The stories of the people that had settled in and brought changes to Cole Harbour over the past two centuries thrust themselves upon the dedicated naturalist as she went about gathering support for the protection of the salt marsh and changed Rosemary's focus. While she never let up on her efforts to create a park to protect Cole Harbour and bring it to the attention of the wider public, she took on the additional role of preserving and promulgating its cultural history as well. Having spent her first couple of years in Cole Harbour isolated from her community by necessity - poor health and lack of transportation - the need to make people aware of the threats to the harbour and marsh brought her into contact with like-minded individuals. One was the wife of a retired United Church minister who, with her husband, had recently returned to where she was born and brought up, to settle on property that had once belonged to her father.

Margaret Kuhn Campbell's father, Peter McNab Kuhn had once owned and maintained the dyke that closed the harbour mouth. Margaret knew all the old families in the area and set about recording her own memories and gathering reminiscences from others. Together, she and Rosemary were just what was needed to ignite the spark that would, in 1973, become the Cole Harbour Rural Heritage Society (CHRHS) with its dual mandate of protecting the natural and cultural history of the area.

The new society soon found itself not only collecting information and images, as it had set out to do, but being asked to save objects and even buildings. This required funding, among other things, and the two women brought their considerable skills to bear in the interests of the fledgling society, their enthusiasm eventually leading to the establishment of the Cole Harbour Heritage Farm Museum, in 1976. Forty years on their legacy thrives. By the mid 1970s the society boasted several dozen members from both the 'old' Cole Harbour and the 'new'. The new Cole Harbour was a burgeoning suburban area of growth that quickly changed a rural community of a few hundred into a modern urban area populated by thousands. The CHRHS happened just in time and was able to save some of community's history before it was inundated by rampant development. Several of the new members brought their own skills and dedication to the development of the museum. Other organizations and government departments provided guidance and assistance.

Today, the community has matured and many have embraced Cole Harbour's heritage even though for the most part it is not their heritage. A generation has grown up in the new Cole Harbour, a suburb absorbed by the larger community of Halifax Regional Municipality and now completely urban in character. Many walk and bike in the parkland assuming it was somehow put there for their enjoyment by "the government", unaware of all the selfless dedication that went into winning over that same government, or how close it came to not being preserved at all. Young adults who were taken to the Cole Harbour Heritage Farm Museum (popularly referred to as 'The Farm') are now bringing their own children. They visit the old buildings, livestock and gardens, farm equipment and other exhibits on the two acre site completely surrounded by urban development. An impressive number of its visitors, Cole Harbour residents and others, are actually aware that it was once a thriving farming community and bread basket for the old city of Halifax.

Today the museum boasts a substantial archive as well as a significant collection of farm artifacts. Its on site tearoom and gift shop support local producers and produce from the museum's garden is served. It attracts visitors from a wide area, provides educational and cultural programs and hosts many events. Only a handful of people remain who remember its beginnings and the hard work and determination of Rosemary Eaton in bringing it all about. Although there have been, and will be more, changes made as the years go by it remains true to her vision.