its history its people

ITS HISTORY ITS PEOPLE

ITS

FOUNDING

Simpsons and

FAMILIES

McNei lis their

kin

BY

Harold H. Simpson

Clarks

U

~\lfiNDI8 ITS HISTORY . ITS PEOPLE

•

THE DEVELOPMENT OF A COMMUNITY FROM WILDERNESS TO WORLD RECOGNITION with a broad outreach to major landmarks in the Prince Edward Island story

I

The Founders of Cavendish 1790: William and Janet Winchester Simpson John and Margaret Simpson MCNeill William and Helen Simpson Clark AND SOME OF TI-lE FAMILIES RELATED BY MARRIAGE WHO CA~'1E TO THE ISLAND OF SAINT JOHN BETWEEN 1769 AND 1780 OR SOON

THEREAFTER

Chart Names Include BAGNALL JOHNSTONE OWEN

1

GORDON DOCKENDORFF HYDE MILLAR MONTGOMERY MACEWEN RAMSAY TAYLOR WOODSIDE AND OTHERS BY

Harold H. Simpson 1973

Produced by Harold H. Simpson and Associates Limited Amherst, Nova Scotia

Truro, Nova Scotia

TO LAURA WHO OF WHICH

MADE

SI~~SON

DID THE THIS

COWAN MUCH

RESEARCH VOLUME

POSSIBLE

FOREWORD "Let not ambition Their homely joys Nor grandeur hear The simple annals

mock their useful toil, and destiny obscure; with a disdainful smile, of the poor."

Historians, in .their historical treatises, too often manifest a total preoccupation with signi ficant public events. They seem to imagine that a recitation of public occurrences - the vagaries of politics, the accounts of sieges and battles, diplomacy and treaties, revolutions and counter revolutions, constitute the history of a country. The wise historian, however, recognizes that no history is complete which omits the social fabric of the various communities which are the component and integral parts of a province or nation. He will emphasize in proper detail the domestic society, the manners, . the amusements, the institutions, and the ideals of the people. He will also treat the state of agriculture and the fisheries, the technological improvements, the conveniences of life, and the progress of education, of culture, of religion, and of architecture. The author of Cavendish, Its History, Its People, - has skillfully come to terms with the prerequisites for a balanced history. The author weaves an enlightening and fascinating story of Cavendish and its people. Based on impeccable research, and authentic documentation both verbal and written, the history of Cavendish from its beginnings to the present is carefully unfolded. Balanced emphasis is placed upon the earliest families, the Simpsons, the McNeills and the Clarks accompanied by extensive genealogical detail. The arrival of new settlers, and the gradual development of the community represented in the establishment of social institutions such as Churches and schools is delineated. In a separate chapter devoted to Cavendish's most precious jewel, Lucy Maud Montgomery, the author, using personal knowledge, presents a new portrait. The story is completed with a penetrating analysis of the development of Cavendish in the last few decades. Harold H. Simpson's history of Cavendish is a notable contribution to an understanding and appreciation of the total history of the Island. His publication, presenting the history of a community that has become famous internationally, will deeply enrich the heritage of Prince Edward Island. The readers of this volume will remain indebted to H. H. Simpson for his laudable publication.

July, 1973

Francis W. P. Bolger Stanley Bridge, P.E.I.

ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS The writer of fiction is responsible only to his ovm imagination. He who attempts to produce a history of a community and a people is responsible to his antecedents, to posterity and especially for the record and the accuracy of his data. The writer is, in a sense, a funnel through which is poured the accumulated data from many sources. He is also e~sentially a screen eliminating the ir~elevant and the nonessential. But he is only a vehicle to convey the record and to obtain that record he must consult many sources. For such a record as that which follows, earlier written histories are not available. The sources open to the writer were a limited number of articles, some old letters, vital statistics and land registry records, back issues of newspapers, background material from provincial histories, church records - baptismal, marriage and sometimes death dates, tombstones in cemeteries - particularly Cavendish, archival records, scrapbooksp family Bibles, other family records, the retentive memories of a number of people in their eightys and ninetys and many others, among them Georgina Simpson Gordon, Maggie Clark Buntain, Lucy McNeill Simpson and William Johnstone and his wife Mildred. We entered into correspondence with many people who provided much infJrmation. A number of persons, some of them complete strangers, having heard that we were working on the project, forwarded valuable material. In some cases, in covering an incident, we have credited the source. So many people have participated in building the record that most of them must remain nameless. Their contributions have been essential and are much appreciated. Individual recognition must be given however to certain individuals and groups. The book is dedicated to Laura Simpson Cowan. Elsewhere we have referred to the major research done by her and her nephew, Robert Harwood, in Britain, and to the substantial geneal6gical record she has built over many years. Without her contribution and inspiration the project might never have been undertaken. From a complete stranger, Andrew B. W. MacEwen of Maine p "an Islander abroad", came unsolicited many typed pages including baptismal, marriage, and death records not previously found. Dr. Stuart MacDonald, son and literary executor of Lucy Maud Montgomery MacDonald, loaned a bulky file on the lVlontgomerys.

Rev. Dr. E. A. Betts, Arc hivist, Mariti me Conference Archives, United Church of Cana da contributed valuable ma t e rial s for the chapter on Community Institutions. Mr. M. J. McCarron, Superintendent, P.E.I. Nationa l Pa rk J r ovided statistics on the Park. During recent months we hE.ve carried on an active correspondence with Rev. Dr. J o hn T . McNeill who ma de availa bl e information on the McNeills. Mrs. Ann Bond, Public Rel a tions Officer, Confederat ion Centre, Charlottetown p rovided data on the musical, "Anne of Green Gables". Harry Holman of the P.E.I. Archives, with the full coop e ration of the Director, Mr. DeJong was extremely helpful a t a ll times. We are p a rticula rly indebted to him for t he 1809 s urvey (page 55). Mrs. Ca therine Hennessey, Director, P.E.I. Heritage Foundation and G&ry Crowell of the staff were very help ful. Our thanks go to Mc Graw-Hill Ryerson Limited for permissi on to quote excerp ts from "The Green Ga bles Letters". To Rev. Dr. Francis Vi. P. Bolg er, Chairman, Dep a rt ment of Hist ory, University of Prince Edward Island, our thank s for writing the Foreword. We ha ve mentioned elsewhere tha t we have t app ed exten sive ly t he excellent memories of my older sister Clemmie, Mrs. Ha rry Willi a ms and brother Earle. My wife Ha zel ha s not only been a collector of 2dvisor a nd constructive critic throughout.

dat~

but a n

My secretary, Mrs. Kat hryn 'Il o o d, ha s not only been meticulous in her typing but hos t aken a p ersonal interest beyond t he ca ll of p rofessiona l duty. To a ll ot hers who contributed in any way, our sincere th an ks .

INTRODuc'rION "The older speakers gave some interesting scraps of history and reminiscences of the early pioneers of the pla ce . But all expressed their r egret that records were not kept and that so little was now kno \'ffi of the e a rliest settlers". The above quot a tion is taken from a press account in 1890 of the one hundredth anniversary of the foundin g of Ca vend i s h when over five hundred peop le assembled t o c ommemora te t he centennial. Eighty- t hree ye a rs l ater I am a ttempting to record a portion of the rich heritage of a peop l e who, overcoming wha t would now be considered insurmountable obstacles, built a community whose name today is synonymous the world over with that of a little red headed girl called Ann (with an e); a community which, to litera lly hundreds of thousands of people, is a magnet which draws them to summer relaxation a nd re-creation; and a community where one still finds among t he descendants of the found i ng families, those pioneer virtues of industry, honesty, friendliness, family loyalty and personal morality. The project had its beginnings in the 1950's in Vancouver, British Columbia and in Sydney, Nova Scotia. In Vancouver my first cousin, Laura Simpson Cowan, daughter of my father's brother the Honourable George Woodside Simpson became interested in some old Simpson family records and began research. During two winters which she and her husband spent in London, Eng land she contacted the Scots Ancestry Research Society in Edinburg h, the Society of Genealogists in Lon don and other organizations in an effort to trace the family's antecedents in Morayshire, Scotland. . In this she was assisted by her nephew Robert Harwood who also spent a fairly extended period in London on business. Because of incomplete parish records they met with only limited success. Relevant findin gs are included in t he reco rd . At this time I was living in Sydney , Nova Scotia. The 1950's were extremely busy ye a rs for me. In addition to running my own business I was very active in volunta ry community activity . Included in this involvement wa s the Home and School movement. From 1951 to 1954 I was Presi dent of the Nova Scotia Feder ation, and from 1958 to 1960 President of the Canadian Home and School and Pa rent Teacher Federat ion at that time the largest volunt a ry organization in Canada.

9

I

In the midst of all this a ctivity, I too became interested in the story of the past and conceived the idea of eventu a lly pulling in a lot of available information and putting it int~ some form of permanent record. In 1900 Walter Simpson, a first cousin of my father, wrote 8 series of five articles entitled "Cavendish In ·r he Olden 'r ime" which was published in the Prince Edward Island Magazine. From this a nd other sources we had a good de a l of da ta about the ori g inal Simp sons, McNeills a nd Clarks. My interest was spurred by my sister Clemmie (Mrs. harry Williams) eleven years my seni o r and by my brother Earle five ye a rs my senlor. Each of them had a deep interest in family connections a nd each had a fantastic memory. In March, 1957 a t my request my sister put on paper much of her information and I have drawn widely on it. Some time ago Laura Cowan turned over to me the mass of material she had built up over the years. Pooling this with wha t I had and working on the concept of a combination history of the Cavendish area and a useful g enealogy of the Simpson and other early families, with dates where possible, I found that there were many gaps. Thus, in the fourth quarter century of a busy life, I set myself the task of doing considerable additional research and of producing a record which, while only a beginning, will give a foundation on which others may build. In the chapters which follow I have attempted to capture some of the drama of life as experienced by the families who went into the wilderness to establish homes and carve for themselves a future. I have tried to give the reader, particularly the younger re a der, a descri p tion of those first log cabins with their home made furnishin g s an d of the procedures followed to p rovide the basic necessities of life. I ha ve ende a vored to describe the cultura l life of a growing community of intelligent, industrious, nei g hborly, people. I have assumed the difficult task of tryin g to make the record interesting, while covering in some detail the g ene a lo g ical records of the different families~ In the family cha rts which appear in the te xt and in the a ppendix there are still many gaps. With limitations of space ma ny could not be included. But, a s stated above this is only a beginning . We hope others will carryon in their own family lines. 10

Meanwhile we know that much here recorded, made available because of the good memories of people in their eightys and ninetys, would soon have been lost forever if someone had not done the research and recorded the information. A century ago Joseph Howe said, "A wise nation preserves its records, • . . • and fosters national pride and love of country by perpetual reference to the sacrifices and glories of the past". In order that the reader may have some conception of what is involved iri a genealogy of connections which go back to the large families of the 18th and early 19th centuries, I give just one illustration . Donald Montgomery Sr. and his wife Nancy Penman great grandparents of Lucy Maud and my great great grcmdparents hs.d seventeen children - nine sons and eight daughters. One daughter died as a child. The remaining sixteen grew to maturity and established families which totalled one hundred and eighteen children. Imagine remembering the birthdays of 118 gr8.ndchildren. In addition to my cousin Laura, my sister a.nd brother, 2nd the unflaging interest and assistance of my wife, many people have contributed to the overall record.

A word of explanation to some who have sent material. There will be some discrepancies. In a number of cases I have found inaccuracies and have corrected them. I have attempted, in so far a~ possible, to verify the accuracy of information. Where there appears to be doubt I have tried to so indicate. Legends are given as such. Personally and by letter I have appealed to many dozens of persons far and near for details which only they could provide and the response has been marvelous. Particularly encouraging was the unsolicited material which came from a number of people who had heard that I was working on tre project and felt that they had something to contribute. It was my privilege and that of my cousin Laura to begin life in the Cavendish area. While Cavendish as such was a separate school district it was also the community centre for the adjacent districts of Bay View and Mayfield. The churches and the community hall were there, hence religious, social and cultural activities gravitated to these institutions. In April, 1812 my great grandfather at the age of 42 moved with his wife and probably ten children to a log cabin which he had built in a clearing near the shore of New London Bay in Bay View. There he put in among the stumps a crop of grain and potatoes. In the fall the grain was threshed with a flail on the kitchen floor. 11

With limited farm produc ~ ion they had to depend on the se a for much of their food. Fish was plentiful and at their own shore oysters and lobsters were available in abundance, even down to my boyhood days. Times change. Todays high priced delicacies, oysters and lobsters had no market value a hundred years ago. And in all societies the "Jones" neighbours arrive. I have heard my parents tell of one family, when meat became more plentiful who used to say they were not so poor that they had to eat lobsters,- they could afford meat. Over the years he and my grandfather and father cleared and built up a very productive farm of about one hundred and fifty o.cres. Here I spent the first sixteen years of my life. After two years in Prince of Wales College and four years overseas in World War I, I returned to Cavendish in 1919 and bought the farm opposite the United Church where the Wax Museum and many resort buildings now stand. Two years later I moved from the community. We now have a summer home just over the border in North Rustieo and for five months each year I am back home. In the pages which follow is much of fact, something of legend and tradition and I hope to many, as to me, much of nostalgia.

12

CONTEN'rs Introduction

9

1.

BEGINNINGS Cavendisha Where It Is; Its Name; Topography; The Island Discovered; French Development And British Takeover; The Lot System; Establishment Of Colonial Government.

15

2.

SOl\m EARL Y Sl',,'TTLERS Scottish Background; Characteristics; Reasons F'or Emigrating; The Montgomerys, 1769; The Annabella, 1770; The Falmouth, 177p; The Simpsons, McNeill, Cla rk, 1775.

20

3.

THE SIMPSONS ARRIVE Certificate Of Character; At Sea; Shipwreck; Family Record; Research In Scotland; Probable Roots; Family Chart.

28

4.

ThE FIRST FIFrEEN YEARS Salvage From Wrecked Ship; Building A Shelter; To Charlottetown; Privation Because Of P~under By Americans; Two Children Born; Family l\'iarriages; Land Registry Records; Sorn~ Legends.

40

5~

THE FOUNDING OF CAVENDISH 1790 Fiction And Fact; Locating The First Simpson Home; The Simpson Household; 'r o Cavendish 1790 J Establishing A New Home.

49

6.

THE CO-FOUNDING FAMILIES - THE EARLY YEAR~ Why To Cavendish? Years Of Beginnings; The First Decade; Slow Progress But Great Changes.

62

7.

THE McNEILLS

71

8.

WILLIAM SIMPSON JUNIOR

8)

9.

THE CLARKS

87

JAMES SIMPSON

92

10.

13

11.

WILLIAM AN D JANET'S OTHER CHILDREN

101

12.

OTHER FAMILIES ARRIVE

116

13.

KIN BY MARRIAGE

124

14.

A DEVELOPING COMMUNITY

132

15.

INCIDENTS OF INTEREST

140

16.

COMMUNI'llY INSTITUTIONS

149

Churches; Schools; Cavendish Literary Society. 17.

REVERE ND DOCTOR ALBERT BENJAMIN SIMPSON

187 .

18.

LUCY MAUD MONTGOMERY

195

19.

THE NATIONAL PARK

210

20.

CAVENDISH

YESTERDAY

TODAY

'APPENDIX

Additional Family Charts

TOMORROW

216

Chapter 1 BEGINNINGS Cavendish Where It Is It's Name Topography The Island Discovered French Development And British Takeover The Lot System Establishment Of Colonial Government Cavendish is midway between North Cape and East Point on the north shore of Prince Edward Island . Cavendish is a seascape community on the shore of the Gulf of St. Lawrence, the northern end of Lot 23. Cavendish is low-lying, slightly rolling, fertile farmland with windbreaks of evergreen trees sheltering neat prosperous farm properties from the chill winter and spring winds off the Gulf. Cavendish is located on the bulge between New London Bay and Rustico Harbour. Cavendish has a coastline which alternates between red sandstone bluffs and secluded sandy coves, with, at its western end, a wide expanse of beautiful hard sand beach , extending into two and one half miles of sand dunes across New London Bay to the Harbour. Cavendish is the year round home of what is mostly sturdy Scotch stock, many of them descendants of the original founding families. Cavendish is a community one hundred and eight y-three years old which in 1790 was primeval forest to the shoreline. Cavendish is "Anne of Green Gables" land, and for her first thirty-seven years, the home of Lucy Maud Montgomery, Anne's creator . Cavendish is the spot where, to the house known as Green Gables, nearly half a million people come each year. Cavendish is the western section of the Prince Edward Island National Park, which with its unsurpassed beaches , its quiet pastoral beauty, its fresh, pure air and pleasant sea breezes, lures vacationers seeking re-creation, in numbers s~cond only in Canada to Banff National Park. Cavendish is all these and to those to whom it is home and to those who have discovered its summer and f a ll lure , it is much more.

15

The name Cavendish wa s given to the community i n honor of Frederic Lord Cavendish, first Duke of Devonshire , who was patron of the owner of Lot 23 in which Ca vendish is situa ted . Two hundred years ago Cavendish was virgin forest, untouched by the hand of man. There was a small French settlement in the adjoining community on the shores of Rustico Harbour. In 1735 a Norman peasant n a med Rene Rassicot moved with his seven sons and three daughters from Port le Joie (Charlottetown) to what is now Rustico Harbour and established a fishing station. The name Rustico is an Anglicized corruption of his name. The French name for the community wa s Restice. Two hundred years ago in 1773 Robert Clark, a merchant in London, England arrived with about one hundred settlers to establish a settlement which he called New London on the western side of the Harbour and Bay to which he gave the same name. The Indian name for the Bay and Harbour had been Kigeboogwek. In those days when the only means of travel was by wate r , the first essential of settlement wa s a sheltered harbour . It wa s only as the need for food ma de necessary the beginnings of an agricultural economy tha t early settlers began to look to the land and its suitability for farming. In a l a ter chapter we shall tell of the founding of Cavendish in 1790 and go on to describe its transition from a primitive rural economy to a modern mecca, sought as a source of restoration of body, mind and spirit by the we a ry of ha lf a continent. Prince Edward Island, the French Isle St. Je an wa s discovered by Jacques Ca rtier in 1534. They saw Micmac Indians crossing a river mouth in canoes and named it River of Boats now Kildare River in Western Prince County. By 1636 sufficient exploration ha d taken pla ce for Champlain to show its general outline on his map of that date. In 1750 there were thirteen larger Acadia n settlements a nd fifteen smaller ones with a population of 2,223 persons . In 1755-56 over 2,000 Acadians esca ped the Nova Scotia Expulsion by fleeing to Isle St. Jean. In 1758, a fter the fall of Louisburg, when t he Brit i sh took over Isle st. Jea n there were about 4,600 Ac a dians on the Isl and. An expulsion took pla ce that summer un de r t he direction of Lord Rollo and only a bout three hun dr ed , the Malpeque community, were left. Some sev en hundre d es cap e d t he net to New Brunswick a nd Quebec. The r e ma inde r we r e put on boa rd ships to be returned to Fra nce. Many of these were los t at sea. 16

Immediately following the Treaty of Paris in 1763, the first Lord of the Admiralty, John Percival the Earl of Egmont requested the Monarch, King George III, for a grant of the whole Island. He had grandiose plans for its development which, however, were not considered practical by the King's Council and they recommended against the grant. But interest in these new lands was aroused and on March 13, 1764 the Board of Trade and Plantations recommended that the Island be forthwith surveyed. Captain Samuel Holland was appointed Surveyor-General to act under instructions from the Lords Commissioners for Trade and Plantations, io survey the northern part ~f North America, a "line to the north of the Potowmack River •••• du~ west •••• as far as His Majesty's dominions extend". The first area to be surveyed was the Island of St. John. Captain Holland sailed on the Canceaux in May with forty men and after going to Quebec, sailed for the Island on September 14 and sighted Cape North October 5, 1764. Headquarters was established at Rocky Point across the harbour from what is now Charlottetown. After building winter quarters, work was begun and carried on by dog team and snowshoes during the winter, so that in October, 1765 he was able to send his detailed plan to England. The survey divided the Island into three counties each with a capital, - Queens in the centre with Charlottetown as its capital and also the capital of the Colony; Kings on the east, capital Georgetown and Prince on -the west, capital Princetown (later Malpeque). The next subdivision was parishes of which there were fourteen. Finally, the Colony was subdivided into sixty-seven lots of approximately 20,000 acres each. They were so laid out that only three lots did not have a water frontage. In addition to reserving space for each county capital there were reservations for fortifications and for public purposes •

.

In each lot there was provision of one hundred acres for a church and a glebe (parish residence) and fifty acres for a school and school master. water

To allow for free fishery five hundred feet from high W2S reserved.

17

Meanwhile friends of the government at home were - cla moring for land grants. After the applicants were screened and an app roved list drawn up, the allocation of lots was decided by a lottery. On July 23, 1767 the lots were drawn. Each name on the approved list was put in a box. They were then drawn by the applic ant s or their proxies, the lots awarded in the order of the draw. That is the first name drawn got lot one a nd so on. Captain Holland, who had laid ou.t the lots drew number 28 which is the present Tryon, Cap e Tra verse area. The King's agent drew lot 66, orie o£ the three lots with no water frontage. By this lottery a system of land tenure with no opportunity for purchase and freehold a nd with mostly uninterested absentee landlords came into being and remained in effect until after Confederation in 1873. 'I'rue, the 'g rants were made on the basis of certain regulations and commitments which, had they been carried out by the proprietors would have resulted in systema tic settlement and reasonable development. But only a few had any intention of honoring their commitments. They had no interest in the fertile lands under their control. And they were friends of those in power, with the ear of the Government and thus able to avoid their responsibilities. With existing methods of communication it took months for representations and complaints of the Colonial Government and of the settlers to reach the Home Government. When they did arrive the influence of the proprietors wa s such that t he y were brushed aside. A few of the landlords did make a sincere effort to honor the terms of their grant, among them Samuel Holland. He br.ought some settlers to his lot in 1768. Among the commitments made by the grantees were payment of quitrents and the placing of settlers on their grants. Quitrents were at the rate of six shilling s per hundred acres on 26 lots, four shillings on 29 and two shillings on 11. One half wa s to be paid a fter five years, the full amount aft er ten.

18

Settlement by the end of ten years was to be a t lesst one p ersall per two hundred acres. Settlers were to be European protestants or persons who had resided in British North America for two years. It was also stipula ted that if one third of the land WaS not settled in four years the whole grant should be f~rfeited. In 1768 a majority of the proprietors petitioned the King to make the Colony, which was then attached to Nova Scotia, c. separate Government; that the quitrents which would be due in 1772 become payable in May, 1769, the remaining half to become due in twenty years; and that these monies be applied to defray the costs of the Colonial Government. The recommendation was approved and one of the proprietors. Walter Patterson, was appointed Governor~ He and other officers arrived on the Island in 1770 as the Governor and Government of c. full-fledged Colony, the populction of which C.t the tilDe consist-ed of about 150 fa.milies and five proprietors. Such were the be ginnings of the Colony, the Isl&nd of St. John, of which wha t was at that time a non-existent community, Cavendish , was to play an interesting and important role.

19

Chapter 2 SOME EARLY SETTLERS Scottish Background Characteristics Reasons For Emigrating The Montgomerys, 1769 The Annabella, 1770 The Falmouth, 1770 The Simpsons, McNeill, Clark , 1775 "The Engl ish colonies in North America consist of Lower and Upper Canada, New Brunswi ck, Nova Scotia, Newfoundland and Prince Edw~rd Island with the exception of a small pa rt of Canada and here and there a little land in New Brunswick • . . • the whole is wretchedly poor; heaps of rocks covered chiefly with fir trees. These countries are the ,9ffal of North America; they are the head, the skins, the shanks and hoofs of that part of the world; while the United States a r e the sirloins, the well covered and well lined ribs and the suet. 0

•

•

•

"These miserable colonies • . "These are no countries to go to "From Glasgow the sensible Scots are pouring out amain. Those that are poor and cannot pay their passage, or can rake together only a trifle, are going to a rascally heap of sand, rock and swamp, called Prince Edward Island in the horrible Gulf of St. Lawrence . • • . that lump of worthlessness • . • • bears nothing but potatoes". The above is a quota.tion from an article by a British journalist , William Cobbett who wrot 'e in the late e ighteenth and early nineteenth centuries. "All the said land is low and plaine, and faj.rest that may possibly be seen, full of goodly medowes and trees".Jacques Cartier discoverer of Prince Edward Island. "Abegweit" .- the Indian neme for Prince Edward Island meaning "cradled on the waves". "Destiny once sa.id 'I reserve for myself thi s colorful little land of ruby and emerald and sapphire '". - Lucy Maud Montgomery. "A beautiful red and green

fai~yland».

"An enchanted Island".

"An unspoiled rural paradise". 20

"A pastoral Province filled with gently rolling countryside and lush green meadows. It is a land of rivers and streams, trees and flowers, fields and farms". "Garden of the Gulf". "The million acre farm". "A camper's paradise". "An ideal climate". "The cradle of Confederation". "The birthplace of Canada". Two earlier and a number of later descriptions which are somewhat at variance with Cobbett's "rascally heap of sand, rock and swamp, that lump of worthlessness". The Island to which the early British settlers came beginning in the 1760's was somewhere between these two descriptions. The reality was a gently rolling countryside, a land of rivers and streams, a place of great natur~l beauty, a soi l that was fertile, easily cultivated, almost entirely free from rock, a sea and rivers which gave bountifully to their sustenance. But • • • • • It was a land covered with virgin forest waiting the hand of man to transform it into "a pastoral Province of lush green meadows, of fields and farms, to make it the Garden of the Gulf". The early families with whom this record is concerned, the pioneers who, often with several small children, faced long weeks at sea in crowded sailing vessels, to carve for themselves a life in a new and unknown land were the type of people to take on such a challenge and succeed. The pioneer families who later founded Cavendish and a number of others whose story will be recorded in the following pages, were Scots. To relate them to a new situation, a new land, a new life " style, it is necessary to know something of their background , their overall culture, their way of life, their traditions, their former economic condition, their Clan structure, their political development, their religious principles and at least some of their reasons for emigrating.

21

The original Scots were Gaels, a mixture of Celt ' and Teuton. Because of the topography of the country two distinct cultures developed - Lowland and Highland. We are particularly interested in the Highlander. The Lowla nder in the south with more arable land , with a more settled existence, and, because of his proximity to England, his acceptance of the English language (a dialect with a broad accent), stamped out his blood feuds earli er and established an agrarian way of life. As a result the Gaelic language and the Clan were isolated in the Highlands. '1,1he Highlander was by nature a warri or , a hunter and a herdsman. The f act that the poverty of the soil kept him a poor man did not concern him greatly. Cobbett's description of Princ e Edward Island quoted above might more aptly apply to the Highlands of Scotland. He was well armed, had a costume and music all his own, gloried in his Clan wars, but was immensely hospitable. His participation in a Ceilidh by the light of 8. peat fire of an evening with the music of the bagpipes filling the glen and echoing from the hills, wa s his greatest delight. So, over the generations there grew up customs and traditions, an initiative and an independence of spirit which made the rigors of his life bearable and, to a point, enjoyable. The Highlander had two great loyalties, the land and the clan. He was loyal to the land because it was the anc ient horne of his race , and to the clan because it was an extension of his family. The Highland Clan was not a tribe but a famil y sprung from a common ancestor, real or traditional. It was a patriarchal system with a chief who, while he probably lived in a castle instead of a croft, was a member of the family, a sort of older brother, in what was really a classless society. That it had a n appeal to something deep and l asting in his nature is evident from the fact that the clan loyalty of many generations ago still exists in the sons and daughters of Scotland wherever they a r e found. St. Andrews Day and world over with the Clan haggis, the skirl of the Scotland and the oratory

Burns Night are still observed the Kilts, or at least a clan tie, the pipes, the toast to Auld and New of t he after dinner speaker .

Pipe bands , Highland dances, Highland games are found wherever Scots overseas have made their homes. St. Francis Xavier University in Antigonish, Nova Scotia has a Gaelic faculty. The Gaelic Mod held at the Gaelic College in St . Annes, Cape Breton each summer is an international event . 22

The attendance of a Clan Chief at a Scottish g2thering in the Maritime Provinces is a very common occurrence, but still rates press headlines. Dame Flora MacLeod of MacLeod of Dunvegan, Isle of Skye, Chief of the Clan MacLeod, although now over ninety years, has been a frequent visitor at such functions. 'Neath the long shielirtg of a misty Island Mountains divide us and the mist of seas, Yet still. the blood is strong the heart is Highland And we in dreams behold the Hebrides. Scotland's politic a l history beg ins in 844 A.D. when, after three centuri~s of struggle, Kenneth Mac Alpin united into one kingdom the Picts, who occupied the country north of the Firth of Forth , and the Scots in the south who had come from Ireland to Argyll about 500 A.D. By 1018 the boundary with England had been quite firmly established at the Tweed. In the 13th centu r y political expediency brought about a brief period of allegiance to England ' s King Edward I. Had Edward's demands on the Scottish people not been unreasonable and humiliating a firm union might have developed . But the Scots were a proud and independent people. Under William Wallace the commonalty of Scotland attacked the English army at Stirling Bridge in September 1297 and routed it. A year later Wallace was defeated, eventually betrayed to the English and beheaded in 1305. At this point Robert Bruce, who had previously given allegiance to Edward, reversed his position and assumed leadership of the Scottish Independence Movement. By doing so he faced both Edward and his army of occupation and the anger of the Pope. But the people and the Scottish Church , both fiercely independent, supported him in spite of papal excommunication and he was crowned at Sc one in 1306. For eight years he strengthened his position by cunning guerilla warfare. But in 1314 he was faced by a va.stly superior English army under Edward II. Ey superb strategy he chose the place of battle at Bannockburn which gave his army a great advantage and won him a decisive victory . The English wanted peace but refused to accept the Scots demand for recognition of their independence. And the Pope refused to acknowledge Robert as king of Scots. At this time, in 1320, the Scots produced their Magna Carta, a document that ma kes it clear that in Scotla nd there had never been a Divine Right of Kings, that sovereignty is in the people. 2)

The document took the form of an appeal to the Pope and was signed by the King himself in the Regality Chamber of the Abbey of Arbroath. We quote from the document: "We fight not for glory nor for wealth nor honour, but for freedom alone, which a good man yields up only with his life • • • . • by the Providence of God, the right of succession, those laws and customs which we are resolved to defend even with our lives, and by our own just consent, he is our King. Yet Robert himself should he turn aside from the task that he has begun and yield Scotland or us to the English king or people, we should cast out as the enemy of us all, as subverter of our rights and of his own, and should choose another lcing to defend our freedom". So much for political history. Scotland had won her independence because the Scots were an independent people. Scotland remained separate until, through royal marriage, the two crowns were united in 1603. The Highlander was known as a crofter. The word croft originally meant a small holding of arable land, but it came to be applied to his dwelling. When in Scotland in 1964 we saw a number of crofts dating back some 200 years. The walls were usually built of dried mud, the roof was thatched, and there were two rooms. At one end was a large open fireplace used both for heat and for cooking. The interior walls and roof were blackened with the smoke of generations. Life went on without major dis"i;urbance until the Jacobite uprising in 1745-46. This uprising was terminated by the Battle of Culloden, the last land b~ttle to be fought in Great Britain. The battle took place on Culloden Moor five miles east of Inverness on April 16, 1746 0 We visited Culloden field and saw the huge rounded stone around which the final stages of the battle raged and where the signing took place. Culloden was followed by major political changes which affected the whole economy and way of life of the Highland crofter. The question is often asked "Why the substantial emigration from Scotland in the second half of the eighteenth century"? It is often assumed that large scale emigration began because of the Highland Clearances. But the clearances did not take place till early in the 19th century, many years after the period with which we are concerned. 24

In his book THE HIGHLAND CLANS written by Sir lain Moncreiffe and published in 1967 there is a relevant appendix. It is a memorandum to the Minister of state, Scottish Office, written in 1965 by Lord Dundee President of the Oxford Union, and later Deputy leader of the House of Lords. It related to the Highland Development Bill then before Parliament and set forth specific recommendations. p

The concluding section of Lord Dundee's memorandum traces the e:::onomic deterioration of Highland life. We quote~

"Until the middle of the eighteenth century, the clan system of social and judicial administration prevailed in the Highlands. After the rising of 1745, the Hanoverian Government set itself to eradicate the clan system, without being able to substitute anything that could effectively take its place. Territory administered by chiefs was confiscated by the government. As Dr . Darling puts it, 'By the abolition of hereditary jurisdictions the common folk became technically free men~ although in reality this freedom could be equated with the disintegration of their social system'. "One of the most important functions of a chief was the regulation of marriages. Marriage could not take place without the consent of the chief, who would only give his consent if the prospective bridegroom was in a position to support a wife and children. This patriarchial method of population control was abolished by Parliament together with the other powers of the chiefs. Its abolition was followed by a spate of early marriages, and a predigious population explosion , which caused almost continuous famine accompanied by mass emigration. The standard of living of the Highlander had never been high but in the second half of the eighteenth century it reached depths which had never been touched before H • Most of the families which will be referred to in the following pages emigrated from Scotland between 1770 and 1780. It would appear to be very evident from Lord Dundee's comments that there was a valid reason and that the emigration was a result of desperation and the hope that a new land would give them a new opportun ity in life. It is not our purpose in this chapter to go into any detail with regard to the early settlers in whom we are interested. This will be done in the chapters dealing with the individual families.

