MILITARY AND CIVIL. 59

yarn by the light of a blazing pine torch or smoky fish oil lamp, before the blazing fire that roared up the throat of the cat and clay chimney, while the men were employed with brog and hammer in mending the shoes of the family, or making birch brooms or axe handles. There were no kerosene lamps in this dark period of Island history.

“ The churn and its dasher, the sieve and the riddle were manufactured by the roving Indian who, although generally harmless, was sometimes a source of uneasiness to the early settler.”

Besides the implements above alluded to by Mr. Hamilton, rattling sounds of the swift gliding shuttle and reed-beam of the weaver’s loom—a machine introduced by the emigrant fathers— were heard from time to time in most of the rural dwellings, when employed in the manufacturing of strong linen or coarse homespun as material of clothing for the farming population. This branch of industry continued in vogue from an early date of the Island’s history up to the establishment of woolen factories, the first of which was founded at Tryon about 1860. Wool carding and filling of cloth also took rank amongst the early manual performances of those times, from which tedious labor

relief was obtained by the erection of carding and fulling mills during the third decade of the present century.

But the greatest blessing was the establishment of grist~mills, the want of which, we need scarcely say, was keenly experienced by all settlers. Previously wheat was ground into flour between two stones some 16 inches in diameter placed horizon- tally upon a wooden block within the walls of the farmer’s cottage, one stone being a fixture the other was made to revolve when required by the power of the hand. The first grist-mill, now so universal, was erected by one Colonel Settleworth—so tradition informs us—on the south bank of St. Peter’s Bay, King’s County. This mill was worked by means of sails during favorable gales of wind. A grist-mill, by water power, was put up by Charles World, also at St. Peters, and another, known as Dingwell’s Mill, was built at Bay Fortune. As to the date of the erection of either of the above, our old time his-

torian gives no authentic account, but the former appears to have been the first mill that was erected on the Island.

Attention was now being paid by the government to the opemng of various public roads, that to Princetown, about forty miles from Charlottetown, being among the first opened.

But to return to the events of the year 1825, we find an account of the organization of a society on the 18th of April,