0n Prince Edward Island

CHAPTER II.

PRINCETOWN AND BEDEQUE.

The Rev. John Keir, the second Presbyterian min- ister to settle on Prince Edward Island (Rev. Peter Gordon having been settled a year earlier at St. Peters), arrived from Scotland in the autumn of 1808. He had been sent out specially to minister to the Presbyterians in Halifax, Nova Scotia, but the necessities of Prince Edward Island were so urgent that he was sent thither immediately on his arrival at the former place. In the spring of 1809 he was called to Princetown. He accepted the call, and in June, 1810, he was ordained and inducted into the pastoral charge of that congregation. The ministers who took part in the ordination services were Revs. James McGregor, Thomas McCulloch, Duncan Ross and John Mitchell. The ordination of a min- ister being an event that never before had taken place on Prince Edward Island, nearly the whole population of Richmond Bay, Bedeque, Cavendish, and New London, as well as of Princetown, were present on that occasion. The services were con— ducted partly in Gaelic and partly in English. It is doubtful if at the present time there is one man in the congregation of Princetown who could under- stand a sermon in the Gaelic language. At the time of Mr. Keir’s settlement the whole of Prince county and a part of Queens county may be said to have

I3