25

At this point we shall merely give a few names, with the place and year of arrival. Because we are particularly concerned with the founding families of Cavendish, we include them and a few names which became associated very early with the Cavendish families through marriage. The Montgomerys - Hugh and his wife Mary McShannon with three sons and three daughters arrived at Princetown in 1769 and settled there. A year later in October, 1770 the barque Annabella was wrecked off Princetown with some sixty families and about two hundred people. . A cairn to the Annabella stands in Cabot Park at Malpeque (formerly Princetown) the inscription on which is as follows & "On this shore the barque Annabella from Campbellton, Scotland was wrecked in October 1770. Her passengers, having lost all their possessions found welcome shelters in French homes. In spite of extreme hardship, these emigrants and their descendants by their faith and courage made worthy contributions to the development of a progressive community, province and country. "Sixty families arrived on the Annabella and included such names as: MacArthur, MacDougall, MacGougan, MacKay, MacKenzie, Murphy, Montgomery, Sinclair, Stewart, Smith, Ramsay, Taylor and Woodside. "To honour these pioneers and commemorate the arrival of the Annabella this monument is erected. September 6, 1964" The families on the Annabella with whose descendants we are particularly interested were James Woodside, Donald Taylor, and the Ramsays, particularly nephew Malcolm.

a

In June, 1770 the Falmouth arrived at Stanhope with a large number of families. Duncan MacEwen and his first wife Jennet McLaren came on her as bride and groom. Seven sons and four daughters were born to them. By his second wife Janet (Gregor) McGregor he had three sons. John Miller who also came on the Falmouth had a family of four daughters on arrival. Four more daughters and one son were born on the Island of St. John. We are interested in Mary and her descendants. On August 15, 1775 a ship, the name of which we have not been able to ascertain, was wrecked in the vicinity of Flat River and Pinette in the Bight that lies to the east of Point Prim and Pinette Harbour.

26

On board was William Simpson and his wife Janet Winchester with eight small children. We do not have a complete list of the other passengers but oral records say that the Dingwa11s and Andersons were on this vessel. Fifteen years later William and Janet with some members of their family founded Cavendish and were joined by two sons-in-law, John McNeill and William Clark. McNeill arrived in Charlottetown in 1775 and Clark, who reached the Island of St. John by way of Quebec and Boston probably also settled temporarily in Charlottetown. We shall be hearing more of all of these people as the record unfolds. Meanwhile we are now ready to find out something of what happened to shipwrecked William and Janet Simpson and their eight children.

27

Chapter J THE SIMPSONS ARRIVE Certificate of Character At Sea Shipwreck Family Record Research In Scotland Probable Roots Family Chart "These certify that the barer William Simpson with a wife Jenet Winchester and young family was recident for a yeare and a half past in this our parish of Rothes and that During the said Space of time they behaved them selves modestly decently as became Christians and so as to preserve this caracter unsullied so that therefore we know not any reason why thay may not be received into Christian comunaty, seccaty or publick comunaty of mankind or into any place of the wrld where providence should see fit to order there lot; given at Rothes this fourth day of may one thousand seven hundred and seventy-five and Subscriben by M. Cumming (a true Coppy)" In some old records Mr. Cumming;s initials are given as J.T. instead of M. as above. As stated later, there is no record of Mr. Cumming in connection with the Parish of Rothes, hence there is no way of verifying his initials. From that fourth day of May until the fifteenth day of August, one thousand seven hundred and seventy-five almost fifteen weeks later, their lot took them by sailing vessel, with their eight young children - three sons and five daughters and several other families, against prevailing westerly winds across the Atlantic, to be shipwrecked in a mid-August storm on a sandy beach somewhere in the bight . east of Point Prim, Island of St. John,- some oral records say at Flat River others at Pinette. Some two years earlier, in September 1773, the Hector had arrived at Pictou, Nova Scotia with about 200 Highland settlers and founded that community which has remained a center of Scottish culture and tradition to this day. There is some suggestion in old records that Pictou was also the chosen destination of the Simpsons and their shipmates. Be that as it may the vagaries of storm and shipwreck literally cast their lot on the southern shore of what was to become Prince Edward Island. Had it not been so ordered by that mid-August gale in

1775 this story probably never would have been written, and

the descendants of William and Janet Winchester Simpson and their careers would have been very different. 28

The port from which they sailed and the name of the vessel have not been recorded. But since the passengers were from Morayshire it is probable they sailed from Moray Firth. It is also probable that they sailed soon after receiving the certificate of character. The early oral records all agree that they were approximately three months at sea. Every known avenue of research has been followed up in an effort to learn the name of the ship, the port Jf sailing, and the passenger list. Mr. Armour, Director of Marine Archives of Nova Scotia at Dalhousie University, Ha lifax advises that there are very few records of sailings prior to 1800, that no passenger lists were kept, and that unless the information has been recorded in early local records, there is little hope of getting it. While no written or oral record of the name of the ship has been found there is a possible clue. Evelyn Simpson MacKechnie (Mrs. Dr. H. A. MacKechnie) of Vancouver, a daughter of Neil and Sarah MacLeod Simpson of Cavendish, has a box of various items which has come down through many years from the William Jr. and Mary Millar Simpson line. In this box is a very old drawing of the "Good Barque Jessie". Mrs. MacKechnie has always assumed that this was the ship on which William and Janet came. Recent research however has discovered that the Jessie was shipwrecked on St. Paul's Island, off Cape Breton, in 1824. Morayshire, the County of Moray was once a local kingdom. Its name in Gaelic was Moireabh from the early Celtic Mori-treb meaning sea-settlement. It was brought forcibly under the expanding Scottish realm in the twelfth century. Ian Finlay in his book Scotland tells us that: "Scotland has many climates . . . . Morayshire and its coast probably form the region most free from wet weather and inclement winds, and indeed this country has a climate as favoured as almost any in the British Isles". Those of you who, in this age of speed and affluence, find it an ordeal to cross the continent on a luxury train in four days with one or two children, try to put yourselves in the place of these pioneer families.

29

The vessels of that day would be about two hundred tons register. The Hector carried two hundred passengers. The Annabella which was wrecked at Malpeque in october 1770 had sixty families numbering a little over two hundred. We do not know how many other families accompanied the Simpsons. Oral records say that the Dingwalls, the Andersons and other families were on the same ship. We do know that William and Janet had eight children between two and a half and sixteen years. We do know that on these and other ships the emigrants had all their worldly possessions, plus what were considered necessary supplies to get established in a new land. We do know that inevitably they were terribly crowded, that there were only extremely primitive sanitary faeilities, that food was salt meat, grain meals cooked as porridge or a coarse bread, probably potatoes, that fresh water was severely rationed with no new supply except as a small amount of rain water could be salvaged. One set of directions to emigrants recommended that parents travelling with babies bring a supply of water for washing since none of the ships supply could be used for that purpose. Add to the above conditions seasickness. Inevitably most of the passengers would c' suffer from this malady. With the crowded conditions, with many children aboard, with only sea water for washing clothing and bedding, with little chance to dry them and with the stench which accompanies mal de mer in confined areas, it is almost impossible to imagine the ordeal of the passengers. The writer has some personal concept of what it was like. The Second Canadian Siege Battery from Prince Edward Island of which he was a member, went overseas in an old converted freighter. They had put three-decker bunks three feet apart in a large hold in the bow at the water line. With high winds the second day out there were not more than ten of us who escaped seasickness. In this confined area we endured for a few days what these pioneer families faced for many weeks. In mid-Atlantic our people heard of the Battle of Bunker Hill which had been fought on June 17, 1775 when they spoke an eastbound ship out of Boston to England. This was apparently the only contact they had from the time they left Scotland until sometime after their ship was forced aground on the Island of St. John.

30

They were indeed fortunate that they went ashore on a sandy beach. The ship did not break up immediately and, while there was much water damage, they were able to salvage most of their personal effects and some of their supplies. The area in which they were cast ashore, referred to in early documents as the Belfast district, was unsettled and they were left to their own resources to provide some form of shelter. Fortunately it was mid-August and cold was not a major problem. In the next chapter we shall follow the Simpsons through the rigors of that first winter and their early years in their new, if unchosen, home. Meanwhile we shall endeavour to learn a bit more about their roots in Scotland. As stated in the introduction, research into the background and descendants of the founding families of Cavendish began in the later 1950's, when Laura Simpson Cowan of Vancouver, a first cousin, and the writer began independently to gather data. After discovering this mutual interest we began to collaborate and I wish to again emphasize that without the research done by Laura Cowan, especially in Britain, this record would be much less complete.

In an effort to learn something Simpsons in Scotland, Mrs. Cowan and Harwood enlisted the services of the Society in Edinburgh, the Society of and other research bodies~

of the background of the later her nephew, Robert Scots Ancestry Research Genealogists in London

The starting point was the statement in the certificate of character that "the barer William Simpson with a wife Jenet Winchester and young family was recident for a yeare and a half past in this our parish of Rothes" in Morayshire. Definite identity was established in the neighbouring parish of Dundercas where baptismal records of five of the children of William and Janet were discovered as followsl 1759 Feb 16 William Simpson, Taylor in Gerbity & Jannet Winchester his wife had a child bapd & named Margaret. 1764 May 17 William Simson & Janet Winchester had a child bapd & called Christian. 1766 July 26 William Simpson in Gerbety and his spouse Janet Winchester had a child bapd nl William. 1762 June 19 William Simson and Jannet Winchester had a child bapd called William (this item is out of order in the register).

31

"Extracts from an old tattered register belonging to the Parish of Dundercas" 1760 September 22 William Simpson and Janet Winchester in Garbity had a child bapd & named Thomas. The register recording the baptisms of the ~hree other children born in Scotland in 1768, 1770 and 1772 has app a rently been lost. It will be noted that the name of the community in which William and Janet lived is spelt in three different ways Gerbity. Gerbety and Garbity. A fourth spelling is noted below. The Atlas of Scotland by John Thomson, 1832, gives the spelling "Gerbity" and locates it as follows: "Gerbity in Elginshire (the former name of Morayshire) toward Newlands Chapel and Orton House. a mile north of Dundercas Castle on Road from Rothes to Garmouth and Spey Mouth. where it is joined by the road to Fifekei th" • That there was no uniformity is evidenced by still a fourth spelling which occurs in The History of The Province of Moray, volume 1. page 77, 1882, by Lachlan Shaw: "North from the church lie the lands of Qarbaty, the property of Sir Robert Gordon of Gordonston". The Family Bible of William and Janet. now in possession of descendants in the United States. gives a complete record of birth dates of their ten children eight of whom were born in Scotland and two in the Island of St. John. The Bible record follows: "Children of William Simpson and Janet Winchester 1759 Febr

2

our chi Ide Margaret was born

1760 Septr 7

our childe Thomas was born

1762 June 15

our childe William wa s born

1764 May

our chi Ide Christine was born

3

1766 July 15

our childe Helen was born

1768 Septr 10

our chi Ide Jean was born

1770 Mar

our chi Ide James was born

13

1772 Decr 23

our chi Ide Jannet was born

All born in Scotland in t he County of Elgin (later Moray) in the Parish of Dundercas. 32

our chi Ide Cha rlotte wa s born in the Island of s t. Johns, North America

1776 1779 May

9

our childe John wa s born in the Isl and of St. Johns"

It is of interest to note that, in spite of wha t would tod ay be considered a very deprived childhood a ll ten grew to maturity, bec a me citizens of some st a ture in the communities in which they settled, raised large families who in turn ma de their ma rk. Nine out of the ten lived to between the late 70's and 90 years. One died a t age 52. Willi a m himself lived to 87 and Janet to 83. over eig hty grandchi l dren.

They ha d

Since their eldest c hild Margaret was a mong those baptized "in the Parish of Dunderca s in 1759 it would appe a r tha t William and Janet lived in this Pa rish in the community of Gerbity a t least from the time of their marriage, which was so f a r as we can le a rn in early 1758. There were a number of Simpson f a milies living in different communities of this Parish. In the baptismal records o f forty-four Simpson children between the years 1750 and 1780 the following communities are mentioned: Aikenway, Ba rbuack, Broomknows or Brownknowes, Collie, Dundalieth , Dundercas , Dundoran, Ellie, Gerbity (three spellings), Haug h of Arndilly, Hillaekhead, Kirktown of Dunderc a s, Nether Glen, Nether Town, Newla nd a bove the Crofts, Newland a bove the Greens, Old Yards, Stonnietown. In 1782 p a rt of the Pa rish of Dunderca s was incorpora ted into the Parish of Rothes, the re mainder to the Parish of Boha rm in Banffshire . There is a n interesting f amily legend that crops up a number of times in a rticles wri t ten about the early settlers. The story first appears in the mid 1800's and wa s frequently repeated. According to this le gend William a s a young man bec a me groomsma n to Harry t he 9th Marquis of Winchester a nd the 4th Duke of Bolton . The story says that he and Janet a daughter of the Marquis fell in love, t hat t hey eloped a nd tha t Janet's name was expunged from the f am ily record. Harry wa s born in 1691, died in 1759 a nd the f amily record shows two sons a nd two daughters, Lady Henriett a and Lady Ca therine . There is no La dy Janet but the legend says s he was disowned a nd her na me removed from the f a mily record bec ause she ma rried below her station. Her pa rents a ge would ma ke the st ory possible . 33

But

.....

The family name of the Marquis was Paulet not Winchester. Winchester was a title. There is no record extant from other sources of the marriage or that the story has any va lidity in f 3ct. We quote from a letter from the Society of Genealogists ds ted May 6, 1965: " A se arch in Boyd's Marriage Index, covering tLe period 1751-1775 reve al ed nothing relating to tr.e marriage of a William Simpson and Jennet (Jannet) Winchester in England a nd further searches in the Society's Gre 8t Card Index were a lso unsuccessful in this respect.

"However in the MacLeod ClJllection (which consists of re ports, copies of records, etc., obt a ined by research in Scotland) we found extra cts from the Parish Registers of Rothes a nd Boharm. The baptisms of the children of Willia m Simpson and J a nnet (Janet) Winchester were given in these pa pers a nd we enclose a copy of the details. It will be seen tha t William Simpson wa s described as a tailor (Taylor) when his daughter, Margaret, was baptized in 1759. " According to 'Surnames of Sc ot land' (George F. Black, Ph.D) the surname 'Winchester' has occurred in Scottish records since the year 1296 and we have found tha t in 1872-3 a John ~in chester and Mrs. Margaret Winchester, both of G ~ rmouth, Elgin, Scotland, were owners of land. "We also enclose a pedigree of the 5th Marquis of Winchester compiled from Collin's Pe erage. The family na me was 'P a ulet' (Powlet) a nd it would therefore appear unlikely tha t Jennet (Ja net) wa.s of this family". On the other hand there is the record of the baptism of Willia m and Janet's children at Dundercas. There is the f act that Winchester was a common name in the neighbouring Parish of Belli e and there is every reason to believe th2t Janet Winchester, baptized May 21, 1735, daughter of James Winchester and his wife Helen Bowman beca me William's bride. The Society of Gene a logists su ggests thc t the Lady Janet story is a nice legend but, according to their research, it has no basis in fact. We began this chap ter with a certifica te of cha r a cter given to William Simpson an d his wife Janet Winchester da ted " At Rothes this fourth day of May one thousand seven hundred a nd seventyfive and subscriben by M. Cumming". In checking out this certificCi te the Society of Genealogists in a letter dated 3rd August, 1968 makes the following comment:

34

"The certificate from M. Cumming, Minister of Rothes, dated 4th May 1775, is curious. James Ogilvie was Minister of Rothes from 1763 to 1788 and no M. Cumming is mentioned in Hew Scott's Fasti Ecclesiae Scoticanae: the succession of ministers of the Church of Scotla nd from the Reformation, Volume VI, Synods of Aberdeen and of Moray (Edinburgh, 1926)". However, the Inverness County Council in an earlier letter dated 1st August, 1963 gives a probable exp lanation. We quote the letter in part: "The County Clerk put me in touch with a Mr. John Gray of Elgin, who is by way of being a bit of a local historian, and ha s written a book on the history of Rothes. "It appears that the parish of Dundurcas used to extend to the North of Rothes and on both sides of the river Spey. In 1782 it was abolished a nd its lands annexed by Rothes in Morayshire and Bohan (formerly Boha rm) in Banffshire. The parish church of Dundurcas is now a ruin, and though its Communion Plate and other property passed to the parish church of Rothes, all its written records seem to have been lost. "I have spoken to Mr. Gra y, and also to the Rev. D. E. Gunn, the present parish minister of Rothes about Mr. Cumming, the minister who signed your ancestor's character reference. The minister of Rothes at tha t time (1763-88) was the Rev. James Ogilvie, and the last minister of Dundercas was a Rev. Grant. Mr. Gunn put forward the theory that Mr. Cumming was a licensed minister without a charge who was acting in the absence of Mr. Ogilvie. There were app a rently ma ny such ministers in the Church of Scotla nd in the eighteenth century. They acted as school masters, magistrates a nd in similar capacities, and undertook church duties when regular ministers were sick or away from their parish". Cert a inly Willia m and Janet received the certificate from someone in an official position in the Parish. The Inverness explanation seems logical particularly if M. Cumming was a lso the school master. In all probability the six older Simpson children would be attending school. We know that William and Janet placed a high value on education. In a l a ter chapter we shall point out how they met the challenge in a new l a nd where schools were non-existent. We now return to research done by the Scots Ancestry Research Society and by the Society of Genealogists. We quote some excerpts from their letters with expl an a tory comments. 35

In a letter da ted 10th October, 1963 the Scots Ancestry Society says: "Prior to 1855 registrations of Births, Deaths and Marri a ges in Scotland were voluntarily recorded in the old pa rochial registers (unindexed) of each parish. The old parochia l registers of both Rothes and Boha rm (for Dundurc8 s) were accordingly searched from 1750-1759 for the marriage of William Simpson and Janet Winchester, but no relevant entries were found". On 3r d August p

1968 the Society of Genealogists reports:

"Unfo r tunately , the Marriage Registers of these p a rishes are very incomplete for the period needed. Dundurca s has a regula r run of ma rriage entries to January 1757 and then the r e is nothing more until seven entries for 1770 appear . In Boharm there is one p age of entries from November 1738 to June 1741. Then there are eight entries from 1752 to 1756, with a blank thereafter to December 1762. Certainly marriages would have taken pla ce in these periods but no record of them now remains" . Since the oral records from various sources g ive the date of the ma r r i age of William and Janet as early 1758 it is appa rent tha t no parish record exists. The Scots Ancestry Society in attempting to establish the birthdate af William reported a& follows: "The ol d p arochi a l registers of Rothes and Boha rm were next searched for the birth of William Simpson and the two following entries were found in the old pa rochi a l re g isters of Boharm ~ 1 ) ' 2n d February 1733 Alexander and Willia m Simpsone, twins , children of Walter Simpsone and Elspet Man, i n the Haugh of Arndilly were baptized. Alexa nder Gra nt , Alexander Murgask, Elizabeth Leslie, Elizabeth McKinimy , Isa bel Simson, witnesses'. 2) ' 2nd April 1722 William Simpson lawful son to Thomas Simpson and Elspet Grant in Arndilly was baptized . William McKora n, John Rob, Isabele Grant, Marg Are t Duncan , witnesses'. The only other William whase baptism is recorded (reported by the Society of Genealogists) was born to John Simpson and Christian Ha y and baptized 7th November 1741. The Society points out tha t this birthdate "is a little l a te f or a man who ha d a child in February 1759" pa rticula rly since early marri ages in the Pa rish at that time were practic a lly non-existent .

36

We must also note that if this he d been "our" Willi 8m he would ha ve been only seventy-eight at the ti ~ e of his de ~th . the

We therefore have to acce :)t that "our" Willi a m We S eit her one baptized in 1733 or the older Willi a m bc ptized in 172 2 .

Since the 1722 Willi a m wa s a son of ThomGs, since it has been a Scottish custom to n am e the first born son after his gr2ndfa ther a nd since "our" Willi a m's eldest son was Thoma s, there ha s been a tendency to accept the 1722 Willi a m a s t he founder of the f a mily in Prince Edwa rd Isla nd. Da tes, howev e r, do not support this finding. Willi a m died in December 1819 a nd according to all ora l records wa s in his l a te 8 0's. This would mak e t he first William over 96 a t the time of his death . The William baptized 2nd February 1733 would be almost 87 in December 1819. We are therefore a ccepting t he second Willi a m who with his twin brother AleXa nder were born in the Ha u g h of Arndilly, a part of Dunderc a s Parish a nd who were baptized in 1733 a s "our" Willi a m. It will be noted that he wa s the son 8f Walter Simpsone and Elspet Man. With re ga rd to Janet Winchester the Society of Gene a lo g ists reports: "We tried Boha rm, Dundurc a s a nd Rothes for a J a net Winchester ba ptism ba ck t8 1730 without result. However, in Bellie Parish we f8und an entry on 21st May 1735 'Ja net, lawful dau g hter of James Wincester a nd Helen Bowma n in Fochabers'. "There was no trace of her marri a ge in Bellie from 1749 to 1780, a nd no trace of the marri a ge of her parents back to 1723 when the first re g ister began. We thou g ht it wise, however, tJ try three other a dj o ining pa rishes In Sp eymouth p St. Andrews Lha nbryde, a nd Urquha rt. Spey mouth two .Ja net Winchesters were found: 15th J a nu a ry 1733 J a n et Winchester l a wful da ug hter to Willia m Winchester Younger & Je a n J ames in Ga rmouth 11th Oc t ober 1730 Jane t Winchester l a wful da ug hter of Alexr Winchester c a r p enter & Anne Winc hester in Garmouth. Witnesses - Robert Winchester, gra ndfs t her, J a net Ra nken, g r a ndmot ~ er. "The one ba ptized in 1733 ma rried Willi a m Geddes a t Sp e ymout h on 24t h Ap ril 17 55. T here were n o Winches t ers a t St. An drews Lh a nbryde (1743 ba c k to 1730) a nd only a n illegiti mate child a t Urquha rt. Thus we a re l eft with two J a nnets, th a t a t Bellie being more likely fr o m the poi nt o f view of age".

3?

In support of the Societies comment tha t the Jane t ba ptize d 21st Ma y 1735 in Bellie was the more likely f r om t he point of view of age we would point out t hat s he would ha ve been 23 whe n ma rried, and tha t when her tenth child John wa s born in 1779 s he would have been 44. The Janet born in 1730 would have been 4 9 a t the time of John's birth which is a bit late. We a re therefore, on the basis of logic and probability and in the absence of completely definite Parish records, accepting the baptisma l da te of William as 2nd February 1733 with his probable birthdate in January, and tha t of Janet as 21st May, 1735 probably born in the same month. While the birthdates of their parents are not established they were prob2.bly born between 1690 and 1710. The chart which follows shows the bapti$mal dates of Willia m Simpson and Janet Winchester on the basis of our conclusions above. All other dates have been est2blished from the family Bible, from marriage or obituary notices and from other sources which we believe to be accurate. It will be noted that the chart lists in all cases the name of the spouse, the place of residence and the number of sons and daughters in each family. Similar charts for each family appear in the relevant chapters and additional charts giving the record of their descendants will be found in the appendix. At this point we have William and Janet with their family of small children and their shipmates cast away by shipwreck on the south shore of the Island of St. John. We have tra ced insofar as possible their background in Scotland. In the next chapter we shall spend with them their first fifteen years in the Island of St. John.

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Chapter 8 WILLIAM SIMPSON JUNIOR We indicated in an earlier chapter that four children of William and Janet Winchester Simpson, two sons and two daughters with their husbands shared with them the honor of having been co-founders of Cavendish. In the previous chapter we have told in some detail the story of the eldest child Margaret and her husband John McNeill and their descendants. While they probably did not come to Cavendish till a year after the others, we have given them precedence partly because Margaret was the oldest and more particularly because the McNeills, at least from the point of view of numbers, had the greatest impact on the developing community. William Simpson, Junior was the third child and second son of William and Janet. In earlier chapters we have given the Simpson background in considerable detail. William Junior was born in Gerbity, Morayshire in 1762. Some records give his birthdate as June 19, but the baptismal register of the Parish of Dundercas states "1762 June 19 William Simeon and Jannet Winchester had a child .bapd called William". The June 19 date therefore is incorrect and we have used the June 15 date given in other records, al~hough we think that this too is B.n error and that he was probably born on June 5. The other baptismal records of Dundercas parish show a lapse of approximately two weeks from birth to baptism. He was a man of twenty-eight when the family moved to Cavendish in 1790. There is no firm record of his activities during the preceding years, but it is probable that he and other young men found employment in the clearing ot land and construction of homes in Charlottetown. Oral records frequently refer to William Simpson living for a time in Cove Head and this has generally been considered to refer to William Senior. We think it more likely that William Junior spent some time in this community. We know that Rev. Theophilus DesBrisay i1'1 recording his marriage s·tates that he was resident in Cove Head. On Pebruary 13, 1790 he married Mary Millar of Cove Head. Her father, John Millar, a native of Muthill, .Perthshire came to the Island of St. John on the Falmouth in 1770, with his wife and four daughters ranging in age from eight to two years. Mary was the two year old. Four more daughters and one son were born after their arrival. If, as suggested earlier, William Senior built his log cabin at Cavendish during the fall of 1789, there is no doubt that his sons were actively involved. But there is nothing to

8)

suggest that William Junior built a cabin for himself and his bride to be. We think they all lived in the one ce.bin, the site of whi(.~h we have located, for a period after their arrival. We again refer the reader to the 1809 survey plan on page 55. It wil l be seen that William Junior was assigned one hundred. acres of land next to that held by his Father. The reasoning apparently was that the older son would eventually inherit his FatherWs farm thus giving him two hundred acres. On F'ebruary 29, 1804 John~ the youngest son of William Senior married Helen Hyde of West River and established a home in that area. This left his hundred acres, between William Clark and James Simpson, to be realloted and it was transferred to William .Junior thus giving him two farms of one hundred acres each.

William and Mary had eight children - three sons and five daughters. In the chart following this chapter and in the a.ppendix we give what information we have been able to secure on the families of these eight children. We Cire quite sure that somewhere among the descendants of the various families are detailed records but ws have not been able to locate them. Hence some names and many dates are missirlg. Seven of the eight children established homes on the Island. One son David and his wlfe Mary MacKenzie went to Wisconsin. Two sons and one daughter remained in Cavendish.

Mary marrled Henry Robertson. Their home was to the east of the McNeill properties and is shown on the 1880 map (page 56) between those of Jotm F. McNeill and Alexander Laird. John. married his first cousin Euphemia rticNeill daughter of John and Margaret Simpson McNeill. They had a family of five sons and four daughters. As the eldest son of William he inherited and lived on the homestead property - the second 100, butting on the eastern end of Cavendish Pond. John Was born 1793, died September 79 18520 His Viife Euphemia was born 1794, died octo~er 7, 1873. This property in turn became the home of John's son William John who also had a large family - five sons, three daughters. Of William John's family, Winchester died while attending Acadia Uni verei ty. 'rhree sons and two daughters moved to Vancouver. Of these Neil ma.rried Sarah Margaret MacLeod and had one daughter and three sons. The eldest, Evelyn, was born in Cavendish. A son William Wesley Ph.D. worked for a time with Dr. Banting on the development of insulin. The other four who went west never married. They were John, Lincoln, Ella a.nd Lottie._ Janie married Roger Simpson and had three daughters. 84

Remaining on the Homestead was William George who married Janie Profit and had one son and three daughters. A visitor to Cavendish today may locate this property easily. It is the beautiful Rainbow Valley just east of the Baptist Church. The youngest son of William Junior and Mary was Henry, born 1812, died May 8, 1885. He married Janet Stevenson born 1819 died March 8, 1880. Turning again to the 1809 survey, his property was the hundred acres between William Clark and James Simpson. This couple had five sons and four daughters. Of the sons only Charles Augustus Fitz-Roy (named after a former Lieutenant-Governor) remained in Cavendish on the homestead. William lived in Baltic, P.E.I. and had three sons and two daughters. John was a minister in Lexington, Kentucky and had two sons - a doctor and a minister. George lived in Montana and had two sons and two daughters •. Prank, unmarried, also lived in the Western States. Of the daughters Mary Jane married Hugh McLure of North Rustico, had two sons and three daughters. Martha married Walter Simpson of Bay View, had five sons and seven daughters. Margaret married David Anderson, had five sons and two daughters and Elizabeth married William Liddell and had one daughter. Charles, who lived in the old home married twice. His first wife was Emmalinza Wallace of Shubenacadie, N.S. who had two daughters. Born in 1851 she died in 1878 age 27. His second wife was Louisa Maria Claw of Truro, N.S. Four daughters were born to this union. Charles was born at Cavendish November 13, 1844 and married Louisa Claw in 1880. In 1914 at age 70 he retired from farming and moved to New Glasgow, P.E.I. About 1920 they moved to McKay Station in the MuniCipality of Burnaby, B.C. where he died March 5, 1936. A large number of descendants of William Junior and Mary are scattered over the continent, many of whom have held positions of responsibility and rendered valuable services to the communities in which they have lived. But since Charles left Cavendish in 1914 no descendant of this couple of the Simpson name remains.

85

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Chapter 9 THE CLARKS The founder of the Clark family of Cavendish, like William Simpson and John McNeill was a Scot. William Clark was born in Clackmannanshire the smallest county in Scotland in 1754. Clackmannanshire is north of the upper reaches of the Firth of Forth. It is the apex of an isosceles triangle formed to the north from a baseline stretching from Edinburgh to Glasgow. In the market p l ace of Clackmannan is Clack Mannan - the "Stone of Mannan", sacred to the spirit of an ancient local diety. f In the mid eighteenth century there was a form of conscription for naval and, to some extent, military service known as the press-gang. Funk and Wagnalls dictionary describes press-gang as "a detachment of men detailed to press men into naval or military service". The procedure was a form of kid-naping. The pre,ss-gang would spot a likely looking prospect, a sturdy young man, and by devious means or by sheer force take him, usually aboard a naval ship where he was literally a prisoner with no chance of escape and so pressed into service. There are apparently authentic records that William Clark escaped such a press-gang by boarding a vessel bound for Quebec, probably in 1774. From Quebec he made his way to Boston where, family records state, he witnessed the Battle of Bunker Hill on June 17, 1775. During the summer of 1775 he made his way to Charlottetown where he apparently lived until he went to Cavendish with his father-in-law in 1790. We have already referred to inaccuracies resulting from lack of research, and their perpetuation. This is true of William Clark. From a number of sources we have the following statement partially correct but with several inaccuracies. "The first Clark came from Clackmannanshire, Scotland. His name was William, father of the William who married Helen Simpson. He was born in 1754 died 1831 aged 77 years. He escaped the press-gangs in Scotland and ca me to Quebec, from there he went to Boston, and witnessed the Battle of Bunker Hill. He came to the Island the same year 1776. His son William born 1765 died 1852 age 87 married Helen Simpson".

