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Reviews
An Island Refuge: Loyalists and
Disbanded Troops on the Island of St.
John by the Abegweit Branch of the
United Empire Loyalist Association of
Canada. Charlottetown: the authors,
1983, 379 pp., $15 softcover, $20 hardcover. Eleven Exiles: Accounts of
Loyalists of the American Revolution
edited by Phyllis R. Blakely and John
N. Grant. Toronto and Charlottetown:
Dundurn Press Ltd, 1982, 336 pp.,
$14.95 softcover.
An Island Refuge, produced by the
Abegweit Branch of the U.E.L. Association to mark the bicentennial of
the Loyalists' arrival on Prince Edward
Island, is more a compendium than an
orthodox history book. It will be
treasured as a reference tool, as a
monument to the long and honourable
tradition of amateur history, and as a
model for community projects that
might be done elsewhere during these
bicentennial years. In 1980-81 the
Abegweit Branch, in newspaper advertisements, published a list of 348
Loyalists and disbanded soldiers, appealing to their descendants to submit a
family history. The result was 105 submissions which were edited and
presented alphabetically according to a
consistent format. They form the heart
of the book — some 322 pages of a
grand total of 379.
The editors removed material "consisting of anecdotes, historical]
speculation and analysis, listings
beyond the third generation and various
acknowledgements on the part of the
writers. . . ." Generally this seems to
have been a wise policy, but one
wonders about the loss of the anecdotes
which might have enlivened the
somewhat dry biographies and might
supply an interesting, albeit rather
risky, oral source material. Of course,
without these omissions a costly second
volume would have been required.
The biographies, usually containing a
page or two of general information followed by genealogical details of the subjects' offspring, range from John
Acorn, a Maine Loyalist who settled at
Vernon River, to Conrad Younker, a
Hessian who settled at Milton. The
result, which fulfills the claim that the
book "presents more information about
the Loyalists of Prince Edward Island
than was ever available before this
time," is rather akin to Esther Clark
Wright's list in The Loyalists of New
Brunswick (Fredericton, N.B., 1955).
One is torn between praise for the
greater detail here presented and regret
that only about 30 per cent of the 1841
Loyalist list is covered.
However, this is a great start, and it is
to be hoped that it will lead to the app e a r a n c e of a c o m p r e h e n s i v e
monograph on Island Loyalists, the
most neglected group of Loyalists in
British North America aside from
Quebec's. The biographies here
published lend themselves to the
production of useful analytical tables
regarding the Loyalists' nativity,
colonial home, occupation, religion,
places of residence on the Island, and so
on.
Opening with Robert Allan Rankin's
admirable introductory essay, the book
concludes with a brief account of the
regiments relevant to the Island, useful
appendices containing the Muster Rolls
(in pleasing facsimile) of the officers
and other ranks settling on the Island of
St. John, and the 1841 Claimants List.
To these are added attractive pen-andink drawings by Austin Bears, a toosmall map, and the prize essay from a
competition (a splendid idea that should
be copied) sponsored by the Abegweit
Branch at the Grade 6 level throughout
the Island's schools.
Eleven Exiles consists of 11 brief but
informative Loyalist biographies by different authors. The subjects settled all
over British North America and (a sign
of the times) include one black, one Indian and two women (Molly Brant, the
"Mohawak heroine," falls in both of
the last two categories). Each biography
is accompanied by a portrait or other
relevant illustration, and a useful map
showing the route of exile. The best illustration is Lieutenant William
Booth's magnificent, little-known
watercolour, "The Founding of Sydney,
1785," which adorns the cover.
The life of William Schurman by
Donald Wetmore will be of most interest to Islanders. Schurman, whose
Dutch Huguenot ancestry showed in his
odd speech mixture of English, French
and Dutch, exchanges his New Rochelle, New York, home for a brief
residence in Shelburne, Nova Scotia,
and Tryon, before settling at Bedeque
where he became a prosperous,
respected farmer, mill-owner, merchant
and magistrate. A veritable Loyalist
success story and therefore not typical.
