Footsteps Across The Bridge 245

In recent years Elmer has specialized in raising purebred Holstein heifers. He has also been Returning Officer for the Malpeque Riding from 1967 to 1979, and was general-manager of the P.E.I. Egg Commodity Board at its formation in 1972. Elmer and Marje now have a home in Florida, where they spend their winters.

As we leave the Waugh household, with its lovely view of the river and the sunets in the western sky, we must also leave the paved road and make a long pilgrimage through the wooded lane to “Klondike”. In this secluded spot the family of John Connell lived, many years ago.

CONNELL

Little is known, but much could be imagined, of John Connell’s story. John lived in Wilmot Valley in 1861 and had moved by 1880. He leased fifty acres of land from George Lefurgey. This farm appears, from a study of Lake’s Topographical Map of 1863, to be south of the present Stavert Huestis home and on the south side of the Wilmot River. The Census of 1861 records John as a farmer, with fifty acres of second quality land, thirty acres of which was arable. He had one horse, one cow and two hogs. It has been suggested that he operated a mill but this is not recorded on the census. John and his wife had two daughters, and one son who was under five years of age. All were born on BE]. and they were Roman Catholics, which suggests that they were not related to the Protestant Connells on the Blueshank. Details recorded in an old scrapbook report that a Mrs. John (Isabel) Connell died in Mill Valley on April 12, 1890, at the age of seventy- three years, leaving a husband and two daughters to mourn. If the young boy had died in childhood, it would be possible that she was our Mrs. John and that the family later moved to Mill Valley. We know that they did not stay in Wilmot Valley. Perhaps lured by the pastoral prettiness of Klondike on a fair day in summer, permanent residence might have proven too lonely, far from friends and neighbours. Possibly times were hard, and the sale or purchase of produce would certainly involve a tedious journey. By 1880 the family had moved from the community and today not a trace of their home remains amid the peaceful fields.

Let us return from this quiet spot to the Wilmot Grove Road. Turning south we mount the long hill, and passing Arnold Waugh’s home we find, on our right, the Taylor Road. The Taylor Road runs in an east-west direc- tion along the south side of the Wilmot River, from the MacMurdo road to the Trans Canada Highway. Starting from the east end of the road and travelling in a westerly direction, the first home we come to is that of Walter McEwen.