87

Any thinking person should realize that a man born in 1754 would not have a son born in 1765. Bunker Hill wa s 1775 not 1776, and there is no record anywhere else of a Willi am Clark born in 1765 who died in 1852. In Cavendish cemetery is a ston e with the inscriptions William Clark His wife Helen Simpson

September 29, 1831 February 23, 1852

Age 77 Age 87

This date confirms William's birth date as 1754 and t ha t it was he, not an imaginary William born in 1765 who married Helen Simpson. William and Helen were married March 4, 1789 in Cha rlottetown. The incomplete records indicate that they went to Cavendish with William and Janet Simpson in the spring of 1790. The 1809 survey (page 55) shows the location of their 165 acre farm, a part of the original lease taken by William Simpson Senior in 1789. We believe that they built their log cabin on this property during the summer and fall of 1790. They had eight sons and four daughters. Ten married and had families ranging in number from twelve to one - a total of seventy-one. The two unmarried children are referred to as being in a helpless state. We do not know the cause. Of the married children two sons, Andrew and David rema ined in Cavendish. They married two sisters, daughters of Richard and Elizabeth Cantello Bagnall. Three sons and one daughter established homes in communities between New London and Malpeque Bays. Of these William, the e lde st child, was elected several times to the legislative as semb ly. He .and Francis lived in Da rnley. James and Ma ry who married John McEwan, lived in Campbellton. John who married Anne Simpson moved to South Ru s tico. Richard, Helen and Janet eventually left the Isla nd. J anet married her first cousin, James Simpson Junior and lived for a time at Bay View, moving in 1847 to near Cha tham, Ont a rio. She wa s the Mother Jf Rev. Dr. A. B. Simp son of whom more l a ter (Cha pter 17). The original Clark property in Cavendish (1809 survey) was divided between David and Andrew, sons of the founder Wil l iam and Helen Simpson. David lived on and · farmed the eastern half of the property. He had two sons and six daughters. Three of the daughters did not marry.

88

Of these the eldest, Emily, lived to 97 years. Alice died at Truro, N.S. age 27. The youngest child and third unmarried daughter, Adelaide, was much beloved by the whole community and was known to all and sundry as Aunt Pet. An indication of the esteem in which she was held is shown by the inscription on her tombstone in Cavendish cemetery, "In Loving Memory of Aunt Pet Adelaide Clark 1858-1935". Four members of the family lived elsewhere than in Cavendish. Sophia Jane ma rried George Baker and lived in Summerside. Family. one son, one daughter. Martha married Rev. C. C. Burgess who served various congregations. No record of family. Ca roline married Francis Ba in and lived in York Point, P.E.I. Family. six sons, three daughters. Richard the younger son married Jane Wyand and lived in Haverill, Mass. Family. three sons. The older son, William Darnley, 1848-1928, lived on the homestead. On December 23, 1875 he married Jane Stewart of Brackley Point, 1852-1943. They had four sons and two daughters. We are indebted ¢ o the second child and elder daughter Maggie, Mrs. Walter Buntain, for much of our information on the Clark family. Almost 94 at time of writing, physically well and mentally young, Maggie lives with her son Roland and his wife Dora Simpson at East Royalty, outside Charlottetown. Maggie and Walter lived until retirement at South Rustico. A daughter, Lottie Evelyn died at three years of age. Their son Roland, mentioned above was born October 23, 1903 and married to Dora Simpson of Bay View Mills June 29, 1927. The oldest child Chesley Darnley lived in western Canada and died in Tacoma, Washington. He was twice married but had no family. Campsie still living, married Roy Toombs of North Rustico and had two daughters. Irma, the younger, unmarried, is living on the old place. Fred married Hester Houston and lived in Cavendish. They had two sons and two daughters. Ernest, the · youngest, also lived in Cavendish. He married Alma Bulman and also had two sons and two daughters. Wilber who married Nellie Bulman lived in Summerside and had two daughters. The David and later Darnley Clark property was immediately west of the present Rainbow Valley and the aite for the Cavendish Baptist Church was donated by Darnley Clark. David's brother Andrew, 1807-1885, owned the western hal~ of the original Clark property. On Christmas day 1834 he married Sophia Bagnall, 1814-1890. They had three sons and nine daughters. Six of the twelve were unmarried. Of the three sons, one died at one month, another at eighteen years. 89

The unmarried daughters lived in Cavendish. Elizabeth married William Brown, Margate. No record of family. Charlotte Geddie married Thomas Johnston, Brookfield. No record of family. Sarah Ann married John Anderson and had three sons. Two daughters married Simpsons, grandsons of William Junior and Mary Miller. The name of each was William so nicknames were given "Will Effie" and "Will Jerry". Helen Jane married William John son of John and Euphemia, Effie, Simpson - hence Will Effie. They had five sons and three daughters. Sophia Amelia married William McNeill Simpson, eldest son of Hon. Jeremiah and Margaret McNeill Simpson. He was Will Jerry. They lived in Hamilton, P.E. I. and had four sons and' four daughters. Theerdest of the family, John Cavendish, 1835-1914, married Anne Margaret Simpson, daughter of Hon. Jeremiah. They had three sons and six daughters. They also adopted a son Ray, who at time of writing is still living in Summerside. In the section dealing with the Cavendish Baptist Church prepared by Anna Simpson and Dr. Myron Brinton there is fairly full coverage of this family. Three were missionaries and all were professional people. Clemmie died of typhoid fever and it is interesting to note that, although the funeral was held on a rainy November day in 1899, the casket was not allowed in the house because of fear of contagion. John C. was much interested in politics and attended political meetings for miles around. His home was on the bay shore just at the end of Bay View bridge, and, as was customary in winter, he travelled on the ice often returning late at night. He was noted for continuing to venture on the ice during the approaching spring break-up. He used to boast that scarcely a winter passed without his getting a horse in the ice '- but he never lost one. The writer remembers a windy April morning. We wakened to find the ice moving down the bay in the high wind. About eleven o'clock John C. came to our home (we lived on adjoining farms) and his first remark to my Father was "You know Dan I got an awful scare when I woke up this morning. I came horne from Stanley Bridge on the ice about midnight and the bay was open when I got up". This then; very briefly, with the record in the genealogical charts is the story of co-founder William Clark and some of his descendants.

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(\11Cl in every generation since. We regret that space does not permit our reproducing this very interesting document in full. It will be placed in the Provincial Archives. On June 16, 1745 a shipbuilder in Topsham, Devonshire, Arthur Owen, married Martha Anderson. His Father Thomas had moved from Wales and was living in Topsham in 1705. In 1780 Arthur and Martha, with a family of three sons and five daughters came to Alberton, P.E.I., then known as Cascumpec. A son Arthur died in infancy and the next son was also na.med Arthur . The same was true of Martha. We are particularly interested in the son Arthur, 27-7-1756 - 8-6- 182) who married Elizabeth Lee of London 4-9-1761 18-1-1833· There i s a family legend, widely accepted, that Elizabeth Lee was a first cousin of the father of General Robert E. Lee. In our research we have not been able either to prove or debunk the legend. In any case through Elizabeth a strain of English blood was introduced to those of us who are her descendants. Coming to the next generation, it was George, son of Arthur and Elizabeth Lee who married Helen Montgomery Woodside, to whom reference has been made earlier as a couple from whom many of the connection are descended. Through George and Helen's daughter Mary we come to the next family name.

127

RAMSAY John Ra~say and hie wife Mary Shuman, natives of Argyllshire, came to Princetown on the Annabella in 1770. With them came their six sons, two nephews (sons of a deceased brother) and Mary MacMillan, a young woman brought up by the family, who later married the eldest son, Donald. It is said of John that "he was a man of sterling character, well read in his country's history and strong in his attachment to principles". He was one of the first Grand Jurymen empanelled in Charlottetown in 1771. The Ramsay connection is very large and E. Dugald Ramsay of Montreal, a son of Rev. Dr. Ernest H. Ramsay has done very extensive genealogical research. While there are many links by marriage we are confining our reference here to one of the nephews, Malcolm, great-grandfather of the writer and of Laura Simpson Cowan. On January 20, 1813 Malcolm, born 6-4-1789 married Catherine Rielly born 1782. They had nine sons and two daughters. Two sons, William and Charles died young and their names were again given to later children.

Through the Irish blood of Catherine Rielly, the fourth strain of the British Isles was added to our basic Scotch, plus the Welsh of the Owens and the English of the Lees. Lilly, born 11-7-1817, married Neil Taylor on September 19, 1802 and was Laura Cowan's grandmother. Malcolm, born 4-9-1824, died 1908 married Mary Owen, 1828-5-1896, daughter of George and Helen and became the writer's grandparents. Through Lilly who married Neil Taylor we come to the next family name. TAYLOR Donald Taylor with his wife Maureen MacBride, two sons and three daughters came to Princetown on the Annabella from Campbellton, Scotland in 1770. A son and a daughter were born in Princetown. They settled on a farm in what is now Lower Malpeque and is still the family farm owned by a sixth generation Taylor. Donald's son John, 1784-7-11-1858, married Margaret McKay who died January 1825. John and Margaret's son Neil, 1803-1880, married Lilly Ramsay referred to above on July 11, 1847. They had two sons and three daughters. Of these Catherine (Aunt Kate), born October 4, 1856 married the Honorable George Simpson and was the Mother of Laura Cowan and Lilla Harwood. Catherine died in Vancouver July 7, 1921. 128

McEWEN Duncan McEwen with his wife Jean McLaren were passengers on t he Fa lmouth which brought settlers to St. Peters in 1770. Date of Duncan's birth was probably 1745. He died March 15 , 1831 age 85. Jean was born about 1750 death probably about 1810. They were married in 1769 or e a rly 1770. Natives o f Muthill, Perthshire, they were one of severa l families fr om this area who C2me to the Island of St. John . They took up r esi denc e a t St. Peters Lak e, where on October 1 , 1787 he is recorded as having taken title to 156 acres of l a nd. Seven sons and four dau g hters were born to this marria.ge, two of whom married children of Helen Simpson a nd William Clark, thus linking the McEwens with the Simpson and Cla rk families. As the years went by there were other marriages between these family groups. Dunc an ha d in a ll fourteen children - ten sons and four dau g hters. Of these eleven were children of Jean McLaren. Je an died about 1810 and about 1813 Duncan married Jennet McGregor who was much younger th2n he. In March 1814, when Duncan was about seventy years old a son Edward was born who lived till September 21, 1909. Two other sons were born to this union about 1816 and 1818. In the minutes of the Assembly of Represent a tives of March 6, 1784 Dunc 2.n is shown as a member along with John Millar, whose dau ghter Mary married William Simpson Junior, and J a mes Woodside, founder of the Woodside family. On December 1, a t a pla ce he n amed and three daughters River. The rest of

1809 Duncan purchased 600 acres in Lot 21 . Campbell Town - now Ca mpbellton. Three sons rema ined in St. Peters, one son went to West the family moved to New London.

We a re indebted to Andrew B. W. MacEwen of Stockton Spring s , Ma ine not only for the record of Duncan McEwen and his descend ants, but a lso for a gre a t deal of information on many of t he other f a milies included in this history. He ha s done a greE..t deal of g enealo g ical resea.rch. His comprehensive history o f the McEwen family is now with the records of the Berit a ge Founda tion. MILLAR John Millar with his wife, whose name is not recorded, and f our dau g hters also c a me to St. Peters on the Falmouth in 1770 fr om Muthill, Perthshire. Four daughters and one son were born on the Island. We know tha t he was born prior to 1738 and was still living in 1798. His children were born between 1762 and 1782. His daug hter ~a ry married William Simpson Junior.

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Our interest in this f a mily is in Mary, 17 68 - 22-2-1852. She wa s ma rried to William S impson Junior, son of Willi a m a nd Janet, by Rev. T . DesBris a y on Febru a ry 13, 1790. While all n ine children married and most of them had large families, be c a use there wa s only one son the f a mily name was not c a rried down a s with the McEwens. We ha ve no record of John's f a mily a nd do not know if there a re a ny Millar descendants. JOHNSTONE-BROWN The Johnstones c a me fro m Annan , Dumfriesshire. Wil li a m with his wife Mary Lytle, five sons a nd four daughters came to P.E .I. in 1 8 36. The connection with the Ca vendish founders is through the Cl a r k s and Browns. Elizabeth Clementina Clark, 1837-1877, ma rried William Brown, 1838-1927. Their daughter J a nie Wilson Brown, 1867-19 65, married Andrew Johnstone of Long River, 18601902. They had one daughter and four sons. We have included the Johnstone family partly because of their interest in and contribution to the preservation of historic a l records and treasures. Elizabeth - Bessie, the eldest, 18 91 Murdock 'MacLeod a nd lives in Kensington.

, is married to

Wil liam E., 1892 , a lso lives in Kensington. Two wives p redece as ed him. He is presently married to Mildred Thompson. He has recently p roduced a biog raphy of Rev. John Geddie. Earlier he compiled a complete record of t~e cemetery of Geddie Memoria l Church. In both these enterprises a nd in the considerable g ene a logical research he ha s done into severa l families he has been ably assisted by Mildred. Arthur P ., 1894-1917, served in the Second Cana dian Siege Batte ry from P.E.I. in World War I, a nd was killed a t Vimy Ridge in July, 1 917. The writer served in the same unit a nd we were close person a l friends. Edwin C., 1900, t he youngest, was a lso twice ma rried. His wife Rena Wood, recently produced the record of the Boswell f a mily under the title "Family Tree Climbing in Bonnie Scotla nd". Edwin himself is a member of the Board of Herit age Found at ion and is much concerned with the p reserva tion of historic l a ndma r ks . Ernest W., 1 897, the second youngest, married Jane Montgome ry Ma c Ewe n. Her n a me suggests rel a tionship throu g h severa l family lines. Ern's interest in historic a l :natters followed a different line and the results of his efforts, if not he himself, a re known to many thousands of people. He is responsible for the cre a tion of The Woodleigh Replica at Burlington, P.E.I. a n unique exhibit of unequalled interest. Begun by Colonel John st one as a hobby on his lawn, public dema nd soon led him to more am bitious p rojects - Yorkminster Cathedra l, 130

Dunve gan Ca stle with a r e a l dun e e on and skeleton, a nd Til e Towe r o f Lond on with its re p licas o f the Crown Jewels. No vi s i t or t o P . E .I. should miss seeing the Woodleigh Replicas. GOHDON The record of the Gordons g oes back to t he twelft h century when surn ames began to appe 2_ r. Sir Ada m Gordon joined King Robert Bruce in 1313. The founder of the family in P .E.I. wa s Robert, 17-5-1786 , who married Mar g aret Sinclair, 20-10-1793, and settled in we st Prince County. They had ten c hildren in some of whom we a re interested bec a use of a family connection by ma rriage through the Simpsons, t he Owens and the Ramsays. Archibald, the youngest son, married t he writer's Aunt Margaret Simpson. They lived in Cascumpec a nd hEd fo u r s ons a nd three daughters. (see chart in appendix) Two brothers, Henry a nd Da vid Gordon married two sister s , Sophia a nd Mary Owen, daug ht e rs of George Owen a nd Helen Mont go mery, a nd sisters of Mary Owen, the writer's g r a nd mo t he r. John Gordon married Mary Ra msay a nd t hey were the p a rents of t he Gordon Martyrs of Erromanga. We a re indebted to Miss Rae Ba rbour of Alma, P.~.I. grandda u g hter o f Henry a nd Sophia Owen Gordon for the above informa tion a nd t o Wrs. Alice Green of Alberton for t he followin g summary on the Gordon Martyrs. " Georg e Nicol, son of John Gordon and ~'!a ry Ramsay, was b orn in 1822. As a young ma n in his mid-twenties he felt c a lled to the Christian ministry a nd two ye 2 rs l a ter began studies in Ha lifax . There, while a student, he founded the City Mission which continued to exist until a bout twenty or less ye2.rs ago. "In 1855 he wa s ordained a nd went to London to continue medical studies begun in Ha lifax, to pre p are himself t o g ive some a ssistance to the sick. In London he met and ma rried a pretty, cuI tured :t.'n g lish girl, Ellen Catherine Powell. In July 1856, just after their marriage, they sailed from Engl ~ nd and in June of the followin g year they settled on the island of Erroma n g a in the New Hebrides. They were the first white missionaries to live on this island of sava ges. "On May 20th, 1861 t hey bec a me the first martyrs of the Canadian Church. "It was some five months before the news re a ched Albert on an d when it c a me, James Douglas Gordon knew t hat he must go to t a ke his brother's place. He was studying for the ministry at the time. In November, two years later, he sailed from Halifax a nd the following August he was on Erromanga. On March 7th, 1872 he, too, suffered a martyr's death". 131

Chap ter 14 A DEVELOPING COM lV1UNITY

Since the beginning of time life has been a challenge to homo sapiens. Always ahead there is a goal calling for constructive effort toward its achievement. And with achievement corne irreversible changes in daily living. Who among us would willingly give up the conveniences and comforts of life in 1973 and go back to what we now consider the primitive existence of the pioneers of 1800 in their log cabins? Today we need break no speed limits to drive comfortably from Cavendish to Charlottetown in thirty minutes over a pa ved road. In 1800, once a blazed trail had been made, it could be done on horseback in about five hours. In 1775 William and Janet Simpson and their eight children took approximately three months to cross the Atlantic.

As these words are being written, three men are preparing to cast off from Skylab for a nine o'clock splashdown in the Pacific tomorrow morning, after spending twenty-eight days in space. During those twenty-eight days since entering Sky lab they have travelled over eleven and a half million miles. In 1800 the goals ahead of the pioneer families were modest, - a frame house to replace the log cabin, a cast iron wood stove instead of an open fireplace, a saw mill run by water power to replace the broad axe 2nd the saw pit, a grist mill to grind oatmeal for their porridge and flour for their bread, simple farm machinery and oxen or horses to draw them, these and similar improvements corning within their reach, represented to them more comfortable living. These were the simple luxuries of their day. One did not turn a thermostat if the house temperature dropped into the sixties. There was a wood pile out in the snow with a saw and axe to cut the logs to stove size. When roads became a reality one did not turn on the heater in a completely closed in vehicle, one put on the home-spun long johns and heavy homespun suit, probably a fur coat, cap with ear lugs and warm mittens, heated stones to keep the feet warm, and climbed into the jaunting sleigh, wrapped up in buffalo robes a.nd took off to the tinkle of sleigh bells. Everywhere there was challenge to ingenuity. To the person without imagination and initiative life was indeed grim. It is not without a rea.son that communities like Cavendish all across this land gave to society its college presidents, its leaders in government and industry, its great preachers, and its citizens of character and integrity.

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One could wish tha t todays young sters with a ll their "privileges", with so much handed to them on a silver p l a t ter, wit h their a bsence of responsibilities or meaning ful ende a vor, c ould have something of the challenge of their forebears to cre a tivity. Witfiout unduly g lamorizing the p a st, it had its virtues and its vo lues, its belief in standards of excellence in workmanshi p a nd in living, which have unfortuna tely g iven pIe ce to a deteri oration in values, to a " get_by" philosophy of slop py workmanship, to an "anything goes" appro a ch to livin g , which ha s broug ht society to a state where, particula rly in our cities, fear ha s repl a ced the joy of living . There is much to be said for the unsophistica ted life of an e a rlier ag e where doors were never locked, where neighbor was quick to respond to the need of nei ghbor, where life had mec.ning and purp ose. At the end of Chapter 6 we left the Cavendis h pioneers still in their log cabins but, a fter ten years, firmly est a blished and making steady progress toward more comfortable living . Having briefly tra ced the genealogical record o f the va rious f a mily lines we now return to the develo ping c ommunity. In 1800 t he pop ul a tion of Cavendish wa s thirty-seven five log c a bins with five couples. In four of the five c a bins were twenty-five grandchildren from infancy to the late teens. John and Ma. r g aret Mc Nei l l, twenty years married ha d twelve children, Willi a m Junior and William Cla rk, six e a ch and J ames and Nancy, ma rried in 1798 had one infant son. In the c a bin of William and Janet were t he two youn gest children in tteir " e arly twenties, still unmarried. By 1814 when the first rec orded school in C a v~ndis h functioned for a time there were forty-two Simp s on, !Vlc Neill a nd Clark grandchildren living in the community. And a bo ut t his time ot her f a milies were beg inning to arrive. We have pointed out elsewhere that, by the time t he 180 9 survey was ma de, considerable l and ha d been cle a red resulting in farming operations which required more sophi s tic a ted ma chinery than a wooden p low, a sickle a nd a fl a il. The metamorphosis o f the plow beg ins with a wo ') den stic k in a form which allowed for a sha r p ened p oint t o bre ak t he soil and a sing le handle used to guide it. Pulled by a n ox it was more effective than a hoe. But the wood s oo n w') re out ~r broke a nd it wa s necess a ry to shap e a new plow. Then soon a fter th e t u rn of the centu ry c ame t he a ll i r on p l ow, no wheel a nd the sha r e a nd mould-board in one p iece, a he a vy, man-killing p iece o f mac hinery. Ma de of c a st i r on, t he

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mould-boa.rd would r ust and the clay stick to it. And as with the wo o den plow the sha.re would wear out requiring a whole new mould-board. The next step forwar d was the detachable share, which could be replaced when worn. The corning of wooden handles made the plow lighter and more easily handled. It was not until the late 18008 that a steel mould-board was developed. Most of the Island trade was supplied by Bishop's Foundry in Summerside who were in the forefront of plow development. All of these \"rere single furrow plows, drawn by two horses. Early two furrow plows, known as gang plows, came into the market in the 18708. They were drawn by three horses. But it was not until about 1900 that a satisfactory model was produced, with disc coulters and a side l ever. It was a short step from this to todays multi-furrow plows. But the p10we d field was rough and not yet ready for seeding. Early harrows ~ called spike harrows~ were made of sturdy square iron spikes, somewhat point ed at the bottom end, set first in a wooden and later in an iron frame " These were followed by the more e ffective spring tooth harrowp still widely used. It was not until the late 1800s that the disc harrow c a rne into being. Initially it consisted of twelve discs set about six inches apart p six on each of two sections, which could be angled by a lever for a more effective cut.

The sickle p which was used at the very beginning for ha rvesting grain among the stumps, was soon repla ced by the s cythe. An early labor saving development was the cradle, a small rac k on the back o f the scythe on which a she a f of grain wa.s collected. An important date in community development was the arrival With him Cavendish had its first blacksmith p and the farmers were not only relieved of many im"orovisations but also had available to them services for whlch they were no t equippe d , including the shoeing of their i'lorses. of J"ohn Lockerby in 1820.

Eventually, with a developing technology~ early mechanizacame in the hay mower an d the reaper. Mowing machines are still in use, little changed from the early models.

~lon

In both machines a bar went out to one side. At intervals along thi s bar were guards within which the "knife", really a ser i es of triangular knives , was propelled back an d forth, cutting the hay or grain as it carne between the guards and the mowing knife. The reaDer had a platform behind the knife bar on which the grain fell . To divide this into sheaves was a mechanism c ons i sting of four or six revolving arms, similar in appe a rance to a r a ke, which swept the untied s heaves off the platform.

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A man followed the reape r to tie the sheaves whic h he did by pulling out a few straws, qu ick l y extending them into a ~rope~ and twisting the ends to tie the sheaves. In the late 18 00s came the binder which tied the she a ve s. It was a much more complicated machine an d e a rly models were far from satisfactory. By 1900 they gave good service. The binder is now obsolete having been replaced by the combine which eliminates the laborious and dusty process of threshing. With the coming of saw mills, sawn lumber bec a me avail a ble for frame buildings, and houses, barns and other farm building s began to appear. Early sills, studs, plates, and rafters continued to be hand hewn, but with boards and shingles it became possible to build large barns with storage lofts for hay and- grain. The lower floor usually consisted of a central room called the ~barn floor" in which was the threshing mill and usually a room for grain storage. On each side would be a stable horses in one and milk cows in the other. Provision also had to be made for young cattle. As the farm operation grew , larger barns and other outbuildings appeared to meet growing needs. Comfortable frame homes were built. Functional furnishings brought some of the amenities. Life became somewhat less arduous. A description of the buildings of a typical farmstead in the late l800s may be of interest . In Chapter 10 we took the reader with James Simpson to found a new homestead in Bay View in 1812. In it we described the replacement of the log cabin by the first house, which was burned and replaced by the one in which the writer was born and grew up. It was a typical farm property . We described how, following the 1867 fire the neighbors rallied to build the kitchen section which consisted of two large rooms to which was added l at er a large porch. The upstairs was undivided except for a small bedroom, "the hired man's room". It was a storage area. In the main house entering from the kitchen section was a hall and stairway and at t .he end the front door and front porch. On each side were two rooms, first on the rig ht what would today be called the "den". It was an open area off the hall. Here stood the base burner, a stove with doors of isinglass sections all around it, giving a red g low. The stove burned Pennsylvania hard coal which was put into a _funnel-shaped receptacle at the t op and fed down automatically as it burned. It burned all night and kept the main house comfortable. Next to the den was the "parlor". On the left was the dining room and the downstairs "spare" bedroom. Upst a irs were three large and two small bedrooms . In the kitchen section the end room was the kitchen and the other big square room a living room.

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There was an inside yard shut off from the barnyard by a white pa ling fence. The house was on the east side of t he quadrangle. Directly opposite, across the barn ya rd was the barn - 140 feet long built in two sections. The original building was eighty feet. On the south wa s the horse st a ble six stalls and a l a rge box stall, then the first ba rn floor, a cow stable, a manure shed, another stable, the second barn floor and at the north a fourth stable. On the south side of the yard was the carriage house and work shop with its bench. Here the buggy and the jaunting sleigh were kept. Upstairs was a larg e storage area . To the north was the implement house which housed mo st of the farm implements from the weather. It also had 8. l a rge loft. Next came a long low building, the hen house and p i g house. Finally in the north east corner wa s the boiler house, a small building with a large, rectangular metal boiler, open on top and with a firebox underneath, in which cull pot atoes and turnips were boiled and later mashed with crushed oats and barley in a big trough on the other side of the building. This mixture was used for pig feed. Behind the barn were two root cellars. These were 10 x 32 and 8 x 24 feet inside measurement and were constructed by di gging by hand oblong holes three and a hal f feet deep , building hewn stone walls on the inside and a pitched roof of poles covered heavily with the clay from the excavations. There was an entrance B.t one end. They were almost frost proof. In extreme cold a small fire of straw pr ovided sufficient he a t to nrevent freezing. Here turnips were stored for winter feeding -0 f livestock. In later winter, after the l arge root-cella r had been emptied of turnips, it was used for storing ice for summer refrigeration. Ice from the bay, eighteen inches to t wo feet thick, was cut in cubes with a crosscut saw, hauled and stored in the root house where it was covered with sawdust from the mill as insulation, and would keep throughout the summer. It was used for cooling mi lk and for the ice box in the house which was the forerunner of the refrigerator. Such t hen was the layout of a typical farm property in the developing community of the late l800s and early 1900s. In Chapter 6 we described the dug well with its bucket. With increasing numbers of livestock to be watered some form of pump w'a s essential. But no iron pipe was availa ble. Hence wood was used as an improvisation and the wooden pump c arne into common usage. We a ssume tha t the p rinciple of a pump is generally understood and shall not describe it. Logs about n ine inc hes in diameter and up to twenty feet long were used for the "pip e" ..

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The bore wa s drilled with a two-man auger, three inches in diameter for the lower section, five inches for the upper to accomodate the plunger. To bore a straight hole through the center of a twenty foot log required great skill and the "well-man" was an important person in the community. On the cover of the open well was a square box, attached to the log pipe, with a spout a t one side and a wooden handle at the top, the shorter end attached to the iron rod which operated the plunger. On the homestead described above the pump was just inside the paling fence with a spout going to a trough in the ba rn yard for watering stock. We have described how the wooden plow and the sickle were repl a ced in farm operations. The threshin g of the gra ins grown - oats, barley, Wheat, was an essential procedure. The replacement of the flail with a thresher was a ma jor step forward. For the thresher- there had to be motive power and the treadmill was devised. The dictionary describes a treadmill as "a mechanism rotated by the walking motion of a qu a dru ped". It was built on the escalator principle. The floor wa s two inch planks about eight inches wide and four feet long . The planks were coupled by a rod, going throu gh an eye at each end and protruding about three inches at each end to run on a steel track. Two horses were used. The sides might be either vertical or sloping. There was a breast-plate a t the front, a dividing bar and a breeching piece at the rump. The mill was set at an angle of ten to fifteen de grees a s necessary for the horses to proceed at a normal walk. Pulleys and a belt drove the thresher. Ea rly threshers merely separated the grain from the straw. They consisted of a wooden, later steel, drum with teeth wh ich were bolted in. As the drum revolved these teeth passed close to similar ones bolted into the base. As the sheaf of grain passed through, the grain and chaff dropp ed through holes into a receptacle and the straw passed out over the end. This process left the chaff mixed with the g r a in and so a machine known as a fanner was devised which blew the cha ff from the grain. Eventually a combination shaker and cleaner a t the rear of the drum did away with fanners. Another interesting procedure on farms frontin g on the bay shore was di gging mussel mud. The land needed lime an d lime was available in the shells of shell-fis h which were plentiful at the outer edge of the flats - mussels and oysters . This mud was several feet deep.

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After the ice ha d made, a horse-operated windla ss equi pp e d with a fork was set up, a hole cut in the ice and mud lifted and loaded into large box sleig hs, to be hauled onto and spread on the fields. From the primitive existence of 1790 to the beginnings of modern mechanized life of toda y was a period of a bout one hundred and fifty years. This was the period of the developing community in Cavendish and elsewhere. Until the coming of t he internal combustion eng ine pro gress wa s g radual but steady. The writer ' s generation ha s seen more change in a life-time than has occured in several centuries previously. He was twelve years old when J. A. D. McCurdy piloted the first flight of a heavier than air machine in the British Empire at Baddeck, Nova Scotia on February 23, 1909. Today space travel is practically routine. We have a lready referred to the establishment of v a rious community industries and trades. One not previously mentioned was the cheese factory at Stanley Bridge which served Bay View and Cavendish. The writer's Father was for many years a director of this organization. Dairy cows were an important pa rt of most farm operations and a truck wagon was used to haul milk to the factory. Cheese was made from June to October, butter from November to May. Rather extensive reference is being ma de in Chapter 16 to t he various community institutions which served the p eople. Of ma jor importance was the neighborliness which existed among the various families. There was much inter-family and inter-neighbor visiting , particula rly in winter - and there were no electronic devices to prohibit good conversation. A neigh bor's need meant nei ghbor's help, at any hour of the day or night. Work was t he order of the day for both men and women, but work was not t he master. Life, generally, was lived without worry and without stress. Money was scarce but each home produced most of the necessities for its simple needs. In the early days ba rter wa s the general practice. The grist mill did not c harge a money fee but took a toll of wheat or oats to pay for grinding flour or oatmeal. Wages pa id a. round 1900 give some indication of the money in circulation. A man, working at casual labor by the da y, received eight y cents to one dollar per diem plus dinner and supper. A man working by the month received $10.00 to $12.00 a nd boa rd. Abou t 1900 a man working by the yea r on our home farm was pa id $112.00. 138

Potato pickers were paid forty cents a da y for cents for adults. Naturally, while wages were also in line. And one must remember that many which are considered necessities today did not

teenagers , sixty low prices were costly things even exist.

