Three Centuries and the Island 9781442652897

Table of contents :
Preface
Contents
Maps
Tables
I. Introduction
II. Abegweit: Mid-Seventeenth Century
III. Île St. Jean: Eighteenth Century, First Half
IV. The Island of St. John: Eighteenth Century, Second Half
V. The Colony of Prince Edward Island: Early Nineteenth Century
VI. The Island One Century Ago
VII. Decline and Adjustment: The Changing Background of Island Farming since Confederation
VIII. The Last Century of Agricultural Change
IX. The Geographical Legacy of Three Centuries of Change: Review and Conclusions
Notes
Appendix A. The Areas of the Lots
Appendix B. The Assignment and Changing Proprietorship of the Townships
Index

Citation preview

Three Centuries and the Island

THIS STUDY is one of the first in the field of historical geography to be published in Canada. Written after exhaustive research, it uses a particular approach to the study of historical agricultural geography which con­ centrates on the use of basic distributional evidence for the description and interpretation of the changing character of any region through any period of time. By the analysis of over 1200 maps, some of which form part of the text of the book, Professor Clark studies agriculture as the dominant economic activity of Prince Edward Island and traces with remarkable clarity the changing patterns of land culture throughout the province. The book begins with a description of the natural geography of the Island which, despite its small size, shows surprising variety. It goes on to prove the necessity for careful consideration of the background of habit and prejudice of groups of different origin when studying the changing geographies of land use. The settlement of the Island is traced from the time it was used as a summer campground by the Micmac Indians. Details of the arrival of the first Acadians, the transfer to British rule, and the subsequent influx of Scottish, Irish, Loyalist, and English stock are given together with evidence of the effect their coming had on the agriculture of the region. One hundred and fifty-five maps and sixteen tables illustrate the distribution of population by area and origin, changes in kind and distribution of crops, census of livestock, etc., from the early eighteenth century to the present day, and from the days when the potato was unknown as a crop through the fur-farming era. The author presents this study as a part of his life-work, a programme of research on the settlement overseas in the seventeenth, eighteenth, and nineteenth centuries of people from the British Isles. He is descended from Prince Edward Island settlers and writes of the province from a background of personal knowledge of, and affection for, the land of his forbears. ANDREW HILL CLARK was born in Manitoba, (of Prince Edward Island stock) and received his elementary and secondary education in Manitoba. He graduated from McMaster University in 1930, received his M.A. from the University of Toronto in 1938, and his Ph.D. from the University of California (Berkeley) in 1944. Professor Clark's travels as a geographer and in war service have taken him to many parts of the world— northern Canada, Western Europe, Africa, New Zealand (where he was a lecturer in 1941 and 1942), to China, and to India. He gave the University of London Lectures in Geography for 1953-4 at University College, London. He was Professor and Chairman of the Department of Geography at Rutgers University until 1951, and since then has held the post of Professor of Geography at the University of Wisconsin. Apart from professional articles, papers, etc., he has published The Invasion of New Zealand by People, Plants, and Animals: the South Island, 1949 (Rutgers Univ. Press, New Brunswick, N.J.); was co-author of New Zealand (U.N. Series), H. Belshaw (ed.), Univ. of California Press, Berkeley, Calif, 1947; and was contributor to Man's Role in Changing the Face of the Earth (Wm. Thomas, ed.) Univ. of Chicago Press, Chicago, 1955. At present he is Monographs Editor of the Association of American Geographers.

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Three Centuries and the Island

A HISTORICAL GEOGRAPHY OF

SETTLEMENT AND AGRICULTURE IN PRINCE EDWARD ISLAND, CANADA

BY

ANDREW HILL CLARK Professor of Geography

in the University of Wisconsin

UNIVERSITY

OF

TORONTO

PRESS

Copyright, Canada, 1959 University of Toronto Press Printed in Canada London: Oxford University Press

PREFACE This book has had many sources of inspiration and encouragement. It arises from, and is part of, a broader study of the transfer of people from northwestern Europe to new homes overseas in the seventeenth, eighteenth and nineteenth centuries. The bias of that wider investigation is geographical. It is directed to the patterns of location of the people and their economies in the new lands and to how and why those patterns have changed with the years. Its method is to seek and use available evidence for mapping the distributions which form the skeletons of the population and agricultural geographies. The maps in turn are a new kind of evidence upon which much of the interpretation is based. For Prince Edward Island these patterns have been mapped as they existed at different times throughout the better part of three centuries. A few of those maps are reproduced in this book to supplement or illustrate the textual description and to provide examples of the evidence used. Although much of the material, which is developed from the maps and the supplementary evidence, has been known or guessed before, some of it is new and very little of the evidence has been studied or arranged in this way. All known relevant information has been utilized, but the distributional studies are basic. The work is offered as a contribution to the regional history and geography of Maritime Canada, but the method of study and presentation is also intended to illustrate and test an approach to the study of historical geography as the author understands it. To a degree it is experimental and might be considered a kind of pilot study for similar examinations of other parts of the new worlds in North America and elsewhere settled by Europeans. An earlier attempt in the broader field of study* had the same basic purpose although its particular problems suggested a different approach. This is, therefore, the second major regional effort in what is planned as a series; a study of Nova Scotia is nearing completion and preliminary planning for investigations in Australia and South Africa is under way. That segment of the whole programme which is concerned with maritime Canada is centred mainly on Nova Scotia, but some problems of interpretation of the Nova Scotia material led to earlier completion of the Prince Edward Island study. To illustrate one such problem and to indicate the useful role of the island as a "control area" for research in Nova Scotia,1 one example may be sufficient. * Andrew H. Clark, The Invasion of New Zealand by People, Plants and Animals: The South Island (New Brunswick, N.J., 1949). tThat is, Prince Edward Island is an area in which there is, for all practical purposes, a rather even distribution over the entire region of certain variables, such as rock and regolith, land forms, soils, accessibility to market and economic pressures generally, which in Nova Scotia show a markedly irregular distribution.

VI

PREFACE

Part of the writer's concern was with the relationship of patterns of distribution of the cultural origins* of the settlers on the one hand and of specific characteristics of farming operations on the other. In Nova Scotia there were clearly marked concentrations of both Highland and Lowland Scots, northern and southern Irish, pre-Revolutionary New Englanders, post-Revolutionary Loyalists or Tories, Palatine Germans, Acadian French, and people from many known areas of England and Wales. In attempting to assess what significance cultural origin had for the character of their farming, through a comparative study of distributions, there were many difficulties. Single groups, like the Acadians, were rather widely scattered in Nova Scotia. The natural character of their locations varied substantially as did their economic and political experiences in the different places. One could derive few satisfactory conclusions therefore as to the role of group origin in shaping patterns of agricultural settlement. The study of Prince Edward Island, it is felt, provided much of the solution to this problem. In another context one of the shrewdest students of eastern Canadian agriculture, Professor J. E. Lattimer of Macdonald College (McGill University), once wrote that Prince Edward Island "is no doubt the best laboratory for studying agriculture of any place in the Dominion."1 As one of several justifications for this opinion he cited the relative lack of variety of surface land forms and soils. This uniformity was even more characteristic of the climate and only slightly less marked in the pre-European vegetation cover. But, as a control area for resolving the problem cited in Nova Scotia, it has many other virtues. The course of its history of settlement and agriculture generally paralleled that of its larger neighbour. There was on the island an almost uniform distribution of economic opportunity and political institutions and pressures at any particular time during the period of study. And, most important, there had settled on the island in clearly localized areas, a number of groups with the same cultural origins as those which were under study in the sister colony and province. The circumstances were almost ideal for an assessment of the significance of cultural origin to farming practice by a comparative study of changing patterns. The framework of the book was presented in three parts as the University of London Lectures in Geography, for 1953-4. These were delivered at University College, London, in May and June of 1954. The kind comments of the listeners encouraged the author in his plan to proceed with the book. Many thanks for inspiration to carry on with the task are due to Professor H. C. Darby of University College who has given generously of his time to comment critically on ideas and manuscript. A great deal of the impetus, however, must be credited to the two men who inspired the larger study of which this is a part, Carl O. Sauer of the University of California at Berkeley, and Harold Innis of the University of Toronto. The latter planted the original germ of a combined historical and geo*What the Canadian Census refers to, often inaccurately, as "racial" origin. tJ. E. Lattimer, Economic Survey of Prince Edward Island (a pamphlet of 56 pp.), (Charlottetown, 1954), p. 4.

PREFACE

Vii

graphical study of maritime Canada, first urged a separate study of the island, and, in the last of his TTTmany kind admonitory notes to the writer, added a postscript asking when the "island study" would be finished. Detailed thanks are due to so many other people that, as is usual in such cases, one must risk the offence of seeming ingratitude to name only a representative few. As with most professors, a forbearing and understanding wife and considerate and co-operative immediate colleagues must head the list. To archivists and librarians in many institutions of three countries general appreciation is expressed, but Jean Gill of the Prince Edward Island Legislative Library and Daniel Cobb Harvey, Provincial Archivist of Nova Scotia, and a distinguished student of island history, deserve particularly warm thanks. Research assistants, to each of whom there are many special debts, have included Raymond Hargreaves, Patricia Knapp, Donald McLean, Jiirgen Meyer, Philip Muntz, Stanley Murray, Roy Officer, Joseph Schwartzberg and Leonard Brinkman. My colleague, Randall Sale, helped plan the cartographic work and drew some of the better maps. Mrs. Mary Jane Johnson and her secretarial staff of the Department of Geography of the University of Wisconsin have been magnificently co-operative. Financial aid has come from many quarters: from the Rutgers University Research Council; from the University of Wisconsin through the Research Committee of its Graduate School, the College of Letters and Science, and the Whitbeck Fund of the Department of Geography; from the Research Fund of the Association of American Geographers; and from the Canadian Social Science Research Council. In general, these funds were directed to the whole long-range programme, but they have all helped to further the immediate study of Prince Edward Island as well. If those who read the book fail to recognize a deep and affectionate interest in the island and its people, the success of the effort at objectivity will have obscured another clear source of inspiration for its completion. The writer has spent many happy summers on the island since he was a small boy and has wandered over most of its highways and byways. Both of his parents and three of his grandparents were Islanders born and his roots are as deeply set in its red soil as those of any of its English-speaking sons. With all of the concern with detailed statistics and precise locations the burden of the work was ever made lighter by a host of happy memories: days at sea with the cod or lobster fishermen, digging clams in the sandy mud of its estuaries at low tide, watching Wednesday-afternoon harness races on the little oval tracks, tucking into the unbelievably luscious fare of "strawberry festivals," of listening to the sing-song cadence of the Highlanders (often speaking Gaelic into the third or fourth generation) or the blurred patois of les Acadiens, or happily (in retrospect at least) joining with the enlarged family in singing hymns to the accompaniment of wheezing pedal organs in the little white churches on Sunday mornings. Madison, Wisconsin

ANDREW H. CLARK

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CONTENTS

PREFACE MAPS TABLES

I Introduction

V XÍ XÍV

3

II Abegweit: Mid-Seventeenth Century

15

III île St. Jean: Eighteenth Century, First Half

25

IV The Island of St. John: Eighteenth Century, Second Half

42

v

66

The Colony of Prince Edward Island: Early Nineteenth Century

VI The Island One Century Ago

83

VII Decline and Adjustment: The Changing Background of Island Farming since Confederation

120

VIII The Last Century of Agricultural Change

152

IX The Geographical Legacy of Three Centuries of Change: Review and Conclusions

205

NOTES

225

APPENDIX A The Areas of the Lots

260

APPENDIX B The Assignment and Changing Proprietorship of the Townships

263

INDEX

271

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MAPS

1. Prince Edward Island (Island of St. John, 1758-1799) 2. Ile St. Jean, 1710-1758 3. Average total value of farms, 1951 (by townships) 4. Average total value of farms, 1951 (isopleths) 5. Ratio of total value of farms to number of acres of farmland, 1951 6. Regionalization of farming level in 1951 7. Situation of Prince Edward Island (Abegweit) in the Gulf of St. Lawrence 8. Local relief 9. Woodland, swamp, dune areas and contours (about 1940) 10. Classes of land, 1950 11. Presumed variation in forest cover, late eighteenth century 12. "A map of the Island of St. John near Nova Scotia lately taken from the French, 1758" 13. Population distribution by families, 1728 14. Distribution of population, 1735 15. Distribution of population, 1752 16. Distribution of increase of population, 1752-1753 17. "A New & Correct Map of the Isles of New Found Land, Cape Breton, etc., with the Provinces of Nova Scotia" 18. Island of St. John: Names, numbers and boundaries of original survey by Holland, 1764-1766 19. Classification of land and vegetation (Holland's survey) 20. Classification of lots according to quitrents, 1768 21. Cleared land reported by Holland's survey, 1764-1766 22. Existing buildings reported by Holland's survey, 1764-1766 23. Settlement of the several lots, 1779 24. Settlement of the lots, 1797

4-5 6-7 10 10 11 11 17 18 20 23 23 26 29 29 34 34

43 44 47 47 49 49 53 53

25. Distribution of very small population, July, 1768 26. Some areas of Brieish settlement before the American Revolution 27. Distribution of population, 1798 (by origin) 28. Houses, roads and mills, about 1800 29. Distribution of population, 1833 30. Acres of improved land per capita, 1833 31. Potato production, 1832 32. Ratio of wheat to oat production, 1832 33. Relative dominance of horses or oxen, 1833 34. Ratio of sheep to swine, 1833 35. Density of population by townships, 1848 36. Change in density of population by townships, 1848-1855 37. Distribution of people born in England, 1848 38. Distribution of increase or decrease in numbers of people born in England, 1848-1855 39. Distribution of people born in Scotland, 1848 40. Distribution of increase or decrease in numbers of people born in Scotland, 1848-1855 41. Distribution of people born in Ireland, 1848 42. Distribution of increase or decrease of people born in Ireland, 1848-1855 43. Regional dominance of most recent English, Irish and Scottish immigrants, 1848 44. Predominance of origin of people, 1881 45. Subdivision and holding of rural TIT n'nfrtip'ï

in

54 54 59 59 71 71 75 75 79 79 84 84 85 85 86 86 89 89 90 90

toTimcihi'n

1880 (from a cadastral atlas) 46. Large consolidated proprietorships of the nineteenth century

94 97

xii

MAPS

47. Percentage of total area "held" in some form of private tenure (other than by government or "proprietors"), 1848 97 48. Distribution of increase or decrease of total acres held, 18481855 98 49. Distribution of increase or decrease in population, 1848-1855 98 50. Percentage of total area which was freehold, 1855 100 51. Percentage of total land held which was freehold, 1855 100 52. Percentage of land "held" which was held by squatters, 1848 101 53. Distribution of association of rural population with farming, 1941 101 54. Distribution of arable land, 1855 103 55. Distribution of increase in acreage of arable land, 1848-1855 103 56. Distribution of oat production, 1847 105 57. Yield of oats, 1847 105 58. Potato acreage as a percentage of oat acreage by townships, 1847 106 59. Wheat acreage as a percentage of oat acreage by townships, 1847 106 60. Distribution of increase in wheat production, 1847-1854 107 61. Distribution of increase in oat production, 1847-1854 107 62. Distribution of production of turnips, 1847 109 63. Distribution of increase in turnip production, 1847-1854 109 64. Number of cattle per 100 people, 1861 111 65. Change in distribution of cattle, 1848-1855 111 66. Ratio of cattle to horses, 1861 113 67. Number of sheep for each 10 head of cattle, 1861 113 68. Changes in distribution of sheep, 1848-1855 115 69. Ratio of sheep to swine, 1855 115 70. Export values and destinations by ports, 1858 119 71. Distribution of change in population, 1861-1891 123 72. Change in population, 1891-1921 123 73. Change in rural population density, 1891-1921 124

74. Distribution of rural population density, 1921 124 75. Distribution of population by origin, 1921 127 76. Change in density of farm population, 1931-1951 129 77. Total population density, 1951 129 78. Rural population density, 1941 130 79. Density of farm population, 1951 130 80. Distribution of degree of owner operation of farms, 1941 135 81. Farm size distribution, 1901 and 1951 135 82. Average size of farm, 1891 136 83. Change in size of average farm, 1891-1921 136 84. Average size of farm, 1951 139 85. Disrtibution of large farmsizes, 1941 139 86. Distribution of small farmsizes, 1941 141 87. Numbers of men engaged in the fishery, 1860 147 88. Change in numbers of men engaged in the fishery, 1860-1950 147 89. "Arable" land as a proportion of total area, 1861 153 90. Occupied land as a proportion of total area, 1891 153 91. Occupied land as a proportion of total area, 1951 154 92. Change in area occupied, 19211951 154 93. Change in area improved, 18911921 156 94. Change in area improved, 19211951 156 95. Improved land as a proportion of land, 1891 157 96. Improved land as a proportion of occupied land, 1951 157 97. Distribution of woodland, 18911921 159 98. Woodland as a proportion of area unimproved, 1941 159 99. Cropland as a proportion of total area, 1891 160 100. Cropland as a proportion of area improved, 1891 160 101. Cropland as a proportion of total area, 1921 162

MAPS 102. Cropland as a proportion of area improved, 1921 162 103. Percentage change in area of cropland, 1921-1951 164 104. Production of hay per capita, 1860 164 105. Change in area in hay, 1890-1920 165 106. Percentage change in area in hay, 1920-1950 165 107. Proportions of total area in hay, 1950 167 108. Proportions of area in field crops which were in hay in 1921, 1931, 1941 and 1951 167 109. Proportion of total area sown to cereals, 1921 168 110. Proportion of total area sown to cereals, 1951 168 111. Change in area in cereals, 19211951 169 112. Area in cereals as a proportion of area in field crops, 1951 169 113. Change in wheat acreage, 18901920 171 114. Area in oats, 1890 171 115. Areas sown to oats and mixed grains, 1951 173 116. Increase in potato production, 1860-1890 173 117. Areas in potatoes, 1890 174 118. Change in area in potatoes, 18901920 174 119. Change in area in potatoes, 19211951 176 120. Change in area in potatoes, 19211931 176 121. Area in potatoes as a proportion of area in field crops, 1921 177 122. Area in potatoes as a proportion of area in field crops, 1951 177 123. Change in area in turnips, 18901951 179 124. Horses per 100 farm people, 1951 179 125. Horses per 1,000 acres of field crops, 1951 181 126. Change in cattle numbers, 18911931 181

127. Change in cattle numbers, 19311951 128. Cattle per 100 acres of total area, 1951 129. Cattle per 100 acres of improved land, 1951 130. Changes in numbers of cattle per 100 acres of improved land, 19311951 131. Cheese and butter production, 1860 132. Processing plants for butter and cheese, 1898 133. Milk cows per square mile, 1891 134. Cows in milk or in calf per square mile, 1931 135. Milk cows in 1951 as a proportion of cows in milk or in calf, 1931 136. Milk cows per 100 acres of field crops, 1931 137. Milk cows per 100 acres of field crops, 1951 138. Distribution of emphasis on dairying in cattle industry, 1941 139. Cows and heifers kept for milk as a proportion of total cattle, 1951 140. Change in sheep numbers, 18611891 141. Distribution of sheep, 1891 142. Change in sheep numbers, 18911931 143. Distribution of sheep, 1951 144. Sheep per 100 acres of improved land, 1951 145. Swine per square mile, 1951 146. Change in numbers of swine, 18611931 147. Change in numbers of swine, 193 11951 148. Swine per 100 acres field crops, 1951 149. Swine per 100 farm people, 1951 150. Ratio of sheep to swine, 1861 151. Ratio of sheep to swine, 1891 152. Sheep per 100 people, 1891 153. Ratio of sheep to swine, 1931 154. Sheep, 1951 155. Ratios of sheep to swine or swine to sheep, 1951

Xlll

183 183 185

185 187 187 189 189 190 190 192 192 193

193 194 194 196 196 197

197 199 199 200 200 201 201 202 202 204

TABLES

I Population, farms and land use by counties and province, 1951 II Value and revenue of farms, by counties and province, 1951 III Land tenure, 1841-61 IV Comparative retail prices in Prince Edward Island, 1851 V Changes in population of Prince Edward Island and proportions born elsewhere, 1 84 1-1 95 1 VI Changes in origins of the population, 1881-1921-1951 VII "Rural" population, 1871-1951 VIII Land tenure in 1861

IX Farm numbers and sizes, 18611951 X Wooden vessels built in Prince Edward Island from 1830 to 12 1900 95 XI Numbers of fur farms and fur animals (chiefly foxes) , 1920-40 116 XII Proportions of occupied and improved land, 1871-1951 XIII Area of cropped land and acre121 age and production of major crops, 1870-1950 125 XIV Numbers of animals, 1871-1951 128 XV Detail of three cargoes shipped 132 to the United Kingdom in 1898

9

134 143

151 152 161 180 188

THREE CENTURIES AND THE ISLAND

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I Introduction

PRINCE EDWARD ISLAND, A THIN CURVED SLICE OF LAND TUCKED NEATLY

and unobtrusively along the southern shore of the Gulf of St. Lawrence, is the smallest of Canada's provinces and the one least well known to geographers and historians.1 Neither its hundred thousand people nor its million and a half acres make it of very much importance in the present economy or politics of the country. Yet if its changing patterns of rural settlement and agriculture over a substantial part of three centuries are described and interpreted many insights should be gained into the contemporary geography and the economic and cultural history of the three maritime provinces,2 insights which may prove new and interesting to students of the area. In this microcosm the patterns on the land and the events which shaped them can be subjected to minute scrutiny. Most students of history and geography have particular areas of interest, topically or regionally limited, on which they focus their attention. Where their interests are broader, they necessarily reduce the intensity of their examination or the scale3 of their conception. Such students of maritime Canada have generally thought of Prince Edward Island as a unit. They have considered either that its internal geography lacked sufficient variety, or that the variations it did have were too small, to justify more detailed examination. Even works concerned specifically with the island have given only the most casual attention to its internal regional differences. Yet it is in explaining the island's uneven patterns of cultural distribution and the nature of the changes in those patterns with the years, that an historical-geographical approach can make its special contribution to understanding the island and its significance, in time and place, to the whole maritime region of Canada. Statistics of the population and the agricultural economy of the island have been collected, with those of the rest of Canada, every ten years since 1881, and at irregular intervals before that, throughout the island's history. Much of the available information is, of course, for the island as a whole, but there are usually quite comprehensive breakdowns for the three counties and sixty-seven townships (Figure 18) into which the island has been divided since it was surveyed in 1765. For the French régime there are also detailed locational records. By way of introduction it may be useful to compare some of the province-wide figures with those of the subdivisions for the most recent decennial census of 1951. In that year some 100,000 people lived on the island. Almost half of them were farming people and their farms occupied more than 75 per cent of its two thousand odd square miles.4 Three-fourths of the people lived outside of the two 3

8

THREE CENTURIES AND THE ISLAND

main towns, Charlottetown (population, 15,887) and Summerside (population, 6,547), on dispersed farmsteads or in hamlets and villages ranging in population from a few families to about 1,200 people. Those productive workers who were neither farmers nor engaged in providing services to farmers were chiefly concerned with the fishery. Although what must be called "mixed livestock-and-crop farming" was the dominant type of agriculture, most of the crops were fed to livestock; and animal products provided the chief source of farm income. Yet few farmers specialized enough in any type to have even half their income fall into any one of the census classifications (dairy, meat and eggs, cash crop, etc.). Some three-fifths of the occupied farmland was "improved" (that is, plowed at least occasionally or maintained as permanent pasture by top-dressing, controlled grazing, etc.). Twothirds of this was cropland and one-third pasture. Half the cropland moreover was in hay; thus, more than three-fifths of the improved land was in hay or pasture each year. The farming economy was, basically, a grassland one. The principal grain grown by a wide margin was oats. The acreage of oats and mixed grains (usually containing a high proportion of oats) was three-fourths as high as that of hay. The only other crop of any importance was potatoes.5 All but a tiny fraction of the 10,000 farms were operated by their owners.6 Although the farms, which averaged 107 acres in size, were not small, they were not of high value in comparative North American terms. In 1951 the average farm, including buildings and all improvements, was valued at $44 per acre or $4,700 per farm, and had some $1,604 worth of machinery and $2,274 worth of animals, together, not far short of the value of land and buildings. Including animals and machinery the average net worth, per farm, was $8,600. Most of the descriptive accounts go into this much detail, but few go further. Yet one can easily and quickly check the economic level and pattern of activity of farming among the three counties (Figure 1). Some relevant statistical breakdowns are given in Tables I and II.7 Prince and Queens counties are approximately one-fifth larger in size than Kings. Because they contain the island's two cities, their total population in any event would be disproportionately high, in relation to area; but even their farm population is substantially denser: 50 per cent more farm people per square mile than in Kings. It would be expected, then, that Kings would have fewer farms (only 24 per cent of the island's farms as compared with 29 per cent of its area); but its farms also are, on the average, 15 per cent larger than those in Queens and 7 per cent larger than those in Prince. Clearly, too, Kings is not so highly developed: only 46 per cent of its farmland is improved as compared with 61 per cent in Prince and 66 per cent in Queens, and it has a higher proportion of total area in woodland. The above observations make it evident that, even on the basis of a county breakdown, there are some clear contrasts between Kings and the centre and west of the island. Yet these things might be true and still leave the general type and level of farming without significant regional variation. Thus we see that, in

INTRODUCTION

9

TABLE I POPULATION, FARMS AND LAND USE BY COUNTIES AND PROVINCE, 1951

Total area Acres Square miles County proportion of total area Total population Density per square mile Farm population County proportion of farm population Density per square mile Number of farms County proportion of number of farms Area in farms (1,000 acres) County proportion of area in farms Average size of farms (in acres) Area improved (1,000 acres) County proportion of area improved Proportion of area in farms improved Area cropped (1,000 acres) County proportion of area cropped Proportion of improved area in cropland Area in woodland (1,000 acres) County proportion of area wooded Proportion of total area in woodland Proportion of area farmed operated by owners

Prince

Queens

Kings P.E. Island

497,920 778 36% 37,735 48 18,160 39% 24 3,702 36% 404 37% 109 246 38% 61% 168 39% 68% 119 34% 24%

489,600 765 35% 42,751 56 17,479 37% 23 3,999 40% 408 37% 102 268 42% 66% 171 40% 64% 109 32% 22%

410,240 1,397,760 641 2,184 29% 17,943 98,429 28 45 11,216 46,855 24% 18 21 2,436 10,137 24% 284 1,095 26% 117 107 132 646 20% 46% 88 426 21% 67% 66% 118 346 34% 29% 25%

96.6%

98.2%

97.8%

97.5%

each county, about the same proportion of improved land is cropped (roughly two-thirds) and that Kings is slightly ahead of Queens. However, the larger farms in Kings are much lower in average value than the smaller ones in Prince and Queens; on the average, farms in Queens are worth more than half as much again as those in Kings. Another inter-county contrast is found in a comparison of the numbers of tractors and farms. In 1951 only one farm in five in Kings had a tractor as compared with more than one in four in Prince and nearly one in three in Queens. More elements of this areal differentiation of the island's farms may be identified in a comparison of the revenues from their major products. For the whole island in 1950, in order of importance of revenue (in the listed census categories) these products were: cattle; swine; potatoes, roots, etc.; dairy products; poultry and eggs; grains; horses; sheep and wool; and forest products. Actually "products consumed on the farm," as a class, exceeded all but cattle in value. More than one-third of the farm revenues came from the sale of cattle and swine, and animal products as a whole accounted for fully three-fourths of the average farmer's income.

12

THREE CENTURIES AND THE ISLAND

TABLE II

VALUE AND REVENUE OF FARMS, BY COUNTIES AND PROVINCE, 1951a Prince

Queens

Kings

Percentage of total Province revenue

Value of farms ($ million) $ 33.3 (38%) « $ 38.5 (44%) $ 15.4 (18%) $ 87.2 Average value of farms 9,000 6,300 8,600 9,700 Value of livestock ($ million) 8.2 (35%) 4.0 (18%) 10.9 (47%) 23.0 Number of tractors 1,012 (36%)" 1,263 (46%)" 501 (18%)" 2,776 Number of tractors per 32 21 hundred farms 27 27 Sources of revenue ($ thousand) Cattle $1,353 (33%) $2,202 (53%) $ 587 (14%) $4,142 3,742 Swine 1,207 (32%) 1,801 (48%) 733 (20%) 3,412 Potatoes, roots, etc. 1,666 (49%) 1,095 (32%) 651 (19%) Dairy products 1,572 (50%) 490 (16%) 3,149 1,087 (34%) Poultry and eggs 312 (17%) 1,811 694 (38%) 805 (45%) Grains 212 (42%) 509 223 (44%) 75 (14%) 111 (28%) Horses, sheep and wool 187 (47%) 97 (25%) 395 Forest products 114 (40%) 283 98 (35%) 71 (25%) "Figures in parentheses represent the county proportion of each total value.

19 17 16 14 8 2 2 1

An examination of the figures on a county basis indicates that the distribution of these revenues is not consistent over the island. Farmers in Queens concentrate most heavily on animal products while those in Prince have a disproportionately high cash income from field crops and sheep. Other than in its marked lead in forest products, a minor item and certainly to be expected in a more heavily wooded area, Kings, as a county, shows no marked specialization. Even the county breakdowns, therefore, indicate some substantial regional contrasts in agricultural and pastoral activity. A casual inspection of the map suggests that the county boundaries are completely arbitrary and one properly supposes that, more likely than not, there would be fairly even gradients of agricultural enterprise across such boundaries. Even more striking contrasts might then be expected in the data arranged by townships; and, from these data, a more precise description of the regionalization of farming characteristics should be possible. Apart from population characteristics, the Census of Canada for 1951 assembled statistics by townships for some seventy categories of agricultural interest. More often than not these need to be combined in ratios, or expressed as densities, to yield usable material for maps, but they allow a very broad range of studies of distribution. The average total value per farm for each township, perhaps the most significant ratio, shows the distribution indicated in Figure 3. A companion map, Figure 4, attempts an isoplethic representation of the same data. Farms do, of course, vary greatly in size; and, therefore, still another isoplethic map, Figure 5, was made, showing the quite arbitrary ratio of total farm value (including machinery and animals) divided by total acres of farm land. This map should preclude the drawing of false conclusions from Figures 3 and 4. From these maps

INTRODUCTION

13

and other supplementary information it was then possible to draw the next map, Figure 6. In the lettered areas, A and B, on this map the average total value of farms generally exceeded $10,000 in 1951, whereas in the numbered areas, 1 through 4, farms usually averaged less than $5,000 in total net worth. For that year a $10,000 farm could be considered, more often than not, as a prosperous and thriving property; a farm with total value of less than $5,000 (including machinery and animals) was usually little more than a subsistence homestead, or a part-time operation. Regions A and B are called the "high-farming" areas, to borrow a term from the British agricultural revolution of the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries. A generic name for regions 1 to 4 is not so easily chosen. "Low-farming" is too easily misinterpreted. The regions are neither "undeveloped" nor, often, "underdeveloped." They are "backward"; but many of the farmers who live in them are not. They are also "poorer" farming areas, however, and although there is danger of reading "poor land," which is, by no means, universally true, the name "poor farming" areas has been chosen. A rather casual inspection of township statistics and of some simple maps constructed from them thus indicates a marked regional differentiation in one of the most diagnostic indications of farming level: the value of the means of agricultural production. A statistical measure of the degree of variation from the average could easily be computed; but for a geographical study the patterns of variation by area, rather than their "amount" unrelated to location, represent the fundamental evidence. Considering the island as a unit hides not only the degrees of difference, but also the significant geographies which the regional arrangement of the differences implies. If there were substantial intra-regional variations in natural endowment (climate, land forms, or soils, for example) and if these showed a pattern of arrangement comparable to that of the levels of economic activity, the problem of interpretation would be simple indeed. Since there is no apparent correlation of the variability of nature and, further, since these regional differentiations cannot be attributed to variability in cost of transportation, access to market, or any of the more usual causes of economic regionalization, a particularly challenging problem of geographical interpretation is posed. One asks not only what causes may have shaped the patterns of 1951, but whether those patterns have shown relative stability over the years. We might have chosen any year other than 1951 for which data were available and made the same points. But, had we used the same categories, we should have found that some of the patterns varied considerably in form over the years, and that none of them remained static. In order to achieve some understanding of the changing geographies of settlement and agricultural use of land and of their underlying frameworks from the early eighteenth to the middle of the twentieth century, the detailed studies upon which this report is based were made. It is felt that they have provided a new perspective of Prince Edward Island. These geo-

14

THREE CENTURIES AND THE ISLAND

graphies of its people and their farming can be seen, as all geographies should always be seen, as changing aspects of a long continuum. Their description and interpretation is offered not only as a contribution to the understanding of the economic history of maritime Canada and analogous areas elsewhere, but as a method for better understanding any kind of geography by a study of its changing characteristics through time.

II Abegweit: Mid-Seventeenth Century EARLY EUROPEAN KNOWLEDGE ON JUNE 29, 1534, JACQUES CARTIER SIGHTED THE SHORE-LINE OF what is now Prince Edward Island and on the two following days he made various reconnaissance landings between Cascumpeque Harbour and North Cape (Figure 1 ) and again on the west coast after turning the Cape.1 His report represents our earliest knowlege of the island.2 Referring to the stretch of the Gulf Coast which he saw, he wrote: "Toute ycelle terre est basse et vnye [flat], la plus belle qu'i soict possible de voir, et plaine [full] de beaulx arbres et prairies. . . ,"3 The description includes reference to the shallow water offshore, sand-banks, and the lack of harbours. Indians in canoes were seen in one place, and a solitary Indian in another, but no contacts were made. The vegetation seen on the west coast was reported as: ". . . cèdres, iffz, pins, ormes blans, frainnes, sauldres et aultres, pluseurs à nous incongneuz, touz arbres sans fruictz. Les terres où il n'y a bouays, sont fort belles, et toutez plaines de poys, grouaiseliers, blans et rouges, frasses, franboysses, et blé sauviage, conme seule, quel il semble y abvoir esté semé et labouré."4 Cartier then sailed on to the Bay of Chaleur never to return to the island on this or any subsequent voyage. The attractive picture he presented, probably discounted at the heavy rate generally applicable to reports by explorers of the New World in the sixteenth century, did not encourage any immediately subsequent visits of which we know. Later in the century the island may well have been visited many times and almost certainly received the name it was to bear for two centuries.5 Champlain refers to it as "Fisle de sainct Jean" in Des Sauvages, although it was not until his map of 1632 that he had it properly shown cartographically as to location and general shape.6 Nevertheless we have evidence that before the date of that map he knew a good deal about it. In the second part of the Voyages he reports, as of July 23, 1623, that: "On the same day also the pilot Doublet arrived with five other men in a double pinnace, which came from St. John's island and Miscou [mouth of the Bay of Chaleur], where the Sieur de La Ralde was engaged in fishing. He [Doublet] informed the Sieur de Caen that some Basques had retired to St. John's Island, in order to put themselves in a condition of defence in case they were attacked. . . ."7 A further reference in the same work emphasizes the familiarity of the Basques with the island: "In it there are good harbours and good fishing grounds for cod; the Basques go there quite frequently; and it is covered with wood like the other islands."8 15

16

THREE CENTURIES AND THE ISLAND

The poverty of reference to the island throughout the rest of the seventeenth century has remained a problem for some of its historians although the best of these, D. C. Harvey, has said: It is not difficult to explain the apparent neglect of the little island; the north coast was not easy of access owing to the fact that the mouths of the harbors were obstructed by sand dunes; the early explorers were westward bound seeking the Western Sea or a passage to Cathay; fish and fur were so abundant in Newfoundland and the Strait of Belle Isle as to make it unnecessary for fishermen or traders to seek new fields of effort, especially in a region where the ice lingered in the lap of May.9

Nicolas Denys, whose Description and Natural History of the Coasts of North America (Acadia)10 is a principal source for the geography of seventeenthcentury Acadia, may have deliberately suppressed some of his knowledge, but the little he tells of the island is far more informative than Cartier's account, to Denys' time the only report beyond casual reference. Some of his useful, and approximately accurate, observations include: . . . all the coast on this side of the Bay [Gulf of St. Lawrence] is nothing but sand, which forms flats for more than a league out to sea. . . . It is almost the shape of a crescent, and pointed at the two ends. The side which is opposite thé mainland is bordered with rocks. There are two coves, through which two rivers pass to discharge into the sea. . . . This island is covered with almost nothing but Firs mingled with some Beeches and Birches. On the side which faces the Great Bay there are also two harbours, from which issue two little streams, but the entrances are very shallow, . . . I once entered that which is nearest to the point of Miscou [Cascumpeque Harbour?]. I have seen there three large Basque vessels, but, in order to enter, it was necessary to discharge them of everything in the roadstead, to carry everything on shore, and to leave only the ballast to sustain the vessel. Then it was necessary to lay her upon her side as though she was careened, then to tow her inside with the boats. They came out in the same manner, after which all the fish were taken to the roadstead for loading. One can no more go there at present, its entrances being closed up, and the risk too great. That which induced them to go there was the abundance of fish which exists on this coast. Besides they were near the Banc aux Orphelins [Orphan Bank] on which the fish are as large as those of the Grand Bane. The sea enters very far into parts of this island, and thus produces great meadows, and many ponds.11

Some of the Denys material, irrelevant or wholly wrong, casts doubt on the rest, but it seems likely that he had indeed visited the island, which he had once claimed as part of his territorial grants of trading and fishing rights, and that he appreciated some important aspects of its physical geography. The fine natural harbours of the east and south coast are scarcely hinted at, but they were on the wrong side for the fishery, and the barred entrances to the coves and estuaries of the north coast, if not quite so difficult as Denys described them (and of course the depths of water must have varied as the waves and currents shifted the sands), nevertheless have been a serious problem for ships of any but the lightest draught throughout the whole of the island's recorded history.

ABEGWEIT: MID-SEVENTEENTH CENTURY

17

THE GEOGRAPHY OF NATURE Size and Shape These accounts of Cartier, Champlain and Denys do not give a very substantial documentary base on which to erect a seventeenth-century geography of the island. Therefore, we must turn to more recent observations to help us with our reconstructions. We may assume that the natural characteristics of the island were but little affected by the Indians, or the Basque or French fishermen who visited its coasts before 1650. As Denys correctly observed, the island has a crescentic shape which closely hugs the similarly curving strand of the continent proper (Figure 7). Across the narrow straits to the east the island of Cape Breton and, to the south and west, peninsular Nova Scotia and New Brunswick could be seen from many places on clear days. In New World terms the island was small; its area of some 2,000 square miles is comparable with that of Trinidad and Tobago, taken together, or of the modern State of Delaware. Today it contains much less than one-thousandth of Canada's land area; it is but onetenth the size of Nova Scotia, next in size among the country's ten provinces.

