THE SUNDAY SCHOOL 
     
    
   
   
    
     We will have to write about the Sturgeon family. Robert Sturgeon came to 
     
     Campbellton in the 1840’s. Sturgeon was not a common name, and there are no 
     
     Sturgeons left in the Campbellton area or in Prince Edward Island. He was an ex- 
     
     tremely fine man, and everyone spoke very, very well of him. The ministers who 
     
     travelled through used to stay at his place. The surveyors working in the western part 
     
     of the Island would stay with the Sturgeons. He is mentioned in the diary of Mr. 
     
     Henry J. Cundall, one of the old surveyors. He was one of the family of Cundalls 
     
     who were the second owners of Beaconsfield in Charlottetown, the home of the 
     
     P.E.I. Museum and Heritage Foundation. He stayed at Robert Sturgeon’s house in 
     
     Campbellton, and he mentioned going there in the 1860’s. Henry J. Cundall stayed 
     
     there overnight and had to sleep with the minister which did not please Cundall 
     
     simply because the Cundalls thought that they were better than anybody else, and 
     
     didn’t have to sleep with anybody. He mentioned this in the diary, and also that the 
     
     minister appeared to be clean, however. 
     
    
   
   
    
     The Sturgeons were a very fine family, and their lack of progress can be traced 
     
     in the newspapers, because in the 1860’s and the early 1870’s, the family started to 
     
     die from tuberculosis. There were several girls in the family, one of whom married 
     
     the son of James MacNeill, James, Jr. These girls started to die with tuberculosis 
     
     and every few months, somebody in this large family would die. One incident hap- 
     
     pened, a girl that I am going to mention, got sick, but she started to feel better and 
     
     on this particular day, she walked up to the corner, and when she got near the 
     
     house where Elbridge Cousins now lives, she sat down and bled to death. Finally, 
     
     Robert Sturgeon died in the 1870’s and one of the newspapers stated that his widow 
     
     was selling the farm. 
     
    
   
   
    
     One girl lived long enough to marry and she had four children, one of whom 
     
     was Mrs. Jane (MacNeill) Dodd, the wife of William Dodd of New York City. They 
     
     were instrumental in establishing the Sunday School, the Sabbath School as it was 
     
     then called, and this would have been in the 1850’s. There must have been a church 
     
     building there in the 1850’s, otherwise, you wouldn’t have a Sunday School or 
     
    
   
   
    
     meetings of the Elders. 
     
    
   
   
    
     “At Campbellton, Lot 4, on Tuesday, the 3rd inst., Flora Sturgeon, eldest 
     
     daughter of Robert Sturgeon, aged twenty-two years. By her kind and gentle 
     
     disposition, she gained many friends and her memory will long be cherished in that 
     
     vicinity. By her decease, not only has the family circle sustained loss, but also the 
     
     Sabbath School has been deprived of a valuable teacher, the Missionary Society of a 
     
     warm friend and the Presbyterian Congregation of a useful member. Though during 
     
     her illness, she was not at all times free from doubts and fears, yet at last she was 
     
     able to look forward to death without dismay through the merits of her Redeemer. 
     
    
   
   
    
     Blessed are they who die in the Lord. ”"9 
     
    
   
   
    
       
     
    
   
   
    
     99 Protestant and Evangelical Witness. April 7. I860. 
     
    
   
   
    
     256