Kingsport, Nova Scotia

Kingsport, is a small seaside village located in Kings County, Nova Scotia on the shores of the Minas Basin.

Kingsport is located just northeast of the mouth of the Habitant River, on the west side of Minas Basin, a few miles east of Canning at the eastern end of Route 221. It is bordered by a tidal marsh to the west and sandy beaches to the south and east. Red sedimentary cliffs carved by continuous erosion rise from the beaches to the east. The dramatic 12 metre tides produce very large sand and mud flats at low tide. The village is surrounded by large expanses of fertile farmland.

An earlier name was Indian Point, later changed to Oak Point due to the number of oak trees that grew along the bank of the south side of the lower road, leading to the wharf. The name was finally changed to Kingsport in the 1870s, as it became the major port in Kings County.

As indicated by the name Indian Point, Kingsport is believed to have once been a summer settlement of the Mi'kmaq. It was also part of the Acadian farming community which stretched along the Habitant River. After the expulsion of the Acadians in 1755, Kingsport was settled by New England Planters One source indicates that Indian Point is mentioned as Lot 16, second division, Cornwallis township granted to Benjamin Newcomb in 1761. Another source says that Kingsport was founded in 1761 or 1762 by Isaac Bigelow who came from Connecticut and was given a grant of land called Oak Point, now Kingsport. Bigelow is the most favoured and Isaac’s son, Ebenezer, born in 1776, is thought to have built the first house in Kingsport.

Shipbuilding emerged as a major industry in Kingsport beginning in 1833 with the launch of schooner Emerald. "Some of the largest and finest ships ever built in Canada were designed and built by Ebenezer Cox of Kingsport," according to shipping historian Frederick William Wallace. Starting with the schooner Diadem in 1864, Cox became the master shipbuilder for a series of partnerships which built over 30 vessels of increasing size. Most had names beginning with the letter "K" and began known as the "K Ships". The shipyard included a large mill and blacksmith and used tuboats to brings rafts of timber from the Cape Blomidon area. The Kingsport yards reached their peak in 1890 with the launch of the four masted barque Kings County followed by the ship Canada in 1891, two of the largest wooden ships ever built in Canada. Launch days for these vessels were the biggest events in the history of Kingsport, some of them attracting up to 3000 people from across the Annapolis Valley. The collapse of the wooden shipbuilding industry in Atlantic Canada in the late 19th century led to a decline in the yard with the last major launch being the barquentine Skoda in 1893. The final Kingsport built vessel was the schooner FBG built in 1929, the last coastal schooner built in all of Nova Scotia. The Kingsport yard refocused for a number of years on ship repair, using the massive Minas Basin tides as a natural drydock into the 1920s repairing such vessels as the American Bradford C. French, the largest three masted schooner ever built.

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