FIG. 7

18

THREE CENTURIES AND THE ISLAND

The length of the island, following its crescent-shaped curve, is some 120 miles. The shore-line is intricately serrated and deeply indented with bays and long tidal estuaries, and in places there is a lift of less than three miles from tidewater to tidewater on either side. No place on the island is more than ten miles from salt water and much the greater part is within five miles of sea or tidal inlet. On the east and south the deeply drowned mouths of old river valleys offer magnificent natural harbours with unobstructed entry. On the north shore, however, an almost continuous line of dunes blocked off or left very narrow and shallow tidal entrances to a similar series of bays. Bed Rock The bed rock of the island, often obscured by dune sand on the northern coast and by glacial till elsewhere, was widely exposed in low cliffs on the eastern and southern shores.12 It is a remarkably uniform sandstone grading only spottily into sandy silt-stones or shales on the one hand or into coarser conglomerate on the other; the bond is a weak, limey cement.13 The proportion of constituent clays does vary enough to be reflected in some differences in the soils; and the lenses of conglomerate, mostly discovered within the last century, have proved very useful for building roads and railways in a province where the amount of gravel in the superficial glacial till is small.14 To the eye the strata of the sandstones are horizontal; actually they dip slightly to the north, northeast and east. They are

FIG. 8

ABEGWEIT: MID-SEVENTEENTH CENTURY

19

believed to be younger than those exposed on the mainland shore to the south, and this dip, with the cuffing, suggests the remnants of a low cuesta, elsewhere dismembered or drowned beneath the waters of the gulf. Stream erosion has carved a gently rolling plain, or low hill-land, in this sandstone block, most of it under 200 feet in elevation (Figure 8). Only rarely, and barely, does it rise more than 400 feet above the sea. There is some true hill country, with slopes in excess of 6 per cent, where the usual field operations of Western European agriculture have run into difficulties, but such areas are not extensive; on the other hand the only considerable stretch of country which looks really "flat" to the eye lies west of Malpeque Bay. Regolith and Soils The continental glaciations of the Pleistocene buried the area deeply and completely and its soils are almost entirely developed from the thick mantle of unstratified "drift" or ground moraine which the ice deposited. This drift is, almost uniformly, of the same sandy texture and brick-red colour.15 Not only is gravel rare, but erratics are limited to a few granite, diorite, gneiss or felsite boulders in the west. The most obvious Pleistocene inheritance is the marked dislocation and interruption of pre-glacial drainage, and there is a great deal of boggy land,16 much of it too low to allow effective drainage (Figure 9). Yet, in contrast, in many places drainage through the coarse-textured sandy loams is so free that, beginning early in the eighteenth century, a lower-than-normal summer's rainfall has regularly brought complaints about the dryness of the soil. Indeed, one of the reasons that road-making has been somewhat casual and slipshod throughout most of the island's history is that the roads, although treacherous enough in the more clayey areas immediately after a rain, tended to dry out with remarkable speed except in the actual bogs. A soil survey made within the past decade has confirmed and refined earlier opinions of the soil. Pedologically the soils are classed as Podzols, strongly leached of soluble salts, comparatively low in plant nutrients, and strongly acid in reaction. In texture they are recognized as being predominantly sandy loams, although there are a few areas of clay loams, especially in the west, and some scattered patches of peat and dune sand.17 They are of relatively low fertility compared with most agricultural soils of central and western Canada. It must be assumed that these soils have altered somewhat after from one to two centuries (or a bit more) of agricultural use. Under the nearly unbroken forest cover of the seventeenth century the variations described would have been little noticed, or of little significance in themselves, although the variation of that forest cover must have been related to differences in drainage, in particular. Weather and Climate The characteristics of the island's weather and climate may have fluctuated significantly before the mid-seventeenth century, but we have no reliable evidence that they have done so since. They are determined by the island's position in

FIG. 9

ABEGWEIT: MID-SEVENTEENTH CENTURY

21

respect to the general circulation, or pulsation, of air masses over northeastern North America and the northwestern North Atlantic. There are frequent alternations of maritime and continental air with the latter dominant at all seasons, as is a westerly surface wind direction. Fronts sweep by in rapid succession with but short stretches of "air-mass" weather in between. Favoured tracks of the centres of extra-tropical cyclonic storms pass through, or close to, the island. The alternation of sunny with cloudy, rainy (or snowy) weather is continuous and rapid. The annual mean of forty inches of precipitation, of which a third or more is represented by nine or ten feet of winter snow, is spread over more than a third of the days in the year. It is comparatively reliable, but in one year in six or seven a summer "drought" (that is, at least one month with less than one inch of rain) may be expected. The amount and duration of winter snow also varies enough that, during the last 150 years, most people in their twenties have been able to recall a relatively open or a deeply snow-bound winter.18 Perhaps the most important feature of the régime of air temperature today is that farmers can count on three and one-half frost-free months every year.19 That régime shows both continental and maritime characteristics; the former in an annual range from February's average 15 degrees of frost to normal July figures in the upper sixties, and the latter in the marked delay of the warmest and coldest temperatures behind the dates of the solstices. The coldest weather comes in February and the warmest in late July. A slow, chilly spring is contrasted with a late, warm, and truly glorious autumn; in this respect the island is more "British" than "Canadian" in its climate. The freezing over of the straits rarely occurs until January; out-of-door skating is sometimes deferred until February. Vegetation The vegetation cover of the seventeenth century cannot, of course, be reconstructed from the spotty and scanty accounts of Carrier, Champlain and Denys, but later observations and surveys, together with contemporary accounts of what are now Nova Scotia and New Brunswick, do allow us to describe it with some confidence. Apart from the bogs, tidal marshes and sand dunes (in all a small part of the total area) the surface supported a dense blanket of broadleaf deciduous trees characteristic of the northeastern hardwood forest (especially American beech, sugar maple, yellow birch and occasionally red oak) in which were mixed, and sometimes locally predominant, representatives of the northern coniferous forest (fir, spruce and tamarack—the American larch—in particular). Adding further variety were the coniferous trees associated with hardwood forest (white pine, hemlock and white cedar) and the broadleaf ones which accompany boreal forest (white, or "paper" birch and, possibly, poplar and willow). Before fire and axe changed the forests, the island must have been a selectively representative botanical garden for a large area of the northeastern part of the continent.20

22

THREE CENTURIES AND THE ISLAND

Seen at the distance at which the island has usually been viewed, the terrain, rocks and climate appear remarkably uniform, but in our magnification of scale for this study local differences can be discerned; enough to create such differences in environment for plants that these forest elements varied in local density as one ecological factor or another predominated. At one extreme were nearly pure stands of maple or beech;21 at the other were swampy patches of black spruce or white cedar occupying substantial areas in the northeast and the northwest. On the whole, as we analyse the earliest accounts, it appears that extensive stands of individual species, or even of closely associated types, were not common. Even the best beech-maple-yellow birch land was dotted with spruce, fir, and occasional white pine. Each species had its own écologie niche in both place and time, the latter becoming apparent in later observations of the succession after burning and cutting. It is well to remember that the predominance of boreal types (spruce, fir, poplar and white birch) on island wood-lots today22 gives a very inadequate picture of the nature of the forest at the time of the first European contacts (Figure 11). Fauna In the time of Denys and the Basque fishermen the vigorous and plentiful mammalia evidently included bear, moose, caribou, deer, fox and beaver as well as dozens of smaller animals on land; and seals, walrus and sea-cows in the littoral seas. We must suppose that representatives of the most of the northeastern avifauna visited the island at least occasionally. Large flocks of ducks and geese favoured its sheltered bays and dune-blocked sounds or the marshy stretches along the short, slow-running streams, as resting places in their seasonal journeys to and from more northerly nesting grounds. More important than either beasts or birds in this, as in all subsequent periods, were the variety and abundance of the fish and shell-fish (cod, hake, halibut, herring, mackerel, salmon, eels, lobsters, oysters and clams in particular) in the rivers, bays and nearby seas. THE INDIANS Three centuries ago the island had other more widely used names than St. Jean. Its chief, and often only, inhabitants knew it by names from their own language, possibly as Abegweit,23 the preferred Micmac name of a later period. The Micmac24 had for long been the only occupants of the island, Cape Breton, peninsular Nova Scotia, northeastern New Brunswick and parts, at least, of Newfoundland. Our best estimates, perhaps not too well based, are of three to four thousand people in the whole area. Today, in scattered reserves, there are approximately the same number and Micmac is one of the few remaining live Algonkian languages. It is probable that the admixture of European genes in the heredity of the contemporary Micmac is at least as great as that of the large

FIG. 10

F I G . II

24

THREE CENTURIES AND THE ISLAND

number of Breton, English, French, or even Gaelic words which have crept into their speech. We conclude that there are more Indians permanently resident in the island today than lived there, the year round, in Carrier's time or before.25 The Micmac, together with many other northeastern tribes, had a seasonal migration just the reverse of that of the Eskimo; they went inland after big game in the winter and moved to the sea coast in summer, in temporary camps, especially for fishing. This movement may have been accentuated in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries to meet the demand for furs by European visitors and the need felt by the Micmac for tr^de goods. From this point of view the island was largely a summer camping ground for the Indians, although it is possible that many hundred Micmac may have crossed to the island in their canoes in good years for fishing and occasional trade. Few traces of any permanent camps have been discovered. The Micmac economy was fairly typical of that of the non-agricultural northeastern hunting Indians.26 The chief resources for food and clothing appear to have been caribou, moose, porcupine, seals, ducks, geese, salmon, cod, halibut, and a wide variety of shell-fish. The general use of birch-bark for canoes, lodges, storage containers and even cooking vessels27 (they also employed both a stoneboiling technique in wooden troughs and crude pottery) was characteristic over a very broad area of the northern forests. Even by the middle of the seventeenth century, of course, a hundred and fifty years of European contacts had modified the Indian techniques in many ways. Iron arrowheads, fish hooks and lines, iron pots, knives and the like were making hunting and fishing more efficient. Doubtless the Indians suffered profound social disturbances as well.28 We may speculate that the major concentration of Micmac on the island, when there, was on or near the Bedeque-Malpeque isthmus. On the island, as distinct from the permanent mainland homes of the tribe, the Indians do not seem to have made any substantial mark on the landscape, or any clear alteration of nature. If we draw the faintly indicated Micmac geography of the island in the seventeenth century, it will have something the same character as the summer tourist geography of the twentieth, paralleling it in lightness of density of people, seasons of incidence, and attraction to shore of sea or estuary. Yet, however light the Indian occupation, Abegweit, Micmac in name and fact, the island remained throughout the seventeenth century.

Ill Ile St. Jean: Eighteenth Century, First Half FIRST FRENCH OCCUPATION NOT UNTIL THE SECOND DECADE OF THE EIGHTEENTH CENTURY, ONE hundred and seventy-five years after Cartier's first reconnaissance, do we have any record of continuous occupation of the island, of a kind we can properly call settlement, by Europeans. Fishermen, sea hunters and traders (Basque, Norman, Breton, or whatever) undoubtedly had used its coves and harbours, as virtually every gulf and Atlantic inlet in the area must have been used, for a century or more. Perhaps groups engaged in the dry fishery had occasionally wintered there. Yet, beyond reference to specific grants1 of the area to individual enterpreneurs for one purpose or another, our records are bare. The descriptions of such grants, or supposed visits, are so vague and inaccurate as to suggest very fleeting acquaintance by the French and none by any other national group. It is possible that, as has been suggested for Nicolas Denys, knowledge was suppressed in the interest of monopoly or other advantage. In any event such knowledge has not come down to us. Even the outlines of the island were very imperfectly known in Europe (Figure 12); indeed, this vagueness continued until Holland's survey of the 1760's. The major French interests centred rather in Canada to the west, Acadia to the south or in Ile Royale (Cape Breton), the submarine banks and their fisheries to the east and north. Minor skirmish and heavy engagement alike, the struggle for empire between Britain and France in the North Atlantic area had passed it by. Nevertheless it was as a repercussion of one incident in that drawn-out conflict that the first certain migrations of European settlers to the island's shores began. The previous century had seen French settlement established, after many false starts, along the shores of the tidal inlets of the Bay of Fundy, notably around the Annapolis, Minas and Chignecto basins. Its principal village and "capital," Port Royal, had changed hands several times since the first Champlain settlement of 1605, but had been under de jacto French control for some forty years when it finally fell permanently to the British, in 1710, during the War of the Spanish Succession. At that time there were perhaps 2,000 Acadians scattered through the settlements to the east of their capital.2 In 1713 the sovereignty of Britain over not only Port Royal but all of peninsular Acadia was recognized at Utrecht. France retained both lie Royale and He St. Jean, however, and when, in the interests of the fishery and to protect the ocean gateway to Canada, a decision to build the great fortress of Louisbourg 25

FIG. 12

(By courtesy of the Trustees of the British Museum)

ILE ST. JEAN

27

was made, official interest was directed to the smaller island for the first time. What reports of it the French possessed were based on second-hand word from Acadian fur traders, wandering fishermen, and a few adventurous settlers who, no doubt apprehensive at the capture of Port Royal in the autumn of 1710, crossed the Strait of Northumberland the following year. At first French officialdom on Ile Royale was cold to this migration, seeking rather to draw Acadians to the larger island. Indeed at the time the first settlers arrived (whether they were aware of it or not) a substantial part of the east coast of the island had been granted to one Louvigny, an officer of the Quebec garrison. A letter written at the time by De Couagne, an engineer on the headquarters' staff on Ile Royale, urged exploration of the island with a view to exploiting its resources.3 This was, however, contrary to the immediate policy of urging the Acadians to move to He Royale. By the time the Crown had decided to welcome Acadians to St. Jean, and had retrieved all previous grants, the first pioneers had left. Their only mark on the land was the first clearing which, in all probability, had ever been made for agriculture on the island, no doubt for the basic Acadian crop of wheat and peas. BEGINNING OF PERMANENT SETTLEMENT Ten years later a new start was made based upon a proprietary grant, made in 1719, to an influential Frenchman, the Comte de Saint Pierre. The first continuous French settlement4 of the island was begun just inside what is now called Charlottetown Harbour and was then known as Port La Joie or Joye (see Figure 2).5 Two descriptions of the island by officials of the new settlement are disappointing since they tell us little that is not available more substantially from other sources. The principal official, the Sieur de Gotteville de Bellisle, did, however, make the first comprehensive assessment of the island's resources and potentialities which we have. His report to the Regent of France stressed the fine timber, the occasional meadows, the abundance of codfish, the capacious and protected harbours and the friendliness of the Indians. His principal lieutenant, Denys de la Ronde, apparently did considerable exploring in the year following the settlement and, on November 6, 1721, he reported in full to the Minister of Marine and Colonies.6 His concentration on the boat harbours of the northern coast clearly indicates the emphasis of St. Pierre's enterprise on the fishery but, perhaps in wistful memory of the fertile meadows of Grand Pré,7 De la Ronde hoped for much from the limited tidal-marsh flats along the three estuaries into which the large inner harbour of Port La Joie divided (Figure 2). He compared the island soil favourably with that of Cape Breton, a valid conclusion but one based on very limited evidence and, in a way, a condemnation by faint praise. Apparently the elk and moose had disappeared from the island never, as far as we know, to return; however, De la Ronde's belief that the beaver had also all vanished may have been wrong. The extent of settlement may be inferred from

28

THREE CENTURIES AND THE ISLAND

De Gotteville's account of Acadians arriving "every day" in 1720 and De la Ronde's suggestion of about 100 at Port La Joie and about 200 on the northern coast, mainly at the harbours of present St. Peters, Tracadie and (probably) South Lake, southwest of East Point, which Caven believed was the location of "Tranche Montagne." De la Ronde also reported that he had directed the building of three vessels: one of 100 tons for carrying the summer's catch of cod to France, one of 65 tons for the West Indies' trade, and one of 25 tons for the seal and walrus fishing around the Magdalen Islands (immediately to the northeast of He St. Jean in the gulf). This group of vessels neatly illustrates three of the most important lines of French commerical interests extending from the gulf region. THE MIDDLE YEARS The beginnings sound auspicious, but weaknesses were apparent in the difficulties the island had in competing with Ile Royale in the fishery and in the continued lack of enthusiasm shown by Acadians for moving across Northumberland Strait. The settlement of the first two years was not only small but almost entirely from France. The Acadians were deterred perhaps not so much by the "dryness" of the soil, of which a complaint is recorded, as by the kind of labour, and the amount of it, involved in clearing the island's forests. These people had become closely adjusted to an agricultural economy based on the treeless Fundy tidal marshes; similar sites were extremely limited on He St. Jean. By 1724 the enterprise of the Comte de St. Pierre had failed but, although the island's economy was in difficulty, the independent fishermen and the few Acadians remained. In 1726 St. Ovide de Brouillan, Governor of Ile Royale, sent a deputy, De Pensens, with an ensign and twenty-five men to govern the island. His interest was clearly to attract Acadians and to make the island useful to the Louisbourg establishment, and in the next decade Acadians did cross to the island in substantial numbers. Censuses were taken in 1728, 1730, 1734 and 1735.8 Conclusions as to the location of the persons enumerated at the first and last of these dates are shown in Figures 13 and 14. The two nuclei of St. Peters and Port La Joie are clearly marked. The totals for each of the four years, including fishermen, with the numbers of actual settlers given in brackets, were, respectively: 422 (297), 465 (325), 572 (396) and 563 (432). The 125 fishermen of 1728 used 8 "goélettes" (schooners) and 19 "shallops" (small boats) and handled 4,874 quintals of cod. The settlers (76 men, 51 women, 156 children and 14 domestics) lived in 54 houses. The harvest of that year was disappointing because of "un fléau par un nombre infini de rats" (a plague of field mice), and led to the plowing under of the vestiges of the crops and the import of 25 or 30 hogsheads of grain from Acadia.9

FIG. 13

FIG. 14

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THREE CENTURIES AND THE ISLAND

The Thirties Two years later, in 1730, the census reported not only an increase in population but a much more prosperous year. Over 350 hogsheads of grain were gathered, including 40 by only two farmers somewhere on the shores of Malpeque Bay which had a better combined agricultural and fishing potential than any of the other districts. The main settlement was, as it had been from the beginning, not Port La Joie but St. Pierre (St. Peters Harbour at the mouth of St. Peters Bay), and though it was chiefly a fishing centre the adjacent farms had raised fifty hogsheads of grain. In 1732 De Pensens presented a report on the island, presumably based on material gathered the previous year, which, when compared with the reports of De Gotteville and De la Ronde of a decade earlier, allows us to review ten years of change in the island's human geography.10 Although it was not an official census, he listed a total of 347 settlers in six settlements (seven if we include two families of fishermen at East Point). Port La Joie raised little or nothing; its immediate environs were not sufficiently attractive for the characteristic hoespade-axe subsistence agriculture. The chief agricultural area in 1731 was along the banks of the Northeast River (as it was to be for the whole French period) ; there were twenty-eight settlers scattered through the region. Seven more were grouped around Savage Harbour which was reached by a portage of less than three miles from the head of the river. St. Peters, although its great concentration of fishermen gave it pre-eminence in economy and population, had only eight farmers. West of Savage Harbour, at Tracadie, were six families who were battling to clear the oak forest, but finding the soil fertile when they had succeeded.11 Thirty miles to the west the families at Malpeque (probably in the later Princetown area) had increased to four and were facing the same difficulty in clearing oak trunks and pine stumps but, finding the land "highly fertile," they had built a mill, perhaps not the first on the island but one of the earliest recorded. The Acadians continued to come. Yet, even apart from the fishermen, of the actual settlers of 1735 those from France (216) still outnumbered the Acadians (198) and there were three from Spain and fifteen from Canada. Apparently there was a considerable backwash of Acadians to reduce the net figures of immigration, but the local Acadians were slowly increasing in numbers and were bringing more and more stock with them. The two censuses of 1734 and 1735 show a net increase for the latter year of only 36 Acadians but of more than 100 cattle (from 332 to 433) and more than 70 sheep (from 119 to 190). The Forties In the years from the census of 1735 to those of 1747 and 1748 there are many scattered records of crops, stock, clearing of land, good and bad years, fires, plagues of field mice,12 dry summers, cold winters and other hazards.13 A few new crops were tried (tobacco in 1741 for example), but agriculture was

ILE ST. JEAN

31

still largely the growing of mixed wheat and peas in patches laboriously cleared from the forest or in creekside meadows probably diked in a few places. The reported sowing of some 670 bushels of wheat and 150 of peas in 1739 is accompanied by the claim that land was cleared for half as much again; perhaps this represents as much as 1,000 acres of "cultivation" if we include wet meadows. A population of 440 (in 1739 or 1740 and almost certainly including fishermen and their families to the number of 100 or more) is said to have possessed 166 oxen, 337 cows, 402 sheep and 14 horses. This high proportion of livestock units to cultivated area has been seen as an Acadian peculiarity, but it was to be a feature of the American frontier for another century. A recent historical study of the agricultural geography of Ohio reveals the same characteristics as late as 1840. In the early 1740's a few more Acadian families established themselves around Malpeque Bay. We know of five families in 1741 and eight in 1743 and there were probably more in these and other years. The crops were generally good, but disaster was never far away. In 1742 a particularly destructive fire in the St. Peters-Savage Harbour area left marks which were still clearly to be seen in the vegetation cover decades later. In the War of the Austrian Succession (or King George's War as the 1744-8 episode in the British-French struggle was known to the English settlers in the New World) and, for that matter, in the peace negotiations which followed, few areas of the British or French dominions can have been of less importance than He St. Jean. Yet the fall of Louisbourg in 1745, following its opéra bouffe siege by one of history's most motley armies, was not of small importance. As one aftermath of its fall the settlements on the island were sacked by some of Pepperell's men, although this had no lasting effect except in the east where a settlement at Brudenell Point between the Montague and Brudenell rivers was completely destroyed. This "Three Rivers" settlement (the third river was the Cardigan) had begun in 1732 under the direction of a colourful figure, Jean Pierre de Roma (Figure 2). He was the director of a company which had received a proprietary grant of that part of the east coast drained by the three rivers, Brudenell, Montague and Cardigan, and including what were, in many ways, the best natural harbours of the island.14 He actually appears to have built a very substantial headquarters, on the tip of Brudenell Point, of docks, warehouses, cellars and other buildings; inland from it he had cleared and stumped some forty acres of land. A path had been cut and blazed for an overland route to Port La Joie. Unfortunately not many details are given of the agricultural enterprise associated with this avowed fishing and trading establishment. Wheat, peas and some turnips and cabbages were grown. We also know that Roma claimed the loss of 100 bushels of wheat and other grains, 5 sheep, 10 cows and 10 calves, 20 swine, 100 poultry and some horses, when the establishment was destroyed in 1745. An interesting complaint was that it had been much easier to provide human food than animal

32

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food from the cropland; to feed the livestock the settlers depended heavily on what wild hay they could bring in. For four years (1744-8) the handful of people on the island was left without French or British garrison, with no civil or judicial officer and no priest. Rumours that they were to be expelled circulated and some of them sailed away to Quebec. But for most of the settlers the routine of life, hunting, tending the animals, and desultory fishing for cod and herring went on as before, and some food was supplied by sale or requisition to the British on Cape Breton. It was in a year of despair over another of the periodic crop failures that the settlers discovered that, along with the larger Ile Royale and its fortress, they had been traded back to France. The succeeding story of the fate of the Acadians on the mainland as the British established Halifax in 1749, and shortly moved to deport them, needs no repetition here, but we are interested in one of its sequels. The uncertainty of the years 1749-54 for the mainland folk led to a large-scale movement across the strait to He St. Jean, giving it its first substantial population (for however brief a time) and one which was not to be equalled in numbers, by the British, until another fifty years had passed. As the people moved they took from their Fundy homes as much of household goods, implements, and stock of domestic animals as they could. At the beginning of this period censuses reported populations of 653 in 1747 and 735 in 1748. Then the large migrations began. The greatest was in 1750; that of 1751 was perhaps half as large and that of 1752 negligable. More precisely, 151 had arrived by the end of 1749; 860 came in 1750, 326 in 1751, and 27 in 1752. Meanwhile, in the period 1748-52, 93 children were born to the old settlers and 114 to the new. GEOGRAPHY OF SETTLEMENT AT MID-CENTURY It is at this time, just over two centuries ago, that we can take our first truly comprehensive geographical view of settlement and agriculture on the island. As a basis for that geography we have detailed censuses for both 1752 and 1753 and a full report by one Colonel Franquet, a military engineer rather celebrated in his time, who was detailed from his main duties in restoring and strengthening Louisbourg to make a report on the defences (mostly prospective or possible) and economy of the island. We also are aided substantially by the evidence discovered, just over a decade later, by Captain Samuel Holland's first British survey.15 Franquet's Report Franquet's elaborate report of 1751 outlined the conditions and prospects of the island and made recommendations for its future development.16 After inspecting Port La Joie and planning a fort and replacements of its flimsy buildings he

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went up the Northeast River by boat and commented on the small clearings here and there on its banks "with the log houses of the settler rising among the stumps of the recently felled trees and the strong, if patchy, harvests waving over the yet unlevelled and unfenced fields."17 He describes two substantial establishments of Acadians resident for more than eighteen months and of more than usually elevated social status: those of the Sieurs Gauthier and Bugeau. Each occupied a farm of a nominal 160 acres; the former in particular had been active in clearing and planting. Continuing up river he reports a saw mill at Mill Brook and the settlements along the lower Pisquid before he reached the short but difficult portage to Savage Harbour from which a track led along the shore to St. Peters. The route of the portage crossed two tidal creeks and then wound in and out among the dunes and interspersed ponds which mark the terrain immediately adjacent to the north shore. This area had been severely burned nine years before, but the blueberry barrens which had replaced the old forest offered abundant refreshment to the travellers. The settlement of St. Peters, largely of the "old" (non-Acadian) settlers, had spread out for some miles and the party passed through many enclosed fields before they reached its centre, where the large and solidly built church of St. Peter dominated a cluster of fishermen's houses, stores and warehouses. Despite the amount of grain grown there was no mill. The extensive grants of farm land had resulted in too great a dispersal of the farmsteads, but had not determined the ownership of the dunes, the hay cut from which was so important in wintering stock that there was constant quarreling about it. On his return from St. Peters to the Northeast River Franquet took time to roughly survey a new and shorter road for the portage. On his arrival once more at Port La Joie he proceeded to prepare a chart of soundings of the harbour. Shortly thereafter he sailed to the Three Rivers area (the site of the defunct De Roma settlement) and was able to conclude that in every condition of tide its harbour, within the heads of the two islands which guard it, was safe to ships of the heaviest tonnage. It received the accolade, which one finds attached to so many good large harbours explored by the British or French in the eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries, that it would "afford good anchorage to the entire navy of the nation." The failure of Acadians to settle there (Franquet and his men saw not a soul) was the result of the continued force of the allodial rights granted to De Roma's company; as Caven has it "the immigrant wisely preferred the Crown to a Lord Superior."18 The Census of De la Roque The census of the Sieur de la Roque in the year following Franquet's visit (1752)19 counted 2,223 people of whom more than half had arrived since the autumn of 1748 when French control had been restored. The distribution of these is shown as well as may be on the accompanying map, Figure 15. In 1752 the main nodes of settlement were still the harbour of Port La Joie, the banks

FIG. 15

FIG. 16

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of the Rivière du Nord-Est and the entrance to the Anse de St. Pierre (Figure 2).20 The only area of substantial settlement already abandoned was that of De Roma at Three Rivers, but that loss was balanced by a small settlement at Havre (Rivière) de Fortune established by refugees during the British forays of the 1740's. A tiny settlement which had existed for some time at Surveyor's Inlet, just west of East Point on the north shore, is still recorded as occupied, but whether fishermen still maintained themselves at the wonderfully named TrancheMontagne (the bully), which was to revert, in name, to the pedestrian "South Lake" of the English, is uncertain. It is thought to have been abandoned shortly thereafter. By far the most extensive new settlement in an area untouched seventeen years before had taken place in present Pownal, Orwell and Pinette bays, especially on both sides of the first cape (Pointe à Prime) which has, so absurdly, become "Prim Point" of today. Inside the entrance to the triple-estuary inner harbour of Port La Joie, settlement had spread along the north and west rivers as well as increasing its density along the largest channel to the northeast. Perhaps as many as a hundred people were settled in different coves along the south coast between Hillsborough and Bedeque bays, especially near the two inlets named in Figure 2 (that is, Rivière aux Crapauds and Rivière des Blonds). Settlement on the south coast ended at Bedeque, probably on the lower reaches of the present Dunk River; on the north, it had increased little between Savage Harbour and Malpeque Bay (a family or two around Covehead-Etang des Berges—and RusticoQuiquibougat—bays, perhaps). How well the Malpeque settlement is shown, in local distribution, is uncertain; Holland's description of it in the next decade suggests a greater concentration on the western side, but this may have been, indeed probably was, a collecting centre for French who escaped the original round-up for deportation. The French settlement showed no tendency anywhere to extend more than one-farm deep from tidewater. This did not result from the settlers' concern with fishing; except for the St. Peters area and other north shore spots the fishery was of little importance, for these people were Acadians and bred-in-the-bone farmers. Perhaps if extensive tidal marshes had been available (as along the Annapolis or Cornwallis rivers in Acadia), they would have moved a mile or two inland, but here they kept closer to the waterside. The maps could be misleading in this respect for, in scale, they suggest deeper settlement back from the shores; this, however, is a matter of cartographic licence in an attempt to convey an impression of relative distribution. It was this almost strictly waterside location which eliminated the need for roads, as it very largely had done in New France along the St. Lawrence and its tributaries. The settlers could, and did, move by canoe in summer and along the same lines on foot or with snowshoes in winter. Franquet had reported only one "road" in 1751 (the rather crude trail cut from the head of navigation on the Northeast River to St. Peters), although he had a very interesting suggestion for

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a network of roads in the east which has been somewhat approximated in present roads and railroad patterns. It was decades after Franquet's time, however, before there were to be roads worthy of the name. The census of 1752 was recorded in amazing detail. Every person is described by his or her full name, together with the professed occupation of the heads of families, ages, detail of amount of land held, crops sown, numbers of livestock and fowl, and so forth. Some of the detail on one of the smaller and newer settlements (Rivière des Blonds, now Tryon) will indicate the type of information it provided. There were five families, all natives of Acadia. They were settled on both sides of the river about three miles inside its entrance. The men were all "ploughmen" or farmers. Three of the families had been on the island twenty-one months and two of them had been there a year when the census was taken in the late summer. The smallest family consisted of a man aged 25, his wife 30, and three daughters, aged 15 years (presumably a step-daughter!), 20 months and 5 months. They had two cows, two calves, three pigs and one hen and had cleared land for sowing two bushels of grain in the spring of 1752. The largest family included parents, both 45 years of age, and eight children ranging from 19 months to 19 years. This family had one ox, one bull, two cows, two heifers, four pigs and four fowls. Their clearing for planting in 1753 was calculated to allow the sowing of six bushels. The land had been granted verbally to them by the commandant of the island, De Bonnaventure. The precise extent of their nominal holdings was uncertain and in any event of no practical importance. The chief advantages of the area were the grasses along the river which could be cut for hay or grazed directly by their animals. On what they could obtain by hunting and fishing and the produce of the animals, as well as by whatever little they had brought from the mainland, they lived. Their homes, we must suppose, were cabins of horizontally laid logs. In contrast we may note the details about a long-established family. The man, 45 years old and a native of Acadia, had been on the island for twenty-eight years, although how long in the most heavily settled area along the Northeast River, where he was counted, is not recorded. His wife was 33 years of age, also a native of Acadia, and they had seven sons and one daughter ranging in age from 4 months to 16 years. They had four oxen, four cows, three heifers, two bulls, four sows, two pigs and three fowls. They also had a corn mill of coarse stone. Their holdings on the north bank of the river were four arpents (11% chains) in frontage by forty arpents (115 chains) in depth. As we shall see this ten-to-one dimension was also to remain a standard for British settlement on the island. In 1752 they had sown ten bushels of wheat and two of peas and had prepared land sufficient for the sowing of sixteen bushels more. In all, the inhabitants were recorded by De la Roque as having, in round figures, 100 horses, 800 oxen, 1,300 other cattle, 1,200 sheep, 1,300 pigs, 2,300 fowl, 300 geese, 100 turkeys and 12 ducks. A breakdown of these for the 34 families or 182 persons who lived on the north bank of the Northeast River is

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interesting. They had 79 oxen, 21 bulls, 73 cows, 20 heifers and 28 calves or 221 head of cattle in all. Of 11 horses, 3 were mares; of 96 sheep, 66 were ewes. There were 44 sows and 86 other pigs; there were 355 fowl, 20 geese, 7 turkeys and no ducks. In most of these things this particular area exceeded the average; except for St. Peters, it was the longest settled. For the population as a whole there was, approximately, one large beast, one sheep or pig and one fowl per person. It seems probable that over 1,000 acres had been cleared, but that only between 600 and 700 acres had been sown with some 1,500 bushels of wheat, 180 of peas, 130 of oats and a very little rye, barley and buckwheat. Again a much higher average was sown along the Northeast River, in relation to the population, than elsewhere. The failure to sow all the cleared area is attributed to lack of seed, a lack which is to be blamed not only on administrative neglect but also on three bad crop years from 1749 to 1751. At least De la Roque gave that excuse for the Malpeque area, where the settlers were truly in a bad way from plagues (in successive years) of field mice, locusts and "scald" on the wheat. He insisted that it was a mistake to believe that the settlers who followed the fisheries neglected the cultivation of the soil. The prosperous conditions at St. Peters he took as proof to the contrary. Certainly the hinterland of St. Peters, the chief fishing harbour, was well cultivated and vied with the banks of the Northeast River as the best agricultural area of the island. De la Roque indicated that a road "practicable for carts which can cross from one bay to the other" existed across the Malpeque-Bedeque isthmus a "league" (about three miles) in length. So far as the record goes there were only four grist mills and two saw mills on the entire island. Whip sawing of boards, of course, could easily replace the saw mills, but the paucity of grist mills suggests the considerable use of wheat with peas in the form of porridge. A great many gardens are recorded in the census and described elsewhere suggesting the use of many vegetables in the diet. Fish in some quantity were also available although one is at a loss to imagine what the new immigrants from Acadia would have used for barter to obtain them. Since the inhabitants of the island owned only 4 schooners (of 15 to 50 tons), 4 "batteaux," 15 fishing boats (dories?) and 11 small boats or canoes, it is clear that the Acadians can have done little fishing themselves. The location of the population cannot be explained in terms of vegetation since the settlers lumbered only for fuel, immediate housing needs and to clear land; or generally in terms of soil since some of the best soil areas were neglected; and opportunities for profitable fishing existed only along the north shore. Perhaps our best clue is in the habits exhibited by both Acadians in their mainland homes and the Canadians in New France. They did not like to pioneer as isolated individual family groups but rather to expand slowly with the frontier, always within reach of friends behind. The more isolated settlements at Bedeque, Cape Traverse, Tryon, and Crapaud may seem to belie this generalization for

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they were in areas of good soil. But they were also in areas closest to La Baie Verte which was the sole departure point on the mainland for He St. Jean, prior to 1755, when Tatamagouche also became important. After Franquet had reported to the Comte de Raymond, commandant at Louisbourg in 1751, the latter sent out instructions to his deputy, De Bonnaventure, chief officer of France on the island.21 He deprecated the lack of villages: La Joie had only eight families and St. Peters had few of the ordinary characteristics of a village since it merged so gradually with the scattered farming settlement about it. To facilitate communication and encourage other settlement the "roads" from Port La Joie to Three Rivers and from the latter to St. Peters (actually blazed foot-trails long since grown over) were ordered to be cleared for use by horsemen. The effect of the orders, if any, is hard to see, but settlement continued to grow as the tide from Acadia once more began to flow. The census of 175322 showed an increase of 418 people, the distributions of the increase being shown in Figure 16. Since oxen increased by only 24, other cattle by 238, horses by 54, pigs by 356 and sheep by 210, the increase of livestock was hardly in proportion to population; it was increasingly difficult to bring animals across the strait, for the movement had become almost a smuggling operation. The crops had been stepped up substantially however. The 2,755 bushels of wheat sown were almost double those of the previous year; sowing of peas and oats also more than doubled increasing, respectively, from 181 bushels to 420 and from 129 to 435. Yet the desperate need for food had led the people, hoping for government seed which did not materialize, to prepare for crops almost three times as much land as there was seed to supply. By the spring of 1754, through careful hoarding, the amount seeded rose to almost 8,000 bushels of wheat and nearly 1,000 of peas. Problems of Existence It must not be forgotten that, in the minds of the French in the New World, let alone to the world at large, He St. Jean continued to be of very minor interest. It was a dependency of Ile Royale; "its government and its interests were subordinated to those of the fortress of Louisburg."23 The largest military garrison at Port La Joie never exceeded 100; usually it was half that, or even less. The principal theme in the years from the census of 1753 to the final calamity of 1758 was that of administrative neglect. In addition to those who had attained some satisfactory standard of subsistence, there were constantly up to 2,000 souls entirely dependent on the King's bounty to be provided from stores which rarely had a two-month margin on hand. Politically insecure, the people who held land were also uncertain of the validity of their tenure. To these problems must be added a general and continuing dissatisfaction with the island as a farming region. It has been pointed out that most of the Acadians were unused to forest clearing; yet on the island the very limited extent of tidal marshes soon forced them to cut and burn the heavy timber. Not only did

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they find this distasteful, but it undoubtedly led directly to the large number of serious and extensive fires by which the early eighteenth-century forest was substantially altered, in the north-centre and northeast at least, before the beginning of the British period. The most notable and widespread fires were those of 1724, 1736 and 1742. Sometimes, as illustrated by the movement of the East Point settlement from South Lake to Surveyor's Inlet, the fire so devastated an area that the settlers were forced to abandon it; and after a succession of fires the established settlements often had to haul even their firewood from a considerable distance. The name of Souris, one of the largest villages of Kings County today, commemorates the plagues of field mice which were, perhaps, even more devastating than the fires. A succession of snowy winters which protected the mice from their natural predators (fox, marten, hawk, owl, and crow, as well as the cats and dogs of the Acadians) was supposed by the Acadians to have been the cause of the sudden expansion of their numbers. More sophisticated study of fluctuations in rodent populations of many kinds in recent years might make us more cautious in assigning causes, but, at least in 1724, 1728, 1738 and 1749 their depredations were so widespread as indeed to suggest unusually high numbers. The last visitation was confined to a still largely wooded area around Malpeque. By midcentury fire and settlement apparently had created poor ecological conditions for the mice in the centre and east. It was a great misfortune for the Acadians that they did not have the potato among their domesticated crops. With codfish, the potato was to be a faminedefence, and a basic food staple which, perhaps more than any other plant or animal, guaranteed the success of British settlement against what, as we shall see in subsequent chapters, seemed all but insuperable odds. For the soils and climate of the island the Solatium potato might well have been especially designed. Yet, although there are references to both turnips and cabbages, there are none to the potato. There are few instances in the history of pioneer settlement where cultural ignorance of, or indifference to, one uniquely suitable plant (which easily could have been introduced) did so much to hamper the development of satisfactory practices of land use. Although oats, barley, and rye were grown, and oats has always constituted the most profitable grain crop of the island in terms of food production per acre, the Acadians showed a strong cultural bias toward their traditional wheat and peas. In the detailed census of 1752 these were the "seeds" sown everywhere, and concentration on wheat, together with the ubiquitous patches of field peas, was to mark the carry-over settlements of Acadians on the island throughout much of the next century and a half. As a result, wheaten bread or porridge and "soupe-aux-pois" were dietary staples; thin rations of salted beef, pork, mutton, fowl, and a considerable variety of herbs and garden vegetables as well as fish and game filled out the diet; hunting was, however, restricted by shortage of guns, powder and shot, and fishing was forbidden after 1749 as, possibly, was the

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killing of cattle for beef in the attempt to increase agricultural production for the support of Louisbourg. Sheep and pigs as, probably, very largely the cattle too, foraged for themselves in the meadows and woods. Perhaps the most highly regarded food treats were imported West Indian molasses (a staple when available) and maple syrup and sugar easily made each spring. Clothing needs were met by a coarse cloth made from the wool of their own sheep and whatever linen they could obtain from the stores at Louisbourg (they grew little or no flax). No doubt they made far wider use of furs and animal pelts in general than is indicated in the records. In the crowded years of the emigres of the early 1750's, however, the population appears to have been as scantily clad as it was ill-fed.

THE END OF ILE ST. JEAN This was He St. Jean two centuries ago. In 1754 and 1755 its population continued to increase, now at a rate once more exceeding that of the expansion of agricultural production. In 1755 it reached approximately 3,000 and new settlements appeared on the map. That was the year that saw settlement re-established in the Three Rivers area. With the expulsion of Acadians from the Fundy lands no longer a fear but a fact, the flood increased, and the island looked more and more like a refugee settlement and less and less like an agricultural colony; indeed at times there were more leaving for Miramichi and Quebec than were arriving from across the strait. Total numbers may have reached 5,000 or more. Then came open warfare in 1756, the second and last fall of Louisbourg in 1758, and the despatch of 500 men under Lord Rollo, by General Amherst, to garrison the island, round up and deport the inhabitants and have the settlements in the different parts of the island absolutely destroyed. Rollo reported shortly after his arrival that he thought there were about 5,000 people with about 150 Indians, mostly in the north and west, for there had been a general exodus toward Malpeque and the empty regions beyond as well as into the forests.24 His figures were, no doubt intentionally, round and, if anything, large.25 In 1758, the Acadians were an ailing, starving, completely dispirited folk. By early November over 2,200 had been rounded up and embarked and before the end of the year the total number of evacuees may have reached 3,500. Rather desultory efforts to gather in the rest were made, but it was known that "one whole parish" (presumably that at Malpeque) was left behind. A series of rough censuses and estimates in the next decade between 1764 and 1768 as the British took inventoryof the island, awarded to them with most of French North America in 1763, listed such totals of French (hereafter to be called "Acadians" as almost all of them certainly were) as "upward of 300," "30 families," or "207" as the numbers remaining.26

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So ended the French régime. In 1763 Ile St. Jean became, officially, the British Island of St. John. For thirty-five years the French settlers had widely tested the fisheries, the timber, and the soil from East Point to the Malpeque-Bedeque isthmus, cleared hundreds of acres of woodland, and had been responsible for the accidental burning of many thousand more acres. They had built several hundred houses, a dozen saw and grist mills, and at least two churches as well as the inadequate fortifications at Port La Joie. They had left a nucleus of French population which has risen to some 15,000, or nearly one-sixth of the total population, today. They left, too, some euphonious names on the map and a basic stock of animals, seeds, fruit-seedlings, and weeds for the blessings and curses of the settlers of the next two centuries. There is a quiet, and not entirely unmerited, confidence on the part of the Acadians on Prince Edward Island, matching that of their French-speaking compatriots in other parts of Canada with regard to the national scene, that given time, this Ile-du-Prince-Edouard, as they now call it, will be once more a predominantly Acadian land.

