Work Through Time: Cape Breton Stories of Land & Sea

This article appeared in a reproduction issue of "The Port Hood Greetings” – a grade ten history project from Port Hood Consolidated. Published by Joanne Beaton, Mary Gillies and Joyce MacDonald; grade ten history teacher was John Gillies. It was written in July 1981.

The Port Hood Greetings
Chestico Museum and Historical Society

There have been four different newspapers in the history of Port Hood. The first newspaper was the Clarion which was published during the 1870's. No known copies remain. This was followed by the Referee, published in the 1880's. Samuel MacDonnell Q.C. had some connection with this paper. Only one known copy of the Referee remains and it rests with the Nova Scotia Archives in Halifax.

Then came the Port Hood Greetings, started by two MacNeil brothers who had arrived in Port Hood from Antigonish. This newspaper was the longest running newspaper in Port Hood history and a number of copies are still in circulation. The MacNeil brothers set up a printing press in a building (now destroyed), which stood on a site south of the Court House. From here they printed their weekly paper.

Sometime later, a man by the name of Duncan Ferguson MacLean, formerly from Black River in Richmond County, arrived in Port Hood. He took over the business site, or store property, formerly established by a merchant from Halifax named Bent. This property was located on the south side of Fraser's Lane, and on the rear of this site he built a two-storey building, which became known as the Greetings Office. He bought the Greetings and had a press shipped in by boat, probably from Halifax.

The press weighed 2200 pounds and one story has it that it was hauled from the Government Wharf at Port Hood to the Greetings Office on a hay cart. This load of 2200 pounds was taken from the Wharf up several hills to the Office by one horse owned and driven by the late Lauchie Gillis of Rear Port Hood. The fact that this was considered an unusually heavy load for one horse is probably the reason it was particularly noticed and talked about and remembered by the residents of the time. A new horse or a good horse was a popular topic of conversation then, just as a new or good car is a popular topic today.

D.F., as he was locally known, prospered in business and carried on as owner and editor of the Port Hood Greetings until the early 1920’s. After his death, the paper was purchased by businessman E.O. Leadbetter, who owned a store near the end of Company Road at Little River. David W. Jones, who had served as printer for D.F., became the editor.

The Inverness County Guardian
Chestico Museum and Historical Society

The type used at that time was set by hand from loose type, which was arranged in a box. The arrangement was not in alphabetical order, but rather in an order resembling the arrangement of keys on a typewriter. This was supposed to be more convenient for setting up the type and later distributing the type in its proper place. During the last days of the Port Hood Greetings, plates were beginning to replace setting up type for some ads. While there was some linotype used now and then, there was no linotype machine in the Greetings Office.

The Greetings was printed on a large sheet of paper, which was folded twice, and had eight pages (one fold was horizontal, and the next fold was vertical). One side (four pages of this) was printed first and then the next four pages were printed on the reverse of the large sheet. From 1900 to about 1922, there were a number of small weekly papers published in Inverness County, including the Inverness News and the Journal Bulletin (Port Hawkesbury). All these, together with the Victoria News of Baddeck and the Port Hood Greetings, were taken over by the News Publishing Co. of Truro, Nova Scotia, and a weekly paper was published to replace them, known as the Victoria Inverness Bulletin.

Another paper was started in Port Hood called The Guardian but this did not survive the depression years. D.W. Jones was the editor and proprietor.

When the Greetings was being published it came off the press every Wednesday afternoon, and the schoolboys used to call it the "afternoon edition." According to one story, a young man looking over the news rack in the City of Boston, when asked by the clerk what he was looking for, he replied, The Afternoon Edition of the Port Hood Greetings. They did not have that one.

This short history of Port Hood newspapers was provided to us the Chestico Museum and Historical Society.

© 1981 Port Hood Consolidated