John Alex Murchison, mail -driverfor Point Prim and nearby districts for 25 years, was first cousin to Angus McGowan>‘< and equally proud of his hardy Scots forebears. The oldest of the 10 children born to Donald Neil Murchison and Alexandra Nicholson, he took over the operation of the family farm on which he was raised. He never married. He and his sister Grace MacLeod lived on the old homestead until his death.

The M urchisons are staunch Conservatives. Indeed, John Alex’ s second brother, born in 1910, is named Robert Borden Murchison, after the Tory leader who became Prime Minister of Canada in 1911.

W had 50 acres on this farm. Then I bought what we call Angus Malcolm’s place in ’27, another 50 acres, which was part of this

farm one time... . It’s the old Murchison property, Donald Murchison. He had four farms here. He’d Hector MacLeod’s, this one here, Borden’s, and Albert’s [both brothers of John Alex]. Shore property, yeah, settled first. The houses were built along the shore. This house here that we’re in now was moved. It was halfway from here to the shore. It was moved up here in 1902, the year I was born... . Always lived on this farm.

Seafarers

[My father went] around, you know, coasting.1 Coal work on dredges and schooners. The rest of them, they all went to sea. My father had, oh, he had one, two, four brothers who were lost at sea. I’m only going by memory, you know, what [I’d] hear them saying.

1. Working on boats on the coastal waters of P.E.l.

John Alex Murchison 147