IV The Island of St. John: Eighteenth Centuryv Second Half SETTLEMENT PLANS AND SURVEYS THE BRITISH LEGALLY TOOK POSSESSION OF THE ISLAND OF ST. JOHN, which they believed to have great potentialities,1 in 1763. Before 1760 it had been nearly emptied of its Acadian population and many enterprising and imaginative British citizens, imbued with varying degrees of national and personal interest, began to conceive plans for its resettlement. These plans resulted in a series of proposals to its effective governing body, the Commissioners for Trade and Plantations,2 some of which were, in the nicest sense of the word, wonderful. Particularly deserving of that description was the feudal fantasy of the Earl of Egmont which would have made of the Island of St. John a museum of mediaeval society, economy and politics.3 Egmont had become First Lord of the Admiralty in the year of peace, 1763. In all he made three proposals for the settlement of the island with himself as lord paramount. He assumed an area of two million acres which he proposed dividing into fifty hundreds or baronies of 40,000 acres each and forty of these, in turn, into twenty manors of 2,000 acres apiece, the latter to be further subdivided into freeholds. His fifty "barons" were to be chosen from those associated with his petition; the scheme provided for over 1,200 gentleman's holdings and there were distinguished names of admirals, generals and civilian knights (Saunders, Rodney, Monckton, Carleton) among his associates. That his petitions were denied (he haughtily refused a grant of five townships, or 100,000 acres, in the scheme finally adopted) should not obscure the probability that they influenced the government in adopting the system, only slightly less preposterous, which was actually instituted. The post-war years found England heavily populated with unemployed military and naval men and seekers of many kinds of offices or favours who were persistent in asking for land in any of the new or old lands of the empire. There were so many petitioners for land in St. John's Island that the Board of Commissioners was directed by the Privy Council to make its own selection of the worthiest names on the list, after lengthy hearings and after reference to the Privy Council, and, having divided the island into some three counties of five parishes each (and each parish into five lots or townships), to award the assumed million and a half acres to the chosen group by a lottery. 42

F I G . 17 (By courtesy of the Trustιes of the British

Musιum)

FI G. re

ISLAND OF ST. JOHN

45

Such a plan, of course, had to wait upon a land survey which the French had lacked the resources and interest to make; available information was far from precise (Figure 17). With its legal attachment to the British Crown, the government of the island was placed under that of Nova Scotia and, with Nova Scotia,4 it was chosen, in 1764, as one of the first areas to be surveyed under the new and comprehensive plan of survey established for a large part of British North America north of the Potomac River and east of the Quebec Proclamation Line. Captain Samuel Holland5 and his assistants, appointed to make the survey, landed at Fort Amherst (the temporary British headquarters on the site of old Fort La Joie west of the harbour entrance) in October, 1764. He chose a cove, some two miles south and just outside the harbour entrance, as his own headquarters, assembled a survey party of thirty-one (including Acadian guides) and began the survey in the snow, using dogsleds, on February 15, 1765. The party was divided into four groups. Although they suffered from frost bite, it may be that winter had advantages over summer when, Holland reports, "all Rivers and Creeks were surveyed as far as a boat or canoe would go, or the chainmen penetrate, but sometimes we were obliged to stop, by inaccessible woods and swamps."6 The survey was completed by 1766, perhaps in August of 1765. The result is seen in Figure 18. Taking magnetic north of the time (Declination 15° 30' west, approximately) as a cardinal direction to avoid difficulties in compass correction for his inexperienced crew, Holland laid out the land in 66 townships (usually called "lots") of approximately 20,000 acres each, one of a presumed 6,000 acres, and three town sites with attached "royalties" to provide pasture and garden plots for the townsfolk. Although from the beginning many of the roads did not follow the rectangular grid of the survey, and although many farm boundaries of later years did not conform to it, nevertheless most subsequent roads and property lines have been orientated to the basic survey directions of 1764-6, and the grain of that survey, 15%° off true north, is deeply impressed on the cultural geography of the island to this day. Holland made a good approximation to the 20,000-acre unit area for each lot, but even he realized that some lots were more and the two truly "interior" lots (66 and 67) had acreages at which he could only guess. The colonial capital, Charlottetown, was given 7,300 acres for town and royalty; the two other county towns together with their royalties were planned at 4,000 acres each. A strip 500 feet back from high water (of the open sea or bay) all around the island was reserved for the fisheries, and in each lot a site for a church and glebe lands to support a clergyman were to be set aside.7 Later surveys give official estimates of the area of the three counties and the island as a whole; as it turned out Prince County had some 500,000 acres and Queens 490,000, but Kings with only 410,000 acres fell short of the other two in area by nearly 20 per cent.8 Nowhere is there an accurate survey of the area of the individual lots; for a century and a half, at least, colonial, provincial and

46

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federal governments have been collecting statistics for areal units at the size of which they often had not even good guesses. By calculation of areas planimetrically from the inch-to-a-mile topographic sheets, made in turn from air photos, the lots appear to vary in size (even if we ignore Lot 66 with its 5,800 acres) from just over 16,000 to nearly 27,000 acres. Less than half fall within the range of 5 per cent either way from the area intended (that is, between 19 and 21,000). Eleven are over 23,000 acres in size and five are less than 18,000. These areas include the 500-foot sea-margin strip which was not included in Holland's estimates. The total area was 1,400,000 acres or 2,184 square miles.9 Holland's survey plats (made, incidentally, at a scale of 1/1,667 which was absurdly large in relation to the detail they contained) were accompanied by a long letter, dated October 5, 1765, and a Report in which he discussed the geology, land forms, climate, vegetation and fauna in some detail; the different harbours and sites proposed for the three towns; and the priority in which he would rate the townships for agricultural, lumbering and fishing activities.10 His rating of the lands is interpreted cartographically in Figure 19. This differentiation was undoubtedly a factor in determining the rate at which quit-rents were to be assessed for the different lots.11 These differences are shown in Figure 20. It will be of interest to compare these with twentieth-century surveys (Figure 10). The annual rents were set at what must have seemed to their lordships a most reasonable scale of six, four and two shillings per hundred acres; in terms of subsequent experience they were, in fact, extremely high. These two maps illustrate some of the earliest North American attempts to differentiate land carefully, in terms of economic potential, prior to settlement. Holland's letter of 1765 and his Report add considerably to the knowledge of the island gained from the reports of Franquet and De la Roque of ten or fifteen years before and bring us somewhat up to date on the geography of settlement. He endeavoured to learn as much from the previous Acadian experience as he could and discussed the probable success of standard crops and vegetables on this basis. He gave close attention to two kinds of alteration of the forest which occurred during the thirty-eight years of French occupation. The extensive burning (especially between Tracadie Bay—he had named it Bedford—and East Point) he attributed to a fire of twenty-six years before.12 The clearing which he estimated in his detailed report by lots (see Figure 21) was in places still in grass, but in general was filling in with small wood and scrub. Very few of the houses (see Figure 22 for a detailed regional inventory) would, in his opinion, prove of much value to potential settlers. In his extensive account of the forests, game and fish there is little of special interest. He did explain clearly his reasons for siting the county towns in what he conceived to be the best harbour areas: the central one, Charlottetown, in "Port Joy" harbour; the western one, Princetown, near the entrance to Malpeque (his Richmond) Bay; and the eastern one, Georgetown, on Cardigan Point north across the Brudenell River from the site of De Roma's establishment, and in the

FIG. 19

FIG.20

48

THREE CENTURIES AND THE ISLAND

heart of the Three Rivers area. He realized that only the second was conveniently situated for the fishing industry, which was largely concentrated on the gulf shore as the French had found.13 He implied that much of the settlement must be by people "whose business is the cultivation of lands only."14 As a Dutchman, Holland was particularly impressed with the problems posed by the nature of the winter. He reported a rapid freeze-up after mid-December and a great depth of snow which often lay untü May, although a break-up of the ice might be expected in April. For this period the Acadians returned to their little huts in the woods for protection, for easy access to fuel and to live on game and fish dried during the summer. He concluded that it would be difficult to take care of stock through a season of such great length and severity as, indeed, it proved to be. But, more particularly, he felt that the shortness of the open season would mean that fishing and farming could not be mixed, and that the clearing of agricultural land would be slow. There are other accounts of this period, but none so complete and reliable as Holland's. A somewhat doubtful report by one Gamaliel Smethurst15 includes his story of seeing, when conducting a fishery on the island in 1762 and 1763, upward of two hundred white pine stumps which were more than two feet in diameter, two and a half feet above the ground, in the Three Rivers area. This indicated a possible interest in masts although the limited white pine on the island would have been preferred timber for a wide variety of purposes. Smethurst claimed to have had two storehouses on the island; in addition to his fishery he said he had traded with the Acadians.16 DISPOSAL OF THE LAND The Lottery How much attention the Board of Trade and Plantations paid to Holland's ratings of the different lots in their assignments, or what attention the holders or potential purchasers gave to these ratings later, we do not know. With the completion of the survey the Commissioners were directed to get on with the selection of names of grantees and the assignment of the lots to those selected. From the records of the Commissioners and the Privy Council, it is evident that pains were taken to examine the general suitability of the petitioners and the validity of their claims, although the possibility remains that many got on the ballot through various kinds of personal influence, by no means unlikely in the political climate of the time.17 Two indefatigable groups of petitioners who had been conducting trading and fishing enterprises on the island during the period of the survey were rewarded with specific lots (Lot 40 jointly to George Spence, John Mills and George Burns, and Lot 59 jointly to Hutchison Mure, Robert Cathcart and David Higgins). Township 66 was reserved for the Crown. The names of the other applicants

FIG. 21

FIG. 22

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THREE CENTURIES AND THE ISLAND

were then drawn in turn, the lots being assigned in running numbers as the names were drawn. A list of the original grantees is given in Appendix B together with some of the changes which had occurred before 1810. Unfortunately it will be found to disagree with most previously published lists; hardly surprising since no two of these agree.18 Moreover the spelling of individual names varies widely with the different lists. The confusion in identification of the original grantees may not seem a very important item in the reconstruction of the changing geography of the island in the late eighteenth century. But the reason for that confusion is of very great significance to the speed of change in patterns of settlement and land use. Many of the original grantees disposed of their rights as rapidly as they could find a buyer; their interest in the lands was as impersonal as the average modern stockholder's in a major corporation. Evidently there was little general concern with settling the land or exploiting it—only with the hope that others would, and that there might be some increment of value as a result. Within eight years the ownership of fully one-fourth of the lots had apparently changed hands, in whole or in part.19 The conditions of the grants, which were to be bones of active contention between the settlers and the Imperial Government for over a century, were established on recommendations of the Board to the Privy Council on July 8, 1767, before the lottery took place. These conditions were, in effect, a restatement of the original plans as approved on May 9, 1764.20 The grantees undertook: (1) to pay the quit-rents as assessed in the Imperial Orders in Council (see Figure 18); (2) to settle the land within ten years at the rate of one person for every 200 acres (that is, 100 persons per lot), and to settle one-third of it at this rate within four years; and (3) to introduce as settlers only Protestants who were not to be from any of His Majesty's dominions unless they were from America and had resided in that country for at least two years.21 Yet in 1779, a dozen years after the lottery, not only had most of the "proprietors," as the grantees were by this time known, quietly ignored the payment of quit-rents, but in 49 of the 67 lots there was not a single settler (Figure 23). After still another eighteen years the Legislative Assembly drew attention to the fact that, even then, in 1797, twenty-three lots still remained completely uninhabited and twelve others had a total of only thirty-six families (Figure 24). A similar summary was made for 1799 22 By the end Of the century most of the lots had changed ownership at least once, continuing the trend of the first few years. The Proprietary System We are concerned here with two things: first, to understand the background of the proprietary system of landholding which was to be a major influence in the history of agricultural settlement and land use until 1875 and, second, to throw light on the actual patterns of settlement and land use established in the late eighteenth century. The details are complex but the outline is fairly clear.

ISLAND OF ST. JOHN

51

In the first place the proprietors petitioned for and received a separation of the government of the island from that of Nova Scotia.23 An integral condition of this change was that the expenses of government would be paid from the proceeds of the quit-rents, but an accommodation was made that only onehalf of the quit-rents should become due on May 1, 1769 and that the other half should be deferred for twenty years. These arrangements as to quit-rents were largely ignored as were virtually all the later arrangements and accommodations which were made from time to time. In the face of this evasion of financial responsibilities, even if the other conditions of the grants had not also been generally ignored, it seems scarcely credible that the perennial attempts by the residents of the island to force an alternative on the proprietors of meeting the conditions, or of facing escheat of the grants, should all have failed at one or another of the levels of the local governor, the Board of Trade, or the Privy Council. But fail they did. Without recounting the involved minutiae of these unceasing, but uniformly abortive, protests, we may summarize the situation as it seemed to Lord Durham over half a century later:24 Castle of St. Lewis, Quebec 8 October 1838

MY LORD, I have had the honour to receive your Lordship's dispatch of the 5th ultimo, No. 103, whereby you desire that I will express to you my judgment on the whole subject of escheat in the island of Prince Edward. . . . The information before me is now so ample that upon no matter of fact can I entertain a doubt. Nearly the whole island was alienated by the crown in one day, in very large grants, chiefly to absentees, and upon conditions of settlement which have been wholly disregarded. The extreme improvidence, I might say the reckless profusion, which dictated these grants is obvious; the total neglect of the Government as to enforcing the conditions of the grants is not less so. The great bulk of the island is still possessed by absenteest who hold it as a sort of reversionary interest, which requires no present attention, but may become valuable some day or other through the growing wants of the inhabitants. But in the mean time, the inhabitants of the island are subjected to the greatest inconvenience, nay, to the most serious injury, from the state of property in land. The absent proprietors neither improve the land, nor will let others improve it. They retain the land, and keep it in a state of wilderness. [Italics mine; see footnote.] Your Lordship can scarcely conceive the degree of injury inflicted on a new settlement, by being hemmed in by wilderness land, which has been placed out of the control of Government, and is entirely neglected by its absent proprietors. This evil pervades British North America [but]. . . . In Prince Edward Island [it] . . . has attained its maximum. . . . Some influence—it cannot be that equity or reason—has steadily counteracted the measures of the Colonial Legislature. I cannot imagine that it is any other influence than that of the absentee proprietors, resident in England, and in saying so I do but express the universal opinion of the colony. . . . Lord Glenelg

I am etc.

DURHAM

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We may admit the possibility of excuses for the proprietors' failures in many respects, but the results, so trenchantly described by Durham, are not at issue. In a later period the difficulties were to be compounded by consolidation of separate holdings under individual proprietors. When the estate of Sir Samuel Cunard,25 the shipping magnate, sold its holdings of 212,885 acres to the colonial government in 1866, they had only slightly shrunk from the sixteen full townships and smaller sections of five others, roughly one-fifth of the total area of the island, which Cunard once had held. Lord Selkirk was to hold, at a maximum, the equivalent of seven full townships scattered over nine. When the Worrell estate was purchased by the government in 1854, it comprised the whole parish of St. Patrick in Kings County, five full townships: Lots 38, 39, 40, 41 and 42 (Figure 46). These are the most spectacular examples of agglomeration, and in general they apply only to the nineteenth century; it is doubtful that any one proprietor had accumulated as many as five townships before 1800. Land settlement in the periodU770-1800 had, therefore, to take place on lands owned by upward of fifty proprietors, most of whom were non-resident, unfamiliar with local conditions, and profoundly uninterested in anything but protecting their capital. It cannot be said that the grantees were undeserving of the lands awarded them; moreover, by 1800 most of the proprietors may have been subsequent purchasers. It may be futile or worse to attempt to assign blame. But there is no serious argument that the conditions were not as described. THE SETTLERS COME Preparations and Beginnings Yet, by various methods and at various times, hundreds of settlers did come to the island in this thirty-year period. Indeed, settlement began even before the establishment of a government separate from that of Nova Scotia.26 In May, 1768, Lieutenant-Governor Frahcklin of that colony had directed Charles Morris, Chief Surveyor of Nova Scotia, to proceed to the island, still part of his jurisdiction, to set up some sort of government, to decide on the particular site of the capital city and lay it out, and to do the same for Georgetown and Princetown following the general regulations laid down after Holland's Survey and, in part, suggested by him. The administrative officer under Francklin was to be Isaac Deschamps, actually designated as Justice of the Court of Common Pleas. A dispatch from Francklin to Lord Hillsborough, of July 31, 1768,27 summarizes intelligence received by him from Morris and Deschamps, by then two months or more on the island (Figure 25). There were twelve non-Acadian heads of families scattered over six townships, nine of whom owned fishing vessels (schooners, sloops or shallops) and seven of whom had made arrangements with the grantees of the lands whose margins they occupied. Five were present "on

FIG. 23

F î G . 24

FIG. 25

FIG. 26

ISLAND OF ST. JOHN

55

sufferance" (that is, they were squatters). There were 24 men in all in this group, 15 women and 29 children (a total of 68). The Acadians numbered 203, all but five settled in the four major fishing inlets of the north coast: St. Peters (71), Rustico (25), Tracadie (57), and Malpeque (45). The other five were located at "Bay Fortune," that is, on the Fortune River on the east coast. The Acadians had an indeterminate number of fishing vessels (8 are listed, and none at St. Peters), but too few to keep them all occupied in fishing, one would suppose. Yet their location, all in old Acadian centres of settlement, suggests that it was by the fishery they subsisted. There is no clear evidence that there was any agriculture. When Patterson, the new head of the separate government, finally arrived on the island in 1770 "there were not above 150 families thereon, and only five proprietors,"28 certainly less than 1,000 persons. If there were any "roads," they were overgrown Acadian tracks badly in need of clearing and grading. Governor Patterson, in various letters in the early years of his tenure, gives a mixture of opinion and observation about the island which is revealing and obscuring in turn. He speaks poorly of the forest near Charlottetown except for firewood, but avers that there are useful oaks and pines elsewhere. He describes a plague of mice reminiscent of the earlier French settlement. The French inhabitants had not raised a bushel of grain, however, being mostly employed in the fishery by a few British subjects. Almost immediately Patterson pressed for adequate roads to Georgetown, St. Peters and Princetown and eventually obtained them. Some sort of road existed to Princetown as early as 1771. Not until that year does he specifically mention crops. He recounts his own success and that of others with Indian corn, oats (he planted the "Polish kind" assuming the island summers to be more like those of Poland than of England), barley, potatoes (the first record of them on the island and one of phenomenal success), and garden stuff. He thought wheat had not had a fair trial.29 Progress before the American Revolution To give a clearer picture of the geography of early settlement the indications of Figure 26 are to be added to those of Figure 23 which differentiated the lots as to settlement in 1779. This new map tentatively locates some major introductions of people in the few years before the American Revolution.30 There is some reason to believe that the "Scots by Montgomery" shown for Lot 34 (and perhaps some for Lot 59 as well) may have come, in part, via landings at Princetown in 1771 and 1772. This settlement, in Lot 18, was accomplished by Robert Stewart, brother-in-law of the original grantee. By 1775 it was second in size only to that of the MacDonalds at Tracadie. By that year, too, Robert Clark had established settlements in Lot 21 (New London) which Thomas Curtis described.31 The settlers in Lot 28, presumably English, were reported by John Stewart32 to have begun to arrive immediately after the grant. This probably does not mean

56

THREE CENTURIES AND THE ISLAND

before 1770, but could not have been much later, for Stewart himself arrived on the island in 1775.33 DesBrisay, acting as Lieutenant-Governor under Patterson, had bought Lot 33, originally granted to Richard Warge (or Worge) and brought out nine families to it in October, 1771.34 Lots 38 and 39, for which nothing is shown on the map, were receiving some settlers in the period, probably chiefly from those brought out by other proprietors. Both lots were in an area of fairly active French settlement of the mid-fifties where the forest had been destroyed or changed by burning even more than by clearing.35 There was a little settlement on Lot 40, granted to Spence and Mills for a fishing and trading enterprise, but nothing in the way of organized immigration. To the south and east the picture is more clouded. Robert Stewart may have brought some immigrants to East Point (Lot 47) in 1775 although there is no indication of his having an interest in the lot that early. There were some "carry-over" Acadians in Lot 43 (and perhaps in Lot 56 as well). James Montgomery had added two-thirds of Lot 59 to his holdings36 which he had bought from the merchant grantees Mure (or Muir), Cathcart and Higgins, as well as the two islands, Panmure and Boughton, guarding the entrance to the Three Rivers embayment, and had brought in some settlers to its shores. There are other hints of settlement which are not very reliably documented. We have indications that some lots received settlers who thought poorly of the opportunities and moved on (in Lots 52, 57 and 58, for example). These were brought out by proprietors who apparently managed the affair poorly. In contrast there is some evidence that at least seventy persons arrived on their own in Malpeque in 1771,37 and many of these may have stayed. Harvey estimates that the population in 1775 did not exceed 1,300 of whom about 900 had arrived between 1770 and 1775.38 The quality of these settlers is nowhere well attested. The largest group by far were the Highlanders brought out by Montgomery and, especially, by the MacDonalds to the "Tracadie Estate" (Lots 35 and 36). The latter, more than 200, were from the British Isles, and they were not Protestants, thus abrogating two of the terms of the original grants. But the MacDonalds did bring settlers, poverty-stricken and unprepared for the new life though they were, and they imported livestock and personally watched over their tenants for the first two or three years.39 The immediate effect of the American Revolution was to deter settlement somewhat; certainly a privateering raid on Charlottetown and the abduction of the chief administrative officer of the island did little to set the minds of potential settlers at ease.40 The population was temporarily augmented, at different times, by some companies of provincial troops from New York and a Hessian regiment which rather inadvertently landed on the island in October, 1779, on its way to Quebec, and remained until the following June. Campbell says that "Not a few of the men were so favorably impressed with the island, that they returned to it from Germany, many years afterwards, and became industrious settlers."41

ISLAND OF ST. JOHN

57

The record of settlement is slight in the five-year period, 1775-80, during which the nominal governor, Patterson, was away and the administration fell in turn on the Attorney-General Callbeck (the unfortunate who was abducted by the rebel privateers) and on Thomas DesBrisay, the Lieutenant-Governor. Patterson instituted legal proceedings upon his return for the recovery of quit-rents which had been largely ignored by the proprietors. A series of judgments was obtained in the Supreme Court of the island and nine whole and five half townships were sold in 1781. This instituted a long struggle between the governor and the assembly on one side, and the proprietors on the other. In the end most of the 1781 sales were allowed to stand, but no further escheat actions were permitted by the home government.42 The Loyalists Patterson finally left the island, a figure of controversy, in 1787. Still in his time, however, came the beginning of Loyalist settlement, the numerical importance of which is still argued. In 1783 a number of proprietors made a halfhearted offer to these Tory refugees from the American Revolution of one-fourth of their lands (a total of 109,000 acres), "so clogged with conditions as to deter . . . rather than to encourage them to seek homes here."43 A few did come, although not as many as might be supposed from the vigorous protests of their descendants,44 which continued until the "Land Question" was finally settled by the passage of the Land Purchase Act, 1875, as a corollary of the confederation of the island into the Dominion of Canada. The locations of the Loyalist or Tory settlers are confused in the records with those of others, especially disbanded soldiers, settling in the island in the period 1783-90. Perhaps the best source is Stewart's survey of settlement in the vigesimal period, 1779-99, made at the turn of the century.45 Some lands were laid out for Loyalists on Lot 5, under the one-quarter concession deal, but they were not occupied. A few moved into Lots 16, 17, 19, 32 and 56 on the same arrangement. The chief settlement appears to have been on Lot 26 where they ". . . rendered themselves conspicuous by raising more wheat in proportion to their numbers than any other people on the Island."46 There are a number of other lots on which settlement commenced in 1784 or 1785 (25, 30, 47, 48, 50 and 65) and the first settlements occurred on Lots 54, 63 and 64 in 1788 with a possibility of Loyalists being involved in at least some of these. The probability remains that the Loyalists were concentrated chiefly in the area of the MalpequeBedeque isthmus (Lots 16, 17, 19, 25 and 26) with minor foci in Lot 65 and in Lot 50 along the upper reaches of Orwell Bay. We are poorly informed as to the localities of origin of the Loyalists. The Bedeque group is supposed to have had as its nucleus part of the famous Shelburne (Nova Scotia) settlement which was so short-lived there and those in Kings (presumably in one or all of Lots 47, 54, 63 and 64) are spoken of as "Rhode Islanders." The latter group had been chiefly claimed for Montague.

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By June 12, 1784, it is estimated that there were 380 Loyalists on the island (202 men and 178 women, children and slaves) and that another 120 came with their families by September 25 of that year. Many of them were transients and by 1786 Patterson reported that there were about 200 remaining.47 The numbers were probably underestimated, but the suggestion that American Loyalists formed from one-sixth to one-fifth of the population48 could only have been true, if ever, within a few years of their arrival. The names on the census of 1798 do not preclude the possibility that there were from 500 to 1,000 Loyalists, or their descendants, in a total recorded population of 4,300 odd at the end of the century; it does, however, seem unlikely that there were so many. CHANGES OF THE EIGHTIES AND NINETIES Stewart's survey of the 1779-99 settlement showed other advances in the twenty years which are reflected in Figures 23 and 24. Some settlement, mostly connected with the fishing, occurred on Lots 5 and 6 adjacent to Cascumpeque Bay. A few folk brought out to other townships had moved into bayside (Malpeque) lands on Lots 13 and 14, probably into old French areas as suggested on Holland's maps (Figures 21 and 22). Lot 20 had received settlers come on their own (although none of them are shown there in the census of 1798). Lots 21, 22 and 23 had made little progress, but Lot 24 with a considerable Acadian settlement (Figure 27) was, by 1799, one of the most populous on the island. Settlement began on one half of Lot 27 in 1790, adjacent to the still flourishing settlement begun very early on Lot 28. Lot 30 had been added to Chief Baron Montgomery's holdings, but only a token settlement had been made. It was isolated by an empty lot, 29, to the west and two very lightly occupied lots, 31 and 32, to the east. Despite its proximity to Charlottetown, and the early group of families brought out by DesBrisay (Figure 26), Lot 33 still contained few settlers other than the overflow trickle from Lots 34 (Montgomery's chief settlement and now one of the most densely settled on the island), 35 and 36 (the last two the well-settled Tracadie, or MacDonald, townships) to the east. Settlement continued to move strongly into Lots 37, 38, 39, and 40 with little help from the proprietors; Lots 41 and 42, entered only in 1793, were advancing rapidly. Lot 43 still had thriving nuclei of French in the south and Highlanders to the north. Lots 45 and 46 remained empty, but Lot 47 (East Point) was getting some settlers. Lots 48, 49 and 50, just east of Charlottetown, were, according to Stewart, "advancing," in "rapid progress," or in a "forward state"; the first and last had received their first settlers in 1784, and Lot 49 was entered in 1792. The more or less interior townships 51, 52, 53 and 66 were still quite empty, but a beginning had been made between 1784 and 1793 on numbers 54, 55 and 56. The tier of four townships in the southeastern sector of Queens County (57, 58, 60 and 62) was still empty despite the inviting old French

60

THREE CENTURIES AND THE ISLAND 49

clearings; but adjoining them to the east the four southernmost lots of Kings County (59, 61, 63 and 64) had each received some inhabitants.50 Lot 65, the peninsular township between East River and Hillsborough Bay, and the former site of forts La Joie and Amherst, began to receive settlers in 1784, but the large interior township of Queens County, Lot 67, was still unbroken forest. All of this is, admittedly, rather indefinite as regards total population. Lieutenant-Governor Fanning,51 who succeeded Patterson, estimated a population of only 500 families on the island in 1787, and the meagreness of the settlement of the southeast coast is revealed in an account of a coasting journey made by boat in that year from Charlottetown around Prim Point, Cape Bear and East Point to St. Peters.52 Two years later Bishop Inglis of Halifax, leader of the Established Church in the maritime colonies, made a visit to the island and made a very much larger estimate of the population at "between five and six thousand." This figure, almost certainly too high, was matched by another guess that one-third of the population, Acadians and Highland Scots, were Roman Catholics; an estimate almost as certainly well under the true proportions.53 In promoting the interests of Anglican churches and clergymen, of course, he had every reason to be expansive in the one figure and niggardly in the other. There was still no church or school on the island and Inglis had to conduct divine services in a private house. In the nineties we have records of a few arrivals of ships including at least 742 Scots in five vessels: the Jane (186), the Lucy (142) and the British Queen (90) in 1790; the Molly (174) and the Argyle (150) in 1791. Most of these settled in Lots 37, 38 and 39.54 THE CENSUS OF 1798 The first organized British census of the island was taken in April, 1798.55 How accurate it was is uncertain; it has been supposed to have missed a few people, but its total of 4,372 must have been little short of the fact. Its distribution is shown in Figure 25, with the Acadians, Highland Scots and "others" (chiefly English, Loyalists and Lowland Scots) located as well as they can be identified, by distinctive symbols. It largely bears out Stewart's data and he may well have used it although he does not so indicate. The chief concentrations of population are clearly in the Malpeque-Bedeque area and in the Hillsborough (Northeast) River-St. Peters area. These were also the chief areas of French concentration a half-century earlier. This degree of coincidence is to be referred partly to ease of access for both groups, and partly to the advantage for the British of relatively open lands on the old French burnings and clearings. These areas, especially Lot 18, Princetown and its royalty, and Lots 34 through 39 were also the principal areas of Scottish settlement and testify to the activity of Montgomery and the MacDonalds in particular. The settlement of Lots 37 through 39 was, as has been pointed out, secondary, that is, it involved settlers

ISLAND OF ST. JOHN

61

who had originally come to Lots 34, 35 and 36, but who had moved east to squat, rent on better terms, or to find easier or better land to farm. The "other" group indicated on the map included chiefly English names (with some Irish, Welsh or German) and, around Charlottetown, where they were chiefly concentrated, these must have been largely people come directly from England. The "other" groups in Lot 50 and in Prince County, however, contained many Loyalist families. The Acadians had become grouped in three nuclei: the first, in the Bay Fortune area of the east, existed because they had been left alone; the second on the shores of Rustico Bay was the result of the attraction of the fisheries and the initiative of English fishery entrepreneurs and the proprietor in Lot 24 of Queens County; and the third, to the west in the lots along the south shore of Malpeque Bay, represented a deliberate attempt at resettlement. In all, there were 669 Acadians, 1,814 Highland Scots, 310 other Scots and 1,579 others (mainly of ultimate English extraction).56 The Acadians began the new century with about 15 per cent of the total population, about the same proportion they still have a century and a half later. THE END OF THE CENTURY At this point, a half-century after the last geographic survey attempted, we may reconstruct another general view of the island, the features of its landscape and its chief economic activities. To that end another map, based chiefly on a map and other information in Stewart's 1806 book, is introduced (Figure 28); it tells us something of roads, buildings and mills, and should be compared with the population map of 1798 (Figure 27). Charlottetown Charlottetown was established between the Hillsborough and North Rivers to facilitate land communications instead of on the promontory west of the harbour entrance which had been the site of old Fort La Joie. Laid out by Morris in 1768, it was the only truly nucleated village on the island. It had perhaps 70 houses scattered about on lots of 80 by 160 feet.57 The major streets leading north (that is, 15%° off true north) from the water were, and still are, 100 feet wide; the original 80-foot width of the east-west streets was reduced to 40 feet; in wet weather the town had begun to seem all streets (and all mud) and this narrowing reduced the problem of street crossing in at least one direction. Each town lot had an accompanying 12-acre pasture lot in the royalty.58 These were gradually being sold and accumulated for farms, for the empty town lots provided ample pasture for townsmen's sheep, pigs and cows. At the foot of the village, wharves had been built out nearly 600 feet over the shallow tidal flats to the eight-fathom channel (the tidal range varied from nine feet at spring to four or five feet at neap), and there a major shipping depot was incubating.

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Transport and the Pattern of Settlement Charlottetown was not only the administrative centre but also the major commercial focus of all the settlements on or near the harbour and its rivers and for those along the north shore of Queens County as well. There were "roads," still largely tracks, to St. Peters and Malpeque Bays with some branches (see Figure 26), but transportation was by water where possible. In winter land movement was somewhat easier by snowshoe and sled, but isolated farmsteads, situated any distance from the sea, were truly lost in the forest. The first and only Charlottetown newspaper of the 1790's (the Royal Gazette and Miscellany of the Island of St. John) has a number of records of travellers or settlers losing their way and perishing going to or from "town" by land. Apart from the capital the settlement was, if not properly called "dispersed," at least, certainly, non-nucleated. Princetown, heavily settled as it was (Figure 27), was virtually a forgotten idea as a town and was never to have even the beginning of a village nucleus; Georgetown, which would have had many advantages over Charlottetown as a capital (easier access from the Strait of Canso and the main track of shipping, nearer to the best fisheries, a longer open season, etc.), had only three or four town sections built on and was never to amount to much as a village. Interestingly enough, Princetown and its royalty area had more than half as many people as Charlottetown and its royalty at this time; the conditions for nucleation were simply not present. New London, with its sixteen, one-storey log houses in 1776 was almost more of a village.59 Some few of the settlers lived in relatively open country for stretches back from St. Peters or Tracadie harbours especially (in the burned-over blocks), but most had carved a house lot out of the forest, used the trunks of the conifers for logs for cabins, and were engaged in a mixed and markedly subsistence kind of cropping-herding economy.60 Beginning in January, the settler, not very far from the shore or a tidal creek, would be bringing in hay cut and stacked near the salt marshes where it had grown, by sled; or he would be similarly hauling firewood, or timber for construction or for sale. Contemporary references suggest March as the preferred lumbering month. Such activities would continue as long as the snow lasted, often into April. An early thaw or a light snow in any winter would thus have transport disadvantages to outweigh an earlier start in plowing or sowing. Farming and Farm Life The crops, chiefly spring wheat, barley, oats, and potatoes with some turnips, rye, flax and peas, were sown from early May to early June.61 Here and there, there were experiments with maize or hops. By late July the hay harvest began and by mid-August the grain harvest was general. The long pleasant autumn allowed much fencing, clearing, threshing, hunting and fowling. By December the creeks were beginning to freeze over, however, and the animals to be herded into

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the rude sheds that generally served as stables. Most of the people, carrying on their home traditions, had not yet adopted the German, or "Franklin" stove, then becoming universal in the Canadas as it was in most central and northern American states, and heated their homes with fireplaces. When possible the settler had a small, active, hardy hack for riding along trails in summer and pulling sleds in winter. He also tried to keep one or two pair of work-oxen for plowing and timber-hauling, but like the horses they were small, averaging around ten hundredweight (1,120 Ibs.). The small size was apparently attributable to the reliance on undersized Acadian stock but was also in part a matter of food and shelter; both horses and cattle ran at large a good deal, sometimes they were out all winter, and they rarely had enough good food to see them properly through to spring. Lack of care in breeding, with heifers often calving at two years, was also thought to have aided in the downgrading of cattle size. "The quantity of butter and cheese made in the Island bears but a small proportion to the number of cattle, from this practice of permitting them to run in the woods."62 Actually most of the settlers were from areas where cheese-making was little understood. A few sheep or swine and a small flock of fowl completed the livestock. All the animals, but especially the swine, largely fended for themselves in the partly cleared forest. Too many animals of all kinds were kept over the winter for the quality and quantity of feed and shelter available. Most of the settlers at this time were actively engaged in clearing more land and newcomers almost always faced the initial problem of clearing. The easier of the two standard methods, later in almost universal use, was only beginning to be employed on the island: the grubbing up of the small growth and the girdling of the larger trees, with cultivation in and around the dead and dying stumps and trunks until, often some years later, they could be easily cut down, piled and burned. Clean cutting was favoured at the time, probably in part because it was felt that girdling was wasteful of timber.63 These newly come British Islanders had too strong a tradition of the value of a tree and its timber to be easily converted to the American idea of the tree as a nuisance to be removed. Even "cleancutting," however, left stumps and the process of getting a clear, easily plowed field took years. There is a haunting reminiscence of the experience of our Neolithic forbears as they first moved from the Mediterranean borderlands into the forest fastnesses of the trans-Alpine hills and plains, and had to accustom themselves to an entirely new set of values. Like those Neolithic pioneers, most of the island's first British settlers knew little of axe work but, similarly, they learned it rapidly. The very light pressure on the land and the continual expansion of individual holdings obscured the rapidly declining fertility of the soil. Little animal manure was saved and used and the large supplies of kelp and mussel-mud in the creeks and estuaries were recognized but little exploited. This was, on the whole, a crude, catch-as-catch-can sort of agriculture, perhaps not inefficient given all the

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conditions of the time but not productive of much surplus for export. Indeed, there are many references to imported food in the 1790's; in 1791 New York flour and bread were advertised for sale in Charlottetown. The newspapers also indicate, however, that the settlers were encouraged to barter their produce for imported goods in the capital. The Fishery Most of the inhabitants of the island outside of Charlottetown were farmers, but fishing had preceded farming in time in the economic development of the island after the British occupation and it continued to be important along the dune-sheltered harbours of the gulf shore. Herring were taken in considerable numbers in the spring, almost entirely by small boats; the quantities were large, but the run lasted only a fortnight. They were shipped in brine to the West Indies. Little attention had been given to the longer but lighter herring run in October and November. Apart from herring, and more important, was the cod fishing off the north shore, chiefly by hook-and-line from small boats within a few miles of land. The islanders, however, offered little competition to the 600 American schooners which, Stewart estimated,64 annually fished for cod off the north shore. Other fishing, for trout, salmon, or eels (speared in the north-shore estuaries), was in no sense commercial.65 The Forest Timber was chiefly considered as either an obstacle to settlement and roadbuilding or a source of firewood and home-building. Some black birch had been exported for use in cabinet work, or to make gun stocks, but none of the other hardwoods was of trading interest. There was some local trade in maple sugar and large quantities were made for domestic use. There was little white or yellow pine left, although a few large trees remained and Stewart66 had seen one made into a mainmast for a 64-gun ship. There were saw mills but, like the grist mills, they served chiefly the needs of the local settlers.67 Ship-building (except of the most casual kind, and on a small scale) and timber export, soon to be important for the island and to remain so as long as the resource lasted, had not yet got under way. ACQUAINTANCE WITHOUT RESPECT As the century ended, still with fewer residents than there had been during the hectic days of the Acadian refugees in the 1750's, the island had been subjected to nearly every possible kind of experiment in the use of its resources. Its people were, largely, refugees of one sort or another, particularly from the Scottish Highlands68 and the American colonies to the south, but with a substantial residue of Acadians. Settlement was still thin and haphazard; patterns of population

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65

and land use as reflected in maps bore little or no relation to the differences in potential utility of the land except, perhaps, for a few concentrations of fishermen on the northern and eastern coasts where fishing opportunities were clearly better. The whole gulf region, and the islands of Cape Breton and St. John in particular, were ignored or poorly regarded as places of settlement. It may thus be appropriate to end the chapter with comments about the island made by, or attributed to, the great William Cobbett. They were written some thirty years later but expressed what must have been a widely held British opinion at the turn of the century: The English colonies in North America consist of Lower and Upper Canada, New Brunswick, Nova Scotia, Newfoundland and Prince Edward's Island . . . with the exception of a small part 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 offal of North America; they are the head, the shins, the shanks and hoofs of that part of the world; while the United States are the sir-loins, the well-covered and well-lined ribs, and the suet. . . . These miserable colonies. . . . These are no countries to go to. . . ,69 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. . . .70

V The Colony of Prince Edward Island : Early Nineteenth Century THE ISLAND BEGAN ITS NEW CENTURY WITH A NEW NAME. IN

1780

Governor Patterson had urged a change to New Ireland to avoid confusion of mails with St. John's, Newfoundland. A local Assembly Act to give this effect was disallowed in London, both as an impertinence and because the name was already appropriated elsewhere. Counter-suggestions of New Guernsey and New Angelsey were not acceptable to the residents. In 1798, with the confusion aggravated by the development of St. John, New Brunswick, the Assembly tried again. The choice of the name of Prince Edward, later Duke of Kent,1 received the royal assent in February, 1799. NEW PEOPLE The first half of the nineteenth century was to be a period of rapid immigration which filled in most of the vacant land and saw the foundations of the island's basic patterns of population and land use established. From 7,000 odd in 1805,2 population increased to 23,000 in 1827 and 32,000 in 1833. The figure of 47,000 for 1841 thus represented a doubling of the population in fourteen years.3 Some of this increase would be expected in a social context where net fertility rates were high and families large and most of the increase among the Acadians was of that kind. But fairly substantial immigration was also involved. Records of many individual groups of immigrants have been gathered from the contemporary press, government publications and personal reminiscence.4 William Townsend, Charles Worrell and John Cambridge claimed to have brought out 600 settlers in the period 1798-1805; the latter two then presumably held, respectively, Lots 40-42 (if not yet 38 and 39) and Lots 63 and 64. In the period 1805-7, 73 immigrants from Guernsey settled in Lot 64; other additions are suggested by an increase in population, during 1805-7, of 1,777. In 1808, 188 passengers came on the Clarendon from Oban; and in 1810 "four shiploads of deluded highlanders" are reported as having left Scotland for the island.5 There was an Irish settlement at Tignish in 1811 and New Glasgow was established by Clydeside immigrants in 1818. Harvey estimates a population of at least 15,000 by 1820.6 In the twenties the stream continued from Greenock, Tobermory and Portree; 66

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67

from Dundalk, Dublin and Waterford; from Bideford, Plymouth and Yarmouth. Southern Ireland and the Scottish Highlands appear to have been the chief sources (the island was usually bypassed by emigrants of more means or independence of action), but Ulster, the Scottish Lowlands, Cornwall, Devon, East Anglia and many other parts of the British Isles sent small contingents. In the three-year period, 1829-31, more than 1,844 immigrants arrived.7 Most of the arrivals were in groups of less than 100; larger bodies (over 600 from County Monoghan in 1839, 281 from Skye in 1840 and 419 Irish, via Liverpool, in 1847) did not become usual until the thirties and forties. The Selkirk Settlement* One of the earliest and most carefully planned movements of immigrants was that undertaken by Thomas Douglas, fifth Earl of Selkirk, to Lots 57 and 58 in the Orwell Bay-Prim Point area. The great tide of migration from the Scottish Highlands which began to flood in the 1770's had, as we have seen, brought a few hundred settlers to the island, and to other parts of what was to remain British North America, but most of it had run elsewhere, especially to North Carolina. Halted by the American Revolution and the French wars for a time, it picked up again at the beginning of the new century. Selkirk is best known for his work in the Red River Valley at a later time, but in the period 1802-11 he devoted great efforts to the diversion of the new flow of Highland immigration to eastern North American lands which were still British. Buying out several of the island's proprietors (Figure 46), Selkirk sent some 800 people, mostly from the Isle of Skye, to Orwell Bay in 1803. In this region perhaps 500 to 1,000 Acadians had resided briefly fifty years before, but it had remained almost completely unoccupied since. It compares well in quality with most of the island's lands (Figure 10), but Selkirk, certainly unaware of this, must have found its chief attractions its emptiness and relative cheapness. The settlers, who arrived in early August, were for the most part very poor with little capital even in the essentials of tools, stock and seeds. Selkirk secured a minimum of supplies to see them over the first winter, but the prospect was not promising for crofters with no experience of the transatlantic climate and forest. There was evidence in wells and shallow ditches of the French attempt to establish a foothold, but the heavily overgrown "clearings" were as forbidding as the unaltered forest. The almost miraculous speed with which they learned the axe skills of the North American pioneer saved their situation. In a few weeks they had made adequate shelters for the winter and throughout that season they continued to clear land for the first season's crops. The annual routine of extending the cleared land and practising the husbandry of oats and potatoes changed little for years, but they did convert the temporary shelters of the first winter to substantial houses rather rapidly. These were described within a decade of the landing as generally built of logs squared and dove-tailed at the ends with some

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sided with clapboard and roofed with shingles. The settlers must have felt some satisfaction at thus turning to account some part of their fiercest adversary, the forest. The Highlander had none of the appreciation for trees which was characteristic of many of the English and Lowland Scots. Like the Americans who preceded him, and the Irish who followed, he seemed to delight in sweeping the land bare, using or (at first, rarely) selling what wood he could and burning the rest. Although the Selkirk settlement followed the standard island pattern of dispersal rather than village clustering, the lots were generally laid out in the Acadian and French-Canadian fashion with small frontage and great depth so that houses were, in fact, within call of one another along the "front" of a tier of homesteads, whether that "front" was the sea-coast or a road. The typical island farm of this time was perhaps 10 chains in breadth and 100 chains deep (Ys by 1% miles), with the small cultivated area close to what we may call the "front" line. Although the deeply serrated coast-line dictated a much more varied pattern than this basic unit might imply, the lots have maintained a tendency toward a similar elongation until the present day; indeed, subsequent subdivisions have sometimes trimmed them to a proportion of 20 to 1, entailing considerable waste in "lanes" leading to the back pastures and woodlots but maintaining a strassendorflich pattern in the arrangement of the houses. A combination of poverty, which prevented them from picking up and moving, and their native clannishness kept the settlers reasonably concentrated and fostered the co-operative spirit which kept them going. Like Glenaladale's MacDonalds around Tracadie on the north shore, these Highlanders were no farmers and, I believe it is fair to say, have never had their hearts in farming. It is doubtful if the acid, sandy, none-too-fertile soil discouraged them, for it was better than any they could have known before. But where they could fish (as on the north coast) or cut timber for sale or ship-building (as they later learned to do in the southeast) or gather maple syrup or berries, or hunt and trap in the woods, they did so at whatever expense to the crops and animals. Their whole ethos was unfriendly to the steady, unremitting toil which any successful pioneering agricultural enterprise on the island had to have. For these and other reasons their descendants were the leaders of the emigration movement from the island in the later nineteenth century. The basic diet of potatoes, oatmeal, salt cod and pickled herring established for the Highland settlements in their early years did not alter much in over a century. These foods were, of course, common to the whole island. As the century advanced, the Highlanders added pearl barley (for that remarkable concoction "Scotch broth"), buckwheat flour, pork and tea. The Acadian diet remained more limited and was long dominated by wheaten bread and soup made of dried peas instead of barley. The English, Americans (that is, Loyalists) and Lowland Scots had more dairy products, beef, mutton, fowl, fruit and vegetables.

