Preserving Yarmouth Memories
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Sandford Community

Founding

This offshoot of the Chegoggin settlement began in the 1770s. Land in this vicinity was included in the first grants assigned in the Township of Yarmouth in 1767.

Industry

Fishing; lumbering; fish processing; coopering; boat building; gold mining; fur farming

Facts

Picture of Sandford School - 1933!
  • Sandford’s drawbridge is thought to be one of the smallest in North America. It is a major attraction for painters, photographers and visitors.
  • Leonard Shaw, contractor, demolished the old Grand Hotel and transported the bricks to Sandford. During the years 1967 to 1971 he had seven houses built with the bricks. One was his own home in Sandford; the other six were in Chegoggin.
History

  This area was at first called Cranberry Head. People from nearby villages came to pick the berries and some stayed as early settlers.

  The Rev. Moses Grant organized the first Baptist church. The community had a minister, an organization and a lot of faith, but no place of worship. In 1836, the harbour in Sandford was frozen over and lodged in the ice was a magnificent raft of logs that had been driven in from the sea. People went down to the harbour, chopped the logs free, loaded them on sleds and hauled them to the spot where the church was to be built.

  The first schools were held in private homes in the early 1830s. A school house was built in the upper part of the village in 1866 and served for 82 years. The first wharf was started before 1867 and was built by local labour.

  Common surnames found are Sandford, Thurston, Landers, Shaw, Tedford, Trask, Harding, Churchill, Rodney and Harris.



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Links

Sandford


Sources

Historical trails through Port Maitland, Beaver River, Short Beach, Sandford and Darling’s Lake; The High Hopes Senior Citizens Club, Port Maitland, 1985.
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