Russell & Doris Dyment (vacant)

controled burn: Horace & Wilna MacArthur Edgar Milligan

torn down: Daniel & Annie MacArthur

Laughlin, Emily MacLean & Ethel Brown

These are or were the last people to live in these houses.

This is an effort to show the style of some of the houses that are no longer standing.

Northam CNR Station

The station house was laid off in diiferent sections. A passenger area was used for the comfort of the people waiting for the train. This was heated with a pot-bellied coal-stove. On cold winter mornings, the area would be warm by the time the train came. About ten minutes before train time, the ticket office would open where tickets could be bought for the trip to various parts of the Island. The ticket office was also equipped with a telegraph transmitter and a receiver. A section was reserved for a freight shed and another for coal storage. Most supplies for stores and businesses in the area were shipped in by train. It is said that there was a fairly tall man working in the baggage car and every time he entered the freight shed, he would strike his head on the top part of the door-frame. To correct this problem, the flame was re-done in the shape of a “V”. The old station house was moved to the farm formerly owned by Spurgeon & Pearle Dyment, near the present day home of Chuck and Colleen Landry and has been recently demolished.

Milligan and Morrison Dairy and Fur Farm

Although the major part of this farm was and is located in Birch Hill, a very small part is in the Northam Community. This establishment probably spread the name of Northam, throughout Canada and the United States more than any other single factor, (Northam Post Ofiice was the mailing address, and Northam was their closest railway station). The farm was probably the largest user of the Railway Siding as they were the distributors of Purina Feeds for Eastern Canada. The feed would be shipped in by rail car, unloaded, hauled to the farm by horse and truck wagon, (later by truck), then a few days later loaded onto a rail car (likely in different combinations) and shipped to various locations in the Maritirnes and Eastern Quebec.

Milligan & Morrison formed their partnership in 1914 and moved fox-breeding activities to P.E.l., forming one of the largest fur-farm operations on the Island. They started with 15 pairs of Alaska Silver foxes which grew to one hundred pairs six years later. Eventually, they had a total of 235 pens holding about 2000 foxes at any one time.

Not all shipments went from Northam. In November of 1926, four express cars left Summerside with 855 live foxes, with a retail value of $796,500.00 bound for Milligan & Morrison Associated Ranches in Northern USA. This was said to be the largest shipment of live

foxes ever made. It seems that one of the employees at the farm said that he would act as night watchman