Many of his descendants are, of course,
well known to this day. Sources on
Schurman seem to be rather sparse and
Wetmore has resorted to an imaginative
approach that may rise a few academic
eyebrows but will satisfy the general
reader.
Both of these books are biographical:
the first, mass biography by amateurs;
the second, a few individuals by professionals. Both approaches are valid.
Long study of the Loyalists has convinced me that while generalizations are
certainly worthwhile, Loyalism is such
a complex subject that individual case
studies offer an unrivalled key to understanding.
Wallace Brown
33
The Micmac: How Their Ancestors
Lived Five Hundred Years Ago by Ruth
Holmes Whitehead and Harold McGee.
Halifax: Nimbus Publishing, 1983, 60
pp., $5.95 softcover.
The Micmac, although small and unpretentious, is a welcome addition to a
neglected area of Maritime history —
the study of our native peoples. The book
deals with the period before European
Settlement and has four maior areas
of interest: Abundant Forest, Rivers
of Fish, Family and Community, Traditional Micmac Skills, and Medicine
and Magic.
Readers of all ages will like this book
for two reasons: firstly for its clear
readability (grade five students will have
no problem reading it), secondly for the
dozen of fresh insights into prehistoric
Micmac people and their lives. We are
told, for instance, who the Micmac liked
— the Montagnais, the Malecite, and the
Penobscot tribes. We are also told who
they hated, the Inuit and the Iroquois.
We see Micmac women gathering "long
green reeds in late summer and early
fall," "a small girl crawling into her
mother's lap as she wove reeds into
The Island Family Harris: Letters of an
Immigrant Family in British North
America, 1856-1866 edited by Robert
Critchlow Tuck, Charlottetown: Ragweed
Press, 1983, 159 pp., $25.00 hardcover,
$13.95 softcover.
Writing about the Harris family of
Prince Edward Island has become one
of the cottage industries of the province.
Moncrieff Williamson has written about
portrait artist Robert Harris in a number
of articles and a major study — now
issued in a new revised edition by Ragweed
Press as Island Painter: The Life of
Robert Harris (1849-1919). Robert
Critchlow Tuck, a descendant of the
family, has previously contributed "The
Charlottetown Boyhood of Robert
Harris" (in this magazine, no. 3) and a
biography of Robert's architect brother
William Critchlow Harris (Gothic
Dreams: Toronto, 1978).
Surprisingly, rather than being an extended "genealogical compilation," The
Island Family Harris is an excellent
volume of social history. The immigration
and first years of the family in Prince
Edward Island are told in letters back to
Britain by Critchlow Harris and his wife
Sarah Stretch Harris, principally from
34
baskets," and a warrior preparing himself for a raiding party with "a bow,
a quiver of arrows, a stone axe and a
wooden club." The paragraph on toolmaking is a good example of the authors'
use of clear, active descriptive writing:
Micmac men also made knifeblades, spear points, arrowheads and
scrapers of stone. Only certain types
of rock were used, rock with a special
crystalline structure, such as quartz,
agate, chert and jasper. All these
stones break in a very particular
way when hit. A man who knew
exactly where to strike the stone,
and how hard to strike, would shape
a rock "core" into the form he
wanted by breaking off flakes along
its surface edges. This was not
crudely done. It took years of careful practice to learn. The Micmac
tool-kits for stone-knapping, as it is
called, included hammers of various
sizes made of rock or antler.
The authors also provide insights on
Micmac weapons, war and raiding parties, hunting and entertainment, house
and canoe building! Kathy Kaulbach's
illustrations are clear and realistic and
her method of using a textured background for the pictures is effective.
I enjoyed The Micmac. It has much
to offer teachers who search for good,
readable material on Maritime Indians.
It will be a popular book with students
because it is clear and interesting, and I
really can't think of a better book on
the Micmac for the general reader. As I
read, I kept wishing that the book were
longer than 60 pages. Maybe Whitehead
and McGee can be persuaded to do a
more ambitious version for curmudgeons
like myself who like footnotes and other
scholarly impedimenta.
John Cousins
By using word pictures like these the
authors manage to escape the dry anthropological approach of many books
on the native peoples.
