This section describes works presenting Cape Breton’s history that I have found useful enough to cite; they are listed alphabetically. If you are aware of other works not listed here that you think should be, please so notify me using the address at the left.
History of Inverness County Nova Scotia by J[ohn] L[orne] MacDougall, Sandy Group, [no place of publication], 1999 reprinting of a work originally published in 1922, hardback, 690 pages. Lacks either a table of contents or an index. ISBN 0-919302-54-8.
This book describes the history of Inverness County in eleven chapters entitled:
An appendix includes material that J. L. MacDougall received too late to incorporate into the District Sketches chapter, but which he deemed worthy of inclusion.
This book is an invaluable resource, but it is incredibly frustrating to use and to consult; the author’s stilted Victorian-era language further makes it very hard to read in a sustained sitting. The initial chapters contain lots of useful descriptive information on the state of Inverness County in the 19th and early 20th centuries, though it’s really difficult for one so far removed from the time and the location as I am to judge how reliable a witness Mr. MacDougall is to the people and events he chronicles. Facts abound, but so do opinions. The district sketches in particular are nearly unreadable: most contain information about the families who settled in a given area, obviously furnished for the most part by those families themselves, enumerating their children and kin, with other data of great interest to a genealogist, but of little use to one trying to obtain an understanding of the history of the district and the flavour of life in it; moreover, the sketches are written in a style which is not far removed from chapter ten of Genesis and rapidly puts one to sleep. Interspersed with all of the genealogy, one occasionally finds documents cited in toto (e.g., a petition to the provincial legislature requesting the naming of a magistrate for the settlements of Cape Mabou and Broad Cove (p. 597)) and here and there, one gleans other nuggets of very useful and sometimes illuminating information as one skims through the sketches; yet, given a lack of a photographic memory, finding them again is nearly impossible without an index, which this work sorely needs. The order in which the various sketches appear is nowhere given; they are all jumbled together in one humongous chapter (pp. 115-631 with addenda in an appendix from pp. 635-690). That place names are sometimes significantly different from those in current use (e.g., Poplar Grove is a place name I’ve encountered only in this work) is a further problem; there is no map to help. And so it goes… Yet, with all these problems, it does have one stellar merit: there is no other work of which I am aware that, in spite of all its warts, gives as good a picture of the early days of Inverness County as this one does.
The book was priced at $59.95 when I bought it a couple of years ago at the Bear Paw in Inverness village. I understand that it is not now readily available, though people who want a copy of it can, with persistance, probably find one. [Amazon lists it as “currently unavailable” and eBay does not list it at all.]
What appears to be an on-line version of this work can be found here, which turned up while I was doing a Google search for a photo essay topic. I do not know how complete this on-line version is, as I have little experience as yet using it, though the pieces I have examined do seem to be replicated from the original text. There are doubly underlined links in the text which result in (sometimes inane) ads showing up when one places the cursor over them and the web page surrounding the text is also chock-a-block with ads. Still, this version is both searchable and free, so it may well be worth putting up with the ads.
This work is also searchable through Google Books, though the search only turns up small snippets of four to five lines each and, when there are several matching snippets, only the first few are shown with no obvious way of examining the others, so this facility is pretty limited.
Patterson’s History of Victoria County Cape Breton Nova Scotia with related papers compiled and edited by W. James MacDonald by George Geddie Patterson, edited by W. James MacDonald, College of Cape Breton Press, Sydney, Cape Breton, 1976 reprinting (with additions) of a work originally published in 1885, hardback, 223 pages. Includes black and white photos, several maps, and a nine-page index. ISBN: 0-920336-02-7.
Patterson’s history was written in 1885; this edition preserves the whole of the original work, but updates and corrects it through the addition of a section of appendices and footnotes (actually endnotes).
This book describes the history of Victoria County in nineteen chapters entitled:
The appendices, added by W. James MacDonald, are titled:
This book is both readable and interesting, covering many aspects of the history of 19th century Cape Breton and describes earlier times as well. Patterson’s attitudes and prejudices are those of his era. MacDonald’s corrections to the unintentional misinformation supplied by Patterson are most helpful, as is the very useful index.
I got this book from Amazon for $27.95, who used their contractee Russell Books, 734 Fort Street, Victoria, British Columbia V8W 1H02. It was a used book, but arrived in fine condition. Amazon currently lists one copy of the book still available at three times the price from a different contractee. I do not know whether it is available elsewhere; I have never seen in on Cape Breton Island.