In 1761 Joseph Barss came t Liverpool at the age of 11 with his widowed mother and two uncles.
He later became a sea captain and in 1773 married Elizabeth Crowell.
In 1798 the Barss Family built one of the largest homes in Liverpool. This is the house that now froms part of Lane's Privateer Inn.
Their son, Joseph Barss Jr. became one of the most famous privateers along the Atlantic seaboard and more than a century later, still sets the blood atingle to old sea romance.
In 1811, Capt. Joseph Barss Jr. took command of the schooner, "Liverpool Packet" - nicknamed the "Black Joke". Within a year he made her famous and himself rich capturing 33 American vessels.
On the morning of June 11, 1812, the "Packet" was peacefully anchored off the coast of Maine. The "Thomas" of Portsmouth, New Hampshire, a new, fast-sailing Baltimore built schooner, attempted to capture the "Packet". The "Packet's" ammunitionwas no match for that of the "Thomas". The "Packet" turned to flee and a 5 hour race was on. To save useless loss of life, the "Packet" surrendered. The two schooners docked in Portsmouth. The captain and crew manacled and guarded by militia, were marched through the streets of Portsmouth to the long jail where they spent many a weary months of imprisonment. Capt. Joseph Barss Jr. was set free on terms that did not permit him to resume privateering. Shortly after returning to Liverpool he and his family moved to a farm in Kentville.
The sea called insistantly. When his grass ran in waves before the wind, he saw instead "The white horses of the Atlantic racing from Western Head to Coffin's Island, the spray rising in broken columns on Neil's Ledge, the long wash of waves in Sandy Cove." When the sun lay still on his hillside farm, he longed for a "windy day with the white clouds flying, the blown spume, and the flung spray."
On August 3, 1824, in his 49th year, there came "A quiet sleep, a sweet dream, the long trick was over." Joseph Barss Jr. lies in the shadow of the oaks in Kentville cemetery, far from his sea-side home and the resting place of his fellow rovers.
