Mahalah Alice Cann - 19th Century Nova Scotia Sampler

  Mahalah Alice Cann Sampler  -  Yarmouth, Nova Scotia

'Important Canadian Sampler

Mahalah Alice Cann (1825–1882) — Yarmouth, Nova Scotia

Mahalah Alice Cann was born in 1825 in Yarmouth, Nova Scotia. In 1848, she married Bowman Corning, a sea captain and mariner. Corning was the owner and builder of the Yarmouth-registered barque M E Corning, constructed in 1863. The couple had five children.

The Cann family was a prominent and long-established family in Yarmouth and western Nova Scotia. Mahalah’s father was Captain George Cann, the son of John Cann, one of the early Cann settlers in Yarmouth.

The maritime history of the Cann family was extensive. In western Nova Scotia, approximately 70 members of the extended Cann family were involved in the maritime trades as vessel builders, sea captains, vessel owners, ordinary seamen, and marine engineers. Their associations with more than 300 vessels were often shared with other seafaring families of the region, particularly those in Yarmouth, Shelburne, and Digby counties. With the advent of steam-powered vessels, Cann boats serviced communities on both sides of the Bay of Fundy, with routes extending as far as the Strait of Canso in northern Nova Scotia.

In 2002, George B. Cann, a descendant of the Cann family, published West Nova Ships and Their Men: The Cann Boats. His research documents nearly 40 Cann sea captains, together with approximately 30 additional Cann shipbuilders, vessel owners, and other mariners over a period of some 140 years. The book provides a valuable record of western Nova Scotia’s seafaring history as experienced by the descendants of a New England family who settled in Nova Scotia in the late eighteenth century and whose lives became closely associated with ships and the sea.