There were, at this time, no regional off-shoots of the Caledonian 
     
     Club. The South West Branch of the Highland Society had been formed 
     
     in Tryon in 1841, but it had not survived the 1864 face-lift. In 1879, a 
     
     group of Surnmerside men decided the time had come to set up a branch 
     
     in their area and on 24 July formed the Prince County Caledonian Club. 
     
     The first officers, elected that night, were: Chief, Neil McKelvie; first 
     
     Chieftain, Stephen MacNeill; second Chieftain, Finlay MacNeill; and 
     
     third Chieftain, Dr. S.G.W. Sutherland. They were an enthusiastic lot. 
     
     During the meeting they laid plans for a Highland Gathering for 1880; 
     
     after, they marched through the main streets of Surnrnerside.36 
     
    
   
   
    
     The Governor-General of Canada, the Marquis of Lorne, and his 
     
     wife, Princess Louise, spent a few days in the province in August of 1879 
     
     and, to the delight of the club, attended the Highland Games. Some 
     
     police officers were on the grounds to prevent, particularly with such 
     
     special visitors in attendance, the sale of alcoholic beverages and the 
     
     appearance of inebriated guests.’7 The day went well. 
     
    

    
     There was no liquor present at the 1879 St. Andrew’s Day dinner 
     
     either. The newspapers made specific note that all public and voluntary 
     
     toasts were drunk with water. Perhaps this was the reason the group 
     
     celebrated the occasion with more pomp than usual; they collected 
     
     together in the club rooms in the Hyndman Building at the corner of 
     
     Queen and Water Streets and marched with the piped strain of “Bonnie 
     
     Dundee” to the scene of celebration at Revere Hotel." 
     
    

    
     About this time, the Caledonian Club purchased some land in the 
     
     vicinity of the St. Peters-Mount Edward Roads intersection in Parkdale. 
     
     And, “as the club grew in numbers and its financial position being of 
     
     some importance,”” it was incorporated by a bill passed in the House of 
     
     Assembly on 5 April 1881. It is unknown whether or not the land pur- 
     
     chase and the incorporation are connected. The act of the incorporation 
     
     permitted the club to purchase land, but it also allowed it to retain any 
     
     land purchased previous to the date of incorporation, and the land in 
     
     Charlottetown was in the club’s possession in 1881.‘° Many societies of 
     
     the period were incorporating, possibly feeling a legal status would give 
     
     them a sense of stability and continuity. There was no debate in the 
     
     legislature on the terms of the act, thus no confusion over the reasons for 
     
     incorporating.‘l 
     
    

    
     At some point around the time of the province’s entry into Con- 
     
     federation, the club had stopped appointing, automatically, each new 
     
     lieutenant-governor to the position of club Chieftain. They chose, in- 
     
     stead, prominent Scottish citizens from various walks of Island life 
     
    
   
   
    
     56