Beaver River Temperance Society

In the early 1800s the excessive consumption of alcoholic drink in Yarmouth County created a need for some form of temperance reform. -- In the 1820s, after Mr. Trask and Jonathan Raymond had opened taverns in Beaver River, Josiah Porter worried that some residents were drinking to excess. -- Eventually, at Josiah Porter’s instigation, eight men from Beaver River signed a pledge of abstinence, which had been prepared by John Wetmore, who in 1828 was Beaver River’s school teacher. -- The pledge was signed, and the society established, on 28 April 1828 or 25 April 1829. By 1830 the number of signatories had increased from eight to sixty-eight. In 1831 the pledge was amended to include abstinence from wine, except for medical and sacramental uses, and to make the partaking of wine or spirituous liquors for medical purposes without a physician’s prescription a violation of the pledge. -- Other than the pledge and minute book, the constitution or bylaws under which this society operated have long been lost. Initially, according to J. Murray Lawson, it was named the “Beaver River Society”; J. Roy Campbell called it the “Beaver River Temperance Society”. -- Eventually, in 1854, the society changed its name to the Beaver River Total Abstinence Society. -- In the Town of Yarmouth, as elsewhere in Yarmouth County, the Church’s ministers supported and encouraged the temperance movement. For example, Reverend Harris Harding, who was the senior pastor of the First Yarmouth Baptist Church for 57 years, embraced the cause of temperance.

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