Museum staff looks for help to ID mysterious cannonball

BY KIRK STARRATT

The Advertiser

NovaNewsNow.com

It was found on the dyke in Lower Wolfville almost a century ago, but the origins of a cannonball donated recently to the Kings County Museum remains a mystery.

Joe Halbersma of Coldbrook, an interpreter and museum assistant working at the Kings County Museum in Kentville this summer on a Canada Summer Jobs Program grant, has been delving into the mystery, but says little is known about the cannonball at this juncture.

Ronald Stewart found it on the dyke in Lower Wolfville around the time of the Halifax Explosion in 1917. His son, Lawrence Stewart, donated the cannonball to the museum. Halbersma said they estimate the weight of the cannonball at five pounds, but they have yet to weigh it definitively. Halbersma said the weight could help determine its calibre and this might date the artifact to a specific period or identify its origins.

“We won’t really know until we know the poundage,” he said. “We’re hoping the public can contact us if they have any information.”

No branding on the object

There’s no branding or print of any kind on the cannonball. He contacted local historian Gordon Hansford, who had three theories on the artifact’s origins.

The cannonball could have come from a blockhouse believed to have been located in the Wolfville area around the time of the expulsion of the Acadians in 1755. However, Halbersma said they don’t know anything about the blockhouse so this appears to be a dead end.

Another theory is the cannonball could’ve been an early shot fired in the Battle of Blomidon May 21, 1781. Halbersma said the battle took place mostly at sea. An American schooner came to attack and pirate the shoreline of the Minas Basin before being fought off by Colonel Belcher.

Or it could have been fired from one of two cannons at Acadia University in Wolfville at some point.

Halbersma said, as far as he knows, this is the only cannonball the museum has and he’d really like to figure out where it came from, both out of personal interest and curiosity and so the story of the cannonball can be shared with the public at the museum.

If you have any information or theories on the origins of the cannonball, contact the Kings County Museum at (902) 678-6237 or e-mail curator@okcm.ca.