by Hattie Dyck
This is material l received from Evelyn MacKeil who is Clayton MacKeil’s daughter. It comes from A History of Noel Shore.
Now living at Vaudreuil - Dorion near Montreal, her home was across the road from the present East Hants Museum at Lower Selma.
The Lower Selma Creamery, a creamery for making butter was built and opened by Captain James Crowe in Lower Selma in 1903. This creamery failed but reopened in 1913 as a farmer’s co-operative known as the Bay View Creamery Co-Operative. It covered the area from Urbania to Lower Selma, from Cheverie and a few points beyond, from Northfield, Noel Road, Kennetcook; from Rawdon to Nine Mile River and from Gays River to MacPhees Corner. Its first president was Andrew Anthony. It later joined the Brooklyn Co-Operative.
The creamery flourished until 1955. By this time large milk producers in the area were selling their milk in Halifax and thus it became uneconomical to operate the creamery. Members shares were redeemed or transferred to the Noel Co-Op.
The old creamery building is still standing on property owned by Leonard Green. Some names attached to the creamery are Polly Faulkner, Bun Hennigar and Ernest Hilchie. History says Doug Neil was the first butter maker. He was taught to make butter by Doug Bowers from Blaikie’s Creamery. Bowers lived in the house in Lower Selma where Bun Hennigar later lived. Ernest Hilchie, Bun Hennigar and Stan Miller each took a three month butter making course at the Agriculture College in Guelph, Ontario.
Some of the men who provided transportation were Albro Miller, Norman Miller, Stanley Miller. Doug Miller, Carl Tomlinson, Lawrence Scott and Jim Rose. There were others that worked there but are not recorded.
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