Entertainment generally did not represent a cost. Several neighboring homes had teen-agers the same age as t he writer. On Saturday evenings we went in turn to t he different homes where the parents organized games and served lunch. The blacksmith, for a few cents, would make a pa ir of sleigh runners and the parents built a coasting sleig h. The writer still has a pair of "stock skates" made for him by his Father. They consisted of a blade, curled at the front , made by the blacksmith, attached to a wooden "stock" which was fastened to the shoe by a screw into the heel and by straps. A shinny stick (forerunner of hockey) was carved from a crooked piece of hardwood and a puck made from spruce. The organ, which eventually most homes ha d, was a cente r of adult entertainment in the home, and the concert, t he pie or basket social, the summer picnic were me ans of community entertainment. In Chapter 16 we tell the story of the Cavendish Literary Society which during its years of activity, contributed largely to the social and cultural life of Cavendish. To compress the developments of a century and a half in the life of a community into one chapter, of necessity, leaves much untold. We can only hope that the reader may have grasped something of the challenge and the achievement of a p eople who, starting from scratch, built a prosperous community of happy homes, a people who found much of life's real meaning in living up to their ideals, and whose sons and daughters, a t home and abroad, made their honest contribution to a developing land.

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Chapter 15 INCIDENTS OF INTEREST "Did I ever tell you about ----?,. question countless times?

Who has not heard this

In the life of every individual and every community there have been incidents which remain in the memory as highlights. In our story of the years we hav e recorded many happening s relating to individuals or to families.

But there are many events of broader interest related to the whole community or of concern to the whole province. From these we have selected about a dozen "incidents of interest tl spreading over two centuries which we think are of sufficient importance to be included in the record. On the Cavendish shoreline just east of the junction of the Cawnpore and Gulf Shore roads is a promontory (Henry Robertson's Shore, page 57) which has been known as Cape LeForce. Here in the l700s, the date is not recorded, occured the first and, we believe, the only murder in Cavendish. Captain LeForce commanded a pirate ship. He and the mate had quarreled over the distribution of captured treasure and, as was customary at the time, decided to fight a duel. They anchored off the Cape, rowed ashore and as the Captain was pacing off the distance for the opponent's stations, the mate shot him in the back. LeForce was buried on the Cape but with erosion by the sea, the grave has long since been washed away. The year 1738 was one of tragedy for the eastern and central parts of Isle st. Jean. Field mice were prevalent to a degree that periodically they overran the country destroying vegetation. Four such years of the tlplague of mice" are recorded, 1724, 1728, 1738 and 1749. By far the worst was 1738 when it is reported that "they destroyed all crops from Three Rivers (the Brudenell-Montague area) to Malpeque". This plague of mice was followed by "the great fire of 1738". It is recorded that, l a ter in the season, a fire which broke out near East Point , cause unknown, burned all before it along the north shore to Hillsborough River and Trac a die Bay. During this year, 1973, in the Parliament of Canada and across the country there has been a great deba te on the p ros and cons of the complete abolition of capital punishment. One hundred and ninety-five years ago in 1778, in the first capital offence in the Island of St. John, capital punishment was abolished by an unique series of events. 140

A woman had been sentenced to die on t he ga llo ws for a p etty theft. It was the responsibility of t he Provost Ma rs hal to engag e a hangman. No one could be found who wou l d a ct even thou g h a large sum of money was offered. When t he day of the hang ing arrived and no one had been found who would pe rfo r m the task, it became the duty of the Provost Marshal to pr oce e d with the execution. But he too was unwilling to act and g ot out of the dilemma by submitting his resignation effective immediately. With the problem returned to the seven me mbers of th e Executive Council, they, also unwilling to a ct a s e xecutioners, abolished, in this instance, capit a l punishment a nd t he woma n went free. Not so fortunate were two black men , Sancho and Peter who in 1815 were condemned to the gallows for stealing a loa f of bread. They were publicly hanged on Gallows Hill, the spot on Euston Street where The Inn on the Hill now stands. Slavery was a legitimate institution for severa l decade s . In 1781 the Legislature passed an act declaring tha t "t he Baptism of Slaves shall not exempt them from bondag e". This act remained on the books till March 1829. Most o f t he sla ve s were domestic servants brought in by Loya lists from t he Unite d States. They were regarded as property and the Re g istry Office in Charlottetown records transfers into the be g inning of the nineteenth century. The City of Toronto found recently that it could only support two daily newspapers. A third one, the Telegram, ce a sed publication for financial reasons. Charlottetown prior to Confedera tion saw over twent y -five newspapers come and go. The first in 1787 was The Royal Commercial Gazette and Intelligencer p roduced by J ames Rob i nson. It was followed in turn by The Royal Gazette and Miscellany o f the Island of St. John, in 1791; The Royal Herald in 1800 and The Recorder in 1811. Another significant first, November 21, 1852, wa s the laying of a submarine cable from Cape Tormentine, New Brunswic k to Cape Traverse, P.E.I. - the first submarine cable in No rt h America. Governor Smith whose appoint ment became e ffective in l 81J bec a me resp onsible for the colony having "holey money". The Island had no currency of its own. Most busine s s wa s c a rri ed on throu gh barter. But Spanish silver doll a rs we re i n fai rly common use . Governor Smith accumulated a quantity o f t hese and had a mechanic punch ou t the center estimated t o be w) rt h one shilling . Thus two coins were created and circu l a ted t he center p iece as one s hilling and the "doug hnut" a s five shillings.

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Over the years the sea consistently took its t oll on the shores ()f Prince Edward Island. In 1770 the Ann abella. had been wrecked at Princetown in 1775 the Simpsons fell victims to a storm in the Northumberland Strait. These were indivi dual wrecks. On October 3 and 4, 1 8 51 t he sea took toll of many ships in a storm which has come to be known down throu g h the years as the "Yank ee Ga le". The New Eng land fishermen had discovered the valuable ma cke r el fishin g in the Gulf of St. Lawrence. The y used vessels of sixty to seventy tons with crews of ten to fourteen men. We cannot do better than to quote from Walte r Si mp son's "Cavendish in the Olden Time". It was written while many witnesses of the . storm were still living to furnish first hand details. "On the day preceding the storm there were more tha n a hundred sail of American fishing-schooners within si g ht o f Cavendish Capes. The evening was fine and there had been a very heavy- catch of mackerel during the day. It was a fine si g ht these handsome crafts made, as they sailed bnck a nd forth, within a couple of miles of the shore. But next morning the scene had changed. During the ni g ht a terrible storm had arisen which continued with little abatement for two days, and many of the schooners were driven ashore and completely wrecked and a great number of lives lost. From some of the vessels tha t came ashore early in the storm, on the sand be a ch, the crews were saved, but those tha.t struck on the rocky coast went to pieces, and a ll hands were lost. "The 'Ornament,' 'Oscar Coles' and 'Lion,' c ame in on the sandhills just west of Cavendish. The crews of the first two were saved, but the men in the latter al l perished, several bodies being taken out of her after she came ashore. The 'Ornament' was afterwards taken off and repaired, and eneaged in the coasting trade for some years. The re mains of the 'Lion' are yet to be seen on the beac h. I ha ve in my possession a ship's time- p iece that Capt a in Frisby of the 'Oscar Coles' gave to my father. A sc ho oner n a med the 'Mount Hope' came ashore below Cavendish a nd a ll hands were saved. Further east at McLure's Cape the 'Franklin Dexter' struck on the r o cks and all ha nds p erished. At Arthur's Cove, Rustico, the ' Mary Moulton' went to p ieces a nd her crew found a watery grave. j\.t Robinson's Isl a nd the Skip J a ck' met her fate with the loss of all hands. The 'Liberator' was wrecked at Park Corner, and t here were twenty-five stranded in Malpeque Harbor. I

"There were a bout one hundred lives lost on the north side of the Isl a nd during the storm. Quite a number of the drowned were buried in Cavendish cemetery. ( Another r ecor d 142

"sa ys twenty -t hree.) Some of t hem were a fterwa rd s clai med by rel a tives and t ak en up to be c a rried home for burial, but a nu mber of them still sleep in the cemetery with no st one to mark t he spot nor any inscription to tell the story of their tragic end". In August 188 ) a wide-eyed nine year old g irl watched fascin a ted a s, from a pile of gold coins on the kitchen tab le of her gr a ndparents' home in Cavendish, a Norweg ian se a c aptain paid off his crew. Lucy Maud Montg omery had already gone down the Cawnpo re road to the bea ch to see the great three-masted barque aground a few hundred yards off shore. The s hip was the Ma rco Polo. Built in Saint John, New Brunswick thirty-three years before she had claimed to be the fastest sailing ship in t he world. Commanded by Capt a in James "Bully" Forbes, she was pa rt of the fleet of the Black Ball Line and was on the Australian trade route. h three-decker, 184 feet long, 1, 625 tons s he carried what in those days was a substantial c a r go. Sail was beginning to give place to ste am , but the Marco Polo with g ood re a son refused to acce pt second place. On two occasions s he showed her superior speed. Outbound from Brit a in on a run fro m LiverDool to Melbourne, in a voyag e completed in sixt y - eight days s he beat out the new ste a mer Australi a by a week. And on an inbound run in 1867 she bea t the steamer Great Brit a in by eig ht days from Melbourne to Liverpool. Time is the enemy of sailin ~ shi ps and ln 1880 she wa s condemned and sold to a Norwegian company which continued to operate her. In August, 188) she sailed from Montmorency, Qu e be c and a few days lat e r , on a fine, sunny, s ummer afternoon with a brisk on-s hore breeze blowing, the people of Cavendish were ama.zed to see this beautiful ship , with all sails set heading directly for shore. She grounded. The crew was broug ht ash ore and billete d in different homes , the Captain a s noted above, l odging in the home of Alexande r Mc Neill. There a re two explanations of t he de liberate wrecking of this once p roud s hi p . The first is t hat with the rapid increase in steam powered vessels , the operati on of an old sailing vessel, no matter how fast, was no longer finan cially pro fitable, and that she was driven asho re to collect the insurance.

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The second explanation, that given by the Captain, was that she had encountered a severe storm in the Gulf of St. Lawrence, a storm which strangely did not effect the land areas, that she had begun to leak badly, beyond the capacity of the pumps, and that he had driven her ashore to prevent her foundering at sea. We go back in time a few years to two incidents in the Rustico area. At South Rustico stands a two storey building, built of hewn Prince Edward Island sandstone - a building so sturdily built that it may stand for centuries. It is a National Historic Site commemorating the initiative and the industry of a rural people. Here in 1864 the farmers of the area founded The Farmers' Bank of Rustico, the smallest chartered bank ever to operate in Canada, but a financial institution which, for thirty years, played a major role in the life of the people. It was also the forerunner of the Credit Union movement. A leading figure in the establishment of the Bank was the parish priest, Rev. George A. Belcourt. He came to Rustico in 1859 from the Red River District of Manitoba where, among many others, he had christened a ha.lf-breed baby by the name of Louis Riel. Father Belcourt is the central figure in the second Rustico incident. If one were to ask when the first automobile came to P.E.I. the answer would probably be "about 1900". Wrong. It was 1866. Still skeptical? We quote items from two Charlottetown papers the Charlottetown Herald and the Charlottetown Examiner. First the Herald: "A single seated steam wagon passed through the city this week on its way to the owner, the Reverend Father Belcourt of Rustico. When we saw the wagon, it was drawn by horses, but it is furnished with a steam engine, et cetera, and can be propelled with steam. I-t is the first of its kind introduced into this Island". The reporter for the Examiner in the issue of July 5, 1866 gives a colorful description of a tea-party held at Rustico on June 24. He continuesz "In the afternoon, a steam carriage was put in motion and with wonder and delight was observed' steaming away for half a mile on the road and back again, at a fast speed, after which the meeting dispersed in good order, all appearing well pleased with the day's proceedings". Within a period of nine years P.E.I. has been involved in three centennial celebrations, the Fathers of Confederation Conference in 1964, Canadian Confederation in 1967 and this -144

year the entry of the Province into Confederat ion . Anniversaries are specia l events, centennials are extra special. So, for the people of Cavendish, and for many people beyond ·its borders, descendants of the Founding Families of Cavendish, 1890 was a very special date. It was set aside for the centennial celebration of that day in 1790 when William and Janet Simpson with their family came a shore on Cavendish beach to found a new community. We shall let excerpts from the extensive press reports of the da y tell the story: ItSIMPSON, McNEILL, CLARK. ItOver five hundred people, nearly all of them descendant s and relatives of the above f amilies assembled on the beautiful farm of Wm. J. Simpson, Esq, at Cavendish (now Rainbow Valley) to celebrate the one hundredth anniversa r y of the first settlement of that magnificent section of t he Island. One hundred years ag o, when there was not a carriage road west of Charlottetown, not a mill, churc h or schoolhouse in that section of the country - consequently all communication was by water - Wm. Simpson and fami l y landed on Cavendish shore, the solitary English settlers within many miles. Mr. Simpson was a native o f County Elg in, (later Morayshire) Scotland; his wife was an Englis h lady (incorrect) and in company with the Dingwells of King's County, t he Andersons of Bedeque, Thompsons and Taylors ( ?) of Ma lpeque, they landed in Pinette in 1775 . They s p en t some yea.rs in Covehead and Charlottetown, and in 1790 sett led i n Cavendish. This article would be too lengthy to spe ak of the hardship and struggles of these early settlers. Tha t they were a law-abiding and God - fearing people, t he monument of their noble posterity fully attests. . . . . ItAll the arrangements f or the day were well planned a n d carried out to the letter. A table 100 feet long gro aned beneath the weight of good t hing s provided for the friends; nor were the horses forgotten for a l a rge hay fiel d was t hrown op en. Among t he features of t he da y was our enterprising fellow - townsman, Mr. R. W. Bowness tak i ng pic t ure s of groups of t he va rious fa milies on t he grounds . A large tent covered t he t a ble and in other tents we re t he musici ans, speakers a nd seats. About three o'c l ock the followin e pro gramme was disp osed of, the s p eeches be ing far a bove the average usu a lly given at festivals. Art hur Simpson, Esq., occupied the chair. " Address of Welcome, Thos . McNeill , Esq .; a ddres s , Rev . Al l an Simpson; song , 'One Hundred Years to Come , ' S. Sc hool children ; address, T.T . Fa irburn ; a ddress , D. H. Simpson; music ; address, W. J. Simp son ; addres s, Geo. Johnson; address, J. C. Cl ark , Esq .; address, Jo hn Si mp son , sr. , Esq . ; address, Rev . W. P . Arc hi bald; ad dress , J . C. Spurr ; a ddre s s, Rev. D. Crawford ; music.

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"A cong r a t ulat ory letter was read from Elder John Si mpson, of Kentucky. A vote of thanks to the representatives of the press was responded to by the Rev. Dr. Saunders of the Messenger and Visitor. A vote of thanks to the ladies .was a cknowledged on their behalf by Rev. W. P. Archibald. "The older speakers gave some interesting scraps of history and reminiscences of the early pioneers of the place. But all exp ressed their regret that records were not ke pt and that so little was now known of the e a rliest settlers. This part of the proceedings then carne to an end. Nothing occurred to mar iri any way the pleasure of t he day. Not a lOUd word was heard, not a sign of intoxication to be seen. Old a nd young had enjoyed themselves to the utmost of their capacity. The large crowd then quietly dispersed, carrying away with them pleasant memories of the day - with the thoug ht no doubt uppermost in their minds, 'Who will celebrate the next centennial of the Simpsons, Clarks and McNeills?' "At 8 o'clock in the evening a free-and-easy meeting was held in Cavendish Hall. The Hall was filled to overflowing . Rev. W. P. Archi bald occupied the chair. Although there was no programme prepared, there was no lack of entertainment. The following turned out to be the order of the exercises: Speeches - Samuel Simpson, Belmont; Cyrus Crosby, Bonshaw; Arthur Simpson, Bay View. Song - Killaloo •. Watson Clark, Summerside Addresses - Rev. W. B. Bradshaw, Nictaux, N.S.; A. A. McNeill, Alberton. Organ duet - The Seaman's Prayer •. Mrs. H.A. Compton and Watson Clark, Summerside. Speeches - D. McKay, M. P. P.; T. T. Fairbairn. Song - Long, Long Ago .••. Cavendish Choir Speeches - Jacob Bain, West River; Rev. Allan Simpson, Halifax; Henry Hyde, West River; James McCallum, Brackley Point; J. C. Clark, Bay View. Music ••..•.•.... National Anthem So ended the celebration". In such a manner did · Cavendish celebrate its centennial with a "feast of reason and a flow of soul" - over twent y-five speec hes during the afternoon and even i ng . And in ad dition to food for t he mind we c an wel l imagine t he food for the body provided by t he good ladies. Perhaps more important than either was the fellowship and the exchange of reminiscences.

1890 was t he centenary of the founding of Cavendish. 1975 will be t he bi centenary of the arriva l of William and Janet Simpson and t heir f amily on t he Island of St. John. Several people have suggested to t he writer t hat a bicentenni a l celebra tion should be held in Caven dis h during that s ummer. Perhap s someone will take t he initiative in organizing suc h an event . 146

In Chapt e r 12 we r eferre d t o Jerome Pe ters, th e only Ac a di an l i ving i n Bay View . J e rome had a ri c h sense of humor and, as a lighter touc h , we include t he foll owing anec dote. In 1913 and 1914 the student p a s t or of the Baptist Church boarded at John C. Clark' s , a c ross the ro a d fr om Jerome. The two beca me good fr i ends and on occ a s i on Brown accompanied Jerome to the fishin g groun ds . To explain what follows we note t ha t a bout a mile fr om Jerome's ho use wa s a cross ro ad - t he r i ght t urn l ed t o Stanley Bridge a nd t he doctor , th e left to t he paris h c hurc h . On t he day in question a conv ersat ion took plac e some what as follows: Jerome - " Mr. Brown did I ever t e ll y ou about de t ime Emma (a daughter) swa l l owed de cent", Brown - "No Jerome you didn ' t .

What happen ed? "

Jerome - "We l l, I borrow John Clark's hor se and st a rt for de doctor. But when I got t o de cro ss road I stop to tink and I deci de to go f or de cle r gyman" . Brown - "But Jerome it wasn't that se ri ou s. go for the clergyman?"

Why did yo u

Jerome - "No, it wasn't dat serious. But y ou kn ow, Mr. Brown, I always find dat a c l e r gyman can s ee a cent furder dan anybody else ". On Thursday July 15, 1920 Cav endish had a Vice - Regal visi t or. The reader will reme mbe r t hat Cavendish was named after Lord Ca vendish, Duke of Devon s hire. Consequently, when t he then Governor-General, th e Duke of Dev ons hire visited the Island in 1920 it was deemed pr op e r that he s hould visit the community named after his an c e s to r . A committee was set up of whi c h t he writer was a me mber and a lunc heon, served by the Cavendish ladies was arran ged. We quote excerpts from The Guardian of July 16: " A large number from the surrounding c ountry ha d assembled on the (Presbyteri an) Church g rounds and received t he distinguis hed visitors with hearty cheers on t he i r a r riva l . "T he Vice- Regal party were esco rted to a p l at f orm erec te d for the occasion where they were rece i ved by Mr . Herbert Simpson, Chairman of t he Recep t ion Commit t ee , and t he following address of welco me t o Their Exce llenc ie s fr om t he peo p le o f Cavendis h was read by Mr . Sydney Bonne l l, at present Pastor of t he Presbyteri an Churc h t here '''.

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Excerpts fr om the addres s follow: "We rejoice thCi t, on this oc casion you a re hono r ing u s with you r presence in this commun j ty whi ch be a r s the name of yo u r distinguished f amily. " About a century and a half ago, Captain Robert Winter of His Maj esty's Twelfth Regiment o f Foot c ame out to t hi s par t of our f a ir Province. As a reward for valor in the Battle of Minden, 1759, and for othe r distinguished services he wa s a wa rded, thr oug h t he influence of the Ca vendish Family, Townsh i p number twenty-three . In reco gnition of this kind assis t cmce, Cap t a in Winter c c:.' used this district to be na med 2 f ter your illustrious fa.mily". 'rhe a ddress was "signed on beha. lf of t he people of Ca vendish, 15 July, 1920". 'r he Guardian a ccount continues: "His Excellency replied in fittin g terms, than king t he people f or t heir cordi a l reception &nd commenting on the beauty a nd evident prosperity of the community. . "Luncheon was served by a number of young l a dies . . . . " After luncheon Their Excellencies mingled freely with t he people for over an hour, then left for Charlottetown". Th ere a re many ot her incidents of interest which deserve a p l a ce in the record but s pace does not permit. We must g o on to tell something of the Community Institutions of Cavendish.

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Chapter 16 CO MMUN I T Y I NSTITUTIO NS Churc hes

Sc ho o ls

Cavendish Literary So ci et y

Most r u r a l communities have two ba sic institutions, the c hu rch and the school. In Cavendis h there was, for nearly forty years , an add itiona l organ ization which pla yed a v it a l role i n community life. Hence we shall de vote some space to t he story of Th e Cavendish Litera ry Society. Here ~g a in we are using Ca vendish in the broader sense of the center of community life covering the immediately adjacent communities. CAVENDISH CHURCHES AND THEIR OUTREACH Since the founding families of Ca Vendish were Scots it follows that their religious background wa s Presbyterian, the Church of Scotland. While the Church of England was based on a n e p iscopal, hence basically authoritarian form of government, t he Churc h of Scotland was essentially democratic. The form of service wa s different, that of the Church of England being centered on worShip. In the Presbyterian service the preaching of the word has a lways taken first importance. The minister is not a priest appointed to 3 parish but a represent a tive of the membership c a lled by the cong reg at ion to a position of spiritual leadership. As the modera tor of t he Genera l Asse mbly is "first among equ a ls", elected not appointed, so the mini st e r of the congregation is a man set apart by commit ment and training to be "first among equals". Principal Rainy in 1872 s pe a ki ng on the pro cedures an d principles of Presbyterianism sta ted "Presbyteria nism is a syste m for a free people tha t love a reg ulated, a self re g ulating freedom; for a people independent, yet p ati ent , c onside r ate, trusting much to the processes of discussion an d consult a tion, and more to the promised aid of a much-forgiving and a watchful Lord. It is a system for strong c hu rc hes churches that are not afrn id to let their mat ters see the light of day - to let their we ak est parts and thei r worst defects be c a nvct ssed before men tha t they a ll ma y be mended".

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The Scot ha s alway s gi ven ed uca t ion a very high prioritj . Beg in n ing with the princip le o f a n educ a ted clergy , Presbyte rianism ha s always stood for at least a basic educ ~ tion for every chi l d. John Knox set as a g oal "a school in every parish". It was therefore only natura l that in founding homes a nd lite r all y c a rving out a future for themselves and their f 2m ilies in the new land, spiritual and educ a tional mat t ers should be very much in the minds of the first settlers. During the early years the struggle f or surviva l tOJk first priority. Sparse populat ion, difficulties of travel~ the a bsence of clergymen during this period, meant tha t the flame of reli g ion, and indeed basic educ a tion, was entirely the responsibility of the home. This wa s in a ccord with sound Presbyterian pra c tice, where the parent was expected to a ssume responsibilit y for the spiritua l nurture of his childr en through Bible study a nd the lear ning of the shorter catec hi sm. That the heads of the founding f amilies di sc ha r g ed this responsibility faithfully and well is evidenced by the f a c t tha t their children and grandchildren almo s t wit hout exception showe d qualities of lea dership unique in any community. Wi th no c hu rc hes , no schools, no s pi ri tual or edu c 2.tional mentors , but with dedicated parents, there g rew up in Cavendis h, and among t he descenda nts of t he founders who est a blished homes elsewhere, a generation of men and women o f c ha r a cter, int elli gen ce, industry and integrity of a very hi g h order. Whil e fo r the first ten years no clergymen v isited the new c ommunity, the desire for a chu rc h and its ordina nces under the s pi ritu a l leadership of an ordained mini ster remained st rong . The beginning of the new centu ry s aw t he first ste0S t Q w~rd the establishment o f community churc hes. The e 2rly ministers ci nd t he first c hurch orga ni zations were Presbyteri cn. later, in July 1869, a Baptist cong re gation was organ ized , its i ni tia.l membersh i p of twenty-two bei ng made u p of persons who had for merly been a ctive in t he Presbyteri an Churc h . Both churches played an i mpo r t a nt role in t he s p iritual, cu ltural an d soci8.1 life of the c ommunity a nd both . sent o. number of their young men a nd women out t o the wider outreach of t he chu rc h a t home an d in f or ei gn miss ion fields. In f a ct Re v. ( lat e r Dr.) John Geddie resigned t he p2 st J r c:;.te of Ca vendis h and New London Pre sbyteria n Churc he s in 1846 to g o a s one o f the first missiona ries ever to t o to t he forei gn fie] d from a ny British colony. 150

In 1791 Rev. James MacGregor later Dr. MacGregor came to Prince Edward Island and visited some communities but did not ~et to Cavendish. Dr. MacGregor had been orda i ned in Scotland in May 1786. The first minister to remain in the area for any length of time was Rev. John Urquhart who came from the United States in 1800, located in Prince Town and remained for two years. In 1802 he went to Miramichi, New Brunswick. Rev. John Keir who became the minister responsible for a wide area in 1810 has written of Mr . Urquhart tha t "He formed them into church order , ordained elders i n t he different districts, dispensed the ordinances of baptism and the Lord's Supper and performed other ministerial duties for the space of two years~ In a later statement we read: "In his spiritual oversight of New London Mr. Keir was ably assisted by a staff of good and faithful elders among whom and deserving of special mention were Captain William MacKay, John MacEwen and James Simpson. These good men in the absence of a regul a r minister conducted the Sabbath services themselves with acceptance and profit to the people". The James Simpson referred to was the third son of the original Willia m and Janet Winchester Simpson and the writer 's great grandfather. He had settled on a farm at Bay View on the shores of New London Bay and over the years was very active in the developing church. It was he who later donated the land for the Cavendish Church and for the cemetery at the corner of the Cavendish and Mayfield roads. Between 1802 and 1808 Dr. MacGregor and Rev. Duncan Ross visited various settlements on the Island. On July 16, 1806 Dr. MacGregor preached in the house of James Simpson referred to above and the next day in New London. Again in 1810 he preached in the house of James Simpson. A hand written History of Cavendish Church, unsigned, which is a part of the Church records states: "In 1809 a Church was organized at Cavendis h by Rev. Peter Gordon. First Minister was Parson McGrego r who travelled far and wide on horseback". The first regularly settled minister for the wide area including Cavendish was Rev. (later Dr.) John Keir. Dr. Keir had been born in the Parish of Kippen, Bucklyvie Village, Scotland February 2 , 1780. He was licensed to preach in 1807 and was ordained and inducted at Prince Town on June 10, 1810. 151

His congregation included Bedeque, Richmond Bay Hest, Princetown, New London and Cavendish. This was a very large area and methods of travel were orimitive. Roads as such did not exist. There were trails through the forest where one could go on horseback. And of course small boats were used around the coast and on the rivers. Much travel was done on foot especially in the winter when one had often to depend on snowshoes. A contemporary of Dr. Keir writes of him making his way around the heads of inlets and creeks? swimming his horse across rivers and across New London Harbour while he paddled a cross in a canoe. And yet he kept a very regular schedule of appointments. In 1816 he directed the building of a log church at Yankee Hill just to the west of New London Harbour. This church W3S built to serve the New London area, the settlers in Cavendish, Bay View, Stanley Bridge and the various other communities around New London Bay. The home of James Simpson, the family homestead on which the writer grew up, was two and one half miles from the beginning of the sand dunes, then two and one half miles along the dunes to New London Harbour which was crossed by boat. My great grandparents and their family attended the church at Yankee Hill. They would drive in spring, summer and fall the five miles to New London Harbour and having crossed the Harbour would walk c 5rrying their shoes until they reached the church. The shoes must not be dusty. . Two services were held, one in the forenoon with a break for lunch and one in the afternoon. Sermons were long usually running at least an hour. Since there was no way of heating the church it must have taken a g ood deal of Christian zeal and fortitude to withstand the winter chill. Following the afternoon service they would retrace their ste Ds returning home late in the afternoon. In winter when ice formed in the Bay they would drive across directly to the church which was a somewhat shorter distance. In those times long sermons were the order of the day. The story is told of one of the early ministers in a neighboring coneregation who lived beside the church. On the other side lived the man who lighted the fires and looked after the building. On a stormy winter morning when travel was impossible only the minister and the caretaker of the church were able to get there.

152

Aft er exchanging the greetings of the do y the minist e r said "we shall carryon with the service". He went to the pulp it and went through the complete service including the hour sermon. When the service was over he came down and stood with the lone parishoner by the stove for a few moments and then remarked "You know Sandy even if there is only one horse in t he barn you feed him in spite of the storm". " Ah yes, Sir" replied Sandy, "but if I had only one hors e in the barn I wouldn't feed him all the hay thAt's in the mow". On October 11, 1821 under the direction of Dr. Keir the first Presbytery on Prince Edward Island was form ed at Princetown with Dr. Keir as Moderator. About this time in 1820 the Rev. Edward Pidgeon a minister of the Dutch Reformed Church who had come to Canada -in 1796 took up residence at French River very near to the Yank ee Hill Church. He had been c a lled to St. Peter ' s Ba y congregati on, also on the north shore of Prince Edward Isla nd, in 1811 but because of ill health had to retire in 1820. He became a member of Yankee Hill Church and served in many c apc") ci ties until his death in 184.3 while attending a service in the church. Rev. Dr. George C. Pidgeon the l ast Moderat or of the Presbyteri an Church in Cana da and the first Moderator of the United Church a nd his brother Rev. Dr. E. Leslie Pidgeon were gr and sons of Edward. Edward Pidgeon's wife was Mary Montgomery, a sister of Sena tor Donald and of the writer's gre at gr andm other Helen. Hence George and Leslie Pidgeon were second co usins of Lucy Maud Montgomery an d of both parents of the writer. The first Women's Missionary Society in Cana da wa s organized in Princetown in 1825 under the name The Female Society: for Propogating the Gospel and Other Religious Purposes. Up till t his time Ca vendish had been a Dart of the Prince town field. In 1826 Cavendish and New London were made a sepa rate charge. The Yank ee Hill Church ha d grown to a p oin t where it was felt that they could maintain a minister and that s t eps could be taken toward the bui lding of 2. churc h in Cavendish. A call was therefore extended to Hugh Dunbar a na tive of Pictou County, No va Scotia and a member of the first Divinity c la ss to be gr a du ated under the leadership of Dr. Tho mas McCul l oc h who had been ·appointed Professor of Divinlty by the Synod. 15.3

This early Divinity School which met in Pictou Academy was the forerunner of what l a ter bec ~ me Pine Hill Divinity Ha ll . Re v. Dr. W. A. Betts, Archivist of the Ma riti me Conference of the United Church traces its history from this humble beginning . "You will note that the Divinity Hall opened under the direction of the Synod of Pictou in 1820, went with him (Dr. McCulloch) to Halifax in 1838 , was put in the hands of Dr. John Keir and located in Malpeque 1844 to 45, moved to West River, Nova Scotia 1846, Truro in 1858, a nd Halifax in 1860". The members of this fir st gradua ting class in 1825 were Robert Sim Pa tterson, John Mac lean , John L. Murdock, Angus McGillivray, Hugh Ross, Hugh Dunbar, Duncan McDona ld , John McDonald and Michael McCulloch. Mr. Dunbar was ordained and inducted on March 27, 1827. Under his leadership steps were soon taken for the building of a church in Cavendish and in 1830 the building was started and g ood progress made. When it was nearing completion a forest fire swept over the area and the building was destroyed. But the people were not to be daunted and in the following ye a r 1831 a second building was started and as near as we can learn was opened for service the following year. Few of the Cavendish settlers spoke Gaelic a nd consequently the services at Cavendish were conducted in English . However across the harbour in New London there were quite a number of Gaelic speaking families and as a result the services were conducted partly in English and partly in Gaelic. This led to problems and to Mr. Dunbar ' S eventua l resignation. We quote from the Christian Instructor of the Presbyterian Church in Nova Scotia, the issue of January 1858 : "'For some time, says the Rev. R. S. Patterson , every thing continued to go on satisfactorily. The attachment between the minister and people was mutual, and the congregation appeared to prosper. But it happened that in this congregation there were some whose na tive language was Gaelic; and hence a part of the services of the Sabbath were performed in that language. In such cases it usually happens that the English and Gaelic people are disposed to consider their interests as separate, and bec ome jealous of each other, and thus dissatisfactions arise whic h prove prejudicial to the interests of religion. It was soin the present instance. From t hese and other causes, whi c h it is unnecessary to mention, the a ttachment between Mr. Dunbar and his people began an d continu e d to diminish, until, on 15th June 1835, he tende red his demission ; and the Presbytery, judging that , his usefulness was terminated, thought proper I

I

154

"'to accept it. About this time, a part of the congregation, consisting chiefly of those attached to the Gaelic language, separated, and connected themselves with the Kirk of Scotland.' These now form the pastoral charge of the Rev. A. Sutherland of the Free Church". On Mr. Dunbar's departure from the Cavendish··New London congregation he moved to Springfield, P.E.I. where he engaged in farming and in teaching school • . In addition to this he was instrumental in orgar~izi ng a church which he served as minister until his death in November 1858. "The Rev. Hugh Dunbar left his residence, Princetown Road~ on Saturday morning l a st. He was observed r(!turning early in the afternoon, and shortly after was found lying on the road, a little further on, quite dead. It is supposed his death was occasioned by disease of the heart". The Yankee Hill Church was used until the tiln-3 of Mr. Dunbar's departure in 1835. In 1836 a new church was begun at Spring Brook in the French River area and was completed in 1838. It is interesting to note that the women of the community picked oysters which were very plentiful in the Bay and burned the shells to provide lime to be used for the making of p18ster for the church walls. There was of course the high pulpit with steps leading up to it and a sounding board suspended from the ceiling to carry the minister's voice to the congregation. The pews were box pews with a door, seats around three sides with a small table in the center to hold Bibles and the Books oJ Psalms. The church was built by James Clark of son of William and Helen Simpson Clark.

