Ireland Monument

William Cochran, D.D.
 - First Educator of Colony of Nova Scotia -
  
 When King’s College School was founded at Windsor in 1788 as the first
 College in the colony of Nova Scotia, an Irishman became the first
 principal and thus the first educator of the colony which was the first
 part to be settled and developed of what was later to become Canada.
 Cochran had left Ireland to become a teacher in America. He was
 established as Professor of Latin and Greek at the newly named Columbia
 University, formerly King’s College, New York, when he became
 disenchanted and left for Halifax from where he was enticed to accept
 the position at the new King’s College School at Windsor.
 At the “Old Burial Grounds” at Windsor, his grave stone contains this
 message:
 “In memory of the Rev. Wm. COCHRAN, D. D. a native of Omagh, in Ireland,
 and educated at Trinity College Dublin. He was for more than 40 years, a
 Missionary of the Church of England in this county and for the same
 period, a Professor in King’s College, Windsor. Beloved by his pupils,
 and highly useful in his generation, his walk was finished on 4th of
 Aug. AEt.77.”
 One of his two sons, named Andrew William, was born at Windsor in 1792
 and graduated B.A. from King’s College. He studied Law and became
 assistant civil secretary to the Governor-in Chief of Canada at the same
 time that classmate Thomas Chandler Haliburton became a lawyer at
 Annapolis Royal and wrote under the name of Sam Slick for the
 Novascotian, edited by Joe Howe. It was Haliburton who brought to the
 attention of future generations that Hurley on the Ice began with
 students at King’s College School circa 1800 and went on to develop into
 Ice Hockey and spread across the country and around the world.
 Cochran and fellow professors at King’s would have introduced their
 young students to the national sports of Ireland as did other professors
 from England and Scotland. It was the game of Hurley, played with both
 sides of the blade of the stick that caught the attention of pupils who
 adapted the game to the frozen surface of their Long Pond on the college
 grounds.

Thanks to Dr. Garth Vaughan and Holly Hammett-Vaughan (Nova Scotia).