History of Grand Mira
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The original settlers to Grand Mira were immigrants from Morar & South
Uist, Scotland.
They came to the area in the Fall of 1826.
MacDonald's, MacEachern's, MacIntyre's, MacMillan's, Gillis',
MacKinnon's, and MacDougall's as well as others comprised the early
Scotch settlers and it was the descendants of those settlers who
celebrated the 90th anniversary of the first settlers on September 3,
1916.
They were still coming to Grand Mira from Scotland up to and including
1841.
They had a boat building business in Grand Mira where they built them
and fished from them on the Mira River.
Capt. Joe Philips from Mira Gut started a small boat company and later several scows of which traveled up and down the river with stops at the wharf in front of the Glebe
House in Grand Mira and also at Victoria Bridge.
The Grand Mira Mutual Telephone Co. Ltd. was the only public utility in
the parish , it was organized in the Fall of 1910 and on November 22,
1910 the first telephone message from Grand Mira to Sydney was sent.
There were nine miles of metallic circuit built and connected at Marion
Bridge to the Maritime Telegraph and Telephone Co. Ltd.
A small log church was built by the first settlers in 1826 and named St.
Peters located near the river below where the Glebe House is located
today.
The first Glebe was built in 1869 and in 1908 it was replaced by the
Glebe house that is used today.
Today, several descended families of the original settler are still
living on the lands that their forefathers cleared and settled on.