Selling the harvest, buying necessities, and the places that connected parish households to a wider economy.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
For a farm household, going to town could mean taking something to sell as well as bringing something home. Produce, transport, weather, and the need for supplies all shaped the journey. The parish history preserves a striking memory of families travelling to Charlottetown by sleigh, using frozen waterways as part of their route.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Roddie J. MacDonald\u2019s 1982 history describes mixed farming throughout the parish and names crops including potatoes, wheat, oats, barley, and garden produce. It also remembers trips made with products of the farm and sea to sell, followed by purchases of necessities.1<\/a><\/sup><\/p>\n\n\n\n Selling farm produce could help a household obtain winter supplies. The parish account does not identify a particular family\u2019s root-vegetable load or an autumn provisioning trip.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Preparing for winter involved balancing what a household could retain, what it could sell, and what it needed to obtain. Selling produce and buying supplies could be parts of the same undertaking. A sale might bring cash, while a merchant\u2019s ledger could reveal credit or an exchange\u2014but the terms of an individual transaction need their own evidence.<\/p>\n\n\n\n The local store also mattered. A household need not make a long journey for every purchase. The parish\u2019s shops and the larger commercial centres served different needs, and those arrangements changed across generations.<\/p>\n\n\n\n MacDonald remembers groups making a couple of trips to Charlottetown each year during the earlier decades of settlement. One was a midwinter expedition with horses and sleighs, carrying products to sell and returning with necessities.<\/p>\n\n\n\n In his account, frozen waterways provided part of the road. Small trees and branches marked the ice routes, a practice often described as \u201cbushing\u201d the ice. The route he recounts ran along the north shore toward Cable Head, then by land to St Peter\u2019s Bay, across bay ice toward the Joggins and Savage Harbour, and onward by land and the frozen Hillsborough River to Charlottetown.1<\/a><\/sup><\/p>\n\n\n\n It is a journey remembered in local history, rather than a surviving itinerary for a named household. We should not assume that every family travelled the whole route or that it was usable in every winter. Its importance is the picture it gives of distance: reaching the capital involved planning and cooperation, not a routine short shopping trip.<\/p>\n\n\n\n MacDonald\u2019s winter story also adds a useful distinction to the memory of stocking up before winter. The source specifically describes trading during winter. Autumn sales, winter sales, and the purchase of provisions could all belong to a household\u2019s year, but they should not be combined into one invented event.<\/p>\n\n\n\n MacDonald explicitly names Souris and St Peter\u2019s Bay as places parish residents could go to do business as roads and local commerce developed. These are the best-supported nearby centres in the account, although it does not rank them for every household or period.1<\/a><\/sup><\/p>\n\n\n\n Souris offered a concentration of businesses. The 1863 Lake Map directory lists general merchants alongside such trades as baking, blacksmithing, harness making, and block making. That range helps explain why a journey there could serve several purposes.2<\/a><\/sup><\/p>\n\n\n\n Matthew and McLean\u2019s business, established in Souris in 1869, later became a major source of hardware and dry goods in eastern PEI. Its activities extended into factories and shipping. The heritage account also describes potatoes grown for starch production and export, reminding us that produce could enter a commercial chain as well as be sold directly to a household customer.3<\/a><\/sup><\/p>\n\n\n\n For parish families, Souris therefore belongs in both the history of shopping and the history of selling. A specific family\u2019s preferred merchant is best established by a bill, account book, advertisement, or recollection.<\/p>\n\n\n\n St Peter\u2019s Bay appears twice in the parish narrative: as a place for doing business and as part of the remembered winter route toward Charlottetown. It belongs naturally in the trading geography of the parish, particularly when considering households toward its western side.<\/p>\n\n\n\n That geographical connection does not prove that every western household shopped there. Family ties, available goods, transport, and a relationship with a particular merchant could influence the choice.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Morell belongs to the wider network of communities west of the parish, but its role should be described for a particular period. The municipality\u2019s history records the Morell Butter Factory in 1924, the credit union in 1938, and the first co-operative store in 1939.4<\/a><\/sup><\/p>\n\n\n\n Those dates provide useful context for twentieth-century journeys and agricultural business. They should not be projected back onto a family\u2019s shopping in the early 1800s. A recollection of going to the Morell co-op belongs to a different generation from the sleigh journey MacDonald describes.