Sarah to her mother-in-law. Their children, including the future painter and
architect, naturally figure largely in the
correspondence. One of many minor
subplots traces the undoing of Jane, their
maid, through her romance with a sailor.
With our views of immigration to
Prince Edward Island shaped by impoverished Polly Scots and famine Irish, these
letters also provide a fascinating glimpse
into the conditions faced by the thousands
of immigrants who were not destitute,
and who chose this colony rather than
Upper Canada, America or Australia.
The Harrises had this choice. Despite
Critchlow's recurring unemployment
problems they were relatively well-off in
Wales, and landed here with a collection
of furniture (including a spinnet piano)
and enough money to buy a farm. When
their circumstances worsened, the family
continued to receive support from relatives. Because the family is not faced
with merely surviving, the options can
be more fully discussed: whether to
stay on the Island or move again to
where the grass seemed greener (in
this case Truro, Nova Scotia), whether
to continue the hopeless task of running
a money-losing farm or use the last few
pounds in the savings to try pork-packing
or storekeeping.
The letters reveal much about the individuals in the family. Critchlow, husband and father, was a brooding, pessimistic, homesick person who got along
with few in the colony. Yet there must
have been many like him who truly
thought themselves trapped on the Island.
Sarah comes across as a contrast, making
the best of a bad situation.
Tuck has wisely refrained from commenting more than is necessary on the
letters. His introduction and notes are
well researched and informative and the
genealogy appearing as an appendix is
mercifully brief. The illustrations are
appealing and the production and design
of the book enhance the text. However,
proofreading has failed to catch missing or
misplaced notes to chapters 3, 6 and 8
(where only eight of 14 notes are given).
The Island Family Harris is a pleasure
to read and is a contribution not only to
the history of Prince Edward Island but
also to the study of immigrants. It should
be read by anyone who enjoys a good
story and should be on the bookshelf
of anyone interested in the Island's past.
H.T. Holman
Charlottetown: The Life in Its Buildings
by Irene L. Rogers. Charlottetown:
Prince Edward Island Museum and
Heritage Foundation, 1983, vii 4- 358
pp., $14.95 softcover.
An eager public has been awaiting the
appearance of this book. A few years
ago, Irene Rogers' newspaper columns
whetted the local appetite for information about early Charlottetow n
buildings. Then her 1980 booklet,
Walks in Charlotte Town, another
foretaste of the present volume, attracted a wider Canadian public. Even
the title of this work, Charlottetown:
The Life in Its Buildings, with its challenge to the author to show the way that
the past is alive in the present, raises the
expectations of its prospective
readership. The promise is fully met by
the performance.
In spite of the fact that the focus of
commentary is the individual building,
Mrs. Rogers has devised her text as a
continuum from start to finish. While
specialists will be more likely to approach the contents via the index, the
reader who wants to maximize the
benefit of the book should approach it
as a unified narrative. Years of painstaking archival and oral-history research
have resulted in a wealth of information
about the architects, contractors, artisans, owners, and residents associated
with extant Charlottetown buildings.
The resulting commentary is of great
interest to social historians, urban
geographers, and students of architectural history and material culture.
However, since the stated aim is to "aid
the people of Charlottetown in the appreciation and preservation of their distinctive birthright," it is not surprising
that, in spite of the specialist interest of
much of the book's detail, its presentation is directed to the needs and tastes
of the local and the general rather than
the specialist reader.
This book should be recognized as
one of the essential reference works for
Island studies. The fact that its contents
are so carefully documented will make
it a starting point for investigators in a
number of fields. Certain specialists
may be disappointed that the author did
not pick up and elaborate several patterns which emerge from an analysis of
the book's contents. For instance, urban
historians and geographers would like
to see a discussion of the relationship
between the Morris-Wright town plan
and general 18th-century trends in British
urban planning. It is, however, difficult
to fault Mrs. Rogers for sticking too
closely to her task when coverage of her
subject had to be accomplished in a
strictly limited space. While the social
scientist would prefer more interpretation,
especially some tentative generalizations
and conclusions at least in a brief epilogue chapter, the scholar may tend to
see extended interpretative commentary
as either detracting from needed space
or assuming a task that others may do
better.
