Early Footprints 7

One can only imagine the desolate feelings of the Acadian family as they looked on their ruined fields. Not only was their winter supply of food gone, but also their seed for the next spring planting. Whenever the Acadians lost their seed by fire or by mice, they looked to the French fortress at Louisbourg in Isle Royale for seed. De la Roque stressed the great lack of seed in his census of 1752 and said: “...they lack seed to sow, and if the King does not make them a gift or loan of seed so that they can sow it next spring they will find it impossible to maintain themselves, being today at the last stage of poverty through the great mortality among their livestock.”

Two historic reminders of early French and Acadian footprints in East- ern Kings can still be seen: one, a set of mill stones and the other a church bell.

The flour mill of Jean Baptiste Vascot and his wife, Marie Chiasson, that De la Roque recorded was not mentioned by Holland in his report. But nearly forty years later, the old mill stones were found by Archie MacPhee on his farm at Big Pond that he leased from John Stewart, part owner of Lot 45.27 The date on one of these stones (about 60 to 75 pounds each) was marked 174 1. These were presented to the Province in 1965 by Albert Camp- bell of Red Point as the most historic and valuable artifact of its agricultural history. These mill stones can be seen today at the Prince Edward Island Archives.28

Photo by Raymond A [And Court-y Mn, ILA. [Anni

Early Acadian Millstones On the reverse side of the stone on the left, the date, 1741, is imprinted.

How they got from Big Pond on the north side of the Island to Red Point on the south side is another story. In the 18203, John MacKinnon, a new- comer to Red Point, heard about them. He walked across the Island through an old French trail, bought them and carried them home on his back. Deacon Scott wrote the story in the 18909 of how the strong John padded his shoulder with a sod so that neither his shirt nor skin would chafe and then, with a handspike through the upper millstone, lifted it to his shoulder and plodded through the woods for a mile. Easing the stone to the ground, MacKinnon hurried back for the other one and brought it the same way. So his journey with the mill from Big Pond to Red Point, every mile walked thrice, two of them with a weighty stone on his back became John MacKin-