the initial season of the Club came to a close, it was evident that they had a serious problem with their location. Whether or not the attendance situation was the total problem is not known but following the close of the 1910 trap shooting season, John Morris resigned, never to shoot at the Newstead Gun Club again. Ironically he gave his home's name to this new clay target shooting club on Prince Edward Island, and failed to enjoy its finest hours, which were still ahead. We must consider, that, in this particular era of time, the basics of life were considered very important, and people tended to take quite seriously what we today might think to be a very simple problem...the accessibility of time and distance has changed our attitude--for better or worse?--only future generations will tell.

The Club would go on to a number of successful years, but never again at Newstead. The foundations were shaken but the Newstead Gun Club had a couple of things going for it: thirteen members who wanted to shoot clay targets, and a completely portable trap that could easily be set up at almost any location, on any given day. They would all think about it over the summer.

As the Canada Goose came back to Prince Edward Island in the fall of 1910, Newstead Gun Club members were still inwardly disturbed about the problems that had developed in their new club last spring, but everything was still in relatively good order...everything except a shooting location, and they would worry about that when the exciting bird shooting season was over.

Unknown to most of the new club's members, a rather sad note prevailed in that, during the summer, the man who became the first real smoothbore hero on Prince Edward Island among his own peers--who was a local legend in his time, and recalled by most who knew him as the best shotgunner they had known-- William C. (Bill) Hobkirk, died in Charlottetown at age 60.

--75--