minus of a considerable steamer and schooner traffic. The following dis- cussion of roads, railroads and river traffic indicates that Mount Ste- wart’s present importance in transportation is much less than formerly.

Roads

Reference has already been made to the celebrated court case of 1831 between John Stewart and his neighbours over access to a road across Mount Stewart Farm. The testimony given at that time by Allan MacDonald of Maple Hill is germaine to the matter under discussion in that it gives the locations of the area’s roads as they were almost a cen- tury and one half ago:

“There is a road,” Mr. MacDonald began, “on the north side, called St. Peter’s Road, which runs parallel with the River from Charlottetown, and is continued to East Point. On the south side there is a road from Pisquid to the head of the river. Previous to the bridge being built, people going from Pisquid to Charlotte-Town had to cross at Mount Ste— wart Ferry or go round by the head of the river. There is a road on the north side of the ferry leading to the St. Peter’s road, at the end of which there is a wharf. The road from the ferry on the south side is the road in question, which leads to the Pisquid road, through Mount Stewart farm.”

The testimony of Peter Gallant and John Deagle established that the ferry had been in operation during French times. Mr. Gallant, then eighty years old, remembered the conquest and asserted that his father had kept the ferry long before that time. Mr. Deagle confirmed this, and the deposition of another witness affirmed that for a time following the conquest the ferry had been run by “one Welsh” who “was paid a bushel of barley by each family.”

The bridge mentioned in Mr. MacDonald’s testimony had been com- pleted only a few years previously. In 1820 the inhabitants of the area had directed a petition to Council “praying assistance” towards erecting a bridge, and, in 1825, having received a second memorandum, that body requested that a commission be appointed to determine on a site. Two locations, one at Red Bank and the other at the Ferry, were considered and, in 1827, the commission decided in favour of Red Bank. The bridge was constructed during the year 1827-28 at a cost of £125.

The choice of the Red Bank site proved to be an unfortunate one, as the road to the north of the bridge ran through a marsh, while that on the south side climbed a very steep hill. These circumstances, coupled with the fact that, by 1839, the bridge was in “a most ruinous and dilapidated state,” caused the inhabitants to petition the House of As- sembly to build a new bridge at Mount Stewart Ferry where level roads could be built on firm soil to both margins of the river. The investigating committee found the bridge “prostrate on the ice” and came to the unani- mous conclusion that a new one should be built at the Ferry. This could be done economically as the ferry wharf, located on the north side of the river, could be used as part of the bridge and needed only to be linked with an abutment extending from the south bank. Mr. Thomas Barrett was thereupon employed to salvage materials from the old bridge to be used in the construction of the new. The bridge, experiencing alternate periods of repair and disrepair, has been at the same location since that time.

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