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PEOPLE AND AGRICULTURE: FIRST DECADE The Selkirk settlers were only one of many groups to come to the island in the first decade of the nineteenth century, but they formed the largest by far and, as Highland Scots, were representative of the greatest individual sector of the island's population. We may assume that their experiences were, in many ways, typical. By the time of the second census of 1805, indeed, when 7,041 people were counted, they constituted between 10 per cent and 15 per cent of the total population, just a little smaller as a group than the Acadians. In this same census, taken after harvest, but probably before threshing was completed, there was an attempt to gather data on agriculture as well as on population. There were some 10,000 acres in cultivation, little more than one acre per person, about 25 per cent each in wheat and upland hay, some 20 per cent in barley and about 15 per cent each in oats and potatoes with a few scattered acres of turnips and flax. Potatoes were easily the most valuable crop. In bushels they outyielded wheat and barley eleven or twelve to one, and oats eight to one. The degree of reliance of the settlers on forest mast for the pigs and on rough pasture for cattle and sheep generally is unknown, but nearly twice as much land was being cut for marsh hay as for upland hay. Although it was rated less than half as valuable as the "tame" (as the latter was coming to be called), it yielded 50 per cent more per acre and it was indispensable in wintering stock. Something like 1,000 horses, 10,000 cattle, 12,000 sheep and 8,000 swine represented a problem of winter sustenance hardly solved by the 8,000 tons of hay and the 20,000 bushels of turnips produced. Very little grain or potatoes, if any, could be spared for such purposes.9 EXPORTS AND IMPORTS The settlers were overwhelmingly agricultural in occupation, as the population had been since the beginning of British settlement in the 1770's, and they were engaged, most largely, in feeding and clothing themselves. There was a demand for imports, of course: dry goods; rum, brandy and wine; tea, sugar, molasses and tobacco; cordage and sailcloth; iron, nails and other hardware; and soap. These classes alone included two-thirds of an import total of £70,000 in 1832. Part of this value was represented by the effects of incoming settlers, but most of it constituted a charge to be met only by local exports, freighting and the building of wooden vessels. Although the island had been an exporting area since at least 1790, commodity exports were worth only «£31,739 in 1832 and were chiefly derived from farming. Oats and potatoes alone yielded more than a quarter of the export value; more than another fourth was made up of wheat, barley, flour, oatmeal, preserved meat (in casks) and live animals. Fish represented only

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£-798/107- of the total and major forest products (apart from wooden vessels) were less than 25 per cent of exports in value.10 Some export had been recorded in almost every year since the beginning of British settlement, but it had often been of barely token significance. Reports of exports of wheat are always surprising for flour was generally in short supply before the twenties, and wheat has never figured very largely in exports.11 In the third decade of the century, however, increasing quantities of oats and potatoes were shipped out;12 the former increased to impressive export totals later in the century and there has probably not been a year since in which potatoes have not helped in a major way to pay for the necessary imports.

THE PATTERNS OF SETTLEMENT AND ROADS Population Distribution The distribution of population shown in Figure 29 for 1833 indicates the spreading of settlement, although the increases were, in general, proportional to previous population in the different parts of the island. The main centres of population at the turn of the century, Lots 17 and 18 (Malpeque-Bedeque isthmus), Lot 28 (Tryon and Cape Traverse), Lot 24 (the Acadians of Rustico) and Lot 34 (near Charlottetown) retained their early lead. Elsewhere there was a filling-in along the coasts. The most notable expansion was taking place in Prince County in Lots 1 and 15 into which Acadians had begun to move in numbers as they were crowded west out of Lots 17 and 19 and found themselves hemmed in in their main Rustico centre. There were also gains on both shores of the Ellis (Grand) River (Lots 14 and 16) and along the Dunk River (Lots 25 and 26). In western Queens County settlers were pushing in from the shores to the hinterlands of New London Bay on the gulf and Crapaud River on the strait. Very substantial accretions had occurred all around Charlottetown Harbour, east along the Hillsborough River to St. Peters and along the north shore to East Point. All the eastern inlets from Colville (Souris) to Murray Harbour were making some progress although population had not extended far inland. Population on the deeply embayed eastern side of Hillsborough Bay had increased sharply and expanded to the south. Town, Village and Hamlet Apart from Charlottetown, villages were slow to form although the nonnucleated settlement preserved its quasi-village, open, linear structure along the roads. Charlottetown's population increased from 1,649 (plus 424 in its royalty) in 1827 to 1,965 (plus 576 in its royalty) in 1833; the buildings from roughly 300 to 350. The capital could now properly be called a town although the houses, on lots of 84 by 180 feet, many of which were still empty, were not closely enough grouped to justify the title in the eyes of European visitors. John

FIG.29

FIG. 30

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McGregor, writing in 1828 from his long familiarity with the island, thought Georgetown an ideal location for a town. The major foci of settlement on the east were saw mills, however; so, in the Three Rivers area, they were developing along the middle courses of the streams, Cardigan, Brudenell and Montague. From that area, and another growing settlement to the south at Murray Harbour, lumber and ships were moving outward in a steady stream and scores of men found at least seasonal employment in wood-cutting or wood-working. Much the same sort of activity supported half a dozen incipient villages around Malpeque Bay; yet Princetown was still scarcely a hamlet. Clusters that could be called hamlets had developed in most of the northern tidal inlets where fishing was important and in the Acadian settlements at Tignish and on the shores of Egmont Bay. The most thriving agricultural nuclei were probably those on Grand (Ellis) and Dunk Rivers, at Tryon and at Belfast, centre for the steadily growing Selkirk settlement. Roads The push in from tidewater meant the cutting of more roads, and increasing population created a need for better land communication. The evolution of a road followed a common pattern everywhere: the blazing of a path along property lines, the removal of enough obstructions to make a bridlepath, the widening to allow passage of a carry-all or sled in winter, and the final casting up of earth to form gutters on the side and a crown in the centre. The soil was rarely free enough of clay not to be greasy when wet, but, outside of the swampy lands, it was sandy enough to allow for drainage and so quick in drying that the lack of natural gravel for road-metal was not a severe defect. Probably few, if any, originally forested areas in North America were as amenable to cheap and rapid building of roads. Through the swampier patches corduroy construction was used. By such devices land travel for bulky goods was extended from the winter into the summer season. There was no trouble with the proprietors over roads. There was a reservation in each grant allowing the government to push roads through at will, without compensation, but almost any road was manifestly for the benefit of the owners of the land and they welcomed them. The actual building of the roads largely depended on the statutory four days per year of road labour required of all males from age 16 through age 60. Although the tax on wines and spirits was supposed to be devoted to roads and bridges a good deal of its revenue was directed to other government needs. The best road on the island in 1821 followed the old French trail from Charlottetown to St. Peters Harbour, hugging the north bank of the Hillsborough River.13 Branches ran up to the gulf inlets of the north shore. From the mouth of the bay the road continued to its head (present St. Peters Bay village) with wooden bridges spanning the streams; thence a track ran through a settlement of five houses in Lot 42 and on to Souris. A parallel track ran along the back of the

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73

lots fronting on the north shore which were beginning to fill in. Tracks again, rather than roads, from the Three Rivers, Murray Harbour, and Point Prim areas met at Vernon River (the head of Orwell Bay) whence a fair road led to the Hillsborough across from Charlottetown, which could be reached by ferry. West of Charlottetown roads branched from the tidal head of North River to Rustico, New London, and Princetown to the northwest and more directly west to Dunk River. The south shore settlements of western Queens County and eastern Prince County were also linked by a track near the coast. Communications in thinly settled western Prince County appear to have been chiefly by water in summer, although in the thirties roads were extended to Cascumpeque and North Cape. Farm Structures The typical farm building long remained a one-room log house fourteen by eighteen or twenty feet, but as farms and families grew it gained extra rooms. Thatching with bark and rough boards was giving way to shingles; clap-boarding or shingles were appearing for siding. Inside the finishing was largely done with wood for floors, walls and ceilings; the scarcity of lime virtually excluded lath and plaster. The packed clay floor disappeared when a root storage cellar was introduced beneath the main room and became a standard housing feature. Lack of stone was felt most keenly in building the still universal fireplaces and chimneys, and in the lack of rot-proof foundations under the walls. Chimneys were often wood-framed and clay-lined; the island's one brick-maker in the midtwenties was kept busy in supply of the only stone substitute. Visitors complained of the buildings being cold in winter and hot in summer, but the visitors were almost always experiencing a continental climate (or a good facsimile thereof) for the first time. Fencing was increasingly common, a reflection of denser settlement and more careful animal and crop husbandry. Some stump fences were employed but in more general use were the snake fences made of poles to which the name "longer," inherited along with the idea from American settlers, was applied. More expensive of timber than a straight rail fence they saved post holes, and thus labour, and they were stronger and turned animals much better. There was almost no attempt to introduce ditch-and-bank, or live fences from the old country. AGRICULTURAL PATTERNS, 1827-33 Crops The first approximately reliable general data on agriculture suitable for anything like precise mapping were gathered with the population census in 1827.14 There were then some 337,000 acres occupied of which 60,000 acres were improved. Within six more years, by 1833, the area occupied had increased to 388,000 acres and the area improved by more than 50 per cent. The distribution

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of 95,000 acres of improved land in 1833 (about % 5 of the total area of the island) showed a heavy concentration in eastern Prince County, around New London, Rustico, and St. Peters Bays on the north shore, along the estuaries of Charlottetown Harbour and in the inlets of the eastern shores of Hillsborough Bay. Figure 30, showing the distribution of improved land per capita, suggests the geography of agricultural accomplishment. The distribution of potato production in 1832 (Figure 31) closely followed that of improved land although there were relatively more potatoes grown in the pioneer areas. Potatoes remained a subsistence staple although a few were exported to the neighbouring provinces and the West Indies. It was just as easy, or easier, to ship them thus as to take them to Charlottetown. Wheat-growing also followed the pattern of improved land and thus of potatoes; one can read the wheat production, in bushels, as about one-tenth that of potatoes. In all, the bushel production of oats was just over double that of wheat and about onefifth that of potatoes; its pattern, however, diverged much more strongly from the pattern of distribution of improved land than did that of potatoes and wheat. This is indicated in the next map, Figure 32, showing the production ratio of wheat to oats in the different townships. Over all the acreage for wheat and oats must have been about even; where the production of wheat exceeded 50 per cent that of oats, its acreage was probably higher. The map (Figure 33) shows, as one should expect, relatively high concentrations on wheat in the Acadian areas (Lots 1, 2, 15 and 24), in the newly opened lands in western Prince County, and in Lots 29, 30 and 67 of Queens County. In the older settled lands, and in those of predominantly Scottish settlement (most marked in the eastern part of the Island) oats were, proportionally, far more important. The relative place of oats is a function both of the stage of settlement (implying reduction of fertility in the older areas) and the cultural prejudice of the people. It may also be related, to a small degree, to the higher proportion of horses in the eastern townships. Apart from the staples of potatoes, wheat and oats, substantial quantities of barley were grown (although it was a poor third among the grains), and small quantities of flax. Peas were diminishing even among the Acadians because of infestations of worms, and the increase of turnip-planting, so warmly advocated, was held back in part by insect attack. White clover and timothy, which had been the basis of the cultivated hay fields since the late eighteenth century, were finding increasing competition from "cow grass" (perennial red clover). The tidal-marsh hay, which had been of so much importance to the French and in the first halfcentury of British occupation, was very limited in extent and no longer of much importance. The potatoes and cash grains were all barter crops of some importance; a few farmers had surpluses to sell and some of these, as we have seen, were exported. The other crops fed the settlers themselves or, probably to a lesser degree than was desirable, their livestock. It is clear that the prejudices of the Acadians and Loyalists (and no doubt

FIG. 31

FIG. 32

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THREE CENTURIES AND THE ISLAND

others of English origin) and a fairly steady market for it in Nova Scotia maintained an emphasis on wheat long after it was recognized as an unsuitable and, indeed, uneconomic crop in a soil and climate so hospitable to the oat and potato. Johnstone15 was inclined to blame the emphasis on wheat on the Loyalists alone who initially, like Samuel Johnson, thought oats suitable only for horse food. Such a liking for a basic staple food is a hidden factor in the "uneconomic geography" of many a crop plant. Satisfactory early evidence on the importations of specific varieties of the major crop plants has not been uncovered; only with the beginning of the operation of the new Agricultural Society in 1827, and newspaper reports of its activities, are we enlightened at all and such evidence not only emphasizes amounts rather than kinds, but tells us nothing of the nature of the varieties for which the new seeds were considered an improvement.16 One must assume that seed of many varieties was constantly filtering in from the British Isles and the rest of North America. Livestock In 1833 roughly 30,000 cattle, 50,000 sheep, 20,000 pigs and 6,000 horses were counted. The rate of increase of sheep and horses had been greatest since 1805; that of swine least. Fires and clearing were extending sheep country and, coincidentally, reducing mast-feed for swine. Perhaps a significant change of balance in thirty years is seen in the fact that while absolute numbers of cattle listed as oxen had scarcely doubled, horses had increased six times and were now twice as numerous as oxen—a token of more open fields and more roads, and of the lightness of the soil which permitted rapid conversion to horses in the cleared fields. The animals seemed little improved over those of the first decades of the century; they were still described as small, uncontrolled in breeding and too many for the food available in the winter.17 Attacks by wild animals were now rare, but miring down in the scattered bogs and marshes was a constant hazard. There were not only more horses, but as they replaced oxen in the more open and smoother fields the demand for larger animals was apparently being met. Good sires of the heavier breeds were being imported for the purpose. It is hard to generalize about cattle types (perhaps imports of the north-country Durhams or Shorthorns occurred), but the sources were mixed, with the ancestry of small Acadian cattle still apparent. By our records there were few cattle imported until the first decade of the nineteenth century.18 Some, of course, may have come in with the Loyalists and other American settlers. By all accounts there were a great many Acadian animals present and purchasable19 in the 1770's, and these formed the nucleus of the cattle (and possibly the horse) population in the late eighteenth century. This continued reliance on Acadian stock certainly helped, with uncontrolled breeding and poor winter feed, to keep the size of the animals small. McGregor remembered that a good ox weighed only 800-900 pounds and a good cow 600-700 pounds; that horses were tough, wiry, but small; that apart

COLONY OF PRINCE EDWARD ISLAND

77

from size the pigs resembled "greyhounds nearly as much as they do the better kind of hogs."20 Besides hay, which usually ran out before the end of the winter, straw was widely fed to cattle. Winter or summer, the milk yield was low. Many families consumed the entire production of six to eight cows and still had no great amount. Wood-wandering by the cows meant irregular milking and low butter-fat production; probably the chief interest was in the two other "b's," brawn (for the plow and cart) and beef. With the increase in number of sheep there was, unfortunately, no general improvement in the breed, a long-legged, white-faced sheep with a light but relatively fine fleece still dominating the sheep population. The swine, also, were poor and miserable and were given the same scanty attention which is apparently a hall-mark of the British agricultural pioneer overseas. Few boars were introduced, few unprofitable sows were spayed. Neglected and famished in the winter, some of the nearly feral swine would not only eat domestic fowl but kill sheep and even attack cattle. J. L. Lewellin, who had arrived in Prince Edward Island in 1824, wrote in 183321 of the conditions of the preceding eight years and expatiated on the progress made, particularly on the importation of stock. There had been a Farmer's Society organized in 1811 chiefly for this purpose,22 but with the war of 1812-14 and subsequent difficulties it had accomplished little. Lewellin credited Lieutenant-Governor Ready, 1824-31 (apparently one of the most popular and progressive executives the island ever had), with much of the success. The list of imports was impressive: blooded stallions; Alderney, Suffolk and North Devon cattle; Leicester and Southdown sheep. Apparently Shorthorn and Ayrshire blood was dominant in the cattle in the next two decades, but there are few suggestions as to when or how the two breeds were introduced. Ready suggested the formation of a proper Agricultural Society in his opening speech to the Assembly in 1827 and with its formation it carried on the work. Two of the many patterns of distribution of livestock in 1833 are illustrated in Figures 33 and 34. The first, showing the ratio of oxen to horses, is the more interesting. Everywhere in the centre and east there were more horses, and the Acadian interest in horses is shown in their dominance in Lots 1, 2 and 15 in the west. Some of the areas where there were more oxen are relatively newly opened areas of non-Acadian settlement, but it is intresting that oxen also predominated in the areas south and east of Malpeque Bay and in southernmost Prince Countv, which were then, as they have remained, among the best farming townships. This is attributable to generally better soil, the effect of Loyalist settlement, and heavier general cattle population there with the use of young steers as oxen for a brief period before being fattened for the butcher. Local dominance of horses in the ratio at this time is no indicator of an advanced stage of farming, rather the contrary. There was a great deal of local variation in the ratio between the two principal smaller animals too, but the pattern of the ratio is confusing and has raised more

78

THREE CENTURIES AND THE ISLAND

questions than it has answered. Offhand there seems to have been a somewhat greater number of sheep in the older settled areas (less forest perhaps?) although there are exceptions. The highest proportions of hogs seem to be on the forestfringes of newer settlement. Yet the ratio is also low in the Tracadie settlement in Lot 36, and in Lot 40 where it may well reflect poverty; and it is low again in Lot 65, long cleared, for which there is no easy explanation at all. PROGRESS IN FARMING As the decades of the nineteenth century succeeded one another a good deal of talk about, and agitation for, the "high farming" so strongly publicized in Britain, was gaining ground. It was, however, slow to be put into practice. It seemed as if about as much as could be achieved was the changing of the essentially non-agricultural immigrants (which, as in most of the initial settlement in British mid-latitude colonies overseas, the majority of the island pioneers were) into just passable farmers. Writing in 1819, and complaining of the slovenly farming, one observer opined: "The majority of those who are now settled in P.E. Island on cultivated lands, never handled a spade or held a plough until necessity or choice impelled them to do so."23 In fact, converting forest to farm land rather completely absorbed the energies of the people. By the 1820's clean-cutting was largely abandoned in favour of girdling; where trunks were cut, the pioneers had learned to do it at the right season to prevent suckers coming up, and they had resigned themselves to the nearly imperishable nature of some of the softwood stumps, especially of pine. After burning and clearing, the first crop was still usually potatoes, succeeded by wheat and timothy grass seed. Each year, however, a much larger proportion of the land was converted into completely open fields, the chief problems being not so much the stubborn stumps as the "cradle hills" left from centuries of soil upheaval caused by trees blown down by the wind. Unfortunately, shortage and expense of labour, or lack of initiative, sometimes kept the land far too long in hay. At this early period this was an even more serious malpractice than the repeated croppings of oats which were to mark land-use practices later in the century. Two locally abundant remedies were available to improve or repair the fertility of the soil: seaweed ("sea ware") and mussel-mud in the creeks and estuaries. A bit of the former was gathered in summer; some of the latter was scraped up through holes in the ice in winter; neither was used very effectively or extensively at this time. Much of the farming of the early thirties was still hand work with spade, hoe, sickle, scythe and axe. As the years passed more of the grain was cradled, made into sheaves, and "stooked"; this Scots and North-Country English word for "shock" was in early use in the island and, with so many other Scottish words, has spread generally throughout Canada. A plow was added for most households,

FIG. 33

F I G . 34

80

THREE CENTURIES AND THE ISLAND

often including a broad sock or share like that of the Lothian plow, especially rigged for stumps, perhaps a forerunner of the stump-jumping plow. The lack of stone in the soil reduced the need for iron tires on the carts, two-wheeled affairs with oversized wheels and a capacity of about a cubic yard which, common in the 1830's, were to change very little, except for the adding of tires, in the next century. Any substitute for iron, or way of getting along without it, was warmly welcomed. The use of the cart for hauling was, incidentally, largely limited to the degree that major transportation jobs could be left for the winter freeze-up period when the more efficient sled could be used. Lumbering was becoming an important activity for the farmers, and, along with fishing, slowed the advance of agriculture. It is fair to say that the island is and, since the heyday of eighteenth-century Acadian settlement, has always been a primarily agricultural land. After the end of the eighteenth century the island did not import food for man and beast as New Brunswick did for its roaring lumber camps on the Miramichi, or Nova Scotia for its far-flung fishing enterprises. But this agricultural focus can perhaps be overemphasized in the first third of the century. Many cargoes of lumber left each year from various places, especially perhaps in Prince and Kings counties, and ship-building advanced steadily. In 1825 and 1826 some 94 vessels averaging close to 200 tons apiece were launched, mostly for the fisheries and coastal trading as far as Newfoundland and New England, and these years are representative of the decade.24 How THE LAND WAS HELD Most of the settlers were tenants and they were nearly unanimous on these points: they had come to the New World in the hope of obtaining land for themselves; they believed that the proprietors did not deserve to keep the lands they held; so they thought that the government ought to escheat the holdings of the proprietors and make them available to old tenants and new immigrants as freehold, at reasonable rates of purchase. The feeling with regard to escheat was not simply greed on the part of the settlers for someone else's property. Lord Durham's letter of 1838 (quoted above, p. 51) indicates the more important bases of resentment. On the face of it, it seemed eminently reasonable that wilderness lands, virtually unsettled, producing no public revenue, and an obstacle to colonial development, should be escheated when the proprietors failed to meet at least one of their commitments: the very reasonable undertaking to bring out settlers at the rate of one for every 200 acres of granted land. In reply it was pointed out that one single circumstance would make escheat under these conditions entirely inequitable. Some proprietors had brought out more than their required number of settlers, but had seen them move to rent or squat on other lands; in contrast other proprietors had done nothing but, by such internal migration, might claim more settlers than the prescribed ratio.25

COLONY OF PRINCE EDWARD ISLAND

81

From time to time the Imperial Government was moved to action, usually to cancel arrears of quit-rents owed by the proprietors. By 1802 these were already nearly «£60,000 in arrears; in some townships the arrears clearly exceeded their market value. In that year a composition of the arrears was granted by classifying the lands in four groups, ranging from the fully settled lots on which only fouryears' arrears were to be demanded to the completely unsettled ones on which fifteen-years' payments were to be levied. This had almost no effect in bringing in the delinquent dues, but it had the very useful result that a number of proprietors were able to sell to others who showed more initiative in bringing out settlers. Nearly one-third of the proprietary interest changed hands between 1802 and 1806.26 The Assembly passed escheat acts in 1803 and 1805, but they were disallowed. In 1807 the governor, DesBarres, attempted unsuccessfully to levy a tax on the unsettled land. And so the story moved on with the same pattern repeated again and again. A new composition of arrears was granted in 1816 and although Lots 15 and 55 were successfully escheated in 1817, the Crown stepped in to stop any further nonsense of that kind. Nearly every year of the twenties and thirties brought some action by the current governor or the Assembly; the ingenuity of various devices proposed was only matched by the unbroken record of failure to move either the proprietors or the home government. The chief variations from the central theme in the latter decade were the attempt of descendants of Loyalists to obtain title to lands they had supposedly received from the proprietors of record in 1784, and petitions that at least the lands reserved to the Crown for church and glebe in each township might be sold. The Loyalist group got nowhere, but royal approval was granted for the sale of the clergy reserves and such sales were made in 1836. The third decade ended in confusion and disagreement as the Speaker of the House of Assembly was sent to London to make three alternative proposals: (1) the establishment of a court of escheat, (2) the resumption by the Crown of the rights of the proprietors (for an estimated cost of ,£200,000), or (3) a heavy penal tax on wilderness lands. Lord John Russell clearly underlined the sympathies of the Privy Council by refusing even to see him. VARIETY IN THE PEOPLE The population, even apart from the Acadians, was by no means homogeneous. Johnstone, a Lowland Scot busy with the establishment of Sabbath Schools on the island, did not fail to comment keenly and at length on people as well as crops, animals and roads. He insisted on the pre-eminence of the Lowland Scots in all things agricultural, but completely undermined any claim to objectivity by rating the Highlanders close behind them.27 One is forced to agree with the generally low rating of the Southern Irish immigrants of the time as farmers.

82

THREE CENTURIES AND THE ISLAND

John McGregor's comments on two groups of Islanders with English names may be worth quoting: The English farmer . . . does not. . . reconcile himself so readily as the Scotch . . . to the privations necessarily connected for the first few years, with being set down in a new country. . . . The American Loyalists . . . are in general industrious and independent in their circumstances, extremely ingenious, building their own houses, doing their own joiner work, mason work, glazing and painting [the jack-of-all-trades]. The men make their own shoes, their ploughs, harrows and carts, as well as sledges and cabriolles; the women spin, knit and weave linens and coarse woollen cloth for domestic use.28

In a later edition of the same work McGregor repeated much the same sentiments, rating the Lowland Scotch as the best settlers, the Highland Scots as dirty and untidy. He added a reservation about the Loyalists, however, thinking they might be following too many pursuits.29 In concluding this chapter we may leave the island in the middle-to-late 1830's as a rapidly settling, still rather poor area of small farmers, tenant farmers for the most part, just prior to one of the great influxes, that of Southern Irish, in the next ten years or more. Later patterns of settlement and land use and later developments of the primary industries are all based on these beginnings of a century and a quarter ago. But the changes were profound and to those changes and their contributing causes we must now turn.

VI The Island One Century Ago IT IS FOR THE DECADES OF THE EIGHTEEN-FORTIES AND FIFTIES THAT A

relatively complete account of the island's geography1 first can be assembled. In those two decades its population grew more rapidly than at any other comparable period in its history. The colonial census had counted 47,042 people in 1841, more than half of whom lived in Queens County, and nearly 4,000 of those in Charlottetown and its royalty. By 1848 total population had increased to 62,678; Queens County was maintaining its lead with slightly more than half of the total, and the other two counties were fairly evenly balanced. In 1855 the total had reached 71,496 and, in 1861, 80,857.2 In the forties and fifties the island, in effect, "filled up" and the basic patterns of land use, the establishment of which has been outlined for the earlier part of the century, became firmly set. POPULATION DISTRIBUTION We may begin with the pattern of population density in 1848 (Figure 35) which should be compared with the distribution of 1833 (Figure 29). The intervening years had left Queens County, in the centre, quite solidly settled, but the more interior areas of Kings and the northwestern parts of Prince remained thinly occupied. Only in the extreme northwest, however, was there much empty land near the sea. Roads were improving through the interior of Queens County and in Prince as far west as Grand (Ellis) River between Lots 14 and 16. They also existed, after a fashion, through much of Kings and western Prince.3 Figure 36 shows the regional variability of increases or decreases in density of population from 1848 to 1855. Townships 1, 2, 3, 15 and 17 experienced the most active population growth in the west; a substantial Acadian birth rate, Irish immigration and intensified ship-building and commercial activity were contributory causes. The Acadian nucleus of Lot 24 and some spilling over into Lot 23 partly account for a major centre of increase west of Rustico Bay. It seems an impossible increase to credit almost solely to Acadian fecundity, however, and it should not be so attributed. By comparing numbers born in different parts of the British Isles it is clear that, except for Irish, there was little immigration to these two areas and the Irish immigration was not large. These lots were two of the most heavily populated in 1848, however, and included many nonAcadians and this is a map of absolute, not relative, increase. Not only Acadians had large families; to look ahead another twenty-five or thirty years the writer recalls that his father, of mixed Lowland Scottish, Highland Scottish and Ameri83

FIG. 3.5

FIG. 36

FIG. 387

F I G. 38

FIG. 39

FI G. 40

THE ISLAND ONE CENTURY AGO

87

can Loyalist ancestry, was born in 1872 and had more than 110 first cousins. His home was immediately to the west in Lot 22 near New London Bay. Immigrants were also moving into some of the empty lands of Kings County; almost everywhere the advance is beyond the expectations of natural increase. The decreases in Lots 40 and 56 were attributable to particularly unsatisfactory conditions of land tenure, with some westward movement of Acadians from the latter. From a study of the full series of maps of population and changes in population, for 1841, 1848, 1855 and 1861, it is clear that increase of density was low under two widely contrasting conditions: in the relatively empty areas north of Egmont Bay or in eastern Kings County, and in the long and well-settled land of easternmost Prince and east-central Queens counties. The former areas lacked both a basic population to provide natural increase and immigration; in the latter there seemed to be too little room for immigrants or even for all of their own abundant natural increase. The population remained predominantly rural and dispersed. Charlottetown was still the only sizable nucleus of town settlement. In the twenty years from 1841 to 1861 the population of the capital and its suburban royalty had increased from 3,896 to 6,706, almost precisely in proportion to the total increase of population; in each year the island's only town held about 8 percent of the population.4 Georgetown and its royalty held only 831 people in 1861 as compared with 556 in 1841 and most of these were farmers. The fiction of Princetown as a nucleated settlement, maintained in censuses until 1855, was abandoned in the census of 1861. The only substantial village outside of Charlottetown was a new settlement at Bedeque Bay on the southeastern coast of Lot 17, called Summerside. The major hamlet on the Malpeque-Bedeque isthmus had been St. Eleanors, situated less than two miles from either shore and containing perhaps a hundred people in 1851. Ship-building and trading shifted commercial interests south to Green's Shore where a twin hamlet developed. Growing rapidly in the fifties, it had become, by 1861, the chief port of trade to New Brunswick via Shediac, 35 miles away, from which point there was a railroad to St. John.5 Otherwise, nucleated settlement was of a hamlet rather than a village type. The once important French centre at the mouth of St. Peters Bay was abandoned; inside the bay there were hamlets at the mouth of the Morell River and the head of the bay (Sutherland's, the present village of St. Peters). Most close settlements on the coastal inlets would have counted a population of much less than 100.6 The majority of the "villagers" were also farmers or fishermen and the street-like pattern of rural settlement made it impossible to define where a "hamlet" ended and the "country" began. POPULATION ORIGIN The distribution of four different ethnic groups, Acadian, Scottish, Southern Irish, and the remainder (largely an amalgam of English and Loyalists or other

88

THREE CENTURIES AND THE ISLAND

colonials of English origin) is of particular importance in interpreting patterns of land use. Apart from the Acadians the groups overlapped somewhat; some of the Lowland Scots and Southern Irish undoubtedly were confused with the "English." Yet, on the whole, members of the four groups were readily distinguishable. The earliest direct evidence of distribution as to country of origin, which can be mapped, is derived from the census of 1798, and that only by an identification of individual names on the manuscript census. The result of that analysis was seen in Figure 27. Data on place of origin was not gathered directly until 1881, the first federal Canadian Census which included the island.7 In the 1848 and 1855 censuses, however, birth-place was recorded. In 1855, of the 71,000 counted, nearly 53,000 had been born on the island, some 6,900 in Scotland, 5,600 in Ireland, 2,700 in England and 2,800 in other British colonies. Less than 300 were of non-British birth, and many of these were from the United States. This data is of limited utility in determining ultimate origin of the greater part of the people; for example, of the 53,000 born on the island there were thousands who either spoke no English or, at least, preferred to speak French or Gaelic. However, the distribution of the non-native population is of great interest in indicating areas favoured by one or another of the three main groups of recent immigrants of that time, as is the distribution of the increase for each group in the 1848-55 period. These are shown on the next series of maps (Figures 37, 38, 39, 40, 41 and 42). The English-born of 1848 were most heavily concentrated south and west of Malpeque Bay and north of Charlottetown. The Scottishborn were heavily concentrated in western and southeastern Queens County, but were widely scattered in Kings and eastern Prince as well. The Irish-born were also widespread but showed certain marked concentrations in the newly opening western lands and in the back country of the south central townships. An attempt has been made in the next map (Figure 43) to show the regional dominance of the most recent immigrants of the time, determined on this basis. In the next seven years, as the "increase" maps of the above series suggest, immigration continued to flow strongly, from Ireland and Scotland at least. There is one useful guide to distribution by country of origin in the early 1860's, a topographical map of the island published in 1863.8 It purports to show the location of every homestead, with the names of the head of the household for all rural residences attached. For the eighties, however, we have not only a much more complete cadastral atlas, giving the outlines of each farm property,9 as well as the names of the occupiers, but also, in 1881, a township breakdown of origin data from the census. Determination of origins from names might appear to be something of a guessing game, for there are Clarks, Smiths and Browns who might be English, Irish or Scottish; yet it was possible to identify about 90 per cent of them as being Acadian, Irish, Scottish, or "other" (presumably almost all English) in ultimate origin. The determinations from the cadastral atlas checked very closely with the township totals of the census; the location of names in the atlas enabled dots on the working maps to be placed with assurance. A summary

FIG. 41

FIG.42

FIG. 43

FIG. 44

THE ISLAND ONE CENTURY AGO

91

of the information available from all sources for the eighties is shown in Figure 44. A sample page from the cadastral atlas is reproduced in Figure 45. It was decided to present the information on country of origin for the eighties at this point not only because it is the earliest fully satisfactory evidence which we have, but also because it is most representative of distributions by origin at the highest population peak, which had yet been reached. The island's maximum population of about 110,00010 was attained in the late eighties. This represented a substantial, and steady increase (of about 30,000) since 1861. Moreover, since there was no great tide of emigration before 1881, and little immigration afterward, the origin distributions shown for the eighties should fairly represent those of the previous thirty years. This is borne out by examination of the names on the 1863 map. It is probable that, in the early 1850's, something just under half of the population called itself Scottish, about one-tenth was clearly Acadian, and of the rest more claimed ancestors from England than from Ireland. Kings and Queens counties were still overwhelmingly Scottish and Scots were widely scattered through Prince as well, especially in the eastern townships. Although all but three lots in Kings had at least fifty of English origin, the only strong "English" foothold in Kings County was around Murray Harbour, and many of these settlers were Channel Islanders. Eastern Queens County, like Kings, had few English except in Lots 48, 49 and 50, but between Charlottetown and Bedeque and through most of Prince County they were important elements in most townships. The Irish were the most evenly distributed but showed particular concentrations near the two county boundary lines. In general those of ultimate English origin (and these included descendants of people from more than half the counties of England, Loyalists, New Englanders, and disbanded soldiers) were situated where agriculture was most intensive and productive or in the best locations for ship-building or fishing. On the average they had had more capital and more applicable agricultural skills. With the English should be grouped some, at least, of the Lowland Scots. But the great majority of Highland Scots and Southern Irish had come as poverty-stricken immigrants and had advanced their circumstances very slowly over the years; they were yet in the 1850's (and many of them still in the eighties) as close to the level of a European peasant tenantry as one would be likely to find in the New World. Through the middle decades of the nineteenth century, where the land was poorer, rougher, swampier, or less accessible, there Gaelic, the Acadian patois, or a distinctly Caledonian or Hibernian inflection of English was likely to be heard. LAND TENURE Of the many individual "geographies" which have been analysed to aid in the understanding of the changing geography of land use, that of land tenure ranks next in importance to the physical geographies and those of population numbers

