Stepping back in time at the Tinsmith Museum

The Tin Museum in Shubenacadie, N.S. used to be a place to meet and talk about the news of the day as you picked up everything from homeware to hardware.

“It’s a building that people lived, loved and worked in for over 100 years,” said Marilyn Babineau Doucette, Tin Muesum Board of Directors volunteer.

The Smith Family General Store and tin shop is a step back in time.

If the walls could speak, they’d tell quite the story. But nothing like the building’s former owner Harry Smith.

"He was a great person to tell stories,” said Doucette. “He loved to tell history stories how things used to be.”

His father Watson started the business and moved his family there in 1894. A Tinsmith by trade, he saw a business opportunity setting up shop in the heart of milk producer country.

"They saw milk cans tossed off the train years ago,” said Doucette. “They were getting dented. They knew there was a need for an indestructible can so they patented steel bottom so when the mill can came off the train it landed bottom down.”

Over the years, the Smith family made over 80,000 milk cans, earning the title of Canada’s Milk Can Capital.

But the biggest moment in the history of the family business was a tragic one during the Halfiax Explosion.

"They had an SOS come out here because the main depot where the milk cans landed in Halifax by train – it blew up, so they needed milk cans,” said Doucette. “So Harry and Watson put staff on, seven people round-the-clock and put out 75 milk cans a day.”

Harry was known as a talented inventor. He held the patent for the first turn signal in the 1930s, but no automobile makers would buy it.

Harry never had his own family. He built a house for him and his fiancé then went off to war as an engineer pilot, leading his brigade during the Second World War.

When he returned, his fiancé had moved on. But Harry never did.

With no family, he left the shop one day and handed the keys to municipality, leaving everything as it was.

Now it’s a tribute gone by – every nook and cranny full of history.

With files from CTV Atlantic’s Marie Adsett.