summer the office closed down for lack of work. Indeed on Lake’s map of 1863 the telegraph cable service is labelled “win- ter telegraph.”

L TO R HEDLEY MUTTART. S MUNCEY. IRVING MUTTART. EARLY TELEGRAPH OFFICE

Town Muncey came to Cape Traverse as a linesman. He learned telegraphy at the cable hut in Cape Traverse on the farm of Captain Lewis Muttart of ice-boat fame. The first telel graph operator was possibly Michael Quinlan though an old di- rectory suggests that possibly Captain Lewis himself was an operator. The latter was married to Susan Jane Allen of Cape Tormentine and the news of the birth at Cape Traverse of their daughter Harriet on December 11, 1852 is believed to have been one of the earliest local messages sent through the undersea cable to Cape Tormentine.

Harriet Muttart grew up with the cable service. Her oldest brother George became ,the second operator and in 1873 she be- came the wife of T. C. Muncey, who for a short time was possibly the third operator at Cape Traverse. He went to Kensington in 1875 when the P.E.I. Railway opened its first office there. the Muncey’s moved back to Lot 28 in 1877 when the Cape Traverse office of the Anglo American Telegraph Co., (note how the name changed again) was moved to Carleton to suit the operator. Here T. C. Muncy bought a lot complete with comfortable house from the sons of William Brow early Carleton merchant. On this he moved an old kitchen purchased from John McInnis, North Carleton. This was fixed up as a terminal office for the Anglo American Telegraph Company, with a sign hung out. The hours of service were 8 am. to 8 pm. closing for meals 12-1 and 6-7.

The office at Carleton received messages from Sackville originating in many parts of the world for all the Island. It re- peated these messages and so was called a “repeating office.” The electric power came from a series of old fashioned batteries. These were glass jars containing a solution of bluestone (copper sulphate) with a crows foot in the middle of each connected to- gether with copper wire covered with gutta percha. The crows foot was a squared upright metal rod standing on five short legs.

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