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plucked for feathers to make bedding. The upper and lower mills ground the farmers' grain, wheat, oats, barley, and buckwheat.

The middle mill sawed their timber for the shipbuilding industry.

Shipbuilding also supported many subsidiary industries in the area. Forges provided the matal work needed. Spars were~

modelled, canvas sewn, blocks shaped.

The 1840's, 50's, and 60's the great era of shipbuilding on P.E.I., where men built ships in almost every cove and bay on the Island. Orwell was the Scene of the shipyard of Benjamin Davies, who built many ships at Orwell Point. In Hebridean Pioneers, Malcolm MacQueen describes the scene of activity at the Davies shipyard. "The practice was to lay the keel in March. Sometimes 60 or 70 men worked on the ship and in the yard. At sunrise the men Were hard at work. Breakfast was served_at eight; the day ended at sunset." For this they were paid 40¢ a day, part of it in trade —- tobacco, wheat, flour, and raw

sugar.

Newspapers of the day describe some of the ships built at shipyards in Orwell. In 1841, John MacIsaac launched the 180 ton Henrietta (The Colonial Herald, August 21. 1841). In 1844 Anselm MacDougald completed the 170 ton lééé (Royal Gazette June 11, 1844). The 270 ton Zitella was launched from Orwell by John MacIssaac in 1844 (R0 al Gazette, June 30, 1846), and in the same year Benjamin Davies readied the Mountaineer, 375 tons (Ro a1 Gazette, July 14, 1846). In 1852, Davies again

launched a large ship, the Ontolan, 470 tons (Islander, May 21,