Howard Leslie “Ted” Pye was born in Liscomb, Guysborough County, on December 8, 1913, the fourth of Leonard Whitman and Ida Alexandra “Lexie” (Hartling) Pye’s seven children. His nickname apparently derived from a pyjama or play suit known as a “teddy” that Ted wore as a child.
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| Pte. Howard Leslie "Ted" Pye |
Ted had deep historical connections to the Liscomb area on both sides of his family. His mother Lexie was the grand-daughter of John Frederick Hartling, a descendant of “Foreign Protestant” settlers who came to Nova Scotia in the aftermath of the Acadian Expulsion (1755). It is believed that the family surname derived from the German “Hirtle.” John Frederick, known locally as “Fritz,” was born around 1816 and eventually settled in Spanish Ship Bay, where he married Sophia Walters and raised a family of nine children.
One of Fritz and Sophia’s six sons, Jacob, born in 1859, married Caroline “Carrie” Crooks. Jacob became Spanish Ship Bay’s first postmaster, a position he held from 1897 until his resignation in April 1931. Among his other endeavours, Jacob and his brother John operated a small water-powered mill in Bay Brook, producing laths and lumber for local construction. He and Carrie raised a family of five children in Spanish Ship Bay. Ida Alexandra “Lexie”—Ted’s mother—was their second child and eldest daughter.
On his father’s side, Ted had deep connections to Pye’s Head, the body of land that lies between Spanish Ship Bay and the eastern portions of Liscomb Harbour. Ted was a direct descendant of Thomas Pye Sr. and his wife, Bessie Aubold (Hawbolt). Born in Exeter, southwest England, around 1758, Thomas Sr. immigrated to Nova Scotia in 1773 and settled in Marie Joseph, Guysborough County, around 1789. In subsequent years, he and his sons submitted petitions for land grants in the Ecum Secum, Marie Joseph and Liscomb areas. In 1818, the applicants received grants that totalled 1,200 acres, divided into several parcels.
Two of Thomas Sr.’s sons, Charles and Leonard Pye, received a grant of 200 acres on Liscomb Harbour that included the major portion of the Pye’s Head peninsula. The brothers formally divided the land in 1822 and established family residences on the location, which provided easy access to the ocean and featured several sites suitable for the construction of wharves.
When Charles passed away in 1853, his land was purchased by Eben Jacob Locke, husband of Leonard Pye’s daughter Mary Jennet. Eben later sold most of the property to Mary Jennet’s brother, William Henry Pye.
Leonard Pye was active at sea for over 30 years. In May 1825, he registered the Lunenburg-built schooner Sally in his name and personally operated the vessel. After the Sally was lost at sea in December 1827, Leonard purchased and operated the 36-ton schooner Mary Jane, which he registered in November 1836.
By June 1844, Leonard was master of the British Queen, a two-masted, 54-ton schooner that he had built in Liscomb. The vessel was owned and operated by James and John Henry McNab, two Halifax merchants. Leonard purchased the ship from the McNab brothers in April 1849. By that time, he was active in coastal trade routes established between Nova Scotia, Newfoundland and the coast of Labrador, where he traded goods with the native population, in exchange for fish.
Leonard’s son, William Henry, sailed with his father and later became a coastal trader himself. According to family lore, he went to sea at age eight and took charge of the British Queen at age 14. William Henry received navigation instruction from a Mr. McDaniel, a Sherbrooke resident, and successfully completed the examinations for his Master Mariner’s certificate in Halifax.
Leonard passed away in the spring of 1852 at age 55. William Henry, administrator of his estate, equitably divided his father’s assets among family members. In subsequent years, William Henry purchased his mother’s share and as much of his sisters’ properties as he could acquire. The year prior to his father’s death, he had married Jane Eliza Davis, a resident of Ecum Secum West, and the couple built a home on a section of Pye’s Head overlooking Liscomb Harbour.
In 1857, William Henry served as a coastal pilot aboard the Gulnare, a surveying vessel hired by the Royal Navy to map the Nova Scotia coastline for the British Admiralty. A flat rock near the family home served as a survey reference point and still bears the appropriate carved markings.
William Henry continued to operate the British Queen, and later purchased another merchant schooner, the Agility, built in Port Medway in 1858. Family lore claims that the vessel operated as a blockade runner during the American Civil War, slipping through the North’s naval blockade to deliver British goods to Southern Confederate ports.
In May 1874, William Henry sold the Agility and the following year acquired the newly constructed A. M. Payne, named for a prominent Halifax merchant. He operated the new vessel for eight years. After selling the ship to a Shelburne County mariner, he “came ashore.” In his retirement years, William Henry operated the local customs house at times, and opened a store that provided the local community with basic goods.