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THREE CENTURIES AND THE ISLAND

and origins. Before attempting any extended analysis of the changing patterns of land tenure some review of the "land problem" on the island may be in order. In 1767, as was observed in chapter iv, the land had been granted to roughly 100 persons in full, or part, proprietorship of one or another of 66 of the 67 lots. Ninety-four years later, in 1861, the proprietary interest was still strong although a good deal of land had been sold, here and there, to individuals and the proprietorship of most lots had changed hands several times.11 The government had acquired the sole residuary proprietary interest in thirteen lots and shared it in three others. At least one lot, 25, was virtually all in the hands of small holders and the government was also selling off the lands already purchased from proprietors as rapidly as possible. Yet of the total area of some 1,400,000 acres, only about two-thirds (966,190% acres) was actually held in one form of tenure or another by the occupiers (that is, "in farms") in 1861, and of this only 455,942% acres (about one-third of the island) was held as freehold. Reference has been made to the many efforts by settlers, represented by the Legislative Assembly, to force escheat of the lands of proprietors not fulfilling the obligations of the original grants. In the few cases where this had been done it resulted only in a change of proprietors with little advantage to the tenants. As we have seen the attitude of absent proprietors, who neglected the interests of the colony and tenants, had drawn the fire of Lord Durham in the 1830's which in turn had drawn sharp and effective counter-attacks by the proprietors themselves.12 The details of the political agitation and negotiation are of central interest to the political and social history of the island,13 but for an understanding of the geography of land tenure we may summarize drastically. The tenants held that the proprietors had originally received grants which involved certain specific conditions, that these had not been performed, that the grants were thereby invalidated, and that the lands should be escheated. By the thirties it was tacitly understood that such lands, if escheated, would not be sold to other proprietors but resold to the tenants and other potential small-holders already in the island, or who might immigrate to it. The proprietors, now the heirs or purchasers of the proprietary interest remaining in the different lots, considered that this property was theirs by right of inheritance or purchase, that the original conditions had been impossible of fulfilment and had so been recognized by the Imperial Government, that the tenants had accepted the rental contracts of their own free will, and that there was no justification in precedent or in the public interest for either confiscation (escheat) or the principal alternative, forced sale to the colonial government, as advocated by the tenants. The negotiations and difficulties extended from the year of the grants, 1767, until the final Land Purchase Act of 1875 when the proprietorship was ultimately extinguished, and the decades of the forties, fifties and sixties were a particularly active period of agitation. As one instance of high feeling, in 1843 a mob in Kings County reinstated a person named Haney into the possession of a farm near East Point from which

THE ISLAND ONE CENTURY AGO

93

he had been legally ejected. Continuing efforts to levy assessments on the proprietors, either on unsettled lands (to force sale) or on the rent rolls, were evidenced in repeated Acts and Resolutions of the Assembly. With the achievement of responsible government in 1851, the legislature pressed harder and in 1853 it passed and received assent to "An Act for the Purchase of Lands on behalf of the Government of Prince Edward Island, and to Regulate the Sale and Management thereof . . . ." Under its provisions the Worrell estate of 81,303 acres was acquired for a price of ¿£24,100 (sterling) in 1854 (See Figure 46). It included lands remaining in the estate in Lots 38, 39, 40, 41, 42, 43 and 66. In 1860 the unsold residue of the Selkirk estate, then including parts of Lots 53, 57, 58, 59, 60 and 62, was bought for £6,586/17/8 (sterling) and a small estate in Lot 54, 13,278 acres owned by H. H. Stansfield, was obtained for £2,000 (sterling). Meanwhile, in 1855, came another act to impose a rent-roll duty and one to secure compensation to tenants for improvements if they were dispossessed or relinquished their leases. Both were disallowed. A request was denied for an Imperial loan to speed up land purchase but, in 1858, another request for an impartial commission to examine the whole problem received favourable attention and, after some pulling and hauling by the proprietors, it was appointed and held its hearings in September, 1860. The three commissioners (representing respectively the Assembly and tenants, the proprietors, and the Crown) seemed so respectable that the proprietors insisted that their recommendations should be binding on the tenants. The ultimate unanimous report14 was so unfavourable to the proprietors' case, however, that they exerted that "influence" of which Lord Durham had spoken to cause the Imperial Government to ignore the recommendations of the report. Resentment was high and expressed itself in the formation of a Tenant League in 1863 which may have done more harm than good to the cause of land reform. The proprietors successfully tagged it with the label "rebellious." From the newspaper advertisements and stories of the time, it appears to have had its main activity in the townships east of Charlottetown, especially in Lots 35, 36, 48, 49 and 50. Tenants from this area, including many Irish if the reported names are any indication, held a convention in 1864 and a large and noisy demonstration in Charlottetown on St. Patrick's Day in 1865. Several "leaguers" were arrested and 200 soldiers were sent from Halifax. For the maintenance of these troops the Imperial Government later demanded £5,000 from the colonial authorities, who took great pleasure in the unusual role of refusal. Perhaps the most important effect of the League activities was the sale of more of the proprietors' lands under the Act of 1853, and an increasing realization by both the Imperial Government and the proprietors that some solution to the problem, satisfactory to the tenants, had to be found.15 There is much detail on land tenure in the censuses of 1841, 1848, 1855 and 1861 which is summarized in Table III. The number of holders of land almost

FIG.45

THE ISLAND ONE CENTURY AGO

95

TABLE III LAND TENURE, 1841-6116

Freeholders Number holding by lease or written agreement Number holding by oral agreement Number squatting Total number of occupiers of land

1841

1848

1855

1861

2,039 2,987 580 734 6,340

2,585 4,724 675 869 8,853

3,231 4,826 665 654 9,376

4,626 5,357 577 879 11,439

doubled in the twenty years; the increase was very closely in proportion to the increase of total population from 47,034 to 80,552. The increase of lease-holders was also approximately in the same proportion, but the number of freeholders was increasing at a more rapid pace while those squatting or holding land by verbal agreement remained substantially the same in number and thus decreased in proportion. The hold of the proprietorship was still firm, but more than onethird of the farmers in 1861 had clear title to their lands and the rest were agitating strongly for further increase of this proportion which rose from 32 per cent in 1841 to 40 per cent in 1861. It should perhaps be pointed out that although the freeholders were still a distinct minority among the actual occupiers of land (4,626 of 11,439 or about 40 per cent) they held nearly half of the occupied land (455,942% of 966,187% acres or about 47 per cent) in 1861. The form of land tenure, of crucial importance politically, had some interesting and somewhat surprising relationships to the level of farming, the individual patterns of land use and the origins of the people. The distribution of the proportion of the total area held in one form of tenure or another (except by the proprietors) in 1848 is shown in Figure 47 and should be compared with that of density of population (Figure 35). This is one of the best indications of the geography of intensity of farming activity at the time; its limitations as a measure are indicated in part by Figure 48 (which shows changes in "total area held" in the next seven years). Decreases in area "held" in Lots 8, 14, 16, 26 and 29 are probably related to shifts in designation of tenure as between proprietors and occupiers; the evidence displayed in Figure 49 makes it clear that population was increasing, or holding level, in these townships. Nevertheless, the relative degree of occupation does indicate something of the relative level of farming. Our concern here, however, is with the nature of the tenure and with the distribution of different kinds of tenure. In 1855, as we have seen, about one-third of the occupiers of land were freeholders and they held 308,013 acres of a total of 730,484 acres "held" (that is, 27% per cent of the total area and 42 per cent of the area "held"). Two maps of the proportion of the land held in "fee simple" (that is, freehold) in 1855 were made. Figure 50 shows the distribution of the proportion of total land which was freehold; Figure 51 shows a similar distribution of the proportion of land "held" which was freehold. In more than half the lots of the island less than 25 per cent of the total area was freehold; in nineteen

96

THREE CENTURIES AND THE ISLAND

lots less than 20 per cent of the land "held" (that is, presumably by operators, and therefore in use) was freehold and in only twenty lots (plus the "towns" and "royalties" of Charlottetown, Princetown and Georgetown) was more than half of the land "held" held in fee simple. Of these, twenty-nine were in Kings County and six in Prince County. There are few clear-cut generalizations to be read from these maps as to the relationship of freehold to level of farming and length of settlement. Queens County with a longer record of settlement and a higher level of farming than Kings had a markedly lower level of freehold; eastern Prince would suggest a positive correlation of these elements. Western Prince was too little settled or developed for the data to be significant. In comparing Queens and Kings some tentative conclusions are possible. In poorer lands the proprietors were sometimes readier to grant freehold than in better lands; sometimes indeed the proprietors faced the alternative of collecting little or no rent or of accepting a nominal series of payments over a given period which would transfer the title but bring in some revenue. One interesting contrast may be worth brief consideration. Among the townships with less than 5 per cent of the total land in freehold in 1855 were the two Tracadie lots (35 and 36).17 These were settled largely by the descendants of the MacDonald immigration of the 1770's north of the Hillsborough River, and a large influx of newly arrived Irish to the south. Yet, in another closely settled "Highlander" area of the time, the Selkirk lots (57 and 58) of the Point Prim region, which had been settled thirty years later than Tracadie, the proportions of freehold were very much higher (53 per cent and 49 per cent). There are a number of possible causes for this contrast. The Tracadie area was less fertile (or more infertile); the MacDonalds were almost uniformly Roman Catholics whereas the Skye settlers (McLeods, Nicholsons, Mathesons, McSwains, Bells, etc.) were as uniformly Presbyterians; and there was an opportunity for supplementary earnings in the fisheries on the gulf shore which was not present on the shores of the strait to the south. All of these matters have relevance, but many other cartographic comparisons combine with them to suggest that, on Prince Edward Island, the difference in religion (not in itself, of course, but in its many connotations) was of more importance than the presence or absence of the opportunity for fishing. The theme of the divided loyalty of the farmer between the land, the sea and the forest is, perhaps, the major motif in the interpretation of unfolding patterns of land use in the maritime Canadian area in general. Where the call to be fisherman or timber-cutter was strongest, there the least attention was given to developing farms and getting firm roots in the land. This tendency was much less marked in Prince Edward Island, however, than it was in the mainland provinces of New Brunswick and Nova Scotia. We should look briefly at one other map showing patterns of land tenure in the mid-nineteenth century. The distribution of leased land, in 1855, was (as it was the principal tenure) reasonably close to the pattern of land held in all

FIG. 46

FIG. 47

FIG. 48

F I G . 49

THE ISLAND ONE CENTURY AGO

99

tenures; so that map is not included. One showing the distribution of squatting, for which the year 1848 (perhaps near the peak year for squatting) was chosen, is of more interest (Figure 52). The word "squatter" is used here as it was at first in contemporary New Zealand in a very different context from that understood in Australia.18 In maritime Canada in general (or indeed in virtually all of North America), and in the island in particular, "squatting" refers to the process by which settlers moved in and occupied land neglected or ignored by the nominal proprietors. The squatters included some "radicals" and "levellers" no doubt, who challenged the absentee proprietors' rights to collect rents or receive payment for sale at all, but for the most part squatting derived from the desperate need for land by new settlers or children of the older ones.19 Almost everywhere the highest proportion of squatters was in the more recently settled and more heavily forested areas. But the irregularity of pattern also suggests that much of it involved the relations of tenants with particular landlords. LAND USE We may now examine the patterns of the ways in which the people used the land. Today (that is within the last decade) and using somewhat rounded and averaged figures, something over 25 per cent of the area of the island is listed as forested, but virtually all of that is scrub, swamp forest and second (or "Nth") growth from cut-over or burned-over land. Figure 9 showed the approximate distribution of this in about 1940: most of the wooded land (at least four-fifths of it) was in farm wood-lots; the rest of the land was, to varying degrees, in arable or pasture except for the areas in roads, farmsteads, villages, etc., and swamp and sand to the degree shown. In 1951, when the "forest" areas had increased with further abandonment, some 78 per cent of the area of the island was occupied by farmland and about 60 per cent of this area, less than half of the whole, was improved. About 36 per cent of the total area was under field crops of which nearly half (48 per cent) was in hay, nearly one-fourth (24 per cent) was in oats, nearly one-fifth in mixed grain, mostly oats (17 per cent), and 7 per cent was in potatoes; that is, roughly 95 per cent of the cropped land was in potatoes, hay, oats or oat-mixtures. In the 1848-55 period a very large, if uncertain, proportion of the rural population was composed of farmers. In 1951 the proportion was much less; of the total population of 98,000, 74,000 were considered rural, but only 47,000, slightly under half of the total, were farm people. The distribution of the ratio of farm to rural population (that is, total population for most of the lots) is indicated for 1941, when it was somewhat higher (51,000/70,000), in Figure 53. In the centre and east, however, it serves only to show the location of villages included in rural population and some small fishing areas; in the west there is, quite clearly, a larger proportion of the rural population engaged in fishing.

FIG. 50

FIG. 51

FIG. 52

F I G . 53

102

THREE CENTURIES AND THE ISLAND

To return to a century earlier, the 1855 census indicated just over half of the island's total area as occupied, and some 322,000 acres (less than one-fourth) in "arable," which is apparently a rather loose designation for "improved" land at that time. Certainly it is not the term of the 1951 census. In 1848 this same "arable" (whatever it was) had been but 215,000 acres and only some 85,000 acres were then in the five crops of oats, wheat, potatoes, barley and turnips. Hay acreage was not listed; perhaps a substantial part of the balance of the "arable" was in hay, but much of it also must have been in rather rough pasture. In 1855 there were fewer horses than in 1953,20 14,000 as compared with 19,000. This is, of course, somewhat surprising but reflects two very interesting circumstances: a large use of oxen in 1855, and the continued substantial use of horses in farm work on the island's small farms today, which are often too small (or have a productivity too low) to justify the use of even the lightest practicable tractors. There were about half as many cattle in 1855 as in 1953, slightly more than half as many hogs, but two and a half times as many sheep as a century later. The century's increase in cattle and hogs (which has been by no means an even rise) and its marked decrease in sheep (also uneven) will bear brief analysis later. In contrast with a century earlier, although "arable" was, in proportion to population, far greater than in the Acadian heyday, the numbers of the four major kinds of domesticated animals were little more, per head of population, in 1855 than they had been in 1752: there was still only one of the large beasts per capita, although there were now two, instead of one, of the smaller. Actually the Acadians, in their Fundy homelands, had run a great many more animals in proportion to population. The losses in crossing to the island or in winter starvation there must have been exceedingly heavy. The description of land-use patterns of the mid-nineteenth century properly begins with the maps of the distribution of arable land in 1855 and of the change in land in arable for the previous seven years (Figures 54 and 55). In accord with the distribution of population, the arable was heavily concentrated in Queens and eastern Prince counties. The map of changes in arable in the seven years indicates the chief regions of expansion of agriculture at the time: in townships 5, 26, 34, 35, 37, 41, 49 and 64. Ship-building activity at Cascumpeque encouraged development of farming there with the assurance of shipping facilities. The increase in Lot 26 is a reflection of initiative on the part of the proprietors. That in eastern Queens County seems to reflect activity by the recent Irish immigrants. Field Crops: Grains and Potatoes For some peculiar and exasperating reason the colonial census records the acreage under crop only for 1848 (that is, presumably 1847) and not for the 1855 census year. However, production figures are given for both years and the acreage and production patterns are nearly enough alike for 1848 to allow us to

FIG.54

FIG. 55

104

THREE CENTURIES AND THE ISLAND

use production figures for comparisons. To consider first the production of oats (Figure 56), it is evident that it is closely related to the distribution of arable land, but a detailed study reveals somewhat greater relative production of oats with greater Scottish population in general, and with better farming practices (particularly in eastern Prince County), and these characteristics were not similar in distribution. Interestingly, yields of oats were better, on the whole, in areas of Scottish settlement in the east than in the west (Figure 57). Oats were the main object of farming in the east and received the best attention the farmers could give. But at best the yields were skimpy. There are frequent references to poor potato crops in the forties in the journals of the island Assembly and Legislative Council, but these disappear in the next decade. Apparently the island was troubled, in part, by the same Late Blight (the parasitic fungus, Phytophthora infestans) which caused such serious damage in Ireland in the same decade, particularly in 1845 and 1846. Continuing migration from Ireland, and plentiful use of potatoes in victualling the immigrant ships, made the invasions of the blight relatively easy. On the whole, however, the crops of grain and hay were good throughout the period. The most revealing maps made from the acreage data of the 1848 census were those of the potato and wheat acreages as proportions of oat acreage (Figures 58 and 59). The ratio of wheat to oats (and we are dealing here not with an emphasis on grain as compared with roots or hay, but simply with an intraregional variation in the kind of grain grown) indicates no single instance of more acreage devoted to wheat than oats in any township. But in seven of the newly settled townships of Prince County the ratio is weU over 90 per cent. In Kings County, in contrast, the ratio was generally low, exceeding 50 per cent only in three lots and dropping to 13 per cent (170 acres of wheat to 1,360 of oats) in township 47. The ratio from lot to lot appears to reflect: (1) the stage of settlement (more wheat where original fertility remained), and (2) origins of the settlers (the highly Scottish lots have consistently low ratios of wheat to oats; the concentrations of Acadians show the reverse). The English were clearly more wheat-minded and the Irish more oat-minded in an intermediate position between the eaters of wheaten bread and oatmeal porridge. The fluctuating ratio of potatoes to oats requires more careful analysis. High ratios of potatoes appear where new areas were being pioneered in the forest and where the pressure of population on land was especially high, notably among the Irish and Acadians of Lot 1. In maps of production of individual crops, again, it is interesting to compare the localization of the increase in production of wheat in the period 1847-54 with that of the increase in oats (Figure 60 and 61). The increase in wheat production was rather heavily concentrated in the Acadian areas. With tariff reciprocity with the United States after 1854, cash-crop production of oats was engaging the attention of the older settled areas wherever there was both an opportunity for some degree of commercial farming and no particular bias towards wheat.

FIG. 56

FIG. 57

FIG. 58

FIG. 59

FIG. 60

F I G . 61

108

THREE CENTURIES AND THE ISLAND

"High-farming": Turnips and Hay The maps of turnip production and of the seven-year increase in turnip yields (Figures 62 and 63) indicate the belated arrival on Prince Edward Island of the "agricultural revolution." The production of turnips in 1854 was almost exactly five times that of 1847. Some of this can be accounted for by a better season, reduced insect attack, and better cultivation, but most of it came from substantial increase in acreage and most of this increase was in areas which were both the chief turnip-rearing townships of 1847 and the "high-farming" regions. Indeed, with little other evidence, perhaps, these maps could be used to define the "highfarming" areas of a century ago. Since the rather sharp observations of dismay at farming practices on the island, voiced by many visitors in the early nineteenth century, there had been a great deal of "high-farming" propaganda promoted by agricultural societies and the newspapers in particular. Nova Scotia's great agricultural reformer "Agricola" (in fact, one John Young, a spiritual but not blood relative of the great Arthur) had made converts on the island.21 To an historical agricultural geographer, a book by one such convert, Judge Peters (who was a native Islander), entitled Hints to the Farmers of Prince Edward Island and published in Charlottetown in 1851, is intensely interesting. The great spate of literature on agricultural improvement which had flooded the United Kingdom, the United States and the older and larger British North American colonies was here condensed and applied with a strange mixture of the best scientific thought of the time, shrewd common sense and almost mystical flights of imaginative nonsense. It is, for the most part, a manual of manuring and the good judge had a method of turning almost any conceivable object into something which profitably could be spread on the land. His six pages on turnip-growing are among his most eloquent, however, and his very practical argument was that, since a major problem of island farmers at mid-century was the glutting of the livestock market in the autumn, and since so much of the land was devoted to producing cash grain crops for sale, what was needed was more hay or more turnips. An acre of "sweeds" (as he called them, and as they are still called) could carry as many animals through the winter as three acres of meadow. His long description of methods of cultivation (which included distillations of treatises as distant as Jethro Tull's The Horse-Hoeing Husbandry)22 probably did little but frighten a great many of the fringe-farmers into putting still more land in oats. Peters made turnip-raising sound like the most complicated and backbreaking procedure in farming which, to be successful in that time and place, it very probably was. Peters was concerned also with the place of hay in the farm rotation. Maps of hay production for 1847 follow those of population in 1848 (Figure 35) very closely; unfortunately the data for maps of hay acreage are unavailable, and one can only long hopelessly for data allowing one to map the areal differentiation

FIG. 62

FIG. 63

110

THREE CENTURIES AND THE ISLAND

of the number of years a particular ley was allowed to stay in hay. The relevant quotation from Peters is: "The great error here . . . is the cutting hay for years in succession on the same land; it is this practice which has ruined half the lands on the island."23 Certainly this appears to have been especially true of the Skye settlement of Lots 57 and 58. One might add, parenthetically, that what was to ruin the other half of the island's lands was the growing of unintermittent crops of oats. The texture of the soil and the climate were almost ideal for the cultivation of hay, oats and potatoes. In thousands of good acres hay and oats were raised year after year with a minimum of effort or consideration of rotation. When the land gave out, the people moved out, or suffered a decline in their standard of living. This is a major theme of the contemporary history of the area reaching from the Gulf of St. Lawrence to Long Island Sound along the Atlantic shores and it is vividly illustrated in the record of Prince Edward Island. The distribution of hay, incidentally, went very much with the distribution of denser settlement and with that of turnip-raising. Hay and turnips were not substitutes for one another; they were both grown most intensively as part of a more advanced farming. Livestock The decade of the fifties was a period of steady improvement in the quality of the livestock, reflected particularly in increased size. It now became profitable, with better feed and winter shelter available, to upgrade to more demanding, but more productive or stronger animals. The introduction of many Clydesdale sires over several decades was now evident in the size and conformation of the cart horses. The cattle herds were losing much of the Acadian size and "look" and showing the effect of strong infusions of Ayrshire and Shorthorn blood. Perhaps Britain gave nothing more valuable to her sons settling overseas in the nineteenth century than the latter, variously called "Durham" or "Teeswater," and almost ideally bred for the triple needs of the butcher, the dairy and the plowman. Not until the sixties and seventies were the special beef breeds (Hereford and Angus), or specialized Frisian and Channel Island dairy cattle, introduced to any extent. The sheep were very mixed; the descriptions suggest Leicester and Southdown characteristics as perhaps dominant, the latter indicating a surprising interest in mutton as compared with wool. Twenty-five years later there are references to Lincolns, Cotswolds, Cheviots, Oxfords, Hampshires and Shropshires, among others, but there is little evidence of any of them in the fifties. In contrast all the breeds of pigs which were to be of any importance in the succeeding century were already present in recognizable character: Yorkshires, Berkshires, Tamworths and White Chesters. The distribution of livestock varied somewhat from that of population. The maps of cattle distribution presented include one of the increase in numbers of cattle between 1848 and 1855 (Figure 65) and one of the ratio of cattle to people in 1861 (Figure 64). The variation in density of cattle in 1855 accorded

FIG. 64

F I G . 65

112

THREE CENTURIES AND THE ISLAND

well with the distribution of population; the heavy concentration of each was in Queens and eastern Prince. There were variations in the ratio of cattle per hundred people from 50 to 120 in 1861, however, and certain relationships are clear. In the areas just being settled, with their relatively light population, the ratio may occasionally be high but, in general, in the better settled districts the size of the ratio is some measure of the level of farming enterprise. It seems also to be lower in the areas of major Acadian, Highland Scottish and Southern Irish population; no doubt this correlation is closely related to the first. In most parts of the island, however, the pattern of increase in the numbers of cattle in the 184855 period is closely related to that of the increase of population, which is illustrated in a comparison of Figure 49 with Figure 65. The most notable exceptions were in Lot 17 where the population of the town of Summerside increased substantially while cattle numbers were dropping, and in Lot 27 where the increase in cattle was disproportionately high. The map of the ratio of cattle to horses in 1861 (Figure 66) is instructive too, more so than that of the absolute distribution of horses. It is apparent that in some of the poorest, or more truly pioneering areas, (Lots 8-11, 60 and 62, for example) horses were few in relation to cattle because cattle were still the chief traction animals there and horses were more expensive. Yet in Lots 1, 2 and 15 of Prince the ratio is lower than we might expect and in some well-settled parts of Kings it is higher. This suggests a continuation of the greater interest of Acadians in horses, vis-à-vis the Highlanders, which was noted earlier in the century and there is much auxiliary evidence to support this conclusion. It is probable that, as with the Acadian emphasis on wheat, this evidenced a cultural drive which was at odds with economic interest. Students of most of the Acadian communities on Cape Breton Island and peninsular Nova Scotia have commented on the continued use of oxen by Acadians and there appears to be a general inference that the well-known FrenchCanadian fondness for horses either did not extend to maritime Canada, or soon disappeared there. It was, at any rate, still apparent in Prince Edward Island in the early nineteenth century. That horses did not increase in pace with cattle in the 1848-61 period is a reflection not only of the large immigration of the time and the opening up of new areas of bush country, generally more suitable to oxen than to horses, but also of the fact that this extension of settlement was being undertaken by people who were not horse-conscious enough to feel, as the Acadians did, that they could afford this luxury. Within the high-farming areas the ratio of cattle to horses generally was higher in eastern Prince than in central Queens. The interpretation here is that the very best farmers of eastern Prince were not only raising more fodder to support more cattle but were, also, still using oxen to a greater degree as draught animals. As we have noted for earlier decades, conversion from oxen to horses was not necessarily prima facie evidence of an advance in agricultural efficiency on the island.

FIG. 66

FIG. 67

114

THREE CENTURIES AND THE ISLAND

Sheep have declined sharply among the livestock in the last fifty years, but they were highly important through most of the nineteenth century. In terms of livestock units (at a ratio of seven sheep to one cow) they were less than onethird as important as cattle in the 1850's although there were always nearly twice as many sheep. Figure 67 makes it clear that sheep were most numerous in relation to cattle in the longest settled, most widely cleared, best-developed regions, and least so in the bush regions. The interior township of Queens County, Lot 67, just opening at this time, was one of only two in which there were fewer sheep than cattle in 1855; by 1861 there were more sheep there too. Sheep and pigs have often fluctuated widely in numbers between censuses for reasons related to markets and climate as much as to the changes in the landscape. The regional change in sheep numbers in the seven-year period 1848-55 is extremely irregular but most interesting (Figure 68). The distribution of most rapid increase in sheep numbers may well be related to some decline in intensity of land use by 1855 in the areas where that increase appears. The distribution of pigs alone, again, is not very revealing but that of the sheep-pig ratio (Figure 69) makes it clear that in 1855 the concentrations of the two smaller animals tended to be somewhat complementary; there was still more emphasis on pigs on the "frontiers" and more on sheep in the settled areas. If this seems paradoxical to present residents of the British Isles, as it well may, it is nevertheless a circumstance which is reflected again and again in North America throughout the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries wherever forest was being converted to arable land. The British settlers in mid-latitude lands overseas have, as a broad (but none the less valid) generalization, treated their swine in the most casual way, and where there was forest-mast or grazing they have depended heavily upon such bounty of nature (involving little sweat of their own brows) to take care of their pigs. This would not, however, have seemed surprising to any Englishman of the early eighteenth century or before, as early indeed as there ever were swine in the British Isles. Actually the increase of swine was more important than that of sheep in all areas in the seven-year intercensal period, and is, one suspects, a hint of the more effective integration of pig-raising as a prime element of the agricultural revolution. Certainly the agricultural literature of the time shows a sudden upsurge in interest in swine, and pig-meats of various kinds figure more largely in exports as they must have in the diet of the settlers, particularly the emigrants of Ireland's famine decade who had found their way thither. TRADE, SHIPPING AND PROCESSING The mid-century economy remained largely a self-sufficient one, but there was a vigorous if small external trade. One of the many emigrant handbooks published in England in mid-century gave lists of retail prices on the island for farm

FIG. 68

FIG. 69

116

THREE CENTURIES AND THE ISLAND

produce and necessary, or highly desirable, goods for which the settlers might barter it. Some of the more significant items in each class are listed in Table IV,24 with the goods which were certainly imported especially indicated. TABLE IV COMPARATIVE RETAIL PRICES IN PRINCE EDWARD ISLAND, 1851 Produce

Wheat (bu.) Oats (bu.) Potatoes (bu.) Hay (long ton) Horse (cart) Oxen (yoke) Sheep (head) Milk cow Breeding sow Fresh beef (Ib.) Fresh mutton (Ib.) Fresh pork (Ib.) Bacon (Ib.) Butter (Ib.) Cheese (Ib.) Milk (qt.) Wheat flour (196 Ib.) Firewood (cord)

£

s.

5 1

16 0 0 10 4 10 1 10

2 15 10

1 15

7

d.

0 6 8 0 0 0 0 0 0 3 2J 4 5 8e 7 3 0 0

Imported or manufactured needs

Bread (4 Ib.) Tea (Ib.) White sugar (Ib.) Pepper (Ib.) Salt (bus.) Tobacco (Ib.) Beer (gal.) Candles (Ib.) Common soap (Ib.) Blankets (pr.) Mens boots (pr.) Women's shoes (pr.) Men's shirts (cotton) Cloth for coats (yd.) Cotton for dresses (yd.) Two-wheeled cart Plow Winter sled

£

s. 2 I I I

17 7 4 3 8 7 10 2 5 3 0

d.

8 0 9 0 6 10 0 8 3 0 6 0 0 6 8 0 0 0

Obviously, with a minimum of local manufacture a steady and substantial twoway trade was essential. In the months of January through April this trade was necessarily suspended but, with the opening of the harbours in May and through to the end of the year, traffic in and out of Charlottetown, Summerside and dozens of smaller ports was very active. The recorded exports in 1860 were valued at £203,234/3/4. These exports went to three principal areas: the United States (¿£78,405/17/8), the neighbouring colonies (Nova Scotia 0 w

10.4 5.8

' 1.6 3.9

16.0 3.6 ^ 2.4 ...

13.3 15.7 2.6 2.3 2.4 5.3

1951

Female 5,969 4.2 9.7 16.3 20.3 31.4 16.8

An attempt was made to compare certain specific categories of employment as listed in the 1881 and 1951 Census reports (for the more important categories of 1881) (Second Census of Canada, 1880-2 (Ottawa, 1884), II, pp. 232-42; Ninth Census of Canada, IV, pp. 11-31 to 11-35): 1881

1951

Farmers and agricultural workers 20,492 12,943 Labourers 1,591 1,559 Carpenters 1,094 898 Apparel-makers 1,079 108 Fishermen 791 1,939 Mariners 765 204 Blacksmiths 623 103 Shoemakers 426 33 Ship-builders 215 Carriage-builders 161 Coopers 207 Millers 160 20 Painters and glaziers 117 254 Clergymen 115 127 Cabinet- and furniture-makers 102 9 Saddle- and harness-makers 97 5 Carders and weavers 91 10 Physicians and surgeons 63 73 Butchers 45 63 D.B.S., "Maritime Provinces," p. 18, gives interesting comparisons of the numerical importance of different occupations in the Maritimes as a whole as between 1881 and 1931. The same general trends are indicated; substantial declines were recorded for agricultural, mechanical, building and construction occupations; mining, manufacturing, transportation, clerical and white collar jobs in general all showed increase well beyond the rate of increase of population. Comparisons with Canada as a whole, and the three maritime provinces, for the years indicated were (proportions of persons gainfully employed, over 14 years of age, in agriculture) (Coke, "Trends in Rural Population", p. 86) : Year Canada Maritimes 1901 40% 41% 1941 26% 26% 1950 19% 19% The changes in occupations in the decades after Confederation certainly reflected the new position of the island as an element in a broad customs union. One disgruntled Islander wrote in 1906: "The spinning wheel is an heirloom, and the loom has been used as kindling wood. The carriage builder is a horse trader and the shoemaker a cobbler. The miller ipoaches salmon and the blacksmith is a tinker. The sheep which gave us its cast-off coat is now exported alive to help feed our absent brethren,

NOTES, PP. 131-133

247

sojourning in an alien's land." Joseph Read, "The Trade and Commerce of Prince Edward Island," in D. A. MacKinnon and A. B. Warburton (eds.), Past and Present of Prince Edward Island (Charlottetown, 1906), p. 106. 15. Ninth Census of Canada, IV, p. 2-2. The number of "farm operators" in 1951 was 10,137, of whom 9,269 were proprietors, 241 were managers, 82 were full tenants and 545 part owners and part tenants (ibid., VI, p. 29-1) which suggests that 2,806 were hired hands, presumably mostly men. 16. In 1955 the Acadians formed 16 per cent (15,477 out of 98,429) of the total population, 16 per cent (3,998 out of 24,685) of the urban population (most heavily concentrated in Sumrnerside), but only 13 per cent of the rural-farm population as against 2.1 per cent of the rural non-farm population. Ninth Census of Canada, I, pp. 32-1, 33-3. Indeed, the occupational census of 1955 showed that only 11 per cent of those engaged in agriculture were Acadians, whereas they comprised 25 per cent of those engaged in fishing, hunting and trapping (a census category which, on the island, is almost entirely made up of fishermen). Ibid., VI, pp. 13-3 and 13-4. J. E. Arsenault, "Les Acadiens de ITle-du-Prince-Edouard," Action Nationale, XXXI (1948), pp. 362-72; has some interesting comments on the position of the rural and farm elements of the Acadian population vis-à-vis those of the island as a whole. Among the reasons he suggests for relatively fewer Acadian farmers is that, as farmers, they are tradition-bound and generally slow to pick up new ideas, that their farms run smaller (average of 75 acres for Acadians, 95 acres for the island, in 1941) that farms, were, partly in consequence, of lower than average value, and that proportionate income was lower, and family size larger, than elsewhere in the province. 17. Those of Scottish origin continued, however, to play a disproportionately large role in agriculture. As against 32 per cent of the total population, 34 per cent of the rural population and 37 per cent of the farm population were Scots. True, the "most Scottish" areas had some of the lightest densities of farm population, but in those very areas the proportion of those engaged in farming who were Scots was at its highest. 18. A decrease of only 1.6 per square mile in Lot 4 alongside a decrease of 6.6 in Lot 5 suggests an overlapping count on the borders. This happens occasionally (notably for townships 20 and 21 in the 1921 Census, and for townships 66 and 51 in many censuses). Sometimes these have been adjusted in the maps drawn as was done for 66 and 51 in this map. 19. Abstract of the Returns of Tenures of Lands, Rents, & C., P.E. Island, 1861 [Census of Prince Edward Island], (Charlottetown, 1861). It should perhaps be noted that of 5,357 leaseholders, 4,450 had perpetual (999-year leases) and another 598 had leases running for more than 100 years. Only 135 leases for parcels of land ran for less than 30 years and of these 44 parcels were in Charlottetown and its royalty, 11 in Georgetown and its royalty, 24 in Lot 1 and 23 in Lot 31; no other township had as many as 7 leases of less than 30 years. Provided the rents were paid there was security of tenure. 20. Second Census of Canada, 1880-1 (Ottawa, 1883), III, p. 22. 21. The Act provided for another commission to evaluate the holdings of the proprietors and to fix the price at which they would be required to sell. This commission held lengthy hearings, fully published as Report of Proceedings before the Commissioners appointed under the Provisions of the "Land Purchase Act of 1875" (Charlottetown, 1876 and 1877). The second section, pp. 627-81, which was published in the second year is an appendix which includes the actual terms of the awards and an index to the whole. This Report and that of the Commission of 1860 form far the most important documents in a study of the nineteenth-century geo-

248

NOTES, PP. 133-138

graphies of Prince Edward Island. From tenant after tenant, of one or another proprietor, information was obtained about farming practices as far back as the eighteenth century. Following the awards the last legal obstacle was cleared and the last estate acquired by 1895. Journal of the House of Assembly of Prince Edward Island, 1896 (Charlottetown, 1896) Appendix D. Campbell, p. 168, called it "the most unconstitutional act" ever to receive the sanction of the Crown. After the fiasco of the 1861 Report of the Imperial Land Commission of 1860 (it was opposed in virtually every particular, and implemented in none, by the Imperial Government), the Cunard and other estates were purchased, but in 1870, 450,000 acres were still held by the proprietors. The chief "bribes" which sold confederation to the island were: a yearly federal subsidy of $45,000 in lieu of land revenues, a guarantee of up to $800,000 for the purchase of the 381,720 acres of proprietary holdings remaining in the year of confederation (1873), and the taking over by the federal government of the expensive local railway, then in the course of construction (see infra, pp. 138-43). One James Montgomery, lineal descendant of the James Montgomery (Lord Chief Baron of the Court of Exchequer of Scotland and His Majesty's Advocate for Scotland), who had drawn township 7 in the lottery and later greatly extended his holdings, was one of the last proprietors and bitterly opposed to the "expropriation." In 1875 he published An Experiment in Communism and Its Result (Charlottetown) which gives a most interesting recapitulation of the history of the land-tenure problem from the proprietors' point of view. It also was a bitter complaint against the value of the awards which had been made, to that time, by the Commission. These awards are of interest in establishing land values in the mid-seventies (ibid., p. 12).

Proprietor

Wm. Cundall Miss Cundall Miss Sullivan R. B. Stewart Sir G. Montgomery Ponsonby Fane Lord Melville J. F. Montgomery Col. Cumberland Miss Fanning TOTAL

Acres leased

2,844 1,455 44,387 38,018 5,610 8,653° 11,310 5,512 6,216 7,271

131,276

Acres unleased 21,602 28,674 5,847

300

56,423

Total area

2,844 1,455 65,989 66,692 5,610 14,500a 11,610 5,512 6,216 7,271

187,699

"Figures adjusted or added to complete or rationalize the table.

