FOREWQRD 
     
    
   
   
    
     In recent years, a number of gifted writers have produced a wealth of 
     
     literature dealing with Island life in the early years of the Provinces. 
     
     The accuracy and vividness with which they have portrayed the customs, the 
     
     traditions, and the philosophy of the rural population testify not only to 
     
     their narrative skills but- also to the painstaking research that made such 
     
     results possible. | 
     
    

    
     I especially enjoyed Margaret Dixon's Going Home; Walter Shaw's Tell Me 
     
     The Tales; and The Banks Of The Elliot by Violet MacEachern and Arlene 
     
     MacDougall. To Island natives like myself who went away during the early 
     
     years of the century, and who have been privileged to return for only 
     
     brief visits, they bring delightfully nostalgic vistas of a long-gone day. 
     
    

    
     In succeeding pages I hope to emulate them in some degree by presenting 
     
     an account of life, as I remember it, in the communities to the north of 
     
     the Elliot: New Haven, Churchill, and Elmwood, with an occasional reference 
     
     to outlying districts. Since distance from the scene precludes direct 
     
     research, I shall have to rely on my own experience, and on my recollection 
     
     of stories told by older members of my family and by neighbors who 
     
     delighted in relating accounts of people and events that embraced a 
     
    
   
   
    
     considerable portion of the nineteenth century.