In August 1910, William Henry deeded all of his property to his son Leonard Whitman Pye, who eventually dismantled his father’s Cape Cod house and built a new residence on the same foundation. Leonard had married Ida Alexandra “Lexie” Hartling, a Spanish Ship Bay native, in 1908 and the couple raised a family of seven children—daughters Alma Kathleen, Amy Rebecca, Leone Ida, Caroline Davidson, and Margaret Jane, and sons Stuart Allison and Howard Leslie “Ted.”
Leonard pursued a livelihood at sea for several years. Like his father, he operated the customs house and maintained a sustenance farm on Pye’s Head. He also left home for seasonal work, managing a lobster factory at Malagash in the spring and supervising apple harvesting in the Annapolis Valley in the autumn. The family briefly moved to Halifax in the early 1920s, but finding suitable accommodations for a large household was a challenge and they soon returned to Pye’s Head.
Leonard’s sons Allison (DOB July 18, 1910) and Ted were determined to go to sea. As the family no longer operated its own vessels, 17-year-old Allison made his first voyage to the West Indies aboard the schooner Esthonia in 1928, likely accompanied by 14-year-old Ted. The vessel, under the command of Howard Hartling—a relative of their mother’s—departed from Halifax on March 27 and safely returned to Nova Scotia after a five-month voyage.
Ted later sailed to the Turks Islands aboard the vessel Cape LaHave, only to become stranded when the vessel ran aground and was lost. Although news of the wreck soon reached the family, Ted’s whereabouts remained a mystery for some time. His youngest sibling, Margaret, recalled that he “just came walking down the road” one day.
Allison continued to work at sea, completing a total of four voyages on the Esthonia in 1928 and 1929. He made another schooner voyage to the Turks Islands aboard the James E. Newsome. While sailing vessels experienced a modest resurgence during the Great Depression, due in part to lower operating costs and fuel shortages, their use declined as the decade passed and steamships assumed the bulk of the Caribbean routes.
Allison made the transition to the new technology, joining the crew of the Lady Somers, one of Canadian National Steamships Company’s famous “Lady Boats,” for two voyages in 1930. He also served aboard its sister ships, the Lady Nelson and the Lady Rodney, from 1935 to 1939, logging a total of 23 voyages. In 1939, he gave up going to sea as “there was no future in it.” The timing of his decision proved fortuitous—during the Second World War, three of the four Lady Boats fell victim to German U-boats.
Allison completed the accounting program at the Maritime Business College and found work in Halifax. During the Second World War, he enlisted for service with the Royal Canadian Air Force and served as an accounts clerks with 11 Technical Service Unit, Montreal. Upon returning to civilian life, he worked for the Colonial Fertilizer Company in Windsor, NS. When Canada Packers purchased the company in the 1960s, he returned to Halifax, where he worked as an accountant.
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| Stuart Allison Pye in RCAF uniform |
Meanwhile, the episode aboard the Cape LaHave persuaded Ted to abandon seafaring in favour of safer pursuits ashore. He remained at home for a period of time, briefly returning to school before going to work with his father on Pye’s Head. Leonard owned a small boat that they used for lobster fishing.
After Leonard’s death in 1935, Ted may have worked in the Halifax dockyards for a while. He eventually returned to Pye's Head, although the exact date is unknown. Ted did some farming, maintaining a vegetable garden and tending livestock, particularly a large ox named Babe that he used for ploughing and hauling. At the time of his enlistment, Ted gave his address as Liscomb and listed his occupation as fisherman.
On June 26, 1941, Ted answered the call to military service, enlisting with the Canadian Active Service Force at Antigonish, NS. One week later, he reported to No. 61 Basic Training Centre, New Glasgow. On August 19, he completed his initial training and was assigned to the Vocational Wing, No. 6 District Depot, Halifax. Over the next three months, he took a trades course and was certified as “a qualified oxyacetylene welder” on November 25.
In early February 1942, Ted was transferred to the Royal Canadian Ordnance Corps Training Centre (RCOTC), Barriefield, Kingston, ON, for the next stage of his military service. On March 28, he was assigned to the Canadian Army Training School, Hamilton, and in mid-June returned to RCOTC Barriefield, where he remained throughout the summer.
On September 1, 1942, Ted received permission to marry Miss Elizabeth Violet “Lizzie” Knight “on or after 1 - 11 - 42.” Ted had known Lizzie for some time. She was born in Halifax, but her mother, Elizabeth Ethel Morris, was from West Liscomb. Lizzie met Ted while she was visiting her grandmother, Bertha Elizabeth (Berrigan) Morris. His sisters recalled Ted rowing across the harbour to meet her at the Morris family home.
While Lizzie and Ted’s marriage was initially scheduled for November, events moved more rapidly than anticipated. Ted officially qualified as “Welder Group ‘B’ Grade I” on September 19, and four days later received 10 days’ leave. A note in his service file, dated September 24, 1942, states:
“Having been granted permission to marry on or after 24/9/42, was married on the 24/9/42 to Miss Elizabeth Violet Knight [at Halifax]. New address - 206 Grafton St., Halifax, NS.”