It is important to appreciate the
space limitations constraining the
author. After two brief opening sections
giving a general overview of the city's
history and a glimpse of the Great Fire
of 1866, the text proceeds on a streetby-street basis to cover the 27 streets
and squares of the 500 original town
lots and adjacent extensions. Although
present-day Charlottetown is a much
wider area than this, the decision to
restrict the text to the original grid of
streets is a wise one. Even here, the
abundance of source material has
resulted in reference to over 390 sites
and structures. Theoretically, with 70 of
these properties receiving only a brief
mention and with a text of 331 pages exclusive of the index, there is a page for
each significant entry. However, the
nature of the subject requires attractive
book d e s i g n , an a b u n d a n c e of
photographs, and scholarly references.
The 175 illustrations and 56 pages of
notes alone take up 45 per cent of the
available space. The result is that Mrs.
Rogers is left with the equivalent of
only 180 pages, not a lot of space for
each of her 320 detailed individual
entries.
The opening section, called "The
Growing Years," makes the point that
early houses were not clustered in
groups but "spread out estate-fashion."
Because of insufficient space in this section and because of the commitment to
highlighting research results in the main
body of the text, this and other general
observations about the city's development cannot be elaborated explicitly.
At the same time, the thoroughness of
the book's treatment of Charlottetown
affords the reader every opportunity to
explore specific aspects on his own.
With the discussion of the Holland
Grove Estate (Fitzroy Street), the Fanning residence (Great George Street),
and the p r o p e r t y of D r. J o h n
Mackieson (Pownal Street), to cite only
three instances, one is able to appreciate
the role that the division of large
m a n o r i a l p r o p e r t i e s h a d on
neighbourhood development. Aside
from losses in fire areas, the crowded
streets and houses of the working class
had a better survival rate than those of
the elite. In some of today's old tenement areas, a number of attractive old
cottages, some of log construction, still
exist as a vital part of the city's
heritage. In contrast, because they sat
on large grounds of lucrative real estate,
a number of grand old mansions were
dismantled. Since this was done largely
to accommodate the expansion of the
upper middle-class market for houses,
many of the new structures were excellent, well-built residences designed by
able architects and now count among
the city's heritage properties. With the
survival of such places as the
Mackieson house and "Fairholm," we
have instances where Charlottetown
may be proud to have some of Canada's
finest old homes.
If extensive coverage of such areas as
Victoria Park and Government House
suggest the work of the social historian,
Irene Rogers is not neglectful of the role
that commerce and industry have
played in the city's development.
Because she treats the lives of
merchants and entrepreneurs as much
in the context of their commercial districts, wharves, warehouses, tanneries,
and factories, as in terms of their fine
residences, she evokes more tangibly
than she could otherwise the city's dual
heritage of prosperity and decline.
Religious, educational, and cultural institutions are well explored. And, finally, the garrison and civic life of 19thcentury Charlottetown is made vivid. It
is p e r h a p s t h e 110 h i s t o r i c a l
photographs that best set the tone and
create an attractive atmosphere for the
kind of information the book provides.
Since only a few of these images have
been published before, they should give
a fresh impetus to local people in
preserving this kind of heritage as well.
Other fine illustrations include 10 contemporary line drawings by Robert
Tuck. This book is a landmark addition
to Prince Edward Island heritage.
Ken MacKinnon
35
Courir la Chandeleur by Georges
Arsenault. Ottawa: Les Editions
d'Acadie, 1982, 116 pp., $7.50 softcover.
Based chiefly on oral testimony, and
covering approximately a century of
Acadian history in Prince Edward
Island, Georges Arsenault's Courir la
Chandeleur is a thoroughly documented
survey of Candlemas customs as they
were practised until the Second World
War. In addition to providing historical
descriptions and accounts of the
custom, Arsenault suggests a number of
critical social functions served by the
tradition, and proposes reasons for its
demise. The book implies an important
lesson about the nature of folklore,
which many people consider quaint,
charming, picturesque, and something
other people have or do: when folklore
becomes quaint, charming and picturesque, it dies out; to live, it must serve a
purpose.