Total price

Awards

$ 9200 4450 81500 76500 12400 21200 34000 15200 32000° 20100°

$306550

Price per acre $3.23 3.06 1.23 1.14 2.21 1.46 2.92 2.75 5.13 2.77

$1.63

22. From the island census of 1861 and decennial censuses of the Dominion of Canada for years 1881 through 1951. The years 1871 and 1931, in which trends are unbroken, are omitted. 23. MacKinnon, chap, vi, has the best summary extant of the confederation negotiations. He presents evidence that the Lieutenant-Governor, Robinson, encouraged the provincial government to become deeply involved financially in building the railway "because he knew it would bring financial embarrassment which would be the first step toward Confederation." Ibid., p. 131. 24. Yet the lack of stone and gravel for road-building was offered as an argument for the railway. Apart from the general run of government documentary sources, most detail about the railway, as it was constructed, is to be gathered from two published documents:

NOTES, PP. 138-142

249

Thomas Swinyard, Reports to the Honourable the Minister of Public Works by T. S., on the Prince Edward Island Railway, and His Correspondence with the Provincial Government relative there to, 1874-1875 (Ottawa, 1875); and Edward J. Boyd, Reply to Mr. Swinyard's Reports on the Prince Edward Island Railway (Charlottetown, 1875). Boyd was the engineer of the colonial government and Swinyard the agent-engineer appointed by the federal government to take over. The latter was unhappy about the whole thing and was quick to point out the shortcomings of his new charge. His reports and correspondence were published to answer charges that the federal government was responsible for delays in getting the road in operation; his attack on Boyd led to the reply. 25. The original contract, including survey, location, construction and railway stock was for $13,845 per mile. The extensions of 1872 were contracted for at $14,840 per mile. 26. The original authorizing act was passed in April, 1871, and the first contract let in Sept., 1871. The act to alter and amend was passed in Aug., 1872, and the additional contract let in Dec., 1872. 27. There is some doubt as to the actual importance of gauge in determining costs of line and rolling stock. Standard of construction is a much more important factor in costs. Nevertheless, for a given standard of construction, a narrower gauge unquestionably saved some money. That it allowed a significantly shorter radius of curvature may be doubtful and it almost certainly meant little in the matter of grades, but the engineers advised the 3' 6" gauge on the conviction that it would allow sharper curves and steeper grades. 28. The railway had originally been financed with thirty-year debentures, at 4 per cent interest, issued against the credit of the provincial government. The situation became especially critical as the local banks ran out of specie. 29. A. E. Burke, The Tunnel between Prince Edward Island and the Mainland (Charlottetown (?), 1905). The Colonial Secretary, Lord Granville, had suggested a "metallic subway" across the strait in 1886 in a communication to the governorgeneral. An engineering report of the same year estimated the cost at £2,000,000 sterling,but Sir John Macdonald promised favourable consideration. The project was abandoned in 1901. (The relevant documents on the tunnel question are cited by MacKinnon, p. 301.) The tunnel scheme was revived briefly in 1929, but the estimated cost of $40,000,000 made it impracticable (Canada, House of Commons Debates, 1929 (Ottawa, 1929), p. 3078). A causeway scheme is now being considered. 30. The third rail was laid to Summerside and Charlottetown by 1919, to Tignish by 1923, to Souris, Elmira and Georgetown by 1926 and, finally, to Murray Harbour in 1930. Contracts for the rail ferry and terminals were let in 1913, but full-scale railway-car service was not inaugurated across the strait until 1918, although freight cars had been moved back and forth the previous autumn, beginning Oct. 16, 1917, on the new rail-car ferry, the Prince Edward Island. The changeover demanded, temporarily at least, the laying of a third rail beside the existing rails (often the laying of new rails and the ripping out of old ones), the widening and strengthening of roadbeds, culverts and bridges, and the installation of costly three-rail switches. In 1930 the use of the narrow-gauge equipment was discontinued and eventually the third rail and the three-rail switches were removed. During the period from 1919 to 1926 at least, freight from east and south of Charlottetown was moved in both narrow and standard-gauge cars, and trains of mixed large and small cars provided an interesting if startling novelty for tourist eyes as they moved across the country. Incidentally, the railway had slowly expanded in the half-century after 1875 to include not only the line to the Borden car-ferry but a bridge across the Hillsborough River from Charlottetown to Southport and a railway line across it winding eventually

250

NOTES, PP. 142-144

southeast to Murray Harbour, a cross line from Mount Stewart (which thus became something of a railway "hub") south to Vernon on Orwell Bay crossing the Murray Harbour line somewhat east of Vernon River, an extension from the Georgetown line to Montague and an extension eastward from Harmony Junction north of Souris to Elmira near East Point (Figure 1). The mileage in 1898 was 210 miles, in 1907, 267 miles and in 1914, 279 miles. At present the mileage is 286 miles with no likelihood of increase. See especially, J. F. Lafferty, "Prince Edward Island Railway," Canadian National Magazine, XXXVII, no. 4 (May, 1951), pp. 10-11, 18-19. 31. In the three years 1936, 1937 and 1938, 19,213 carloads of freight were ferried from Borden to Tormentine. Of these 7,351 cars were loaded with potatoes, 2,920 with turnips and 1,939 with livestock. In the same years a much larger number of loaded cars made the trip to the island than from it (a total of 28,237). Coal, flour and feed, gasoline and oil, and meats were the most important categories of incoming railroad freight across the ferry in terms of cars used. (These data were obtained from the local railway divisional headquarters in Charlottetown.) A table of numbers of cars moved in and out of the island, listed by the main categories of loadings, is given in a pamphlet by J. E. Lattimer, Economic Survey of Prince Edward Island (Charlottetown, 1944), p. 52. In 1943 the loaded cars entering the island exceeded those leaving (10,017) by 4,854; the excess of numbers of "imports" over "exports" was thus three times what it had been in 1934 (1,308). In the 1930's potatoes, turnips and livestock comprised, in general, less than 65 per cent of exports (measured by carloads). In the early 1940's their proportion had jumped to an average of some 75 per cent of such exports. 32. There is a very useful section by F. W. Hyndman, "Merchant Marine of Prince Edward Island" in Mackinnon and Warburton, Past and Present. He sets the start of the decline in 1865 with the ending of reciprocity. In 1866, 127 vessels of 31,932 tons were built; in 1870 only 53 of 14,312 tons. Generally the "ships" were small; vessels of 200 to 300 tons were popular in the English market and represented the most commonly constructed type. There were a few larger craft built, as noted in the previous chapter, but the next most popular size class after the 200-300 group was for vessels of 25 to 100 tons for use in the coasting trade and in fishing. Commonly the larger vessels were loaded with cargoes of oats and potatoes and sold with their cargoes. 33. W. H. Crosskill, Prince Edward Island (Charlottetown, 1899), p. 51. 34. Data for 1830-72 from Journals of the House of Assembly of Prince Edward Island. Data for 1874-90 from House of Commons, Sessional Papers, Ottawa. 35. The subject is quite thoroughly treated in F. MacKinnon, "Communications between Prince Edward Island and the Mainland," Dalhousie Review, XXIX (1949), pp. 182-90. There it is stated (p. 182) that the first permanent steam service was inaugurated in 1842. 36. Bagster, Progress and Prospects, pp. 46-7, describes a steamer service up the Hillsborough (Northeast) River twice a week, as far as Mount Stewart, with stops at wharves here and there on the way, presumably about 1860. 37. References may be found in Bagster, Progress and Prospects, and in a series of articles entitled "Charlottetown Past and Present" by "J. E. W." in vols. Ill and IV of the Prince Edward Island Magazine (Charlottetown, 1902). Benjamin Bremner, Memories of Long Ago (Charlottetown, 1930) remembers crossing by this "teamboat." 38. Journals of the House of Commons of the Dominion of Canada, 1st Session, 1883 (Ottawa, 1883), Appendix No. 3, "Report of the Select Committee appointed by the House of Commons to consider the Question of Steam Communication between Prince Edward Island and the Mainland in Winter and Summer."

NOTES, PP. 144-148

251

39. The island terminus of the "Capes Route," as it was called, was shifted to Borden when the new railway car-ferry service was established. The first actual icebreaker used in an attempt to provide all-year round service between Pictou and Georgetown, the Northern Light, went into service in 1876-7 and continued until 1888. It was in 1888 that a new steamer, the Stanley, was placed on the run under federal subsidy and Ottawa added the Minio in 1899. 40. D.B.S., Shipping Report, for the year ended Dec. 31, 1954 (Ottawa, 1955). 41. S. A. Saunders, "The Economic History of the Maritime Provinces," a mimeographed study prepared for the Royal Commission on Dominion-Provincial Relations (Ottawa, 1939), p. 146. 42. At the end of World War II (Canada Year Book, 1946 (Ottawa, 1946), p. 29), it was estimated that less than one-third of the island could be classed as productive woodland. Of this 610 square miles exactly half was in soft wood and only 25 square miles was in hardwood; the rest was mixed. Briefly the forested land was divided thus: Softwood Mixed Hardwood (in square miles) Merchantable: 90 150 15 Young growth: 215 130 10 TOTALS

305

280

25

All but some two square miles of forest are on private woodlots. 43. Colonial censuses for 1855 and 1861. 44. There is always confusion in identification and statistical reporting with respect to this rather bony fish which has similarities to both shad and herring. It is called gaspereaux (the Canadien and Acadien name) locally and often confused with the menhaden to which it is closely related. It was eaten locally and exported in salted form in the nineteenth century, but its chief use over the years has probably been as a source of fish oil or, less frequently, fertilizer. 45. Colonial census for 1861, and Sutherland, Geography and History of P.E.I., p. 146. Other groundfish (hake, haddock, etc.) were taken with the cod. 46. Data from the colonial census for 1861. 47. Government of P.E.I., Prince Edward Island . . . (Charlottetown, 1883), p. 12. 48. J. Stafford, The Canadian Oyster (Ottawa, 1913), pp. 99-100. 49. By 1914 the oyster industry in Malpeque Bay had been almost completely ruined by disease and thereafter island production of oysters for many years ran around 5,000 barrels a year chiefly from Bedeque Bay and the north shore bays of Queens County. Production from the island was only 5,278 barrels in 1925 and 4,888 barrels in 1930 of which 547 barrels came from eastern Prince County and 4,341 barrels from Queens County (Annual Report of the Department of Fisheries, 1930-1 (Ottawa, 1931), pp. 75-7). 50. In 1950 the island produced 844,000 pounds of oysters, of a total yield of 4,870,000 pounds for Canada (Ninth Census of Canada, IX, pp. C-7, A-9). The island total did, however, reach over 2,000,000 pounds (10,000 barrels) per year in the years 1934 and 1935 (Annual Report of the Department of Fisheries, 1935-36 (Ottawa, 1936), p. 35). 51. Government of P.E.I., Prince Edward Island, p. 12. 52. Calculated from data in W. H. Crosskill, Prince Edward Island, p. 47, and his Handbook of Prince Edward Island (Charlottetown, 1906), p. 84. The proportion of value of other products in 1897 was, approximately, herring 14 per cent, all groundfish 11 per cent, oysters 9 per cent, mackerel 3 per cent, smelts 3 per cent, and eels 2 per cent.

252

NOTES, PP. 148-150

53. D. A. MacKinnon, "Fisheries," in MacKinnon and Warburton, Past and Present, p. 170. 54. For cod, lobster and smelt fisheries (and probably now for much of the oyster fishery) the standard equipment is a single-sail boat, twenty to thirty feet in length, with a low-horsepower inboard motor. For the lobster-fishing two men operate such a boat for the brief seasons permitted by the lobster conservation programme. One boat manages perhaps 350 of the lath-and-twine, funnel-type traps universally employed in northeastern North America. These are built locally, largely of local materials and often by the fishermen themselves in the off season. In other seasons the lobster fishermen fish for other quarry, mend traps, nets or lines, seek work elsewhere on the island or in New Brunswick and Nova Scotia, or join their womenfolk and children in tending their bits of farms. It is said that in recent decades almost every fisherman on the island has been a lobster fisherman in the lobster season. 55. In 1951, 2,166 men and 320 women were engaged in the fishery as fishermen, canners or packers. Of the men, 231 were canners or packers and 1,935 were fishermen; all but one of the women were canners and packers. About one-fourth of the women employed in the factories were under 20 years of age. The data are from Ninth Census of Canada, IV, pp. 11-31 to 11-39. 56. The fishing industry actually enjoyed unusually good returns in the war years, and the purchases by UNRRA kept up the prosperity for most of the decade of the 1940's. Sidelines such as Irish moss (seaweed valuable for its gelatin content) were also partly developed. Yet these happy years hardly balanced the severity of suffering in the depression of the thirties, when rum-running became the only means of making money with their boats. The fishermen were very much at the mercy of the big packers and suppliers of gear; improvident in good times they found it difficult to organize in bad years. The struggles to develop co-operative organization among the fishermen are detailed in John T. Croteau, Cradled in the Waves: The Story of a People's Cooperative Achievement in Economic Betterment in Prince Edward Island, Canada (Toronto, 1951). 57. The information in this section is chiefly based upon the following works (apart from personal knowledge and observation and the official statistical reports) : J. W. Jones, Fur Farming in Canada (2nd éd., Ottawa, 1914); J. A. Allen and J. E. Smith, "Fox Ranching in Canada," Canadian Department of Agriculture Bulletin, no. 12 (Ottawa, 1926); F. A. Stilgenbauer, "Geographic Aspects of the Prince Edward Island Fur Industry," Economic Geography, III, (1927), and "The Geography of Prince Edward Island," unpublished Ph.D. dissertation, University of Michigan (Ann Arbor, 1929); and A. Priesner, "Beobachtungen im Weltzentrum der Silberfuchszucht (Prinz-Edward-Insel)," Fortschritte der Landwirtschaft, V (1930), pp. 221-4. 58. The black, or silver, fox on which the island's fur-farming industry was established, and which has remained the basic animal in fur-farming operations there ever since, is a mutant form of the common red fox, which had been trapped, dead and alive, for centuries. The breeding experiments involved an attempt to fix this mutation, and continuous experiment also has been conducted to attempt fixation of the various forms of the silver phase among black foxes. Much of this experiment, fostered by the restless energy of a highly speculative industry, has been of more immediate benefit to theory in the science of genetics than to the individual rancher, but various guides to profitable breeding have been developed empirically in this way which have been more useful than, and sometimes contrary to, programmes of breeding developed from theoretical hypotheses. 59. The fur-farms, until very recently at least, have been fox-farms. Even in 1950, when fox fur was in low demand, only 12 per cent of the island's 127 fur farms carried mink and no other furs were raised.

NOTES, PP. 150-156

253

60. D.B.S., Report on the Fur Farms of Canada, 1923 (Ottawa, 1924), pp. 10-11, 16, 17-19. 61. These data come chiefly from Report on the Fur Farms of Canada published for 1925 (1927), 1930 (1932), and 1935 (1937), by the Fur Statistics Branch of the Dominion Bureau of Statistics, and for 1940 (1942) and 1950 (1952) by the Fisheries and Animal Products Branch of the same Bureau in Ottawa. 62. Stilgenbauer, "Geographic Aspects." 63. D.B.S., Fur Farms of Canada (see note 61 above). In all of this discussion we should, perhaps, read "farms keeping foxes" for "fur-farms". Understood in this way the wide year-to-year fluctuations became understandable. 64. Stilgenbauer, "Geographic Aspects," p. 116, noted in 1923 that 89 per cent of the farms were near larger towns or the cities of Charlottetown and Summerside which were, of course, also ports. The importance of sea food and central cold storage plants for conserving fox food (as, e.g., horseflesh) was significant in this distribution. The low density in Kings County, he related to lack of major concentrations of population, less available money for speculation and greater interest in the fishery. Since Souris, for example, was a larger centre than Alberton or Tignish, since the latter, at least, was even more clearly a fishing port than Souris, and since there was adequate capital available in such villages as Morell, Georgetown, Montague and Murray Harbour for the small-scale enterprise involved, these conclusions may need re-examination. It is perhaps more reasonable to attribute the concentration of this industry in the northwest to the momentum obtained by its early start and to see it, thereafter, as tending to stay close to major centres of population, although, during the thirties, there were from % to % as many farms (though rarely % as many foxes) in Kings as in Prince. The fox-farming in Kings was, however, on an unusually small scale; in the late thirties, when the writer visited many farms which kept only a pair or two of foxes, the average number of foxes per farm in the county was only from 10 to 15 animals. 65. Stilgenbauer, "Geographic Aspects." p. 110. 66. Lattimer, Economic Survey, p. 27. CHAPTER

VIII

1. This compares with "next highs" of 60 per cent of area as potential farm land (in New Brunswick and Nova Scotia), and less than 60 per cent of potential farm land occupied, among the other provinces as estimated by the Census of Canada for 1921. The island also had the highest proportion of occupied farm land "improved." Sixth Census of Canada, 1921 (Ottawa, 1924), V, pp. xi-xvii. 2. Calculated from data in D.B.S., "The Maritime Provinces in Their Relation to the National Economy of Canada" (Ottawa, 1934) and Ninth Census of Canada, 1951 (Ottawa, 1953), VI, part I. 3. Field investigation reminded the writer constantly that what appears, superficially, to be a young spruce forest (and would be certainly so interpreted from the photographs) continues to be carried on the "mental books" of the farmer as "old pasture" and will be so recorded as long as any grazing for sheep, cattle or hogs is obtained from it. The areas of such reverted "pasture" have been steadily growing with the continued abandonment of cultivation in second-class lands and the concentration of high production of field crops, butterfat, pork and eggs from the "best" lands. Since the differences in natural fertility are not great, the distinction is often one of drainage, slope or situation with respect to roads or the homestead centre of farm operations; as between different larger areas we also clearly see the heavy hand of cultural inheritance.

254

NOTES, PP. 161-166

4. The figures were excerpted from the various decennial Census of Canada publications. 5. Cropland increased by 5 per cent or more in only 14 townships; in more than 40 townships it decreased by over 5 per cent, and in 10, all in the east or south east, by more than 25 per cent. In the 4 southeastern lots (60, 62, 63 and 64) it declined, over-all, by more than &. Actually, for most of the 30-year period cropland acreage exceeded that for 1920 or 1950. The largest area in crops ever recorded for a census year was that of 1930, and the 1940 area in crops was still greater than that in 1920. The data are all from the decennial census reports. 6. As recorded in the censuses of 1855 and 1861 (presumably the produce of the immediately preceding years), 31,112 and 31,088/2 tons, respectively. 7. Obtained roughly from township data for 1861 population and 1860 production in the provincial census for 1861. 8. The maximum acreage in a census year was represented by the land harvested in 1930 (231,755 acres yielding 216,310 tons) and the highest yield came in 1910 (256,002 tons from 215,055 acres). Seventh Census of Canada, 1931 (Ottawa, 1936), VIII, p. cxi. 9. PROPORTION OF TOTAL ACREAGE OF FIELD CROPS IN PARTICULAR CROPS

Hay Oats

Mixed grains'* Wheat Potatoes Turnips

1900a

41% 37 2 9 7 2

1910a 45% 38 2 6 6 1

1920a 45% 35 2 7 7 2

1930a 48% 30 4 4 11 2

1940b

48% 28 7 2 10 2

1950e 47% 23 15 1 10 2

"Seventh Census of Canada, 1931 (Ottawa, 1936), VIII, p. Ixxxv. b Eighth Census of Canada, 1941 ("Prince Edward Island, Census of Agriculture," Ottawa, 1945), p. 9. 'Ninth Census of Canada, 1951 (Ottawa, 1953), VI, part I, "Prince Edward Island," table 8, pp. 1-2. d For the first four census years (1900 to 1930) the category "other cereals" was used; presumably it included mixed grains before 1920 and largely consisted of mixed grains in 1920 and 1930.

It is hard to find an individual farm on which these proportions are found in any year. Below data is presented for two farms for the period 1935-45 which are drawn from field notes made by the writer with reference to other publications. Of the two, neither is "high-farming" or "poor-farming," although Farm A is closer to the former and Farm B closer to the latter. For Acadian farming in general, see J. E. Arsenault, "Les Acadiens de rile-du-Prince-Edouard," Action Nationale, XXXI (1948), pp. 362-72. Size Location Popular origins Farmstead

Livestock horses cattle pigs sheep poultry foxes

Farm B Farm A 60 acres 100 acres East of Charlottetown West of Summerside Acadian Scottish and Irish 4-room, one-storey, frame, shingle7-room, two-storey, frame, shinglesided house,once whitewashed ; small sided house, painted once; barn and stable, four other buildings, once barn and stable, one other building; whitewashed; four fruit trees and a all buildings once whitewashed; small garden ; all on one acre. garden; all on two acres.

4-5 20 (8 milk cows) 2 brood sows (20 pigs raised) 60 4 pair

2 9 (6 milk cows) 1 brood sow (6 pigs raised)

15 100

255

NOTES, PP. 166-172 Wood lot Pasture Field crops hay oats, etc., for threshing oats, etc., for greenfeed wheat potatoes turnips mangels corn Equipment and Implements

1 15 77 35 20

6 14 44 20 14

acre: cedar and spruce acres: fair acres in clover and timothy (5 mixed)

acres: spruce, fir, larch, birch acres: poor acres in clover and timothy (5 mixed)

3, oats and peas mixed

5, includes peas and vetches 3 for chicken feed, etc. 10 (7 for certified seed) 2 1 1 Single plow, gang plow, drill seeder, harrows, hay mower, hay rake, two 2-wheel carts, two wagons; part interest in potato-sprayer, grain binder, manure spreader, small threshing mill, light tractor.

2, grain for own flour 5 Single plow, harrows, hay mower and hay rake, 2-wheel cart, wagon; part interests in some other equipment, but much of the work done on a custom basis, in exchange for labour.

10. The data for individual census years often give a rather poor picture of longterm acreage and yields. To indicate how representative in character are the 1951 figures for wheat, we may consider those for the five-year period 1947-51 as taken from the annual Reports of the Prince Edward Island Department of Agriculture: Acreage Yield (bus.)

1947

4,400 96,800

1948

5,600 128,800

1949

6,500 149,500

1950

7,200 180,000

7957

9,800 235,200

That they do not agree with the federal census figures is quite normal; these are estimates and are inclined to be high. The point here is that there was something of a renaissance of wheat-growing in the late 1940's and early 1950's stimulated by government-guaranteed prices and that this is obscured by the decennial figure. Journal of Legislative Assembly of the Province of Prince Edward Island, for 1949, 1950 and 1952 (Charlottetown, 1949, 1950 and 1952). 11. The decrease in potato-growing after 1890 represented in part a more rapid rise in the cost of production than in potato prices. The cost of raising an acre of potatoes in Lot 21, in 1891, was reported as follows in an immigration brochure published in London: £

Rent Plowing 35 loads dung Spreading dung 2nd plowing 10 bus. seed. Cutting and planting Cleaning and ridging Raising and storing Delivering (150 bus.) Other expenses

s. 8 6 1 9 4 4 10 3 4 1 5 18 2

Total cost per acre

5 15 10e

d. — 3 2 6 3 — 1Í 9 — 9 1

If the average yield were as little as 150 bushels the cost would, thus, be 9%d. per bushel, more than they would sell for, at the height of the season, in Charlottetown. The expense of spraying was apparently not included, but the estimate of 150 bushels per acre may have been a little on the low side for this township. The average yield

256

NOTES, PP. 172-186

for all of the island, for 1890, was 162 bushels per acre. See: Anon., The Maritime Provinces of Canada. Nova Scotia, New Brunswick, Prince Edward Island . . . (London, 1892), p. 30, and Third Census of Canada, 1890-1 (Ottawa, 1897), IV, p. 73. 12. There are many of these in individual censuses where data referring to one lot are tabulated for an adjacent lot. These "accidents" do little to alter general distribution patterns as mapped, however, and do not in any way invalidate the method of study. A spectacular example occurred in the 1921 census when a great deal of all kinds of data referring to Lot 21 was listed as from Lot 20; such errors in tabulation or assignment of data have usually been found in the case of adjacent lots and the cartographical adjustment is easily made. Sixth Census of Canada, 1921 (Ottawa, 1924), V, pp. 174-5, 284-5, 382, 460-1, 552-3. 13. Much of the growing of potatoes in Lots 44 and 45, however, was on a distinctly commercial basis, and any farmer would sell what he could, when he could. 14. The year a section of the cropland was in potatoes or turnips might seem unprofitable in itself but yet contribute to profitable grain and hay crops in the succeeding half-dozen years. The heavy fertilization and the cleaning in the "root" years were essential to success in raising grain in competition with the better grain-growing lands westward on the continent. The "root" years were also the years for application of mussel-mud, so widely used at the turn of the century (over-used, some said) and the chemical fertilizers spread in such large quantities in the past few decades. 15. The illogical terminology which labels the potato a "root" is apparently too firmly fixed in popular thinking to be changed. 16. Seventh Census of Canada, 1931 (Ottawa, 1934), "Prince Edward Island, Census of Agriculture," p. xlix: THE PROPORTION OF TOTAL VALUE OF LIVESTOCK CONTRIBUTED BY EACH MAJOR KIND Horses Cattle Sheep Swine Poultry

1901

44.0% 37.8 7.9 7.3 3.0

1911

56.6% 30.3 4.9 4.6 3.6

1921

44.9% 37.6 6.2 4.8 6.5

1931

44.6% 38.1 5.2 4.5 7.6

Note that this table is not published in the regular census volume on agriculture for 1931 (vol. VIII). 17. Data largely from D.B.S., "Maritime Provinces," together with the agricultural sections of the federal censuses for 1941 and 1951. 18. Ninth Census of Canada, 1951 (Ottawa, 1953), VI, part I, "Prince Edward Island," table 24, p. 1. 19. Among the exports for the year 1828, for example, were 3,403 pounds of butter and 313 pounds of cheese; among those for 1829 were 8,880 pounds of butter and 168 pounds of cheese. The full list of exports for these years is given in the Prince Edward Island Register, Feb. 9, 1830. 20. One or two of the individual township totals are suspect here (notably township 23), but they have been mapped as they are listed in the colonial census of 1861. 21. J. B. Pollard, Historical Sketch of . . . also Prince Edward Island . . . (Charlottetown, 1898), p. 182, mentions two cheese factories and one creamery as "put into operation" in 1882. John Anderson, writing of the dairy industry in D. A. MacKinnon and A. B. Warburton (eds.), Past and Present of Prince Edward Island (Charlottetown, 1906), p. 165, lists the first cheese factory as being started in 1883 and the first creamery in 1887. The first factory (which burned down after two years)

NOTES, PP. 186-195

257

seems to have been at Millview, near the Vernon River, in Lot 49. The earliest ones with a longer history, however, were in the high-farming area of eastern Prince County near Dunk River (Bedeque) and at St. Eleanors, north of Summerside (Canadian Trade Review (Nov. 30, 1900), p. 68A). 22. Data from the various decennial censuses, D.B.S.,"Maritime Provinces . . . ," note 63; W. H. Crosskill, Handbook of Prince Edward Island (Charlottetown, 1906) and Anderson, "The Dairying Industry," pp. 165-8, in D. A. MacKinnon and A. B. Warburton (eds.), Past and Present of Prince Edward Island (Charlottetown, 1906). The reduction in cheese and butter manufacture, particularly the former, reflected the inability of Islanders to compete successfully with Denmark, New Zealand and other cheese-producing areas in the United Kingdom market. The "McKinley Tariff" had effectively barred Canadian dairy products from the United States. 23. In 1898 there were 43 processing plants of which 14 made cheese only, 7 made butter only, 2 were separating stations only, 16 made both butter and cheese, and 4 were cheese factories which also separated cream for other plants which made butter (W. H. Crosskill, Prince Edward Island (Charlottetown, 1899), pp. 41-4). In 1901 there were 47 butter or cheese factories; 27 were joint, 15 produced cheese only and 5 butter only. W. H. Crosskill, Handbook of P.E.L, p. 78. 24. For 1898 Crosskill estimated foreign exports at some $1,325,047 of which agricultural produce supplied over $815,000. Crosskill, Prince Edward Island, p. 49. 25. Ibid., p. 50. 26. This map represents an attempt to use two different kinds of data in a description of areal differentiation of change. The census provided a township breakdown, for 1931, of "cows in milk or in calf." For 1951 the only comparable breakdown was of "cows and heifers, one year of age and over, kept for milk." In that year the total of "milk cows," not otherwise defined, is given as 38,909 whereas the total for the larger category (for which there were township breakdowns) was 50,379. For each township the figure for the larger category was reduced by the ratio 38,909/50,379 to give a figure purporting to represent "milk cows" for that township. This figure was then used to compute its percentage of the "cows in milk or calf total for 1951 for the same township. The absolute figures are, of course, open to question, but the areal differentiation of the percentages of change must yield a reasonably accurate delineation of areas of major retrogression in dairying as compared with those which declined less, remained virtually the same, or even advanced as is indicated for ten of the townships. Ninth Census of Canada, 1951 (Ottawa, 1953), VI, part I, "Prince Edward Island," tables 11, 21. 27. As indicated in note 26, the numbers of milk cows, by townships for 1951 have been estimated by the factor 38,909/50,379 which applies to totals for the whole island. 28. All data not otherwise credited are from the decennial censuses of the Dominion of Canada or the colonial (provincial) censuses of Prince Edward Island for the dates (or the year following the dates) given. 29. L. H. Hamilton, "Sheep Production in Eastern Canada," Agricultural Institute Review, XXVIII (1948), pp. 97-101, makes it clear that the decline in interest in sheep has been general in eastern Canada. Small farms, small flocks, and the scattering of the farmer's interests among the many activities of a thoroughly mixed croplivestock enterprise have put sheep-raising in a poor competitive position. Minimal for steady profits would be a 25-ewe flock using 4 to 5 acres of hay and 2 to 3 acres of grain together with all-summer use of adequate pasture. Housing would involve 15 square feet per ewe. Island farmers feel that they can do better with this pasture, hay and grain land and this winter housing space.

258

NOTES, PP. 198-216

30. Sixth Census of Canada, 1921 (Ottawa, 1924), V, "Agriculture," does not give livestock numbers for less than county-size units, but this judgment is supported by a number of statements by agricultural experts and farmers, recorded in field notes. CHAPTER

IX

1. Stephen P. Leacock, Canada, the Foundations of Its Future (Montreal, 1941), p. 90. 2. Andrew H. Clark, "South Island, New Zealand, and Prince Edward Island, Canada: A Study of Insularity," The New Zealand Geographer (Auckland, 1947), III, pp. 137-50. 3. Nathan Keyfitz, "The Growth of Canadian Population," Population Studies, IV (1950), pp. 47-63. 4. See Appendix B. 5. And many a small island in the East or West Indies outranked the Island of St. John (or Prince Edward) in attractiveness. 6. The word "American" has become ambiguous by appropriation to the United States, but through the seventeenth, eighteenth and much of the nineteenth centuries it had the simple connotation of the western hemisphere and a general application to the republic and British North America alike. 7. It is now widely recognized, too, that in all the "Loyalist" migrations there was a substantial element of "involuntary exile"; such an element would be especially inclined to compare colonial political institutions unfavourably with those of the republic. 8. Thane A. Campbell (Premier and Attorney-General) "The Case of Prince Edward Island," a submission presented to the Royal Commission on DominionProvincial Relations by the Government of Prince Edward Island (Charlottetown, 1937?), especially pp. 29-30. 9. This attitude toward national identity has been widespread in Canada outside of Prince Edward Island although it has different roots in Ontario, for example. Professor A. R. M. Lower has stressed this in much of his writing. Striving to differentiate themselves from the "Americans" of the United States, with whose culture they found their own more and more completely blended, Canadians tended to stress the British connection in a valiant effort to preserve identity. They almost feared to assume a Canadianism instead, lest it prove too weak to withstand the cultural onslaught from the south. To quote Lower in a chapter of a recent book entitled "The Canadian Outlook": "At the beginning of the Twentieth Century The Canadian Outlook' would not have been a topic for discussion since a Canadian outlook hardly existed." A. R. M. Lower, Canada, Nation and Neighbour (Toronto, 1952), p. 67. 10. Journal of the House of Assembly of Prince Edward Island [for 1862] (Charlottetown, 1862), Appendix O, "Report of the Commissioners . . .", p. 23 (pages not numbered). 11. Ibid, [for 1864] (Charlottetown, 1864), Appendix F, p. 20 (pages not numbered), in the letter of Hon. W. H. Pope to Lord Newcastle of Dec. 18, 1863. The writer has not located this in the Report (see note 10); it may be part of the same unlocated Appendix to that report from which Pope quoted more extensively in his letter (see note 12). 12. Ibid., p. 15, Pope to Newcastle. 13. Its total population is perhaps 10 per cent under its maximum of the 1880's; its farming population has been reduced by one-fourth or more. As with most of the

NOTES, PP. 216-222

259

rest of North America it has become more highly "urbanized," but it supports only one proper city and one substantial town. Of a total population about one-fourth of that of the island (roughly 25,000 out of 100,000) is considered urban. The main centre, Charlottetown, today has around 17,000 people and its "rival," Summerside, something about 7,000. The former is the capital and the commercial centre for the two eastern counties; Summerside performs many of the same non-governmental functions for Prince County. Between them has grown up the high-farming area of the island; they have contributed to its development as it has to theirs. 14. Andrew H. Clark, "Historical Geography," chap, m, pp. 70-105, in P. E. James and C. F. Jones (eds.), American Geography: Inventory and Prospect (Syracuse, 1954).

Appendix A THE A R E A S OF THE LOTS

Since the first estimates of the areas of the townships by Captain Holland, the only other estimates which have been made and published (to the writer's knowledge) are those which appeared with the results of the federal census of 1901 (Fourth Census of Canada, 1901 (Ottawa, 1902), I, pp. 88-92). These appeared again in the report of the 1911 census but have not been republished since. Attempts to use these area data turned up what appeared to be very unlikely areas for certain townships (notably Lot 65). Since the township areas were rationalized to give totals equal to the areas of the counties an error in one township would involve errors in others. Correspondence with officials in Ottawa and Charlottetown left it completely obscure what the basis of these old figures might have been. Unwilling to invest a large amount of time in calculations for the density maps using such data, we decided to undertake a planimetric estimation of the township areas. Using township boundaries as shown on many official nineteenth-century maps and two cadastral atlases, which were transferred to the latest inch-to-a-mile topographic sheets, and adjusting the individual lot areas to fit the accepted figures for county areas, the areas, as given in the "measured" column of the following table, were established. The double figure for Lot 18 is to indicate its area without Princetown and its royalty and, in brackets, its area including them. Statistics are given separately for Princetown and royalty to 1855; from 1861 the area is always considered part of the adjacent township. In the measurements certain sandy off-shore island areas (5,800 acres in all) were omitted from the areas of the townships of western Prince County. All maps used and reproduced in this study which involve density calculations, by townships, used the "measured" area of the lots. In forty-three townships the difference between the "measured" and census areas is less than 5 per cent and, hence, hardly significant. In six townships, however, the difference was more than 10 per cent and so large a discrepancy would result in some noticeable differences between density maps calculated on either basis. Serious discrepancies in the areas of the town-and-royalty districts of Charlottetown and Georgetown would also appear in differences on the maps. Readers should therefore note that densities shown for Lots 5, 48, 57 and 65 on any map are substantially lower than they would be if the census figures were used, and densities for Lots 28 and 53, considerably higher. In maps comparing densities as between different census years the discrepancies are of little significance; however, they do affect the following fourteen maps: Figures 35, 50, 74, 77, 78, 79, 91, 101, 107, 109, 110, 128, 133, 134. 260

APPENDIX A

261

As an example of the problems of adjustment which led to the use of the "measured" areas, the data for areas of "occupied farms," given in the 1921 census report, will serve very well. Our most serious problem is with the area of Lot 65. Its "occupied farms" area of 18,973 clearly fits the "measured" total area of 20.1 thousand acres much better than the census area of 16,160 acres. Very much the same situation obtained in two other "problem" lots, 28 and 57. In fairness it should be said that the census area of Lot 48 gave a better fit than the "measured" area, but for the island as a whole the "measured" areas seemed much more reasonable and, of course, one basis of area estimation had to be used consistently if it was to be used at all. THE AREAS OF THE TOWNSHIPS

Lot

1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 26 27 28 29 30 31 32 33 34

Measured (1,000 acres)

25.8 21.8 21.5 26.6 22.2 19.1 19.4 21.0 18.0 19.3 21.2 19.3 23.9 22.0 23.3 21.0 22.3 18.7(22.6) 19.7 17.5 19.2 20.9 20.7 22.6 18.0 22.5 20.9 20.7 22.0 20.6 22.9 16.1 23.9 21.5

Census (acres)

24,985 22,220 23,347 26,316 19,558 19,148 19,456 21,708 19,251 18,841 23,040 18,022 22,528 23,449 23,040 20,275 23,142 22,630 20,684 19,251 19,046 22,118 21,606 24,268 18,432 23,654 21,229 23,040 21,520 21,960 22,937 17,305 24,641 22,425

Arbitrarily adjusted (1,000 acres) 25.0 22.0 22.5 26.5 20.5 19.0 19.5 21.0 18.5 19.0 22.0 18.5 23.0 22.0 23.5 20.5 22.5 22.5 20.0 17.5 19.0 21.0 21.0 23.5 18.5 23.0 21.0 22.0 22.0 21.0 23.0 17.0 24.0 21.5

Charlottetown and royalty Georgetown and royalty Prinr.etown and rovaltv Prince County offshore islands

Lot 35 36 37 38 39 40 41 42 43 44 45 46 47 48 49 50 51 52 53 54 55 56 57 58 59 60 61 62 63 64 65 66 67

Measured (1,000 acres)

18.7 20.1 23.1 19.5 20.3 18.9 18.7 20.1 17.0 17.3 19.5 20.6 21.2 22.8 23.7 19.4 18.2 20.1 19.2 21.0 22.0 21.0 23.2 18.8 19.9 20.3 19.7 19.3 25.7 20.7 20.1 5.7 24.1 8.1 3.9 3.9 5.8

Census (acres) 19,251 20,480 23,756 19,660 20,992 20,070 17,715 19,456 18,329 17,305 21,196 20,377 21,196 18,944 23,859 18,880 18,040 19,960 22,585 19,558 22,323 21,913 20,960 18,880 18,720 19,240 18,240 19,280 24,240 20,280 16,160 5,800 25,804 7,000 2,400

Arbitrarily adjusted (1,000 acres)

19.0 20.5 23.5 19.5 20.5 19.5 18.5 20.0 17.5 17.0 20.0 20.5 21.0 21.0 24.0 19.0 18.0 20.0 21.5 20.0 22.0 21.5 22.0 19.0 19.5 20.0 19.0 19.5 25.0 20.5 19.0 6.0 25.0

7.5 3.0 3.9 5.8

262

APPENDIX A

As this is written the maps have all been made and drafted, but the dilemma remains. The writer now feels, on reflection, that he might have modified his "measured" figures somewhat, to allow for probable shifts of township boundaries as between adjacent areas with positive and negative discrepancies, and thus have used figures nearer those of the census. Still these data (which are given in the table above as "arbitrarily adjusted") have no firm basis at all; it may be as well that the "feeling" about them developed too late to be effective. Finally, it should be said that a number of density maps have been made on the basis of all three area estimates to test the differences, and we judge that none of the conclusions of the study would be affected by using either alternative to the "measured" areas except in small degrees of emphasis. To most readers the effect of any of the three area-bases on the resulting maps would be completely unimportant. Nevertheless this Appendix has been included both as a guide to the few who are interested in such detail, and may prefer the census figures, and as an exposition of one of the many problems one meets in making ' historical-cartographic comparisons.

Appendix B THE

ASSIGNMENT

PROPRIETORSHIP

AND

OF

THE

CHANGING

TOWNSHIPS

Even the official records of the Privy Council and the Commissioners for Trade and Plantations do not agree entirely as to the results of the lottery assignment in 1767. The names of the "original grantees," as listed below, are derived from three sources, with the variant spellings of names, etc., rationalized wherever possible: (1) W. L. Grant, James Munro and Sir Almeric Fitzroy (eds.), Acts of the Privy Council: Colonial Series, 1766-1783 (London, 1912), V, pp. 56-80. (2) Journal of the Commissioners for Trade and Plantations, from January 1764 to December 1767 (London, 1936), pp. 413-15. (3) Report Concerning Canadian Archives for the Year 1905 (Ottawa, 1906), I, part II, "Land Grants in Prince Edward Island, 1767," pp. 10-11. Records of subsequent changes in ownership might be derived from a variety of sources. Their reliability is often in question and the writer has found it impossible to provide a complete or rigorously accurate listing of ownership changes. Sources which might be used include:

(1) A manuscript list of proprietors added to a published map of the island of 1775: A Map of the Island of St. John in the Gulf of St. Lawrence divided into Counties & Parishes and the Lots as granted by the Government . . . , "Published as the Act direct, April 6, 1775" (London). The date of the list is uncertain but probably it is in the 1780's since it would appear to include some of the transfers involved in the sales of 1781. The list is in the Provincial Legislative Library in Charlottetown. (2) John Stewart, An Account of Prince Edward Island . . . (London, 1806) is very good for the period from 1770 to 1800. (3) The list of names of those holding major residuary proprietary interests in 1860 in G. B. Bagster The Progress and Prospects of Prince Edward Island . . . (Charlottetown, 1861), pp. 51ff. (4) Report of Proceedings before the Commissioners Appointed under the Provisions of "The Land Purchase Act of 1875" (Charlottetown, 1875). (Pages 1-626 bear the date 1875. Pages 627-681 bear no date but include the proceedings of 1876, a list of the awards, and an index to the whole.) (5) Useful for bits and pieces are many others including: the Report of the Commissioners of 1860, Journal of the House of Assembly . . . (Charlottetown, 1862), Appendix O, and references in: Sutherland, A Manual of ... Prince Edward Island . . . (Charlottetown, 1861); Duncan Campbell, History of Prince Edward Island (Charlottetown, 1875) ; Illustrated Historical Atlas of the Province of Prince Edward Island (Philadelphia, 1880); and A. B. Warburton, A History of Prince Edward Island (St. John, N.B., 1923). (6) Finally, many letters have appeared over the signature of all, or some, of the proprietors of a given year in newspapers, and in official correspondence reprinted in appendixes to the Journals of the Assembly or the Legislative Council. 263

264

APPENDIX B

The list given below is restricted to the original grantees and changes to 1810 as well as the writer can reconstruct them. It would be a suitable exercise, and a most useful bit of work, for a neophyte historian to undertake the task of compiling a complete record of the changing proprietorship of each lot from the date of its granting until the end of the settlements arranged under terms of the Act of 1875. Since descendants of proprietors of record before 1875 still hold small properties one should not, perhaps, speak of the "extinction" of the proprietorship. LIST OF ORIGINAL PROPRIETORS, 1767 AND CHANGES OF PROPRIETORSHIP TO 1810

Lot 1 Lot 2 Lot 3 Lot 4 Lot 5

by after after after

Lot 6 Lot 7 Lot 8 Lot 9

after

after after

Lot 10 after Lot 11

by

after Lot 12 after by Lot 13

7767 Philip (Phillip) Stephens (Stevens), Secretary to the Lords of the Admiralty. 1783 Do. 1806 Sold or transferred. 7767 James Hunter and William Hunter, Merchants. 7775 Do. 7767 Chauncey (Chauncy) Townshend (Townsend), Esq. (M.P.). 7775 Do. 7767 Admiral (Hon.) Augustus (August) Keppel (Kepple), Esq. 7775 Do. 7767 Edward Lewis, Esq. (M.P.). 7779 John Hill and Edward Lewis joint proprietors. 7767 William Crowle (Croule), Esq. 7775 Do. 7767 (Sir) James Montgomery, Esq., Lord Chief Baron of the Court of Exchequer in Scotland and His Majesty's Advocate for Scotland. 7755 Do. 7767 Arnold Nisbett (Nisbith, Nesbet), Esq. (M.P.). 7775 William Kilpatrick, Merchant, and Benjamin Todd (Dodd). 7753 Either or both of Andrew and Isaac Todd (probably). 7767 Hon. James Murray, Esq., Governor of Quebec. 7775 Samuel Fountenelly (Fontenalle) (and George Tead?). See Lot 52. 7753 Laurence Sullivan (?) 7767 Simon Lutterell (Luttrell or Luthrell), Esq. (M.P.). 7775 Lutterell is listed as half-owner with John Moteux (Melcux), Esq. 7753 J. Moteux indicated as part or full owner, 7506 Sold or transferred to Earl of Selkirk. 7767 Hunt Walsh (Walch, Welsh), Esq., Colonel of the 28th Regiment of Foot. 7775 Do. 7767 Hutchinson (Hutchison) Mure (Muir) and Robert (Richard) Cathcart, Merchants, 7775 Do. 7506 The Earl of Selkirk held half. 7767 John Pownall, Esq., Secretary to the Lords of Trade. 7796 The Earl (Marquis?) of Hertford.

