Haley House (Eigg Mountain Settlement History) (Map Location)

 

The house at this site was built by John Haley and occupied by his son William John Haley until 1927 when the family moved to Fraser’s Grant.  John Lauchie Haley was born here in 1916.

 

The house was small, perhaps 16 or 18 by 22 feet.  It rose straight above the cellar with possibly a small porch attached.  It was a story and a half with no dormer.  The current road west side of the foundation, but the original road ran to the east and the house faced it.  The upper floor was unfinished and John and his four siblings slept there sharing beds.

 

In about 1921 John’s father decided to move the house from this location a couple of hundred yards southwest to be closer to the barn and the spring that the family used for water.  (If one fallows the existing road across the next stream, the house was on the top of the next rise, its cellar filled in by the new road.  The barn was on the left.)  John’s father along with a man from Tracadie moved the house with one horse, using a capstan.  Hear John’s account of the move.

 

The family left the property in 1927 when a relative vacated (died?) a farm in Fraser’s Grant.  It was an opportunity to “get out of the woods:” this was a more populated area on better land, closer to amenities.  An unmarried woman bought the property and apparently lived there for some time after 1927.

 

Photo of the cellar looking east

Photo of John Haley at the site where he was born 92 years ago.

 

Merland, Guysborough Co., September 13, 2008