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| Lizzie and Ted |
Upon returning to duty on October 1, Ted was officially “struck off strength” by the Canadian Ordnance Corps Training Centre and awaited orders to proceed overseas. He departed Halifax in late October and disembarked in the United Kingdom on November 5, 1942.
As with all arrivals, Ted was assigned to the Canadian Ordnance Reinforcement Unit. The Corps was responsible for procuring all material items required by the Canadian Army, such as weapons, clothing and mechanical transport. Until 1944, its personnel also maintained and repaired Army equipment.
On November 25, Ted was assigned to the newly created 1 Canadian Ordnance Beach Detachment (COBD), whose personnel would assist infantry units in beach landings as part of an invasion of Nazi-occupied Europe. Their mission involved establishing assembly areas for men and vehicles arriving on shore and overseeing their movement inland. The unit was also responsible for creating storage areas for fuel, ammunition, rations and other supplies as they came ashore. As infantry units proceeded inland, the unit would supervise the evacuation of the dead and wounded, prisoners of war, and salvaged equipment.
Well before Ted’s arrival in the United Kingdom, Canadian units had transitioned from defensive roles to training for an invasion of the European continent. Personnel rehearsed scrambling from naval vessels into landing craft and making their way ashore. These exercises began in England but later shifted to Scotland, where sandy beaches and mountainous terrain provided ideal staging grounds for large-scale operations that preceded the Allied landings at Dieppe (August 1942), Sicily (July 1943) and Normandy (June 1944).
On December 7, 1942, Ted was attached “for all purposes” to the 11th Base Ordnance Depot, Royal Army Ordnance Corps (RAOC). He probably spent the month training with British soldiers who shared their expertise with the inexperienced Canadians. The first indication of Ted’s involvement in practical training occurred on January 10, 1943, when he was sent with his unit to CTC [Combined Training Centre] Castle Toward, Scotland. Built in 1820 to replace a medieval structure that was the home of Clan Lamont, the castle is located in the Argyll and Bute district of Scotland, on the shores of the Upper Firth of Clyde, approximately 70 kilometres west of Glasgow.
During the war, the British military requisitioned the castle and its grounds and awarded it the Royal Navy commission of HMS Brontosaurus. Personnel stationed at the location learned how to operate a variety of landing craft, and rehearsed the loading and unloading of men, tanks and armoured vehicles. British Prime Minister Sir Winston Churchill and Rear Admiral Lord Louis Mountbatten were among the prominent figures who visited the location during the war.
British and Commonwealth soldiers trained in landing operations staged on the Isle of Bute, to the west of Castle Toward. The men were billeted in private homes in Rothesay, the island’s largest town. After the war, residents fondly remembered the Canadians, particularly their unusual accents and generosity in sharing chewing gum, chocolate bars and sports cards from their cigarette packages with local children.
On January 22, 1943, Ted was admitted to Rothesay Memorial Hospital, Scotland, where he was diagnosed with a cerebral haemorrhage. His service file does not describe its cause. A later document stated that he had suffered a “heart attack during combined operations on training.” Unfortunately, there are no medical documents in his service file to provide further details.
Two days later, perhaps due to worsening health, military authorities decided to transfer Ted to a military hospital on the outskirts of Glasgow. An “Extract from an Entry in a Registry of Deaths” for the District of Buchanan, County Sterling, Scotland, states that Ted died at 5:22 pm January 24, 1943, “in an ambulance on a journey between Rothesay and Military Hospital, Buchanan.” The entry identifies the cause of death as septicaemia, a conclusion repeated in several other official documents.
That same day, military authorities sent a telegram to Ted’s wife Lizzie, informing her: “Regret deeply F88060 Private Howard Leslie Pye officially reported died twenty-fourth January 1943 as result of cerebral haemorrhage.” Ted’s remains were transported to Surrey, UK, where he was buried in Brookwood Military Cemetery, Woking, Surrey, on February 2, 1943.
Details on the Pye and Hartling genealogies was obtained from Ruth Legge’s detailed work, “Shreds and Nooks of Land—A History of Liscomb, Spanish Ship Bay and Geggogin, Guysborough County.” Special thanks to Ted’s nephew and nieces who helped assemble his story. Don Hatton and Muriel Elliott, Pye’s Head, NS, and Margaret Pye Arnaudin, St.-Jean-sur-Richelieu, QC, provided details on Ted and Allison Pye’s personal lives. Denise McMurtry, Carp, Ottawa, ON, shared a photograph of Ted in uniform and a picture of Ted with his wife Lizzie. Margaret Pye Arnaudin provided a photograph of her father, Stuart Allison, in uniform.
