Located on the Annapolis Royal waterfront in a circa 1869 stagecoach inn and tavern, the O’Dell House Museum is the former home of Nova Scotia Pony Express rider Corey O’Dell and family, and then of his son Griffin O’Dell and family, remaining in the O’Dell family until the 1950s.
The ground floor of this period Victorian structure allows you to step back in time and explore the inn’s parlour, dining room, kitchen and small office. The second floor houses the Society’s Genealogy Centre as well as constantly changing interpretive displays of items drawn from the Society’s extensive collection of artifacts and archival materials, which document the history of the surrounding area.
This museum was the former house of Cory O’Dell, a rider of the Nova Scotia Pony Express. Over May through September 1849, mail steamships would arrive in Halifax every week. The riders would pick up these news and rapidly travel distances. They carried news to Digby, then by ferry to Saint John, then by train or rider to the U.S. border where telegraph lines existed.
However, after the completion of a telegraph line from Saint John to Halifax, the Pony Express became obsolete.
