Georgetown Stories: 1901-1904 38

Georgetown Regatta, 1901

This year’s Regatta was a 16 mile course. The Hodgson Trophy was won by J. W. McPhee of Annandale in Mamie 111. The Samuel Hemphill boat, Myrtle C. came in second. (Patriot, Aug. 20, 1901)

Smallmx at Georgetown, 1901

During a smallpox epidemic which had hit Saint John, NE. and other Canadian cities in the fall of 1901, a sick seaman was reported by the Schooner Monitor, Capt. Eisenhauer, out of Lunenburg, as it docked to unload produce in Georgetown. After some delay and in consultation with Dr. Allen, Dr. Stewart diagnosed the patient whose name was Reinhardt with smallpox and advised the Georgetown Board of Health to have him removed to a place where he could be properly treated and the boat quarantined. Archibald MacDonald of Georgetown who had had experience in a previous small pox epidemic in Georgetown went on board as the man’s nurse. Georgetown had no facilities for treatment; Pictou authorities refused to receive the sick man so he was taken on the Monitor to a hospital at Keppoch on Charlottetown harbor. Here Dr. Conroy took charge. He was assigned two male nurses and Archibald Macdonald returned to the ship which was anchored in quarantine at “the three tides” for three weeks The ship was fumigated and six crewmen were vaccinated (but later it turned out that these “did not take”) Dr. George Young, the Methodist minister in Charlottetown Visited the patient and on return to his home was placed in strict quarantine in an upper room of the parsonage. Reinhardt, however died on Nov. 20 (at age 45, leaving a wife and three children) and was buried in the grounds of the hospital. Letters to the papers now blamed the government for bungling the affair and for neglect of the Monitor’s crew re food supplies etc.. Captain Eisenhauer wrote a letter to the Patriot, praising the people of Charlottetown and condemning his treatment by Georgetown and Pictou. Dr. Stewart immediately wrote a long rebuttal in which he claimed that the real villain in the case was the captain himself who should have reported the sick patient at Port Hastings his previous port of call. This brouhaha has scarcely died down when another

schooner, the Robin Hood, Capt. P. Malone, of Gloucester, sailed into Georgetown harbor and reported another sick seaman, Wolfe, by name. Dr. Stewart diagnosed the man with a mild case of small pox and ordered him to be taken to Keppoch and the ship and seven houses in Georgetown flagged for quarantine These were homes of persons who had already begun to help unloading produce before the illness of the seaman was diagnosed. The Captain, however, refused to take his boat to Charlottetown or have her towed there unless she would immediately be returned to Georgetown and someone else pay the bill. No party would agree to do this nor would the rail agree to take on the sick man. Finally a buggy with driver was commissioned. But the driver, a Mr. Musick, had fortified himself well with whiskey (probably thinking this might stave off infection) with the result that the buggy suffered several break-downs on the road and at least in one instance running into another wagon. The vehicle was unflagged (it was later realized) and various helpers and on-lookers at accident scenes along the way were exposed to infection. The driver finally got to Keppoch, unburdened himself of the patient his patient, went home and burnt his clothes, dressed up again and appeared on the streets of Charlottetown. Someone, apparently, recognized the threat to health and reported him. He was placed under quarantine. This time the patient recovered but another press war started, Conservatives blaming the Liberal government for ineptness, etc. with and the Liberal paper, the Patriot, trying to defend the cause. The Georgetown Board of Health during this crisis consisted of Hon. Malcolm MacDonald, Dan Gordon, Mr. G. A. Aitken, Capt. James Bourke and Alex. J. Macdonald. (Summarised from _Pa_tri91, Nov. 14, Nov. 15, Nov. 22, Nov. 3, Dec. 12. etc.) The BLUE! reported on Apr. 28, 1902 that the selfsame Monitor, now under Captain Fraser, was accidentally “burned to the water’s edge” in Georgetown harbour. The boat, however, was later rebuilt.

Mock Parliament Set Up

The Georgetown Literary and Debating Society decided to turn its meetings into “mock parliaments” during the winter of 1901-2. “The aim of the society is to develop the debating