This Robert Auld was the grandson of an earlier Robert Auld, who with his wife, Jane Fissett, came on the ship Falmouth in 1770 from Greenock, Scotland, as one of the families brought out by James Montgomery to settle Lot 34, the Covehead-Stanhope area.

A few years before moving to Freetown, Robert Auld had gone to California, following the discovery of gold there in 1848. As his name is not included in the passenger list of the “Fanny”, the brig that left Charlottetown on Nov. 12, 1849 for the goldfields, it seems likely he went to some port in the eastern states, probably to Boston, Mass. by some other ship, and there transferred to one of the boats bound for the gold

fields by way of Cape Horn. The alternative would have been to go by train from Boston or New York as far west as the railway was then built, possibly to St. Louis, and there join a band going overland to California, U.S.A.

A letter written to his wife from San Francisco, USA. dated 19 June (the year not given), tells of this, having received her letter, and of his happiness on seeing his brother George, who had arrived on 27 Apr. with his wife and child. They had made plans to leave in a few days for Volcano, in Calvernas County, the location of the Middle Mines. Until his brother arrived, Robert had been working in San Francisco.

It is impossible to accurately complete the date of his letter, but a reference to James Milner, who visited Robert, the same time as George, indicates the earliest year it could have been written. James Milner was a passenger on the “Fanny”, which reached San Francisco in late June, 1850; hence, the letter could not have been earlier than 1851. However, since mining for gold went on for years or more following discovery, it may have been somewhat later. Whatever the date, it is the only letter of his preserved from that time, and so we have no record as to how much, if any, California gold was used to purchase the farm at Freetown that came to be known as “The Birchesf’

Not long after the family moved to Freetown, the post office was transferred to The Birches. The Lake map of 1863 of Lot 25 shows the post office to be at Robert Auld’s home, and Hutchinson’s Business Directory of 1864 names him as Postmaster. The Post Office remained in his home for many years, until well beyond his lifetime. He (1. 16 Nov. 1887.

His wife Mary Ann, was the dau. of Daniel Boughton, a ship’s carpenter, who came to P.E.I. from Gloucester, England, in 1812. On 27 June 1815, he and Elizabeth Steely were m. in Charlottetown by Rev.

Theophilus Des Brisay, Rector of Charlottetown Parish. In 1825, when Mary Ann was five, her mother and an infant brother died, and later the same year her grandmother, Mary Quarin, returned to England, leaving “to Mary Ann Boughton of Charlottetown” all rights to three lots of land in Charlottetown, with all buildings, this “for the natural love and affection she hath and bears to the said Mary Ann Boughton, her grand-

daughter. ” Mary Ann d. 10 Sept. 1899. Robert and Mary Ann’s family are given below. +2a Daniel b. 2 Mar. 1844, at Covehead.

2b Elizabeth (Lizzie) b. 9 Feb. 1846, at Covehead. On 9 Apr. 1872, she m. Peter Stavert of Wilmot Valley. In their family were five sons and four daughters, one of the sons the Rev. R. Hensley Stavert. Elizabeth d. 19 Apr. 1910.

+2c Joseph b. 28 May 1848, at Covehead.

2d Margaret (Maggie) b. 28 Mar. 1851, at Covehead, m. J. Davis Schurman, also of Freetown, on 29 Jan. 1878. They had three sons, Percy, Everett, and Ray. (See Schurman history.)

2e Lydia Jane b. 23 July 1856, at Covehead, m. Frank Lawson 14 Aug. 1890. They lived for the most part in the Boston area, for a time in Chelsea and later in Everett, Mass. They had no family. In 1930

they visited relatives on P.E.l. including Freetown. +2f Robert Boughton (Rob) b. at Freetown 14 Feb. 1862.

+ 2a Daniel Auld

Of Daniel, the eldest of the family, there is little record. It appears he lived on the farm at Freetown until his marriage to Eliza Crosby, 14 Nov. 1883. Soon afterward they moved to Manitou, Colorado. Some papers dated 1892 and 1897 and a photograph sent to “Uncle Rob, Christmas ’98” by their son Lawson indicate they were then living at Albuquerque, New Mexico. Dan returned to Freetown at least twice, in 1889 and later with his son. A picture of the two, Lawson then perhaps sixteen, together with Daniel’s youngest brother, Rob, would place the time around 1902.

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