PRINCE EDWARD ISLAND. b' a

of the people, these had to be marked by blazes-—chips taken off with an ax—on the trees. Often the roundabout way along the shores was preferred. Sometimes rafts of small trees were utilized in crossing the rivers and streams. This was the mode of travel used by the French and continued by the British settlers for many years in the more sparsely settled parts. In some places querns were used to grind or smash up the grain prior to cooking. During the long winter evenings the blazing logs in the hearth—the smoke ascending up the mud and grass or straw built chimney—gave both light and warmth to the inmates of the log houses. And who will say that they were not as happy and contented as their descendants of these days, with all the mod- ern manufactured conveniences of our highly civilized life?

As the population increased and as civ- ilization advanced boats and small vessels were constructed, and began to sail around from harbor to harbor, and roads were made connecting the more important points. In many parts of this county shipbuilding was prosecuted and the vessels were loaded with lumber and sent to the “Old Country” as England was usually called.

As has been said, Princetown, as a town, died stillborn. In place of it St. Eleanor’s grew up to have the county institutions cen- tered in it. About 1800 Colonel Compton came out. He or his connections had pur— chased the northern part of township I7 from the original grantee. This army officer before leaving England prepared and brought with him all the fittings for a com- fortable house, and this he erected on the shore of Richmond Bay, on the west side of the entrance to River Platte. In a lease granted by Mr. Compton to twenty-three

French families, the following stipulations were inserted as the rents to be paid:

“First ten bushels good dry marketable wheat, and one good fat wether sheep, and one pound two shillings and nine pence of lawful money of the Province. And also each and every of the said tenants shall yearly do or cause to be done by an able man, one good day’s labour, with one other day’s work with two able men and a sufii— cient team of oxen in every year, so long as the said tenant shall occupy either of the above named farms, and the said tenants are restrained from erecting, or suffering to be erected any corn or grist mill on any part of their farms, but shall at all times cause their grist to be ground at the mill of their township, and no other, neither shall they suffer to be kept any shop, store or tavern on any part of their respective farms. The

said Harry Compton reser to himself the i ‘

right of chase on and over the said farms at pleasure.” .

No doubt the influence of such a man as Colonel Compton told in determining that St. Elmer’s, and not Princetown, should have the county court house built within its confines. Some years after he became a resident, the “Old Town Road” was made as far as St. Elmor’s, then the Anglimn church was built on the same site as the present one—the first having been burnt down in about I844—and about 1833 the St. Eleanor’s court house and jail was erect- ed by the Government. Here for the next forty years justice was dispensed for the county by the Supreme Court. Although it never grew to more than a village, yet it was a place of considerable importance, there being stores and tradesmen’s shops clustered in the place.

Travellers’ Rest, some miles in an east-