Highway 1 is also the
Evangeline Trail. It winds its way from village to village along the shore of the Bay of Fundy. Twelve kilometers south on the Evangeline Trail from the oldest settlement in North America north of the Gulf of Mexico, Port Royal, now
Annapolis Royal, one will find the village of Clementsport.
Pretty much centered in the village, on the west side of the Evangeline Trail, one will find the Clementsport post office. Heritage being more important than keeping up with the Joneses in this neck of the woods, the post office occupies an older wood frame building which was likely, for much of its life, a residence. Possibly, it still is. Its style suggests that it could be as old as a mid nineteenth century building, but that is purely conjecture. Were it not for the sign and flagpole out front one would never suspect that this was a post office.
Settled circa 1785 by United Empire Loyalists from Long Island, NY, the village has several buildings which date from the 18th and early 19th centuries. It grew into a major shipbuilding centre before the age of steam overtook the age of sail.
The only bonafide heritage property that we are aware of in Clementsport is
Old St. Edward’s Church, up the hill from the village on Old Post Road. One of the oldest churches in Nova Scotia, construction on Old St. Edward’s was begun in the early 1790s and was completed around 1795. At the church is the original Anglican cemetery, still in use by descendants of the area's pioneers. There is also a
New St. Edward the Confessor Anglican Church, slightly further south along the highway, built in 1894.
If you're as old as I you may remember an old Alberta boy (actually a transplant from Port Hilford, Nova Scotia) named
Wilf Carter. As a youth he spent his summers in Clementsport with relatives.