APPENDIX B

265

Lot 14 1767 John Campbell, Esq., Captain in the Royal Navy. after 7775 Thomas DesBrisay (Desbrisay), Lieutenant-Governor of the Colony. Lot 15 1767 (Sir) Guy Carleton (Carlton), Esq., Lieutenant-Governor of Quebec. after 7775 Do. Ix)t 16 7767 John Tutté, (Tutte, Tuttle) Esq., David Forbes, and John Hayter, Lieutenants. after 7775 Laurence Sullivan (?); one-fourth "granted" to Loyalists. Lot 17 7767 Bingham (Benjamin) Burke, Esq., and Theobald (P.) Burke, Esq. after 7775 Do. 1781 One-half sold for arrears of quit-rent. 7753 John and (or) Walter Patterson (?); one-fourth "granted" to Loyalists. by 1800 Colonel Compton (who sold 6,000 acres to Acadians in this year). Lot 18 7767 John (Robert) Stewart (Stuart), Esq., Lieutenant-Colonel and William Allanby, Esq., Captain, after 7775 "Robert Stuart," Commissioner of Customs for Jamaica and Allanby (listed as Post Master of the Island of St. John). 7757 One-half sold for arrears of quit-rent. 7753 A Stewart (or Stuart) held half of this lot or of Lot. 26. Lot 19 7767 Walter Paterson, Esq., Captain and John Paterson (both also given as Patterson). after 7775 Do. Walter Paterson, now given as "Governor." 7753 One-fourth "granted" to Loyalists. 775? John Patterson's share sold (?). 7793 2,500 acres sold to James Douglass. Lot 20 7767 Theodore Houltain (Holtain, Haltain) and Thomas Bassett (Basset), Esq., Captain. after 7775 Robert Campbell replaced Houltain as proprietor of half. Lot 21 7767 Lauchlin MacLeane (McLain, McLean, etc.), Secretary to the Earl of Shelburne and Hugh (Henry M.) MacLeane (etc.), Lieutenant. in 7770 Robert Clark and Robert Campbell (halves), after 7775 Robert Clark, Merchant (sole proprietor). Lot 22 7767 John (William) Gordon, and William Ridge, Esq., Captain, after 7775 Gordon's first name given as William, if same man. 7753 Laurence Sullivan (?). Lot 23 7767 Allan MacLeane (McLain, etc.) and Lauchlin MacLeane (see Lot 21). after 7775 Allan MacLean (sic) now listed as Major, by 7506 Sold or transferred (to William Winter?). 75?? William Winter. 7570 Bought by David Stewart Rennie. Lot 24 7767 Charles Lee, Esq., Lieutenant-Colonel and Francis MacLeane (McLean, etc.). after 7775 Do. 1781 Sold for arrears of quit-rent. 7753 Some land granted to Loyalists (?). by 7506 Sold or transferred.

266

APPENDIX B

Lot 25 7767 Archibald Kennedy and James Campbell, after 7775 Do. 1781 One-half sold for arrears of quit-rent. Lot 26 7767 Robert (John) Stewart, Lieutenant and Peter Gordon, Esq., Major, after 7775 John Stewart M.D. (or M.P.), perhaps the same man, is listed as proprietor with Gordon. 7757 One-half sold for quit-rents (arrears) and restored. 7755 One-fourth "granted" to Loyalists (settlement began in 1785). Again a John Stewart is listed as proprietor of half of this lot or of Lot 18. 7755 One of the proprietors is listed as Robert Gordon, Esq., of the Island of St. Vincent. Lot 27 7767 James Searle (Scale) and John Russell Spence, Merchants. after 7775 Do. Lot 28 7767 Samuel Holland Esq., Captain (surveyor of the island). after 7775 Do. Lot 29 7767 Vice-Admiral (Rt. Hon.) Sir Charles Saunders. after 7775 Proprietor listed as "Mr." Charles Saunders (Admiral Saunders died in 1775 and had no children! It should have gone to his niece, the wife of Richard Huek-Saunders, M.D. See Lot 53.) Lot 30 7767 John Murray, Esq., of Philiphaugh. after 7775 Do. by 7755 Part of holdings of James Montgomery (see Lot 7). Lot 31 7767 Adam Drummond, Esq. (M.P.). after 7775 Thomas DesBrisay, Lieutenant-Governor of the Colony. 7757 Sold for arrears (to DesBrisay?). by 7506 Sold by John Drummond to the Earl of Selkirk. Lot 32 7767 William Young, Esq., Commissioner for Sale of Lands in the West Indies, after 7775 Do. 1781 Sold for arrears but restored. 7755 Part (one-fourth?) "granted" to Loyalists, by 7506 Out of Young's hands. Lot 33 7767 Richard Worge (Warge), Esq., late Colonel, after 7775 Thomas DesBrisay, Lieutenant-Governor. 7757 Sold for arrears (to DesBrisay?). by 7506 Sold or transferred. Lot 34 7767 John Dickson, Esq. (M.P.). He died in the same year and this lot was added to the holdings of James Montgomery (see Lot 7). 7755 Montgomery. Lot 35 7767 Alexander Maitland, Esq. 7777 (?) Sold to John MacDonald of Glenaladale. This is supported by other evidence, although Maitland is still listed as proprietor after 1775. 7757 Reported as sold for arrears. 7797 Reported as restored. Lot 36 7767 George Spence and John Mill (Mills), Merchants, after 7775 Donald MacDonald. 7757 Sold for arrears and restored.

APPENDIX B

267

Lot 37 Lot

Lot Lot Lot Lot Lot Lot : % Lot Lot

7767 William Spry, Captain and James Barker (Berkeley, Berkeley), Captain. after/775 Probably do. (variant spellings). by 1806 One-half sold or transferred. 38 7767 Simon Fraser, Esq., Colonel: James Abercrombie, Esq., 1st Major (Lieutenant Colonel); John Campbell, Esq., 2nd Major (Lieutenant Colonel); and John MacDonnell (McDonnell, Macdoctell) Lieutenant (Captain), for themselves and the rest of the officers of the 78th Regiment of Fraser Highlanders (also Lots 39, 41 and 42). after 7775 George Burn (Burns), Captain. by 1806 Sold or transferred. 39 7767 See Lot 38. aftei 7775 George Burn (Burns), Esq. (Captain). by 1806 Sold or transferred. 40 7767 George Spence and John Mills (Mill), Merchants; and George Burns, Lieutenant, after 7775 Do. by 1806 Half sold or transferred. 41 7767 See Lot 38. after 7775 Listed for a "Col." Campbell (possibly the John Campbell of the original group), by 1806 Sold or transferred. 42 7767 See Lot 38. after 7775 Listed foi/ John MacDonald (one of the original group?) with Alexander McLeod. 1806 Sold or transferred. 43 7767 Vice-Admiral Sir George Brydges Rodney, Bart, after 7775 Horn John Dormer, o by 1806 Sold or transferred. 44 7767 William Fitzherbert, Esq. (M.P.), and Robert Campbell, v i.':;;; ;;)r Merchant. - : •:.•-,.'•••.•" ,-.;.' ;,•;:.-..••• -;: . vo. after 7775 Do. 45 7767 William Matthew Hurt, Esq. (M.P.), and John Calender (Callander), Esq. after 7775 Do. 46 7767 Alexander Fordyce, Banker, and Robert Gordon, Esq. after 7775 Robert Campbell, Esq., had bought the Fordyce share; Gordon still

/:•:;,• . = : ' •

Lot 47

7767

'

held. ' '..viV ;¡

: :

. ' ''. . '

I

'

,

.

..•'•• '.

• •',."• " V;

",,^

:

-,J

Gordon Graham, Esq., Lieutenant-Colonel, and Robert Porter, Esq.

after 7775 £>0, I by 1806 One-half sold or transferred. Lot 48 7767 Samuel Touchet (Touchell, Fouchet, Fouchette), Esq. (M.P.), and James Cunningharn, Esq., Lieutenant-Colonel, after 7775 Do. . ( ' r ^ y ' - - t ; ; : y - v - .-.v ; : ; ;•.. ¿-;;.;•/: :&?••'-. -.n1 7757 One-half sold for arrears, but the purchaser did nftlhing and the ( original owners took over again. l Lot 49 7767 Gabriel Christie, Esq., Lieutenant-Colonel, and James Stephenson : (Stevenson), Esq/, CaptaM. ^:-

268

APPENDIX B

after 7775 Robert Clark, Merchant. 1781 Sold for arrears but recovered by a lawsuit. Lot 50 7767 Henry Gladwin (Gladwine, Gladiner), Esq., Lieutenant-Colonel, and Peter Innés (Innis), Esq., Captain, after 7775 Do. 1783 Part (onerfourtH?) "granted" to Loyalists. Lot 51 7767 John Pringle, Esq. after 7775 Do. Lot 52 7767 Stuart (Stewart) r Douglas, Esq., Lieutenant-Colonel; William Douglas, Esq., Lieutenant (Captain); and Stair Douglas, Esq., Lieutenant (Captain), after 7775 Captain Tead; Benjamin Dodd (Todd); David Curry; and Samuel Fontenalle (Fountenelly). See Lot 9. Lot 53 7767 Richard Huck (Huck-Saunders) M.D.; John Williams, Merchant; and George Campbell, Lieutenant, after 7775 Do. by 1806 Western one-third was part of Selkirk holdings. Lot 54 7767 Robert Adair, Esq., Surgeon to His Majesty, after 7775 Do. by 1806 Sold or transferred. Lot 55 7767 Francis McKay, Esq., Surveyor of Woods; Samuel McKay, Esq., of Montreal; and Hugh Finlay (Finley), Esq., Post Master of Quebec. after 7775 Do. Lot 56 7767 (General) Rt. Hon. George, Viscount Townshend, LordLieutenant of Ireland, after 7775 Do. 1783 Do. One-fourth "granted" to Loyalists. Lot 57 7767 Samuel Smith, Merchant, and James Smith, Esq., Captain in the Royal Navy. after 7775 Do. 1781 Sold for arrears to Walter Patterson and by his assignees to Selkirk. by 1803 Part of Selkirk holdings. Lot 58 7767 Joshua Mauger (formerly of Halifax), after 7775 Alexander Anderson. 1 798 Alexander Ellice. by 1803 Part of Selkirk holdings. Lot 59 7767 Hutchison (Hutchinson) Mure (Muir) and Robert Cathcart, Merchants; David Higgins, Captain, after 7775 Do. Lot 60 7767 John Wrightson, late Major and Daniel Shaw, late Captain, in the 42nd Regiment of Foot, after 7775 Charles Pearce (Pierce) and William MacKinnon (Mackinen). 1783 Pearce still held his half, by 1806 Sold or transferred (to Selkirk?). Lot 61 7767 Richard Cumberland, Esq. after 7775 Do. 1783 Laurence Sullivan (?). Lot 62 7767 Richard Spry, Esq. (Captain), after 7775 Do. by 1806 Sold or transferred (to Selkirk?).

APPENDIX B

Lot 63 after by Lot 64 after by Lot 65 after

7767 7775 1797 7767 7775 7797 7767 7775 1781 Lot 66 7767 after 7775 Lot 67 7767 after 7775 1781

Hugh Palliser, Esq. (M.P.). Do. John Cambridge and Company. Richard Maitland, Esq., Colonel, Do. John Cambridge and Company. Richard Wright, Esq., and Hugh Owens, Esq. Do. One-half sold for arrears (the Owens holding?). To be reserved as Demesne Lands of the Crown. Do. Hon. Robert Moore, Esq. Do. Sold for arrears of quit-rent.

269

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INDEX (Page numbers in italics refer to maps on those pages.)

ABEGWEIT, 77, 22, 228 (n.23) Acadia, 25 Acadians, 207 British immigrants' attitude towards, 210-11 clothing, 40 cohesiveness, 207 conservative attitudes, 207, 209 culture, contribution to general, 209 dairying, attitude towards, 186, 191, 220-1 diet: in British régime, 68; in 18th century, 39 as farmers, 149, 247 (n.16) farming: interest in (1750's), 33; in British régime, 55; in French régime, 30-1, 36, 216-17 farms, details of typical, 254-5 (n.8) fishing: in 1752, 37; in 1768, 55; farming combined with, 131; interest in, 149 forest alteration by, 46 geography of, mid- 19th century, 32-41 land occupied, stable, 155 legacies to British, 41 livestock: cattle as source of 19th-century stock, 76; horses, interest in, 77, 112, 180, 217, 220; increases in (1734-5), 30; losses in, while migrating, 102; sheep in relation to, 195 locations: French régime, 25-41, 214-15; (1750's), 32-41; (1798), 59, 61; at Egmont Bay, beginning, 72; at Rustico, 70, 83; at Tignish, beginning, 72 movements of: deportations from island, 128; emigration from island, 128; to He Royale, 27; internal migrations, 87, 245 (n.9): to island, 27-8, 31-2, 40, 215 patois, 91 population (see also Population, Acadian), 207 prejudices in crops and animals, 74, 76 religion, 60 "replacing group" during regional emigration, 245 (n.10) separateness, 126, 210 settlement (see also Settlement) : in French régime, 27-38, 40, 214-15; nu-

cleation, tendency towards, 215 shipbuilding, 28 social status, 208, 211 surnames, small number of, 211 tenancy, areas higher in, 133 wheat, interest in, 219 "Agrícola" (John Young), 108 Agricultural nuclei (1820's), 72 Agricultural patterns (1827-33), 73-8 Agricultural production for Louisbourg (1750's), 39-40 Agricultural products, value in island exports (1898), 257 (n.24) Agricultural progress, early 19th century, 78, 80 Agricultural Revolution, arrival on island, 108 Agricultural skill among Highlanders and Irish, 208 Agricultural Society: established in 1827, 76; Farmer's, of 1811,77 Agriculture (see also Acadians; Crops; Farmers; Farming; Farms; Land, use; Tenure, land; Livestock; etc.): employment in, proportions of in Canada and Maritimes, 246 (n.14); expansion, areas of (1848-55), 102; fishery, relation to, 146, 149; primary economic activity of islanders through history, 80; prospects for, seen by Holland, 46; statistics of (1827-33), 73-8; type of (1951), 8 Alberton, 140, 149, 215 "American" as an adjective, 207, 209, 258 (n.6) American Revolution, effect on island, 56, 234 (n.40) American schooners fishing off island (c. 1800), 64 Amherst, General Jeffrey, Lord, 40 Anglicans, see Religion Animal husbandry, see Livestock Animals, domestic, see Livestock Animals, wild (bear, beaver, caribou, deer, elk, foxes, moose, seals, sea cows, walrus), 22, 27 Annapolis basin, 25

271

272

INDEX

Argyleshire, settlement from, 54 Armadale, 94 Antigonishe Bay, 26 Assembly, House of, see Government Automobiles, numbers on farms (1951), 182 Autumn (see also Climate, seasons), farm activities in (1800), 62 BAIE VERTE (BAY VERT), 4, 26, 38, 215 Bain, Francis, 228 (n.£0) Barley: acreage and production (18701950), 161; in 1830's, 74; in French régime, 37; proportion of cropland (1805), 69 Barter (1800), 64 Basques, in island, 17th century, 15, 25 Bear, see Animals, wild Bear(s) Cape (see also Cape Bear), 26 Beaver, see Animals, wild Bed rock, 18-19 Bedeque (Bedec), 4, 26, 35, 37, 117, 119, 146, 148 Bedeque-Malpeque area, 24, 215 Beech, American (see also Vegetation, trees), 21-2 Belfast (village), 59, 72 Belle River, 244 (n.6) Bellisle, cîeur de Gotteville de, 27-8, 30, 229 (n.6) Berges, Etang de (1752) (Covehead), 35 Big Marsh, 94 Birch (see also Vegetation, trees): black, 64; white, 21-2; yellow, 21 Birch Hill, 94 Birds, wild, 22 Birthplace, see Population, birthplace Blanchard, J. H., 229 (n.8) Boats, fishing (1752), 37 Bogs (and boggy land), 19, 20, 76, 158, 226 (n.16) "Bog-trotters," 208 Bonnaventure, de, grants of land by, 36, 38 Borden, 4, 128, 215 Boughton Bay, 5, 175 Boughton Island, 56, 233 (n.19) Breton, Cape, see Cape Breton; He Royale Bretons, 25 Bricks, brick-making, 73, 118 Brouillan, St. Ovide de, 28 Brudenell Point, 31 Brudenell River, 5, 31 Buckingham, on fisheries (1843), 119 Bugeau, Sieur, 33 Buildings: French régime, 41, 49', (1820's), 73 Burns, George, 48 Bute, Earl of, see Stuart, John

Butter, 184, 186, 188; comparison of homemade and factory, 186; in 1800, 63; exports, 184, 188, 256 (n.19); factories, 186, 188, 256-7 (n,21); importance for cash or barter income, 19th century, 186; processing plants (1898), 187', production: factory and farm, 184, 186; farm (1860), 187', (1861-1931) increase, 186 CABINS, log, 36, 67 Cabot, John and Sebastian, 225 (n.2) Cadastral atlas and maps, 88, 91, 94 Callbeck, Attorney General, 57 Campbell, Duncan, 231 (n.2) Cambridge, John, 66 "Campbell Town" (New London), 59 Canada: attitude of islanders towards, 122, 210-1, 258 (n.9); central, attitude towards Maritimes, 210 Canso, Strait of, 62 Cape Bear, 26, 60 Cape Breton (see also He Royale), 206 Cape Egmont, 4 "Capes Route," 251 (n.39) Capital, lack of, among immigrants, 208 Cardigan Bay, 5 Cardigan River, 5, 31 Caribou, see Animals, wild Carleton, Sir Guy, 42 Carry-alls (sleds), 72 Cartier, Jacques, 15, 225 (n.l) Carts (1830's), 80 Casambek (see also Cascumpeque), 26 Cascumpeque (bay and harbour) (see also Lewis Town), 4, 16, 58, 59, 102, 117, 119, 146, 148, 216 Cathcart, Robert, 48 Catholics, Roman, see Religion Cattle beef, 191, 220 breeding, uncontrolled, early 19th century, 76 breeds and types: (1830's), 76, 110; Alderneys, 77; Angus, when introduced, 110; Ayrshires, 110, 180; Channel Island, 110; Frisians, 110; Herefords, 110; Shorthorns ("Teeswater" or Durham), 76, 110, 180; Suffolk, 77-8 dairy (see also Dairy products; Dairying) : comparisons of, different censuses, 257 (n.26); definitions of, 180; density of, (1891) 188, 189, (1931) 189', distribution of, (1891-1931) 188, (193151) 190, 191, (1951) 193-, numbers since 1871, 180; place of, in farming, 184, 220

273

INDEX

density: (1855), 110, 112; (1951), 183; as measure of commercial farming, 182, 184 farm, revenue from, by counties (1951), 12 imports { 1820's), 77, 78 improvement in, mid- 19th century, 110 location: Charlottetown as focus, 220; comparison of east and west, 182, 184, 220; concentration in "high farming" areas, 182; recent sharpening of patterns, 220 numbers: in French régime, 30-1, 36-7; (1758), 230 (n.25); (1805), 69; (1833), 76; (1848-55), 111; (1855), 102; since 1871, 180; rapid increase in (1871-81), 182; (1871-1951), 182-91; peak in 1901, 182; (1891-1931), 181; (193151), 183, 184 oxen: ratio to horses (1833), 77, 79; work, 76-7, 112, 180, 217 ratios: per capita, (1861) 111, (1847, 1855, and 1861) 110, 112, where greatest, 217; dairy, to area of cropland, (1931) 190, (1951) 192-, to improved land, (1931-1951) 184, 185, (1951) 185; to numbers of horses (1861), 112, 113, 217; to numbers of sheep (1861),

land, 46; location, reasons for, 61, 232 (n.13); population, (1827-33) 70, (1841, 1861) 87, (1921-51) 128, (1951) 8; port or harbour, 27, 214; port as continuation of Port La Joie, older than Halifax, 229 (n.5); royalty of, 44; settlement in (1780-1800), 58; shipping (1950's), 145; tidal range in port, 61; wharves at (1800) 61 Cheese, 184, 186, 188; in 1800, 63; exports, 188, 256 (n.19); factories, early records of, 256-7 (n.21); factory, 186, 188; farm, 186; processing plants (1898), 187; production, (1850's) 184, (1860)

187

Chignecto and area, 25, 215 Chimneys (1820's), 73 Clams, see Fish Clark, Robert, settlement by, 55 Clays: in bed rock, 18; for brick-making, 118 "Clean cutting," see Forest Clearing, see Forest Clergy Reserves, sold, 81 Cliffs, coastal, 226 (n.12) Climate and weather: freezing of Northumberland Strait, 21; frost-free period, 227-8 (n.18); data on, 227-8 (ns. 113, 114 18-19); precipitation, 21; seasons, nature and significance, 21, 48, 62, 227 size of (1830's), 76 (n.18); stability through time, 19-20; value of, as a proportion of total livesunshine, hours of, 227 (n.18); temstock (1901-31), 256(n.l7) perature, air, 21, 227 (ns. 17-18); "wood- wander ing," effect of, 77 variability, 21 Caven, John, 229(n.6) Cedar, white (see also Vegetation, trees), Cloth, homespun, 118 Clothing, Acadian, 18th century, 40 21-2 Censuses (see also Agriculture; Farming; Clover (1830's), 74 Land; Population, etc.) : early 18th cen- Coastline: character of, 18; effect on settlement, Kings County, 215 tury, 28; (1752) 33, 34, 35-8; (1753) 38; (1798) 60-1, 237 (n.2); (1805) 69, Cobbett, W., 65, 237 (ns. 69-70) 237 (n.2); (1827, 1833, 1841) sources, Cod, see Fish 237 (n.3), 239 (n.14); (1841, 1848, Colville Bay (see also Souris), 117, 119 1855, 1861) sources, 241 (n.2); (1881) Commercialism in farming, 140 first Canadian, for island, 88; (1951) Confederation, 120, 138, 142, 205-6, 210-11 summary, 225 (ns. 4-5) Conglomerate, in bed rock, 18 Corn, Indian (maize), 55, 62 Cereals, see Grains Couagne, de, 27 Chaleur, Bay of, 15 Counties: first plan of division into, 42; size Champlain, Samuel de, 15, 226 (ns. 5-8) of, 9, 231 (n.8); statistics of (1951), 9, Charlotte, Parish of, 44 12 Charlottetown: area as centre of cattle industry, 182, 220; climatic data for, 227 Covehead Bay (Etang de Berges), 5, 35, 243 (n.28) (n.18); description, (1800) 61; early 19th century, 70; development (1861- Cowgrass, see Clover 1921), 125; distribution of land in, 236 Cows, see Cattle (ns. 57-8); exports from (1850's), 117; "Cradle-hills," obstacles to cultivation, 78 as focus of rural emigration, 128; laid Crapaud (Rivière aux Crapauds), 4, 35, 37, 117, 119, 146 -:•:• out by Morris, 52; location of, by Hoi-

274

INDEX

Creameries, see Dairy products; Butter, factories Crop, cash, wool as, 204 Crop failures (1748), 32 Crop ratios (see also individual crops) : potatoes and oats (1847), 104, 106\ wheat and oats (1847), 104, 106 Crop rotation: failure to employ, 110; hayroots-grain, standard, 220; ignored, early 19th century, 78; place of hay in, 108; place of potatoes and turnips in, 256 (n.14) Crop seeds, record of importation, 76, 239 (n.16) Cropland, see Land, in crops Crops (see also Barley; Grains; Hay; Oats; Potatoes; Turnips; Wheat) : acreage, not given (1855), 102; acreage of major (1870-1950), 161; beans, horse, 239 (n.16); buckwheat, in French régime, 37; cabbages, in French régime, 31, 39; cereal, see Grains; chief kinds, (182733) 73-6, (1855) 102, (1860-1950) 16378, (1951) 8, 12, 99; flax (1830's), 74; general view of, 102, 104, 108, 110; grass as a, 158; hops, 62; insect attack on, 74; peas, as major Acadian crop, 27, 31, 36-9; peas diminishing in 1830's, 74; production, in French régime, 31, 37-8, (1771) 55, (1848-55) 102, 104, (1870 1950) 161; proportion of land in different (1805), 69; roots (see also Potatoes; Turnips), place in rotations of, 256 (n.14); on a tenant farm under development, 213-14; on two typical farms (c. 1940), 254-5 (n.9); "uneconomic geographies" of, 217 Croteau, John T., 252 (n.56) Cultural character and prejudices, significance to farming, 74, 206 Cunard, Sir Samuel (and family), 52, 97, 233 (n.25) Curtis, Thomas, 55 DAIRY ANIMALS, see Cattle Dairy co-operatives, 186 Dairy farms, few so classed, 184 Dairy products (see also Butter; Cheese; Milk), 184, 186, 188, 191; contribution to farm income, 12, 188; effect of Danish and New Zealand production, 257 (n.22); processing plants for (1898), 187 Dairying (see also Cattle) : bias towards or against by origin groups, 191; commercial, 184, 186, 188; concentrations of, 188, 191, 220; emphasis on in cattle

industry (1941, 1951), 792, 193', patterns of, changes (1931-51) 190, 191 Dalton (fox-farming), 149 Dartmouth Town, 59 Dawson, S. E., 225 (n.2) Deer (see also Animals, wild), 22 Density maps, problems of, 262 Denys, Nicolas, 16, 25, 228(n.26), 229(n.l) Depression, regional, 218 Des Barres, 81 DesBrisay, 56 Deschamps, Isaac, 52 Dickson, John, 233(n.l9) Diet of different origin groups, 68 Diking of meadows, 31 Divisions, civil, 44 Domestic animals, see Livestock Doublet (pilot), 15 Drainage, surface, 19, 227 (n. 17) Drummond, A. T., 228(n.20) Ducks: domestic, see Poultry; wild, 22 Dune sand, 18, 19, 20 Dunk River, 4, 35, 70 Durham cattle, see Cattle, breeds and types Durham, Lord (Lambton), 51, 233(n.24) EAST (parish), 44 East Point, 5, 30 Economic depression, chronic in island, 206 Economy: (1800), 62; largely, self-sufficient, 19th century, 69-70, 114; patterns of, changes in, 221 Edward, Prince (Duke of Kent), 237 (n.l) Eel Port, 26 Eels, see Fish Egmont (parish), 44 Egmont Bay, 4 Egmont, Cape, 148 Egmont, Earl of, 42, 231 (n.3) Elevations of land, 19, 20 Eliot River, 4 Elk (see also Animals, wild), 22 Ellis River (see also Grand River), 4 Elmira, 249-50 (n.30) Emigrants from Prince Edward Island: character of, 208; interests of descendants in Island, 211; locations of, 244 (n.4) Emigration: to British North America, significance of different costs, 208; from Maritimes, 122, 125; from Prince Edward Island, 68, 121-2, 125-6, 206, 208, 218 English-born: (1848), 55, 90; change in numbers of (1848-55), 85, 88 English-French contests in northeastern North America, 205

INDEX

English origin group: absorbs some Scots and Irish, 208; agricultural status of, 82; areas of concentration (1850's), 91; conservative tendencies of, 209; diet of, 68; emigration of, 128; in 1921, 126, 727; proportionate increase (18811921), 126; as a "replacing" group during regional emigrations, 245 (n.10); as social and economic leaders, 208 Escheat, see Grants, land, escheat of Established Church, see Religion, Anglican Etang des Berges (see also Covehead Bay) (1752), 35 Exports: negligible (1800), 64; early 19th century, 69-70; (1840's), 117; (c. 1860), 243 (n.24); post-reciprocity, changes in, 118; (1898), detail of cargoes, 188; by car-ferry (1930's and 1940's), 250 (n.31); by ship (1950's), 145; destinations, (1843, 1855) 116-17, (1860) 116; source, early 19th century, largely farming, 69; value by ports (1858-60), 116, 779 FANNING, Lieutenant-Governor, 60 Farmers, divided interests of, 96 Farmers Society, established in 1811, 77 Farming: arable, pattern of unchanged (1861-1891), 158; commercial (1854), 104; cropping intensity, 218; decline of population and area, 216; disorganization of work by rush to markets in fall, 144; dissatisfaction of Acadians with island for, 38; as dominant activity of people, 216; economy, nature of, 8, 206; emphasis, change in (1891-1921), 163; general description, 216-21; hand methods in (1830's), 78; implements (1830's), 78; intensity, changes (18911951), 155; level of, effect of land tenure on, 95; as main occupation of people, mid- 19th century, 99; progress in, early 19th century, 78, 80; regionalization of level of (1951), 77; Scots, less interest in, 125; self-sufficiency in (1800), 62-4; statistics (1951), 3, 8-9; subsistence, swine in, 204; types of, 20th century, 8, 184; value of production. maintenance of, 216; yearly routine (1800), 62 Farmland: extent of (1951), 99; potential, island and Canada, 152, 253 (n.l) Farms animals on, value (1951), 8 area in, by counties (1951), 9 buildings on (1820's), 73

275

clearing of, 213-14 detailed descriptions of two (c. 1940), 254-5 (n.9) dimensions of, 68, 94 equipment and implements: on two typical farms (c. 1940), 254-5 (n.9); tractors, 9, 12, 180, 182, 220 income from, 8, 12, 188 land in (1871-1951), 152 life on (1800), 62-4 machinery on, value of (1951), 8 mortgages on (1941-51), 133 numbers of (1861-1951), 133-4, 218 operators of, subdivision of (1951), 247 (n.15) owner operation, degree of (1941), 735 ownership of, by counties (1951), 8-9 population on, see Population, farm production per acre on, increase in, 152 products from (see also Crops; Livestock; Dairy products), in exports to U.K. (1898), 188 revenue from, by counties and categories (1951), 8, 9, 12 size of, 94, 133-8, 218; Acadian, 247 (n.16); (1851-61) changes, 133-4; (1891) average, 136] (1891) range by townships, 133-4; (1891-1921) changes, distribution, 134, 136', (1901, 1951) numbers in different size classes, 135; (1941) large, 137-8, 739; (1941) small, 137-8, 747; (1951) average, 8-9, 137, 139- (1951) distribution, 8-9, 137; general increase in, 152; in relation to Acadian population and fishing operations, 137; in relation to level of farming and rural depopulation, 137; in relation to origins and occupations, 134 shapes and arrangements of, 68, 94 tenancy, see Tenure, land; Tenancy; Tenants woodlots (see also Forests; Woodland) : as chief source of forest products (1950's), 145; most of woodland in (1951), 99; on two typical farms (c. 1940), 254-5 (n.9) values of, average (1951), 8, 10, 11, 12 Fenceposts, see Forest products Fences, kinds of (1820's), 73 Fertilizer, 78, 145 Ferry: Charlottetown-Southport, 143-4; railway car, 142, 249-50 (ns. 30-1) Field mice, see Mice, field Fir, see Vegetation, trees Fires, forest: in French régime, 30, 31, 33, 39, 40, 46, 229(n.l3), 232(n.l2); later, 158

276

INDEX

80, since Confederation, 145, relations Firewood, see Forest products with agriculture, 80, 96, 145; secondFish growth, 99, 158; swamp, 99; value of in diet: in French régime, 3.7; early 19th production from, (1890) 145, (1951) century, 68 12 exports: early 19th century, 69-70; (1840's), 117, 119; (1850's and 1860's), Forest products exports: (c. 1800) unimportant, 64; early effect of reciprocity, 118-19, 146 19th century, 70; (1820's and 1830's), kinds (and fishing for), 22, 251-2(n.52); 80; mid-19th century, 116-18 clams, 22; cod, 22, 28, 64, 117, 146, from farm woodlots, 145 148; eels, 22, 64; gasperaux, 251 (n.44); imports allowed (1791), 240(n.l8) hake, 22; halibut, 22; herring, 22, 64, kinds: contemporary, 145; fence posts, 146, 148; lobsters, 22, 146, 148, 175, 145; firewood, 39, 55, 62, 145; lumber, 252(n.54); mackerel, 22, 146; oysters, rough, 145; masts, 48; pulpwood, 145; 22, 146, 148, 236(n.65), 251(ns.49shingles, 145 50); salmon, 22, 64; smelts, 148; trout, 64 Fort Amherst, 45 production of, 146, 148, 251 (ns.49-50) Fortune (Bay or River, also Havre or 251-2 (n.52) Rivière de), 35, 55, 59 Fishery (fishing industry) (see also Fish, Fox farming, see Fur farming exports, kinds, production): in French France: commercial interest of, in gulf area, régime, 28, 37, 216; early British reearly 18th century, 28; as immediate gime, 48, 52, 55, 146, 216, 232(n.l6); source of settlers on island, 28, 30 (1800), 64; (1855), 146; since 1860, Francklin, Lieutenant-Governor, 52 146-9; Acadian interest in, 55, 149; Franquet, Colonel, report of, 32-3, 35-6 and agriculture, 48, 80, 149; boats (and Freehold (ers), see Land, tenure vessels), 28, 37, 52, 146; co-operative French population, see Acadians organization of, 252(n.56); in economy, French régime (see also individual topics), place of, 146, (1800) 64, (1930's and 41, 216 1940's) 252(n.56); employment in, Fronsac, Strait of (Gut of Canso), 26 17th century, 15-16, French régime, Frost, frost-free period, 227-8(n.l9) 28, (1860-1) 119, 146, 147, (1860- Fullerton's Marsh, 230(n.l7) 1950) 146, 147, 148, (1950-1) 8, 147, Fulling "mills," mid- 19th century, 118 148, 252(n.55); equipment (see also Fundy, Bay of, 25, 43 Boats), 148, 252(n.54); establishments Fur farming, 149-51, 175, 205, 252(1855-61), 119, 146, 148; location of, 3(ns.57-65) in late 18th century, 61, 64, in mid- Furs, used as clothing by Acadians, 40 19th century, 146, 147, since 1860, 99, 148-9, 251(n.49), (1950-1) 147, 148; Reserve, 46, 146; seasonal restrictions GAELIC speech, 88, 126 on, 119, 252(n.54) Ganong, W. F., 226(ns.4-5) Gasperaux (see also Fish, kinds), 251(n.44) Five Houses, 94 Gautier, Sieur, 33, 229(n.l) Flat River, 5, 148, 243(n.28) Flour, imported (1790's), 64 Geese (see also Poultry), wild, 22 Forest (see also Forest products; Vegeta- Geography, historical, problems of, 14, 221-2, 259(n.l4) tion, trees; Woodland) : alteration of (see also Fires, forest), Acadian, 28, Geography, physical (see also Animals, wild; 30, 31, 33, 38-40, 46, 49, (1800) 63, Bogs; Climate; Soil; Vegetation): bed in mid- 19th century, 114, and clearing rock, 18-19, 226(n.l3); coastline, methods, 28, 38-9, 46, 63, 68, character of, 18, 226(n.l2); drainage, 236(n.63); attitudes of settlers to, 28, 19, 227(n.l7); dune sand, 18-19, 20; 46, 63-4, 68; descriptions of, 21, 23, glacial deposits, 18-19, 226(ns.l4-16); 55, 99; exploitation, see Forest, producland forms, 19, 20; soil, 19, 27, 28, 63, tion from; land (1951) (see also Wood73, 80, 227(n.l7); variations of, small, land), 99; production from (lumbering, 206 etc.) (see also Shipbuilding )¿ (1760's) Geology (see also Geography, physical), 48, 232(n.l6), (1800) 62-4, (1830's) 18-19, 20, 226(ns.l3-16)

277

INDEX

Georgetown, 5, 142, 144, 148-9, 215, 249 (n.30); advantages over Charlottetown as capital, 62; located by Holland, 44, 46; opinion of, by J. McGregor, 72; population (1841-61), 87; as a port (1840's), 117; royalty of, 44 German settlers, 56, 235(n.41) Girdling of trees (see also Forest, alteration), 63, 78 Glaciation, effects of (see also Geography, physical; Geology), 18, 19, 226 (ns. 14-16) Glasgow (Scotland), 209 Glenaladale pioneers (see also MacDonald settlement), 234 (n.39) Goose River, 94 Gotteville, de, see Bellisle, Sieur de Gotteville de Government: as a British colony, 19th century, 42, 51-2, 55-7, 60, 93, 205-6, 208-10, 233 (n.23), 235(n.51); as a Canadian province, 210; controversy over, 1786-7, 235(n.51); evolution of, 138, 205-6, 209-10; in French régime, 25, 27, 28, 31, 32, 38, 40, 41; separation from Nova Scotia, 51-2, 231 (n.4), 233(n.22) Governor (as a title), 233 (n.23) Governors, characters and problems of, 209 Grain mills, see Mills, grain Grains acreage: change of (1921-51), 169\ second to hay, 20th century, 170 coarse, as barter crops, 74 corn, Indian, 55, 62 (1848-55), 102, 104-7 (1860-1950), 166, 168-72 farm revenue from (1951), 12 and farming level, 166, 219 harvesting (1830's), 78 import from Acadia, French régime, 28 locations of emphasis, French régime, 31 maize, 55, 62 mixed: acreage and production (1870 and 1950), 161; acreage as percentage of cropland (1951), 99; concentrated on high-farming areas, 172; importance of (1951), 8; nature and uses of, 172; and oats, combined acreage (1951), 173; proportions of cropland in (1900-50), 254 (n. 8); replacement of wheat and "pure" oats by, 166 production, mid- 19th century, 104 ratios: to cropland (1951), 169; to improved area, 166; to total area (1921, 1951), 168

rye (1752), 37 Grand Pré, 27, 229(n.7) Grand River (see also Ellis River), 70, 119 Grantees, original land (see also Grants, land; Proprietors), 48, 50, 263-9 Grants, land (see also Proprietary; Proprietors): assignment of (1767), 42, 48, 50, 232(n.l7), 263-9; conditions of, 50, 212; escheat of, 51, 92 (1781) 57, 235 (n.42), by acts of 1803, 1805, 81, agitation for (1820's, 1830's) 80-1; in French régime, 27, 33; ownership of, changing, 50, 132-3, 263-9; quit-rents, see Quit-rents; reasons for, 212; sources on, 231(n.2) Granville, North, 244 (n. 6) Gravel, 18, 19, 226 (n. 14), 248-9 (n. 24) Great Britain: loyalty of Islanders to, 211; as a market, mid- 19th century, 116-18; Privy Council of, 42 Great River (see also Hillsborough River),

26

Greenock, 209 Green's Shore (see also Summerside), 87 Grenville (parish), 44 Guernsey, as source of immigration, 66 HADDOCK, see Fish Hake, see Fish Halibut, see Fish Halifax (parish), 44 Hamlets (see also Settlement): decline of, 216; mid-19th century, 87 Harbours (see also Ports), difficulties of north shore, 16 Hardwoods, of little interest as lumber, 64 Harmony Junction, 250(n.30) Harvey, D. C, 16, 225(n.l), 229(ns.l, 3, 9, 12), 230(ns.l6, 21-3, 25-6) Hay Acadian, wild, 32 acreage: unknown (1855), 102; trends affecting (1860-90), 163; and production (1870-1950), 161; (1890) distribution, 163; (1890-1920) changes, 165\ increase (1890-1921), 166; (1900-50), 254 (ns. 8, 9); changes in, reasons for (1920-50), 166; changes in, as percentage (1920-50), 165; (1951), 99 chief among field crops, 166 continuous use of land for, 78, 110 in farming (1860-1950), 163, 165, 166, 217, 219 fields used as pastures, 161 marsh, 62, 69, 74 production: (1805), 69; (1850's), 104,

