H59-

COMMUNITY CHANGES

Practically all the families that dwelt in New Haven in the period of which I write bore the names of the men who had founded the community: MacPhail, MacPhee, Boyle, Corrigan, Devereux, Collins, Cameron, Gillespie, Lamont, MacMillan, Boyce, MacFadyen, Costello, MacSwain, Wynne, MacKaig, Darrach,. Others were: Berrigan, Brown, Gass, Pollard, Murphy, Colwell, bocherty, McElroy, Clow, Newman, Frizzell, Nolan, Newman, — McQuillan, Rogerson, Cavanagh, ‘Tierney. |

of all the above, oniy/déscendants still live in the area.

I have been absent from the Island for so many years that I have little personal knowledge of trends over: the intervening time, but I suspect that. the industrial upsurge in the neighboring Maritimes and in the Central Provinces has had much to do with bringing about this condition. The younger generation naturally weighed the advantages of life as farmerS -- reasonably secure, but with lengthy periods of the year when no appreci- able of ready money came to hand -~ against working a forty-hour week with a payday every Friday. The appeal of industry prevailed and they left the Island, most of them never to return except for an occasional vacation. When their elders reached an age at which they were no longer physically capable of carrying on, they had little choice of action. They sold the farm and moved to the city.

It is difficult to accept the fact that the Scions of such a race of hardy,’ intrepid pioneers have all but disappeared from_the lands and properties that they developed to such a state of perfection. But there is no getting away from the facts. To drive on the route of the Old Tryon Road from the Clyde River line to Strathgartney, and to note the ae on the mailboxes, is to realize that a style of life, a culture, and a people,

have forever vanished from our ken. Truly a saddening percertion.! Hitech