The 1863 Lake Map. Lot 3. Source: www.islandregister.com. Note Centerline Road is marked "Proposed Road"

Monday, July 16, 2012

Mrs. Graham, died at 111-years-old c. 1885


"A Mrs. Graham, who died in Alma, Prince Edward Island about the year 1885, reported just prior to her death at one hundred and eleven years of age, that when she was a small girl living with her parents in a log cabin some little distance outside of Charlottetown, she saw this tall, good-looking, blond blue-eyed man and his beautiful young wife as they travelled from the boat landing past her mother’s cabin. With their dog-team they headed through the portage in the general direction of New London Bay. (A portage on P.E.I. is a narrow road or path through a thick wood and was used by the Indians to portage their canoe from one body of water to another. The portage here referred to may have been only an Indian trail.) At any rate Mrs. Graham said she knew the family in after years, and that his name was Simpson, his first name she could not be sure of and that his wife’s name was Helen Winchester.

cf.  Chapter 5, THE FOUNDING OF CAVENDISH, 1790
This account is taken from the book "Cavendish - Its History, Its People, Its Founding Families - Simpsons McNeills Clarks and their Kin" by Harold H. Simpson. I have taken the liberty of taking Chapters 5 and 6 from this book to enable me to show something of settlement life on Prince Edward Island. We have now added the complete book in pdf format to the foot of this page.

No comments:

Post a Comment