Ha~ilton

who was a

~~om 1835 till 1838 there was no settled minister in the congregation.

On April 10, 1815 there was born in Banffs Scotland a boy who was given the name John Geddie. As an infant he was seriously ill and at his baptism his parents dedicated him; in the event that his life was spared, to be a for l 3ign missionary. As a lad John Geddie carne to Nova Scotia and eventually enrolled as a divinity student at Pictou. During his college years without any knowledge that his pa.rents had dedic2.ted him to foreign missionary work he personallynade such a dedication of his life.

155

In 18) 7 in his horne c ongregati on and while yet a student he organize d a Miss i ona ry Society. In 18)8 at age 22 he w~ s licen sed to preach a nd received a call from the Cbvendish - New London congregation where he was orda ined and inducted on March I), 1838. In the following year he married Charlo tte, daughter of Dr. Alexander McDonald of Anti gonish, Nova Scotic . They were marri ed by Rev. Professor James W. Falconer. The young coup le est a blished their home in Cavendish near the Bay View border, built a home and lived there during his pa stora te which included the Ca vendis h and New London c hu rches. Immediately fol l owing his ord ination he had already so inspired the women of the congregati on at New London t hat they met and organized a Women's Missionary Socie ty. Wi thin a short time Mr. Geddie was instrumental in having similar societies organized in every congregation in the presbytery. His was a very successful pastorate but he never lost sight of his great objective to become a foreign missionary. With local problems to be overcome the great maj0rity of the churches were apathetic to the responsibility of sending out messengers to all nations. Dr. Geddie set himself to awaken the conscience of the Presbyterian Church. In this he was strongly supported by the venerable Dr. Keir of Princetown and in 1844 the question of undertaking the support of a foreign missionary was brought before the Synod of the Presbyterian Churc h of Nova Scoti8 by Mr. Geddie. The followin g year the Synod decide d to undertake the work and advertised for a missionary. Dr. Geddie, twice dedic ated, appli ed and was a ccepted though many he.d misgivings. iilS re signa tion from Cavendish-New London became effective in November 1846. In speaking to the congregation at a farewel l ga thering he said in part "I leave you not because my attachment to you has become in any way abated nor bec a use I suspect that you are unwilling to reta in me . Had not the stern call of duty directed my attention to another, a more arduous and less alluring field of labour , I could have ended my ministry among you. It was a painful struggle, indeed, before I could reconcile my mind to the thought of leaving a part of the c hu rch around whic h my best affections have been inclined". At that time Mr. and Mrs. Gedd ie had three sma ll children, two of whom died before the ti me of their departure. find, bec a u s e of the na ture of their commit ment, it was necessary t o leave the remaining c hild behind. 156

So with his wife John Geddie set out on the eighteen month j ourney which wa s t o take them to Aneiteum. They a rrived in Aneiteum in 1848. The following account of the conditions they encountered on arrival and of their approac h to their task and the procedures followed has been given by a biographer. "War was continu ous. Theft was honorable. There was no t hought of love. Everyone carried his club and spear. Women were in slavery. Brutality was their daily way. The awful habit of strangling widows on the death of their husbands was strongly rooted. Every woman wore a stout cord around her neck so arranged that a moderate pull could affect strangulation. "With kindness and patience the Geddies gradually won the confidence and affection of the people, though at times their lives were in great peril. "Bi scuits were bartered for a knowledge of the language. Aft er six Sundays Geddie could preach in the native tongue. After four years hundreds could read. Teachers were so trained that seventeen could go to surrounding Islands to preach and teach. "At the end of seven years Geddie reported 'Twenty- five small white buildings dot the landscape, churches built for the worship and glory of God'''. In 1864 Geddie returned to Canada on furlough. At tha t time he inquired about and went to see a young man whom he had baptized as an infant in 184) and recorded his dedication by the parents to foreign missions, Albert Benjamin Simpson. He found that the young man of twenty- one had just been licensed to preach, had accepted a call to Knox Presbyterian Church in Hamilton, the largest Presbyterian Church in the city with a seating capacity of twelve hundred, and that he was about to be ordained and inducted in the pastorate of Knox. We shall follow the career of this son of Cavendish congregation in a later Chapter. Dr. Geddie returned to Aneiteum and continued his work until in 1~72 failing health made it necessary for him to terminate his labours. He went to Australia where he died so on after. He is buried in Australia at a place called Geelong. The church in which Geddie ministered at Cavendish has long since been replaced but the one at Spring Brook built between 18)6 and 1838 still stands.

157

At t he ti me of Geddie ' s f u rlou eh in 1364 the church was r ena med Ge ddi e Memori a l Churc h . In 1905 it was compl e tely ren ovat e d and on August 6th o f t hat year t here wa s an offici a l r eo p ening. The pa s t or Rev. A. D. Stirling in his address empha sized that man y pe op le were interested in the old churc h because their a.nc es tors love d to worship in i t , bu t a f a r gre a ter number were desi ro us t hat i t s hould be preserved in g ood re pa ir and bea u.tif ie d be c a us e i t wa s t he c hurc h where Dr. John Geddie, the ni oneer missi onary of t he Presbyt eri an Church in C a n a d ~ , ha d ~ iniste red a nd fro m whic h he went out to Aneiteum. T e church sti l l stands in an excellent

st ~ te

of reDair

rn~int ~ ined by t he p eople of the commu nity and is visited · ~n~u2] . ly ~'::;eddie

by many pe ople wh o still revere the name of Dr. Jo hn

.

In the a djoining well kept cemetery , on the tombstones of seve r a l generat ions may be found in miniature a history of the community. We p a y tribute to William Jo hnst one a nd his wife ¥ i ld red, for merly of Long River and now living in retirement in Ke nsingt on , for having recently p repa red a detailed record of c.l l the t ombstones in the church cemetery with considerabl e b i o f r aphi c ~ l da ta on the various families. Foll owi ng Dr . Geddie's resi gnati on there wa s ag2in a pe ri Jd wit h no settled minister until 18 50 when Isaa c Murra y a lso a rr8 dua t e of the Theological Seminary was orda ined a nd inducted. We Qu ot e from a Minu te of the Marit ime Synod of t he Presbyterian Chu r ch in 1907 f oll owing Dr. Murray's death: " Dr . I s aac Murray was born at Scotsburn, Pi ctou County, ~a rch 24th, 1824, and ente red int o his rest December 7th, 1906. In his boyhood he was bright, studious and ambitious, and under that peerless educati 0n ist, Dr. Th oma s McCulloch, ga ve e a rly evidence o f superior ability.

"He received his Theological train ing in west River Semina ry under Dr. Keir and Principal Ross, a nd in Princet on Semi na ry, New Jersey, under Dr. Archibald Alexander and Dr. Charl e s Hodge. He was li cen sed by the Presbyt ery of Pict ou in May , 1949, and ordc. ined and inducted into the pa stora t e of the congregation of Cavendish and New London, P .E . I . , s uccessor to our hon ore d o ioneer missionary, Dr. John Ge d die. Fo r twenty-seven years he l a boured there meetin~ wi th g re a t success, n ot on l y as a pastor a nd p re a c her, but as an educat i onist, moulding the cha r a cter an d stimulating the activities of quite a number of young me n wh o have subsequently rendered noble servi ce to the ca use of Christ. "In 18 74 Queens University confe rred upon him the title of Do c to r of Di vi !1ity".

158

Th e re c ords st a te t haT, d u r ing Dr . Mu r ray ' s in c umbency a larger c hu rc h was bu i lt in 1 8 6 6 i n t he same l oc a t ion as t he ear lier one and that it served the congre g ation until t he turn of the century. It was the meeting house type of architecture wit h no s p ire. The entrance was at the south with the pulp it at t h e oeposite end of the churc h . It had of course the h i g h p Ul p it aporoached by steps . Fa cing t he p u l p it a t t h e opp os i te end was a g 2 11ery , t he front se a ts of whi c h were o ccup i ed by the choir. There was of co u rse no organ. In 1862 during Dr. Murray 's p a stora t e t here was aga i n a cha nge in congre g ational bound a ries. The a rrang e ment o f two churches on opposite sides o f New Lond o n Ba y meant mu c h t r a vel for the minister. Consequently Cavend i sh and New London were separated. Cavendish and New Glasgow formed the new cong r e g ation and with additions are still constituents of the pre sent pastoral charge. For many years Stanley Bridge and North Rustico, alon g with Cavendish and New Glasgow made up the constitue n t u n i t s of the pastorate. In 1969 because of changing conditions, - a decre a s ing number of families in the various communities, smaller f a milies, greater mobility and for other reasons, two ch a n g es took place: 1. North Rustico was discontinued a s a sep a r at e un it of the congregation, the members attendin g either Ca vendish or New Glasg ow. The church building , wh ic h was over one hundred years old, was sold. 2. On Jan ua ry 4 9 1 9 6 9 i t wa s dec i ded t h at, be g i n ninr J uly 1, 196 9 for a tr ial p eriod o f one ye a r, Ca v end ish , New Gla s g ow and St a nley Bridge shou l d work c oop era tivel y wit h Breadalba ne, Rose Valley an d P le as ant Valle y. Un der this a rrang e me nt t hree serv i c e s were to be con du ct e d ea ch Sunday - a service in ea c h c hu r ch ev ery second Sunda y. The e x ce p tion was t ha t d u ri n g the s umm e r months , since t h e i ntroduction of a to ur i st minis try with a st u dent assist a nt, t h ere s hould be a we e k l y service in Ca vendis h a.t 1 1 0' cloc k , wi t h s p eci a l eve n i ng services fro m t i me to time. As o f Ju l y 1 , 1 970 con tinu a nce o f t he exp eri ment a l coo p erati ve r elat i on s h ip was conf irmed on a perma ne n t ba s i s . Aft er a twe nt y - s e v en yea r pa s t orate Dr. Mu r r a y r es igned t o b e fo ll owed in 187 8 by Re v. W. P . Arch i ba ld wh o s e r ved th e c on g re ga tio n for e ight e e n y e a rs .

1 59

Aga in we quote f ro m a Minute o f t he Ma rit ime Syn od of 1918: "The Rev~rend W. P . Archibald, B.D., D. O., wa s bo r n in 1852 in the beautiful countryside of Upper Mus qu odoboi t, N.S., where he received his early educction. He t ook hi s Arts course in the University of Dalhousie. His theological training was received at the Presbyterian College, Halifax, from which institution he received his B.D. degree in 1877. In 1878 he accepted a call to Cavendish and New Glasgow, P.E.I., where he spent seventeen years of very fruitful ministry. He was c alled to the higher service on August 25th, 1918. "Filled with moral earnestness and missionary zeal, he did yeoman service in all the congregations in which he exercised his reinistry, and was a servant of God wellbeloved by young and old, rich and poor. He was a fine scholar. Having read selectively and widely he was well versed in lit~rature and general knowledge. He always kept an open mind for the best in biblical and theol ogica l researc h. He was a writer of no mean order, both in verse and prose. "As a preachei Dr. Archibald was strong and fearless; instructive and inspiring; fervent and pleasing. As a minister and friend, he was loving, kind and symp athetic, and well graced his noble calling. Although he chose to minister in the more remote parishes, yet the richness of his life and endowments shone far and were recognize d both by our Theological College in the bestowing upon him the degree of D.D. in 1911, and by our Synod in the autumn of the same year in elevating him to the hono ure d Dosition of Moderator. In all the church courts he too k ~n a c tive and prominent part, and his passing in the midst of his most useful years is a heavy blow". The early records refer to many instances of the stric tnes s of Sunday 0 bserv·s nce. On one occasion on a mid-summer Sunda y Dr. Arch i bald wa s invited to preach in a neighboring congregation. Arr i ving on Saturda y evening he was entertained at the home of one o f t he elders. After brea kf;:; st Sunday morning he went out to se e how his horse was farin g , to find the a nimal unfed. Not being abl e t o find any feed he picked up an old scythe and cut some grass. His host, ha ving observed t hi s to him impro per activit y on the Sabba t h, ha d Dr. Archiba ld broug ht before the Session . he was not discio lined. Another instance of t he str i ctness of Su nda y ob s e rve nee was related by the writers boy hood min i ster , Rev. J ohn Sti r ling . His father had been for many years min ister of the ne i gh boring congregation of Cl i fton (now New London) . 160

On a muddy Saturday evening in April Mr. Stirling, Senior returned just before midnight from a sick call. The family had a maid and it was part of her responsibility to see that the minister's one pair of shoes had a spit and polish shine for the Sabbath. So~ she proceeded to shine the very muddy shoes and had just completed one when the clock struck twelve. She was starting to shine the second one but Mr. Stirling stopped her. It was the Sabbath and no unnecessary work must be done. At eleven o'clock Sunday morning the minister went into the pulpit with one we ll -shined and one muddy shoe. His son John in telling it remarked "My Father was very strict. Perhaps I am not strict enough ". It is noted that for Dr. organ was borrowed. This was was provided for the service For ma.ny years Ewen ' MacKenzie choir.

Archibald's farewell service an the first time that organ music of song in Cavendish Church. had been the precentor of the

Following Dr. Archibald Rev. G. C. Robertson was ordained and inducted in 1896 and served the congregation for approximately two years. In 1899 Rev. Major H. MacIntosh was inducted and remained until 190). During his pastorate he married Mabel Simpson, the first church organist, daughter of Jeremiah Simpson at Bayview Mills. At this time a decision was taken to replace the old church. Soon after the arrival of Mr. MacIntosh the building was torn down and the used lumber sold. As often happens there was some difference of opinion with regard to the site for the new building. In the interim services were held in the Community Hall, a mile west of the church. Two church buildings had stood on the corner lot, which was also the cemetery lot, and some felt the new building should go on the old site. Mayfield families wanted it built on the Mayfield road. A t h ird group wanted it to be to the east of the old site, sout h of the main road toward Rustico. John Franklin McNeill offered to donate a site at the third location. A committee consisting of Donald Montgomery Simpson (the writer's Fat her ), John Hillman and John Franklin McNeill, was appointed to recommend a selection. The committee recommended the third choice, - the present site. The recommendation was approved and in 1901 the land donated by John Franklin McNei ll was chosen and construction begun. It was opened for worship in 1902.

161

It was finished in oak and mahogany, with painted pla ster walls and c anopy effect ceiling in mat ching wood. To the rear of the church a re several rows of raised seats. This church is still in use and as will be stated la ter was reopened in May 1973 following extensiv e renovati on s . At the fiftieth anniversary service of t he church held in 1952 Rev. Dr. Clarence MacKinnon Nicholson r Princ ipal of Pine Hil l Divinity Hall was the guest preacher . Mr. 'MacIntosh was followed by Rev. Ewart MacDonald in 190). He wa s pastor of the congregation until 1 906. During his pastorate he became engaged to Lucy Maud Montgomery who became his wife in 1911. She too waB the church organist . After a vacancy of two yea rs, in 1908 Rev. John Stirling was inducted. He was the writer's boyhood pastor and was love d by all. He remained for t en years resigning in 1918. He also married a member of the congregation , Margaret Ross. There was a period o f vac ancy and during the summers of 1920 and 1921 John Sutherland Bonnell (Syd to his friends) during his final years at Pine Hill came f or the summer as student pastor. During this time the writer was living in Cavendis h opposite the chu r ch and Syd shared our family table on many occasions. We had been classmates in Prince of Wales College for two years prior to our enlisting for oversea s service . I

Syd who stood 6 feet 4 boa rded in New Glasgow with a close friend, Artie Moffatt, who was even taller, - 6 feet 6. Cavend ish residents of that day still wish that someone had taken a pict~re of Syd and Artie driving up to the chu rch in Syd's 192~ Model T Ford roadster - a very tiny two-seater, with their kn ees high in the air above the sides of the car . Ford roadst e rs of that day were not built for tall men. Before leaving to return to Pine Hi] 1 Mr. Bonnell Cl.ccepted a call to the congregati on and was ordaine d and inducted on his graduati on in 1922. Mr. Bonnell just remained one year when he accepted a call to St. Andrews Church in Saint John, New Brunswick and fr om there went on to eventually become pastor of Fifth Avenue Presbyterian Church in New York City. Dr. Bonn ell se rved that c hurch for twenty-five years and on his retirement became President of New York Theologic a l Seminary.

162

He is t he author of many book s. When Dr. Ha rry Emerson Fosdick retired a s the radio preacher of an Ame rican National network Dr. Bonnell was chosen to succeed him. Cavendish paid tribute to his fifty years in the ministry and his outstanding service when, during the summer of 1972, half a century after his ordination in t he same church, a specjal service was held in his honor. Dr. E. Melville Aitken, a classmate who was himself ordained a year later in Cavendish church, was t he preacher. In his reminiscences Mel told of an incident which occurred when, during their student days, they had summer pastorates on adjoining fields. They jointly planned the order of service and conducted their first funeral. Later at the home of the church organist, where they were being entertained , she was asked "How did it go?" After some hesitation she finally said "Well - -- isn't it a bit unusual to open a funeral service with the Doxology?" Fo l lowing Dr. Bonnell's resigna tion E. Melville Aitken who like Dr. Bonnell was an Island boy accepted a call and was ordained and inducted in 1923 remaining as pastor of the congregation until 1926. Mr. Aitken came to the pastorate of Cavendish Presbyteri an Church. His resignation in 1926 was from The Cavendish United Church. Cavendish Pastoral Charge had four community churc hes Cavendish, New Gla.sgow, North Rustico and Stanley Bridge . Throughout the congregation there wa s a strong sentiment in favor of church union. When the choice was made the four sections all strongly supported the move. Hence in June 1925 by the practically unanimous cl10ice o f its membership Cavendish Church became a unit of the United Church of Canada. Dr. Aitk en also held several important past orates in Canada and was one of the nominees for Modere.t or of the General As sembly a few years ago. During the next 47 years the congregat ion had fifte en ministers as follows: Minister Rev. Peter Jackson Rev. Harold Bishop Rev. W. A. Patterson Rev. G. W. Tilley Rev. Eric Coffin Rev. George Gough Rev. F. W. Sawd on

Inducted

Left

1927 1928 1932 1937 1943 1947 1953

1928 1932 1937 1943 1947 1953 1955

Minister Rev. E. A. Halley Rev. G. MacKinnon Rev. Morley Bentley Rev. Frank Stiles Rev. T. R. Goudge Mr. Curtis MacDonald Rev. John Wharry Rev. Wilfred Wilson Mr. Wilson who came to present minister.

th(~

Inducted 1956

Left 1960

1962 1964 1967 1968 1969 1971

1964 1967 1968 1969 1971

congregation in 1971 is the

During a.nd since Mr. Wharry's pastorate a student associate has been brought in for the summer months. In 1970 that person was Tom Faulkner, in 1971 Darrell Shaule and in 1972 Bill hines. During recent years and increasingly the churches of Cavendish have been playing an imp ortant role in this centre of tourist activity. The basic responsibility of the student associates has been the tourist ministry. In addition t o large c ongregations on Sunda.y the United Church has during the past three summers had open house two nights a week where c onsidera.ble numbers of young people assemble in the Christian Education section. In additi on they sponsored ecumenical bilingual camp fire services at one of the camp grounds and rendered generally a very useful ministry • . During the winter of 1972-73 renovated. The platform has been railing added and the c hoir which west corner of the church will be

the church building has been extended six feet with a had always been in the north located behind the pulpit.

Side walls and ceilings and all woodwork ha.s been refinished. New carp e t, a new lighting system, a new organ are a pa.rt of the program. The 1973 summer season will see a much more attrclcti ve int e rior t o wha.t is architecturally a very attractive church. The official reopening of the church was observed by two special services on Sunday, May 20. The preacher at the morning service was the pastor Rev. Wilfred Wilson, B. Th. The evening preacher was Rev. Bruce Roberts, B.Sc., B.Eng., B.D. In 1973 Lewis Toombs completed fifty years as an elder of Cavend.ish Church. In recognition of this long period of service. on May 6 a special service was held at which Mr. Wilson on behalf of the congregation presented a plaque to Mr. Toombs. Dr. E. Melville Aitken has also been honored at a service on June 17 commemorating the fiftieth anniversary of his ordination in Cavendish Church in 1923. Dr. Bonnell was the guest preacher. 164

The Ca vendish Presbyte~ian congregation for wel l over a century and a ha lf has been a vital factor in the develop ment of character and ideals in some eight generations. A rural church is very much a social and community centre. This was even more true before the day of the telephone and the automobile. Here neighbour met neighbour at least weekly. Here community concerns were discussed and community action planned. If the head of a family was ill in planting or harvest time, the men of the community saw that essential work wa s done. When a wife was laid aside, food was prepared, children were taken to neighbouring homes and cared for. Should a barn be burned, the whole community staged a "barn raising". While many communities have had a certain amount of strife and bickering, Cavendish was singularly free from such problems. There were few if any "line fence disputes" which were often a cause of argument. The story is told of two men in a neighbouring community who, in their twenties, inherited adjoining farms for which the line of demarcation between them had not been clearly establis hed. There was bitter argument with the result that for ye a rs they did not speak to each other. The son of one married the daughter of the other, t hey both attended the wedding, but still did not speak. Years went by and the infirmities of age bega n to te ll. Eventually John came to the point were apparently his illness was terminal. The minister said to him "John you have not s p oken to Sandy for many years. Now you are near the end. Don't you think you should send for him and make it up?" "Well" said John "I suppose we had better". The minister went to Sandy's home, explained the situati on and took Sandy to see John. They came into the room and John raising himself slightly on his elbow said "Sandy, they tell me I am near the end . We haven't spoken for over fifty years. They tell me that we should shake hands and make it up". "John, I'm glad" said Sandy and reached out to take his hand. After the handshake John lay back in bed exhausted fr 0fO the effort.

165

After resting a bit he again eased himself up on his elbow and loo king at Sandy said "Remember Sandy if I get better this darn nonsense is all off". But not only did the church h8ve a role in developing a harmonious community in which to live, it was instrumental in implanting a vision of wider service in many young minds, and in influencing many of its youth to equip themselves for leadership in both state and church. In the family records it will be noted that a disproportionate number of descendants of t he founding families of 1790 served in the Legislative Councilor Assembly. Into the ministry went Albert Benjamin Simpson founder of the Christian and Missionary Alliance, a world wide organization, Allan Simpson who ministered in Halifax for over twenty-five years, L. G. McNeill, Andrew Lockerby, George Laird, Charles Fraser and others. In addition we shall note in the history of the Cavendish Baptist Church which follows some names of those who went out from that body to Christian service. And of course there was Lucy Maud Montgomery.

Need one say

more. At the fiftieth anniversary service of the opening of the oresent church a former minister said "We feel as if a great ~loud of witnesses were here".

166

THE CAVENDISH BAPTIST CHURCH FOUNDED 1869 For indebted Brinton, which we

the record of the Baptist Church in Cavendish we are to Anna (Mrs. Jeremiah) Simpson and to Rev. Myron O. D.D. who have prepared a history of this church from shall quote freely.

For seventy-nine years following its founding Cavendish was basically a one church community - Presbyterian. In 1959 Rev. Dr. Thomas Reagh Millman formerly of , Kensington, P.E.I. published a history of the Parish of New London. Dr. Millman in addition to the distinction of having been the writer's best man is Professor of Church History at Wycliffe in Toronto and Canadian Archivist of the Anglican Church. In Chapter 3 he covers the ministry of William Meek which began in 1852. On page 22 he refers to Cavendish as follows: "Occasionally he conducted a service in Caven dish where six church families lived. A boat usually carne for him. Mr. Meek remarked that Cavendish was awkwardly situated, for to come from that place to church at New London often meant facing contrary winds and a rough sea. Cavendish people continued to attend St. Thomas's within living memory, coming by boat and bringing dinner with them Ot • These were families who had come to the community in the first half of the nineteenth century~ who had an Anglican background and who endeavoured to maintain a connection. However they normally attended and most of them became members of the Presbyterian Church, During the 18608 some members of the community who had been active in the Presbyterian Church carne in contact with Baptist clergymen and it is recorded that some of them were immersed during that period and embraced the Baptist doctrine. There were differences of opinion, partly theological and partly political, and during the 60's before any church organizat ion was set up this group built a meeting house on the Mayfield Road about one half mile from Cavendish corner : "On Wednesday, July 14, 1869, a Council met by request in the Baptist Meeting House to consider the propriety of organizing a Baptist Church in Cavendish. The pastorp Rev. M. P. Freeman, presided. Brother John MacDonald, of Uigg, was appointed secretary of the meeting. "The following were present as representatives of Baptist churches. Rev. James Goldrup, Tryon; Rev. Frederic Kids on , North River; Rev. John Davis, Charlottetown; Bro. John MacDonald, Uigg; and Rev. James Meadows, Jeddore, N.S.

167

"The names of t hose who were desirous of being formed into a church were read. There were 22 of them as followsl Mr. and Mrs. Jeremiah Simpson, Mrs. John McNeill, Charlotte Simpson, Margaret McNeill, Mr. and Mrs. Arthur Simpson, Mrs. John C.Clark, Mr. and Mrs. John Wyand, John McNeill, Jane McNeill, Mrs. Sarah McNeill, Mrs. John Dickieson, Artemas McNeill, Christy McNeill, Eliza Jane Simpson, Agnes Simpson, Mary McNeill, Mary Ann Wyand, Mrs. Sarah Bradshaw and Mrs. William Laird. "After instruction in Baptist doctrine and practice from Dr. Hiscox's 'Baptist Church Directory' it was unanimously resolved that they be organized into a church to be known as the Cavendish Baptist Church. Jeremiah Simpson was elected as Deacon and Arthur Simpson as clerk. The first pastor was Rev. M. Po Freeman". Hon. Jeremiah Simpson, a grandson of founders William and Janet, and his family were prime movers in the establishment of a Baptist Church. It will be noted that Jeremiah was elected the first Deacon which office he held for many years and that his son Arthur was appointed clerk and remained in that position f or a period of fifty-three years. We cannot do better than to continue to quote from the History prepared "by Mrs. Simpson and Dr. Brinton I "The evangelistic spirit which led to the formation of this new church apparently remained strong, since 75 persons were baptized into its fellowship on public profession of their faith in Christ during the first 26 years of its history . A keen missionary spirit was also evidenced by frequent references in the minute book to generous donations to home and foreign missions during the early years. "Rev. M. P . Freeman concluded his work here in September , 1870. Lic. J. M. Robbins ministered as student p~stor during the summer of 1871. Lic. Wm. H. Warren followed him in October of that yea r and was ordained in this church in February 1872. He continued his work for about two years. "Lic. J. B. Woodland entered into his labors here i n October , 1877 . He was ordained in March, 1878. Under his ministry sev,e ral br ethren and sisters were baptized in the vicin i ty of Rusticc Road and a request was received from them dated June 26, 1880, to be organized into a church. The request having been acted upon and the church at Rustico Road having been organized, it continued its association with this church under the ministry of t he same pastor until 1924, when it became a part of the North River field.

168

"Rev. Mr. Woodland co ncluded his servi ce with the churc h in June, 1885. He was followed by Rev. J. C. Spurr who continued his pastorate for eleven years, the longest in the church's history. Thirty-five persons united with the church during his ministry. "Lie. C. W. Jackson became pastor in June, 1897, was . ordained in August, 1898, and remained till August, 1899. "Rev. A. E. Hooper f ollowed in June, 1900, continuing his ministry for about two years. Rev. C. P. Wilson ministered here for about six months in 1903 and Rev. J. A. Belyea bec8me pas to r in October of that year, closing his pastorate in October, 1907. The debt on the new church, built in 1902, was paid off in December, 1906. Lie. G. F. Camp was the next pastor, followed by Rev. C. W. Sables in 1911. Thereafter the church was served for brief periods, largely :in the summer months - Rev. W. S. Jacobs in 1912; Lie. W. Brown in 191); Rev. J. C. Spurr, 1915. In June, 1916, Rev. W.E. Piper became pastor and remained until February, 1920. Lie. J. S. Blesedell was student pastor during the summer of 1920 and Lie. Percy Kempton in the summer of 1921. "In June 1922 , Lie. M. O. Brinton became pastor and was ordained in this church on October 16, 1922. He remained until the first of Sel) tember, 1923. In September, 1924 he was married to a member of this church, Elaine Simpson, a daughter of Walter Simpson, granddaughter of the first deacon, Jeremiah Simpson". Myron Brinton was only 21 when he was ordained on October 16, 1922 . During the summer of 1972 a speCial service was held in the Baptist Church in Cavendish recognizing his fifty years in the ministry. The esteem in wh ic h Dr. Brinton is held was evidenced by the overflow attendance at this anniversary service. The Brintons for many years have had a summer cottag e in Cavendish and each summer he has preached several times in the Baptist Churc h. In this wa y a very close tie with the people of Cavendish, Baptist and Uni te d , has been maintained by the Brintons. We continue to quote from the c hurc h history: "Following his pastorate, t he churc h was served by supply ministers until October, 1924 , when an agreement was ma.de with the Disciples Church in New Glasgow , whereby this church would sha.re in the ministry of their pastor.

169

~M inis~ers of the Disciple s who have served the Cavendish Churc h sin ce 1924 i nclude: Rev. Mr. Hodges, Rev. John W. Tyndall, Rev. C. E. Armstrong . Rev. W. G. Quigley, Rev. T. Cavender, Rev . R. E. Shaw, Rev. J. W. Hayter, Rev. P. Richardson, Rev. M. Watterworth, Rev. Bryer Jones, Rev. M. · Zimmerman, 2.nd the present pastor, Rev. Neil Burt. During the summer of 1960 one of our Baptist ministers, Rev. Horace. Estabrooks, served the combined field.

