MISSION OF ST. ANDREW

ST, AHEREWS”

At the western extremity of Kings County. a tinyrill. carressed by cool green boughs of bldbr flows singing and rippling along. spreading over marshy shallows and verdant meadows. gathering force and beauty in its course until it assumes grand proportions, and sweeps down to the sea. the most important river of Prince Edward Island. the broad and beautiful Hillsborough. The country lying on both sides of this river from its source for a distance of about eight miles is known as the parish of St. Andrew. It is settled by Highland farmers and is subdivided into districts, bearing for the most part Highland names such as garahelic. Alisary, Glenroy. etc.

This old Catholic parish of St. Andrew at one time had no boundaries other than the gulf of St. Lawrence and the straits of Northumberland; it comprises the whole of Prince Edward Island. and was the centre from which the only English speaking priest in the Province ministered to his widely scattered flock.

After the death of the Rev. James MacDonald in 1785 the Scotch Catholics of

'St. John's Island were without a priest until the arrival in 1790 of the Rev. Ameas MacEachern. On the Northern shore of the parish of St. Andrew by the fine sheet of water known as Savage Harbour is a farm which for beauty of situation in unsurpassed in the Brovince. it is now the property of Mr. Hugh McPhee. and his wife is a niece of the venerable Bishop MacEachern whose name is so fondly cherished in these parts. This farm was the site upon which Ewen Ban MacEachern one of the passengers of the Alexander in 1772 erected his first log nanse, and here. he and his wife with their two sons and several daughters were living when the son whcm they had left behind aboy at School came out clothed in the dignity

of the eternal priesthood to be an apostle in this wild country of the west.

Landing at Charlottetown the young Father MacEachern hastily made his way to the Baie dt

Savages where his kins folk were anxiously awaiting him, end where we may be sure