At that time the sheriff appointed men in each lotto maintain the roads and the school, and to oversee the buying and selling of land. There was very little money involved such that the appointees did not fulfill their obligations. The result was that roads were few and in poor condition. Farming methods were primitive and much labor was required to build up a successful farm. One innovation that the immigrants brought with them to the Brackley area, in order to fence their farms, were thorn bushes. These bushes were planted all around the property to keep the cattle from straying. However well these bushes may have aided the early settlers, they soon became a problem. The early settlers had no way of’knowing that the roots from these thorn bushes would spread underground and reamerge at unpredictable points. Such abandon growth limited animal pasture and reduced the land to a less tillable state. Farmers today, are forced to dig underground in order to cut the roots of these bushes as this is the only effective method of containing their spread.

In the latter years of the l9th century, there were over forty settlers living in Brackley, the maiority of whom stilldepended on farming for their livelihood. Just nineteen years earlier, there were only about fifteen families. The rate of growth had increased such that there was now a church, a school, a Post Office, and even a blacksmith. The railroad also passed through the southern end of the area enabling better transportation of crops, etc. Brackley was prospering and soon to become an established community. The following isa list of the settlers in Brackley in 1880, stating acreage and position on the Brackley Point Road which was by then well- worn.

West side of the Road:

Jno. Kennedy , 147 acres Charles Kennedy 120 acres ' Jas. Rattray 50 acres Issac Essery 100 acres Alex Martin 100 acres Alex Scott 100 acres, Wm. J. Prowse 100 acres Jas. Thompson —— acres Thomas Rodd (esq.) . 75 acres Jno. McMillan(church & school) 25 acres Joseph Prowse 100 acres Charles Cox (blacksmith) 50 acres George Bryenton 50 acres George Jackson 50 acres Jno. Bryenton 150 acres Robert Weeks 50 acres Mrs. Smith ll‘/2 acres