278

INDEX

163; (1850-1950), 163, 166; (1860), distribution, 163 ratios: per capita (1860), 164\ to cropland (1900-50), 254 (n.9); to cropland (1921-51), 767; to cultivated land (1805), 69; to total area (1950), 167 on a typical tenant farm, mid- 19th century, 213-4 as winter feed, insufficient (1830's), 77 yields, 19th century, 163, 254, (n.8) Herring, see Fish Hessian troops on island (1779), 56 Higgins, David, 48 "High-farming": areas of, (1830's), 77, 78, mid-19th century, 108-110, 217, mid20th century, 77, 13, 166, 195, 203; and density of a farm population, 131; a farm in area of, 254 (n.9); and grain growing, 166; and sheep or swine, 195, 203; and turnips, 108, 709 Highlanders (see also MacDonald settlement; Population, origin; Scots; Scottish-born; Selkirk settlement), 125, 207-9; conditions in homeland, 236 (n.68); dairying, interest in, 221; diet of, 68; and farming, 247(n.l7), attitude towards, 68; and fishing, 149; horses, interest in, 220; immigration to island, 56, 67, 69, 125, 208; land abandonment and emigration by (18811951), 126, 155, 245(n.lO); level of farming of, 68, 81-2, 149, 218, 240 (n.27); locations and numbers of, 58, 59, 60-1, 88, 90, 91, 126-7, 207; oats, interest in, 74, 219; and poverty, 91; religious differences among, 60, 96, 207; trees, attitudes towards, 68 Hillsborough (parish), 44 Hillsborough Bay, 5, 146, 148 Hillsborough Bridge, 144 Hillsborough River (the Great River, Northeast River), 5, 26, 30, 33, 35-6, 143, 215-16 Hoes, see Swine Holland, Captain Samuel, 32, 44, 45, 46, 231(ns.5-6) Holland's Cove, 45 Homespun, 118 Hops, see Crops Horses Acadian, 63, 220 dependence of small farms on, 180 distribution, causes of, 180; (1833), 76, 77; (1861), 112; (1951), 178 farm revenues from, with sheep and wool (1951), 12 imports of, 77, 110

improved condition for (1830's), 76 numbers and place of: in French régime, 31, 36, 38; (1800), 63; (1805), 69; increase rapid (1805-33), 76; in 1833, 76; (1860-1950), 178, 180, 182; reasons for high, 178 ratios: per capita, (1861) 112, (1951) 779, of farm population, 180; to cattle, see Cattle, ratios; to cropland (1951) 181- to farms (1951), 182; to oxen (1833), 77, 79 Scots, interest of, in, 220 tractors, replacement by, 220 value of: compared with other livestock (1951) 178; as proportion of livestock total (1901-31), 256 (n.17) Hunter River, 4 Hunting and trapping, Acadian, 39, 216, 247 (n.16) ILE ROYALE (see also Cape Breton), 17, 25 He St. Jean, see St. Jean, He Immigrants, background, 78 Immigration (see also Population, origin): source areas, early 19th century, 60, 66-7, 69, 237-8(n.4), mid-19th century, 88-91; numbers and importance, 121, 238(n.7) Imports: (1790's), 64, 239(n.ll); early 19th century, 69-70; list of (c. 1860), 243 (n.24); by car-ferry (1930's), 250 (n.31); by ship (1950's), 145 Improved land, see Land, improved Indians (Micmac), 17, 22, 24, 216, 228, (ns. 26, 28); numbers of, 40, 228(n.25) Inglis, Bishop, 60 Insect attack on crops, 37, 74 Insularity, 206 Irish element in island population (see also Population, origin): character of, 91, 102, 207-9, 216; emigration from Island, 125, 245(n.lO); and farming, 81, 91, 218; locations of, 88, 89, 90, 91, 126, 727, 208; numbers, 82, 126, 207-8; potato blight and, 104; poverty of, 91, 208; reasons for choosing island, 208 Irish, northern (Scotch-Irish or Ulstermen), 207 Iron, shortage of (1830's), 80 Island of St. John, see St. John, Island of Isolation, disadvantages of, 144 JOHNSTONE, WALTER, observations of, 81 Johnston's River, 230(n.l7) Joie (Joye) Fort la, 32, 45 Joie (Joye) Port la, 27, 28, 33, 35, 38, 41, 46

INDEX

279

farms (c. 1940), 254-5(n.9) problem, see Tenure, land proprietors, see Proprietary; Proprietors purchase of, Imperial Loan for, denied, 93 question, see Tenure, land reform, see Tenure, land "Run out," 163 LABOUR FORCE, shifts in categories of (1881, sales by proprietors (1800 and after), 81 1901, 1951), 245-6(n.l4) settlement (see also Settlement) : (1768), La Joie, Fort or Port, see Joie or Joye, 52, 54\ (1779), 55; (1797), 53; (1770's), Port la 54, 56; American Revolution, effect of, Lanctot, Gustav, 225 (n.l) 56; (1780-1800), 58-60; by Loyalists, Land (see also Farms, land in; Geography, 57; (1798), 60-1; (1848), 83, 87; unphysical; Grants, land; Ratios, land; aided by proprietors, 50, 52, 58 Tenure, land) survey, 45-6, 146 abandonment of, 158 tax, proposed for unsettled lands, 81 arable (see also Ratios, land), 158; (1855), 102, 103-, (1848-55), 103\ (1848-61), unimproved, kinds of, 158 152 use of (see also Farming; Forest): low church and glebe, sold, 81 intensity areas, 170; mid- 19th century, classes of (1950), 23 99, 102; patterns of, in French régime, 216, (1848-55) 102, in 19th century, classification for agricultural purposes, 227 (n.17) 152-61; statistics of (1951), 3, 8-9; clearing of, 37, 63, 213^14 types of (1951), 8-9, 99; on a typical in crops (see also Crop ratios), 158, 161, tenant farm, mid-19th century, 213 values established by Land Commission 163, 218; (1855), 102; (1870-1950), 161; compared with pasture (1891), of 1875, 248 (n.21) 158; proportions in different crops Land Commission: (1860), 93, 212-^3, 235 (n.44), 241-2(n.l4); (1875), 247-8 (1900-50), 254(n.9); changes (192151), 163, 164, 254 (n.5); (1951), 9, (n.21) 99 Land Purchase Act: of 1851, 93; of 1875, 57, 92, 133, 138 cultivated (see also Land, improved), 69 Landlordism, absentee, 206 disposal of, by lottery, 48, 50 Larch, American (tamarack), see Vegetaglebe, 81 grantees (see also Proprietary; Proprietion, trees tors), 48, 50, 263-9 La Ronde, Denys de, 27-8 holdings (see also Tenure, land), dimen- La Roque, Sieur de, 33-8, 229(n.l5) sions of (1752K 36 Late blight (see also Potatoes, blight), 104 improved (see also Ratios, land), "in Leacock, Stephen, 205 cultivation" (1739), 31; locations of Leicesters (see also Sheep, breeds), 77 concentration of ( 1 827-3 3 ) , 73-4; Lennox Island, 4, 233(n.l9) (1855), 102; (1891-1951), 155, 158; Lewellin, J. L., 77 (1891-1921), 155, 156; (1921-51), Lewis Town (see also Cascumpeque), 59 156- (1951), 8, 9, 99; changes in Lime, scarcity of, 73, 118 acreage of, compared with cropland, Limestone, imported as ship ballast, 118-19 163; distribution of changes in acreage Linguistic differences, 211 of, 218 Livestock (see also Cattle; Horses; Poultry; . freehold, see Tenure, land Sheep; Swine) : Acadians, dependence leased, see Tenure, land on, 2 1 6 ; animal breeding, carelessness occupied (see also Ratios, land): (1827in, early 19th century, 63, 76; animal 33), 73; (1855), 102; 19th century, "crops," areas of emphasis on, 219; 152-5; changes (1921-51), 154, 155; animal products, farm revenue from changes in acreage, general, 218 (1951), 8, 9, 12; character of, general occupiers (1841-61), 95 (1800), 63; distribution, patterns of, pasture: cut for hay, 161; reverted, 253see individual animals; exports, in out4(n.3); rough (1855), 102; in Royalty bound shipping cargoes (195iO:'s), 145; of Charlottetown, 6 1 ; on two typical feed, problems of winter, 31, 63, 76,

KENSINGTON (village), 4, 125, 215 Kikibougat (Quiquibougat, see also Rustico), 26 Kilns, mid- 19th century, 118 Kings County, statistics for, 8, 9, 12

280

INDEX

240(n.l7); foraging, in woods (1750's), 40; foxes, see Fur farming; imported by MacDonaíds, 56; imports of, 77, 240 (n.18); improvement in (1830's), 76; kinds, proportions of different (1901-31), 256 (n.17); markets, for live (1860's), 118; miring in bogs, 76; numbers (see also individual animals), in French regime, 31, 36-8, (1800) 63, (1805) 69, (1827-33) 76-8, (1848-55) 110, 112, 114, (1860-1950) 178, 180, 182, 184, 191, 195, 198, 203-4; ratios (see also individual animals) per capita, largely unchanged (1750's to 1850's) 102, (1752) 37; size, 63, 76, on two typical farms (c. 1940), 254-5 (n.8); value, by counties (1951), 12; winter feed of, 240(n.l7) Lobsters, see Fish "Locusts," attack crops (1750), 37 "Longers" (fence rails), 73 Lots, see Townships Lottery for land grants (see also Grants, land), 42, 48, 50, 232(n.l7) Louisbourg, 25, 31, 40, 205 Louvigny, grant to, 27 Lower, A. R. M., 258(n.9) Loyalists, 57-8, 207, 235(n.44); attitudes of, 258(n.7); contributions of, 209; descendants, character of, 82; and farming practices, 76, 186; land titles, troubles with, 81; locations of, 57, 61; numbers of, 58; origins of, 57 Lumber, see Forest products MACKEREL, see Fish Magpec, see Malpeque Mail service, across strait, 143-4 Maize, see Corn, Indian Malpeque Bay area (see also BedequeMalpeque isthmus), 4, 119, 146; exports and shipping (1840's), 117; French régime, 30-1, 35, 37, 39, 40; Loyalist settlements in, 57; oysters in, 146; population centre (1833), 70 Manufacturing, mid- 19th century, 116, 118 Manuring (see also Fertilizer), 63, 78, 108, 118 Maple (see also Vegetation, trees), 21-2 Maple sugar, 40, 64 Mapping, scale of, possible, 205 Maritimes, 120, 122, 225(n.2), 243(n.3), 244(n.5), 245(ns.8, 10, 13), 253(n.2) Markets and marketing, 140, 142, 144 Marsh (see also Bog), tidal, 28, 31, 38 Marshfield Creek, 230(n.l7) Massachusetts, ties of island with, 122

Mast, feed for swine, 76 Masts, timber for, 48 Meadows, diked, 3 i Meat, in Acadian diet, French régime, 39 Mice, field (pests in French régime), 28, 30, 37, 39, 55, 229(n.l2) Micmac, see Indians Migration, internal, 80 Milk: efforts to increase production of, 161; little sold off farm before 1880, 186; production per cow, 184; yield of, low (1830's), 77 "Million Acre Farm," island as, 121, 243 (n.l) Mills, 59; carding, 118; fulling, 118; grain (grist), 30, 36, 37, 64, 118; saw, 33, 37, 64, 72, 118 Mills, John, 48, 56 Minas Basin, 25 Miring of livestock, 76 Miscou, see Chaleur, Bay of Mixed grains, see Grains, mixed Monckton, 42 Montague (village), 5, 57, 125, 145, 215, 250(n.30) Montague River, 5, 31 Montgomery, Sir James (Chief Baron), 209, 233 (n.19) 248 (n.21); holdings of, 58; settlement by, 54, 55-6, 60 Monticello, 94 Montreal, 122 Morell (see also St. Peters Harbour), 5, 215 Morell River, 87 Morris, Charles, 52 Mount Stewart (village), 5, 140, 250(n.30) Mouse Harbour (see also Souris), 26 Mure, Hutchison, 48 Murray Harbour, 72, 117, 119, 131, 142, 146, 215, 249-50(n.30) Murray River, 5 Mussel mud (see also Fertilizer), 63, 78 MACDONALD, CAPTAIN JOHN, 234(n.39), 240(n.l8) MacDonald settlement, 54, 58, 60, 207, 216, 234(n.39) McGregor, John, 71-2, 82 Mackinnon, F. J., 225(n.l), 231(n.24). 233(n.24), 241(n.l3), 249(n.29), 250 (n.35) McNutt, Alexander, 231(n*3) NAMES: as indications of settler origin, 94; place, French régime, 6, 7, 230(n.l7); suggested for island, 66 National Park, 11, 142 "National Policy," 210

INDEX

Naufrage Harbour, 149 New Anglesey, suggested as name for island, 66 New Brunswick, 80, 96, 117-8, 121 New Englanders, 207 New Glasgow, 4, 66 New Guernsey, suggested as name for island, 66 New Ireland, suggested as name for island, 66 New London and area, 4, 59, 62, 70, 87, 117, 779 Newfoundland, 117-8, 206, 225(n.2) Newspapers, as sources, details on, 242 (n.15) Normans, 25 North (parish), 44 Northeast River, see Hillsborough River North Lake, 146 Northumberland, Strait of, 77, 21 Nova Scotia: agricultural interest in, 96, 121; "Gulf of," 26\ insularity of, 206; as a market for island produce, 76, 80, 118 Nova Scotian (newspaper), 146 Nova Scotians, 207 OAK, see Vegetation, trees Oatmeal, as an export (1858), 117 Oats: (1890-1950), 170-2; Acadian interest in, 39, 216-17; acreage, (1890) 777, (1890-1920) 170, 172, (1951) 99, 775; black, 239 (n.16); as a cash crop, 214; to cropland, ratio of (1900-50), 254 (n.9); continuous use of land for, 110; to cultivated land, ratio of (1805), 69; distribution of, (1832) 74, (1847) 104; exports: (1820's and 1930's) 239 (n.12), important in, early 19th century, 69-70, leader of mid- 19th century, 1 16, to different countries ( 1850's) 117; market for in U.S.A., reciprocity period, 217; and mixed grains, combined acreage (1951), 775; in mixed grains, 170, 219; as a "prejudice" crop of Highlanders, 219; principal grain grown (1951), 8; production, (1833) 74, (1847) 705, increase (1847-54) 104, 707, (1854) 104, census peak (1910) 170; Poland 239 (n.16); "Polish" (1770's), 55; to potatoes and wheat, ratio of (1848), 104, 106; "pure," distribution even, 172; as a "pure" crop in poorer farming areas, 219; relatively more important in Kings County, 170; Scots, correlation with, 104, 217; Selkirk settlement, main crop

2&1

of, 67; on a typical tenant farm, mid19th century, 213-14; to wheat, ratio of (1832), 75; yields (1847-54), 104, 105 O'Leary, 4, 125 Origin, see Population Orphan Bank (Banc aux Orphelins), 16 Orwell Bay area, 5, 35, 57, 67, 119 Oulton, 149 Oxen, see Cattle Oysters, see -Fish PANMURE ISLAND, 56, 233 (n. 19) Parishes (as land subdivisions on Island), 42, 44 Pasture, see Land, pasture Patterns of population and farming, 222 Patterson, Governor Walter, 55, 58, 235 (ns. 42, 51) Peas, see Crops Peat, 19 Pensens, de, 28, 30, 229(n.lO) Pepperell's forces, 31 Perth (village), 59, 235(n.49) Peters, Judge, 108 Pigs, see Swine Pictou, 143-4 Pine, see Vegetation, trees Pinette Bay and Harbour area, 5, 35, 119, 148, 235(n.49) Pioneering areas, 161 Pisquid River, 33 Planning of settlement, 46, 47 Plant geography, 228(n.20) Ploughs (1830's), 80 Point du Chêne, 144 Pointe à Prime, see Prim Point Political discontent, 206 "Poor-farming" areas, 11, 13 Poplar, see Vegetation, trees Population (see also Emigration; Immigration) Acadian (see also Population, origin): on mainland (1710), 25; (1720's), 28; by families (1728), 29; (1728-35) 28; estimates of de Pensens (1732), 30; (1734-5), 30; (1735), 29; (1739-40), 31; (1752), 33, 34\ increase (1752-3), 34\ (1753), 38; (1755), 40; final (1755-8), 40; in 1758 and after deportation, 40, 230(ns. 24, 26); (1768), 52, 54, 55; (1798), 61, 236(n.56); rise in percentage of total (1881-1921), 126; distribution (1921), 126, 727; proportions of rural and farm (1951), 247(n.l6); density, rural, effects on, 131, 216 ages (1798, 1805, 1807), 237(n.2)

282

INDEX

agglomerated (see also Charlottetown, Summerside ) : major centres (1833), 71; increase (1881-1921), 128; (192151), 128, 131; location of main centres (1951), 729; size range (1951), 8 Canadian, changes in total and ruralurban ratios, 128 character, loyalty and independence combined in, 210 density: (1848), 83, 84; change in (184855), 83, 84, 87; (1941), 131-2; (1951), 729

educational level of, 210 farm: dominates rural (1848-55), 99; changes in (1901-51), 131; density, change in (1931-51), 128-132, 729; distribution of (1931), 1 3 1 ; density (1951), 130, 131; proportion to total near maximum in Canada 131; variations in explanation for 131-2 family size, 66 fertility, 66 growth, reasons for in the northwest, 83 immigrants: by census (1841-1951), 121; often moved elsewhere quickly, 237(n.3) numbers (see also Population, Acadian): (1768), 54-, estimated by Governor Patterson (1770), 55; estimates (17801800), 60; (1798), 59, 60-1; (1798, 1805, 1807), 237(n.2); (1805, 1820, 1827, 1833, 1841), 66; (1822, 1825), 237(n.3); (1833), 70, 77; growth (1841-61), 83; (1841, 1847, 1855, 1861), 83; change (1848-55), 98; 19th century 121-32; change (1861-91), 122, 123; peak in 1880's, 91; change (1891-1921), 122, 725; (1921), 128; (1951), 3, 8-9 occupations, detail and comparison, (1881, 1901, 1951), 245-7(n.l4) origin (see also Acadians; English; Irish; Loyalist; Scots) : birthplace, 85-, 86, 88, 89, English-born (1848) 85, Englishborn (1848-55) 85, 88; Irish-born (1848) 89, Irish-born (1848-55) 88, 89, native born (1861-1931) 243(n.3), 244(n.4), Scottish-born (1848) 86, Scottish-born (1848-55) 86, 88; characteristics of origin groups, 207^11; evidence of, by names on maps, 94; intermixture, of English, Scots and Irish since 1921, 126; significance of variety of, 206 patterns of (see also Population* density, farm, numbers, rural), 37-8, 87, 214^-16

rural: density, 215, (1891-1921) 122,

124, 125, (1921) 122, 124, 125, (1941) 130, 131, shifts of foci of, 216; distribution, 131; dominated by farm (184855), 99; numbers, (1848-55) 99, (18711951) 128, 131, decreases (1881-91) 128, decline halts (1921-^51) 128, (1951) 99; ratio of farm population to (1941), 99, 101 \ stability of, unique in Maritimes, 131, 245(n.l2) sex (1798, 1805, 1807), 237(n.2) urban: 259(n.l3); definitions of, 245(n.l2); increase (1871-1951), 128; (1921), 128 Portage, 4 Port Royal, 25 Ports: character, mid-19th century, 116-17, 138; in coastal shipping, 145; dependent on shipbuilding, 143; function after railway, 143; location, mid- 19th century, 119 Potatoes Acadian failure to use, French régime, 39, 216 acreages: since 1860, 172, 175; (18701950), 161; (1890), 174; distribution of decline (1890's), 172; (1890-1920), 172, 174-, (1921-31), 776; (1921-51), 776; (1951), 99* 175 blight (1840's), 104 boom in (1920's), 175 cost of raising in Lot 21 (1891), 255-6 (n.ll) distribution, changes in, 161, 172, 774, 175, 776, 219 export totals, contributions to, early 19th century, 69-70 exports: amounts (1820's and 1830's), 239 (n.12); (1830's), 74; importance of to different countries (1850 V},-. 117; leading crop among, mid- 19th century 116; in outbound shipping (1950's), 145

in farming, 172, 175, 217, 219-20 fertilization for, heavy, 172 first recorded (1771), 55 \ importance (1951), 8, 12 Irish immigration and, 104 pastures and cropland, abandoned, used for, 161, 172 production: (1832), 74, 75; poor in 1840's, 104; since 1860, 175; (18701950), 161 ;;•; purposes of growing, 175 rotations, place in, 256 (n.14) ratios: per capita, in less settled areas, 172; to cropland, (1805) ;69, (1900-50) 254 (n.9), ( 1920^1) 175, (1921) 777, (1921-51) 163, 172, 175, (1951) 777;

INDEX

to oats (1847), 104, 106 roots, etc., farm revenue from (1951), 12 seed 175 Selkirk settlement, major crop of, 67 as a subsistence crop, 74, 172 and turnips, complementary in time and place, 219-20 uses of, 175 value of crop, highest (1805), 69 yield, average (1890), 256 (n. 11) Poultry: farm revenue from, by counties (1951), 12; fluctuations in numbers large, 180; in French régime, 31, 36; numbers since 1891, 180; values of as proportion of livestock total (190131), 256 (n.17) Pownal Bay area, 5, 35 Precipitation, see Climate Prejudice, cultural in effect on agricultural patterns, 217, 220 Presbyterians, see Religions Prices, retail (1851), 116 Prim Point (Pointe à Prime) area, 5, 26, 35, 60 Prince County, statistics for (1951), 8, 9, 12 Prince Edward (Duke of Kent), 66, 237(n.l) Prince Edward Island (see also separate categories): area, 17, 46, 231(n.8), 260-2; descriptions, early 19th century, sources, 238-9(n.9); economic and political role in Canada, 210; in eyes and mind of the world, 15-16, 25, 205; name, origin of, 66; as a model for understanding Maritime area, 206 Princetown: failure to become a village, 62, 87, 215; landings at, 1771-2, 55; located by Holland, 46; road to (1770's), 54; royalty, 44 Privy Council, see Great Britain Proprietary interest (see also Tenure, land; Grants, land): mid- 19th century, 92; (1870-95), 248(n.21) Proprietary land system (see also Tenure, land; Grants, land) : effects and legacies of, 51-2, 206, 212, 214; end of, 132-3; establishment of, 48, 50-1, 263-4 Proprietary lands (see also Tenure, land; Grants, land) : largely unoccupied, Prince County (1861), 212; problems of income from, 212 Proprietors (see also Tenure, land; Grants, land): accommodations to, 51, 81; activity in Lot 26 (1850's), 102; arguments in favour of, 80, 240(n.25); attitudes of towards lands, 209; attitudes of people towards, 80, 213; complaints of, 235(n.42), 248(n.21); con-

283

solidated holdings, 19th century, 97; and Land Commission of 1860, 93; Loyalists, offers to, 57; named for "awards" by Land Commission of 1875, 248(n.21); names of, (1767 (original)1810) 263-9; source (1860) 241(n.ll); obligations of, 50-1 Protestants, see Religion Pulp wood, see Forest products QUEEN'S COUNTY: settlement and population, 58, 125; statistics (1951), 8, 9, 12 Quiquibougat (see also Rustico) Quit-rents (see also Tenure, land), 46, 47, 81 RAILWAY, 4, 5, 138, 140-2, 249-50(ns.2431); acts authorizing, 249(n.26); branch lines, 140, 144; bridge over Hillsborough River, 250(n.30); building of, 140-1, 248-9(n.24); character of, reasons for, 140-2; Confederation, relation to, 142; construction, standard of, 249(n.27); contracts, provisions of, 140-1; cost per mile, 249(n.25); curvature, 140-1, 249(n.27); expansion of, 250(n.30); financing of, 249(n.28); ferry, freight movement over, 144, 250(n.31); gauge and third rail, 140-2, 249 (ns. 27, 30); grades, 141; length, 141, 250 (n.30) Apolitical significance of, 140-1; reasons for wanting, 140; sidings and stations, 141; value to community, 142 Ratios, land arable to total (1861), 152, 153 improved: per capita (1933), 71; to occupied land, (1871-1951) 152, (1891) 157, (1951) 157; in pasture, as a measure of farming level, 161 occupied to total: (1871-1951), 152; (1891) 755; (1951) 154; held by squatters to total (1848), -101 in crops (cropland) : to improved land, (19th century) 158, (1891) 160, (18911921) 163, (1921) 162, (1921-51) 161; to total area, (19th century) 158, (1891) 160, (1921) 162, (1921-51) 161 Raymond, Comte de, 38 Ready, Lieutenant-Governor 77 Reciprocity of trade with United States, 117-18 "Refugee" character of settlers, 38, 64 Regolith, 19 Relief, local, 18 Religion: Anglican, 60; bars to intermarriage, 126; differences, 96, 211; motive

284

INDEX

in emigration, 234(n.39); Roman Catholic, 60, 96, 207; Presbyterians, 96, 207; Protestants, restriction to in conditions of land grants, 50 Rent (see also Tenure, land) : amounts, mid19th century, 213; attitude of people to, 208, 213; difficulty of collecting, 96, 212; effect of, 208, 214 Rent-roll Duty Act (1855), 93 Rhode-Islanders, among Loyalists, 57 Richmond (parish), 44 Richmond Bay, see Malpeque Bay Rivière aux Crapauds, see Crapaud Rivière des Blonds (see also Tryon), 35-6 Rivière du Nord-est, see Northeast River Roads: (1750's), 35; (1770's), 54, 55; (1800), 59, 62; (1820's), 72-3; (1840's), 83; building of, 19, 38, 72, 138; effect on trading and marketing, 142; kinds and functions, 138, 142; location of, 31, 33, 37, 54, 59, 72-3; neglected because of ease of winter hauling, 138; post, 241(n.3); proprietors' attitude towards, 72; railway made obsolete by, 142; reservations of land for, 72 Rocks, see Geology Rodney, Admiral Lord George, 42, 209 Rollo Bay, 5 Rollo, Lord, 40 Roma, Jean Pierre de, 31, 46, 229(n.l4) Roman Catholic, see Religion Roots, see Crops Rotations, see Crops Royal Commission on Dominion-Provincial Relations, 258 (n.8) Royal Gazette . . . of St. John, 62 Rustico area (Lots 23-4), 55, 58, 70, 83, 119, 146, 149, 195 Rye, see Grains ST. ANDREW (parish), 44 St. Andrew's Town, 59 St. David (parish), 44 St. Eleanor's (village), 87 St. George (parish), 44 St. Jean, He (see also Prince Edward Island and individual categories), 6-7, 15, 25-41, 226 (n.5) St. John (parish), 44 St. John, Island of (see also Prince Edward Island and individual categories), 4-5, 26, 42-64, 43, 226(ns. 5-6) St. Lawrence, Gulf of, 43 St. Patrick (parish), 44, 52 St. Peters Bay, 5 St. Peters Harbour area, 28, 29, 30, 33, 38, 55, 87, 119, 146, 214, 216 St. Pierre, Anse de (see also St. Peters

Harbour), 35 St. Pierre, Comte de, 27-8 Salmon, see Fish Sandstone (see also Geology, bed rock), 18 Saunders, Vice-Admiral Sir Charles, 42, 209 Savage Harbour, 5, 30, 33, 146 Saw mills, see Mills, saw Scald on wheat, 37 "Scale" of studies, 225 (n.3) Scotch-Irish, see Irish, northern Scots (see also Population, origin; Highlanders) : characteristics of, 207-9; distribution, 60, 91, 126, 727, 207, 245 (n.10); dominant in population, 207; emigration of, 125-6, 245 (n. 10); farming, characteristics of, 74, 81-2, 191, 247(n.l7); Gaelic speakers, largely, 207; Highland (see also Highlanders), 207; Lowland, 68, 81-2, 207-9; religious denominations, 207 Scottish-born, 86, 88, 90 Scrub (1951), 99 Sea-cows (see also Animals, wild), 22 Seals (see also Animals, wild), 22 Seasons, see Climate Sea ware (seaweed), 78 Seeds, import of, 76, 239(n.l6) Selkirk, Earl of, 52, 67, 209 Selkirk, estate of, 52, 93, 97 Selkirk settlement, 67-9, 207, 216, 238(n.8) Selkirk station, 94 Settlement (see also Immigration; Population, etc.): British, 42-65, 215; dispersion or nucleation of, 33, 37, 62, 70, 72, 87, 125, 215-6; expansion of after 1754, 40; location of, 27, 33, 34, 35, 72, 214-15; geography of (1750's), 32-41; negative factors in, Western Prince, 215; patterns of (see also Population), 62, 64, 68, 70, 72-3, 87, 125, 215-6; progress in, periods of, 215-6 Settlers, mobility of, 56 Seymour, 209 Shale (see also Geology, bed rock), 18 Shaw, H. H., 231(n.6) Sheep breeds: in mid-19th century, 110; Cheviots, 110; Cotswolds, 110; Hampshires, 110; Leicesters, 77, 110; Lincolns, 110; Oxfords, 110; Shropshires, 110; Southdowns, 77, 110 decline of interest in, in Maritimes, 257-8 (n.29) density, changes in significance of patterns of, 218, 221 distribution: in 1951, 202; changes in 20th century, 203, 218, 220-1; comple-

INDEX

mentary to that of swine, 19th century, 218, 221; in relation to settlement and clearing, 76, 78, 114, 198 emphasis on, relative, 195 farming, place in, 204, 221 imports (1820's), 77 intensity of farming, associated with, 195 numbers: in French régime, 30-1, 36, 38; (1805), 69; (1805-1833), 76; (184855), 775; (1855 cf. 1953), 102; (186191), 193\ reach maximum in 1880's, 198; since 1861, change in, 180, 191, 195; (1891), 194\ (1891-1931), 194\ (1951), 796; fluctuations in, 114 ratios: per capita (1891), 198, 201; to cattle, general, 217-18; to cattle (1861), 773; to improved land (1951), 195, 79(5; to swine, 195, 198, 203-4, 218, 221, (1833) 78, 79, (1855) 114, 775, (1861) 200, (1891) 201, in 20th century, 198, 203-4, (1931) 202, (1951)

203

on run-out pastures and poor land, 195 since 1871, 191, 195, 198, 203-4 type and condition, early 19th century, 77 value of, as a proportion of livestock total, (1901-31), 256(n.l7) Shelburne, N.S., 57 Shingles, 145 Shipbuilding, 216; (c. 1720), 28; (c. 1800), 64; (1820's and 1830's), 80, 239(n.lO), 240, (n.24); (1830-1900), 143; mid19th century, 102, 118; 1865 and later, 250(n.32); decline of, late 19th century, 143; vessels, size of, 250(n.32) Shipping (see also Transport), 143-5; cargoes, 145, 239(n.lO); coastal, 143-5; on Hillsborough River, 143, 250 (ns. 36-7); importance of, 69-70; ocean, 143, 145; on the Strait of Northumberland, 38, 143-4, 250-1 (ns.35,38) Ships (see also Fishery, boats) : motor vessels, 144-5; refrigerated, 188; sales of, with cargoes, 239 (n.10); SS. Abegweit, 144; SS. Charlottetown, 144; SS. Prince Edward Island, 144 Skye, Isle of, 67, 96 Small holders (see also Tenure, land; Farms, size), 92 Smelts, see Fish Smethurst, Gamaliel, 48, 232(ns. 15,16) Smith, Titus, 228(n.20) Smuggling base, Island as, 120 Snow, see Climate, precipitation Soils (see also Geography, physical; Farming), 19, 227(n.l7); classification of, 229(n.l7); comparison with Ile Royale (Cape Breton), 27; dryness of, 28; fer-

285

tüity, 19, 63; survey, 19, 227(n.l7); texture, 19; variability in, 19 Soupe-aux-pois, 39 Souriquois (Micmac; see also Indians), 228 (n.24) Souris, 39, 117, 140, 142, 146, 148, 215, 249(n.30) South Lake, 35 Southport, 143 Spence, George, 48, 56 Spring, see Climate, seasons Spring Garden Creek, 230(n.l7) Spruce, black, see Vegetation, trees "Spud Island," 219 Squatters (see also Tenure, land), 95, 99, 242(ns.l8-19) Stables (1800), 63 Standard of living, 110 Stansfield, H. H., 93 Statistical method, 222-3 Stewart, John, 55-6, 233(n.22) Stewart, Robert, 55 Stewart's Cove, 230(n.l7) Stilgenbauer, F. A., 151, 252(n.57), 253 (ns.64-5) Stone, lack in soil, 73, 80 Stoves, 63 "Strassendorf" pattern of settlement, 68 Straw, as cattle feed, 77 Stuart, John, Earl of Bute, 232(n.l7) Stukely Town (see also Morell), 59 Stumping, 214 Stumps, comparison of hardwood and softwood, 78, 228(n.21) Summerside and area, 4, 8, 87, 112, 117, 125, 128 Survey, land, see Land, survey Survey of Island (see also Holland, Captain Samuel), 231 (n.6) Surveyor's Inlet, 35, 59 Sutherland's (St. Peters Bay village), 87 Swamp, see Bog Swampy land, effect on road building, 138 "Sweeds" (Swedes) (see also Turnips), 108 Swine breeds: at mid- 19th century, 110; Berkshires, 110; "China" breed, 240(n.l8); Tamworths, 110; White Chesters, 110; Yorkshires, 110 British emigrants' attitude towards, 114 density: in forest areas (1830's), 78; (1951), 197 distribution: in 19th century, 114, 218; in 20th century, 195, 203 farming, role in, 114, 195, 204, 221 farm revenue from, by counties (1951), 12 Irish, in relation to, 218

286

INDEX

numbers: in French régime, 36, 38; (1805), 69; (1833), 76; (1855 cf. 1953), 102; in reciprocity period, increase, 198; (1861-91), 797; patterns of change in (1861-1931), 195; since 1871, 180; (1931-51), 799; large and rapid fluctuations in, 114, 180, 195; in relation to sheep numbers, 198 ratios: per capita, farm population, 195, farm population (1951), 200] to area of cropland (1951), 199; to sheep, see Sheep, ratio to swine revenue larger than from sheep, 20th century, 204 since 1871, 191, 195, 198, 203, 204 size of (1830's), 77 value of, as a proportion of livestock total (1901-31), 256(n.l7) TAMARACK, see Vegetation, trees Tanneries, 118 Tantemar (Tantramar), 26 Tariff, Canadian, 120, 138 Tatamagashe Bay, see Tatamagouche, 26 Tatamagouche, 38, 215 "Team-boat," 144 Temperature, air (see also Climate), 21, 227 (n.18) Tenancy (see also Tenure, land), 133, 206, 213-14 Tenant Improvement Compensation Act, 93 Tenant League of 1863, 93 Tenants (see ato Tenure, land), lethargy of, 206 Tenure, land (see also Grants, land; Proprietary; Proprietors; Quit-rents; Rent; Squatting; Tenancy; Tenant), 42, 48, 50-2, 57, 206, 208, 211-14, 263-9, early 19th century, 80-1, mid- 19th century, 91-3, 95-6, 97, 98, 99, 100, 101, (1855) 95, (1861-1951) 132-3, (1951) 133, 225(n.6) agglomeration of land, 52 by other than proprietors (1861), 92 changes (1861-1921), 132 distribution of different kinds of (184855), 95-6 divisions of (1861), 132, 211-12 farming level, effect on, 95, 206, 212 freehold (see also Ratios, land): (184161), 95; (1855), 700; (1861), 92, 95, 132; most land in (1891), 155 held by farmers: change (1848-55), 98\ (1848), 97 leasehold (see also Quit-rents; Rent; Tenants; Tenancy): distribution (1855), 96; number of holders under (1841-61),

95; contracts, length of, 247(n.l9); relation to freehold, 212; security of tenure, 247(n.l9) history of, to 1850, 92 mortgages (1941-51), 133 proprietary (see also Grants, land; Proprietary; Proprietors): arguments in favour of, 80, 240(n.25); consolidated holdings, 19th century, 97; Durham's indictment of, 51; effects of, 206, 209, 212; end of, 132-3, 248(n.21); establishment of, 48, 50, 263-4; government purchases of (1850's), 92; interest, original, 263-9; interest in 1861, 92, 241(n.ll); interest in 1870, 248(n.21) ratios of freehold: to land held (1848) 707, (1855) 700; to total area (1855), 700 reform of, agitation for, 92-3 squatters and squatting (see also Squatters), 95, 99, 242(ns.l8-19) statistics of (1841-61), 95 tenancy (see also Tenancy; Tenants; Tenant Improvement Compensation Act; Tenant League of 1863), 133, 206, 209, 213-15 tenants (see also Tenant) : domination of population by (1830's), 82; lethargy of, 206 Three Rivers area, 7, 26, 31-3, 40, 48, 779, 149 Tidal range, Charlottetown, 61 Tignish, 4, 66, 72, 779, 140, 142, 146, 148-9, 215, 245(n.9), 249(n.30) Timber, see Forest Tobacco (see also Crops), 30 Topographic map (1863), 88 Tormentine, Cape, 144 Tory, see Loyalist Towns (see also Population; Settlement), 46, 729 Townsend, William, 66 Townshend, 209 Township 21, cost of potato growing in (1890's), 255-6(n.ll) Township 42, plan of c. 1880, 94 Township 66, 48 Townships: areas of (Appendix A), 260-2; disposal by lottery, 48, 50; escheatments (1781), 235(n.42); numbering of, 44'; original plan of division, 42; ownership (see also Land, grants), changes of, 50, 240 (n.26), 263^9; rating of -(1760's), 46, 47\ size oï, 231(n.7), 260-2 Traeadie Bay area, 5, 30, 55, 148, 229(n.ll), 243(n.28)

INDEX

Tractors (see also Farms, equipment), 9, 12, 180, 182, 220 Trade (see also Exports; Imports), 28, 114, 116-8, 143-5 Trade and Plantations (Board, Commissioners, Lords), 42, 48, 50, 205 Traffic, local, 138 Tranche Montagne (see also South Lake), 7, 26, 35 Transport (see also Railway; Roads; Shipping), 62, 143-4 Transportation geography, 138 Traverse, Cape, 37, 70, 144 Trois Rivières, Les (see also Three Rivers),

26

Trout (see also Fish), 64 Tryon, 4, 37, 70, 72 Tull, Jethro, 108 Tunnel to island, advocated, 142, 249(n.29) Turnips: acreage, (1890-1951) 779, fluctuations in 20th century, 178; advocated by Judge Peters, 108; animal husbandry, relation to patterns of, 220; in farming, (1830's) 74, mid-19th century, 108, (1860-1950) 178, 20th century, 217; in French régime, 31, 39; and potatoes, complementary in time and place, 178; production, (1805) 69, (1847) 109, increase (1847-54) 109\ ratios, to cropland (1900-50), 254 (n.9); in rotations, place of, 256 (n.14); and other roots, acreage and production (1870-1950), 161 ULSTERMEN, see Irish, northern United States of America: as destination of emigrants from island, 122, 244 (n.4); as a market for island produce (185070), 116-18 Urbanization (see also Population, urban; Settlement, nucleated; Charlottetown; Summerside), 128, 259 (n.13) Utrecht, Treaty of, 25 VEGETABLES, in diet (1752), 37 Vegetation pre-European, 21-2, 23 hay, wild, 32 reported by Cartier, 225-6 (n.4) trees: beech, 21-2; birch, 21-2, 64; hemlock, 21; larch, 21; oak, 21; pine, white, 21-2, 48, 64, 232(n.l6); poplar, 21-2; spruce, black, 21-2; tamarack, 21; willow, 21 Vernon River, 5, 250(n.30) Villages (see also Population; Settlement),

287

38, 61, 70, 99, 129, 131, 143, 215-6, 241(n.6) WALRUS (see also Animals, wild), 22 Warge (Worge), Richard, 56 Wealth, national (Island's share in), 206 Weather, see Climate West Point, 4 Wheat Acadian: French régime, 27, 31, 37-9; 19th and 20th centuries, 170, 217, 219 acreage: (1890-1950), 161; (1890-1920), 171- peak in 1890's, 170; (1900), 254 (n.9); (1947-51), 255 (n.10) concentration of (1832), 74, 75 conditions under which grown (1950's), 170 decline of, 219 doubts about (1771), 55 exports, early 19th century, 69-70 in farming: (1830's), 74; since 1870, 170 market for, in Nova Scotia (1830's), 76 production: increase (1847-54), 104, 107; (1870-1950), 161; peak in 1890's, 170 raised by Loyalists, 57, 76, 217 ratios: acreage to oat acreage (1847), 104, 106- to oats (1827-33), 74, 75; to cropland (1900-50), 254 (n.9); to cultivated land (1805), 69 rotations, place in, 219 "scald" on (1751), 37 Talavera, 239 (n.16) winter, 236 (n.61) yield: increases, 20th century, 170; (194751), 255 (n.10) Whiteside, G. B., 227 (n. 17) Willow (see also Vegetation, trees), 21 Winter (see also Climate): advantages for transport, 62; problems seen by Holland, 48 Wood Islands, 5, 142, 144 Woodland (see also Forest; Land, unimproved; Vegetation): (1891 and 1921), 159\ (1930's), 158; (1940's), 20, 145, 759, 251(n.42); (1951), 9, 99; actual and recorded, 158, 253-4(n.3); ratio to unimproved land, 158 Woodlots, present trees in, 22 Wool: as a "cash crop," 204; carding mills, 118; use by Acadians, 40 Worrell, Charles, 66 Worrell estate, 52, 66, 93, 97 Wright's Creek, 230(n.l7) YORKE RIVER, 4-5 Young, Arthur, 108, 242(n.21) Young, John, 108, 242(n.21)