When Governor Fanning toured eastern King's County In 1787 he travelled in a six oared boat complete with six oarsmen, one tent with canteens, two servants, and a secretary. Roads and places to stay were non-existent. After the middle of the next century the situation was very different. A network of roads and bridges had opened up the countryside, which was now filled with farms, and in the harbours and river estuaries there was great activity building ships. ln Souris schooners, bar- ques, brigs and ships — three-masted square-riggers —— were built near John Knight's breakwater, in the gully op- posite Cheverie’s store, and across the Souris River in Souris West. Of these three sites, the most important was the one in Souris West. The vessels were built on the riverbank, and moved into deep water through the drawbridge that spanned the narrows. In the early 1860s a second breakwater was constructed of brush and stone. It ran out of the western end of Souris beach about 300 feet, parallel to the channel, and both comple- mented Knight’s breakwater to the east and provided a safe haven for shipping at Souris West. Between the two breakwaters there was now a second wharf, William Stone’s, in a little cove below the present site of the Souris Hospital.

The shipbuilding activity In Souris West led to growth there that almost rivalled that of Souris East. The Prince Edward Island Directory of 1864 lists 38 families in Souris West, only 10 fewer than on the other side of the river. They included Scullys, MacCormacks, Gregorys, Lyons, Mullallys and O’Donnells, and they were Shipwrights, carriage makers, block makers, pump makers and caulkers.

In Souris East the population at this time was about 300 persons. Only two heads of families described themselves in 1864 as fishermen. There were 13 farmers, seven sea captains, seven general dealers, four shoemakers, two teachers, two ship owners, two mill owners, and a tailor, cooper, blacksmith, carpenter.

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harness maker, physician, clergyman and road commis- sioner.

In 1863 100 ships were built in Souris and sold in England at prices inflated by the war between the north and the south in the United States. Import trade through the port of Souris prospered that year — 45,000 barrels of flour (some of it, apparently, for re-export), 12,000 pounds of tea, 71 pounds of coffee, 6,500 pounds of brown sugar, 21 pounds of white sugar, 5,500 gallons of molasses, 3,200 gallons of gin, rum and spirits, 130 tons of salt, and 53 gallons of kerosene oil. Exports were chiefly oats, and, of course, ships.

The construction of the Island Railway after 1870 provided further encouragement to the development of Souris. The little town's prosperous condition in 1877 was described in an article that appeared that year in the June issue of Harper’s New Monthly, a United States publication, under the byline of S.G.W. Benjamin: “At Mount Stewart a branch of the road turns off to Georgetown and Cardigan Bay, a sleepy, aristocratic, uninteresting town. Souris is quite the reverse. The little place since the railroad has reached it has sprung into a new existence. Houses are rising in every direction, and its shipyards ring with the merry tumultuous din of caulkers’ mallets. The port is exposed to southerly gales: some years ago 23 schooners were driven ashore in one day. The Dominion has appropriated $60,000 to continue a break‘water across part of it, and this will give fresh impetus to the prosperity of one of the most thriving towns l have seen in the Dominion. A new hotel is rising. in Souris, but what it will be remains to be seen. Mr. Mac- Donald’s (hotel) is restricted for accommodations, but there seems every disposition to please the traveller — always excepting the charges, which I have found too high at every place I visited on the Island."

Another description of Souris in the same year is con- tained in a letter written October 17, 1877 by W. Critchlow Harris, father of portrait painter Robert Harris

Souris harbour in the days of sail.