Around 1851 the mackerel schooner Rival was wrecked and came ashore at Kildare Capes. Rev. Dyer speaks about this in his journals that are now the property of the very historic

Alberton Museum. A story of the ”Yankee Cale” written by P John Budren in the

Island Magazine of 1995, tells ofJohn Jay Watson of Gloucester,

having gone to sea at eight years of age. Bent on a musical career he hired aboard the mackerel schooner as a way to finance his

studies. In 1851 he went aboard the Rival and was one of the survivors. The crew was put up by farmer Patrick Cahill. Captain Cross, the story goes became the first man to play the new organ

at the church of St. Simon and St Jude in Tignish. Another interesting story was from the writings of Rev. 5.

Weston Jones, who was Anglican Archdeacon of Prince Edward Island. In 1891 he wrote in his register, ”the Anglican Church at Kildare Capes was originally built east, southeast and west, northwest parallel to the road. A terrific gale of wind moved it one night bodily to its present site. The west end moved as much as 20 feet. It now stands exactly east and west". Searching out stories of schooner days, and the little settlements, opened a

page on the Irish moss industry that moved me to write about. John B Myrick SR, while operating the fishing business at

Tignish Shore, in those days called ”Myrick’s Shore" discovered a use for Irish moss. This began the first harvesting of Irish moss on Prince Edward Island. The first shipment of moss was sent out in September of 1941, by "Myrick and Mac Intosh", to Kraft Ltd. in the United States. This venture was a good one, which

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