"In September, 1948, a service of dedication was held to dedicate the electric lights donated by Miss Ethel Simpson in memory of her parents, Mr. and Mrs. Arthur Simpson, who had served the church so faithfully from its founding until their death". On July 20, 1969 the centenary of the founding of Cavendish Baptist Church was observed by speciC'J1 services. The preacher at the morning service was Dr. Brinton and the choir of Fairview Baptist Church provided the music. Rev. and Mrs. Max Nesbitt and daughters Muriel and Marlene sang a quartet. The history of the church was read by the clerk, Mrs. Clifford Simpson. There was on this occasion also an overflow congregation. At the evening service the pastor Rev. Neil Burt was the speaker. Mrs. Burt sang a solo and the choir of the Fredericton Disciples of Christ Church sang "Wi]l Your Anchor Hold?". Bibles were dedicated to the memory of Mrs. Ernest Webb, who had been organist of the church for nearly fifty years. A guest book was also dedicated. The gift of Mrs. Jeremi2.h Simpson who was clerk of the church for forty-seven years. The history notes the names of a number of people who went out from the church into wider service. We quote: "The founder of the Clark line was William Clark who was born in Scotland in 1759. After corning to Cavendish he ma rried Helen Simpson, a da.ughter of William, the ancestor of the Simpsons. "One of his descenda nts was John C. Clark, who married Annie Simpson , daughter of Deacon Jeremiah. Their family became very active and well known in Baptist work. Two daug hters, Martha and Zella, were Canadian Baptist missionaries to Indi a . Martha served there for thirty-two yea rs until illness compelled her retirement. Dr. Zella brought her home and cared for her until her death. Then she returned to her work in India as a prominent medical missionary in Sompeta and Chicacole, completing thirtyeight years of service before retiring in 1944. tl A son o f John C. Clark , Rev. Jeremiah Clark, married Be l le Pratt of St. Peters, P.E.I . , and together they be c a me t he first Canadian Baptist missionari es to work among the Micmac Indians.

170

"Another son, Dr. J. r,. Cl ark, wa s for many years Superintendent of the Experimental Farm in Charlottetown. After his retirement he was delegated by Canadien Baptists to visit our Mission f ield in Bolivia, and especially to give advice concerning the agricultural work at Peniel Hall Farm. For many years he has been a leader in the Baptist Church in Charlottetown. In 1928 he was elected as president of the Maritime Baptist Convention. Mr. & Mrs. John C. Clark had other sons and daughters who served actively in the church. Their daughter, Annie, w~s the wife of Rev. A. J. Pros~er, a Maritime Baptist minister. "Mention has been made of several members of this church who have rendered outstanding service in the cause of Christ. The devoted service of many others should doubtless be recorded, but the stricture of time makes it necessary for us here to refer briefly to only a few of them, such as, "Deacon Joseph Bagnal l who served faithfully as deacon from 1888 till his death in 1924. His son Herbert was a Baptist minister in Western Canada. "Dr. Harrington Bradshaw who was a trustee for several yea,rs and served actively in other ways. "Jeremiah Simpson, a son of deacon Arthur, and a grandson of the first deacon Jeremiah, served faithfully as deacon from 1922 till his dec:,th in 1961. His wife, Anna, was church clerk from 1922 to January 1969, when she was succeeded by the present clerk, Mrs. Clifford Simpson. "Mrs. Ernest Webb, was a member of this church for over 72 years before her death in February, 1969, and was for many years its faithful organist. "Miss Adelaide Clark, was a devoted Sunday School teac her and worker in the Missionary Society, of whom it was said 'If there ever was a real Christian, she was one.' "One of Adelaide Clark's sisters, Caroline, married Francis Bain, and was the mother of Laura Bain, who for many years was another of our dedicated Cana dian Bap t ist missionaries in India, and who passed away in Charlottetown July 15, 1969. "The names of many ot hers , we believe, are recorded in the Book of Life, but we must leave the record here. We believe that the work of a c hurch that has given so much of its life's blood in dedicated young lives to other churches, and to the servi ce of Christ in many area s should continue to be sust ained. We pray that others may feel the challenge and rise up to carryon its wi tnes s to the glory of our God and Saviour". 171

We have gone into the sto r y of the Cavendish churches in considerable detail. We have done so because we believe that the history of the church in a community such as Cavendish is to a large extent the history of the community itself. We have also done so because of a desire to record a considerable amount of detail which will be preserved in the provincial archives and to which future generations will be able to turn for the record of the past. The story covers a period of one hundred and eighty-three years and we believe it is essentially accurate in detail. Much time has been spent on research and on cross checking events and dates with a view to accuracy. We trust that those who read it will find in it much of information and at least a measure of inspiration.

REV. THEOPHILUS DESBRISAY While there is no record of his ever having visited Cavendish, it seems fitting that we should not close this section without a reference to Mr. DesBrisay. He was born in Tipperary, Ireland in 1754 and on September 21, 1774 was appointed rector of the Anglican Parish of Charlotte. He arrived in Charlottetown late : · in 1775. Under his guidance St. Paul's Church came into being. After two years spent on a naval vessel in the harbour he established his home at Cove Head even though his parish church was in Charlottetown. For a number of years he was the only Protestant clergyman on the Island and the parish records of st. Paul's record many marriages and baptisms among the Scotch Presbyterian settlers, including the family of William and Janet Simpson. His was truly an ecumenical ministry before the word ecumenism had a place in the language.

172

SCHOOLS CAVENDISH AND HOPE RIVER (BAY VIEW) Never a week passes that there is not some reference in the press or on the media to the escalating costs of education. Governments no longer talk in monetary units smaller than millions. fu"1d the end is not yet. Education is BIG business. But education, even though it did not always mean large sums of money, ha.s always been a major concern of any progressive people. It is a process which begins in the mother's womb, passes through its most vital period in the home during the first half dozen years of life, then normally becomes a formal procedure in some type of school, perhaps continues formally in a post school instituti on, but, for all who are mentally stable goes on informally to life's end. Education then involves everybody and concerns everybody. The slogan is often used "Education is everybody's business H •

We have referred earlier to the value placed on education by the founding families of Cavendish. Six of the eight children of William and Janet Simpson born in Scotland would have attended school there before leaving and would have some grounding. The four younger., Jame s who was the writer's great-grandfather, and Janet born in Scotland and Charlotte and John born in The Island of St. John would never have had an opportunity to go to school. During their sch,ool-age years there were no schol1ls. f

The parents and no doubt the older children became of necessity the teachers of the younger. The home became ~lso the school. That this arrangement was effective is evidenced by the fact that James was recognized as a community leader in various areas of interest, that in 1800 he was appointed by Rev. John Urquhart as elder of the Presbyterian Church and charged, in the absence of a minister, with the responsibility of conduct ing church services in the Cavendish area which he did in the words of Dr. J'ohn Kelr OQwi th acceptance and profit to the people". For further evidence of its effectiveness, the reader has merely to turn back to Chapter 11, to the letter reproduced there from John Simpson to his nephew Samuel Bagnall, dated July 8, 1851. J'ohn was the youngest child of Will i am and Janet, born May 9, 1779. He wa.s twenty-five before there was a school teacher in Cavendish in 1814.

173

Yet here is a letter written in neat, very legible hand writing , correct s pelling and grammatical construction, a letter which would do credit to any high school graduate tOday. These early settlers, home educated and self taught were highly intelligent, functionally literate thoughtful and creative men and women. While the realities of the situation during the early years made a school impossible, they never lost sight of the goal. In 1814 the first school in Ca vendish came into being taught by a Mr. McIntyre. We know no more about it than this and that the teacher was engaged by the parents. It was not till 1825 that an act was passed by the legislature "to aut horize payment of small grants of public money to aid in t he erection of school buildings and in payment o f teachers salaries ". Five years later a colonial Board of Educati on of five members was established. We do not know the amounts of the grants but that they were s mall is shown by the fact that over half a century later, the annual cost per pupil was only $6.33. The table which follows indicates the changing picture provincially particularly during the past two decades.

Teachers

%

Enrolment

Attendance

54 60 62.1 73.4 82.30 90.19 91.0 92.6

1879 1899 1919 1939 1950 1960 1965 1968

450 583 593 673 707 937 1,175 1,399

19,904 21,550 17,587 18,308 18,279 239789 27 ,135 29,217

1969

1,445

30,109

92.7

Ap prox . Cost Per Pupil

Total Annual Cost

$

125,923.34 157,067.86 285,959.63 557,156.75

$

6.33 7·29 16 .25 30.48 81.37 159 ·51

H.S.

548 .44

1,482,~88.52

3,794,675.81 8,145,455.82 13,634,939.06 16,231,380·34

Elem. 30 5.18

H.S.

641.12

Elem. 362.19

The earliest Department of Education record of a school and teacher in Cavendish is 1834-35. Whether government gra nts were drawn prior to this date is not known, but it is certain that the parents engaged a teacher ove r the intervening years. There is no record of what salary was pa id or how but it was probably on a similar basis to that of Prince Town of which the following record existsz "October 11, 1822 Rules and Regulati ons "Rules and regulations for supporting, encouraging and governing a public school at Prince Town f or promoting Christian knowledge and other useful instruction. Dr. Keir, Rector.

174

"Sessions to be opene d with prayer and one day a week observed for the purpose of catechism and other religious instruction. "The teachers pay to be 10 shillings for each scholar taking reading, writing, vulgar or decimal fractions or the like. The fees for mathematics, bookkeeping, and the classics to be fixed by the rector. "The medium of payment to be a quarter part in wheat, a quarter part in barley, a quarter part in oats, and a quarter part in cash ~ Failure to pay on time as required makes cash payment necessary". Generally board was provided free by the parents, the teacher spending a fixed time in each home. Since this record covers the school districts of Cavendish and Bay View (Hope River School) we are able, through the efforts of Mrs. Jennie (Moore) MacNeill of Cavendish and Mrs. Marie (Cullen) Peters, formerly of Bay View and now of North Rustico, and the courtesy of the Department of Education, to present fairly full records of teachers in the two schools. CAVENDISH SCHOOL Submitted by Jennie Moore MacNeill This district is in Queens County and is defined as follows that is to say : commencing on the Cavendish Road at the division line between lots 22 and 23; thence running eastwardly on the said road to the line between farms of John MacKenzie and Hugh McLure situated j,n Lot 24; thence on the Cavendish Road south on the line between the farms of John Wyand and Samuel Wyand and running along last named road north to the main Cavendish Road including all lands extending on sa i d roads wi t hin the above boundaries. Registered herein this 26th day of May 1896. 1834-35 41-42

42-43

44-46 48-49 57-58 60-61

Sebast i an Dav i dson Donald Li vingstone Teacher 30 pupils. Very satisfacto ry progress has been made during the past year . An excellent and commodious schoolhouse ha s been lately erected. D. Lamont. The present teac her has succee ded to t he c ha rge of this schoo l a few months a go ; conseque ntly n o i mp r ovemen ts worthy of notice can yet be apparent. The c hi ldren here are genera lly i ntelligent . and many of them are well acqua inted with Grammar , Geography, and the higher rules of arithmetic. Donald Livings ton 1849-50 Robert Bell i n El ias Robe r ts 54-55 Vacant Davi d S . Ben t ley - 38 pupi ls. Grea ter animat i on woul d i mp r ove t he tone of the school. Vacant

17 5

Lemuel Millar 1863-64 Lemuel Millar 55 pupils 41 pupils Lemuel Millar Examination very satisfactory. 64-65 Three trustees present. Lemuel Millar Principal. Isabell Millar assistant. 72-73 This is unquestionably one of the best schools in the County, and deservedly poplar over the whole western end of it; accordingly students from distant localities frequently attend. Lemuel Millar Principal. Assi stant Isabell Millar. 73-74 53 pupils. After long and faithful service in this district? Mr. Millar i s about to remove to a more extended field of usefulness . Stella Hayden Lemuel Millar 1917- 19 74-75 Very thorough work. 19-20 Mildred Brooks Margaret I. Ling Alex Campbell 20-21 77-78 Jas. Ko Ross 21-22 Marjorie Enman 78-79 Mae iVJcKenzie Jas. K. Ross 22-23 79-80 Lillian D. Wheatley 44 pup ils 23-24 Angus Lamont 24-25 George A. McKinlay 80-81 Geo. H. Simpson 25-26 Jennie McKay 81-82 William McKay 26~27 MQ Doris Ro dd 82-83 John K . Fraser 27--28 Vic tor Ling 83-84 James McLeod 28-29 Jean Case ly 84-87 Ozzie H.Robinson 29-31 Mary G. Stevenson 87-89 Hattie Gordon 31-32 Gertrude Ackland 89-92 Salary $220.00 1889-90 32-34 Irene D. Wyand Selina M. Robinson 34-36 Ella Stavert 92-93 Wellington McCoubray 36-39 A. Lorraine Webb 93-94 Supplement $30~OO 39-40 Hattie Clark W. MCCoubray 40-41 Grace Crosby 94-96 Alfred C. Lawson 41-42 Joyce Lank 96-97 Fannie J. Wise Ruth Buntain 97-98 Edgar N. Brown Caroline McCabe 42 -43 98-99 J.,~3-44 Helen Green 99-1901 Nellie McNeill Nora Lefurgey' 44- 46 Margare t Moore 01-03 Bessie K. Dockendorff Helen Green 46-47 03-05 Marthe:. lVl. Brown Christine Sherren 47-48 05-07 Alice E. Mathes on Maureen Doyle 07-08 21 pupils Maureen Doyle 48 -·49 Edna ,J. Nichols on Jennie Moore 08-09 '+9- 51 Su.pplement $2 5. 00 Elizabeth MacKenzie 51-- 52 Annie Nicholson Christine Burdett 09-10 52-53 1.5 pupils Christine Burdett 53-54 Jeanette Orr Catherine Buchanan 10-11 Gladys Craswell Catherine Buchanan 54-55 ElvaL. Bernard 11-12 Lavenia McAvinn 55- 56 Jeanette Orr Shirley Moffatt 12-13 56-57 Ma y Cullen Shirley Arsenault 13-14 57-58 Cavendish is well taught Georgie Frizzell May Cullen Ethel Francis 14-15 58-61 Winnifred McLeod. 61-64 Annie Fyfe 15-17

1862-63

176

Cavendish Consolidated Helen MacEwen Maud Sims 1964-65 Helen MacEwen Anna MacLennan 65-66 Helen MacEwen, f\.vonna Stevenson, Anna 1~1acLenrian, 66-67 Diane Toombs Lillian Wells, Oriane Houston, Anna MacLennan, 67-68 Diane MacKay, Avonna Stevenson Lillian Wells, Oriane Houston, Anna MacLennan, 68-69 Jennie MacNeill, Avonna Stevenson Lillian Wells 1 Oriane Houston, Anna MacLennan, 69-70 Jennie MacNeill, Avonna Stevenson Jean Bulman, Oriane Houston6 Anna MacLennan, 70-72 Jennie MacNeill, Avonna Stevenson A new one room school was built and opene d in 1960. A second room was added in 1964 when Cavendish became a consolidated school. By 1966 two additional basement rooms were in operation. In the autumn of 1968 Hope River District joined the Cavendish consolidation. Coming to the records of Hope River School it should be noted that the location of the school was in Bay View and that its boundaries included the two communities - Bay View and Hope River. While Mrs. Peters points out that this sChool is not mentioned in Department records till 1848 it is certain that a school was in existence much earlier. It is noted that a new school was built in 1854 or 1855 to replace an old one which was too small "but also because of its dilapidated state~. A six or seven year old building would not be dilapidated. Various oral records state that a school was in opera tion at the head of Hope River prior to 1830. We believe this to be correct. Mrs. Peters' report

follows~

HISTORICAL BUILDINGS INVENTORY HOPE RIVER SCHOOL (The following information has been provided by Mrs. Marie (Cullen) Peters, North Rustico, P.E.I. from information she secured fro m the Department of Edu cation~ Earle Simpson born 1891 and Cullen family records.) Boundaries and extent of Hope River School District (1853) - Commencing on the Gulf Shore on the division line between Lots 22 and 23; following said line about 3t miles south to t he south boundary of R. Thompson's Farm, thence west to Hope River,

177

down said river to J. Bowlins s out h line, thence north to Hope River and along the east side of said river and Grenville Bay to the place of commencement. Site of School House - At the head of the eastern branch of Hope River (Simpson's Mi lls) near the road. The land on which the schoolhouse is built is vested in T. Sullivan, Esq. proprietor of the township (Lot 22). Hope River Distric t had been sanctioned by the Board of Education and registered accordingly. The di s trict was defined by James Campbell, Esq. Board Room Central Academy, May 23, 1853. Hope River School is first menti oned in Department of Education records in 1848. 'l'he teacher was John i\';cKay. This is when the Supervisor or School Visitor visited this school. However, upon talking with Mr. Earle Simpson, Cavendish, I learne d that it was his opinion that this ori ginal building hHd existed mu ch earlier than 1848. He informed me that his late f2.ther had started school in 1854 or 1855 in this original building and soon moved to the new schoo l, the present struc ture. The origina l school was being replaced not only because of its s mal l s iz e but also because of its dilapidated state. Early Records Department of Edu cation - At Hope River in 1851 a class was found sufficiently advanced to be able to solve with facility many important and useful problems on the map. The teacher was Elias Roberts. Forty-nine pupils were en ro lled. First mention of Present School, (Dept. of Education) February 1855. The school visitor states : "Orde.r Fair Examination creditable. New schoolhouse built since lEs t visit, commodious and tolerably furnished with the necessary app or a tus. " signed John M. Stark, Inspector of Schools. According to Mr. Simpson who t hought first use of this school was made in the autumn of 1855; t he school was very likely built in t he summer of 1854 . (his f athe r starting school in 18 54 ). In 1856 the teacher was Elizabeth MacGregor. In 1857 the teacher was John Taylo r - 42 pupils. In 18 60-61 the teacher was James Oxenham - 38 pupils. Report of School Visitor, J. Arbuckle - "The schoolhouse is small but neatly furnis hed. The in ha bit ants of this district Ere very intelligent and disposed to encourage intellectual i mprovement." It is st2ted here t hat the school is small. Family legend has it that my l at e uncle, Timothy Cullen, constructed an addition to the former building around the 1880-1890 period I would estimate. Evidence on the interior se e ms to point out that the present building was n ot all constructed at onc e. I cannot find any proo f of this legend in Department of Educati on records. 178

In 1863 the teac her wa s R. McKe l vie . In 1864 the teacher W2 S J ohn Bell - 32 pupils - 22 pr esent at time of visit. In 1871 the report indicates a new bl a c kboar d was needed. As far as I can determine this is t he s maller present blackboard, the large one being t he one in existence in 1871. 1872 1874 1875 1879-80 1880-81 1881-82 1882-84 1884-85 1885-86 1886-87 1887-89

Emily T. MacNeil B. Farrow Vacant Maria M. McKenna Pupils 42 Patrick Cosgrove Pupils 54 Bessie Cavanagh Patrick Cullen William W. Smith Mary M. Bowlan Supplement $15.00 Mary T. Hogan Mary J. Smith Supplement $10.00

Eli za Ai t ken J ames Flemming An dre w Cul l en Supp leme nt $10. 00 Exp en s es $2 5 . 00 Mami e T . Hogan 1893- 95 Al i ce B. Kelly 1895- 96 Henry S . Ma cLu r e 1896-99 1899-1900 Fannie J. Wise Supplement $12 . 00 Expense s $22.00 Mary B. Si mp s on 1900-01 Supple ment $20.0 0 Mable Simpson 1901-02 1889-90 1890-91 1891-93

The School District of Hop e River wa s defined and registered August 7, 1902. Secretary Alex Anderson. 1903-06 1906 1907-08 1908-10 1910-12 1912-13 1913-14 1914-15 1915-16 1916-18 1918-19 1919-22 1922-23 1923-24 1924-25 1925-26 1951

Joanna McKay 1903 Supplement $20.00 Expenses $45.00 Aileen Laird 22 Pupils Verna M. Brown Supplement $20.00 Expenses $28.00 A. H. Peters Emmett T. Peters 21 Pupils Mark R. McGuigan Elsie Dewar James H. Hogan J. Claude Simpson May Cullen J. R. Fleming May Cullen Lucy F. Sellar Nell i e MacDonald Ca rol Simpson Margueri te Curri e

1926-27 1927-28 1928-30 1930-31 1931-32 1932-34 1934-35 1935-36 1936-39 1940-41 1941-42 1942-43 1943-44 1944- 4 5 194 5-46 1946- 48 1948 - 4 9 1949-51

Ar thu r Woo lner Ea rne st M. Br a dle y I r ene D. Wyan d Art hur Malone An nie E . Lo wt he r Dor ot hy Cu ll en Emily Stewa rt I r ene D. Wyand Vivi an Howa t t Mary H. I. Ca lag han Supplement $100 .00 Exp enses $ 75.00 Mary H. I . Callaghan Mar j ori e E . Simps on Ver aC. Simps on Mary H. Callaghan Helen Reid Ruth Bulman Mari on Doy l e Glen Curley Aline Rei d

The p l ayground area was enla rg ed and a nu mbe r of s urrounding tre e s re moved .

1951- 52

Helen Lund

1952 - 54

179

helen Re id

In 1954 the school was raised, new sills were i nstalled and it was lowered onto a new cement block foundation . The original porch was removed and a new larger one was added. I n raising the schoolhouse it was f ound that the middle supports of the school rested on a huge sturdy pine stump. This stump was so well preserved that the workers merely placed materials on top of the stump and it continued to support the building. The heavy construction of this building can be seen by the fact that two heavy farm tractors were unable to move the original ~orch which measured a mere six by four feet. (personal knowledge)

1954-55 1955-56

Marie Nunn Louise Peters

1956-57 1957-58

Margaret Doiron Hope Myers

In the autumn of 1958 electrical wiring was installed and the ceiling was lowered. Following these improvements the building was frequently used as a social center in the evenings.

1958-62 1962-63 1963

1964-67 1967-68

Eunice Cullen Claire Kelly Audrey Doiron .

Marion Reid Jeanette Hooper

In the autumn of 1968 Hope River School District j oine d Cavendish Consolidated School District. The schoolhouse became the property of Cavendish Consolidated School District. The land and building was sold to John Toombs. Mr. Toombs used the building for hay storage for one season.

The building was purchased by Olin Ellis in 1972 and moved to Cavendish to be converted into a summer home. We shall leave these schools with two brief comments. Firsts From them over the years have gone out a disproportionate number of men and women who have gained prominence and assumed large responsibilities in many fields. Secondl To learn something of the character and abilities of those who remained at home one should read the minutes of the Cavendish Literary SOCiety , a brief record of whi ch follows. The original Minute Book with a complete record of the Society is in the Provincial Archives in Charlotte town, also a typed copy. The record covers the period from February 19, 1886 till January 7, 1924.

180

CAVENDISH LrrERARY SOC IETY An old friend used to say "If you would know a pers on, find out what he does with his leisure time".

In a pre-mechanized farming community there were f ew leisure hours during the summer months, but with t he lo ng evenings of fall and winter there were free times for ot her interests. The physical fac t of living in a rural area did n ot limit the mental outreach of the people of Cavendish. Inquiring minds coupled with the Scot's love of lea rn ing reached out through books to the wide horizons of the world , the history, the culture, the economics of many countries. Retentive and analytical minds remembered wha t they r ead and placed it in perspective. Socially conscious people, meeting in small group s i n neighborhood homes during the long evenings, discussed and debated the details of what they had read and reached conclusions or agreed amicably to disagree. Books, relatively inexpensive, were found in p r a cti cally every home - good books, non-fiction and the cla ssics . When read, these were exchanged so that the whole group benefited from an individual purchas e . What more natural t hen than tha t an informal l i bra r y should be set up in the mid 1800s, and a gain, wha t more natural than that, when a community ha ll ha d been bu i lt, a forma l organ ization should be organized to look a f ter t he library, and for mutual improvement. So it was that on February 19, 1886 a g roup of peop le met in Cavendish Hall to c onsider such an organ izati on. We quote the minutes of that organization me e tin g: "Cavendish Hall

Feby 19t h 1886

"A meeting for t he purpos e o f organ i zin g a l it era ry society was according to announc ement c onvene d on t he a bove date. " Mr . Wi l liam J . Simpson havin g be en c a lled to the c ha ir asked Mr. A. Simpson to expla i n t he obje c ts of the mee t ing. He briefly responded, t hought suc h an organiz ation a necessity in the comunity and advi s ed t he i mmediate formation of a circula ting libra ry. Mr. G . W. Simpson wa.s then app ointed Secreta ry. "Rev. Mr. Archiba ld being c a lled on c ame forwa r d and delivered an excellent address showing t he benefits we mi g ht derive from a libra r y a nd f rom mee t ing to discuss 181

"the quest ions of the day. . ie W3.S followed brie fly by Messrs. Arthur Simpson, J.C J.aark and others. "On motion it was resolved t ,) pr:)ceed imme di a tely with the organization of a Litera ry Society. Me ssrs. A. Simpson J.C. Clark and G.W . Simpson were a pp oin t ed a committee to prepare a constitution. They reported a dra ft which with a few amendments was unanimously ado pted. The following officers were then elected for the ye a r n amely Pr esident Wm. J. Simp son first vice do Rev. Wm. P. Archibald second do J.e. Clark Librari an Arthur SimDson Sec Treasurer G.W. Simpson. Messrs. J.C. Clark J.R . woodside and Chas F. Simpson were a pp ointed a commit te e to (procure) a suit a ble bookcase and a lso to have the old Cavendish libr a ry re moved to the Hall. The President offered the society a present of a bookcase in his possession if it could be made to s uit. The com. were instructed to see the case and a ccept the offer if suit a ble. Resolved that a committee of t hr ee be appointed to draft by laws f or t he society. Messrs. Wa lter Sim pson John McNeil and Charles F. Simpson were appo inted s uch a committee. The secreta ry was instructed to procure the necessary blank books. Adjourned to meet this night wee k a t seven oclock. G.W. Simpson Sec." The constitution adopted a t t he organization meeting follows: "CONST ITU'CION of the Cavendish Literary Society " Article 1st This association s ha ll be called the Ca vendish Literary Society.

"

2nd The ob je ct of this society shall be the mutual improvement of its members by means of lectures, debates, and the est a blishing and maint a ining of a circula ting Library. Jrd The annual payment o f one dollar (amended fifty cents) shall con stitu te membership in this Society. 4th The officers of this society shall be a President , two Vice Presidents J a Librari an and a Secretary Treasurer. 5t h The annual me e ting for the election of offi cers, and transaction of other necessary bu sin ess shall be held in the month of October in each year of which due notice shall be given by the secret a ry. 6th The officers of the society shall constitute the Executive Oommittee, and the society shall appoint such other commi ttees as tIley may think nece ss ary. 182

"Article 7th The society may enac t such bye-laws fr om ti me to time as it shal l dee m ne c essa ry . 8th Thi s constitut i~n may be amended at bny regular meeting by a two thirds vote of t he members p resent, provided on e mont hs notice of motion for such amendment has been g iven ". A series of by laws was drawn up.

We quote only one :

"No.5 All sub j ects may be debated except those of a secta.rian or partisan nature. No remark s of a personal nature will be allowed". Re gulations for the management of the library were also approved. An indic a tion of the nature of sub je cts discus s ed and of the forward looking thinking of the members, is f ound in the Minutes of March 19, 1886, four weeks after organization.

We t hink the minutes recording a serious discu ss i on i n 1886 of woman suffrage, of sufficient interest to reproduce in full: "Cavendish Hall

March 19th

1886

"Cavendish Literary Society meets President in the c hair. Minutes of last meeting read and approved. · Communic ations were read from Messrs. Theo Chappelle, Leonard Morris quoting p rices on different periodicals they were referred to t he executive com who reported in favo u r of orderin g t he Libr2.ry magazine, Littells Living Age, and Harpers Monthly. The reports were adopted and the secretary instruc ted to order them immediately. "Th e President then announced t he subject for disc uss ion (should the franchise be extended to women) and calle d on Mr . J. C. Cla rk to open the question. Mr. Clark claimed that as wom en were subject to the laws and re quired to pay taxes they were entitled to vote. Thoug ht they were t he equal of men in courage a nd a bility and tha t their assistance wa s needed in t he settlement of political questions. Mr. Art hur Simpson respon ded, defined the ma in object of civil g overnment as the protection of life and prop erty . Claimed that as women we re not require d to bear arms they were not entit led to the franchise. Said t r.ey were not allowed the privilege in any civilized co un try and we could hard ly claim to be in advance of the re st of the world. Mr. Archibald thought that many women were quite capable of exercising the franchise, that t he i dea they were not mentaly the equal of men was completely exploded. Showed t hat as the world ha d advanc e d i n civilization the privileges of women had been extended and said he felt s ure their votes would be cast in f a vour of

183

"temp erance and the purity of the home. The discussion was con ti nu e d by Messrs. Wm. Hogan, G. W. Simpson, Albert Simpson, Samu el Martin an d George R. McNeil. In response to numerous calls Mr. Wm. Mc N. Simpson then took the floor and spoke for s ome t i me in a humerous strain. He thought that women who p aid taxes should have votes in municipal but not in general aff airs. Wa lter Simpson thought a man and his wife were one and should only have one vote . The President was not very de c ided in his views on this question but was not prepared as yet t o extend the franchise in this direction. Mr. D. M. Simp son followed briefly in favour of woman suffrage. The debat e was then closed with short speeches from opener and r e s po ndent . "Question for discussion next evening proposed by Mr. Arc hi bald. Should we have a prohibitory liquor law. " Adjourned to regular night of meeting. George W. Simpson Secretary" I n order that the reader may have some concept of the wide r ange of to p ics discussed and the typ es of meeting held, we have checked the minutes of the first five years and noted s ome of the main program items. There were periodic variety concerts put on, in the main, by the me mbers, with occasional outside talent. There was no de a rth of talent among the members or of variety in these variety concerts. While outside lecturers were brought in from time to time, most programs were the product of t he members. And there were very few who were not capable of intelligent and meaningful p a rticipation in the serious subjects discussed. The following topics were a part of those having the a tten tion of the Society during the first five year period: Whic h was the greater general, Wellington or Napoleon? Pap er - "The Hon. George Brown on Slavery". The Seven Wonders of the World contrasted With Modern Wonders. Pap e r - The Teachers Vocation. Whic h the g reater poet , Byron or Burns? Pap e r - Success, followed by discussion Country Life offers a better life than the city. Debat e on The Abolition of Capital Punishment. ( We would point out that this debate was held on November 18, 1887 and that it created so much interest, it was continued t he following night of meeting). Princ iple Events i n t he reign of Victoria. Fr e e Tra de wi th t he United States - reciprocity, c ommercial uni on. 184

The Pen is mighti er than the Sword . Which has had greater in fluence on mankin d oratory or music. Monarchy versus Republic an Form o f Government. The English Revolution o f 1688 . Life and Writings o f Sir Walter Scott. Debate on Reciprocity. Imperial Federation. The Works of George El l iott . Mock Parliament. The Elizabethan Period. The Crimean War. Many of the sessions we r e i nforma l debates with a designated opener and a me mber de s ignated to rebut, f ollowed by free discussi on. On January 6, 1906 we read that Mr. Arthur Simp son opened a discussion on "The Present Crisis in Russia as compared with similar crises in other nations". He was followed in discussion by Rev . Mr. Belyea, Mr. George Simps on , Mr. George R. MacNeill, Mr. Walter Simpson and Mr. J. A. Clark . This minute was recorded by L. M. Montgomery who was a t that time Secretary of the Society. Lucy Maud was for many years a very active member and contributed in many ways t o its programs. The writer ha s heard her say on several oc casions that the Society wa s a large contributing factor t 'o her success. The following minutes appear in November 1906: "Nov. 2, 1906

The our and the

Pres. then spoke of the recent los s of ablest debater the late Hon. G. W. Simpson called upon the younger men to help fi ll gaps ma de in our ranks.

Mr. Walter Simp son moved that a committe e be appointed to draw up a resolution to be placed on the minutes of this Society of our appreciation of the late Hon . G. W. Simp son and his work in our Society. "Nov. 30, 1906 Mr. Belyea re a d the following report fr om t he resolution committee. Whereas deat h has r emoved f rom our midst the late Hon. Ge o . W. Simps on who was on e o f the organizers of our Society and who by his ability an d e l oqu en c e cont r ibut ed l argely to t he success of our meet i ng s the r e fo r e resolv ed we place on r e c ord our high apprec iation of the service s rendered the Soc i et y by him and our deep r egret that his gen i a l pres ence will n o more be with u s in our meet ings , and his words of c he e r n o longer en co ur age us in ou r , work. Thi s r ep or t wa s on motion a d o pted~ . 185

George Simpson had been the prime mover in bring ing a bout organization of the Society i n 1886, was its first secret a ry and again secretary from 1897 to 1900. For over twenty ye a rs, until his death October 22, 1906 he was probably its most a ctive member. For no other member is there a similar minute recorde d. Honorable George Simpson was the Father of Laura Simpson Cowan to whom this bo ok is dedicated . One of the purposes of th ("~ Soc iety was to maintain a library. While not large by t oday's "standards, here one found the best in classical and current fictionj coupled with approximately an equal number of v') lumes of non-fiction covering a wide range of interests. Many of us who used the s ervices of the libra ry a nd participated in the programs o f t he Society owe it a deep debt of gratitude. In the minutes of this In sti tu ticn is the record of the cultura l life of a community of intel ligent, well-read, serious minded men and women, largely sel f - educate d, with only basic elementary schooling, who found in the Cavendish Literary Society not only a pleasant social atmo sphere but also a ment a l challenge through debates, lectures, papers, book reviews, va ri e ty concerts an d in se rious conversa tion and di scussion. Withou t it Cavend ish as a community would have been much the poorer .