Candlemas, February 2, is the
religious Feast of the Purification, at
which time candles were blessed. The
candles were taken home after the mass
and blessing, where they would be put
to various uses: lit as a protection
against lightning, in times of sickness in
the home, and during religious moments. The religious ceremony was followed by non-religious activities, and
these are the subject of Arsenault's
study. In the afternoon following the
mass, young men would undertake a
quite or house-to-house collection,
seeking food. This would either be distributed to poor families or used for
a Candlemas meal in a home where a
party would subsequently take place. In
the days when money was scarce and
social services next to non-existent, distribution of food to the poor both compensated for the lack of social services
and reinforced neighbourly solidarity.
"Candlemas Runners" (coureux de la
chandeleur), generally bachelors from
16 years and up but sometimes including "young marrieds," would
choose a leader, someone lively and
well liked; he often wore fine clothes to
indicate his rank. His henchmen might
disguise themselves by blackening their
faces or dressing as women. But the
leader also bore a sceptre — usually a
beribboned broom-handle, on top of
which was affixed in more recent times
a home-made cock with bright red ribbons in its tail — but formerly a cock
which had been slaughtered for that
36
specific purpose. With sleds bearing
bins to hold the fruits of the collecting,
pulled by horses dressed in bells and ribbons, the group, whose size depended
on the size of the village or community,
would go from house to house, request
admission, and perform a dance to the
accompaniment of song and music. As
households were generally prepared for
such visits, a contribution would be
made after the dance, and the collectors
would proceed to the next house. They
were rarely refused admission, although
some tales are told of curses being levelled at those who did, sometimes with
dire consequences.
Following the collection, the food
would either be distributed to the local
poor, or taken to a home chosen earlier
to serve as the locale for the Candlemas
meal and subsequent festivities. The
meal would be made up of such Acadian dishes as the potato-based rdpure
or chiard, or a chicken fricot (this dish
being especially suitable for feeding
large numbers as it is easily prepared).
After the meal singing, dancing, riddling and game-playing would take up the
rest of the evening. It was a time of considerable pleasure, still evoking fond
memories from former participants.
The custom began to decline in the
first four decades of this century, and
the decline was compounded by the outbreak of the Second World War, which
prompted large numbers of young men
to join the army or seek work in warrelated industries. As bearers of the
tradition, their absence was irreparable.
The accompanying economic boom,
and economic growth following the war,
brought ready cash to an economy
which had hitherto lacked it, taking
away the c o m m u n i t y - p r o m p t e d
charitable function the custom had
depended on.
Georges Arsenault has done much
research into the traditions of Acadian
Islanders, and it is remarkable how
much information he packs into such a
slim volume. His section on the song
tradition associated with Candlemas is
rich and informative, and he supplements his research with comparative
comments based on traditions in other
French-speaking parts of the world.
As someone who has done similar
research among the French of Newfoundland's West Coast, I was struck
by both parallels and differences
between Prince Edward Island interpretations and those of Newfoundland. Newfoundland French
custom, for example, refers to the King
of Candlemas, and I have no record of
a cock being affixed to the pole; in Newfoundland, ribbons alone were attached,
one for each house which contributed.
Also, in the smaller Newfoundland
French communities, a minimum of
seven people collected (the same
number as appears on the cover illustration — coincidence?), one person for
each type of food to be gathered.
Although Candlemas songs have not
been recorded in Newfoundland, the
custom itself only died out within the
last 20 years, and has indeed been
revived with some success in the last 10
years; disguising activities have been
transferred in Newfoundland to mummering, apparently a borrowing from
English custom, and take place over the
Christmas period.
Indeed if there is a major gap in
Arsenault's study, it is the lack of any
reference to interaction with nonFrench Islanders. Did none occur? I
find it hard to believe. On the other
hand, what accounts exist of similar or
related customs among English
Islanders?
Courir la Chandeleur, despite its
modest size, is a major contribution to
Island custom and folklore; not only for
its documentation, but also for its
reflections on the functions of folklore
in society.
Gerald Thomas
mm
lis
—3L