“As for the Barrons of Barronsfield (Ann’s parents), unfortunately their place of repose has not faired nearly as well. This is despite the fact that the Barronsfield Cemetery is just down the road from Minudie, site of an extraordinary episode in Nova Scotia history, when a man named Amos Seaman developed a grind-stone making enterprise that changed the old dikes of the Acadians into one of the busiest places in the developing province.
Seaman realised that when the tide went out on Chignecto Bay (really just the farthest reaches of the Bay of Fundy), a hard sandstone was exposed that could be cut and then floated up on boats for easy land access once the tide came back in. So he bought the 8000 acres, and set to work. Upwards of 50,000 grindstones made from the sandstone were exported to the United States each year, and Seaman became a very rich man.”