The millwrights — Mills such as Selkirk’s were built by professional millwrights, and it is a question as to who the millwrights were who built the island's mills. About 1796 John Cambridge included 'millwrights’ in a list of the ’very few mechanics’ present at that time on the island, and a decade later an immigrant’s pamphlet, published anonymously, was saying that prospective immigrants who were millwrights would do well on the island.582 Among the men Cambridge had in mind must have been Benjamin Chappell, and later his two sons, who were involved in the construction of several mills at various locations on the island, including New London, Charlottetown and Crapaudm. Then there were the Haydons, father and son, whom Selkirk had consulted before having his mill built, and who seem to have also owned and operated a sawmill in the vicinity of Charlottetown.584 Apart from these men there were undoubtedly others in the early days, and thereafter the number of millwrights must have expanded in line with the number of mills that were being built. The production of the sawmills — There is much work to be done before we can be in any way definitive about the sawmill industry on Prince Edward Island in the nineteenth century, though unfortunately, as Wynn (1981) has found for New Brunswick, any study is likely to be hampered by a paucity of written records. It is likely to be especially difficult to estimate the amount of wood that was processed by the island’s community mills since the millers were likely to have never kept more than ephemeral records, though any surviving account books, such as that of the J. C. Morris business at North Granville should be of help in such a study.585 Even so, we may surmise that most island mills, especially the scores of mills that from the 18205 onward began to spring up in local communities all over the island wherever there were suitable water courses that 5” [Cambridge] 1796?; Anon. 1808. 533 In the 1770s Benjamin Chappell worked on the sawmill at the New London settlement, and in 1775 on the sawmill being built by acting governor Phillips Callbeck near Charlottetown. In 1802- 1803 he and his son Theophilus worked on John Cambridge‘s mill at Charlottetown, while in 1808 Theophilus worked with his brother Richard on a sawmill at Crapaud. (Theophilus also worked on a mill at Fortune in 1805 and on another at Covehead in 1806 but Chappell does not specify whether these were sawmills or grist mills.) (Chappell 1775-1818, not extracted). 58‘ See footnote 564. 585 See Morris (1864-1868). 87 could be dammed to create a millpond, are likely to have been locally owned and operated, sawing wood on a seasonal and part-time basis, primarily for the local market, especially boards and other materials for house and barn construction, and wood for the ship-building industry — such as did the sawmill at Orwellm. The mill buildings were probably mostly simple structures operating a single saw, though some of the larger mills would have had saws in gangs.587 Despite the lack of surviving records from the sawmill end of the business, a very good record was kept of those lumber products that went into the export trade, for such information was required to be recorded by the island’s customs officers. Thus, from the beginning of the nineteenth century extensive records survive not only of the annual totals of each of the wood categories that were exportedm, and their monetary value, but also of the cargoes of individual ships that cleared customs bound for Great Britain, the West Indies or other parts of British North America. These records however still await a definitive study. Though they were in operation before such customs records began to be kept, it would seem that the eighteenth century sawmills, such as Robert Clark’s at New London (which Curtis considered so inefficient), and that of David Higgins on Lot 59, were primarily built to cut lumber for an intended export trade, though such early ventures soon proved unprofitable. Another mill that seems to have been built especially to serve the export trade is that of John Cambridge at Murray Harbour, who in 1808 claimed that his 5“ Macphail 1937. 587 According to Wynn (1981) (pp. 87, 89, 91) in New Brunswick the most simple early sawmills had a single blade mounted vertically in a frame called a ‘gate‘; efficiency could be increased by adding sawblades to the gate to form a ‘gang' of saws. Wynn says that in early nineteenth century New Brunswick few mills had as many as ten sawblades in a gang, although the larger mills of the 1840s sometimes carried a gang of fourteen sawblades in a gate. Mills with only one gate were known as ‘single mills', while ‘double mills‘ had two gates. with normally a gang of saws in each. Initially all New Brunswick mills were water-powered, but by the mid-nineteenth century steam-powered mills began to increasingly replace the water mills. Further research is required to ascertain the types of mills that occurred on Prince Edward Island. though I note that Macphail (1939) says that the sawmill at Orwell had a gang saw — though he does not state how many saws were in the gang, and that Morrison (1983) (pp. 153-54) records steam- powered sawmills on Lot 11 from about 1880. 588 The categories listed in the custom records vary over time but include deals, staves, handspikes, Iathwood, spars, scantling and deal ends.