McNabs Island

McNabs Island is the largest island in Halifax Harbour located in Halifax Regional Municipality, Nova Scotia, Canada. It played a major role in defending Halifax Harbour and is now a provincial park. The island was first settled in 1780s by Peter McNab, and McNab family members lived on the island until 1934.[2]

The island saw seasonal Mi'kmaq and Acadian use and was surveyed by the French Navy as a possible site for a fortified seaport prior to the selection of Louisbourg. After the founding of Halifax in 1749, it was first known as Cornwallis Island. Halifax merchant Joshua Mauger used the long beach which still bears his name as a base for a fishing operation in the 1750s and '60s. The island was purchased by Peter McNab (d. 1799, buried at Old Burying Ground) in the 1780s beginning a long settlement by generations of the McNab family on the island. Peter McNab's son Captain John McNab, Nova Scotia Fencibles, lived with his daughter Catherine Susan Ann McNabb on McNabs Island. She married Joseph Howe on February 2, 1828.

McNabs Island contains many forts belonging to the "Halifax Defence Complex" including Fort Ives, Fort Hugonin, Sherbrooke Tower, and Fort McNab. Important historic features on McNabs Island which are still visible include the foundations of several houses built by early settlers, an aboriginal shell midden, a cemetery containing some of the island's earliest residents, remains of a turn of the century picnic ground and soda pop factory, and remnants of a once extensive Victorian garden. Numerous military fortifications can be found, including Fort McNab, Fort Ives, Fort Hugonin and Strawberry Battery. Other features include the original McNab house, Martello Tower, and the main burial site of cholera victims from the S.S. England.

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