fourth one - on the farm he had cleared and developed by the sweat
of his brow. He could relax now surrounded by grandchildren and
ponder the results of his endeavours, not only for himself, but for his
fellow Islanders. He had struggled hard over the years to try to resolve
the land problem to free settlers from the grasp of absentee landlords,
and he lived long enough to see the matter finally settled. He pushed
hard to get a year-round steamship connection to the mainland, and
he lived long enough to see the beginnings of the service. He watched
as the Fathers of Confederation gathered in Charlottetown in 1864
to talk of creating a country from the various colonies. He lived long
enough to see P.E.I. join the federation in 1873. The Federal Gov-
ernment assumed the colony’s railway debts and agreed to finance a
buy-out of the last of the colony’s absentee landlords to free the island
of leasehold tenure.

The Island entered Confederation on July 1, 1873. The problem of
absentee landowners was subsequently addressed by the passage of
the Land Purchase Act of 1875.

Upon entering the union with Canada, Prince Edward Island was
promised that the federal government would ensure a “continuous
means of communication between Prince Edward Island and the
mainland would be maintained.” In this day and age, that clause
can be interpreted in many ways. But, to the people who inhabited
Prince Edward Island in the late 1800s, it was understood to mean
that Islanders would always have a way to travel between PEI and the
mainland.

All of those things must have filled him with a sense of accom-
plishment as he looked back over the many battles won. There were
many worthwhile achievements in his life, but it’s likely that he would
have rated his family as his greatest fulfillment. Eleven children
raised to adulthood and each and every one an industrious and pro-
ductive citizen. Vere thought about them often:

The oldest, Elizabeth Emma, was born on April 28, 1809, in
Newington on the outskirts of London. She was only four when the
family arrived in Guernsey Cove. She married Thomas Roberts, a
son of one of the Guernsey settlers, and they had eight children.

62