186

Cha pter 17

REVEREND DOCTOR ALBERT BENJAMIN SIMPSON "Every Canadian seems to be saying by his very attitude 'I can'. His life story will reveal . many influences, alJ instrumental in the making of a life of rare completenes s. But it would be a very faulty interpretation that overlooked the effects of his ancestry and early environment. For the seeds of character are the fruit of a family tree, and the home and community are as soil a.nd sunlight to the young Ii fe o, • In the spring of 1915, fifty yeers after his ordination in Knox Presbyterian Church, Hamilton, Dr. Simp son came home to his native Province to preach at the Brick Methodist, now Trinity United~ Church in Charl ottetown. The writer, who was then attending Prince of Wal es College was one of the congregation that filled the church. Here was a man, seventy-one years old, tall, erect, handsome, vital with great personal magnetism, a man whose voice, in the words of his biographer "thrilled five continents", paying tribute to his ancestors, the Simpsons and the Clarks of Cavendish and Bay View and the McEwens of New London. A. B. Simpson was born at Bay View, December 15, 1843, the third son and fourth child of Ja.mes Simpson Junior and Janet Clark. Both his parents were grandchildren of the original William and Janet. James Junior was a son of William's son James and Janet was a daughter of William's daughter Helen and William Clark . James ,Junior and the writer's grandfather John were brothers . ::'herefot'e, A. B. and my Father were first cousins . We have, in the previous chapter . recorded that when A. B. was baptized in Cavendish Church by rtev. John Geddie, he was dedicated by his parents to the Christian ministry. In 18.47 the family moved to Ont ario and James bou g ht a farm near Chatham . Here he took a prominent place in community life, an elder in the Presbyterian Church, a Municioal Councillor, a successful farmer, and the f a ther of a growing family. A strict disciplinari an he set a. high standard for his family and sternly enforced the rules. He believed in the efficacy of the rod which was used on oc casion. After one such whipping, Albert was taken aside by hi s older brother Howard ( ~ater Rev. Howard) and told how he might in future escape. We shall let Albert tell it in his own words: p

187

"T hen he told me with great secrecy that if suc h an occ o sion should arise , to g et up that morning before dayli g ht, a litt le before my father wa s accustomed to rise, light the candle, and go and sit in a corner of the sitting-room wit h the big Bible before me, showing a proper spirit of penitence and seriousness. He had found by experience that my f a ther would take the hint and let him off. I am sorry to say that my heart was as yet sufficiently unsanctified to take the hint, and s ure enough one morning when a whipping was coming to me, I stole out of my bed and sat dovm with a very demure and solemn fac e to practice my pretended devotions. I can sti ll see my quiet and silent father sitting at the table and cas t ing side glances at me from under his spectacles as though to make quite sure that I was truly in earnest. After finishing his devotions, he quietly slipped away to his work, and nothing more was said about the chastisement". The boys were growing up. Both Howard, who was four years older, and Albert had set their hearts on the ministry. But in a f a mily conference the father pointed out that family finances were such that he could only afford to pay the college expenses of one, and that one should be the older son Howard. Albert would have to remain on the farm. But Albert, a boy of fourteen, then and there decided that, in some manner, he would pay his own way and asked his father's consent and blessing, which was freely given. After taking Latin and Greek and higher mathematics from local ministers he attended Chatham High School but had a complete breakdown from overwork. But at age sixteen he had secured a teachers certificate and was teaching forty pu pils to earn money for his first year in college. He taught till September, 1861 when he entered Knox College, Toronto. During this period he wrote and signed a document of just under a thousand words which was to be the most important docu ment of his life. It was headed: lOA SOLEMN COVENANT The Dedication of Myself to God", It was dated Saturday, January 19, 1861. Across it were written two renewals, the first while in college, September 1, 186), the second during his second pastorate, Louisville, Kentucky April 18, 1878. During his first Christmas vacation from college he preached his first sermon in Tilbury, near his home. We have referred to the important place of preaching in the Presbyterian tradition. It was a severe test. His parents, his brothers and sister, his playmates and neighbors were in the congregation. His biographer says. 188

"Yesterday he was Bert Simp s ::m, their fellow, their rival in friendly contests of bra in and brawn . Toda y he stands high above them in the pulpit, . . . . in the min i ster 's place, back of the open Bible where not even his godly father would appe a r, to speak to them a s a messenger of God. . . . . The boy, whose voice was to thrill five continents, did not fail". He was a brilliant student and in April, 1865 he completed his theological training and in . June underwen t t he searching examination of the Presbytery before being lice nsed to preach. Two c a lls came to him, one from an easy cha rge i n a country town, the other on August 15 from Knox, the largest Presbyteri an church in Hamilton. He accepted the gre a ter challenge of t he latter. On September 11, 1865 he pre a ched his first sermon as Pastor, on September 12 he was induct ed and ordained and on September 13 he was married in Toronto to Margaret Henry. Thus began a ministry which, over a period of fifty- f our years till his death October 19, 1919, was to make him one of the great preachers and missionary leaders of the Christian church. It is impossible in a few pages to give any concept of his life and ministry. The interested re ader should purchase his biograp hy "The Life of A. B. Simpson" by A. E. Thompson, from Christian Publ ications Inc.,25 South Tenth Street, Harrisburg, Pa. 17101, price $2.50 in paperback. In the Foreword his biographer says: "What page can reveal the life of A. B. Simps on? What mind is sensitive enough to receive the impression of a life so unique? . • . . Mrs. Simpson, with characteristi c fores ight, preserved in huge scrapbooks much of the newspaper comment and many announcements, programs and records of outst and i ng events. . . . . His scores of books and nearly fifty volumes of his periodicals have been mines of informa tion. . . . . He lived intensely, unselfishly, nobly, godly in this present age, holding forth the Word of Life that he might no t run in vain neither labor in vain". Knox Church had already establis hed a tradition of outstanding preachers. Albert at twenty-one was faced with the challenge of maintaining this tradition . At the end of a nine year pastorate over seven hundred and fifty new members ha d been added to the church. His pastora te ended Dece mber 20, 1873· The Hamilton Spectator in reviewing his ministry said "He was second to n one in p oint of eloquenc e an d Ci bility and success in hi s mini stry". Dr. William T. McMullen, a 189

contemporary commenting years later said: "He stood out at t ha t time as one of the most brilli~nt young ministers of our Church in Canada. He was endowed with intellect of a very high order, and he preached the Gospel . . . • with a gracefulness of manner, a fervour and a power exceedingly impressive". A. B. had accepted a call, from among several, to Chestnut Street Church, the largest Presbyterian congregation in Louisville, Kentucky. Within a few months more than one hundred and fifty new names had been added to the membership roll. Here began the work of pastoral evangelism which wa s to develop into his world mission. Under his leadership the pastors of the city united in a very successful evangelistic campaign at Public Library Hall which seated more than two thousand. Convinced that these joint Sunday evening services should be continued, A. B. was disappointed that the other pastors would not cooperate. With the approval of his church the Sunday evening services were suspended in favor of a service at Public Library Hall which was always filled to overflowing by all classes, many of them with no church affiliation. The effort was so successful that the Church decided to build a Tabernacle in a central downtown area, which was opened June 9, 1878. Its purpose was, working with the other churches, "to draw to this house, and through it to the Cross and the Saviour, the great masses of every social condition who attend no church and practically know no God". We shall let his father James describe this period. Two letters from James have been preserved. The first was written December 31, 1856 to his brother Honorable Jeremiah in which he describes the country and its people and his activities as a municipal councillor. The second dated August 10, 1877, was written to his nephew Arthur, son of Jeremiah, after the latters death. We would note that James, like his Uncle John referred to in Chapter 11 never attended school, because there was none, and was taught at home and self taught. We quote a brief excerpt from the latter oart of his letter to Arthur: "In response to your request I will give you a brief a ccount of our family. My two oldest sons as you are aware are Ministers of the Gospel. Howard is in the City of Madison in Indiana and Albert in Louisville, Kentucky. Both are well provided for with regard to the things of this world. . ... I trust they are both labouring faithfully and successfully. Albert indeed is killing himself with hard labor having established mission stations through the whole City which has a population of 150,000 and 30,000 of whom go to no pla ce of worship. His own Congregation has doubled since he went to it three years ago". 190

The life of A. B. Sim pson was one o f many c r is es not t he least of which were physical. In earlier life he had se veral periods of illness brought on by overwork. During his Louisville pastorate a prominent New York p hysicia n t old hi m "that he had not enough constitutional strength left t o l a st more than a few months". He went with his family to Old Orc hard Be a c h, where he had a spiritual and physical expe rience o f he a ling which he termed Divine life for the body. From t hen on he believed tha t body, soul and spirit were ins epara bly rela ted and e a c h equally provided for in the disp ensat ion of d i vine grac e. The success of his ministry to the un c hurc hed in Lou isv i lle led him to the conviction that t he time had come for a new departure in life and service. New Yo rk City pre s ente d an unlimited field for such service an d he s t il l bel i eved t hat t he call to the unevangelized could c ome t hrough r egu l a r churc h channels. In Nove mber,1879 he a c c epted a call to Thirteen t h Stree t Presbyterian Churc h in New Yo r k. Wi thin two months the pr e s s reported "attendance at Sabba t h an d week s erVlces lar g e l y increased and a substantia l number of n ew membe rs admitted ". But no success within the c hurch congr egation could satisfy A. B. His church wa s no t prep a r e d t o s upport an out reach suc h as he had conducted in Louisv i lle , nor did they welcome hi s efforts to turn the chu r ch into a home for all comers. The congregation want e d a conventi onal parish of respectable Christ i ans. Thei r young past or wanted a mul titu de of publicans and sinners. He s ays : "Therefore after two ye a rs o f mo s t c ongenial and c ordial fellows hip with these de ar p e op le, and wit hout a s train of any kind, I frankl y told the m tha t God was cal l i n g me to a different work, and I a s ked the m and the Pre s by t ery of New York to release me for the pur po s e o f pre a c hing the Gospel to the masses". The die was cast. A. B. Simp son was e mba r ke d on his r eal mission. He asked no me mber of his congr ega tion to fo l low hi m and t here was no split. He did not t ry to defl e c t a.ny Chri stian workers from their churc he s , rat he r he a c cep ted t heir co op e ration from within their own denomina t i on s. He was a tru e ec umeni st. His biograp her says of him: " He had s urrendered a lucrative s a lary of $ 5 ,000 , a position as a le adin g pastor i n the gr eatest Ame rican ci t y , and all claim upon his denomination f or ass i st anc e i n a yet untried work . He wa s i n a g re a t c ity wit h no f o l lowing, no organiza ti on, no f inanc i a l re sou rce s, wi t h a large family dep endent upon him, an d with hi s most intimate mini s te r ial f r iends and f ormer assoc i a tes p red i c ting failure" .

191

Only seven persons were p resent at his first meeting in November, 1881. He had engaged the Caledonian Hall at 8th Avenue and 13th Street. Here three services were held each Sunday plus two each weekday. The work grew. On the second annive rsary of his ret irement from his city pUlpit, Madison Square Garden was engaged for a series of meetings, the first rel i.gious service in the Garden since Moody and Sankey had dravm large crowds seven years before. For' t he f irst eight years twelve different buildings were used , un ti l The Gospel Tabernacle was built and opened June 23, 1899. The Gospel Tabernacle became and remained the center of the ever- i ncreasing ministry Which radiated from the life of Dr. Simpson until his death. The Missionary Union for the Evangelization of the World ha.d been organized in 1883, and associated with the 'rabernacle was the Missionary Training College . The Door of Hope for rescue work among girls began work i n 1891 . In 1886 an orphanage had been es t ablished and over the years, city missions were es t abli.s he d i n various areas. Ministries to children apart from Sunday School work were undert'aken. Various young peoples organizati ons came into being. T~lS ,

the end of the first decade of his adventure of faith

saw the ministry of A. B. Simpson grown into manifold ministries

serving many thousands of people not only in New York but in BX'i taln and on many mis sion fields.

Perha ps Dr. Simpson's greatest outreach, with the possible exception of his writings was through the conventions which he and his associates conducted in many parts of the world. The first two held at Twenty-third Street Tabernacle in 1884 and 1885 so impressed Christian workers from other cities that many invitations carne for similar meetings. Hence in 1885 conventions were held in Brookl~1, Buffalo, Fhiladelphia, Pittsburgh, Chicago and Detroit.

Of th9se conventions p Dr. Simpson's biographer says in partl "'l.'here has been no more un ique feature in Dr. Simpson IS minist r y than the conventi ons which he and his associates have conducted in many parts of the world. They have been unlike all other gatherings, although partaking of many of the esseY!.tial features of the usual camp meetings, conferences , an d conventions. For one of the element s of Dr. Simp son ' s genius was his ability to adapt ot her men's met hods to the specific aims and objects which he wished t o attai n.

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"These gatherings were neither dull nor sensational, neither formal nor without order, neither without spiritual freedom nor given over to demonstrative extravagances. They were a puzzle to the professor of religious psychology and an enigma to the rep orter, but to the hungry-hearted they were a feast, to the weary a refreshing, to the sick a fountain o f healing, to t he Christian worker an inspiration, and to t he worn missionary a haven of rest. "The conventi on was the exp ression of Dr. Simpson's very life and personality . His simplicity, his humility, his graciousness, his freedom, his brotherliness, his deep insight into tru th, his conservatism, his breadth of vision, his passion, and hi s supreme devotion to Christ seemed to pervade the very atmosphere and to control every meeting. He created a type that reproduced itself so that in the hundreds of conventions which he could not attend, the same spirit was manifest, and continues, since his homegoing, in these great gatherings". In additi on to the conventions, as the missionary work grew, A. B. visited many countries where he was warmly welcomed not on ly at the missions of the Christian and Missionary Alliance which he had f ounded, but also at those of the various denominati ons serving in the areas visited. The missionary imperative came into A. B. Simpson's life during hi s Louisville pastorate. Two years after the Gospel Tabernacle was opened it sent five missionaries to the Congo. In time by agreement among the churches, the Alliance became responsible f or sixteen foreign missionary fields, with forty milli on p eop le, and had hundred s of missionaries, laymen as well as clergymen, women as wel l as men, and without distinction by denominational connection. In 1893 Mr. Simpson said o f the Christian and Missionary Alliance:

"It is not an ecclesiastical body in any sense, but simply a fraternal uni on of consecrated believers in connect i on with the various evangelica.l c hurches". A synopsis of the Princip l e s and Constitution adopted at the Old Orchard Convention in 1887 sup ports this statement: "It will be undenominat ional a nd strictly evangelical. "It will contemplate the rapid evangelization of the most neglected secti ons of the foreign mission field. "It will use thoroughly consecrated and qualified laymen and Christian women as we l l as regularly educated ministers. "It will encourage the principles of rigid economy, giving no fixed salaries. "It will rely up on God to sup ply the necessary means through the freewill offerings of Hi s p eople.

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" I t wil l endeavor to educate Christians to systematic and gen erous g iving for this greatest work of the Church of God. " I t will form auxiliarie s an d bands in all parts of the country for the promotion and ext ension of its objects. lilt will be governed by a board of directors elected annually, who shall a pp oint and direct the missionaries employed. "It will leave each church established on the forei gn field free to organi ze an d a dminister its affairs as it ma y choose, provided that s uc h method be scriptura l in its essential features" . Despit e e a rly illnesses A. B. was a man of tremendous vita lity who followed a killing schedule of work. After living for twelve ye ars in the heart of New York he moved to Nyack, a one hour train journey to his office. Daily, he c a ught the 6 .18 A. M. tra in, studied or did editorial work enroute. His wel l orga nized day saw him involved in the manifold responsibil it i es of t he major enterprises he directed. There was work aga in on the return journey and, after dinner, hours in his study before the few hours sleep he a llowed himself. Vac a tions we re unknown. Along t he way, he found time to write some seventy books, thousands of a rticles and hundreds of hymns not to mention the sermons a nd addresses which held internationa l a udiences s p ellbound. The baby born in Bay View on December 15, 1843 to James and J an et Clark Simpson, baptized and dedic a ted in Cavendish Pres byterian Church had gone a long way. From the few det a ils of his life a nd work which space has allowed us to record, we th ink it f a ir to s a y tha t, when he died on October 29, 1919, the country boy had become a world figure and one of the great souls of the Christian tradition.

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Chapter 18 LUCY MAUD MONTGOMERY

"So if I die before you do, you'll write my life. No, you won't! Nobody shall. I'd haunt you if you did. Biography is a screaming farce. No man or woman was ~ truly depicte d . Bi ographies, even the best, are one - or at the most two si ded - and every human being has half a dozen different sides". So wrote Lucy Maud Montgomery on November 10, 1907 to Ephraim Weber a literary correspondent from Alberta with whom she exchanged letters for almost forty years. Elsewhere in an earlier letter to him she wrote "But as to there being only 'two of me' as you ask - bless the man, there's a hundred of me". That Lucy Maud relented on the haunting became evident over twenty-five years later when, having received from Mr. Weber a sketch entitled "L. M. Montgomery As A Letter Writer", she responded "It had an odd resurrective power and made the dead Past live again . • • . • There is nothing I object to, so far as I am concerned, go ahead and publish". For the record in passing, the review was published in the October 1942 issue of the Dalhousie Review and in April 1944 in the same publication a study of the character of "Anne" as she appeared in the eight "Anne" novels. That there were two or six or a hundred sides to Lucy Maud was very evident to those of us that had the privilege of knowine her, to those who have read her books, and parti cularly to those who have had the privilege of reading "The Green Gables Letters". This little volume, now unfortunately out of print, was produced in 1960 by Ryerson Press under the editorship of Wilfrid Eggleston. In it is a series of letters written by Lucy Maud between March 1 905 and September 1909 to Mr. Weber. Here she wa s writing to a pen-pal, to a friend whom she would not meet for many years to corne but in whom she had found a kindred spirit. Here she lowers the guard which every public figure must hold up a nd freely discusses her phil~sophy of life, her lit era ry goal s, her basic ideals, in a way that one will not f i nd elsewhere.

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It is not our purpose to write a biography although basic biographical material will be included. Rather would we hope, however imperfec tly, to depict something of her character, her love of nature and of beauty, including beauty of character; her imagination which enabled her to clothe plain reality in imagery and humor; her high moral standards for herself and for her fictional characters, based on a reasoned intellectual acceptance of the basic principles of Christian philosophy; her ambition to excel in producing the best of which she was capable; the resulting hard climb to recognition culminating in Anne and from there the steady progress to world acclaim. In so far as possible we shall paint the picture in her own words. The Cavendish of Lucy Maud's day was completely rural _. fields and trees, lakes and the sea shore, and she reveled in it all. On November 10, 1907 she wrote: "Though raining n ow it was fine this forenoon - oh! so fine - sunny and mild as a day in June. I hied me away to the woods - away back into sun-washed alleys carpeted with fallen gold and glades where the moss is green and vivid yet . The wo ods s.re getting ready to s leep - they are not yet asleep but they are disrobing and are having all sort s of little bed-time conferences and whisperings and good-nights. "Three evenings ago I went to the shore . We had a wild storm of wind and rain the day before but this evening was clear, c old, with an a i r of marvellous puri t y. The sunset was lovely beyond words. I drank its beauty in as I walked do~m the old shore lane and my soul was filled with a nameless exhilaration. I seemed borne on the wings of a rapturous ecstasy into the seventh heaven. I had left the world and the cares of the world so far behind me that they seemed like a forg otten drea~. "The shore was clean-was hed after the storm and not a wind stirred but there was a silver surf on, dashing on the sands in a splendid white turmoil. Oh~ the glory of tha t far gaze across the tossing waters, which were the only restless thing in all that vast stillness and peace. It was a moment worth living through weeks of storm and stress for. "There is a great solitude about such a shore. The woods are never solitary - they are full of whispering , beckoning frien d ly life. But the sea is a mighty soul forever moaning of some great unshareable sorrow that shuts it up into itself for all eterni t y . You can never pie rce into its great mystery - you can on l y wander, awed a nd

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"spellbound on the outer fringe of it. The woods call to you with a hundred voices but the sea has only one a mighty voice that drowns your soul in its ma jestic music. The woods are human but the sea is of the company of the archangels". In an earlier letter, the one in which she s a id "there's a hundred of me", not two, she wrote: "You asked me in your letter a question rather hard to answer. It was 'Where do you feel most yo urself, in the woods or up in Charlottetown?' "Well, I feel most like myself in both pla ces - if you understand the contradiction. There are two distinct sides to my nature. When I go to the woods the dreamy, solitary side comes uppermost and I love the woods best. But when I mingle with other people quite another aspect rules me. I am very fond of society, spark ling conversation, the good human times of life. These tastes find indulgence in my city experiences and I feel just as much a t home ttJere as in the wilds. I CCin slip from one to the other a s e 2s ily as I can slip from one garment into another". In a reply to an earlier letter Mr. Weber says: "I always delight in your description of your rambles. Nature can solace when learning, art, religion a nd the world are only a weariness. Yes, flowers a nd trees and birds must be in their own wilds to have the highest beauty. You spin dear fancies about your favourite haunts". In another letter written in her weariness at the end of a da,y of housecleaning and painting she says she will do her best to write an interesting letter - "angels can do no more". She goes on to discuss her deeply ingrained childhood c0ncept of angels "a creature wearing a sort of nightgown with big goosy (?) - looking wings branching out from their shoulders and a mop of untidy hair streaming over their baCks. I should like to think of ang els as Ma rie Corell i does creatures shaped of rainbow light, but I can't". Th en she reverts to her love of nature: "At the present moment I'd rather be a girl than an angeJ if angels- c a n't have mayflowers. I'm surrounded with them - mayflowers, I mean. A vaseful on each side of me a nd a big jugful on the shelf over my head. Oh, they a re divine! A lot of us went up to ~he barrens Saturd~ y a nd pick ed great basketfuls. Today I read that Henry Ward Beecher s a. id once ' Flow8rs ;·,re the sweetest t hing s God

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"'ever made and forgot to put souls into.' But I don't believe He forgot! I believe they have souls. I've known roses that I expect to meet in heaven". No one could know Lucy Maud personally without realizing her ability to change the hum-drum into vitality and beauty. In the everyday events of home and family relationships she saw high drama and rich humor. Wi tness Anne _. of Green Gables. Add to this an imagination which could at will take her far from the mundane and routine into a world of fantasyp to her castles in Spain. Writing to Weter on a Sunday evening she sayss "Ive just roused up from a long twilight visit t o my castle in Spain . For the past hour I have been lying on a couch in my den beside a dying lire - that is, my bo~ was lying there but my soul was far away in a dreamland of imagination, where everything lost or missed in my present existence is mine. What a blessing it is that we can so dream into life the things we desire! Are you too an owner of a Spanish castle? And how often do you let yourself visit your estate? I go there in the twilight, being too busy a t other times with my duties as Chatelaine. Outside, it is a cold, blustery April rain, the air all mist the ground all mud. But in fancy I've been far away beyond the mud and mist to 'cloudless realms and starry skies'''. But we would not give the impression that Lucy Maud was a dreamer living in a world of fant asy. She was a very real person, meeting and bearing her full responsibility in carrying out the duties and solving the problems of home and of community life. At her mother' s death when she was twenty-one months old, she went to live and was brought up by her maternal grandparents in Cavendish, Alexander and Lucy Woelner McNeill. Her father, Hugh John Montgomery, moved to Prince Albert, Saskatchewan, and except for a year spent with him when she was fifteen, her childhood and adolescence was spent in her grandparents home . She attended the one room school at Cavendish and at seventeen went to Prince of Wales College in. Charlott.etown where she qualified for a teacher's license. Meanwhile her literary interests and some evidence of her literary ability involved her fr om the age of eleven in writing short stories and poems. It was not until she was fifteen, during the winter that s he was in Prince Albert, tha t any pu blication to which she s ubmi tted her juveni l e efforts recol',nized her ability. That

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winter the Charlottetown Patriot published a poem dealing with a dramatic story of the north shore of the Island, the murder of Capta in Ls .F orce. Although there was no payment for it this recognition gave her "the greatest moment of my life". It was to be another four years before she received her first five dollar cheque from a juvenile magazine for a short story. During this period she had continued to send poems and short stories to various public2tions, only to have them promptly returned. As a result: "I used to feel woefully discouraged at times over those icy little rejection slips. But I kept on. Wha.tever gifts the gods had denied me they had at least dowered me with stick-to-it-iveness". Having received her teacher's license she taught for a year, then spent a winter at Dalhousie College in Halifax where she took a selected course in English literature. This was followed by two more years of teaching. In 1898 when Maud was twenty-four years old, her grandfather, Alexander McNeill, died at the age of seventy-eight and she returned home t o live with her grandmother. Except for a year when she was twenty-seven, spent on the staff of the Halifax Daily Echo p she remained in her grandmother's horne until Mrs. McNeill died in 1911. While on the Echo staff, besides her duties as a general reporter she wrote a weekly social column called "Around The Tea Table", did proof reading and the various other jobs of a small newspaper office. For twenty-eight years her grandfather had been the Cavendish postmaster. At his death his widow was appointed to succeed him and Maud became assistant postmistress and did much of the work. She also carried her full share of the household work. Nor was she remiss in her community concerns and duties. For many years she was organist of Cavendish Presbyterian Church and over the years taught various Sunday School cla sses. "I call myself a Christian, in that I believe in Christ's teachings and do my poor best to live up to them. I am a member of the chu rch believing that with all its mistakes a nd weakness it is the greatest power for good in the world and I shal l al ways do what I can to help i ts cause . But oh, this hideou s cant of ' being washed in the blood ' . To me that phrase 31ways summons up a disgu st in f physical picture that revolts me".

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It will be seen that theologically she was not quite orthodox, particularly by the accepted standards of orthodoxy of that day . Her intellectual revolt against some of the accepte d beliefs is evidenced by the following: "Isn't the Christian (?) doctrine of eternal torment as hellish as the idea it teaches? How could men ever have so libelled God? They must have judged Him from their own evil hearts. They would ha.ve tortured their enemies eternally if they could. God had power, therefore He would. Such seems to have been their argument. I admit that a consciousness of sin and remorse is a hell in it self. But I believe that 'as long as a human soul lives it can turn to God and goodness if it so will.' Nobody wilfully chooses evil. We choose it because we deceive ourselves into thinking it good and pleasant". To Lucy Maud God was a God of love. She believed in the second commandment "Thou shalt love thy rieighbor" and could not intellectually reconcile such a God and the doctrine of love for neighbor, with the idea of a vengeful Judge condemming erring p eople to eterna.l torment in a Hell of fire. Because of her views and the prevailing orthodoxy of the time she had to be very circumspent in her religious teaching and so was not entirely happy in her Sunday School work. She says: "I have to follow the old traditional paths of thought & expression or I would get into hot water immediately. Cavendish is wholesomely (?) old-fashioned and orthodox".

The other community organization in which she was particularly active was the Cavendish Literary Society which ha d been organized in 1886. Associated with and an . important part of the program of the Society was a library, which, by the standards of the late 1800s would rank as very good. Maud was an avid reader and here she had access to a sele ction of excell~nt books. In a letter to Mr. Weber in ~ ay 1905 she says: "I've been on a debauch of books for a fortnight. A longdelayed grist of books for our library arrived and l Ove simply read myself stupid and soggy over them. The best was Jack London's Sea Wolf - a powerful thing but revolting in some respects. He can write, that fellow". The next April she writes: "Yes, our Literary Society pap ,:~r - the Cavendish Literary Annual - came off on schedu le t ime and was fairly good,

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"though we - the editors - 'say it as oughtn'ti . We had a number of contributions fr.om various writers, one all the way from Scotland so our table of contents was quite cosmopolitan". She is first mentioned in the Society minutes of November 22, 1889 when, at age fifteen, she gave a recitation "The Child Mystic". From this beginning until she left Cavendish twenty-two years later she was a very active participant in the programs of the Society including the p reparati on and delivery of many papers. During 1905-06 she was Secretary of the Society. But of course the real story of Lucy Maud Mon.tgomery is the story of her literary career and her long hard climb to acceptance and eventually international ac claim. One has but to read The Green Gables Letters to realize how l ong and how hard that climb was. The amount of time available for writing was limited~ Her househo ld and post offic~ duties took much time. But she carefully budgeted the minutes to give her three hours a day for her literary work. On one occasion she wrote: "Yes, I only do three hours' literary work a day - two hours' writing and one typewriting. I write :fast, having 'thought out' plot and dialogue while I go about my household work". She had a note book in which she jotted ideas for stories or poems as they came to her. With this source of suggestions there was always an idea available to be developed. Most of her earlier writing, after she began to gain acceptance, was for juvenile magazines and Sunday School publications. Payments usually ranged from four to six dollars. For a 2500 word story accepted by Sunday School Publioations of Toronto she received five dollars. She comments that they pay regular rates and are especially anxious for Canad.ian contributions~

In March 1905 she says: " I made nearl y $60 0 last year - $591.85 to be exact. Shan't be content til l I reach the thousand ma rk though". By 1905 she began to break into the adult magazines. In June of that year she says that Gunters Magazine, New York, sent her $25 for a short story. This with $10 from The Nationa l . $20 from The Designer a nd $15 from Modern Women, added to smal ler amounts gave her over $ 100 for June. In December 1 906 Everybody's Magazin e pa id her one hundred dollars for a 5,000 word story.

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In the short story world she began to feel that she had 2chieved a fair measure of recognition and acceptance. The t ime was at hand f or the creation of Anne, the orphan girl of wh om Mark Twain was to write "the dearest and most lovable c hild in fiction since the immortal Alice". There was a story, widely circulated, generally accepted ;1 nd stil l o ften quot ed that Anne was submitted to five or six 0u bl i she rs a nd rejected out of hand, that it wa s then laid aside for some time, and th a t in the spring of 1907 Lucy Maud decided t o mak e one more try and sent the manuscript to L. C. Page and Comp a ny of Boston who accepted it with some trepidation. One of her biographers goes into some detail in repeating thi s s to ry . According to this biographer she went to her ideas note bo ok and found a memo "El derly couple apply to an orpha n asylum fo r a boy. By a mistake a girl is sent them". Her bi ographer continues that she began the book in the s p rin g of 1904 a nd finished it in October 1905; that she submitte d it t o a new publisher, who promptly sent it back; tha t in turn it went to five established publishers who returned i t with rejection slip s; that it was then laid away in an old ha t -box where it lay until a winter day in 1907 when she ran a cro ss it and decided to try once more. The same biographer says that Page's bought the book for fi v e hundred dollars outright. That the real story of the publication history of Anne was somewha t different is indicated by Lucy Maud herself. In a le tter da ted Ma y 2, 1907 to Mr. Weber she says: "We ll I must simply tell you my great ~ right off! To pret end indifference and try to answer your letter first would be a n affectation of which I shall not be guilty. I am blat~ntly pleased and proud and happy and I shan't make any pretence of not being so. "Wel l, last fall and winter I went to work and wrote a book. I didn't squeak a word to anyone about it because I feared desp erately I wouldn't find a publisher for it. Whe n I go t it finished and typewritten I sent it to the L. C. Page Co. of Boston and a fortnight ago, after two months of suspense I got a letter from them accepting my book a nd offering to publish it on the 10-per cent roya lty ba sis! "Don' t sti ck up your ears now, imagining that the gre a t Ca na di an n ovel ha s been written at last. Nothing of the s or t. It i s merely a juvenilish story, ostensibly for

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"girls; (but) as I found the MS. rather interesting while reading it over lately I a~ not without hope that grown-ups may like ita. little. Its title is Arme of Green Gables and the publishers seem to think it 'Will succeed as they want me to go right to work on a sequel to it. I don't know whether I can do that and make it worth while however. "The Page Co. is a good company ~ Not one of the topnotchers, of course, such as Harpers or Macmillans; but it has published several successful books by well-known authors, including Charles G. D. Roberts and Bliss Carman. ttl signed the contract today; it is a fearsomely legal looking document all red seals and 'saids' and ·whereases'. There is only one clause in it I don't altogether like. I have to bind myself to give them the refusal of all the books I may write for the next five years. 11he insertion of such a clause is rather comp15.mentary. J: suppose, but I'd rather not have to agree to it. However, I've done so and the rest is on the knees of the gods. I donVt suppose the book will be out before the fall",

On the day she redeiv ed the letter of acceptance from Page's, Lucy Maud wrote in her journal I "Well, I've written my book! The dream dreamed years ago at that old brown desk in school has come true at last after years of toil and struggle. And the realization is sweet, almost as sweet as the dream • • • • The book may or may not succeed. I wrote it for love, not money, but very often such books are the most successful, just as everything in the world that is born of true love has life in it, as nothing constructed for mercenary ends can ever have'''.

