WRITIN’ SONGS

Lawrence Doyle, often referred to as the “Farmer Poet” of PEI, was born and lived all of his sixty years on the Fortune Roadf“ He went to the Birch Hill School, completed grade six, and later became a school trustee of the school. Doyle had many different jobs and many trades. Meacham’s 1880 Atlas has him listed as the postmaster for Farmington. He was also considered a sort of vet, a carpenter, and was called upon by people to prepare wills and deeds, and when someone died he was frequently called upon to prepare the body for burial. (l 1)

Although there are no known existing pictures of Lawrence Doyle, the legacy of his songs has made him one of our districts most recognized individuals. His more popular songs include:

Fogan MacAleer The Bear at Grand River Prince Edward Island Adieu The Bay Bridge The Merchants of the Bay When Johnny went plowing for Kearon Bud Jones The Visit to Morans The Potato Bug The Callaghan Murder The Millman-Tuplin Murder

Perhaps Doyle’s The Picnic at Groshaut is his best known song. Groshaut, a small community not far from Selkirk, was the location for a tea party, a popular event in the late 18005. When it was discovered, however, that there had been a mistake in the order and most people had been drinking hard cider all afternoon, the picnic that summer day in

1897 took a turn for the worse.

Margaret “Reggie” Lewis remembers hearing that this infamous picnic at Groshaut actually had to be postponed. It rained on the day it was originally scheduled to be held. (12) Alan MacKinnon of Selkirk, born in 1884, lived to be one hundred and four and a half, and was at the picnic at Groshaut in 1897. In a taped interview with CBC several years

ago, Allan recalled the picnic:

I was fairly young, somewhere between twelve and fifteen years Of age. I remember that there was a lot of scrapping, and it was a noisy rough time. There had been a lot of strong drink going and mostly everybody was half full. It was customary at that time to have a picnic and or tea parties. There were picnics held in Groshaut after 1897. They were not always rowdy like this one... (13)

* Lawrence Doyle’s old home is now occupied by Alphonsus Whitty.

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