N.S. family reunited with medal of ancestor who served with Canada's WWI Black battalion

A First World War medal that was collecting dust in a Nova Scotia hobby coin shop has finally made its way back to the soldier's family more than 100 years after his death.

Hal Davidson discovered the golden medal after he closed his Amherst, N.S., shop around the beginning of the COVID-19 pandemic.

The medal bears an image of a man on a horse and the years 1914 and 1918 on one side. On the other side it says "Pte. M Jackson," along with a battalion number.

Curiosity got the better of Davidson, so he did some internet sleuthing.

That battalion number was for the No. 2 Construction Battalion. The Nova Scotia-based battalion was the first military unit in Canada made up of mostly Black personnel.

The battalion was primarily used in non-combat situations performing gruelling work to clear trees, build roads, and maintain railway tracks. Members were forced to live in segregated camps and not provided with proper medical care, rations or equipment.

Davidson said he quickly recognized the medal as an important piece of history. 

"If that was something of a relative of mine, I'd certainly like to get it,"  he told CBC Radio's Information Morning Nova Scotia. 

"So the idea became, how do I find this person?"

Connected with family

Turns out, it was easier than he thought.

"To be quite honest, it was kind of like looking for your glasses and they're on top of your head," Davidson says.

The Antigonish Cenotaph Project had posted a profile of Pte. Michael Jackson a few years ago, and a comment below the profile identified one Theresa Brewster as the private's great-granddaughter.

Brewster says she remembers her grandmother talking about Pte. Jackson and his medal. But as a child, she was never sure how much was fact or fiction.

"When she would tell the story, I think she made it bigger than what it was," she says. "We just said, 'Oh, Granny's telling stories again.' And as I got older, I realized she wasn't."

According to the Antigonish Cenotaph Project's profile, Jackson was born in Tracadie, N.S., and worked at a coal mine in Cape Breton before enlisting in 1916. He served in France with the No. 2 Construction Battalion as part of the Canadian Forestry Corps, supplying lumber for the front. 

Jackson died about 18 months into his service after a physical altercation with some comrades. A charge of manslaughter was recommended, but military officials found a lack of evidence and no charges were laid, according to the Antigonish Cenotaph Project. 

He was survived by his wife, Margaret, two daughters and a son. 

Last weekend in a ceremony at the No. 2 Construction Battalion monument in Pictou, N.S., Brewster was reunited with the medal — a tangible connection to her family history.

"I was in tears," she says, "but it made me feel so good. It was like, I'm bringing my grandfather home."

Brewster brought the medal home to Glace Bay over the Easter weekend, and said all her family members wanted to hold it, and shared her sense of pride in her ancestor.

She plans to incorporate the medal into the Universal Negro Improvement Association's cultural museum in Glace Bay.

For more stories about the experiences of Black Canadians — from anti-Black racism to success stories within the Black community — check out Being Black in Canada, a CBC project Black Canadians can be proud of. You can read more stories here.