The Sand Hill Walking Trail exhibit was unveiled at the Cumberland County Museum on Feb. 1. Those participating in the opening included, from left, Peter McCracken from Nova Scotia Communities, Culture and Heritage, Jaxon Cooke, Sandra Gilbert (whose grandfather is featured in the exhibit), Lisa Emery of the Cumberland County Museum, Grace Cook (whose late husband is featured), Vaughn Martin (whose great grandfather is featured) and Mikayla Cook. The exhibit is on display at the Cumberland County Museum through the month of February on Monday to Friday from 1 to 4 and during Heritage Day weekend (Feb. 15 to 17). Darrell Cole-Amherst News

Darlene Strong and Vaughn Martin look over the Sand Hill Walking Trail exhibit that was recently unveiled at the Cumberland County Museum. The exhibit is featured at the museum through African Heritage Month from 1 to 4 p.m. Monday to Friday as well as throughout the Heritage Day weekend (Feb. 15 to 17). Darrell Cole-Amherst News

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AMHERST, N.S. – Frederick Parsons played a prominent role in Amherst’s history.

Called ‘Sand Hill’s Engineer’ Parsons, who was born in 1847, helped design a number of Amherst streets and helped layout the town’s cemetery.

He’s one of a group of people being honoured in the Sand Hill Walking Trail that was unveiled earlier this month as part of an exhibit at the Cumberland County Museum.

“We are delighted to have this exhibit,” Amherst resident and artist Darlene Strong said following the launch. “It’s a lasting testimony to the black community. It’s important that we do this, because if we don’t who is?”

The exhibit is available from 1 to 4 p.m. each Monday and Friday, during African Heritage Month, and will also be open on the Heritage Day weekend from 1 to 4 p.m.

The walking trail is a self-guided walking trail that will take people past the homes of politicians, preachers, midwives, merchants, stone masons, sports figures, inn keepers, veterans, sailors and skilled craftspeople while retracing the steps of the early black settlers in the part of Amherst known as the Highlands.

During the 1800s and 1900s, Sand Hill in Amherst had the largest African Nova Scotian population in Cumberland County.

Strong was assisted by young members of the African Nova Scotian community in Amherst, Jaxon and Makayla Cooke, in collecting the information on those featured while the Nova Scotia Department of Communities, Culture and Heritage helped fund the project.

She said the display will go into area schools in the spring and will also be featured at Parrsboro’s Ottawa House during the summer.

Strong said it’s important to remember the contributions of the African Nova Scotian community in Amherst and Cumberland County because once those featured are gone there’s the risk of everything they did being forgotten.

“It’s important to share the history verbally, but also through tangible documents and images for the next generation,” she said. “People like Parsons, who built the streets we’re walking on and driving on, need to be honoured. It’s information that’s hidden, so we want to bring it out into the open and share it.”

Parsons also helped plan Dickey Park and designed some of the stately Victorian-era homes on East Victoria Street.

The display, which Strong calls living history, features the high school as well as Dickey Park, the cemetery, Highland AME Church, the Parsons House, the Christie Street School, the East Pleasant Street School, the Old Stage Coach Shop, E.T. Hunter’s Store, the Amherst Stadium and the former Highland View Regional Hospital site.

“It’s a collaboration of so many people,” she said.

Vaughn Martin thinks a lot of the exhibit, especially since a December fire destroyed much of the family memorabilia he had collected and was handed down through the generations.

“Lawrence Martin, my great-great-grandfather was instrumental in getting things going in Sand Hill. He was a recruiter during the First World War and was active in the Second World War,” Martin said. “He was instrumental in getting the Blue Granites baseball team going. To see this exhibit helps bring back a lot of the things I lost.”

Martin wishes it had been done sooner, adding he would’ve like to have seen something done on Wade Bowles (Rocky Johnson) before he died because it’s more difficult to recognize someone after they have died.

“My aunt Margaret, who raised me, used to tell me about the athletes that came from Sand Hill. People like Clyde Bowles, Wade (Bowles) and his brothers,” Martin said. “There was the Lee boys and others who made a great contribution to the community. We need to make sure they are remembered. There is a lot of black history here that people don’t know about because there hasn’t been an exhibit like this before.”

Grace Cook, whose late husband Denny is included in the exhibit, was impressed with what she saw.

“I’m so happy with it and I know Denny would be too if he were here to see it,” Cook said. “I believe we should remember the people before us because they’re the ones who tried to make things as good as they are.”