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(17) Leigh Coffin and Charles Campbell, aided by George Laybolt;

(18) Harold Douglas & Reuben MacInnis, aided by James MacInnis;

(19) The fishery patrol boat was under the command of Wendell Glover, with J. Watts as engineer.

On February 23, 1970, at the Basilica Recreation Centre in Char- lottetown, Premier A. B. Campbell told a meeting of the P.E.I. Fisheries Federation that, as part of the Comprehensive Development Plan, the Government was embarking on a 15 year program to build up and expand twenty “designated” ports, while maintaining the fifty—odd remaining ones in such condition as to avoid haszards to life and property. Savage Har- bour was not included in the designated list, even though, as the Opposi- tion claimed, it was much more of a port than some of the “mud flats and sand bars” that had been designated. Finally, when in March of 1974, Leo Rossiter, opposition fisheries critic, moved a resolution that Savage Harbour be made a designated port under the Development Plan, the Pre- mier charged the Conservatives with failure to do their homework. He said that Savage Harbour had been designated by Government in January of that year. The ancient port had thus been saved from stagnation and eventual oblivion, and its proud and colorful career as one of the great fishing stations of the Maritimes was permitted to continue.

Shipbuilding

“God help us in this mud and gutter,

No pork, no beef, no bread, no butter;

Doing penance for our sins,

Eating herring and Jinny Linds.”

(Inscribed on the stern of a vessel built at Mount Stewart)

A correspondent, in an article in the Patriot for January 18, 1877, noted that “at Mount Stewart we find the greatest shipbuilding point on the Island, as many as twenty-two vessels having been on the stocks at one time last summer. . .” The village’s rise to pre—eminence in an indus- try that had been sending beautiful Island—built vessels across the sea- ways of the world for over a century was, however, to be short-lived. Already the industry was in decline, and, today, a depression in the earth or the remains of a Wharf is the only tangible evidence to suggest that the 19th century yards ever existed.

An examination of the Charlottetown shipping registers indicates that the first ship built in the Mount Stewart area was the “Betsy,” a schooner constructed in 1783 by Samuel and Alexander Fullerton at Sav- age Harbour. Not all Island-built vessels were registered at Charlottetown; however, existing records reveal that ten schooners were built at Savage Harbour and that, by 1850, probably with the depletion of the forests in the immediate area, building operations had been transferred to Hills- borough River, a blanket address which included Cart Point, Clark’s Creek, Pisquid, and, for a time, Mount Stewart itself. The first ship bearing Charlottetown registry constructed in this area was the “Jane,” a schooner, built in 1806 by Allan MacDonald. For a time, after the various localities had emerged as separate entities, Pisquid was the most important ship- building centre. Approximately seventy vessels can be positively identified as having been built there and by far the greatest builder was Ronald MacDonald, a grandson of the original Ronald of Maple Hill. The brigan- tine “Christiana” was built at his yard, located on the river below the

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