Orlebar, John (1862) Our Island: its Duties — its Prospects. A lecture to the Young Men’s Christian Association and Library Institute. 4 December 1862. Printed at The Protestant Office, Queen Square, Charlottetown, 1862. 31 pp.

Captain John Orlebar lb. 7870, d. after 7880) was a Royal Navy officer who was appointed to the survey team of Captain Henry Bayfie/d in the 78308, when Bayfie/d was nearing the completion of his hydrographic survey of the River and Gulf of St. Lawrence. From 7847 Bayfie/d made Charlottetown his headquarters and his personal residence, and it was at this time that the young Lieutenant Orlebar also made his first acquaintance with the island, where he also set up his residence and raised a family of seven children. During the 78403 he assisted Bayfie/d in his detailed survey of the island ’3 coastline and he was to carry on Bayfie/d’s work after the latter’s retirement in 7856, retiring himself in 7864. By the time he gave his lecture to the Young Men ’s Christian Association in 7862, Orlebar clearly considered himself to be an islander, though he was later to return to live in England where he died some time after 7880. His lecture contains only a brief reference to the forests — an indication of the decline in their significance to the island ’3 economy and landscape.

REFERENCES:

Orlebar, Frances Hale (c. 19205) ’My girlhood in Canada many years ago’. Printed 1998 (with an introduction by Boyde Beck) in The Island Magazine, 43: 31-39.

McKenzie, R. (1982) Bayfield, Henry Wolsey. Dictionary of Canadian Biography, XI: 54—57.

Our Island has great natural advantages, compensating much for its long winter and backward spring. Its soil is fertile, and being free from rocks and stones, is easy of tillage, and its undulations of hill and dale present rare facilities for drainage.

Agriculture, with its kindred sciences of raising cattle, horses, sheep, hogs, &c. is

Ship—building now becoming the one great business in this Island. The wood for ship building is m Glee/”’9' fast disappearing, and of late years the number of ships built has greatly diminished.

“DP. 6-7]

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