Steleanors: the Msneered Village
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StEleanors: The Msneered Village Jk, i ^ t 4fe J Written/Illustrated by Robert Tuck hanks to Canadian Forces Comptons and Acadians of the Province". They also had to TBase, Summerside, no place undertake to set up no "shop, store or in Prince Edward Island has a larger But St. Eleanors was not first settled tavern", and to promise to have their proportion of non-Islanders, and a by the English. In the last quarter of grist ground at the landlord's mill. more transient population, than the the 18th century, the southern shore Picturing himself in the role of an Prince County capital and its sur- of Malpeque Bay was populated by English country squire riding to rounding communities. To the great no fewer than 23 Acadian families, hounds or shooting grouse, Compton majority of these Canadians from several of them refugees from the reserved to himself "the right of chase "away", St. Eleanors is simply a English expulsion of Acadians in on and over the said farms at Summerside suburb lying between Nova Scotia 20 years earlier. They pleasure". the Base and the Town where neat bore familiar French names like Captain Compton set sail for the subdivisions of modern bungalows of- Arsenault, Gallant, Poirier, and Ber- Island in 1804, bringing with him fer comfortable and convenient hous- nard, and they had their own church, materials necessary for the construc- ing for Armed Forces personnel who a little chapel situated on the east tion of a comfortable house in Lot 17: choose to live "on the economy" side of Rayner's Creek. Most of the window sashes, doors, cornices, and rather than in PMQs (Personnel Mar- settlement was in Lot 17, which had wainscotting. By the time the house, ried Quarters). been acquired in 1767 by two named the Pavillion, was finished in But St. Eleanors is a proud and brothers, B. and P. Burke. 1806, the Captain had been promoted distinctive community in its own By 1804, Lot 17 seems to have been to Colonel. His young wife, the former right, quite apart from Summerside reacquired by the Crown (after forgiv- Charlotte Newman (whose nephew, and the Base—even though the size ing the proprietors their arrears in John Henry Newman, would later and proximity of Summerside, and quit rent payments in 1802). In that distinguish himself as one of the the high proportion of residents who year, half of the lot was granted to one leading divines of the 19th century), are in, but not always of, the com- Captain Harry Compton, as reward bore him three children before dying munity, make it difficult sometimes for his services in the Irish Rebellion at the early age of 27. to maintain a sense of the old St. of 1798. He was also granted half of In the new world the Comptons Eleanors' identity and spirit. Here Lot 19, on the southwest shore of became familiar with, and drawn and there in the sprawl of vinyl siding Malpeque Bay. The other halves of towards, the Roman Catholic and picture windows and half-grown the two lots were given to a Captain Church. Their Acadian tenants trees is an old house with small- Townsend, but Compton soon ex- moved the little chapel they had built paned windows, or scrollwork decora- changed his half of Lot 19 for Town- about 1760 to a site near the Pavil- tion on a veranda or in a gable. These send's half of Lot 17. lion. Two of the Colonel's children, suggest the older community core The Acadians now had a new and his housekeeper, Eleanor which still exists. And from whatever landlord, an English military Sanskey (after whom, it is said, the point in St. Eleanors one looks, the gentleman who required each one to village was named St. Eleanors), centre of the village is marked by the pay him annually 10 bushels of became Roman Catholics. And when delicate steeple of St. John's Church. wheat, 1 sheep, 2 days free labour Bishop J.O. Plessis of Quebec visited In this respect it has very much an (one with a team of oxen and 2 "able" the Island in July, 1812, Compton English look about it. men), plus £1/2/9 "of lawful money sent carts to Summerside to pick up his baggage, and accommodated the Bishop and five attendant priests at the Pavillion. But the Acadians were disap- pointed when Colonel Compton failed to give them title to the land to which they had moved their chapel. Moreover, when Compton decided to sell off the farms on which they lived as his tenants, he set a price—£100 for 100 acres—beyond their means. So