Transportation: River, Roads, Railway

Photo by Barb Morgan Memories and mementos like this spike are all that remain of the Prince Edward Island Railroad.

Suffolk Station was one of a number of stations on the Prince Edward Island Railroad known as a flag station”. This meant that the train did not regularly stop unless signalled to do so.

Early rail travel was not without its hazards. Poor construction techniques and a design which featured lots of curves caused many accidents. One such accident occurred in Marshfield early in January of 187918 just five years after the railway had opened, badly smashing the engine. A more serious accident happened in 1880‘9 along the curve about 1/2 mile west from the Suffolk Road involved the derailment of several cars and resulted in the loss of one life.

As a means of shipping produce and livestock and receiving limestone and fertilizer, the railway was a boon to surrounding farmers. As late as the 1960’s potatoes where shipped to market from Marshfield by rail and fertilizer was shipped out from Charlottetown by box car to be unloaded and trucked to individual farms.

Two hundred years ago the Hillsborough River was Marshfield’s main avenue to the rest of the world. By 1900, ship traffic along the river was in decline. The railway had become the main link for freight and passengers. Daily traffic back and forth to Charlottetown was not even a concept. Anti- automobile meetings in Marshfield Hall were still fifteen years into the future.

Today look around and take note, someday the idea of taking a gasoline powered vehicle to Charlottetown will probably be as foreign to our descendants as it would have been unbelievable to our ancestors.

Submitted by Peter Boswall

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NOTES

' Soil Survey of Prince Edward Island, G. B. Whiteside, 1966, 2"d Edition, Queens Printer, Ottawa.

2 The French Regime in Prince Edward Island D. C. Harvey, 1926 Yale University Press.

3 The French Regime in Prince Edward Island D. C. Harvey, 1926 Yale University Press.

4 The French Regime in Prince Edward Island D. C. Harvey, 1926 Yale University Press.

5 Three Centuries and the Island, A. H Clark, 1959 University of Toronto Press.

6 Prince Edward Island Public Archives and Records Office.

7 Census of Prince Edward Island, PEI Collection, University of Prince Edward Island.

3 A History of Mount Stewart PEI, F. L. Pigot, 1975

9 The French Regime in Prince Edward Island D. C. Harvey, 1926 Yale University Press.

loThree Centuries and the Island, A. H Clark, 1959 University of Toronto Press.

” A History of Prince Edward Island, A. B. Warburton, 1923, Barnes & Co. Limited, St. John NB.

12A History of Prince Edward Island, A. B. Warburton, 1923, Barnes & Co. Limited, St. John NB.

13Journeys to the Island of St. John or Prince Edward Island 1775-1832 D. C. Harvey MacMillan Company of Canada 1955.

1"Journeys to the Island of St. John or Prince Edward Island 1775-1832 D. C. Harvey MacMillan Company of Canada 1955

‘5 Prince Edward Island Public Archives and Records Office.

‘6 Deed #563, Franklin Mill to His Majesty King George the Fifth, dated July 11, 1919.

17Summerside Journal, January 3, 1889.

18Photo History of PEI Railway, A. Graham, 2000.

19Photo History of PEI Railway, A. Graham, 2000.