The society, named either the "
Beaver River Society" or the "
Beaver River Temperance Society", depending on the source, was formally Instituted on April 28, 1828 or April 25, 1829. The date April 28, 1828 is the one to be seen on the sign on the front of the hall. In 1854, the society changed its name to the "
Total Abstinence Society", which is the name to be found on the building today. The earliest known movement in the UK was the Ulster Temperance Movement, formed in 1829 by Presbyterian Church of Ireland Minister Reverend John Edgar. Movements or societies were first formed in Australia and New Zealand in the 1830s. Not coincidentally, these movements all took place during a period of religious revival in the western world.
Contrary to some sources this was not the first to be organized in North America, that title likely belonging to the American Temperance Society (ATS), also known as the American Society for the Promotion of Temperance, established on February 13, 1826 in Boston. During the American Revolution a temperance movement began, eventually spreading to eight states.
Temperance Reform in Beaver River
In the 1820s, after Mr. Trask and Jonathan Raymond had opened taverns in Beaver River, Josiah Porter worried that some residents were drinking to excess.
“One night a neighbor who had gone to Yarmouth with a load of lumber failed to return at the usual time. At midnight, Mr. Porter became so alarmed, he went to look for him. He found him a few miles from home; his oxen had veered off the track and locked one of the cartwheels over a stump, and so were anchored. The driver had fallen off his cart and was lying insensibly drunk, his beloved rum keg in his arms.”
Eventually, at Josiah Porter’s instigation, eight men from Beaver River signed a pledge of abstinence, which had been prepared by John Wetmore, who in 1828 was Beaver River’s school teacher.
“We the undersigned firmly believing and most assuredly gathering that the too great use of spirituous liquors is prejudicial to the body and souls of mankind in general, both spiritual and temporal, to remedy this great and spreading evil, we therefore whose names are hereunto annexed do for ever renounce the use of ardent or distilled spirituous liquors except what may be taken as a medicine in case of sickness. And we pray Almighty God to establish our hearts and strengthen our serious resolutions.”...
[Signatures]...
The pledge was signed, and the society established, on 28 April 1828 or 25 April 1829. By 1830 the number of signatories had increased from eight to sixty-eight. In 1831 the pledge was amended to include abstinence from wine, except for medical and sacramental uses, and to make the partaking of wine or spirituous liquors for medical purposes without a physician’s prescription a violation of the pledge.
Eventually, in 1854, the society changed its name to the Beaver River Total Abstinence Society.
From Yarmouth History
Further sources include the book
A history of the county of Yarmouth, Nova Scotia pages 148-149, and
Historic Places Canada.
The first temperance hall of the
Beaver River Temperance Society was built shortly after the formation of the society, in 1829 or 1830. This hall was built in 1880-81. In the photo of Beaver River below, the hall is the red roofed two storey building at the far right.
At the top is a Parker Studio photograph of Beaver River Corner in the 1890s. We are looking north along the post road from Yarmouth to Digby. The large white two-storey building at centre right is the Memorial Temperance Hall, which was built in 1880–1881 to replace the original, smaller, meeting hall on that site.
From Yarmouth History