CHAPTER II Early Settlement Sour is West How the Town of Souris East with its expensive man made breakwater and harbour came to be is a strange drama. In it, two ambitious men of action, both of Quaker faith, walked the early stage in leading roles but never met. One, John Cambridge , began the first permanent settlement of Lot 44 in the early 1800s by bringing out settlers to work in his shipyard on the western side of Souris River . The other, John Knight , although he lived and worked in Lot 44 for a time, later bought a small wharf at the eastern end of in Lot 45 c. 1840 and built a short breakwater to protect it. And so the rivalry began: where would the main centre be? Would it be in Souris West in Lot 44 where it began, or in Souris East in Lot 45? To understand the early settlement of Souris East , Souris West , or any other Island community, the story has to be told of the infamous British plan for land development; of how, on a July day in 1767, ownership and responsibility for the newly acquired Island of St. John (as Prince Edward Island was then called) was casually passed over to about one hundred outstanding British political, and military figures who had served the Crown well. The new owners, most of whom had never been to the New across the nor had any idea of pioneer conditions, were now responsible for seeing that new inhabitants were sent out to settle the land. Each new landowner or proprietor was accountable for all or part of twenty thousand acres, called a Lot. But before the land could be distributed, it had to be surveyed. This was done by Samuel Holland , Surveyor General of America and an accomplished cartographer. Captain Holland played a prominent part in the capture of and Quebec . He later fell in love with a beauti¬ ful French girl from Quebec , Marie Josephte Rolette . As her father would not consent to their marriage, she eloped and came to the Island with her husband in the year 1764. That year, with the aid of a party of British soldiers and a few Acadian guides, Samuel Holland divided the Island into three counties and sixty-seven townships or lots of 20,000 acres each. His report to the British Government in the fall of 1765 included, among other details, the quality of the land, the condition of the forest and the potential for the fishery.1 He was highly commended for his work and for the excel¬ lent map he made of the area. He was among those eligible to take part in the lottery of July 1767. He drew Lot 28.