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The York Building
A Place With a Rich History of New Beginnings.
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Between 1772 and 1775, over 20 ships carrying more than 1,000 settlers from Yorkshire, England, arrived in Nova Scotia, which included Sackville and all present-day New Brunswick. Comprised predominantly of tenant farmers facing economic hardship in England, these Yorkshiremen uprooted families and possessions to make the perilous six-to-eight week sailing across the Atlantic in seek of a better livelihood and to lay new roots.
Among those first Yorkshire emigrants were members of the Bowser family, who settled on the very block of land where The York Building now sits. The Bowsers tended land in what is, today, the core of Sackville. The Bowser farm and its pastures spanned a large swath of land that stretched from Main Street up through Mount Allison University and beyond.
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The first Bowser homestead was a modest log
home situated near the corner of Main Street and Bridge Street and was replaced
by a second timber-framed home a few metres to the northwest of the original
house. The third Bowser home was located at the corner of York Street and Ford
Avenue, a few feet from the main entrance to The York Building.
It is on these grounds that the Bowsers and
other prominent Yorkshire settlers established many of the industries,
enterprises and institutions that influenced Sackville’s early development.
Today, the Yorkshire influence continues to
permeate the community in many ways, as evidenced by the nearby university, the
area’s pastoral setting and built heritage and through the names of local families,
streets and landmarks.
The Sackville area is still home to several
Bowser families that trace their lineage to the lands on which The York
Building is nestled.
The York Building was named in honour of
those early, resilient Yorkshire settlers that left their native land to forge
new beginnings for their families and to their descendants that carried on
their legacy by contributing to the region’s growth and vitality.
For more information about the area’s early
Yorkshire settlers, visit the Tantramar Heritage Trust’s web site at https://tantramarheritage.ca/
“A long sprawl of buildings lay on the slope above the water. This at last was Nova Scotia*. The wide salt sea was behind them.
Yorkshire was a memory.”
-Excerpt from Will R. Bird’s short story “No Yorkshire Lass Can Live Alone”
*At the time of the Yorkshire Settler’s arrival, much of New Brunswick was part of Nova Scotia.