Family History 2.44

 Bigelow History

from Wikipedia

 Pugwash, home of John and Rosina Bigelow

 

 

Pugwash (2006 population: 784) is a Canadian village in Cumberland County, Nova Scotia.

The village is home to fishing, salt mining, and small-scale manufacturing and is situated on the Northumberland Strait at the mouth of the Pugwash River.

Pugwash takes its name from the native Mi'kmaq word, "Pagweak," meaning "Shallow Water", in reference to the Pugwash River.

 

Pugwash sits atop a salt deposit measuring 457.2 m thick and is home to the largest underground salt mine in Atlantic Canada, with shipments from its port, as well as by rail from a facility at Oxford Junction.

 

Pugwash is famous for being the site of an international conference of scholars organized by Bertrand Russell in 1957, and hosted by Pugwash's native son, steel magnate Cyrus Eaton (1883–1979), at the lodge on property owned by the Pugwash Park Commission located just north of the village. This conference brought high-level scientists from both sides of the Cold War divide to state their opposition to nuclear weapons. This meeting was a follow-up to an earlier statement of notables whose signatories had included Albert Einstein and Linus Pauling, the Russell-Einstein Manifesto. The name Pugwash Conferences on Science and World Affairs has since been used to refer to the group, although citizens in Pugwash generally term these visitors as the "Great Thinkers."

 

Visitors entering Pugwash were once greeted by roadside signs announcing that they were entering the "Home of the Thinkers," but the signs have since been replaced by a newer slogan "World Famous for Peace". The switch was made in response to the 1995 awarding of the Nobel Prize to the International Pugwash conferences "for their efforts to diminish the part played by nuclear arms in international politics and in the longer run to eliminate such arms".

 

Pugwash Lighthouse looks out onto the Northumberland Strait.

 

A myth about the town is that the children's cartoon character Captain Pugwash was named after the international organisation that takes its name from the town, but the character, in fact, first appears in 1950, several years before the planning of the first Pugwash conference took place.

 

Pugwash is also home to many descendants of Highland Scots who immigrated to the region in the 19th century. All street signs in the town are bilingual with both English and Gaelic translations. The village celebrates its Scottish heritage each July 1, with the annual Gathering of the Clans and Fisherman's regatta.

 

The Pugwash area, and indeed the entire north shore of Nova Scotia, is famed for its warm waters and sandy beaches. Some claim the waters in summer here are the warmest waters north of the Carolinas in the United States.

 

The creation of pewter crafts and souvenirs is another important industry in Pugwash. The village has an elementary school, named after Cyrus Eaton, as well as a regional high school that draws students from around rural Cumberland County. Pugwash has a farmers market that runs on Saturdays during the summer months.

 

The Pugwash railway station, designed by sir Sanford Fleming and completed in 1892, is a registered historic site under the Heritage Property Act of Nova Scotia.