Lobster factories once dotted the shores of Prince Edward, Island in the early days of this century. However, since that time, the small lobster factory has given way to the larger fish plants found in such places as Souris, Egmont Bay and Tignish. Even worse i . is the trend to ship lobster off the Island with only a minimal am— it cunt of processing carried on here. In their day, the number of fa— '7 stories in King‘s County reached 1+2. Thirty years laterin 1950, there were only 12 such lobster factories left.1 There are probably only half that number today. I am going to specifically look at one such factory which was operated by Earl and Janet (Butler) Johnston of Peter's Road. The factory was first located at East Point and

later moved to North Lake in the mid 1940's. I‘am going to reughly

,look at the years from 1935 to 1945.

Historically, the community of East Point has long been associated with lobster factories as East Point Reef provided some

of the best lobster fishing grounds on Prince Edward Island. A fa—

ctory was established there in 1881 by Cairns and MacInnis.2 Later,

a factory operated by Dennis Murphy of Nova Scotia was located near~

' by; 3.I'n 1888, Charles Sterne of Souris and George NacIntyre of

Mbntague established a factory at "The Point" as well.4 With about_

twelve boats its 1906 production was 800 cases of lobster. 5 Mac

Intyre bought out Sterne and he continued to run it until 1930. In 1950, Earl Jehnston took the plant over from George MacIntyre

and he continued to operate it with his wife Janet until the mid