TEMPERANCE SOCIETIES (Sons of Temperance) Some of our early settlers put a great effort into a battle against the use of alcoholic beverages. History has proven that indeed their struggles were all in vain, since alcoholic beverages are readily available now in most restaurants, hotels, and community halls as well as government owned liquor outlets. We must admire their iniative and determination however, as they faced a great deal of harassment from some of their less sober minded neighbours. The citizens who were serious about abolishing the use of alcohol banded together in each community and started up " Temperance Societies ". Meacham's Atlas of 1880 shows a Temperance Hall near Corner located along the Road, directly across from Farquhar Campbell 's property. This division of the Sons of Temperance was called the "Flowers of the Forest". No doubt the name of their group reflects the purity of their aims. In the book Past and Present Prince Edward Island the following excerpt gives a very graphic account of some of the outrages suffered by the ill-fated Sons: A notable case is put on the records that occured at Dundas , Kings County. "Flowers of the Forest" division attempted carrying out the decision of a meeting held there to "prevent the import and sale of intoxicant drinks in their midst". There upon the record goes, the rum drinkers, led on by a smuggling rum seller, organized against the di¬ vision a regular system of annoyance. Among other things they as¬ saulted the household of one of the Sons, a magistrate, before whom proceedings had been taken against the rum sellers on account of illegal sales of their poison, and committed incredible outrage upon those whom they found there. They dragged about his mother by the hair, striking her with their fists and in horrible terms declaring their readiness to take her life. Two of his children, little girls, they kicked to and fro like footballs, bruising them shockingly, while a third, a little boy, they hurled over a fence six feet high. Her sister, a younger woman in a delicate state of health, they violently pressed behind a door until her blackened tongue hung out of her mouth. Similiar and like outrages occurred. On February 10, 1892 the first meeting of the Big Run Temperance Society took place in the old schoolhouse. It was well attended and this group called themselves "The Good Templars". Their meeting on May 4 of the same year did not run quite as smoothly though. A band of moonshiners from "Hell's Corner" (possibly ) descended UDon them and annoyed them severely. The Good Templars perservered though, and according to James Norton 's diaries on March 18, 1897, the first meeting of Annandale 's branch of Good Templars took place in the school. There was a Temperance group in in the early 1900's. It served the two communities of Little River and . This hall was situtated in the corner of John Blackett 's field next to the Barren as it is now know. A dispute 105