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Montague was another commercial centre in eastern PEI. Its historic waterfront warehouses and Main Street commercial buildings preserve that history.5<\/a><\/sup><\/p>\n\n\n\n The parish account reviewed here does not specifically identify Montague as a customary shopping destination for St Margaret\u2019s families. It can be included in the wider regional picture, while particular journeys\u2014whether for goods, business, or family visits\u2014await supporting accounts.<\/p>\n\n\n\n The answer to \u201cWhere did people shop?\u201d is therefore unlikely to be one town for the entire parish. It depends on where a household lived, when the journey occurred, what it had to sell, and what it needed to buy.<\/p>\n\n\n\n The older journeys were shaped by the available route and season. MacDonald describes later access to shops within the parish, business at nearby towns, and railway transport along the southern boundary. These developments widened the choices available to households.<\/p>\n\n\n\n A railway shipment was also different from taking produce personally to market. A family might ship goods through a commercial buyer while making its purchases locally. Improved transport did not require every producer to accompany a load to its final destination.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Charlottetown remained part of the larger trading world, but the remembered annual expedition should not be treated as an unchanged custom across two centuries. Better roads, rail, and eventually motor transport altered what \u201cgoing to town\u201d meant.<\/p>\n\n\n\n A remembered winter purchase, a list of goods taken to sell, or the name of a store can turn a broad account into a household story. Where possible, record who made the journey, the approximate year, the season, what was carried, and how the goods were paid for.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Those details connect the work of the farm and home with the streets, stores, and markets beyond the parish. They show families making practical decisions about the year ahead, rather than simply living within the boundaries of a map.<\/p>\n\n\n\n The parish history supports trading in farm and sea products, but individual loads, purchases and journeys require their own evidence.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Selling the harvest, buying necessities, and the places that connected parish households to a wider economy. For a farm household, […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"site-sidebar-layout":"default","site-content-layout":"","ast-site-content-layout":"default","site-content-style":"default","site-sidebar-style":"default","ast-global-header-display":"","ast-banner-title-visibility":"","ast-main-header-display":"","ast-hfb-above-header-display":"","ast-hfb-below-header-display":"","ast-hfb-mobile-header-display":"","site-post-title":"","ast-breadcrumbs-content":"","ast-featured-img":"","footer-sml-layout":"","ast-disable-related-posts":"","theme-transparent-header-meta":"","adv-header-id-meta":"","stick-header-meta":"","header-above-stick-meta":"","header-main-stick-meta":"","header-below-stick-meta":"","astra-migrate-meta-layouts":"default","ast-page-background-enabled":"default","ast-page-background-meta":{"desktop":{"background-color":"var(--ast-global-color-5)","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""},"tablet":{"background-color":"","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""},"mobile":{"background-color":"","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""}},"ast-content-background-meta":{"desktop":{"background-color":"var(--ast-global-color-4)","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""},"tablet":{"background-color":"var(--ast-global-color-4)","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""},"mobile":{"background-color":"var(--ast-global-color-4)","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""}},"footnotes":""},"categories":[1450],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-8319","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-work-everyday-life"],"gutslider_comments":0,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/peipioneercemetery.com\/staging\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8319","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/peipioneercemetery.com\/staging\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/peipioneercemetery.com\/staging\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/peipioneercemetery.com\/staging\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/peipioneercemetery.com\/staging\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=8319"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/peipioneercemetery.com\/staging\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8319\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":8384,"href":"https:\/\/peipioneercemetery.com\/staging\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8319\/revisions\/8384"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/peipioneercemetery.com\/staging\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=8319"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/peipioneercemetery.com\/staging\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=8319"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/peipioneercemetery.com\/staging\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=8319"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}The winter journey<\/h2>\n\n\n\n
Souris and St. Peter\u2019s Bay<\/h2>\n\n\n\n
Morell and Montague<\/h2>\n\n\n\n
Changing journeys<\/h2>\n\n\n\n
Sources<\/h2>\n\n\n\n
\n