4 A Bridge To The Past 
     
    
   
   
    
           
     
    
   
   
    
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     Courtesy Public/1 rc/iives, P. E. It 
     
    
   
   
    
     Wright's Map [852, with correcrions and additions to [874. 
     
    
   
   
    
     Local history begins at home but in the same way that a home is part 
     
     of a community, so too the present day centre of Wilmot Valley must ex- 
     
     amine its roots and its early links with the outside world. 
     
    
   
   
    
     When the Treaty of Fontainbleau was executed in 1763, the civil 
     
     history of Prince Edward Island as a British possession began. In that year 
     
     the Island was placed under the jurisdiction of the Government of Nova 
     
     Scotia of which Montague Wilmot was then Governor. Could Governor 
     
     Montague Wilmot have known in those early days that his name would be 
     
     memorialized in several place names in this newly annexed Island of St. 
     
     John? 
     
    
   
   
    
     In the south-eastern part of the Island the sprouting town of Mon- 
     
     tague was putting down its roots at a spot that was first known as Montague 
     
     Bridge on the banks of the Montague River. Locally the Wilmot River was 
     
     the favorable setting for several budding little centres such as: Wilmot 
     
     Point, Wilmot Creek, Wilmot Grove and Wilmot Valley, but to Captain 
     
     Samuel Holland must go the credit for the first name of all. In his work of 
     
     surveying the Island for the British Government he named many places 
     
     after distinguished persons. He it was, who finding a sheltered inlet on the 
     
     shore of Bedeque Harbour, decided to name it Wilmot Cove.