CORNELIUS HOWATT 181 0-1 3,95

Cornelius Howatt served in the P.E.l. Legislature as a Member for 4th Prince from March of 1859 until he was finally defeated seven elections later, in August, 1876.

He was very strongly opposed to Prince Edward Island joining the Confederation of Canada, and he voted against it in the Assembly. He served as Speaker of the House from 1873 until 1876. He was married to the former Jane Bell, and from this union came nine children. In 1860 he moved from Tryon to a larger farm in North St. Eleanors. At his death in 1895 he was interred in the cemetery of the Lot 16 Presbyterian Church. In 1973 on the Centennial of our entrance into the Canadian nation a group of Islanders headed by David Weale and Harry Baglole formed an organization called ”The Brothers and Sisters of Cornelius Howatt”, who were very outspoken on the situation P.E.l. had let herself fall into since ioining Confederation.

THE FOX INDUSTRY

Though at the present time no foxes are raised in Lot 16, and not a large quantity on the Island, it might be well to review the Industry, as the . young people of today know so little about the importance fox raising played, along with lobster and oyster fishing, in helping to establish the prosperous farms of the present day, in Lot 16 as in other parts of the Province. Prince Edward Islanders were the first to make an attempt to domesticate the fox, though native people and trappers interested mainly in beaver and muskrat had kept the silver fox in captivity by 1790. The pioneers who established the fur farming industry in P.E.I. were Charles Dalton and Robert Oulton, although about 1880 Beniamin Haywood of Tignish had experimented with breeding foxes. Unfortunately, all the young were destroyed by the mother. Charles Dalton had been raising poultry on his farm in Tignish, but foxes got into the hen houses and ate his chickens, until Mr. Dalton set traps and caught the animals. One beautiful pelt was sold in Halifax for twenty-five dollars, a large sum in those days. Mr. Dalton decided to buy fox pelts an the Island and sell them in Nova

Scotia. Wild foxes were scarce. Mr. Dalton formed a partnership with Robert Oulton to breed them in captivity on an island in Cascumpeque Bay

near Alberton. There they began experimenting about 1883. At first breeding kennels were hollow logs with one end plugged. The men kept

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their exact business a secret, for they did not want to flood the market and drive prices down. Later they had ranches at Tignish and Alberton. In 1890 James Gordon and Robert Tuplin purchased a pair of foxes from Dalton and Oulton and began their experiments. About the same time, Silas Rayner made a contribution to fox raising by cross breeding red and silver foxes and separating the silver strain. A few pelts from the Island were sent

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