port Williams station in Greenwich showing the back of the Port Williams Station, adjacent fruit warehouses and the ruins of the evaporator, August 1931.
The village of Port Williams in the foreground with the Port Williams Station and warehouse in Greenwich across the river in the background, August 1931.
Port Williams Station, warehouses and nearby farms in Greenwich, looking west, August, 1931.
The Port Williams Fruit Company co-op apple warehouse, 1934.
Topographic map from Kentville to Hortons Landing circa 1956.
Port Williams Station and Port Williams siding, November 1958.
Port Williams Station, looking west to the United Fruit Co. warehouse, summer, early fall 1973 just before demolition.
Port Williams (Greenwich) industries circa 1975.
Port Williams looking east on August 30, 2011.
1967 aerial photo of Port Williams.
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Description & History
Port Williams was settled by New England Planters in 1760 and was originally called Cornwallis Township. The village clustered around the bridge built in 1780 over the Cornwallis River and became an important shipping point for lumber and agriculture in the 19th Century. It was renamed Port Williams in 1856.[2] Early survey work for the Windsor and Annapolis routed the railway through Port Williams along the north side of the Cornwallis River. According too community lore, a large number of tickets and related documents were preprinted in England using the station name "Port Williams". Final surveys rerouted the line through Greenwich on the south side of the river, but the station name had already been set as "Port Williams Station", later shortened to "Port Williams" instead of "Greenwich".[3] The wharves at Port Williams were expanded to serve steamships in the 20th Century. Port Williams served as the base for a number of successful businessmen, notably W. H. Chase, who built a large apple shipping operation in Port Williams, including the first apple warehouse on the DAR which was built beside the station in the 1884. Port Williams hosted several large DAR customers for bulk feeds and fuel until until 2006 when the Windsor and Hantsport Railway ended service to the village and all stations beyond Hantsport due to lack of maintenance on the Gaspereaux River Bridge.
References & Footnotes
- Alexander MacNab, Windsor and Annapolis Railway, Report of Alexander MacNab Nov 1, 1873
- 1969 Memorandum of General Information
- ↑ Willard Longley Map, Some Economic Aspects of the Apple Industry in Nova Scotia
- ↑ C. Bruce Fergusson, "Port Williams", Place-Names and Places of Nova Scotia Nova Scotia Archives (1967), p. 559.
- ↑ The Port Remembers: A History of Port Willims and Its Surrouding Country Homes, Port Williams Women's Institute (1976), p.198-199
