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town had this to say: “All that we have yet heard touching the business of the Court is that the Grand Jury threw out the bill which had been preferred against 38 persons for a riot, forceable entry and assault on occasion of the late tumultuary assemblages in Kings County...”25

The references are to what is commonly known in Souris folklore as the “Line Road Riot”. The disturbance, actually a cross between a wild west show and a melodrama, took place on the northern half of Lot 45 in March of that year.

The main characters in the conflict were Lawrence McGuire, an employee of Hon. James Peters agent for owner, Samuel Cunard, whose job was to prevent trespass on the land; and Martin Haney, a blacksmith with a young family (“eight or nine, one at breast” according to a later testimony) who had twice been evicted from his home in mid winter and was then living in an outbuilding with a clay floor courtesy of McGuire who now occupied Haney’s former home, presumably to prevent re-entry.26

The neighbours, already angry at the number of people convicted of trespass on the Cunard land, held a meeting and, on March 17, 200 of them descended on McGuire with such shouts as, “Kill the buggar; he ain’t fit to live.” When they were held back by McGuire with a musket pointed out the window, some tried to burn the house with a firebrand. In the end, McGuire was persuaded to move back to his house in Souris under protection. He was not a coward. In answer to shouts of, “Give up your job,” he replied, “No crowd can make me do that.”27

The harrassment did not end there. A week later, as McGuire sought protection in the home of William Macgowan, J .P., his own house in Souris was burned.

On March 30, a Civil and Military force of 20 constables were sent from Charlottetown to assist Sheriff John Macgowan restore order in the com- munity. It cost money. The warrant book of the House of Assembly shows expenses totalling nearly 150 pounds for such things as “biscuits for the troops” in Morell, rations and supplies provided by Charles Worrell and a transportation bill from John Macgowan.28 A 200 pound reward was offered for information leading to the arrest and conviction of those who burned McGuire’s house. Thirty-eight persons were arrested and tried in Supreme Court but no one was convicted. Why, the House of Assembly asked were the troops sent to Souris?29

Shortly after this incident, tempers flared again during a service in St. Margaret’s Church when Scottish settlers accused their parish priest of lodging some of these troops. Reverend John MacDonald, son of Captain John MacDonald of 'I‘racadie, held the conflicting roles of priest and prop- rietor and was later obliged to take another parish.30

This was only 1843. Scattered tenant resistance to this major land prob- lem would have to continue for many years before it was finally settled with the enactment of the Compulsory Land Purchase Act of 1875. But it was protests such as these in Lot 45 that hastened reform.