Neil purchased the store for $5,500, and the price included most of the fitments. The list included 3 scales, a cheese cutter, a drinking fountain, an ice chest, a Christie Biscuit stand, four paper cutters, an adjustable show stand, a revolving clothes rack, a spool cabinet, 3 show cases, one cash register, an account register, one wallpaper stand, a roll top desk, a safe, two hanging lamps, a kerosene and a gasoline measuring pump, a steel low wheeled wagon, a peddling wagon, measuring scoops, a meat saw, a base burner and a stove (20). Neil was noted in the 1920s Atlas as a merchant and vendor of seed potatoes (22). The building burned on May 3rd 1929 and was replaced by a smaller structure (23,24). Neil is mentioned in the 1924/25, 1929/30, and 1935 directories but is absent from the 1950 edition where he is listed as a farmer (25,26,27,28). In the late 1930s Fannie Beaton ran this store for a couple of years (30). Fire Yesterday At Yesterday morning Mr. Neil Fer ¬ guson, Bonshaw , suffered a heavy, loss by lire when his store, warehouse nnl shed, were completely destroyed.! The fire occurred about lire o'clock. I Part of the contents of the lower, floors were saved but the greater part of the stock was destroyed. The fire is supposed to bare started In the upper part of the store. Tblsi property was purchased from Mr. J- < A. Robertson now In Cnarlottetown I about 12 years ago. The store was about 40x20. and had two stories. The total loss will be from $8,000 to $10,000. It reopened as the Tartan Gift Shop by Mr Fraser of Montague, who ran it for the summers of 1956 and 1957. A son of the Fraser s was a piper and could be often heard playing in the hills to the south of the village (23,30). 1*"1 - * Neil Ferguson 's Store circa 1935 courtesy of Eric Ferguson BEATON'S There was a second Beaton store, this one operated by L. Theophilus 'Toff Beaton . It was built in the early 1930s (before 1935 (54)). It operated as a general store, selling groceries and feed until about 1946, when it was converted into a restaurant called the Bonshaw Inn. About 1960 it closed and the building was used as a warehouse and a dance hall. In about 1965 it was converted again and used as a nursing home until the early 1970s (21). In 1988 a store was reopened in the building but was closed after only a few months (29). •41-