they removed to Lot 15, where land was available, and to Miscouche, where they were given land by Colonel Cornpton's son, Major Thomas Compton. The little chapel was moved again, to Miscouche, where it served as a priest's house after a larger church was built, and then as a private residence. In t h e m e a n w h i l e , Colonel Compton was selling off portions of his estate to settlers from England who could afford his prices. William Craswell purchased 254 acres in This is all that is left of the home of the late Holden and Thora Compton—one of the earliest of the third generation Compton homes. It is in North St. Eleanors North St. Eleanors, and 208 acres (i where the present village stands, in near the site of The Pavillion", the earliest Compton homestead, 1806-1844. 1808. Samuel Green bought another 254 acres, and built ships. Other families came: Tanton, Cannon, Gay, young couple walked together from was a disaster which happened to (my Coles, Jeffrey, Smith, Schurman, the shore through the fields some father) in the loss by fire of a fine Morris, Jones. Colonel Compton distance to their new dwelling.... dwelling house which had just been removed to B r i t t a n y with his He showed her through the down- completed.... It had not as yet, daughter Lisle, where he died in 1839. stairs, going from room to room, however, been occupied by the fami- That was not the end of the and then they inspected the up- ly. The date of the fire was November Comptons in St. Eleanors. After stairs. After everything had been the fifth—a bonfire ungrateful as it education in Europe, Harry's son, explored the two went outdoors was unintentional." (Italics mine.) Thomas, returned to settle in St. to view the garden and sur- Eleanors. A story told to William R. roundings, and when this was Brennan by his mother (a great done, he asked his beautiful wife County Seat granddaughter of Thomas Compton), how she liked her new home. She and recorded in Sketches of Old St. replied 'The only thing I like about Although the townsite of Princetown Eleanors as involving Harry and the place are the doorknobs.' had been designated the capital of Charlotte Compton, almost certainly The Colonel then turned, went Prince County in Captain Samuel has to do with Thomas Compton and into the house, removed all the Holland's survey of 1766, it was the his English bride, Hannah Jeffrey. As doorknobs, tied them in a string rising village of St. Eleanors which in told in the Sketches, the story is as bag, returned to the outdoors, 1833 became the county seat, relin- follows: handed his wife the bag with the quishing this status to Summerside only in 1876. A court house-jail was knobs, then set fire to the new built by local carpenter, George A Col. Compton of England mar- dwelling and all the new fur- Tanton, Jr.,* and twice each year, ried a young lady, she was said to nishings. be most beautiful girl in all the beginning in 1834, a judge came from Charlottetown to hear cases. land. When the Col. received a This house, of course, could not grant of land in Prince Edward have been the Pavillion, for it was A schoolmaster, William Coates, Island there was much persuasion demolished in 1844. Thomas and arrived from England in 1827, but to induce his lovely wife to leave H a n n a h ' s son, H u b e r t , whose education was a private affair. The her native land to come to a new historical notes of St. Eleanors have Reverend Abram VanGeldert Wig- country to live. been so useful to later researchers, gins urged the Society for the She at last promised her husband records that he was born on the Propagation of the Gospel to take that if he would first come and "Broad" farm in North St. Eleanors "Mr. Coots" (as he spelled his name) build her a fine, completely fur- in 1831, the property being at that nished home, she would come with time owned by his father. "In 1834," him....After crossing the Atlantic... *From a plan supplied by Isaac Smith (see he writes, "it passed by purchase into Marianne Morrow's article, "The Builder: they anchored their vessel off the the hands of the Hon. James Yeo. Isaac Smith and Early Island Architecture", shores of North St. Eleanors. The The immediate reason of the transfer in this issue). under its wing, and the Anglican Church did erect a schoolhouse on the Church property. This was successor to the earliest school, which was taught by Mr. and Mrs. Charles Pope in 1820, and another kept by Joseph Patton Sherlock in a log cabin.