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The village of Baddeck is located in Victoria County, Nova Scotia on Cape Breton Island in the Province of Nova Scotia, Canada. As of 2001 the population was 907. It is situated on the shores of the beautiful Bras d'Or Lake (Golden Arm) in the heart of Cape Breton Island. more...

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According to some historians the name Baddeck is derived from the Mi'kmaq 'Abadak' meaning place with an island near.

History

The earliest recorded European visitation was that of the French Catholic missionaries who came as early as 1629. Of these, the only one of whom there is historical record is the Abbe Maillard, who came from France to Louisbourg. In about 1790 Loyalist Captain Jonathan Jones and his family arrived. They were the first English settlers having been given grants of crown land in the Baddeck River area. They were closely followed by other Loyalists and many immigrants from Scotland.

In 1813, Lieutenant James Duffus, whose wife was a sister-in-law of Sir Samuel Cunard founder of the Cunard Line of steamships, was given a grant of land which proved to be the island referred to in the naming of Baddeck. Here he carried on a mercantile business until his death more than twenty years later, during which time the place was known as Duffus Island. In 1833 a Mr. Willaim Kidston, returning to Scotland from Halifax was shipwrecked off Cape North and found his way to Baddeck and the Island. Here he met and married the widow of James Duffus. The Island's name was later changed to Kidston's Island. The community owes much to Mr. Kidston. It was he who advised the separation of Cape Breton and Victoria Counties and gave the site of the present Court House to the village.

The Kidston business was moved to the mainland in 1840. It was later taken over by a gentleman from Colchester County named Angus Tupper. His wife was the daughter of the Hon. David McCurdy, and when her husband died, her brother Edward McCurdy arrived to help her with the business. The McCurdy family was later induced to settle in Baddeck and with their coming came further progress for the growing community. The head of the family, Hon. Mr. McCurdy, set up a business and brought a young man named Thompson from Pictou County to start a tin-smithing shop. A shoe making business was next started by a Mr. Procter which led to the establishing of two tanneries on the shore road. The McCurdy family contributed much to the growth and development of Baddeck. One of their direct descendants, the late Hon. John A.D. McCurdy, former Lieutenant Governor of Nova Scotia, made history on a cold day in February, 1909, when he made the first airplane flight in the British Empire at the wheel of the Silver Dart using frozen Baddeck Bay as its runway.

The history of the village proper began in 1839 with the settlement of two families on the mainland. One was that of Joseph Campbell, a native of Newry, Ireland who built an Inn on a property near Indian Cove. The Inn also contained a tavern and a Post Office, and Mr. Campbell became Baddeck's first Post Master. Mail was brought from Sydney by carriers on foot with the mail bags on their backs. Mr. Campbell later moved to the United States. The second family was that of Hector MacLean of Scotland who built his home on the property adjoining the old Knox Cemetery on the Bay Road. Between these two homesteads there were no other residences but the wigwams of the Indians along the shore of the Lake.

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