36 The Land

Peter Cheverie

In present day central Souris, Peter Cheverie had seventy-three acres on which the second farm home still stands. The first farm home may have been on the Peter McQuaid service station corner where an old house was torn down in the 1880s.”

Donald McEachern and Archibald McEachern Farms

According to the map of 1835, Peter Cheverie's neighbour to the east was Donald McEachern. He lived on the typical long farm which width wise spread from the present day Church Avenue to Union Avenue.

The next adjoining farm whose eastern boundary was over the top of the hill bore the name ofArchibald McEachern. Ofthese two settlers there is no trace in Souris history. They possibly were here but a short time, perhaps frightened out of tenure by the Johnson purchase of Red Cliffs. By 1875, both McEachern Farms came into the possession of James McLauchlan, early land speculator and town planner.

A Souris resident who remembered early days told of stone dikes on both sides of Main Street from Church Avenue as far as Prince Avenue which would show careful farming on someone’s part. But whether built by Donald McEachern or McLauchlan’s farmer, we do not know.” On this farm, not even the site of the farm home has been determined. On the adjoining farm to the east, it seems almost certain that the first home was on the site of the house most recently occupied by Paul Winterhalder or a little further north on the Alex Mooney property where the Miley MacPhee log house was torn down in 1949.

It was Archibald McEachern’s land that was involved in the sale men- tioned earlier where fortyeight of its acres were sold by William Forgan to

('oummv l'n'tun's of lhv l’md hv lA'nYdH

Matthew & McLean Limited lobster factory at the foot of Breakwater Street.

(Cooked, canned lobster could be bought as late as 1939 for ten cents a pound.)