So Anne was launched and by November 1907 she reported that her sequel, Anne of Avonlea, was moving on fairly well. In the early summer of 1908 Anne of Green Gables reached the bookstores and was an instant success. On September 10 she wrotel "You see, Anne seems to have hit the public taste. She has gone through four editions in three months. As a result, the publishers have been urging me to have the second volume ready for them by October - in fact insisting upon it. I have been writing 'like mad' all through the hottest summer we have ever had. I finished the book last week and am now typewriting it, which means from three to four hours' pounding every day - excessively wearisome work; I expect it will take me a month to get it done - if I last so long". In a long letter to Mr. Weber on the above date she says in Dart

l

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"Thank you for your kind remarks on Anne. I suppose she's all right but I'm so horribly tired of her that I can't see a single merit in her or the book and can't really convince myself that people are sincere when they praise her.

.....

"But I'm not well. It was no joke, what I said at the start about feeling played out. I feel so ut~erly. I'm tired - deadly tired - all the time - just as tired when I wake in the morning as when I g ,) to bed at night - tired body, soul and spirit. I have constant head-aches and no appetite. It's not all due to literary work, although I suppose that helped it on. We had a houseful of guests all summer, the weather was fearfully hot and I was very much worried in one way or another almost constantly • . . . • • "Yours tiredly, headachely, listlessly, don't careishly but not hopelessly". Very evidently reaction had set in as a result of months of exhausting work and suspense. In her next letter on December 22 she again refers to being very ti~ed. She continues: "I daresay the most of the letter will be about that detestable~. There doesn't seem to be anything but her in my life just now and I'm so horribly tired of her that I could wish in all truth o.nd candouI' that I'd never written her, if it were not for just two things. One of these things is a letter I received last month from a poor little cripple in Ohio who wrote to thank me for writing Anne because she said it had taught her how to endure her long lonely days of imprisonment by just 'imagining things.' And the other is that Anne has gone through six editi ons and that must mean a decent check when pay day comes"! On another occasion

~he

says,

"I've served a long alid hard apprenticeship - how hard no one knows but myself. The world only hears of my successes. It doesn't hear of a.ll my ea.rly buffets and repulses". By September 1908 she had ' received si.x ty reviews. "Two" she says "were harsh, one contemptu('lus~ two mixed praise and blame and the remaining fifty-five were kind and flattering beyond my highest expectations H • The Montreal Herald said= "A book which will appeal to the whole English speaking world - one of the most attrHctive figures Cana dian fict~on has produced". From The Boston Herald.s "It could only have been written a woman of deep and wide sympathy with child nature . A del i ghtful story": by

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And The New York World: "The people in this book are delightfully studied and it is a pleasure to know them". But, based on the judgement of his peers then and since, the reviewer of The New York Times was badly off the beam when he wrote: "A mawkish, tiresome impossible heroine, combining the sentimentality of an Alfred Austin with the vocabulary of a Bernard Shaw. Anne is a bore". And of course there was Mark Twain's judgement of Anne referred to above. A review which particularly pleased the author was that in the London Spect ato:c~ It was a very favorable two-column review and she says of its "The Spectator is suppoeed to be 'the' review of E.ngland. and praise or blame from it makes or mars". So Anne went on from success to success. By December it was in the six best seller list in t he continent and moving into internation8.1 editions. ~roday" sixty-·five years later she is still one of the world's best loved characters. Was Anne a real per'son? Were the characters real Cavendish people? Let Lucy Maud herself answer: "Now, I'll take your letter and answer your questions just as they come. You say you warrant I had to do a 'great deal of inventing.~ Verily, yes. And not only inventing but combining and harmonizing and shading, etc., etc., etc. You ~t describe people ~xact1Y as they are. The detal1s would be true t the tout ~ble utterly false. I have been told my characters are marvellously °true to life' - nayg Cavendish readers have got them all fitted to real Cavendish people . Yet there isnOt a portrait in the book. They are all 'composites'''. And so the answer is "yes" and ··no" . In many ways Anne was Maud herself and Diana , IVla.tthew and Marilla and the others were composites marve llouoly true to very fine and loveable real-life residents of Cavendish. Unfortune.tely, as with so many authors of masterpieces, the financial returns were not great. Low royalties and the low price of books combined to bring this about. In February, 1909 she received her first royalty cheque to the end of 1908 - seventeen hundred and thirty dollars, nine cents per book on the wholesale price of ninety. The story of Anne , which Lucy Maud originally intended to end with the first book, went on into a series of some ten titles.

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In all L. M. Montgomery published twenty-three books. Some of them 2re now out of print but all of them were successful, although none ever won the acceptance and acclaim of the first - Anne of Green Gables. The twenty-three titles (j re:

Anne of Green Gables; Anne of Avonlea; Anne of The Island; Chronicles of Avonlea; Further Chronicles of !.vonlea; Anne of Windy Poplars; Anne's House of Dreams; Rainbow Valley; Anne of Ingleside; Rilla of Ingleside; The Story Girl; The Golden Road; Kilmeny of the Orchard; Jane of Lantern Hill; Emily of New Moon; Emily Climbs; Emily's Quest; Blue Castle; Pat of Silver Bush; Mistress Pat; Magic for Marigold; A Tangled Web; The Watchman and other Poems. Anne of Green Gables has sold miJ lions of copies, in many languages. It has been portrayed on the screen and on television, and since 1965 it has gone on to world acclaim as a musical production. We are indebted to Anne Bond, Publicity Co-ordinator at the Confederation Centre, Charlottetown for the history of the musical. We quotes "'Anne of Green Gables' was first adapted for the musical stage for the first Charlottetown Festivel in 1965 by we1lknown Ca nadian actor and author Donald Harron and CBC television producer Norman Campbell. "In the late 1950s Harron and C.ampbell had collaborated on a television version of 'Anne' for the CBC so, in looking for a musical script for that first Charlottetown Festival, the then Artistic Director Mavor Moore called on Harron and Campbell to retrieve the dusty tv script and rewrite 'Anne' for the musical stage. "'Anne' premiered at Confederation Centre of The Arts Theatre in late July 1965 with Jamie Rae, a young Texas girl, in the title role. "'Anne' was an immediate success and one mark of that success is that it has played at the Charlottetown Festival every succeeding summer and has never done less than 90 per cent at the box office. "In the fall of 1967 after the Festival ended 'Anne' began her travels with a cross-Canada tour, underwritten by the 1967 Centenni a l Commission'S arts programming budget. "By this time 'Anne' was already being called Canada's number one hit musical and sell-out houses in Montreal, Toronto, Winnipeg, Regina, Vancouver and a host of other centers confirmed this title.

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"In 1968 Miss Rae was repl a ced by a young Cha rlottetown girl, Gracie Finley, age 16. Gracie is still playing 'Anne' in 1973, although she's now Mrs. Barry Stickings and has a four-month-old son 9 Michael. "'Anne' was first played outside Canada in 1969 when the Artistic Director of the Charlottetown Festival and the director and choreog r apher of 'Anne' WaS asked to mount a production of the show for London, Eng. Several members of the Cana dian cast took roles in the London production. 'Anne' played for nine months in London's We st End and was voted the best new musical of the 1969 season. itA year later 'Anne' was on the road again - this time off to Osaka, Japan and hxpo '70. Japanese school girls are familiar with the story of Anne from their school reading program, so the Canadian government chose the musical 'Anne of Green Gables' to be Canada's major theatrical attraction at the world exposition. 'Anne' played in Osaka in June and returned to Charlottetown in time for the company to do the 1970 season. "In 1971 'Anne' finally arrived in New York, the home of musical theatres playing a specia l two-week engagement during the Christmas holiday rush season at New York's City Centre. "In the eight seasons 'Anne' has played at Confederation Centre Of The Arts an estimated 200,000 have seen it, and many, many more thousands have seen it in London, New York, Japan and throughout Canada. "'Anne' is a timeless story having withstood over 60 years of reading by young people and t he re is every indic a tion that the musical 'Anne' because it was carefully adapted to bring to focus some universal and timeless truths about growing up, gives every in dication that it will also go on as Canada's favorite musical for sometime to come". In another chapter and in the genealogical charts we have given something of the background of the Montgomerys and McNeills in Prince Edward Island . Biograp hically, in capsule form, Lucy Maud was born at Clifton (now New London) P. E.I. on November 30, 1874 to Hugh John Montgomery and his wife Clara Woolner McNe ill. We have already outlined her youth and young womanhood. On July 5, 1911 she married Rev. Ewan MacDonald, a n a tive of Va lleyfield, P.E.I., to whom s he had become engaged while he was minister of Cavendish Presbyterian cong regation. Following a honeymoon in Britain , they settled in Leaskdale, Ont a ri o, moving later to Norval and, on his retirement in 1935, to Toronto. 207

The was born one day; executor

Mac Don al ds had three sons. Chester Cameron, a lawyer Ju ly 7, 1912; h u gh b or n ,:'.ugust 13 , 1914 lived only Stuart, a medical doct0r in Toronto and her literary was born October 7, 1915 .

Following her marriag e she continued her busy and versatile life. She expanded and broadened her church a ctivities, became active in The Canadian Women's Press Club, The Cana dian Authors Association. She was a lso a Fellow of The Royal Society of Arts and a member of The Artistes Institute of France. In 1935 she was made an Officer of the British Empire . On April 24, 1942 Lucy Maud j\liontgomery MacDonald came to the end of a life of service and of achievement, a nd lies among her ancest0rs in the old cemetery at C~vendish, where she was joined a year later by her husband Ewan . aIt has always seemed to me , ever s i nce early childhood~, she wrote ~th a t amid all the commonplaces of life I was very near to a kingdom of ideal beauty". Perhaps no term better describes he r life and character than the words "ideal beauty" . For over fifty years she had been a writer of stories whose appeal was to the young at heart of all ages, stories which depicted the richness and the joy and the humor of life. There was nothing unkind or gross in her writings. In one of the Emily books she makes a teacher say "Don't be led away by those howls a bout realism. Remember, £..ine woods are as real as pig-·sties and a darn site pleasanter". Lucy Maud wrote of t he pine woods, - of the beauties of nature, of the warmth of human relationships, of the happiness of life. In this age of pig-sties where no t hing is considered real unless it is crude or obscene one could wish for more Lucy Maud Anne is sufficient proof, that s incerity and Montgomerys. and beautyp clothed in humor have a perennial appeal . charm, truth Very early in life Lucy Maud set for herself a goal and she never lost sight of it. She refers to it as following the gleam: "Thank God, we c an always follow the gleam, no matter what we do. I've tried to follow it for many a weary ye a r - how weary, no one knows but myse lf , forrve always tried to --keep my personal worries and crosses to myself , not allowing their bitterness to overflow into others' lives. But I've re a ched a bit of upland now a nd, looking back over the a scent, some t hings are made clear to me that have long puzzled me. But there's lots of climbing to do yet. I must take a long breath and start anew".

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Cavendish is proud of the fact that from an ancestry of s t ronr character and high ideals, from the simple life of a farm home and the basic education of a one-room country school c a me a woman who by following the gleam brought a nd continlJes to bring joy a nd hope and idealism to countless numbers of people. Lucy Maud Montgomery MacDonald may indeed be numbered among the world's immortals.

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Chap t er 19 THE NA'I'I ON A:L PARK ~I was born9 pra i se t o t he gods) in Prince Edward Isla.nd, t hat c ol orful l i tt:!.e land of ruby and e merald and sapp hh:·e. Compas s ed b y an inviola t e sea» it floats on the wa ves of the "blu e G ulf ~ a green seclusion and haunt o f peace Q •

0

In these wo r ds Luc y Maud Montgome r y described a small area which during the past t h irt:v-fi ;Je years has come to be known to hundre ds of thousands, nay mill i on s g a s "a green seclusion and a haunt of peace ". Thir~y ·-f i v e yea ~ s age Caven dis h was twenty-four or twentyfive farm s a nd fa !'m fami l ies l i ving on the Cave ndish Road betwe en t he Ba ;; Vi ew and Nox-th Rustieo b order s ~ plus six or eight f cm L _i es on the lViB.yll Gl d Road . I n t his yec_r 1973 there are t hree f ull time f a l"'mer'S

What happened? To some extent the e Xp lanation can be found in changes in the economics o f f a r mi ng. But the ~ajor reason is t he National Pa~k" The Prince Edward Island National Park is n ot large in acreage 1 but it includes an extended stretch of sea shore with hard-sand beaches unexcelled anywhere o The Park is divide d b y Rustlco Harbor into two main sections known as t he Cavendish and t he Stanhope areas. The Cavendish section begi ns on the west with over two miles of sand dunes which divi de New London Bay from the Gulf of St. Lawrence, a secti on of the New London Bay shore area in Bay View 1 then follovling the Gulf Shore through C(lvendish to the outskirts of the vi llages of North Rustico and Rustico Harbor" For most of t he di stance i t is a na r row strin along the shore but , beginning to the west of Mc Neil l ' s Pon~ to the Cawnpore noad , i -i; c ov ers a n area which cros ses the Cavendish Road and inc l ude s the Green Ga bles House. In this a r ea of some fo ur hundred acr-es, i n ad di ti on to the Green Gables Hou se u r emi niscent of Luey Maud Mont go mery and of Anne i. s t he Gr ee;!. Gables Tea Room and Gift Shop ~ the Green Gables golf course - one of the best to be found anywhere, and the Park He c.dquarters f or the Ca vendish section other properties a nd fac ilities have been purchased recently. J

0

To relate the National Park to the properties of the founding families of Cavendish we refe r the reader to chapter 5, part icular l y t o -ehe 180 9 survey on p2..ge 55 . 210

The Park area begins in Bay View - the former Moore property on the shores of New London Bay which is west of the survey area. Beginning a.t the James Simpson line the bound2.ry runs across the various farms, including Cavendish Pond, to the line between William Simpson Sr. and John McNeil. It follows this line and continu.es across number six highway (which is not shovm) to include the Green Gables property and Green Gables House. In this area is the golf course, and between the upper reaches of McNeil's Pond and the Cawnpore Road ( dotted lines) is the park headquarters for the Cavendish secti on. From the Cawnpore Road east, the Park continues along the shore across the former McNeil properties an d on to the outskirts of North Rustico village. It will be seen that the John McNeil property and to a lesser extent those of the Sirnpsons and of William Clark, are the focal point of this section of the Park. It wj.l l a Iso be noted that thl~ site of the Simpson log cabin on the property of William Simpson Sr.~ the first home in Cavendish, is within a few feet of the park road leading to the csmpsite. The Stanhope section begins to the ea,st of Rustico Harbor and includes Robinson's Island and, across the causeway; the shore areas of Stanhope and Dalvay with their beautiful beaches. But we are particularly interested in the Cavendish section. In order that our information might be accurate and up-todate we submitted a questionnaire to the National Pa rk office and received a very pr·)mpt respons e from Mr. M. J. Mc Carron the Park Superintendent. This chapter therefore will quote extensively from Wir. McCarron's statement with some comments added. In 1936 Prince Edward Island~ in common with the whole western world was just beginning to rec over from "the depression". Improving economic conditions along wi th greater mobility beCRuse of the automobile were bringing into the language a greater use of the word "tourism". The concept certain areas of in their natural recreat ional and

carne into being of setting aside in perpetuity Canada, to be presf~rved as nearly as possible state and to be made available to all for to some extent cultural use.

These areas to be known as Na tional Parks were to be under the jurisdiction of the Federal Government, with the land crea made available by the various Provincial Governments. 211

We now turn to Mr. McCarron for the beginning s and development of the P.E.I. Park. " As rega rds the original land purchases, all the land in the C2.vendish 8.rea ha d been expropri a ted by the provinci a l govern ment prior to the establishment of the park in 1937. On June 23, 1936, an Act respecting the est a blishment of a National Park in Prince Edward Isla nd was assented to by the Provincial a uthorities. It was less than a ye a r l a ter, on March 4, 1937, that the land, five pa rcels a long the north s hore of Queen's County, was turn e d ove r from the provinci a l government to the Federal authorities for the establishment of a National Park. Then on April 24, 1937, it was designated and proclaimed tha t the said described area was officially a National Park. Later, on June 24, 1938, an Act to amend the Nationa l Parks Act, and the Prince Edward Island National Parks Act 1936, was assented to, thus making it legally a National Park and subject to the Act and various regulations. "Facilities - Cavendish Section maintenance compound outdoor theatre interpretive program and nature trails campground - 304 sites for tents and trailers playgrounds 3 supervised swimming areas with changehouses picnic shelters Avonlea Lodge - known to exist in early '40's a nd probably before park was established Green Gables Bungalow Court - erected in 1948-49 Ocean View Cottages - purcha sed recently Gulf View Restaurant - purchased recently Golf Course Green Gables Tearoom and Gift Shop Green Gables House "Early Development "This would include the development of the gol f course which came into being soon after the park opened. Construction of the course began in July 1938, and by July of 1939 the first nine holes were opened to play. The end of September 1939 saw the completion of the full eighteen holes. "It is not known exactly when the Cavend ish campground began operations but it appears that the area was being used by campers soon after the park's establishment. Apparently, a kitchen shelter had been built a t the site as early as 1939. In records dated 1949 it mentions that camping facilities at Cavendish left something to be desired bec aus e of their exposed nature. Later, in 1957, the campgrounds appear unorganized with the tenting area

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"open to tenting in any cleared area. That year, a start was made on organizing the campsites and a campground road program was begun at Cavendish. Since that time, improvements have been carried out continuously until the campground has reached its present condition of 304 tent and trailer sites. "The various beaches of the Cavendish area were used extensively before 1948 but it wasn't until that yea r that a lifeguard was placed on duty. There had been a changehouse or bathhouse built there as early as 1938. "Recent Developments "There has been little in the way of recent developments in this section. In 1960, a golf professional's shop was constructed at Cavendish by contract. In the past 5 or 6 years there have been new changehouses constructed at the supervised swimming areas. "When Was Green Gables Acquired? "The park acquired the Green Gables farmhouse in 1937 when the land became park property. At that time it had included a tearoom inside but by 1968 this had been phased out and moved to an adjacent spot in conjunction with a small gift shop. This became known as the Green Gables Tea Room and Gift Shop and was opened to the public in June of 1968. In 1948 a monument to L. M. Montgomery was erected at Green Gables. "Comments on Golf Course "The golf course was built soon after the park acquired land. Stanley Thompson, a golf architect, supervised its construction. He made effective use cf names taken from L. M. Montgomery's 'Anneo books to denote the various fairways. The course is run by private concession but is maintained by park personnel. "Land Values at Time of Founding "We have no records of this information".

,..

(We have personal knowledge that the expropriation price paid for one farm of two hundred acres was twenty-five dollars per acre. One can appreciate why, in the light of the $1,000 to $2,000 per acre being paid today as stated below, the owners of the original lands expropriated were very unhappy with the prices paid.) "Today "The land is worth between $1,000 and $2,000 an acre depending on the type of land and where it is located. Marshland, ponds, fertile ground, and roadside property, would vary a great deal in value. 213

"Impact on Island Tourism "Two of the greatest) if not :the greatest, tourist attractions of Prince Edward Island are loc a ted within the park. These are, the beaches of the north shore and the Green Gabl~s farmhouse. From the included attenda nce sheets, the number of visitors to the park, and to Green Gables itsel f, are quite phenomenal. The park as a whole contr ibuted about $700,000 in operational and maintenance expenditure in 1972, with annual capital costs ranging from $500, 000 to $1,200,000. There are between 120 and 140 part-time and full-time empl oyees who are Island r'esidents I in the park as a whole. They, in turn, contribut e to the Island economy". In addition to th9 very full information provided above by Mr. McCarron, he has given us some data on visitation figures. It is of interest to note that, among all the National Parks of Canada, The Prince Edward Island Park ranks second only to Banff in the number of visitors annually. The figures shown for 1965-66 are which by 1970-71 had increased to over during the summer of 1972 was poor and sun. While the number corr.ing into the visitations fell off.

just under one million two million. Weather Park enjoyment requires Province increased Park

In spite of this the number of campers at the National Park Campsite increased and for July and August every site was filled every night with hundreds turned away. These figures are particularly significant when it is realized that Prince Edward Island is not near any major center of population and that the Province can only be reached by boat or by air. Cana dian National car ferries carrying up to on~ hundred and ninety cc:.rs ply between Cape Tormentine, N.B. and Borden, P.E.I. a distance of nine miles and three privately owned boats the Northumberland Ferries, between Caribou, N.S. and Wood Islands, P.E.I. To give so me indication of the traffic, during the summer of 1973 there are thirty-nine crossings each way each day between Cape Torme~tine and Borden. On August 30, 1972 a eN ferry on this crossing carried their millionth passenger. For the full year the total number carried was 1, 289,925, total number of automobiles, 505,004 . Add to this those carried between Caribou and Wood Islands and those arriving by Eastern Provincial Ail~ways and private planes and compare it with a population of less than 110 9 000 and we have some idea of the impact of tourism on this little sea-girt of superb beaches, beautiful scenery, pure air and hospitable people. 214·

Next to the beaches in popularity is Green Gables House. This is understandable. Here visitors relive the story of Anne and of her creator Lucy Maud Montgomery. The number who registered by signing the guest book increased from 35,957 in 1959 to 111,228 in 1972. But this figure by no means indicates the number of visitors, for the great majority do not register. It is estima ted that perhaps twenty percent do so which would mean approxima.tely half a million visitors in 1972. While Prince Edward Island is not near any major center of population distances are not great to a number of our bigger cities with their congestion, their smog-filled 2ir, their tensions and stresses. The Prince Edward Island map gives distances as follows: to Montreal, 756 miles; to Toronto, 1076; to Boston, 596; to New York, 877. Within approximately a thousand miles are many millions of people who live under the conditions of a modern bi8 city. Is it any wonder that, during their brief weeks of holiday they are seeking out, in increasing numbers, "that colorful little land of ruby and emerald and sapphire, compassed by an inviolate sea, and floating on the waves of the blue Gulf, a green seclusion and haunt of peace". The Prince Edward Island National Park provides in miniature that "haunt of peace" which may be found in every part of this Garden of the Gulf.

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Chapter 20 CAVENDISH

YEsrrERDAY

TODAY

TOMORROW

At the corner of the Cavendish and Mayfield roads, in em acre of the southwest section, there lie, unrecoverable, the records which would complete the early history of Cavendish. We refer to that spot sometimes called "God's Acre ", the Cavendish cemetery, where rest the bodies of all the founders of Cavendish, with the exception of the original couple Wi lliam and Janet Simpson and their son-in-law, John McNeill, whose deaths before this cemetery was opened necessita ted their burial in the old Anglican cemetery in Charlottetown , It is not beyond the realm of possibility that the day will come when the memories of these founders may be tapped to fill the gaps in this record. Cavendish Yesterday Cavendish yesterday was a period of one hundred and eightythree years. Cavendish yesterday was all that we described a t the beginning of Chapter 1 - and more. Cavendish yesterday was people, - men, women, children. Cavendish yesterday was courage, intelligence, initiative, determination, friendliness, happiness, idealism, accomplishment, intermingled with a measure of deprivation, tragedy and heartbreak. Cavendish yesterday was lumbering, agriculture, carpentry, shipbuilding - a rural community with a rural economy. Cavendish yesterday was summers of unremitting toil, sixteen, not eight hour days, clearing land, planting, cultivating and harvesting crops, fencing, tending livestock, and a multiplicity of other duties of early farm life. Cavendish yesterday was winters when the family rose long before daybreak, seven days a week, the men to go to the barn, feed the livestock and milk the cows - all before breakfast which the women would have waiting for them when they c ame in, hot oatmeal porridge with sugar and cream, good home-made bread , home-cured ham Ei.nd farm-fresh eggs, a hearty meal for hard working, hungry men. The day brought its work, routine and seasonal. Stock had to be watered, stables cleaned, firewood cut, mussel mud dug, hauled and spread on the fields, ice cut and stored, repairs to buildings and machinery - on ad infinitum. Never a day dawned that there was not work waiting to be done. 216

Cavendish yesterday was a six day week - plus, six days during which men and women worked long hours of physical toil , it was the pre"mechanizati on age. But the seventh day, Sunday, was a day on which one did only "works of necessity and mercy", stock must be fed, cows milked, meals prepared. But t he kindling and firewood to last into Monda y were cut on Saturda y , the food for Sunday meals was prep a red as much as possible on Saturday. Sunday was Church and Church wa.s not only a spiritu al but very much a social occasion. Here neighbors met before a nd after and exchang ed family and communi ty news. In pre-telephone da.ys this was a. very important part of community life. Ca vendis h yesterday was a people who, in addition to working hard, were clean living - the use of alcohol and tobacco were practically unknown; happy, both in home and inter-neighbor relat ionships - feuding, "line-fence" dis put es prevalent in some c ommunitie s were unknown; healthy, good plain foods, exercise through physical labor, re gular if long hours, lack of mental stress - a philosophical people who a ccept ed life as it was with a minimum of worry. Cavendish yesterday, and in all these we include Bay View, was a community which pri zed and fully supported its community institution s. It was a rare Sunday on which the family pews were not fully occupied . Education was given high p riority even before any school was organized. The minister and the teacher were respected and supported. Elsewhere we have referred to the caliber of discussion and debate in the Cavendish Literary Society. Recently a Provincial Premier, in discussing present day social services , referred to the much longer life span of today over the " s hort-lived early pioneers". Such was not the case in Cavendish. One has but to walk among the stones of Cavendish cemetery to see that three score years and ten plus was the general order of the day. Primitive living conditions, hard work, periods of hardship and deprivation, absence of health services and all the other hazards of pioneer living did not seem to affect &dversely the longevity of the pioneers. William Simpson age 42, and his wife Janet Winchester 40, with eight c hildren left the ir Scottish croft, spent three harrowing months at sea . were shipwrecked, suffered great privation their first year on the Island and a t 57 went into the wilderness to carve out a new home. Never h2. d they more than the bare necessities of life , never did they know surcease from toil and never did they experience anything but the primitive living conditions of a log cabin. Yet William lived to almost 87 and Janet to 8).

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Of e ighty descendants in the first two generations of whom we have records, wh o l i ved past their three score ye a rs and ten, nine pa ssed the 90 mark, seventeen were between 85 a nd 89, twenty-one between 80 a nd 84, a nd thir~y-five between 70 an d 79. Fifty -six percent of this group lived to be 80 or over. The wri ter' s pc. tern a l g ra.ndfather was 90, his grandmother 96. The history of Cavendish is not a story of battles but of a bc.ttle, - a ba ttle not against but with the cooper8tion of nature to build a way of life, to establish homes, to bring i nto being a v iable economy, adequate to provide them with the ne ce ssities a nd in the terms of the day some of the luxuries of life . In the preceding pages we have attempted to trace the metamorp hosis from a clearing with a log cabin, to 2 . comfort a ble community of attractive modernly equipped homes in a plea.sing rurc. l countryside. We trust that here the reader will find s omething of interest and of information. Cavendish Toq.ay Ca v endish toda y is an open book to tens of thousands of peo p le. It is in many respects the Cavendish of yesterda y. The topographical features are basically unchanged. The beach and sand-dunes, except for some slight shifting of sand, are as they were in 1790. The air is a s pure and fresh and clean as ever. The breezes, whether off the Gulf or overland, are fresh and, even on the hottest da y, pleasantly cool. The neat frame homes, some of them built a century ago, now with modern c onveniences added, are still neat in their tidy farm yards, wi th their whi t e paling fences or hedges and their shade trees. The in digenous people are still the hard working sturdy, honest, friendl y men and women of years gone by. Added t o the Cavendish of yesterday is The National Park with t he ancillary services which necessarily a ccomp any such a devel opment. Green Ga bles toda y is of course much more than "the Dc.vid McNeill home where the V/ebbs lived". Golfers tell us that the golf course is one of the best in t he c ountry. Rain bow Va lley, which William Simpson Junior began to cle a r in 1790, is a children's ha ven and a spot of beauty. Natu re trails, paddocks, the new Lucy Maud Montgomery post offi ce , a bui l ding now being renovated, two wax museums and of c our se motels, camp sites, restaurants are a part of Cavendish today. These 2.re some of the physic a l attributes of the new Cavendish.

218

But it is not the anci llary f~ervices that maKe Cavendish today the mecca to so many thousands. Such services are universal in today's world. The appeal is the age-old call of nature - to beautiful beaches with warm water, to unspoiled pastoral beauty, to pleasant days and cool nights, to refreshing breezes, to peaceful, uncrowded r::>ads and countryside, to re-creation, in short to Cavendish today. Cavendi~h Tomorro~

What is tomorrow?

A year hence ?

A decade?

A century?

The writer is not a prophet or the son of a prophet, but one does not have to be a Jean Dixon to predict that Cavendish tomorrow will continue to attract increasing numbers of people. With longer vacations, earlier retir~ment and growing congestion in our cities, there can bf:! no questi on that Cavendish and many other areas in this Island will appe a l to more and more people, particularly from June to October. We suggest that Cavendish yesterday wil l still be the essential ingredient in Cavendish tomorrow, and that Cavendish tomorrow will continue to bring relaxation and happiness to those who seek out its qualities of refreshment - to body, mind and spirit. Two persons who have re~d the manuscript of this record have suggested that readers who have not knovm Cavendish may feel that we have over-glamorized. Both have said that this is not the case. To quote one of them~ "1 have known Cavendish and its people for many years. It is indeed an unique community. No writer could do it ju s tice".

In Chapter 7 we quoted from a le~ter written by Mary McNeill Lawson, great-aunt of Lucy Maud Montgomery, in which she tra ced the McNeill genealogy. We repeat a part of the quote : "My grandfather John Macneill . . . . married Margaret Simpson, daughter of William SimpsoIi1 who had emigrated from Mora yshire, Scotland, a man of rare ability a nd Chri s ti an cha r a cte:-, whose descend:- ints filled o. large spac e in the moral, intellectual and religious development of the country, and who were strong ly impressed with the idea tha t they Wt~re above the common herd". In a ll honesty it must be admitted that 1 among the descend a nts of William and Janet there wa s a feelin g of superi ority, tha t intellectually and mora lly they were superior to the "lesser breeds without the clan".

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This wa s evidenced by the comment of a resident of the c ommunity who did not bear one of the select names of Simpson, McNeill or Cla rk. His comment, sometimes repeated by others wa s: "From the conceit of the Simpsons, the pride of the McNeills a nd the vainglory of the Clarks, Good Lord deliver us". However valid the comment was, and it had some validity, t he writer in common with hundreds of other descendants of William and J anet, is proud to ha ve chosen his ancestors with such selectivity, and to have the opportunity of recording, however inadequately, something of the history of the community which they and their family founded - Cavendish.

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