In 1760, Chester Basin, in what is now Lunenburg County, Nova Scotia,  began as a settlement with the arrival of New Englanders (1760-1783), and grew with the arrival of disbanded British soldiers (1804-1816), and later (1820s-1860s), families from the Foreign Protestants group who initially came to Lunenburg in 1753.  Prior to its settlement, groups of Mi’kmaw, a tribe of the Wabenaki Confederacy living mainly along the mid-eastern coast of the Atlantic Ocean, used the area as a summer fishing location.

The basin, like a tongue of water extending inward from what is currently known as Mahone Bay, became an important centre for ship building and transporting of goods, and as a fishing port.  Later,  gold mining, barrel making, and the growing and exporting of  Christmas trees joined the important industries within Chester Basin.  It is said that in the late 1910s the first Christmas trees were exported by sea from the Basin to the United States.

Chester Basin served as a connecting point to places along the coast — southwest to Mahone Bay, Lunenburg, Bridgewater and beyond; northeast to Halifax, Guysborough, and Canso;  and to the hinterland of the province, especially the settlements of New Ross (initially Sherbrooke), Dalhousie and Wellington.  Later, the connecting road to New Ross was extended to Kentville and the Bay of Fundy area.

As the community continued to grow, services of all kinds were needed: stores, barns (for horses and wagons), wharfs and warehouses, hotels, boarding houses, blacksmith shops, and even an ice cream parlour.